OAKLAND, Calif — Last evening, Pagan spiritual leaders T. Thorn Coyle and Marissa Evans, along with 12 other interfaith leaders, were arrested for trespassing at the Alameda County Court House. The spiritual leaders were part of an interfaith service and a rally, demanding District Attorney Nancy O’Malley drop all charges against a group that has come to be known at the Black Friday 14.

The faith leaders arrested are from the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, the Deacon of First Congregation Church of Oakland, Bend the Arc: Jewish Partnership for Justice, United Church of Christ, and the Starr King School of Religion. Also included was T. Thorn Coyle, Pagan author, spiritual leader, and President of Solar Cross Temple, and Marissa Evans, co-founder of Light Hands Healing and a Pagan seminarian at Pacific School of Religion.

In a statement to The Wild Hunt after she was released, Ms. Thorn Coyle said:

We are in a state of emergency in the U.S. Something must be done to counter the corrosive effects of white supremacy and racist systems that are killing Black, brown, and trans people on a daily basis. Bearing witness to this, as a reminder that we are all part of the sacred web of connection feels important to me. It is part of my religious and spiritual practice to invoke justice whenever I can, in as many ways as are possible.

The charges the Black Friday 14 are facing must be dropped. They chained themselves together and stopped the wheels of commerce for a few hours in order to tell us: Wake up! Remember what connects us! What connects us does not have to be greed and consumption. What connects us is breath, and life, and all that we call holy.