Open Letter to the Elven Spiritual Community

Aiya Eldalië,

With profound sadness, and equally profound preference to be doing practically anything else that's legal, at the moment, it's my fiduciary duty to be informing you that the "TIE ELDALIEVA ELVEN SPIRITUAL PATH CHARITABLE TRUST AND CHURCH"* (Trust) no longer exists; due to a terminal crippling of the Trust's governance, it has lost its 501(c)(3) tax exempt status, and its status as a church, and its IRS business account has been permanently closed. The organization that secured those statuses, i.e. "Tië eldaliéva (the Elven Path)" (T-e), still exists, continues to operate, and fares well; however, as announced on the Trust's web site, all thereto material contributions are no longer tax-deductible, and the church, "Yána eldaliéva", also no longer exists.

Surely, most of you are asking, "How did THAT happen?!"

The Gist

The below set of links in "The Details", (as well the Elven Spiritual Path "About" page), provide you with more than enough of a general answer to that question. What the About page doesn't tell you is that Lisa's and Dave's departure fatally compromised the Trust's governance. I am Principal Officer (PO) of the Trust; hence, as the Trust's buckstop, I had a fiduciary duty relative to its Bylaws to consult with Manwë Súlimo [King of the Valar] about thereafter what to do. After the governance split, I waited for circa 3 months before asking Manwë how to proceed; his counsel to me included directing me to shut down the Trust and the Church. Doing my due diligence, I followed up my conversation with him by contacting the IRS' Exempt Organizations (EO) Law Team; after initially reviewing the general circumstances of the case, they effectively parroted what Manwë had said about it--based on the Bylaws, there was nothing else that could be done. The IRS required me to submit a "Resolution for Dissolution of Trust" to the IRS, therein providing a written documentation of the reason why the Trust's leadership had resolved to dissolve the organization--(with the Trust's governance so compromised, the only legitimate leadership was that which was still aligned with the Bylaws; i.e. as far as the IRS was concerned, at that point, it rested with the PO).

The Resolution to Dissolve the Trust and the Church

Considering the infancy of the organization, some of the therein claims are challenging to believe without the (also therein) provided supporting documentation. That documentation, gathered from a months-long email thread, is therein represented as the "Exhibits". [The signed versions of the below documents are not for public distribution.]

The Details

Exhibit 1    Exhibit 2    Exhibit 3    Exhibit 4     Exhibit 5

Resolution for Dissolution of Trust [Second submission; which is a letter redirecting their attention to the first submission.
(Due to the impact of COVID on the IRS, the initial Resolution dropped through the proverbial cracks. The process was supposed to take only 2 months; administrative delays resulted in my being asked to resubmit the Resolution, more than a year later. Finally, 23 months after submitting the Resolution, and head of the EO department acknowledged the termination of the Trust and the Church.)]

My Personal Perspective of What Happened

Here's the skinny, (as I see it):

Totally Feeling Your Pain--(Receding Indefinitely to Heal)

Many of you are, or will be hurting from hearing the Dream of an Elven Church has so quickly died; if there's only one person who is able to accurately understand your pain, I'm that person. [Not bragging, just sayin'], other than a few paragraphs in upwards of 20 pages of documents, I was the only person involved in the conceiving, planning, codifying, filing, and navigation of the entire process of making the Dream of a legit Elven Church a reality--[and I was homeless and sorely disabled at the time]. To have done that, against odds, and with such steadfast, heart-felt commitment, then, thereafter to have promptly experienced the violent destruction of it by the people who started Tolkien-based Elven spirituality in the first place(!) was a traumatic shredding of a massive amount of my inner fabric. [That, and the toll that standing at post, so to speak, for effectively 2 years until the organizational closure was completed, was soul-numbingly exhaustive. As of this writing, I can't certainly say I've had microcosmic closure yet.]

How am I coping with it? (Well, from my perspective, the best means of coping in such a scenario are fundamental components of the Path itself.) I prefer to recognize, acknowledge, and put more of my attention on the Active Relationship I have with Holy Spirit in the context of the Secret Fire. (The Secret Fire resides in the heart of Arda; connecting with that One grounds me in a multi-toroidal vibration of Holiness that is relative to both my personal torus and Ard'a torus, shifting my psychological attention toward Love, and away from the long-reverberating "WTF?!?"s.) Having that Relationship leading, the interpersonal Divine Peace that Manwë becomes more significant that the aftershocks. Nienna's tears initially helped me a lot--a LOT; and Estë's abiding attentiveness has helped me to allow the hurt to flow into healing. (All of the Valar have helped, and are helping me to process this experience, each in different ways.) I'm highly inclined to take an indefinite recess from the general Elven spiritual community; right now, I'm figuring out how to move forward as a spiritual teacher in this Community, post radical disillusionment. Ultimately, what matters most is that I've done my fiduciary duty to the Elven spiritual community, to the State of California, and to the United States' Treasury; I've done right by everybody, I've gone through the worst of the psychological turbulence arising from the experience, the matter is finally o-ver, and my heart is able to begin to take bigger baby steps moving forward lightly in Light as Love.

Keeping Hope Alive

Keeping Hope Alive
Keeping Hope Alive
Keeping Hope Alive

Keeping Hope Alive

Namo helped me to see that the above Dream's demise did not necessarily mean its denial. A significant chunk on my plate: I'm the PO and ED of Elvenspirit, and Elvenspirit has inherited the assets of the Trust (on the submission date of the Resolution), along with the extant [mandate to establish an Elven ecclesiastical organization and sanctuary from the] Donor's Directive that may apply to those assets. Elvenspirit's Bylaws mandate honoring that Directive along with its other commitments; i.e. a "Yána eldaliéva Redo" is already in the making; Elven clerical and ministerial rights are returning, in a different organizational format. (I'll need a tremendous amount of help and funding to make that happen; FYI.)

C'est tout.
 
Peace and blessings to you all;

Michaele de Cygne/Tárainimë Alyras

Principal Officer and Trustee

Tië eldaliéva Elven Spiritual Path Charitable Trust and Church

EIN: 84-1953054

* In the commercial identification of U.S. business entities, of all kinds, [including every American citizen's Social Security card, W-2s, etc.], are presented in ALL CAPS. The above use of them was not a shout; it's how the Trust and Church are listed in the U.S. Treasury.

Revised: 1/31/2023
[First sentence of "The Gist"] March 1, 2023

Addendum (March 1, 2023): "To Those To Whom Lisa Said I Was Expelled From T-e--You Deserve to Know the Truth"