So Sannion, Galina Krasskova, and John Halstead walk into a bar, and the bartender says …

You thought it wasn’t possible.  You thought it couldn’t be done.  But I have lived to tell the story!

I’m here to tell you that you can sit down with that person from the Internet who you think hates you and have a civil, even friendly, conversation.  Tonight, I had Pagan Tea Time over Skype with Sannion and Galina Krasskova … yes, that Sannion and that Galina.  We even talked about polytheism and Paganism.  In fact, that’s pretty much all we talked about.  No bloodshed.  No epithets.  Just a nice chat with two interesting people.

I don’t want to get into too much detail about our conversation for fear I might misrepresent something one of them said.  But I will share that Galina told me that she actually is okay with polytheists who are agnostic about the nature of the gods, that praxis matters more to her than belief, and that all this talk about theology on the Internet is a distraction from practice — which is also what I have been hearing a lot of other Pagans and polytheists saying.  I’m sure we still have plenty to disagree about, but we managed to talk for about an hour about religion without any conflict.  And Sannion, well, he was kind of quiet and reserved.  Yes, you heard me right, Sannion was reserved.  Not what I expected either.  Galina even told me that he’s organized!  What was I expecting?  I don’t know, maybe the incarnation of Dionysian pandemonium.  Actually, they’re both nice people that I wouldn’t mind having tea with again.

I’ve been really enjoying having virtual tea with other Pagans and polytheists.  Earlier this week, I Skyped with Xander Folmer.  Xander is a polytheist who blogs at Wyrd Wiles and at Patheos about Pagan interfaith.  Xander is a good person to talk to about Pagan interfaith.  He is a second generation Pagan, raised by a Christian and a Pagan.  And his wife is studying to become a rabbi.  Xander firmly believes that we don’t have to all believe the same thing in order to support each other.  He was relaxed, interesting, fun to talk to, and passionate about community building.

And you know what, at least in the hour I spent with them, Galina and Sannion were the same.

So, reach out to any of them if you’d like to talk to them.  They’re all very approachable.  I hope I am too, for that matter.  I’d love to have tea with you.  Just shoot me an email (allergicpagan[at]gmail), Facebook me, or comment here on my blog.