Pagan moot tomorrow, not sure what to do

[Maia]

It's the moot again tomorrow, second Friday in the month, and this time it'll be a storytelling session. People are being asked to share a personal event or spiritual experience in their lives that has helped them in some way.

I'm not really sure what to do about this, as a lot of stuff I could share is very private, and I don't like public speaking, anyway. I wasn't very impressed with the last moot, though to be fair, the people who usually run it were on holiday. If it was just up to me, I probably wouldn't bother going, but it has become something of a tradition, since February, for me and my fella to go together, and by fella, of course, I mean boyfriend, though to be honest, we seem to have fallen into something of a routine, and I'm uncertain how I feel about that, now.

[FlashDangerpants]

I don't like public speaking

People who can see are often advised to imagine the audience naked to help with nerves. Perhaps instead of signing up for the visual illusion you could try the olfactory equivalent?

[Maia]

I don't like public speaking

People who can see are often advised to imagine the audience naked to help with nerves. Perhaps instead of signing up for the visual illusion you could try the olfactory equivalent?

Yuck. I can't unthink that, now.

[Maia]

Well, we went in the end, and it wasn't too bad. It was a really hot day, a little too hot, in fact, for my liking, but it was fine, though. We had some fish and chips in the afternoon at one of the pubs then wandered around a bit, before heading to the pub where the moot was in the evening. When it came to talking about significant things we've done in the past 12 months, I just waffled a bit about starting up a new relationship, though only for a couple of minutes or so. I didn't really have much to say about it, to be honest. The guy that runs the moot had brought some cakes for everyone to share, which was nice, then gave a short talk on the fact that it was Friday the 13th, though being Pagans, of course, no one thought of it as an unlucky day. We left early again.

[Walker]

What is the significance of Friday the 13th, for Pagans?

[Maia]

What is the significance of Friday the 13th, for Pagans?

Most of the people there said that they considered it a lucky day, and the number 13 in general to be lucky. For example, 13 is the traditional number of members in a coven, though this is very rarely adhered to, these days. There are 13 lunar months in a year, or rather, to be precise around 12 and a third, and 13 tree calendar months of 28 days each, plus an extra day, hence the phrase, a year and a day. Friday is lucky as it's the day of Venus, goddess of love.

[accelafine]

Yet the dislike of the number 13 goes back a lot further than christianity.
I'm without any superstitious beliefs, but I don't like the number either. It just seems 'untidy'

[Maia]

Yet the dislike of the number 13 goes back a lot further than christianity.
I'm without any superstitious beliefs, but I don't like the number either. It just seems 'untidy'

It does have something of an uncanny feel to it, I must admit. Being a prime number, nothing will go into it (except 1), though that's also true of 7, another "magical" number, and that has the opposite reputation.

[Walker]

What is the significance of Friday the 13th, for Pagans?

Most of the people there said that they considered it a lucky day, and the number 13 in general to be lucky. For example, 13 is the traditional number of members in a coven, though this is very rarely adhered to, these days. There are 13 lunar months in a year, or rather, to be precise around 12 and a third, and 13 tree calendar months of 28 days each, plus an extra day, hence the phrase, a year and a day. Friday is lucky as it's the day of Venus, goddess of love.

Venus gets lucky once a week.

Paganism sounds cerebral. Ideologies are also cerebral in the sense that they explain reality, but also tend to gloss over anomalies to the ideology that are formed within the consistency of another reality-interpretation.

This last Friday the 13th displayed a spectacular full moon up there in the sky, one of the best moon shows of the year. A natural, elemental force.

The moon and the sun are the same size up there in the sky, but cerebral deductions and inferences override the senses when it comes to perspective. Does Paganism assign any significance to naturally occurring, elemental forces such as the big full moon?

What is a Pagan moot?

[Maia]

What is the significance of Friday the 13th, for Pagans?

Most of the people there said that they considered it a lucky day, and the number 13 in general to be lucky. For example, 13 is the traditional number of members in a coven, though this is very rarely adhered to, these days. There are 13 lunar months in a year, or rather, to be precise around 12 and a third, and 13 tree calendar months of 28 days each, plus an extra day, hence the phrase, a year and a day. Friday is lucky as it's the day of Venus, goddess of love.

Venus gets lucky once a week.

Paganism sounds cerebral. Ideologies are also cerebral in the sense that they explain reality, but also tend to gloss over anomalies to the ideology that are formed within the consistency of another reality-interpretation.

This last Friday the 13th displayed a spectacular full moon up there in the sky, one of the best moon shows of the year. A natural, elemental force.

The moon and the sun are the same size up there in the sky, but cerebral deductions and inferences override the senses when it comes to perspective. Does Paganism assign any significance to naturally occurring, elemental forces such as the big full moon?

What is a Pagan moot?

Yes, a full moon is very important to Pagans. It's the traditional meeting time for a coven, known as the esbat, as opposed to the sabbat, which is a festival, of which there are eight a year (e.g. Samhain, or Halloween). When these two happen to coincide, it's even more special. In practice, covens tend to meet on the nearest weekend to a full moon, or at least this was the case with the one that I was in, anyway.

A moot is a more public type of meeting, which anyone can come to. Pagans, being Pagans, almost always hold them in pubs, usually in a function room, separate to the main bar, and most often monthly, though not connected to the lunar cycle. Usually they'll have some sort of talk or demonstration, but the main point of them is maintaining the community, I suppose. There are also loads of camps at the festivals. The moot is probably the first thing that newcomers will go along to, before they become more deeply involved.

I've always felt that Paganism is more emotion based than cerebral, and there's no fixed doctrine about anything. One of the women at the moot on Friday was a visiting Buddhist, for example, and fitted right in.