Mark Green's Atheopaganism Blog

Our second annual Moon Meet gathering was not what I expected it to be, but it was still wonderful.

A cascade of last-minute cancellations brought our numbers down radically, to a core group of six, all of whom had been at the gathering the previous year.

I was disappointed not to meet new Atheopagans who had registered for the event but had to cancel, but so it goes: things happen. Moon Meet 2018 was more of a retreat, rather than a community gathering.

We  discussed it, and we think there are multiple reasons for this. Asking for a three day block of time is a lot, and the logistics of reaching the off-the-grid, four-wheel-drive required site are challenging and may sound intimidating when reading the directions.

So it was small. But what we had was truly lovely.

We had comradery, great discussions, delicious meals, downtime for fellowship and just hanging out, a fantastic mask-making workshop, and a moving and deep ritual on Saturday night, which we planned together that afternoon, in which we used our masks to invoke Qualities and characters. Mine (above on the left, as seen on the event Focus) was about the preverbal animal nature, the Wild Self.

In our discussion of how best to facilitate building Atheopagan community, we concluded that single-day, more accessible events are the way to go. So we’re looking for a place in a public park nearby where we can do a potluck Harvest feast and ritual in September. I encourage you to gather with loved ones for your own Harvest feasts: everyone loves a good spread of food and drink!

We’ll do Moon Meet again next year. It’s good to have a retreat with a core group of people who are devoted to this path and to helping it to be visible in the world, and hopefully those who had to cancel this year will be interested in attending next. But even if not, we’ll do more accessible events requiring a bit less effort to attend, and hopefully these will meet the needs of the community better.

I want to thank each of those who attended, and particularly host Jeffry Winters for his incredible hospitality and cooking. Much love to all of you!