Noodling Session Ideas

I was looking around for my copy of the 2014 PLC program book. While I could’ve sworn I’d kept it, I can’t find it anywhere. Thankfully, the chair of that conference found a copy and sent it to me, for which I’m very grateful!

While I don’t think it makes sense to simply mimic what they did, it’s a great starting point for noodling session ideas. For instance, after the opening remarks and prayers, the first session was a keynote address about “Organized Modern Polytheism”, dealing with lots of practical questions- legal and tax status, clergy training programs, and the like.

There were a number of sessions with a similarly practical focus, such as “Wellness in Contemporary Polytheism”, “Embracing Hope: Polytheism, Community, and Addition”, and “On Being New”.

Other sessions were more theological, for instance “What is a God? Towards an Immanent Theology”, “Henotheism and Monotheism”, “The Language of Deity”, and “On the Gods and the Good”.

Finally, others bridged this division, such as “Polytheism for Contemporary America”, “Ancestor Work and Indigeny”, and “Finding Common Cause Amidst Many Gods”. This last set is especially significant (not that I intend to diminish the others at all) in grappling with the idea of a shared way forward as modern polytheisms face larger and larger challenges and threats.

This is, I believe the Gods’ purpose for Hearthingstone- to transform the nascent pockets of Their faiths into rooted, thriving, health, and durable communities.

Doing that will require all kinds of knowledge- theological, scholarly, esoteric, practical, ritual, experiential, and logistical. In the back of my mind flitters the notion that this might one day require seminaries, but for now the work is in networking- sharing knowledge and resources between polytheist leaders…

A mycelium for polytheism.

In addition to the great information I got from the 2014 PLC book, I’ve also been on the lookout for ideas elsewhere. Here are some other ideas that were inspired by various posts in the polytheist blogosphere:

• Monotheism’s Mindgames – Preparing oneself against the onslaught of logic traps and “rational” arguments bombarding us from modern society.
• Joyful Devotion – Practicing your faith with gravitas and respect without falling into Calvinism’s trap of self-flagellation.
• Towards Vernacular Polytheism – Reestablishing the indigeny of our traditions, rooting them in place and the Gods and spirits thereof.
• The Social Capital Problem – Modern society imposes a zero-sum view of selfhood and agency that afflicts many in our communities as well. How can we, as polytheist leaders, overcome this in ourselves and lead our tribes to a healthier self-identity?
• Issues of Hierarchy – While many polytheists recognize the need for defined roles and leadership, modern society encourages people to view hierarchy as something to climb or overcome. How can we, as polytheist leaders, bridge this divide in our traditions?
• Weirdness on the Rise – Reports of the seemingly impossible appear to be escalating- but why and to what end?

-In Deos Confidimus