On-line Shrines?

[lorna]

Helloa,

Since re-starting my blog with a more Brythonic focus I've had quite a few enquiries about info on Brythonic polytheism and deities and individual devotionals and directed folks here... following a recent long and on-going conversation with Heather Awen about Gwyn and an unknown Brythonic marsh goddess who she's met in ancestor work and I've encountered as 'Mary' of the Marsh (Heather has blogged about both heatherawen.wordpress.com/) Heather put forward the suggestion of setting up an on-line shrine for Gwyn and pointed me toward the shrines at the Church of Asphodel www.churchofasphodel.org/shrines.html 

At first I was a little hesitant as I wondered whether on-line should be where devotion to the gods 'should' take place rather than at personal shrines and within the landscape. However on second thoughts, I thought considering Brythonic polytheists are spread not only too far across Britain to have a physical communal focus but all over the world it might not be a bad idea. In fact it could have the good effect of presenting who a deity is, suggesting devotions, making folk feel less alone and providing inspiration for devotional practice off-line.

During my considerations I got the sense from Gwyn if something was to be set up for him he'd like Creiddylad and the rest of his kindred to be honoured too.

At the Church of Asphodel, I particularly liked the simple shrine-like lay-out with a picture of a deity and some basic info with click-throughs to prayers and articles and a place to light a candle. One of Heather's suggestions was to have some sound recordings that could be played. As we already have some of these I thought that would be fab- light a candle, listen to song or prayer. Some of the entries under Devotional Material already look great and quite shrine-like already.

So my questions are:

1) Would this be something you'd be interested in pursuing within Brython?

2) If so, what are your feelings on tweaking the devotional material so it has a more shrine-like devotional focus?

2) Mainly for Lee, if so, would that be possible technology-wise? Do you have any idea how you could programme the web-site to light a candle?

Hope everyone's well

[heather]

Hi it's Heather Awen! Excited to find a Brythonic resource! Thank you alll.

I can ask Raven how the Church of Asphodel did their candles. Some of the online shrines there weren't done by members of the Church of Asphodel, but as the Church is a community for ALL devotional pagans, they have links to other online shrines so more people can learn and pray etc about as many deities as possible.

Raven did this because he can't afford to build temples for the Deities. He's found the Deities like having an online shrine because they have a place like a temple.

I'm sure the Church of Asphodel, which also is a publishing company for all polytheist writers, especially devotional, many unconnected to Raven in any way in case any writers are seeking publishing help, would like to have links to any online shrines for any Deities so worshippers can find them.

I personally like having a public place to leave words of thanks or to ask for aid because so much of the religious part of devotion is private and I sense the Old Gods want public recognition even by anonymous people. They aren't used to keeping them a secret especially today with laws changed and the technology allows anonymous worship.

Plus as alive in the land the Deities are, which I saw when living in Ireland, many of their worshippers ancestors have moved and few can make a pilgrimage to Britain. Plus a vacation in Britain won't allow for a daily lifelong relationship.

Tribes seem to be ancestral tradition combined with bioreigion. People are having the Old Gods come through ethnic heritage and the places, but like Lorna and I have been finding, they tend to go to a common place. If the Brythonic Gods of my family want me to worship them because our relationship goes back so far, they are essential to my ancestors survival, and they "recognize" me and I "recognize" them, I want it us be as close as possible.And considering as slaves and mercenaries and traders the Gods of Britain moved with followers (and moved around Britain with the movement of tribes), I think it's something the Gods are used to, being honored away from "home."

That's my reason I wanted to do an online shrine. I hope it helps people in Britain to understand it from the point of view of those whose ancestors had to leave. (In my case with Wales and England with one line, my family fled for their lives as Quakers in 17th century, and all my many Scottish clans appear to have had to leave because of being Protestant at the wrong political time, so the USA move really was about religious persecution in Britain.)

[Lee]

Technology wise, I have no idea how we could do this with the current Brython website. I had a look earlier if the comments function could be modified enough to work but it cant.

