My Pantheacon 2008 Report

I am finally recovering from the cold I had for the last few days. Which is unsurprising. Everyone around me has a cold, plus they ran rampant at Pantheacon, and I ran rampant at Pantheacon not getting enough sleep nor eating well.

It’s kind of bizarre to feel so collected after the Con. Last year I came away disappointed with ADF, interested in ogam and some of the CR stuff, although still resistant, and hugely impressed with Thorn and Feri. I was buzzed on the energy, of finding like-minded people, of Micah understanding (in his words) that missing piece of me, of our engagement. It was exciting and exhausting. This year, I feel more focused, and present. I know where my path lies ahead of me. Or, really, what path I will be taking but not necessarily where it will lead, although I have hopes and goals.

Overall the weekend was amazing. It clarified and redoubled my interest in both CR and Feri. I’ve come to realize, that a lot of the dissonance I was having was because I didn’t want to practice two faiths at once. But as an agnostic polytheist and an eclectic soul, right now I have to try to practice both. I resisted having a dual faith for a long time, but after working in both modalities all weekend, I came away both renewed in my faith and with a sense of awe and purpose. Ultimately, I see these paths containing intertwining lessons for me that I need right now.

I have to work at both of them and I have to remain intellectually honest about how much they can overlap and how much I need to keep them separate. Feri seems to say that it can encompass all, but I’m not a fan of swallowing my CR practice up into Feri. CR says it’s a religion and shouldn’t be mixed with other religions. That’s fair. I don’t think I would call myself CR in the community, although it closely reflects a large part of my practice.

What’s funny to me is that I’ve been moving here for a few months now, resisting it, being pained by it. Feeling like it was one or the other, but never both. And even though I had many examples of people practicing dual faiths (Gaulic ADF/Discordianism or Neo-Wicca/Quaker for two examples I feel are more extreme than my own) I didn’t want to go there. I thought it would be too much work. Frankly, it does look to be a lot of work. But work I love with Gods, Spirits, and Ancestors I love.

This is huge, but this is my work and I will embrace with a full heart and an active mind.

One word to sum up a religion

First off, I would recommend that everyone go and read this discussion on the Academic Pagans LiveJournal Community. It’s my jumping off point.

Some of my favorite one word descriptors were*:
Feri: Ecstasy (Alternately, paradox)
Reclaiming: Immanence
CR: Justice
CR: Truth
CR: Honor, Inspiration, Justice, Connection, Communion
CR: Truth, Honor, and Duty
Modern Paganism: Re-sacralisation
Wicca: Balance

I think these are all virtues and qualities that I aspire to, and it’s not surprising that these religions have inspired my own spiritual path. But I had a gut punch reaction to the discussion about Truth. It may describe why I’ve noticed myself leaning more and more towards CR as a spiritual path. Which has been surprising me. But that’s a discussion for another day.

My absolute favorite one word summary, the gut-puncher, is CR’s as Truth. Truth is honor, imbas, duty and justice. It also aides true community and hospitality. And these are all ideas I find are the core of my own growing sense of self and religious identity. What’s amusing to me is how hard I find many of these virtues. I am not comfortable and easy with truth, honor, or duty. And I find, at least, the gift for a gift idea of hospitality to be a little odd and limiting. But the more I work with them, the more I realize how good they are. How magical and freeing they can be.

I’m feeling the need to really think and meditate about Truth as the central idea of CR. It may not end up being the ultimate core summary of my own spirituality, but I think right now it’s a lesson I need to be working on and can easily see myself working on it for years.

*I took these from many different users, to give credit where it’s due read the entry and all the comments.

Teachers and Inspiration

My first draft of this was all about me trying to explain my conflicted feelings towards ADF, both the love and the, um, not love (hate is too strong of a word here). But the more I wrote, the more I realized that’s ridiculous to even try to explain it in one entry. It would be horrifically abbreviated, unless I wrote a treaties and I have better things to do with my time and this blog.

And as conflicted as I am about ADF, you should hear me discuss Feri and Reclaiming traditions, another large influence on my own religion. Yeah, I know, I just took two pagan religions, each vastly different from the other, and cited them as my religious inspiration. I find that both have different aspects I’m drawn to and to be fair, I’m really conflicted with Feri and Reclaiming as well.

And since I’m listing my influences I’d have to add CR and Buddhism. I know, I just outed my self as eclectic. *gasp* The horror. I guess I’ll have to live with it.

I find the spark of the divine in all religions, I just have an easier time connecting with it through certain theologies and not through others. More often, I find the works spiritual elders (Ian Corrigan, Ceisiwr Serith, Starhawk, T. Thorne Coyle, M. Macha Nightmare, Anne Hill, Dianne Sylvan, Rumi, Buddha, the Dali Lama, Ram Dass and Erynn Rowan Laurie to name many of the people who inspire me) help me access and refine my own sense of spirit and connection to it. These people inspire me, the religions they belong to and the practices they teach inspire me. My spiritual home cannot be captured expect perhaps in the rhythm of the city, an expanse of the night sky and the breath of a tree.