theatokos | Daring to be dorky

I am back to the quiet though tedious rhythms of my working week. After a crazy over-stimulated weekend spent at Pantheacon (largest pagan conference in the world I think?) I need all the quiet and stillness I can get. I was pleasantly surprised at how much fun I had - it helps to have friends there! I was not surprised at the amount of crap presented, but I am getting better at detecting such things. I mostly had good experiences, including one well deserved nap (it was a guided meditation, I wasn't being discernibly rude). Margot Adler's discussion of the sociological changes in paganism over the last 30+ years was just fantastic. There was also a Feri ritual on Saturday night that was really silly and yet felt every bit like any good church experience I've ever had. (That's praise, for those who might be confused!) It was a large spiral dance with drums and a little sung phrase that repeated. I quickly got over my self-consciousness and just enjoyed myself - everybody else was in a similar state. It was this wonderful moment where I caught myself spinning and singing with punks and fairies/feris/radical faeries and druids and old ladies and all sorts. Afterward I felt high. I've been experiencing that a lot lately. Partly due to my singing practice - the amount of oxygen taken in can sometimes cause that feeling, as can singing into the stratosphere where my head starts ringing and I feel like I'm going to lift off into space, such an exhilarating feeling! But the spiral dance thing was strangely invigorating and meditative at the same time. It's completely dorky but I liked it a lot. I even found myself wishing I had had sparkles and some kind of festive costume. My god what's happening to me?!

Thinking of future Pantheacons, I plan to present next year. Something on Mary, of course. I think it'll be a good goal for me.

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LOVE IT!
i wish i had been there too, then we could geek out together in the biggest way! ;)

love it. love it.

Sometime you'll have to tell me about your beliefs. There have been traces of intimations about it, but I'd love to hear more. Here's my guess and you can tell me if I'm way off base:

You don't think a whole lot about religion, but you connect with nature in a deep way and that's where you experience the Divine. Community plays an unarticulated but important part of your spirituality, because it plays such a foundational part of your daily experience.

Writing that felt very presumptuous, but maybe it'll inspire you! I hope I haven't offended you...

oh my god oh my god!! magda! that was fabulous!

part of the issue is that even I'M not sure what my beliefs are... i feel like i'm on this continuum where things ebb and flow and change and break constantly. but what you wrote is AMAZING because you've hit the nail on the head completely in a way i've never been able to. sometimes that's what you need... someone to look in on your writing and pull bits out. that's fabulous. and it's true, i don't think much about "religion," but i think a LOT about my own spirituality, about god, about the universe and the divine. i pray a lot, and i talk to "god" a lot as well and use as many names as i can think of when i do it. and yeah, green places are the holiest for me.

love it.
THANK YOU!

You're so welcome! I sort of feel like I was cheating, because so many bits of what you write remind me of myself, especially my days in Alaska. Sometimes I just want to run off to NH and live in the trees and drive a truck to farmers markets and work at a women's collective and hold "church" outside. And then run off to a bluegrass show with you.

Ahem.

I resonate most powerfully with green spaces, too. Especially fjords and forests, rocky beaches, the like. There's an intimidating power in those places, something that says "I am way bigger than you, I was here before mankind and I will be here long after." But that power also makes me feel strong and neither too big or too small. When I'm out hiking or fishing, I feel right-sized and for me that's being connected with God/dess, the Divine, the Holy Mother, whathaveyou. Community is also a niggling concept for me too. It's so pervasive in how I live my life - community of choice that is. It's much harder for me to feel part of a larger community in a transient, fragmented, varied urban place with millions of people. And I've never been good at church, so spiritual community is very new for me. But me, I'm obsessed with God and think about religion or spirituality or something like that all the time. I'm odd like that.

In the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition there is a saying that one who prays is a theologian. Theology is not just for the learned and smarty-pants, but more importantly theology is about the prayer of the heart, for that's the only way to truly know God. You seem like you're on to something.

that sounds like a really wonderful event. hooray for sleep and a good experience.

I was thinking of you this weekend and wondering what you would have thought about it. On one hand I think that your universalism would make you open to everyone's various experiences of the Divine, but I also thought that you have such a strong root in your own beliefs and tradition (which I am looking forward to learning more about - it's the book for March) that you might have had little interest in the goings-on.

I was thinking of you this weekend and wondering what you would have thought about it.

i probably would have enjoyed parts of it, a lot of the pagan stuff (at least what i know of it) appeals to me on some levels, and felt disconnected from other parts. i suppose if i think about it i have an opinion on certain aspects of wicca, informed by my own beliefs, but what matters is that it means something to you and whoever else feels connected to it. i would be interested in your presentation on mary though, i would find that fascinating. *g*

Daring to be dorky

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