Atheopagan Web Weaving 2023

theAPSociety.org/AWW2023/

https://www.jarodkanderson.com/

 

Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com.

S4E12 TRANSCRIPT:

 

Mark: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-based Paganism. I'm your host, Mark.

Yucca: and I'm Yucca.

Mark: and today, we are just going to have a short episode in which we announced the exciting thing that's coming up in June, so let's get into it.

Yucca: That's right, which is June is not very far away. So welcome to April, everybody. Here we are. So in two months from now actually, why don't you go ahead, mark. What are, what's happening in two months from now?

Mark: two months from now, we are holding an online conference, which is going to be called the atheopagan Web Weaving 2023, and it's an opportunity for us to gather together over Zoom Potentially hundreds of us because we're, we have the infrastructure to accommodate that. And we'll have workshops and informational SEC sessions and classes that will happen in breakout groups.

We'll have a keynote speaker. We have a special session of the adult salon, which will be a burlesque class that'll be happening by some well trained professional burlesque dancing people. Yeah. So, and there's just, you know, we're gonna do community acknowledgements of various rights of passage.

People who got married or had a baby or got divorced or retired, or. Whatever, you know, whatever those things are. There's just, there's gonna be a lot of really cool stuff at this conference and we'll talk a little bit about some of those offerings today. But the main thing to know is the conference is from zero to $50 to register

Yucca: Right. So no

Mark: can't afford.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: That's right. No, nobody will be turned away for lack of money. We're asking people to shoot for $20 as a registration, and the money is going to be used to compensate the people that are teaching the workshops as well as the keynote speaker. And we're, we're hoping to at least break even on this event.

So that's what your money's going towards is actually producing this conference. You can find out all the information about this at the atheopagan society.org, which no, which is the ap society.org/a w w 2023, which is short for atheopagan web weaving 2023.

Yucca: and we're gonna put the link in the description so you don't have, yeah, you can just go click on it from your whatever app you're using to listen to this. So you can just go ahead and click right there.

Mark: You can download the program there. There's a button that you can click to register on, sign ingenious. The whole thing is very transparent and easy to do. We've got, since we since we launched this morning, we've already got a bunch of registrations. So it's all working and we'd really like for you to come and join.

We're gonna have breakout sessions that are just for socializing, so you can hang out with fellow atheopagan and non theist naturalistic pagans and get to know one another. So we're really excited about this. We've been working on it for a while, and hope that you'll come.

Yucca: Yeah, and, and it's really exciting to have an online gathering because last year we did have an in-person gathering, which was amazing, and we're gonna have one again next year. But that's not something that's sustainable for us to do. Every year on a large scale, right? Maybe local groups might be able to, you know, there might be the California or Col, Colorado or UK or something like that.

Groups that can do it every year, but for bringing people in from all over, and of course we can't all travel. That's not, you know, necessarily a possibility for everybody. So being able to, Gather and connect with each other. Get to see each other's faces, although you don't have to. Right. If you're not Yeah,

Mark: video. If you don't want to, or even your audio, you can just sit and.

Yucca: Right. So we, we really want it to be as welcoming and open for everybody, right? And so that's why one of the reasons that this is so exciting is it's gonna be a chance for us to connect. And of course, you know, we can connect through Discord and Facebook and all of that, but there's something very different about it being an event,

Mark: Yes. And being able to see one another's faces it's, it's, it's not as good as in person and we all know that, but it is still pretty amazing to be able to see people from all over the world who are of like mind in terms of their, their religiosity. Your spirituality and to share ideas and information and get to know one another.

So I am, I'm really pretty pumped about this. And you know, as Yucca says, one of the things that was. Kind of a sad thing about the Suntry retreat that we had last year is that inevitably there are people that just can't afford to buy a plane ticket or to, you know, to go

Yucca: Take off of work or whatever it is. Yeah.

Mark: whatever it is, and this really will enable anybody that can simply get the time on June 3rd and fourth,

Yucca: Mm-hmm. Saturday and Sunday.

