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Circle Round:
The Elements of Spiritual Parenting
MLA Course Outline

6 Week Course
Feb 18 - March 30

Raising children in a spiritual tradition is easy if you belong to a mainstream religion, but out on the fringes of Earth-based and alternative spirituality you have to blaze your own trail. Using the first major book on Pagan parenting as our guide, we will explore the challenges and rewards of parenting while maintaining an authentic spiritual practice: What are the core values we want to pass on to our kids? How do we believe the universe works, and how do we explain that to children? How do we create meaningful ritual for and with our children? What do we need to know about rites of passage, supporting our kids in school, dealing with teen challenges, interfacing with family and community alike?

This class will be useful to anyone who has an eclectic spirituality and is looking for help clarifying their family vision or dealing with current issues with their children. Each week will include both practical and philosophical guidance on a variety of subjects, drawing on 22 years of childraising experience with both biological and adopted children.

Week One - Values
Chinese medicine has a time-honored maxim: “To treat the child, first treat the parent.” In this spirit, we begin with an inquiry into who we are and what we value. How were you raised spiritually? What do you reject of your spiritual upbringing? What do you still value? What parts of your current spiritual path are new to you? We will build on this inquiry throughout the course, in order to answer for ourselves the most important question: What are the essential qualities you want to give your children as they grow?

Week Two - Beliefs
All children eventually (sometimes regularly) ask us hard questions about the natural and supernatural world. How prepared are we to answer them? What do we say when they ask about heaven and hell? Reincarnation? Deity? Whether the Universe is benevolent or cruel? Do we pass our beliefs on to our children as truth, or do we want them to come to their own conclusions? This week we will explore some of the big questions of belief, and what role (if any) they should play in how we raise our children.

Week Three - Nuts and Bolts of Parenting
Discipline. Freedom. Authority. Creativity. Parenting is guaranteed to bring up every hot-button issue we have, and many that we didn’t even know existed. This week we will explore the natural tension between how we want our kids to be and what roles we have to play as parents in order to get them there. We will touch on stages of growth, listening to our children’s dreams, co-parenting, and how to hold the big picture even when we lose it.

Week Four - Education and Rites of Passage
What is the purpose of education? What school setting is best for your child, your family, and you? What life passages are most important to mark for your children? Some spiritual communities have more resources for families than others, and that makes a big difference in the choices we make for our children. This week we will delve into some of the complexities of education, including home schooling vs. public schooling, spiritual education, and rites of passage.

Week Five - Ritual, Spiritual Practice, and Children
What is the purpose of education? What school setting is best for your child, your family, and you? What life passages are most important to mark for your children? Some spiritual communities have more resources for families than others, and that makes a big difference in the choices we make for our children. This week we will delve into some of the complexities of education, including home schooling vs. public schooling, spiritual education, and rites of passage.

Week Six - Paddling in the Mainstream?
Raising children in an alternative environment, we will always have to consider if or how we want our children to participate in the cultural mainstream. Everything from TV watching to holidays to the pledge of allegiance provides an opportunity to stay apart or participate more fully in the dominant culture. Regardless of which path you choose, there are ways to make it easier and ways to make it harder. In this final week we will talk about how to present what you do, how to choose your battles, and where to turn when the going gets tough.


- Anne Hill, D.Min BIO

Anne Hill, author, musician, dreamworker, priestess, and business owner, began playing music at age five, and had plans to become a concert bassoonist until at 18 she turned to guitar, singing, and songwriting. She has performed widely, first as a classical musician, then later in the folk music circuit in Santa Cruz and San Francisco, and most recently in house concerts and festivals. A multi-instrumentalist with a fondness for collecting instruments, Anne sings, plays the guitar, piano, flute, bassoon, accordion, bodhran, and pennywhistles.

Anne received a BA in Womens Studies and a teaching credential at UC Santa Cruz. She has been involved in activist and Pagan circles in the San Francisco Bay Area for almost 20 years, and has taught classes, intensives and workshops in feminist spirituality with Reclaiming in the US, Canada, and England. She is also a skilled facilitator, and has led workshops on consensus process and group dynamics. Anne is an initiated priestess of the Reclaiming and Feri traditions of Witchcraft.

Along with Starhawk and Diane Baker, Anne co-authored the bestselling Circle Round: Raising Children in Goddess Traditions (Bantam, 1998), which also included a number of her original songs and chants. Anne's poetry, essays and music have been published in several anthologies, including The Pagan Book of Living and Dying (Harper SanFrancisco, 1997), and Cyborg Babies: From Techno-Sex to Techno-Tots (Routledge, 1998), as well as periodicals such as Mothering and New Age Journal. She was recently interviewed for the book Modern Pagans, now available from RE/Search publications. Anne is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Creation Spirituality in Oakland, CA, and is at work on a book about priestessing and leadership in neo-Pagan spiritual traditions.

In 1992, Anne began Serpentine Music Productions, a mail-order distribution company for Pagan music. Starting out of her home, Serpentine Music has evolved into the premier source for Pagan music worldwide, and Anne has been widely sought after for her knowledge of the subject.

Anne has a thriving dream work practice, combining the techniques pioneered by author Jeremy Taylor, and her own 20 years of ritual experience and mythological study. She is particularly interested in the dreams of teenagers, and working dreams within families.

Anne is an avid student of aikido, and lives with her extended family in Sebastopol, CA.

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