On Sunday, May 12, Halifax Meeting was blessed with a visit from two visitors from Wales. Waldo and Liz Muir joined us in Worship and brought greetings from their home meeting, Cardiff. They are in the same Monthly Meeting as Milford Haven, and told us about the bicentennial events a decade ago in Milford Haven to celebrate the founding of the town by the Quaker Whalers who came from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia in 1792. We took photos of Liz and Waldo standing by the panel of the Quaker Tapestry that Milford Haven Friends Meeting had sent us. Waldo is a collateral descendant of Waldo Williams, noted Welsh poet, whose verse is quoted on the Tapestry panel. The panel shows the 1792 landing of the Dartmouth Quakers in Milford Haven, and a view of the Meeting House they built in 1811, which continues to be used for worship.
On Sunday, May 13, following Meeting for Worship, Linda Stroud shared with the group her experience of finding spiritual anchoring during times of severe challenge. The philosophy and exercises developed by Rudolf Steiner (Christian Anthroposophist) can help bring clarity to thoughts, achieve composure in feelings, and openness to the spiritual. Six Friends participated in the discussion.
Concepts of importance in the work of Steiner include: balance, simplicity, tolerance, openness, contemplation, and inner harmony.
Jason Hofman will lead off our next discussion on the topic of similarity between Steiner’s philosophy and Quaker beliefs. This is tentatively scheduled for Sunday, June 10 at 12 noon, at AST, subject to approval of Program Committee, depending on when other events may be planned. A confirmation and reminder will be posted.
Any questions or comments? Contact Maida Follini, telephone 435-3784.
Fair Trade Bazaar
May 12 & 13, 2012
10am-6pm
Victoria Park (South Park St. & Spring Garden Rd.) Halifax, Nova Scotia
Join us at Nova Scotia’s most unique Fair Trade Bazaar! Come explore the rich and exotic variety of fairly traded goods – from natural textiles and jewellery to felted carpets and textile art. Celebrate World Fair Trade Day and Mother’s Day by supporting local Nova Scotian businesses that practice globally conscious trade with co-operatives and other groups in Central and Southeast Asia, Africa and Central America. Look for the yurt – a traditional Central Asian shelter, locally made in Nova Scotia!
The third meeting of the Spirituality Discussion Group was held Sunday, April 29, 2012 at AST. Seven Friends participated. The lead off presenter was Claire Henry, on the topic: “The Inner Light”. Claire shared with us many quotations on the Light which she had collected. One of these was: “Friends believe that the Inward Light is present as an inward guide and teacher. Encouragement to “mind the Light” or “walk in the Light” is counsel to live with integrity and with fidelity to Truth, to the best of one’s ability. “Holding another in the Light” is a way of expressing a concern for God’s guidance and care for a person.” Following Claire’s presentation the group shared their understandings of the “Inner Light”. We discussed the inner world of the spirit, the need to find balance between busy activities and devotional meditation, the messages dreams give us from our spiritual life, and the metaphorical use of “Light” to express a spiritual truth which is hard to describe. Examples from Ignatius of Loyola, George Fox, Elias Hicks, and Parker Palmer, as well as instances of the spirit in our own lives, were shared. How brave we were to dip our hands into this deep pool! This led us to our topic for our next meeting: “A spark of the divine is within me. I cannot perish, for I partake of the divine essence.”[Rudolph Steiner] The next meeting will be held at AST on Sunday, May 13, 2012 at 12 noon following Meeting for Worship. Linda Stroud will be the lead-off presenter. The Spirituality Discussion Groups meets once a month, usually on the second Sunday of the Month. For information, contact Maida Follini
Dear Friends,
Because the weather continues to be uncertain, the Easter Potluck is cancelled.
Easter Sunday
Due to the weather, Meeting will be cancelled this morning. Please check this website around 11:30 a.m. to see if the potluck will be on or not.
Next film night will be Wednesday, March 21 at 7pm at Corrie’s. Film TBD.
The Spirituality Discussion Group met March 11th, 2012, from noon to 1 p.m. at AST. Attending were: Mieke Eales, Maida Follini, Claire Henry, Jason Hofman, Sarah Morgan, Betty Peterson, Linda Stroud, and Jesse Tellez.
The Topic was “Our own spiritual journeys”. Lead-off presenter Claire was followed by Linda, Mieke, Betty and Maida. Questions and comments were made by the group. The sharing deepened our understanding of where we came from on our journey to Friends.
The next meeting of the Discussion Group will be: Sunday, April 29, noon to 1:30 p.m.
The topic will be: What is Spirituality? What does the Spirit mean to us? Claire volunteered to be the lead-off presenter. All are welcome. Come and bring a brown-bag lunch.
