New Meeting: PFNE Leeds Spring Convention

Announcing a new meeting for The York Pagan Meetup and Picnic Group!

What: PFNE Leeds Spring Convention

When: Saturday, May 10, 9:00 AM

Meeting fee: GBP12.00 per person

Where: Click the link below to find out!

Who should come: Anyone who wants to go to the Pagan Federation Conference in Leeds

Why: It beats watching tv

Meeting Description: We can arrange the actual meeting time at York station on the message board and on the off chance anyone else is coming we can arrange to meet them there.



PFNE Leeds Spring Convention

Saturday 10th May 2008
Swarthmore Education Centre
Leeds
9:45 am - 5:00 pm

The Convention will open with an exciting display of Molly Dancing by a local dance troupe called The Rhubarb Tarts.

Speakers to include Emma Restall-Orr (aka Bobcat) who is a Druid with an extremely high profile. She will be speaking about Honouring the Ancient Dead with particular reference to a local ancient burial site.

Amongst other subjects there will be talks about the role of Minor Arcana and about our Anglo-Saxon heritage. We'll also be having a lively discussion about the role of men in Witchcraft.

Workshops will be taking place throughout the day on subjects such as Candle Magick, Wand making, Tarot and How to Contact Your Angel.

There will be a wide variety of stalls for those of you who like to shop; and food and drink is available at the venue.

Learn more here:
http://wiccan.meetup....

I will probably be there but will be coming up by train from Selby

Me and Beth are meeting at York Station @ 9am so if you aren't there we shall see you at the venue.

Before I forget the detail, this the gist of Bobcat's talk today.

Buy my book!

Well, there was a bit more to it than that, but that was the main thrust

I found her main thrust quite difficult to follow actually as she digresses (albeit entertainingly) so much that my sleep deprived brain lost track of the original point a lot but I think it went something like this...

She was at an inter-faith conference and met an Evangelical Christian minister who asked her how as a pagan she could have any ethics because she hadn't received any from a God or had documentation passed down from ancestors. Her answer was that she got her ethics from her relationship with the environment, but that if you didn't have that kind of relationship with the environment then you wouldn't understand what that meant. Disatisfied with that answer she decided she needed to write a book on pagan ethics.

She looked at things like the wiccan rede and the various Druidic codes and dismissed them all as not really definite enough. In the end she came up with the concept of living with honour (the title of the book) which she further defines as being living with courage, loyalty and generosity. If she refined that any further then it didn't sink in and I'm not really clear what she meant by any of those concepts, but perhaps that was so the audience would want to buy the book which apparently contains concrete examples ;)

She also talked about her work with Honouring the Ancient Dead, and how she'd been working with Manchester Museum to properly honour Lindow Man during the time he was on display there. She lost me a bit here too, I'm not sure how you would 'properly' honour a person who you know absolutely nothing about. I was likewise not all that sure about the groups moves to get all remains reburied so they could 'go back to their Gods as had been intended' but I suppose in absence of any knowledge about what the people believe or intended when the burials occur that replacing them is the most sensitive option.

I did agree with her closing point though, which was that if pagans want to be taken seriously as a religion (which is a big if) that we need to walk our talk and live according to whatever our ethics are.

Hope that I didn't miss out too much, I was a bit distracted through most of the talk by this guy looking after a toddler on the steps outside making noise :)

Thanks for that, doesn't sound like we missed too much. Of course the train we rushed of to catch was over an hour late in the end, but life is just like that.

*Of course the train we rushed of to catch was over an hour late in the end, but life is just like that.*

Was it because of Bobcat's woodland spirits casting leaves upon the line?

Mind you I left after ten minutes of her starting, found my train waiting on the platform and the bus at the other end just about to depart, somebody up there must have liked me that day

Before I forget the detail, this the gist of Bobcat's talk today.

Buy my book!

Well, there was a bit more to it than that, but that was the main thrust

Sounds like every high profile pagan I have ever watched or met. Even Marian Green does it, and she hasn't had a book out for years.

As Beth says, looks like we didn't miss much.