Paganicon 2025

Being quiet is comfortable. Keeping things the way they’ve been is comfortable. A journey to spiritual discovery often is fraught with pitfalls and blessed with joys. Many come to various Pagan, Heathen, and polytheist traditions as already socialized adults, with the presumption that the rules learned in our homes and at school are sufficient for our encounters on our new chosen path. In reality, we are left vulnerable as we learn new norms, language, values, beliefs, and behaviors common in the earth-based Pagan/Heathen/polytheist communities that do not fall into a traditional monotheist perspective shared by Christianity, Islam, or Judaism. As more enter our communities, there is an need to avoid a norm of silence in favor of an embrace to speak openly before emotional and spiritual wounds drive an individual to express grief or remorse at joining our community or a particular path. As a minority religion, followers of Pagan/Heathen/polytheist traditions are vulnerable to the ravages of silence or the reality of only hearing news when it is a bad or harmful to our communities. This panel is a conversation, a starting point to engage with how to break this tendency towards silence within our various paths, and how to replace it with a reasonable openness that encourages speech in a positive manner. Just as children are socialized in families and at school, we need to address the socialization as a community to allow growth and permanence.