About Us
Board of Directors of Hearthstone Community Church Inc.
Sarajane Gomez, President
Sarajane joined Hearthstone's Board in 2023. Sarajane began participating in Hearthstone Open Full Moons in 1996 and has been an active member of the Pagan Community for many years. Sarajane has presented rituals in the Denver Pagan Community at Hearthstone, Earth Temple and various organizations. Sarajane is the Treasurer of Women's Spiritual Leadership Alliance (WSLA). She is a 3rd Degree High Priestess and Teacher at Corvus Temple which follows a Wiccan Path. In addition to Wicca, she incorporates many modalities that include the Shamanic Path of the Bee, herbalism, drumming, and singing into her practice. Sarajane is the administrator and founder of the Community Conclave and Hidden Children of the Gods on Facebook. She is a beekeeper, mother, drummer and ritualist.
Hawk Shadow, Vice President
Hawk Shadow has been involved in spiritual pursuits all of her life, Wiccan since the early 1980s and attended her first Open Full Moon a couple of years before Hearthstone was created. She has been involved with Hearthstone in one way or another since then. She has presented rituals at Hearthstone, Earth Temple, and several festivals, as well as teaching classes and facilitating many workshops on various topics over the years. She has been a member of the Women’s Spiritual Leadership Alliance (WSLA) since 1997, and is a 3rd Degree Wiccan High Priestess and founder of Oak Haven Coven (primarily a teaching coven, 1997-2007, re-established in 2017). She is a ritualist, spiritual explorer, writer, jewelry maker, drummer, and singer. She is thrilled to be on the Board, and looks forward to helping to ensure that Hearthstone continues to be a meaningful part of the local community.
Amy, Secretary
Amy joined Hearthstone's Board in 2012 after years of dedicated service to the local community in the form of co-leading children's rituals and learning activities, ensuring that our community's children had opportunities to meet other children with whom to share nature spirituality, and leading a number of rites of passage for our children. She has also been an open public ritual presenter for many years with several different groups. She and her children have attended Open Full Moons for many years and always appreciated the family-friendly values of Hearthstone which allowed her children to grow up a part of the community and following the same path. Amy is dedicated to the board and looking forward to contributing to Hearthstone’s community involvement and support for years to come.
Meyowsha, Treasurer
Meyowsha joined Hearthstone’s Board in 2023 after a year of dedicated volunteer service. She began studying Wicca in the 1990s, when she serendipitously discovered a book on herbalism and nature-based practices in her middle school library. This discovery sparked a deep curiosity and passion for the occult. Meyowsha is a Wiccan Priestess and is dedicated to continual spiritual growth and lifelong learning. She is deeply grateful for the sense of community and support that Hearthstone’s OFM gatherings provide and has attended since the early 2000s. She balances the demands of her career and family with her commitment to the Hearthstone community, and is honored to serve on the Board and contribute to Hearthstone’s growth and sustainability for future generations.
Arynne, Board Member Emerita
Arynne joined the Hearthstone Board in 1998 as Treasurer, and added additional responsibilities in 2017 upon the passing of our beloved Alia. She believes Hearthstone's Open Full Moons serve as an important welcoming portal into our wonderful and diverse community. Arynne's coven Elvenhome was her foundation, enriching her life from 1981-2016. Arynne started the Hearthstone Discussion Group in 2017, which evolved into Gaia Ritual Circle. Her studies have included Wicca, shamanism, Qabala, metaphysics, magick, and healing. She is a longtime member the Women's Spiritual Leadership Alliance (WSLA). Arynne has volunteered for decades with various programs as a mentor to disadvantaged youth, and continues to be passionate about that as well as about Hearthstone! Now living with degenerative neurological disease, she appreciates each day and every friend more than ever!
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History of Hearthstone Open Full Moons
-- M. Alia Denny
Written Aug. 2011
TWENTY YEARS?
It's hard to believe, but Hearthstone Community Church, Inc. turns 20 years old in August 2011. I was a young (OK, 30) single witch when I started on all of this with Gypsy; she now lives in Portland. I've been married 19 and a half years, and have a very independent minded 17 year old daughter. I get called an "elder" now, and people seem to think that my opinion counts for something. It's been a very interesting trip.
The Open Full Moons were started by Morgan Stott and Bried Foxsong about 23 years ago. They drafted various Priests and Priestesses to perform the ritual, which at that time had a script. (If anyone has a copy of that script, I would love to have it for our archives.) When they became busy with other things, they passed it on to Gypsy and Dove, who started sending out postcards drawn by Dove to remind people of the ritual. At that time we met "informally" at Washington Park in Denver. Eventually Dove moved on to other things, and I started helping Gypsy with the mailings. I (gasp) computerized the mailing list, and printed it off on a dot matrix printer attached to my Apple //gs. Gypsy and I began to encourage officiates to present their own tradition rather than reading from the same script every month.
In August of 1991, we had an "informal gathering" of over 100 people for an Open Full Moon. Gypsy and I felt perhaps it was time for a more formal structure, and we incorporated into Hearthstone Community Church, Inc. that month. The original board members were Gypsy, Southwynde, and me. We discovered that to meet at the park legally it was $125 for the park rent, and about $400 for site insurance per site rental. We couldn't afford that. Someone suggested the Unitarian Church on Capital Hill, and we have been there since.
We started a newsletter then too, and it has been going on fairly consistently since then. We gradually moved more and more to an electronic format, and last year completed the move. I still mail the newsletter sometimes to an expatriate in Kansas; everyone else reads it on line, which is more efficient, ecologically sound, and saves money as well. E-mail, after all, uses 100% recycled pixels, right, Catherine?
Priestesses and Priests now schedule when they will be presenting rituals a year ahead of time. This year we managed to have a different group present every month of the year, a trend I hope to continue in the future.
Please join us on August 12 to celebrate 20 years of Hearthstone being an entrance to the community for folks new to the community; and a haven for some people for as long as 20 years! I'm honored to be a part of the church for so long. We will be having cake and goodies for a small celebration after the ritual.
-Alia
August 2011
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