Now, that said...it depends on what we want to an online shrine to be and do. it might be possible to do something that doesn't involve the candles, but if it is more of a page with a nice image, some audio and some links to hymns. that would be possible and build-able.

Is there much call for this kind of thing? in searching I only found a few of this kind of thing out there and all but one had shut down for various reasons.

[Heron]

I have mixed feelings about on-line shrines. My first reaction was that it is just too easy to 'light a candle' in this way, and that visitors to shrines need to be making more of a commitment than just clicking a 'like this god' button. But I do realise that it is not so easy for everyone to physically visit places and because the Internet is so much a part of people's lives the gods should be there too. So drawing back from my original 'sniffiness' I would say that it is worth consideration, but I would want to make it more difficult than just randomly clicking on a candle icon, maybe that people had to write some words or do something else first.

Even then, the physical act of lighting a candle, or making an offering, has always seemed to me to be important in itself, a tactile point of contact that would not be there when done on-screen. I seem to remember a catholic church where instead of lighting a candle you could put a coin in a slot for an electric candle to light up briefly. No reason why not but I couldn't help finding it a bit 'tacky'. Just me, I suppose, and if we are going to extend devotion beyond a small band of dedicated adherents some 'populism' will be necessary. But words and deed are an important part of what we do and we shouldn't lose sight of that.

[heather]

I am for health reasons unable to be near fire. The shrines I use, there are at least 7, for me are a place the God has in the modern world, a focal point.

Anyone can light a candle in real space or go to a ritual or a place in real world and not have their hearts in it. With 31 years in neopaganism, very few people ever seem to do more than go through the motions. The same is at online shrines. I feel no difference. People choose what they write. All the ones I know of require writing. Either a thank you or a request with what you'll do for that deity. It's an online temple, so it's a sacred place, it's filled with intention, so if someone takes it to be easy, they are not thinking about the power of ritual in going to the site, making a vow, and how it's in the deities online home. I see people do that all the time at holy sites and pagan ritual. People usually in our culture take religion very lightly, it's lip service.

Devotional Polytheism is a VERY small group of people. People who devote themselves to their deities. Most polytheist followers don't do that. They live their lives for themselves while believing in their gods.

The online shrines started because devotional polytheists were being told by deities to whom they are devoted that the deity wanted a public temple. No one has that money. The Deities were happy with online shrines. When I see hundreds of people write Hail,Frey! it's quite moving, to remember how many have come as well.

Many people are not good with writing. Most people don't like it. If all they write is Wassal, Eostre, that's no reflection on their devotion. The Old Gods are not used to writing anyway, it's very new. They understand intention. The average old pagan never wrote but they did build temples and shrines and maintain them and go there to pray or be in community.

There's no real gathering place for those who honor any Deity. It's really nice to know SOMEONE cared enough to build a home for a God in the modern world.

But this is KEY FACTOR to me. What humans want isn't as impossible as a deity wants. That is devotional polytheism to me. I assume Gwyn ap Nudd has his own reasons for bringing it up to me. No other god has asked. Only Him. I asked why and he said "To continue to live in the future." The gods are living, not static in time or place. If he wants to have an online shrine, I can't question it.

They're easy to build, I know many that built them. It's ultimately not for what his worshipers want. It's for him. As a devotional polytheist, he's real to me. He knows more than I do. If a shrine gets built and no one but one person Gwyn is trying to reach finds it in 4 years, that's Gwyn's business. If he just wants to be alive in the modern future world where people spend more time in cyberspace than anywhere else, even if I don't agree with virtual living, that's his choice. He knows reality, that more people are surfing the web than reading books or going outside.

My question to the group is this:
Do you sense Gwyn ap Nudd wants an online shrine?
That's all that matters to me.

It's for him and I trust him to know what to do with it. I'm not attached to outcome because I can't imagine Gwyn's long term view. I'm just here to serve him. He's not here to serve me, that Neopaganism gimme relationship with deities. As a devotional polytheist, I serve the gods who called me. I know far less than them and that's why they are gods and I'm not. I unconditionally trust them to know what they are doing even when it hurts like me having a fatal disease.

