Places to Go, People to See

My lover Ember and I have decided to go through Galina Krasskova’s Devotional Polytheist Meme questions together, over the next several months. We encourage our friends to follow along, and welcome links to other people’s answers in our comments, as well as your thoughts on our answers.

If you could travel anywhere on pilgrimage, where would you go and what would you do?

Here’s the thing: I’m not much of a reconstructionist. Ancient places might be fun to visit, but they’re not the top of the list. I’d rather tour the nation (or the world) visiting festivals and conferences, meeting the people who are practicing here and now, getting to know them, and sharing experiences.

Oh, I expect I would get a feeling of connection with the old places, or at least some kind of identification with the ancient pagans who lived and worshiped there. That’s good, it’s potentially powerful… But I’d rather get that from the living, if I have to choose.

Community is important to me. Making connections with the people whose blogs I’ve been reading (or podcasts I’ve been hearing) is more useful to me. Joining in with folks celebrating their lives and their gods is real to me in a way that strong, old vibes from the past are not.

For various reasons, I don’t get out much, and the isolation isn’t good for either myself or my practice. Conferences like Pantheacon and events like Pagan Pride do me a world of good. I’d like to make it to the Polytheist Leadership Conference next year, if I can swing the time and money.

And, hey, it’s cheaper than a trip to Delphi and Eleusis.

Ember’s answer can be found at her blog, Embervoices.