Welcome to the website of Mediation Services Untangling the knots of conflict and re-weaving them into knots of understanding and/or trust

About Pashta

Pashta MaryMoon was trained in Mediation/Third-party Intervention through the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Management, and the Justice Institute of B,C. (Victoria, Canada); and is a general member of the South Island Dispute Resolution Centre Society.Coming from a childhood background of physical and verbal violence and at least sometimes, seeing both 'sides of the issue' she has always believed that there must be a healthier and more appropriate way to resolve conflict; and that creative, 'win-win' solutions are possible, given the appropriate support.

Pashta has been active in various social-concerns issues throughout her life including studying non-violence techniques with the Movement for a New Society (Philadelphia, U.S.A.) in the 1970s, which was responsible for many of the current innovations in mediation theory, and eventually evolved into New Society Publications and Training for Change.She has been an active member of the Religious Society of Friends (Canadian Yearly Meeting of Quakers) a traditional "peace church" since 1973; and has served the Ministry and Counsel committee of the Vancouver Island Monthly Meeting, and is the clerk of the local Victoria Friends Meeting Memorials Committee.She is also a Wiccan Elder/priestess; and co-wrote both the Pagan sections of the chaplaincy handbook for Correction Services Canada, and its Pagan response to Restorative Justice.However, she considers herself a Universalist, and has been involved in several other spiritual movements especially those that have an active involvement with social-concerns issues.

Pashta has an Honours degree in World Religions (with a minor in Jungian Psychology): and much of her research has been focused on new ways of understanding the world we live in, and responding to its difficulties in a more creative and collaborative way.She had hoped to continue with a Masters degree in Chaplaincy specifically in counselling re spiritual/pastoral issues but was unable to because of a chronic illness.However, she has been involved in a variety of kinds of pastoral counselling/support including working on the Royal Jubilee Hospital pastoral care team (as the first non-Christian), and being the co-director/Elder of (now laid down) Pagan Pastoral Outreach which focused on prison and hospital ministry.She was also the co-founder of Songs of Passage (which developed the original offers Bedside Singing program for patients at the Victoria Hospice unit ); and now offers Bedside Singing support to both dying patients and birthing mothers through the En~chanting Beyond services.

Having been involved in a variety of small non-profit and/or social-change groups, Pashta is aware that much of the paradigmatic change, re social issues, begins in such small groups and yet how easily interpersonal conflict can effect the efficacy of the organization itself.Therefore, she has a special commitment to supporting these innovative groups by offering interpersonal mediation services.

Pashta has also had a life-long concern about how our culture approaches the issue of death and how that effects our approach to life.She has worked with people with HIV/AIDS, and those dying from other illnesses primarily in a pastoral capacity.Both Songs of Passage and En~chanting Beyond evolved from her passions both for helping people die in a more dignified and natural way, and for music as a singer/songwriter.However, this concern extends to various other issues that relate to 'end of life' choices such as Death Midwifery/home funerals, green burials, etc., as represented by the 'Death and Dying' pages of Pagan Pastoral Outreach.She offers workshop on home funerals (caring for our own dead at home) called "By My Own Heart and Hand".   She has also been part of the caregiving team for those with end-stage dementia, and offers Death Midwifery and 'end of life' consultation services through Journeying Beyond.

In the process of her work with the dying, she became aware of often serious interpersonal conflict arose as a family was addressing the 'end of life' stages of their loved one conflicts that distracted from the family's ability to address and/or honour the wishes of their dying member.The process of dying is a very stressful one often more for the family than the person dying: and unless their loved one has left very specific instructions (re will, advanced directives, funeral/memorial arrangements, etc.), the family can be left with a lot of very serious and complicated issues to deal with at the last moment.

Given that families now tend to live long distances from each other, they may not have had the opportunity to develop their own unique family way of dealing with conflicts many of which can be avoided by living at a distance.  Also given the general (but changing) cultural attitudes towards death they may not have occasion to discuss their loved one's specific wishes for both their 'end of life' stage and arrangements after the death.  Finally, sometimes individual members of the family have been informed of different wishes (and possibly at different times in their loved one's life): and this can evoke considerable conflict when trying to honour contradictory requests.As a result, they may be left with no clear instructions, or have very different opinions as to what the dying member's wishes might have been yet have to make decisions very quickly.Pashta believes that mediation can help the family members resolve these differences, in a quicker and healthier way than resorting to lawyers and the court system.

Although supporting those who are dying and their family, and small non-profit organizations are Pashta's primary focus, she is happy to consider other situations that could be resolved or enhanced by mediation.