From Harry Potter to Diwali: Another fascinating convergence of neo-Americana and interfaith adventure in my efforts to be a world citizen without leaving Michigan

Part of my mission for this blog has always been to create a narrative reference guide for otherwise-unknown cultural and spiritual ideas, actions, and groups in our local area that are helping to contribute to unity in diversity. I realized recently that it has also served as a magnet, attracting more and more people into my life who agree with these cultural shifts and are glad to finally meet other people who are doing something to help slowly push them into mainstream consciousness.

One of the marvelous factors of this phenomenon is that I’m meeting these people not only at events focused on interfaith and intercultural exchange, but while doing more every-day or secular things, such as writing in my journal at Starbucks, going walkabout with my best friends in Detroit or Royal Oak, attending performances, talking with vendors at art fairs, or while attending a Harry-Potter-themed event at a tea house in Rochester.

The latter was certainly not an every-day thing, and I had simply expected to have a magical-themed good time there with my best friend Dan, who was treating me to the event as my birthday present. Dan was invited by Tonia Carsten, the owner of Tonia’s Victorian Rose Restaurant and Tea Room, whom he met several months ago after searching for a local tea house near him. He’s been an almost-weekly regular there ever since, and throughout his conversations with Tonia he realized that she is a kindred spirit, whose personal and cultural interests go beyond her own upbringing and running a local eatery.

Tonia too has a personal stake in interfaith and intercultural harmony, being from a Christian background and married to a Hindu man from India. Before she was a restauranteur she worked with an agency helping recent Indian immigrants with their transition to residency in the United States, which is how she met her husband and their circle of friends. I just read on her Facebook page that she has traveled to eleven countries, which is another great demonstration of her commitment to living a life with broader and more inclusive horizons than what’s in her immediate vicinity.

One of Tonia’s visions for her tea room is a variety of different themed parties, based on particular media interests, historical people, or eras that would fit well with the restored Victorian décor and style of her venue—including the several “Muggles & Wizards” dinners she’s hosted so far. She has a Oscar Wilde-themed dinner coming up this weekend on November 12, and Christmas High Tea events scheduled for December, and she mentioned a few other ideas to us. She’s also open to Dan’s idea of considering a Steampunk night, which we know for a fact would be popular in this area.

After the dinner, Dan extended Tonia’s invite to me to join her, her husband, and their friends for their Diwali party. Diwali is a festival originating in India, commemorating a particular victory of good over evil from Hindu Scripture, and also serves as the Hindu New Year festival. Historically, the main decorational tradition of Diwali is the lighting of clay lamps, and many other candles to signify the driving out of evil (darkness) by the light (good). In modern times, while people still light candles, they also light sparklers and firecrackers, and in India the fireworks celebrations rival big-city Fourth of July events in the United States.

We arrived at the house ahead of Tonia (who still had cleanup to do after the Harry Potter event), and were greeted warmly by her husband and their friends. Even though this was the first time Dan and I had actually met any of them, they greeted us as friends and we had free-flowing conversation about both Diwali (giving Dan and I an overview for our first-ever experience of it), and miscellaneous topics of both spiritual and secular interest. After some delicious Indian food (which we had just enough room for after our delicious meal at the Victorian Rose) and good conversation, the parents summoned the children to join us and we all went into the backyard to light sparklers and firecrackers.

If you’d like to read more about Diwali, you can on the Hindu American Foundation’s Diwali Toolkit Web page, a page of “fun facts” about Diwali from CNN.com, and a recent USA Today article about Diwali.

This concludes my three-part series about my colorful birthday-weekend adventures, and in my next post I’ll have something to say about the November 10 Michigan Professional Communicators interfaith networking meeting to be held at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, Michigan. Stay tuned, and, as always, thanks for reading.


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Illustration by Karla Joy Huber, 2011; Prismacolor marker, Sharpie marker, Sharpie pen