Autumn in Atlanta:

Religious Community, Festival and Celebration

Buddhist monks from the Drepung Loseling monastery conduct the opening ceremony for Tibet Week at Emory University in the student center. The ceremony includes deep throatal chanting, which is intended to "lift the human spirit to the level of God," according to Geshe Lobsang, director of the Loseling Institute and religion faculty at Emory.

An Emory student activist group watches the proceedings. Atlanta is the North American seat of the Drepung Loseling Monastery. The monastery itself has a long history: Founded in 1416 in Tibet, it was devastated after the Chinese communist invasion in 1959. A number of monks escaped to India, where the international headquarters are today. There has been an Atlanta location since 1991, and their mission is to help preserve Tibetan culture through education. They offer workshops, classes and retreats on language, meditation, philosophy and practice.

The Loseling monks prepare to create a mandala, or sand painting.

The act of creating the mandala is a way of getting in touch with "fundamental goodness, what we call buddha-nature," says Lobsang.

There is also a community mandala, which will be created by passers-by in the student center. Here Candace Chan, 20, a senior at Emory, learns how to lay white sand in the predesigned pattern.

The center of a mandala is always a symbol of an enlightened value. For the community mandala, the value is wisdom: appropriate for a university community. All around the center, a mantra to the Buddha of Wisdom is repeated: Om Ah Rapa Tsa Na Dhi.

Three days later, the community mandala is nearly complete: dozens of hands have worked on it.

Lopsang (center, hand extended) explains to students the symbolism of the mandala the monks have created. Eventually, the sand will be blessed, and swept into a local stream, to symbolize the impermanence of life.

Self-taught folk artist Chris Hubbard stands in front of his art car creation, The Heaven and Hell Car.

Although Hubbard lives in Athens, Georgia, he travels around the country showing his cars and "off the car" artwork at art car events and folk galleries. Pictured here, his work is on display at street festival in East Atlanta.

Hubbard believes that "all religion is really the same." His artistic influences include Howard Finster, the celebrated Georgia folk artist who worked with religious imagery.

Passers-by stop to admire Hubbard's handiwork.

The Mohammed Schools, in southeast Atlanta, became the first fully accredited K-12 Islamic school program in the country in 1999.

There is a standard college prepatory curriculum, according to director Sandra El-Amin, but students also take Islamic studies and Arabic at every grade level. "We also focus a lot on character development, the brotherhood of man, and respsect for all cultures," says El-Amin.

A kindergarten student reads along with her teacher. There are about 225 students in the elementary, middle and high schools. Although there is no particular Afrocentric emphasis, the student body is ninety percent African American, according to El-Amin. The other ten percent are primarily Asian and African.

The door of the first grade classroom brightly announces Ramadan, the Islamic holy month, which started the week before. "We have a number of students fasting, so we try to instruct them in that," said El-Amin. "We also try to emphasize charity, and we have a lot of fun competitions around Islamic knowledge this time of year."

Across the parking lot from the primary schools is W. Deen Mohammed High. Most high school students come from the metropolitan Atlanta area, but there are also students from other states, who board with local families.

Iman Plemon El-Amin, the leader of the nearby Atlanta Majid, teaches a philosophy class to high school students. The lively discussion that follows gets into gender differences and money in the Qur'an.

Ninety-nine percent of seniors go on to colleges, including Morehouse, Spelman, Stanford and Harvard. The hope is, according to El-Amin, that the school has produced "God-conscious, responsible citizen-leaders."

Dancers perform a traditional wedding dance at the Atlanta Greek Festival 2003, an enormously popular annual event for the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Annunciation in northeast Atlanta.

The young members of the church's folkloric dance group were almost all born in Atlanta. This parish was founded by Greek immigrants in 1905, and now numbers about 1400 families.

"Greek dancing is not religion," says Father Paul Keriotis Ephemerios, the associate pastor. "That happens inside the church. But the dancing is related. God is with us whatever we do. This dancing and rejoicing, it happens as a continuation of faith traditions, and the costumes represent our right frame of mind."

Stephanie Peppas, left, takes festival visitors on a tour of the cathedral's sanctuary. Peppas, who speaks with a pronounced southern accent, explains the symbolism of the sancturary's considerable mosaic iconography.

The two-headed eagle, depicted here in mosaic on the sanctuary floor, was historically a symbol of the Byzantine Empire, and also came to be associated with the Eastern Orthodox Church. "It represents one empire with two heads," says Peppas, "one pointing east and one west. For the church, it symbolizes harmony between secular and religious worlds."