Mark: Saturday and Sunday.

Just to log in and, and have this experience with us together.

Yucca: Point, and it's nice that there's, there's some just social time, but there's also workshops. So I find, personally, I like to have a structure when I'm meeting new people. So that we have something that, oh, we're coming and working on this together. Right. That's kind of nice sometimes to have that, that structure to.

To center the social interaction around. But then also there's just the, for people who just wanna just hang out and just talk, that's an option too. And so throughout the day, different times, different options. So if you work in the morning but you don't in the evening, then there's plenty for you to come and, and do in the evening or vice versa.

Or you can do one day but not the other. Or if you wanna spend all day, both days, that's awesome too. There'll be a lot. So,

Mark: Yeah, so what I'd like to do now actually, is to read off some of the program offerings that are in the program for this. In the first workshop slot on Saturday, there are three offerings, sarcastic tau which just is very intriguing just for its title the way of the atheopagan cleric, which is one that I'll be teaching about performing that kind of service in the community, and Stardust communion, connecting with our stellar roots through science, observation, and ritual.

Yucca: Ooh, I think I know who

Mark: Pretty cool, huh?

Yucca: Okay.

Mark: Yeah. And then in workshop, slot two is reclaiming the sacred, how to heal after leaving Abusive Religion. I know that'll have appeal for a bunch of people in our community. There's a, a workshop on imaginal practice, which is about sort of the inner world of creativity.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: and then there's a, a, a sciencey presentation on wastewater treatment and the magical world of microbes because a member of our community is the manager of a wastewater treatment plant.

Yucca: That's

Mark: that's, it is, yeah. I'm so excited about it. Do a community Bardic circle, which is an open mic where people can read poetry, and you don't have to have your camera on if you don't want to. You could just have your microphone on. You, you can read poetry or spoken word

Yucca: camera on and have, and be, have your whole costume. Right. That's an option too. Yep. If you want that, that excuse to, to dress up in that fantastic feather gown and cloaks that you have. Here's your opportunity.

Mark: Yeah. And in fact, you don't even have to do anything else. If you're dressed up that fancy, you can just show us your beautiful duds.

Yucca: That's right.

Mark: Yeah. So we'll have that. We're later in the evening on Saturday, we're having a dance and cocktail party. So, one of, we'll, it'll be in breakout. And we'll have several of them open.

One of them will be streaming dance music for people to enjoy. And the rest of them will be social groups. So you'll be able to move from room to room and visit with people that are, that are there in the breakout rooms. And that's just Saturday, so I'm gonna leave it there. So you can, if you're, if you're interested, you can go and look for the program and see what the rest we're offering.

But it's I am, I'm so grateful to the folks that have been working on this. I, I know that our community members are atheopagan Society Council members. Rona and Michael have both done a lot of work on this, and it's super exciting. And now we get to talk about our keynote speaker,

Yucca: Yes.

Mark: pray. We, we just announced this this morning.

We are really excited about this. The keynote speaker, which will be during the lunch hour on Saturday lunch hour Pacific time is Jared k Anderson, who is also known as the crypto naturalist. He is a poet and a writer and a podcaster. His material gets shared in the atheopagan Facebook group pretty frequently because his, it's just lovely stuff.

At, in one of his pieces, he talks about how we are all part of an explosion and at a certain point, apparently, Adams just get sort of haunted, and that's us,

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: The, the, the arisal of consciousness to be able to to look back at the universe and see ourselves and see what's going on here. It's, it's all there.

It is. It's all kind of mysterious. Adams sometimes get haunted. I love.

Yucca: Mm. That's wonderful.

Mark: yeah. So I'm really looking forward to seeing him and actually he has a sale on his audiobooks right now. He has two books of poetry and they're four bucks a piece on audiobook, so go and look for that. We will put a link to his website in the show notes for today as well, so you can go and learn more about. So, Yucca, do you have other questions or things to offer about the upcoming conference?

