The theme of Kaleidoscope 2018 is “Cosmos“.
We live our lives as networks of energy bound together as particles and waves, knitted into the conscious form of a being, that is itself in a complex dance with other beings; spreading out into an untold vastness of substance, through time, into nothingness with form.
At this Kaleidoscope we reflect on our place in the Universe, as scientific fact and as poetic observation, as traditional knowledge and as emotional reaction.
The Kaleidoscope Gathering is a festival put on by its participants. “Everyone has something to learn, everyone has something to share.” It is by teaching too that the best learning is done.
Ideas for sharing, through workshops, rituals, or conversations include:
- What does your favoured mythology say about how the cosmos is arranged? How was it formed?
- What art or craft says “outer space” or “the stars” most to you?
- Does life exist “out there” in the vastness of space? What is humanity’s interactions with them, here on earth?
- How has science fiction writing influenced modern Paganism? (You grok?)
- What ritual tool can we fashion to best connect with the cosmos?
- What building blocks of reality are used in your spiritual tradition? Is it elements, atoms, energy, chi, prana, vril? What is this substance of the cosmos and how does it work?
- How do the stars and planets influence our lives?
- How does consciousness exist past the human mind? In animals, plants, the ‘inanimate’, ecosystems, the Earth, the gods?
- What symbol best represents the cosmos? Why, and how is it used?
- What is the difference between ourselves, aliens, spirits, supernatural beings, the Other, or the Gods?
- What stories and myths are written in the night sky?
- How do we travel to other places in the cosmos without a rocket ship?
- What will be the future of Paganism, when humanity begins to have societies living on other plants?
