|
|||||||
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||||
the Frater's Mark
Merry Meet fellow webhounds. This issue's theme - education - is an pivotal one, and not just in terms of the Pagan community's interactions with those of other faiths. It is so easy to concentrate our passions on abolishing the ignorance "out there" that we fail to pay enough attention to illuminating the "in here", if you will. It's crucial that we educate our children, in terms of both practical and spiritual instruction. In this commercially overwhelming and spiritually sterilizing age where key initiatory experiences are conspicuously absent from the macrocultural landscape, education and involvement are critical to the child's reception, appreciation and integration of any religion's import. It's critical that we share information with our fellow Pagans of differing traditions in order to promote understanding and foster solidarity.
Nothing clears up miscommunication more effectively than effort put forth in the name of enlightenment. It's important that we remember and reinforce the fact that the Pagan traditions and its practitioners are worthy of academic attention and meaningful study (as political constituents, as consumers, as members of various sociological groups, as valuable sources of demographic information, et al.). It's integral that we educate ourselves in terms of our core beliefs, practices and, most notably, our history. Simple, tenacious scholarship would put to rest many of the inaccuracies that continue to float around the Pagan ether, occasionally being touted as fact.
Education is the road that leads to truth and growth, two concepts so valued by the Pagan path. I will admit that a dream of mine is to one day see a Pagan university constructed (and this certainly isn't original on my part - many are trying to see the same vision come to fruition and some smaller universities have even begun accepting credits for certain courses offered by various Pagan groups; progress is being made, though at times it seems glacially slow). But until that day, we must remember to feed and follow the flame that burns within us as we strive to shine the light of validity outward into the murky realms. And now, on to the links.
An excellent selection of Pagan-oriented educational ideas, projects and resources can be found at: www.rahoorkhuit.net/devi/hs/hmlinks.html, and a good selection of practical information for Pagans just beginning to homeschool their young ones can be found on a subpage of Christy's Garden.
The Blessed Bee Pagan Scholarship
Drynemetum's Academic Research Center (Pagan Traditions and History)
Home Page Current Issue Past Issues The Frater's Domain Quill's Corner