Who is the online shrine for? The god or his followers with their very limited awareness of what the Gods are doing?

So that's my question. If you have a personal, devotional polytheist relationship with Gwyn ap Nudd where you'd trust him even if it made no sense to you, might even make you miserable but trust makes you do that work for him in this world, even if you wish it was something else, what does HE tell you?

Most people probably don't have a devotional serve relationship with Gwyn. There are tons of Gods and limits on those we can do the work of in this world, we're part of the portal to the Otherworld in our services to them.

If it was about Bran, whom I have no relationship with, to me, my opinion wouldn't count.

So FOR me, this is about Gwyn, nothing else. I trust his reasons although I don't know them. Lorna and I have both observed an urgency with him, to get to more people, to have himself more in the world, to be talked with and about. I can't build a sacred shrine and maintain it for pilgrims and hire the staff to keep it clean and safe and pay property tax etc. Even if I did, sadly humans live in virtual, not physical,reality, so would they even come? Would they know about it?

I have a ton of contacts in neopaganism. I was a journalist, I know how to make something newsworthy. If Gwyn wants that, I can guide it to the major neopagan news sites. My Deities have me cross many groups. As a journalist I know how to spin the online shrines into news. Publicity isn't hard.

But again it's what Gwyn wants. He hasn't mentioned that yet.

I can just go it myself. It's not much work for a God who's saved my life once.

[heather]

Oops impossible should read important!

[heather]

I realize this isn't a devotional polytheist community. It wasn't my idea to involve you as I didn't know of you. It makes sense that if the group is about study, not worship, that you wouldn't have shrines. It looks like a real focus is on writing which very few people enjoy doing. I myself don't get poetry unless it's done live, an oral tradition with the voice changing, tempo moving, etc. It's a performance if I understand it otherwise it's dry and vague to me. The writing we have is based on oral storytelling so that's how it'd reach me. Others are kinetic, not musical like me, they need to DO something. Others create dance or visual arts.

So this group wouldn't necessarily be a place for people who are not poets to light a candle and write "thank you, Arawn". They may be intimidated by the high quality poetry here. The shrine is for the EveryHuman, like in pre-Christian times. People rarely knew their religion or dealt with gods like today with Christians. Or most Neopagans.

There's no real Brythonic polytheism out there, Gaelic is huge. One reason is political in the US, we love Ireland and hate England. Our history is leaving England! And Ireland is a mythical land of martyred poets. No one wants to say they are German (Hitler) either, so everyone focuses on Ireland. That's possibly something you don't know about the US. Ireland is a fetish.

Also very few people know that being English still means they have 68% DNA as British 6000 years ago. The Anglo-Saxon invasion didn't massacre the Celtic Britons. But very few people even remember there were Celtic Britons! The political movement in Victorian age to make English people superior Germanic race and the Celtic races, that's their language, to be backwards was propaganda. But most people still don't know British people are "Celtic" or as an Irish friend says, was part of the huge Celtic culture of a time long ago.

Ireland isn't Celtic, hardly anyone speaks the language, they smoke British cigarettes and wear Manchester United jerseys! Dublin is a generic European city. But these false"race" problems haunt us today.

Nova Scotia is the only living Celtic culture today.

So this may explain why people don't want to identify with anything English in.much of the US. The Irish American community still hangs on to stuff no one in Ireland cares about. It bugs Irish friends a lot.

Basically in US Ireland=good, England=bad and after Braveheart England= more bad and Highland Scottish=good.

Sigh. Ridiculous but pop culture is weird.

[heather]

Oh and Arthur is a medieval French Christian story for most, which gets in the way BIG TIME if doing Brythonic paganism. Anglo-Saxon polytheism is bigger now due to Lord of the Rings.

And as a comparison: an online shrine is like your online (Welsh word for when bards share writing). To me, it's a literary magazine. If it was what you're saying I'd get food, deal with rain, mingle with people, hear music and watch dancers afterwards at the pub, and talk to lots of interesting people who are not writers or even like poetry, they just like the event, the place in time.

