Bring your sweetheart, your friends, and everyone you know who likes good food and good fun, all for a good cause! Every ticket purchased is another inch closer to sustaingin the DC Pagan community center. Be an inch that will help us go a mile.

This year's event will continue to celebrate Pagan Arts and Culture, with live performances, silent and live auctions, and a raffle that will include original works by Pagan and Pagan-themed artists, as well as dinner and dancing This year's auctions will showcase the talents of Pagan (and Pagan-friendly) artists and craftspeople throughout the DC area. If you are an artist or craftsperson and would like to donate an item for auction, please contact us at ball@openhearth.org.

The Spring Ball celebrates the return of Persephone to the world of the living, and thus, the return of spring. There are many versions of the tale of Persephone. She is the Queen of the Underworld, taken willingly or unwillingly into the Kingdom of the Dead. Her mother, the Goddess of the Earth, Demeter, was so stricken with grief over her departure that she sank into a depression and allowed the Earth to go barren, which became the first winter. Persephone ate several seeds from the pomogranate, which meant she had to stay in the Underworld. The world was barren, and a compromise was worked out that since she only ate a few seeds, Persephone would be permitted to return to her mother for part of the year. But, every year, when Persephone descends into the Underworld, Demeter again becomes sad, and winter comes once more. Join us in celebrating the return of spring in 2012! Hail Persephone!