Hanlon, Alexandra

Strong relationships build strong communities, so Heart Families were encouraged. Heart Families were formed between groups of people who found an affinity toward one another, coming together around the connections of friendship, love, caring and support.

How does one move a nature-based spirituality looking to the sky, water, air and earth far underground? How do we keep the core principles alive when much of how we relate to those principles for all practical purposes no longer exists?

A decision is made and a concert is attended.

Noodin Kasabien invited Kevin to go fishing and then invited himself to our home for dinner that night.

I met Noodin Kasabien a day after Ally and I moved into NAHE. We became friends and then family.

The day I heard this tale was at my first Pesci-Fest told by Alex after the feast, It opened my eyes to our history and brought it closer to reality than the dry bits we learned in school.

Alexandra speaks about the origins of Pesci-Fest tracintg its beginnings from her surface tradition’s Mabon Sabbat ritual.

Ally’s “Pagan Thanksgiving,” where everything had to be on the table if we wanted to eat it through the following year, seemed an appropriate place for a few fish. Noodin and I made it a point to go out onto the lake the morning of, and after a while, other people decided to go with us. Yes, we co-opted it to the extent that the name changed to reflect the fish we caught and ate.

By the time this story takes place, the nuclear war that devastated Earth was 150 years in the past. The war lasted but a day, but the devastation it inflicted on the surface of our planet was horrendous. It brought about what some might term a miniature ice age, which happens when the surface temperature plunges below what is required for water to turn to ice. Because of its origins, this ice age, which had once only been a theory, was recognized as a nuclear winter.

I was a part of Project SideStep for over ten years. My participation in it changed my life for the better. And I hope it does expand humanity’s horizons in the future..

This story begins when I proceeded off a cliff without caring where it took me. The day when, out of despair, I took a step, and through that simple act, I met Alexandra Hanlon. And my life changed.

I felt an instant affinity for Brandon the first time we met. Threading through the grief emanating from him in strong waves was a resolve, a resolve to come through whatever he was going through, and something more, something that touched me in a way I hadn’t felt before.