I hope that helps in understanding how these online things can mean more, or something very different, to somebody than someone else.

: )

[Heron]

Heather, it's certainly true, as you say, that many people can go to a ritual or light candle and not have their hearts in it. There are many 'lifestyle pagans' out there for whom this would be a congenial thing to do but not with any particular devotional intent, or with one that is vaguely experienced rather than focused on a particular deity. I think that this would be the case whether or not they were doing it online except that doing it as part of an event would provide a social context. Lighting a candle is not the only way to acknowledge a god at a shrine but only one traditional way of doing this. For me words are important : the experience I may go through to 'receive' them, the trouble I take to compose them, the expression of them verbally in a devotional activity, and the way they interact with other activities like lighting a candle, pouring liquid into a geode, offering a gift. The shrine itself can be anywhere, including online. As I have said, for me, personally, tactile contact with physical objects is also important. We each have our way of approaching the gods and each of us also has been given an impetus from the gods we acknowledge to do things in a particular way. I wouldn't want too denigrate that. I think there's a distinction here between what we might do in creating a shrine that a god has asked for, which means doing something, whether with physical objects in a room or in a garden or in a public space, or online by creating the web space that others could visit, all of which requires us to do something creative; and simply visiting a shrine that has been created by going there or finding the web site which requires less effort but will be all some people want or are prepared to do. That's the case with any religion and if as devotional polytheists we are happy to provide that service to others, or are called upon by our gods to do so, then so be it. But I do think we should ask for some commitment in return from those for who the service is provided, even if only that they are asked for some input of whatever nature before clicking on the icon.

This is a devotional community rather than a study group, though it's also true to say that it's not very active at the moment and most signed up to it also have commitments elsewhere. If you go in for a reconstructionist approach then some study will be necessary to find out what we know of how the gods were actively worshipped in the past to inform our approach to worshipping them now, or to explore their appearances in later texts and interpret them for our own use. But the purpose of such study is to inform devotional activity. It's true that most of the web content that has been generated both here and elsewhere in this respect has been largely information rather than interactively devotional, though not entirely as a look back to some of our past threads on celebrating the festivals of the year will show. This space is primarily a forum and may not have the functionality to set up interactive devotional activities, but if we can find a way to make that happen, here or elsewhere, then I'm persuaded that we should consider it.

[lorna]

Thanks Heather, Lee and Heron for your contributions to this thread.

Potia, are you around? Have you got anything to say?

Firstly I'll second Heron's words that Brython is a devotional community. Although there are factual articles on the gods as well as more evidently devotional material such as prayers and hymns I do view researching and writing articles as a devotional activity for the gods and as a way of bringing their stories to the world and keeping them alive.

I'd say that's a large part of my calling to serve Gwyn - as an awenydd researching and re-imagining his myths and re-knitting the bonds broken between thisworld and Annwn through so many centuries of demonisation by Christianity and the wholesale negation of the spirit-world by materialism and Cartesian science. Although of course I do have a more private personal devotional relationship with him as well. Gwyn hasn't personally called on me to set him up an on-line shrine but I have a very strong feeling he and his myths - the wisdom of the depths of Annwn - a living view of the afterlife - are needed in this time where superficiality fuels our throw-away culture and in spite of our deepest memories of war we're still going to war (and he knows a heck of a lot about war and death). I think because he's a god of the edges of life / death, madness / reason, wildness / civilisation, a lot of people meet him through unsettling and traumatic experiences. So having a place where such people can gather even if it's just to light a candle and express gratitude could be a good thing. I've also noticed he seems to be connecting with a lot more people this winter. As I've said via e-mail if he's calling you to build him a shrine and you are happy to do so, do it, and I'll certainly support it.

If it's the consensus amongst members we'd like a more devotional and shrine-like feel to the existing pages on devotional material perhaps with a comments box where people can leave messages, I'd be happy to help with ideas for page-building and the editing if necessary as I realise, Lee, you work full-time and it may be a bit of a chore and I'm currently rather blissfully between jobs before I start hunting again in the New Year.

