Since then, that job (and my finances) imploded. I have since regained some employment stability, but the fiscal damage is far from healed. I’m working a second part-time job and keeping my eyes peeled for a better one in order to pay down debts from the layoff.

First, the bad news:

Barring a substantial monetary windfall, I can’t afford even the bare minimum deposits and operating expenses for a tiny, hotel-based conference.

Running a really kickass (but tiny) conference, with a sponsored keynote speaker (airfare, hotel, & meals), a hospitality suite, advertising, and so on could easily have run $5,000 or more. Even without those, the room costs and taxes would’ve been about $1,500 (for up to 75 people), plus another $500 or so for things like programs, badges, and other unexpected incidentals. That’s around $2,000, mostly upfront- even if admission fees could cover it on the backend.

Second, some good news:

If I dump the entire idea of attracting people from around the country/world and move to a small venue that isn’t a hotel, I can probably reduce the upfront costs significantly.

Third, some ambivalent news:

Cutting back to a purely local conference also means a reduction in content and chances to meet new and interesting people from far away. This decreases the perceived value of the conference, which means that any admission fee would have to be much smaller. That would limit the ability to carry funds forward to the next year.

That said, I am still investigating this possibility in the hopes of doing something in early 2020 with the goal of building on that towards a proper conference the following year.

Fourth, for something completely different:

Hearthingstone was first and foremost about creating professional development opportunities for polytheist leaders to help them improve their skills for serving The Gods, their communities, and their traditions.

Increasingly over the last year, the fractious and scattered state of our polytheistic communities has been a topic of discussion amongst said leaders. There is a swelling impulse to draw the faithful closer together. As I wrote last fall:

From a practical standpoint… it’s much easier to start a successful business, become a “mover-and-shaker”, find a date, or even just a decent job if the people around you know you and have common cause with you. It’s also easier to build a temple.

To that end, I am adding a “Polytheist Villages Network” page to this site and also a discussion group on Facebook. I’m not entirely sure what this will evolve to be, but my goal is to help foster intentional communities for polytheists in the form of neighborhoods or similar forms of geographic proximity and common cause.

As there are any number of important considerations regarding where people live and why, I think this will be an interesting topic for some polytheist leaders, especially those directly involved in serving groups of the faithful. That said, I think it could be a potentially valuable resource for monastics and mystics as well, who (like many of us) often struggle to find needed support services.

I hope you will join us in this endeavor, and at whatever sort of conference I can pull together.

-In Deos Confidimus

The post A Year & Then Some appeared first on Hearthingstone.

The results were confusing and troubling. In essence, I was told that the dates and location were satisfactory, but that something was giving offense to the gods interested in the conference. I put off booking the hotel and tried to understand.

It took calling in some “big guns” (experienced diviners with much better signal clarity) to seek more complete answers and help me interpret the message.

The problem wasn’t the date or the hotel, it was me. In particular, my state of mind at the time was incompatible with the reality of the situation. Because of other stressors in my life, I held unreasonable expectations of what might be possible for a first-year convention. While I certainly have the knowledge, I don’t have the resources or clout to achieve the standard of “success” I was setting for myself.

It was a standard that was about convincing myself of my competence. It was not a standard established by the gods. It was a standard others I respect had warned me to be wary of.

Yet, we live in a society where your career is your worth- not just financially, but ethically or morally. We are surrounded by a culture that happily throws away the lives of the poor based on notions of human worth derived almost entirely from career success and wealth. Even when we actively reject that meme complex, it pervades our world and others try to force it upon us.

This is one of my core struggles. All my life, I’ve been told that I’m extremely intelligent, but culturally, my lack of career and material success says otherwise. Our overculture’s poisonous assertion that failure is deservedly earned through moral weakness and incompetence infects my thinking and eats away at my self-worth and resolve. Even knowing this and intentionally rejecting this disease, it feeds on my id and sickens my ego- driving my superego to demand more and more counterevidence.

Knowing that my life was headed for additional disruptions (a job layoff, at the very least), I now believe that They wisely directed me to take a hiatus from planning and to focus on my own inner health.

Friday morning, I received what I interpret as confirmation of that. Immediately before waking fully and clearly, I dreamt of a chaotic start to a polytheist leadership conference with less than half the people I was expecting. I dreamt of random attendees stepping up and filling voids, like creating a sign-in sheet or finding chairs for others.

Most importantly, it was not a nightmare or an embarrassment dream. It simply felt appropriate… right somehow. The message was clear- “This is enough. It can be more later, but for now, this is enough.”

I’m still struggling through finding a new job and getting finances back on track. However, I am hopeful that this message indicates a turning point and that soon I will be fit to resume planning.

-In Deos Confidimus

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