Pantheist circles: outline formats

The World Pantheist Movement has no plans to build churches or temples.
The real church of pantheism is Nature: the idea of retiring to darkened interiors
is alien to pantheism.

Pantheist groups most often meet in natural surroundings. In inclement weather, they meet
in each others' houses. If the group is too large for that, hiring would seem more sensible than
devoting massive funds to a special building that remained empty most of the time.

What pantheist circles do is up to each circle. What follows below consists only of outline suggestions. Groups are percetly free to create their own formats and topics.

The typical meeting could have various sections:

1. A shared exploration topic.

Exploring, discovering, and getting to know and love better the natural world
and the universe.
Each week could be devoted to one theme, which might involve a field trip, bringing a natural object, exploring the elements, or pantheist ways of living.
On indoor weeks one of the group would give a short talk on a different topic, not
from a sophisticated scientific point of view, often perhaps just about the
enthusiasm for natural form. The purpose is not just to understand the
world, but to appreciate nature, ecosystems, natural form, as a way of
reinforcing our feeling of unity and solidarity.

See Topics for the yearly cycle

2. A green living or social action topic or action.

Treeplanting.
Recycling.
Cycling.
Environmental restoration or conservation.
Social action

3. Exercise, dance, Tai Chi etc.

Music (natural sounds and rhythms, water, rain, whales, birds etc).
Singing:
eg Earth Prayers (ed. Elisabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon, Harper Collins San Francisco).
Running or walking.
Dance. Tai Chi.
Awareness of gravity and body.

4. Ritual.

Bonding circles.
Laughing circles (where everyone lies on their backs with
            their head to the middle and starts laughing).
Specific rituals connected with season and time of year.
        In general real ritual would be preferred over symbolic:
real actions and real objects relate us more directly to nature and the universe
than will symbolic ones.
        Eg: Maypole, Xmas tree, pumpkin, egg, flame, water, communal meals are real
            natural examples but also symbols of the class of things they represent.

Ritual enactment of rites derived from other religions, such as fertility
        rites, are perfectly okay in line with the belief statement, but carry the same
        risk as symbolic polytheism does: that the participant may pay more attention to
        the symbol than to the meaning.

5. Reverence

Five minutes silent reverence, contemplating nature, tree hugging, or looking natural collected objects, eg, pebbles, bark, tree seeds.

6. Meditation

Discussion of techniques for meditation, union and stress relief.
Five minutes silent practice, connecting with one's own material existence.

Topics for the yearly cycle
A Pantheist Calendar
Example: meetings of the Rome group
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Page updated February 1999