[potia]

Been hibernating a bit so not seen this thread until today.

Heather, you said above that "There's no real Brythonic polytheism out there, Gaelic is huge". I agree that Gaelic polytheism is huge but would not agree that there is no real Brythonic polytheism out there. As long as there is at least one person calling themselves a Brythonic polytheist then it exists, it might not be well known but that is not the point, the point is that those gods are honoured. I am a Brythonic devotional polytheist. I believe Heron, Lee and Lorna are too but how they describe themselves is up to them and not me. I believe there are others, some are linked into the Gaulish polytheist movement as well as there are a number of overlaps between deities of the Gaulish and Brythonic cultures.

I have no real opinion on setting up an online shrine devoted to Gwynn ap Nudd. I don't have a connection with him - or at least if I do it's not by that name If you feel you are being asked to set up such a thing then go for it and I'll happily help to spread the word. I don't know if I'd visit it myself.

None of the deities I know best have, as yet, expressed an interest in such a thing to me. That's not to say they are not interested but that it hasn't come up. If it did I'd go about trying to do it regardless of what anyone else felt about it

Earlier this year I was guided to host a rite in honour of Epona Rigantona. I did this locally and opened it up online via Facebook and the Druid Network after inquiring about possible interest in the online communities I thought might be interested. I didn't post about here as this forum was quiet and I was connected to some here via other means. I'll be putting together something for Eponalia too as an act of praise and honour but that won't have a face to face local rite due to the work and family commitments.

As for modifying the current Brython devotional pages I'm honestly not sure. Much of what is there was offered as examples from personal practices. To change that to a shrine use might not be something each contributor would be happy with. Perhaps instead of adapting the current devotional pages items could be used to set up something new but linked to Brython with the input of those who contributed the original material?

Just a few initial thoughts as it's not an area I've looked into before.

[lorna]

Thanks for your comments, Potia.

That other contributors might not be too happy with change is certainly a valid point I hadn't thought about. The majority of the material on this site is from members no longer active so it would be difficult to make contact.

With that in mind, perhaps the quite radical change I've suggested isn't a good idea as this site is very much anchored in a larger past and it's not for new-ish members like myself to alter.

With that in mind, considering at present I'm personally feeling a push to get the stories of the Brythonic gods and goddesses and devotional material for them out into the wider world and to show they are just as present and their mythos is just as deep as that of the Gaelic / Norse etc. 'pantheons' I'm wondering whether Brython is the right place?

When I first started attending my local pagan society there was a Heathen group there who were all really committed and did loads of journeywork with the nine worlds and devotional rites to the gods as well as runes etc. and I was quite jealous they had all those myths to work with and that sense of community and also very sad we don't have that for the Brythonic tradition. So I kind of have this dream one day we will and the only way that will happen is if we make that happen. However this may just be my dream. Does anyone else share that?

I guess this has gone beyond on-line shrines... but I'd be interested to hear others' standpoints.

[Lee]

I think if we do it, Brython is the perfect place. We have one of the only Brythonic dedicated resources on the internet. The only thing which comes close are personal blogs; all of which are run by people involved with and contributing to Brython.

Conceivably we can add shrines as part of the website, but as a distinct section in and of themselves but link back to hymns and prayers we have contributed to give content to the shrines areas. It occurred to me last night that the 'Grey mare Books' site i set up is largely pointless in many ways and rather than pay for that site and webaddress, it might just be better to link to the lulu shop in the current 'library' section - the Brython site gets enough traffic and will probably generate more interest. we can even link to Lorna's book too

the website is growing and becoming a more all encompassing resource, and in a positive way. we arent dumping everything and anything on there; it is all good stuff and I think enriches the whole. we are taking our time, doing it properly. Lorna, you have been a huge injection of energy in Brython over the past months/year and that is to be welcomed.

I am looking at ways to incorporate the shrines into the website; I have some options and am trying them out. I will let you know.

