Dear Friends,
Hello from the humid and sweltering depths of Summer in Florida.  We still have to endure August before we make our way through and start to have cooler weather!

I have been e-mailing back and forth with a local Pagan friend of mine about the local community and some of our mutual and different opinions about it.  The topic of discussion group, lecture and discussion, style of meet-ups came up.  I tend to have an aversion to these, if you want an educational lecture series do that if you want a regular ongoing social event do that.  Then again in a purely social environment I am capable of being a social animal once I get through my initial period of shy.

(In groups anyway, I can be quite shy at first.  I have, on occasion been known to be pretty bold one-on-one.)

Anyhow, we were e-mailing back and forth and one of the things that Red and I started ranting to one another about is how in a lot of these educational/discussion/lecture type meet-ups and in a lot of the classes sponsored by Pagan community groups you will hear a lot about the four elements and Neo-Wicca 101, and a lot of things about divination and New Age and crystals and such.

Why don’t we talk about things like Social Justice?  Sustainable Living?  Health and Nutrition?  Community Organizing?  In one way or another most of the Pagan faiths I’ve read about have some interests along these lines, immersed in their ideals and ethics and values.  Why don’t we talk about charity or activism?

Why aren’t there more community based classes on things like Environmental Sciences, and History?

Why does it seem like so often we are limiting ourselves to niche topics of metaphysics and magic?

I realize that one response might be that we can go outside the Pagan community for these sorts of ideas and topics and classes.  It just seems to me though that as much as these topics are interwoven with our spiritual and religious ethics and values that perhaps we should start talking about them as Pagans?

What do you think?

Peace,

Pax