Hiatus Over! Read a book!

Books on library shelves
Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/books-in-black-wooden-book-shelf-159711/



I am not sure why I stopped posting... I think I was getting towards where I started the astrology/moon stuff, and thought "Why would I just keep posting the same thing over and over? People can use the labels to look for stuff in they want." 


BUT... then I had no idea what I'd even talk about.  

And I still don't really, but I am inspired today by a discussion I had this week.  We are starting "newby meetups" at The Shop.  For some reason there's a huge gap of basic knowledge of Neopaganism.  Part of that, I think, is social media related.  But when I first became interested and then involved, the Internet was barely out of its Bitnet pre-cursor, and the World Wide Web hadn't even been invented. And while that seems like stone-age time technology-wise, it really was only 30 years ago.  So there were two ways to learn.  One, find someone who knew stuff, in person, and ask questions. In person.  Join a group if there were any around. 

The other way, and the one probably most prevalent...READ A BOOK!  Now, again, 30 years ago, the books were basically about Wicca...and that was it.  There may have been more, but as your basic introductory level stuff, that was it. You could find ceremonial magic and Golden Dawn stuff, too.  BUT, nearly everyone I met read not only Paganism topics, but general religious studies, mythology, archaeology, history, philosophy, astronomy, physics, ... EVERYTHING. The pagans I met were VORACIOUS readers.  In addition to an amazingly healthy diet of humanities and sciences, healthy servings of fantasy and science fiction were also on the menu.  A typical conversation could cover quantum physics, Tibetan Buddhism, environmentalism, Isaac Asimov novels, and... well, I think you get the point. 

I have students in my mundane job who claim they don't/can't read, and if you are the same, I am going to take a stand and suggest you sit with that for a while, especially the "can but don't" bit.  I have no clear answers as to how to fix that (I've always been a reader), but my advice is to figure out what the block is, and get past it.  Go find a book, not an e-book, a real one, and read it.  And then find a real live person to talk to about it.   (I'll talk about the damage social media has done to our social connections later.)

Anyway, that was my musing after our meet up.  (Thanks, Adam, for asking that question!)


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