Peppas says the church's domed ceiling is one of the largest in the country. Looking up into the dome, Christ's outstretched hand alone is six feet tall, and there are approximately three million pieces of glass used in the mosaic.

Iconography was once a way to help illiterate parishoners learn Biblical stories and church history, but for the Cathedral of the Annunciation today, the distinctive mosaics are a source of pride. "To us, Greek Orthodoxy is not only a religion, but a community, a culture, a heritage," explains Peppas.

On Sunday morning, members of the Atlanta Vedic Temple gather for services in Lilburn, a northeastern suburb of Atlanta.

Members sit on mats surrounding Dr. Veer Dev Bista, the head priest. This morning service includes the celebration of a member's tenth birthday.

The Atlanta Vedic Temple is a chapter of the Arya Samaj movement, which is a denomination within Hinduism. Swami Dayananda (1825 Ð 1883), an Indian religious reformer, founded the Arya Samaj in 1875, partially out of frustration with British domination of India. The Arya Samaj was a nationalist movement that stressed social reform, and the infallible authority of the Vedas.

Ryan Anil Alli, 10, (right, in white) is the one celebrating his birthday. He has prepared readings and prayers for the occasion.

Alli's parents, Roy and Dolli, (right, forefront, facing away) sing along with the prayers. Saurabh Gulati, 20, (left, in yellow, with micrphone) leads the chant from the prayer book. Gulati, a student at Georgia Tech, has attended the temple services for three years.

"Anyone, rich or poor, of Indian origin or not, can follow Vedic teachings, whether they are 'followers' or not," Bista tells members. Many members of the Atlanta Vedic Temple are Indian American, but there are also members from Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and Nepal.

Women of the Relief Society, the women's auxiliary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS), sing "Amazing Grace" together at an all-day women's conference.

Sister Martha Poston, joining in for "Amazing Grace," has been a member of the LDS (or Mormon) Church for twenty years. When Joseph Smith, the founding prophet of the church, began amassing followers in the nineteenth century, he began an organization for women that he said would operate much like the priesthood did for men. He organized the Relief Society, and all adult LDS women have been members since.

The Atlanta Relief Society's stake conference, which includes women from multiple congregations, is held on a Saturday in an eastern suburb, Tucker.

The goal of the day is to produce crafts, quilts and "hygiene kits" for the needy. Sister Siobhan Ollivierre, a young missionary sent to Atlanta from Vancouver, works on a craft project.

The stake's women hope to complete 150 handmade quilts to this year, which are then donated to needy families.

Members of the Relief Society work on a quilt.

The Relief Society sisters also prepare "hygiene kits" for the poor, which will be distributed through the LDS Humanitarian Center in Salt Lake City. Each hygiene kit contains soap, towels, combs, toothpaste, and toothbrushes.

Jessica Goldberg (right, in green jacket) leads children in singing "David Melech Yisrael" at the Marcus Jewish Community Center in the northern suburb of Dunwoody. The children are there for "Ice Cream Under The Sukkah," a party celebrating the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. Sukkot is a commemoration of the Jews' journey in the desert after the Exodus from Egypt. During that journey, the Lord required the Jews to live in booths, or sukkot, for shelter. During Sukkot, Jewish families are encouraged to build their own sukkah to remember the wanderings in the desert.

The children work on decorating their own paper lulavs. The lulav is the name given to the combination of three different kinds of tree branch (date palm, willow, and myrtle) that have symbolic meaning for Sukkot according to rabbinic tradition.

Fruit is used to paint in order to connote the etrog, the citrus fruit symbolizing the agricultural accomplishments of Israel.

According to the Glenmary Research Center, the Jewish community is the fourth largest religious group in the metropolitan Atlanta area, following Southern Baptists, Methodists and Roman Catholics, respectively. The Jewish Community Center in Dunwoody is a prominent institution, and includes a children's discovery museum, which cosponsored the Sukkot event.

Melinda Hartz, 3, (left), and Tal Nechmad, 4, fill bowls with ice cream to eat under the sukkah.

Maddy Laing, 3, sniffs the etrog experimentally. The etrog, which resembles a lemon, was ordered specially from Israel for the occasion.

Inside the sukkah, Atlanta families eat ice cream and learn the significance of the holiday. Sukkot is sometimes referred to as Zeman Simkhateinu, or the Season of our Rejoicing.