Any questions? contact Maida Follini at 435-3754 or follini@ns.sympatico.ca.
Dear Friends,
Due to icy road conditions, Halifax Monthly Meeting for Worship is cancelled today, Sunday, February 12th, 2012.
See you next week.
Dartmouth Quaker History Goes Back to 1785
By Maida Barton Follini
On September 20, 1785, four vessels arrived in Halifax Harbour bringing a group of Quakers from Nantucket Island in Massachusetts. On the whale ship, Lucretia, were Samuel Starbuck, Sr. and his son Samuel, Jr., bringing crews and equipment to set up a whale fishery to be based in Dartmouth. They were followed the next year by Timothy Folger and his family. By 1790, 27 families from Nantucket had arrived to take up land and houses provided for them in Dartmouth by Governor Parr of Nova Scotia.
No longer was Nantucket Island a part of the British Empire. Since the end of the American Revolution, Nantucketers, whose main industry was whaling, now had to pay a prohibitively high tax to sell their whale oil in London. Starbuck and Folger, encouraged by Nova Scotia’s Governor Parr, led a large body of Quaker Whalers to Nova Scotia, so that, from this port of the British Empire, the tax on their whale products would be low.
Most of the Nantucketers were Quakers. During 1786 they met for worship on First Days, becoming a Preparative Meeting under the care of Nantucket Monthly Meeting. They built a Meeting House where the present central Post Office Building stands. Although the exact date of the Meeting House is uncertain, travelling minister Joseph Hoag mentions in his diary for September 1801: “We appointed a meeting in the evenings at Friends Meeting House in Dartmouth.” Other Quakers, including Loyalist Lawrence Hartshorne from New Jersey, who established a mill and bakery at Dartmouth Cove, soon joined the Nantucket settlers.
Friends Meeting House, Milford Haven, Wales
Between 1786 and 1788, the Dartmouth Quaker whalers sent £64,500 worth of whale products to London. At this time, approximately half of the whale ships bringing valuable sperm whale oil (used to light the streets of London) were from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. There were those in England who envied the Dartmouth whalers’ success.
The British government wanted the benefits of such a profitable enterprise to redound to the home islands. Colonies, in general, and Nova Scotia, in particular, had little influence at the British Board of Trade. The British Government established a plan to prevent Dartmouth from continuing as a whaling centre and bring the Quaker whalers to settle in Wales and carry on their whaling from there. Money was offered to the Quakers to shift their settlement to Milford Haven, a place with a magnificent harbour where there was an unsettled tract of land upon which to build a new town.
Timothy Folger by John Singleton Copley Timothy Folger, Friends Meeting House, Milford Haven, Wales by John Singleton Copley
Dartmouth Quaker leaders Samuel and Abigail Starbuck and Timothy and Abial Folger sailed to Wales in 1792 with their families and other Friends to establish the whaling colony and town at Milford Haven. A Friends Meeting was soon founded, and in 1811 the Milford Haven Friends Meeting House was built. 2011 was the 200th anniversary of their Meeting House, which is still in use by Milford Haven Friends who have continued affirming their faith for two hundred years. The gravestones of Friends from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia lie in the Friends Cemetery behind the Meeting House in Milford Haven.
Not all the Dartmouth Quakers migrated to Milford Haven. One Quaker who stayed was William Ray, a cooper. His house, built c. 1786, is now the oldest house in Dartmouth, and the only one remaining of the Quaker whalers’ houses here. William Ray and many other Friends eventually returned to their Nantucket Island birthplace. Although some of the Quakers remained in Dartmouth, the group dwindled, as their children and grandchildren were absorbed into the general Protestant and Anglican society. The Friends Meeting in Dartmouth was discontinued some time after 1820.
Quaker House Museum in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia
During the 1960s, a new Friends Meeting was established in Halifax, and now includes worship groups in Dartmouth, Antigonish and on the South Shore, Nova Scotia. The Halifax Friends Meeting includes Quakers from Nova Scotia, as well as those who have arrived from other parts of Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and other parts of the world. We do not have a Meeting House, but worship in the library of the Atlantic School of Theology, an ecumenical university. The smaller worships groups meet in Friends’ homes.
Meeting for Worship is central to our life as Friends. We also gather for discussions on the Quaker testimonies, such as simplicity, and peace. Friends of our Meeting work on issues such as: peace education, a sustainable environment, and human rights. We unite with Friends worldwide as all of us seek a right way forward.
Halifax Friends at Meeting for Worship at the Atlantic School of Theology Halifax Friends at Meeting for Worship at the Atlantic School of Theology