[Lee]

This is something we should all discuss, I dont know if it has been mentioned but how about all meeting up in the new year (March time maybe)? maybe not camping but a weekend somewhere central Britain?

[Lee]

oh and: www.lulu.com/shop/lee-davies/the-grey-mare-on-the-hill/paperback/product-22483018.html

it is available I will do a proper email for everyone with links and the like this weekend.

thanks for being contributors; it has been hellishly stressful at times (the reformatting lulu automatically does had me up late some nights trying to fix) but t has also been a learning experience (for the next book!)

any errors are totally my own

Lee

[lorna]

Thanks for your positive response, Lee.

I'd agree it's best to leave the Devotional Material as it was intended by former members.

The 'shrine' pages - I could imagine something really simple. Perhaps a picture with a list of the deity's Festival / Holy Days alongside then a few paragraphs with core information - who they are, inscriptions, myths, sacred sites in a nutshell. Maybe suggested offerings? - I know other sites do this but I'm slightly iffy as it might encourage people to use the pre-set ones without consulting the deity themselves. What would be nice is a comments box for people to call in and add their prayers and gratitude and maybe even to say a few words about what they did for the deity on a festival day. Just throwing ideas at you here...

Great news about the publication of The Grey Mare on the Hill devotional. The cover looks really good For some reason the preview isn't working. May be worth checking out. Are you thinking of doing an official 'launch' announcement on Eponalia? I recall you were going to burn the first book as an offering to her. If it's possible it might be nice for other folk to co-ordinate opening the book and reading the Mare Goddess' hymn at the same time as you do this so we're all connected? I'm not sure how well this would work for people overseas as I can't get my head around time differences!

I agree it might be a good move to bring Grey Mare Books together with the Dun Brython site. How about a section for Grey Mare Books - or a section titled Devotionals? I think they're fine in the library for now, but feel slightly uneasy about advertising 'our' books at the top of a resources page. It would be nice to add Greg's book 'Creatures' which covers stories from the Mabonogi etc as well as lots of numinous experiences with birds and animals and the living landscape www.lulu.com/shop/greg-hill/creatures/paperback/product-21811844.html

In terms of developing this further, you mentioned on my blog a while back you were considering doing a devotional for Gwyn next year. Is this still something you have in mind? A lot of people seem to have felt drawn to him recently so this may be a good time.

Another suggestion - how about a Brythonic Polytheist 'primer' (ok we wouldn't call it that...) but you get the idea. Maybe something covering the background of Brythonic polytheism - its roots, core myths, gods and goddesses, descriptions of personal paths and relationships with the gods from Brython members, examples of devotional material. It's an area sadly lacking at the mo.

I'd certainly really like to have an in-person meet-up with a devotional focus. I had suggested to you in person a visit to the temple of Nodens in Lydney would be a good place to visit and it might be possible to find somewhere to do at least a bit of meditation and maybe a discrete ritual for Nodens. It would have to be on a Sunday.

Lydney Park Gardens

OPENING DAYS AND TIMES FOR 2016

Sundays, Wednesdays and Bank Holiday Mondays from

Sunday 27th March to Sunday 12th June

Opening times: 10.00 am to 5.00 pm

Tea rooms open: 11.00 am to 5.00 pm

Admittedly it's a bit out of the way from the main train lines. More central places (considering our locations are Glasgow, Preston, Borth, London) are Birmingham and Shrewsbury. We might want to make this just this core group for now, although opening it to the wider public may be a possibility?

[Lee]

Dec 13, 2015 10:59:56 GMT -1 lorna said:

Thanks for your positive response, Lee.

I'd agree it's best to leave the Devotional Material as it was intended by former members.

