{"id":3297,"date":"2015-02-12T18:00:53","date_gmt":"2015-02-13T00:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/?p=3297"},"modified":"2015-02-12T15:06:01","modified_gmt":"2015-02-12T21:06:01","slug":"no-need-for-pantheacon-envy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2015\/02\/no-need-for-pantheacon-envy.html","title":{"rendered":"No Pantheacon Envy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"ADF<\/a>Over on Raise the Horns, Jason Mankey has a post titled Pagan Festivals and the .25%<\/a>.\u00a0 His main point is that while big Pagan festivals get a lot of publicity and it seems like everybody who\u2019s anybody is there, in reality only a tiny percentage of all Pagans actually attend them and they aren\u2019t particularly important in the grand scheme of things.\u00a0 He\u2019s right (Jason is rarely wrong) but it doesn\u2019t matter.\u00a0 I\u2019m not going to Pantheacon this year and I wish I was.<\/p>\n

For those of you don\u2019t know, Pantheacon<\/a> is the largest indoor Pagan gathering in the world.\u00a0 It\u2019s held every February in San Jose, California and features participants and presenters from pretty much every corner of the Big Tent of Paganism<\/a>.\u00a0 Attendance is somewhere around 2500.<\/p>\n

From the time I first heard about Pantheacon I wanted to go<\/a>.\u00a0 Even though it\u2019s a convention and not a spiritual retreat or religious conclave, it sounded like a place where all the cool kids went.\u00a0 I wanted to go too!\u00a0 I had good reasons for not going, but in the end it was my choice to not go \u2013 and I knew it.<\/p>\n

Last year I finally gave in and went<\/a> and I had a great time.\u00a0 I met some friends I had only known on-line.\u00a0 I attended some interesting workshops and panels, some rituals and concerts.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t expecting much of a spiritual experience, but the Temple of the Morrigan<\/a> was filled with the power and sovereignty of the Great Queen.<\/p>\n

Yet even as I was enjoying myself last year, I knew Pantheacon couldn\u2019t be an every year thing for me.\u00a0 Jason estimates the cost of something like this is about $600 for a single traveler (Cathy has no interest in Pagan festivals) \u2013 now throw a not-cheap airline ticket on top of that and you come up with a rather expensive weekend.\u00a0 I could do it, but then I\u2019d have to skip something else.<\/p>\n

Regardless, the bottom line is that I\u2019m not going to Pantheacon this year, and neither are 99.75% of other Pagans.\u00a0 And that\u2019s OK \u2013 here\u2019s why.<\/p>\n

The real work of Paganism is being done at the local level<\/strong>.\u00a0 It should go without saying, but sometimes we still need to say it.\u00a0 Paganism isn\u2019t about authors and vendors, speakers and musicians.\u00a0 It\u2019s about covens, groves, CUUPS groups, and solitary practitioners doing the work of being Pagans.\u00a0 It\u2019s about chanting under the full moon.\u00a0 It\u2019s about making offerings to the Gods.\u00a0 It\u2019s about picking up trash on the side of the road.\u00a0 It\u2019s not about buying statues of deities \u2013 it\u2019s about using statues of deities as focal points for meditation and worship of Them.\u00a0 Festivals are nice things to have, but they aren\u2019t the core of modern Paganism.<\/p>\n

Pagan ideas are being debated on-line<\/strong>.\u00a0 One of my main reasons for attending Pagan gatherings is the opportunity to discuss religious ideas and concepts \u2013 those conversations we can\u2019t have with most of our friends and neighbors because the concepts of many Gods or of magic or of the sacredness of Nature are foreign to them.\u00a0 There\u2019s nothing like sitting down over a cup of tea or a tankard of mead and discussing the finer points of Pagan beliefs and practices.<\/p>\n

But as much as I like the live discussions, these important conversations are happening every day, right here on the Pagan internet:\u00a0 on Patheos Pagan, on Pagan Square, on The Wild Hunt, on Polytheist.com, on individual blogs and on every social media platform known to humanity.\u00a0 I like to compare the Pagan internet to the Christian Council of Nicaea<\/a>.\u00a0 Debates are happening and decisions are being made by those who show up.<\/p>\n

Yes, Pantheacon will throw some especially knowledgeable, especially experienced Pagans together and generate some useful conversations.\u00a0 Last year\u2019s panel on sacrifice<\/a> certainly did.\u00a0 But we\u2019ll hear about it on social media within minutes after it concludes (and sometimes while it\u2019s happening), and the conversation will continue right here for weeks or even months.\u00a0 All you need to participate is an internet connection.<\/p>\n

There are many good regional and local festivals<\/strong>.\u00a0 Pagan festivals and retreats aren\u2019t necessary, but they are nice and I do recommend them.\u00a0 But you don\u2019t have to go flying off to San Jose to find one.\u00a0 Jason listed some of the larger regional conferences in his post.\u00a0 There are other, smaller gatherings, such as the ADF Texas Imbolc Retreat<\/a> I attended last weekend.\u00a0 It may take some looking to find one, and the ones near you may not be your preferred flavor of Paganism, but there are opportunities for most of us.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t overlook Pagan Pride Days.\u00a0 There\u2019s one in most large and medium sized cities \u2013 the official Pagan Pride website<\/a> lists over a hundred events in the United States alone.\u00a0 They only last a day and most don\u2019t have as much formal programming as a weekend festival, but they\u2019re a great opportunity to connect with other Pagans\u2026 including some who are promoting festivals of their own.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, it comes down to you<\/strong>.\u00a0 Conventions, festivals, and retreats are great for showing you what\u2019s possible.\u00a0 Go to a workshop, listen to a teacher, have tea with someone you met in the hallway and walk away with new ideas about how to live and practice your Paganism.<\/p>\n

Then the convention is over, you go home, and it\u2019s just you and the Gods, ancestors, and Nature spirits.\u00a0 You still have to sit in meditation.\u00a0 You still have to say the prayers.\u00a0 You still have to pour the offerings.\u00a0 You still have to do all the things you do that make Paganism or your variant of it a meaningful part of your life.\u00a0 Day in and day out \u2013 this is where we all learn and grow, or not.\u00a0 Festivals can be a great experience and a good inspiration, but they\u2019re no substitute for doing the work.<\/p>\n

So I hope Pantheacon is a rousing success.\u00a0 I\u2019ll be following along on Facebook and Twitter and watching for blog posts next week.\u00a0 I hope to see some of my long-distance friends at the other gatherings I\u2019ll be attending later this year.\u00a0 And I\u2019m hoping to go back to Pantheacon in 2016.<\/p>\n

But this year I don\u2019t have Pantheacon envy.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a perfect world I\u2019d be at Pantheacon this weekend. But the world isn\u2019t perfect and I\u2019m staying at home. Unlike previous years, though, this year I don\u2019t have Pantheacon envy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1129,"featured_media":3298,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[272],"tags":[207,4,119,5,238],"class_list":["post-3297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-2","tag-jason-mankey","tag-pagan","tag-pagan-pride-day","tag-paganism","tag-pantheacon"],"yoast_head":"\nNo Pantheacon Envy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In a perfect world I\u2019d be at Pantheacon this weekend. But the world isn\u2019t perfect and I\u2019m staying at home. 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