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Pantheist circles: topics for the yearly cycle

It is suggested that each week should include, as well as the regular
elements outlined in Meeting Formats, a focus on one specific theme. There is
a multitude of potential themes. What follows are some suggestions.
They could be timetabled in conjunction with the Pantheist Calendar.

Bring something along

These would be fun sessions, especially for kids, which would also explore
the concrete reality of natural objects and living things and our
techniques for exploring and recording them.

1.   Bring a crystal.
2.   Bring a pebble or rock.
3.   Bring a shell.
4.   Bring a fossil.
5.   Bring bark from a dead branch.
6.   Bring a fungus.
7.   Bring a pet.
8.   Bring a houseplant.
9.   Bring a photo or drawing
10. Bring a microscope.

Playing with the elements
These would also be fun sessions focussed on the properties of some key
elements of the human habitat.

11. Fire & energy
12. Water
13. Light
14. Music & sound.

Field trips
These need not be spectacular: they could most often be to a member's
garden or a local park. Each outing would include careful study of the phenomena, plus time for direct communion with nature, tree-hugging, meditation and so on.

15. Sunrise at solstices and equinoxes.
16. Full moon at specific times: eg, first after spring solstice
(passover)
17. Starwatching parties at shooting star peaks in August and December.
18. Planet viewing parties at close conjunctions.
19. Mammals.
20. Bird & animal migration (check for dates).
21. Birds breeding.
22. Insects - ants, termites, bees, butterflies.
23. Microscopic creatures.
24. Fish.
25. Trees.
    i. Leaves
    ii. Flowers
    iii. Fruit
    iv. Fall
    v. Planting
26. Flowers.
27. Harvest: food plants.
28. Clouds.
29. Rain: get wet.
30. Wind: Fly a kite.
31. Rivers
32. Lakes
33. Rocks and fossils
LOCAL VARIANTS (DEPENDING ON LOCATION)
34. Snow & ice.
35. Sand
36. Wetland
37. Desert
38. Mountain
39. Forest
40. Ocean & tides
41. Monsoon

Pantheist living
These sessions would explore our ways of relating to each other in families and
society, our ways of living in harmony with the earth, with our bodies and
with each other.

42. Gardens.
43. Parents.
44. Ancestors & natural death.
45. Children.
46. Childrearing.
47. Partnering.
48. Exercise.
Communal run.
49. Diet.

Fundamentals
These meetings would be indoor meetings with a talk, slides,   discussion, pitched at
an accessible level that an intelligent child would understand, focussed
as much on the wonder and the beauty as on the science.

50. Sun
51. Moon
52. Galaxies.
    a. Milky way.
    b. Other galaxies.
53. Planets.
54. Stars.
    a. Starbirth
    b. Supernovae
55. Atoms and below.
56. Cosmology.
57. Gaia: earth as a unitary system.
58. Tectonics.
59. Evolution.
60. Self-organization in physical systems.
61. Humans.

Special days

See  A Pantheist Calendar

Typical format of meeting
Example: meetings of the Rome group
Other comments from the scientific pantheism mailing list
Scientific pantheism - main page.

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Page updated February 1999