The 'shrine' pages - I could imagine something really simple. Perhaps a picture with a list of the deity's Festival / Holy Days alongside then a few paragraphs with core information - who they are, inscriptions, myths, sacred sites in a nutshell. Maybe suggested offerings? - I know other sites do this but I'm slightly iffy as it might encourage people to use the pre-set ones without consulting the deity themselves. What would be nice is a comments box for people to call in and add their prayers and gratitude and maybe even to say a few words about what they did for the deity on a festival day. Just throwing ideas at you here...

using some sort of comments box was what I had in mind, I think it would work best. not sure about getting the candle thing working (I had a go lifting the code from the church of asphodel site and dumping it in, but i know nothing much about coding and what i could figure out worked, but it looked awful and didnt really sit right. so, comments box it will probably be)

Dec 13, 2015 10:59:56 GMT -1 lorna said:

Great news about the publication of The Grey Mare on the Hill devotional. The cover looks really good For some reason the preview isn't working. May be worth checking out. Are you thinking of doing an official 'launch' announcement on Eponalia? I recall you were going to burn the first book as an offering to her. If it's possible it might be nice for other folk to co-ordinate opening the book and reading the Mare Goddess' hymn at the same time as you do this so we're all connected? I'm not sure how well this would work for people overseas as I can't get my head around time differences!

I agree it might be a good move to bring Grey Mare Books together with the Dun Brython site. How about a section for Grey Mare Books - or a section titled Devotionals? I think they're fine in the library for now, but feel slightly uneasy about advertising 'our' books at the top of a resources page. It would be nice to add Greg's book 'Creatures' which covers stories from the Mabonogi etc as well as lots of numinous experiences with birds and animals and the living landscape www.lulu.com/shop/greg-hill/creatures/paperback/product-21811844.html

Ah Greg's book - I will add that too when I am back in London (in Cardiff till wednesday at a conference), I agree that a separate section for the books is called for, it looks good using images of the covers as links, so i think i can add the blurb too and make it look today on its own grey Mare Books page. easy peasy...will do that later this week.

Dec 13, 2015 10:59:56 GMT -1 lorna said:

In terms of developing this further, you mentioned on my blog a while back you were considering doing a devotional for Gwyn next year. Is this still something you have in mind? A lot of people seem to have felt drawn to him recently so this may be a good time.

Definitely still keen to do that book. i think between us we have the solid basis of it in essays and assorted works, this time though no commitment to get it done by a set date and fewer contributors - maybe limit it to Brython people or those we think or know would be interested.

Dec 13, 2015 10:59:56 GMT -1 lorna said:

Another suggestion - how about a Brythonic Polytheist 'primer' (ok we wouldn't call it that...) but you get the idea. Maybe something covering the background of Brythonic polytheism - its roots, core myths, gods and goddesses, descriptions of personal paths and relationships with the gods from Brython members, examples of devotional material. It's an area sadly lacking at the mo.

I rather like this idea, we have the basis of it on the Brython website. it should be very quick and easy to format it for a booklet - whether a printed version or a downloadable ebook. either way would work. another one for 2016 I think.

Dec 13, 2015 10:59:56 GMT -1 lorna said:

I'd certainly really like to have an in-person meet-up with a devotional focus. I had suggested to you in person a visit to the temple of Nodens in Lydney would be a good place to visit and it might be possible to find somewhere to do at least a bit of meditation and maybe a discrete ritual for Nodens. It would have to be on a Sunday.

Lydney Park Gardens

OPENING DAYS AND TIMES FOR 2016

Sundays, Wednesdays and Bank Holiday Mondays from

Sunday 27th March to Sunday 12th June

Opening times: 10.00 am to 5.00 pm

Tea rooms open: 11.00 am to 5.00 pm

Admittedly it's a bit out of the way from the main train lines. More central places (considering our locations are Glasgow, Preston, Borth, London) are Birmingham and Shrewsbury. We might want to make this just this core group for now, although opening it to the wider public may be a possibility?

you can count me in wherever we do this, let's see what other people think and go from there, we certainly have lots of time.

[potia]

While not an online shrine I've been moved to set up an Eponalia event page on Facebook. It's at www.facebook.com/events/446297672242473/

Need to read the rest again before more comments but initial feeling is a separate shrine area that perhaps links to previous material would be good.

[potia]

RE face to face meetings. To be honest I'm not at all sure. Neil and I are getting married next summer and won't have a lot of spare time or money in the run up