On a sunny Saturday, the musical group Spiral Rhythm plays for the Atlanta Pagan Pride Day festivities in Glenlake Park in Decatur.

Spiral Rhythm, one of many groups featured at the day-long festival, sings a version of "My Country 'Tis of Thee." When they alter the lyrics to "land of my pagan's pride," they get cheers of approval from the audience.

Atlanta Pagan Pride Day was attended by Wiccans, heathens, curious passers-by, and a contingent from the Green Party handing out political information.

Two members of the Georgia Heathen Society show off their tee-shirts. The society is one subset of paganism in Atlanta. Its purpose is to recreate faith folk systems of the members' Northern European ancestors. They define themselves as polytheistic, but tend to gravitate towards one deity or another, depending on what attributes are important to them. Members meet monthly, cook Germanic and Scandinavian dishes, attend classes on the Norse sagas, and form "kindreds" with other heathens.

Vic Wright (seated, third from left) sells crystals and other pagan supplies at 25 events a year in the southeast.

"People will burn incense on their altars," said Wright. "They'll burn it to help with meditation; they might even just burn lavender to keep the bugs away. These are just tools to help you get into a sacred space. They're not necessary, but they're helpful to people."

Young people dance and burn incense near the booth for the Covenant of the Goddess, Dogwood Local Council. The Covenant is a cooperative organization for witches.

The Atlanta Sikh Festival was started as a post-9/11 attempt to give the Atlanta community an opportunity to learn about Sikh culture, according to public relations director Yodha Singh. It is also a way of keeping Sikh children and teenagers interested in religious traditions.

Raminder Bindra, a brand manager for Coca-Cola, takes visitors on a tour of the Gurudwara building. "Sikhs believe in religious freedom and tolerance," said Bindra, "and we are willing to fight for what we believe in." To illustrate the point, he shows pictures of Guru Gobind Sikh, a Sikh leader who was killed in 1708. The guru's entire family was violently executed when he stood up for the rights of oppressed Hindus when India was under Mughul rule.

Young Atlantan Sikhs demonstrate for visitors the sitar (left) and the tabla (right), musical instruments used in weekly prayer services. Their repertoire includes "The Star-Spangled Banner."

A free lunch is served to members and visitors alike: dal (thick lentil soup), curry, rice and fresh baked roti (flatbread). On an ordinary Sunday, after prayer services are over, the entire congregation enjoys a leisurely lunch in the Gurudwara.

The Basi family smiles for the camera outside of the Gurudwara building. Dr. Gulbarg Basi (right) and his wife Rup (left) helped raise money to construct the building in 1990. Their daughter, Hersimren (center), 21, has lived in Atlanta since age three, and is a senior at University of Georgia.

Sikh men and women traditionally do not cut any hair on their body. Men frequently wear a turban to wrap up long hair. At the festival, a visitor pays two dollars for the experience of trying on a turban.

Children run forward, eager to try the "moonwalk." The Festival also includes pony rides, and a miniature train.

In the parking lot, there is evidence of other post-9/11 attempts to assert Sikh American identity.

The World of Coca-Cola, in downtown Atlanta, is home to a large collection of Coke merchandise, packaging and advertising. Besides being a tourist draw, the museum is a symbolic center for one of Atlanta's most prominent civil religions.

Stepping off the elevator, the first exhibit visitors are greeted with is a statue by Kenyan artist Elkana Omweri Ong'esa. The statue, carved from solid Kisii soapstone and weighing half a ton, depicts two Maasai dancing around a Coca-Cola bottle. It is one of many pieces of international art that incorporate the iconic shape of the Coca-Cola bottle.

At a video kiosk inside a giant coke can, visitors can watch a mini-documentary on Coca-Cola merchandise collectors.

The climax of the documentary is the wedding of two collectors who merged their lives and collections at a ceremony in the World of Coca-Cola.

Kim, who has worked at the World of Coca-Cola for over three years, plays the part of an old-time soda jerk. While demonstrating the equipment, he can tell you about the woman who burst into tears upon learning the museum was closed or the woman from South America whose child's first word was "Coca-Cola." For the record, Kim thinks of Coke as "just sugar water."

A visitor observes how the showy, automated soda fountain works.

Visitors can drink unlimited samples of Coca-Cola products from around the world, including the expected American flavors.

Several blocks away from the World of Coca-Cola Museum, a sign towers over Peachtree Street, in the very heart of downtown Atlanta's business district.