Yucca: Hmm. Well, you said it's two days, right? Those are two full days. So

Mark: Sunday. The Sunday is a little shorter. It starts later in the morning and it runs a little bit shorter,

Yucca: So you can do those Saturday evening activities, be rested for the morning. Yeah.

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: And of course Mark did not mention all of the Sunday activities. There's, there's quite a few of those. 

Mark: Are, there's more workshops and all kinds of stuff.

Yucca: Right. You know, I'm, I'm not thinking of anything else. Of course. Any of you listening, if you've got questions about it go ahead and, and take a look at the link that we've got there. Anything else you can think of sharing, mark? Yeah.

Mark: There is a, a question button on that page that I, I said the URL to. So if you have a question, just fill out the contact form and we'll, we'll get back to you and answer your question.

Yucca: Yep. And of

Mark: So,

Yucca: the sooner we know who's planning to come, the better it is for the organiz. So if you are planning to come, it is really helpful just to let us know right away or sooner rather than, you know, the day before. So,

Mark: Yeah, that's really important because if currently our Zoom account capacity is a meeting of up to a hundred people now if we have. Of more than a hundred registrants, we will simply buy more capacity from Zoom, but we need to know that they're coming, right? So

Yucca: we would be delight if

Mark: can register, the better.

Absolutely we'd be, you know, over the moon if we had more than a hundred registrants. But we, but we would need some warning on that so we can buy the capacity from Zoom and people don't get bumped out.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: So please register early and often, just like they say about voting.

Yucca: That's right. Well, and hopefully this, we, this will be something that we can do again in the future. I think there'll be a lot for us to learn, and I hope that it, it becomes an ongoing tradition.

Mark: me too. And in the lead up we'll have interviews with a couple of the program presenters who who are going to be doing workshops or offerings at the conference so we can learn more about them. And I think that's pretty much about it, but we should talk about what we're gonna talk about next week as well.

Yucca: Oh yes. Yeah. So we've got some interesting topics coming up. And we are. In a interesting month, right. We're in April, which is a month where there's a lot of kind of mainstream religious holidays that are taking place.

Mark: Yes, yes. It's Earth Month, which is cool. We're, we're all cool with that. But of course Easter is also coming up soon and so it's a, it's a good time and Ramadan is also happening right

Yucca: Passover. Yep.

Mark: Yeah. So it's a good time for us to talk about the contrasts between Pagan values and our perspective on the world and those other kinds of religious path.

Yucca: Right. And I think we'll probably get into a little bit about how some of those other paths have influenced the larger culture within which we live. Right, and even us as pagans, how are we influenced, even though we're not Christian or we're not, whatever those particular religions are, we're still steeped in a culture that has those values and you know, which ones are ones that, you know, we're choosing to examine and step away from and which ones were not, and how do we differ and, and that kind of thing.

So I think that'll, that'll be a really interesting conversation.

Mark: I think so too. The, well, I'll save it all for next week. That's, that's what I'll do

Yucca: Sounds good.

Mark: I've, I'm, I've already, I already have wheels turning, so there you go.

Yucca: Yep. Well, this

Mark: Um, once again, oh, go ahead.

Yucca: Oh, I was just gonna do a wrap up. Sounds like you're doing a wrap up though

Mark: Let's do them on top of one another and see if people can understand us

Yucca: the same time. Okay.

Mark: No, no, no.

Yucca: No, go ahead, mark.

Mark: Well, as always, we really appreciate your listening. Thanks for the emails and comments that we've had recently. We really appreciate it. If we haven't gotten back to you yet, we will. We, we do always respond to our emails except for the ones that pretend to be invoices that we don't actually owe.

So,

Yucca: of those. Yeah.

Mark: yeah, it's a.

Yucca: Apparently our crypto wallet keeps getting hacked or something like that. Right.

Mark: Yeah. And we don't have a crypto wallet, so that's, that's a, a

Yucca: we've had a few Nigerian princes too that wanna give us a lot of money, so, yep. Anyway,

Mark: but we have to, we have to

Yucca: to. Yes. Yeah. Alright.

Mark: Yeah. All right, everybody. See you next week.