Toward a New Monasticism

[ecosophia]

Yesterday I fielded an intriguing call for papers, which I've attached below. It didn't come as a complete surprise -- I know the editor -- and I've also heard a fair amount from various corners of the modern polytheist revival about explorations of monastic spirituality. Still, it strikes me as a very good sign. Perhaps the most serious of the many weaknesses of the Neopagan movement is the extent to which it focuses on a purely social, outer-directed model of spirituality; the turn toward a more inner-directed spirituality on the part of contemporary polytheists, I think, is a much needed balancing factor. 

At any rate, here's the call for submissions. Yes, I plan on writing something and submitting it. 

***********************

Call for Submissions:

Anthology of Polytheistic Monasticism

Polytheists who identify as monastics are invited to submit personal essays about their experience and practices to be included in an as-yet untitled anthology intended to heighten awareness of this form of Pagan spirituality. The editor is Janet Munin, editor of Queen of the Great Below: An Anthology in Honor of Ereshkigal.Danica Swanson of Black Stone Hermitage is serving as a consultant.

We are looking for vivid personal accounts and thoughtful reflections, not research papers.

Possible topics include:

• How a person came to and/or currently lives out a monastic vocation
• The joys and challenges of monasticism
• Monastic theology
• Your Rule of Life or other monastic disciplines you’ve adopted and what their impact has been
• Interviews with polytheistic monastics
• How monasticism differs from or overlaps with other spiritual identities or practices
• Living in community vs living as a hermit
• Balancing a monastic lifestyle with the need to earn a living in the world
• Poetry and/or prayers which vividly express monastic practice or devotion

* Submissions must not have been published previously, either online or in print.

Submission deadline: August 30, 2019

Early submissions are encouraged.

You may submit more than one piece.

All submissions are subject to editing, and the editor will ask authors to revise or modify their work if needed.

Please send all questions and submissions to janet.munin@earthlink.net.

You are welcome to send a query email if you would like feedback on an idea before committing yourself to writing a full article.

All submissions must be in an editable format.Google Docs is preferred, but Microsoft Word is fine. Please ask the editor about other formats before sending.

Compensation & Publisher

All contributors to the anthology will be compensated.

We will be submitting the project to publishers, and final compensation will be dependent on contract terms. Due to standard requirements, we will need several completed pieces to accompany the query.Once decisions are made about the publisher, we will follow up with specific information about compensation and rights. Anyone whose work has been accepted will be free to withdraw it should the terms not be acceptable.Contributors will be compensated even if the anthology ends up being self-published. 

Comments

[jjensenii]

Some wag once defined a monk as "someone so heavenly-minded that they're of no earthly good," but I've come to appreciate that monasticism serves important roles in the life of a religion and society. I wonder how many "Internet basement-dwellers" are really monks missing a monastery.

Monasteries also probably serve as an outlet for men (and women) who aren't particularly marriageable but also aren't cut out for the military. (And we're back to "Internet basement-dwellers.") They're relieved from the pressure of trying (and failing) to give their lives meaning through courting/marriage/sex/children.

[ecosophia]

That seems very plausible to me! From an esoteric standpoint, monasticism is a potent source of positivity in any society that fosters it -- to have groups of people devoting their lives to prayer, meditation, and ritual balances out a lot of noxiousness.

Clarifying Question

[(Anonymous)]

This idea appeals to me, but I'm wondering what counts as a monastic life? I do not live in a monastery.

I live in a city, have no children, work minimally, and devote the rest of my time to self improvement on a spiritual level. Despite being in a city, I spend a lot of time in the natural world, because I have access to a large imperial park within walking distance. Spirituality is easily my number one focus in this lifetime, but does that mean I am monastic?

Curious for your thoughts, thanks.

Re: Clarifying Question

[ecosophia]

Yes. Back when monasticism was common in the Western world, a solitary monastic -- one who did not live with others in a monastery -- was called a hermit or an anchorite. (The difference is that an anchorite took vows to remain in a single place -- usually a monastic cell -- while a hermit was more mobile.) It was a very common way to practice monasticism, and monastic rules intended for hermits and anchorites survive.

The great majority of polytheist monastics today are hermits, since they're too few and widely scattered to make monasteries an option. That should begin to change over the next century or so.

Re: Clarifying Question

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you for your reply. Do any of the rules for hermits apply to contemporary polytheist monastics? Anything you have found useful, or sources so I could go take a look? Something drastic wouldn't work for me (celibacy, vows of silence) but I wonder what else is extant.

Re: Clarifying Question

[ecosophia]

Good question. Christian monastic rules tend to be obsessive about sex and obedience -- I'll let you speculate as to the connection between those! -- and so need a lot of trimming and reworking for use with other faiths. Since the monastic rule I helped develop for AODA's Gnostic Celtic Church, the Rule of Awen, focuses on finding and following your unique personal spiritual inspiration, I didn't put a lot of time into following up on specific rules; still, there's a lot of material on the subject online.

Re: Clarifying Question

[(Anonymous)]

Well in that case I suppose I'm a monastic too. Hmm. I'll have to put something together talking about the challenges of living a spiritual life while in a city of people who, by and large, seem to actively oppose spirituality.

Re: Clarifying Question

[ecosophia]

I'll look forward to reading it. I wonder if the martial monastic traditions -- the Knights Templar et al. in the west, the Shaolin tradition in the east, and so on -- might be useful sources of inspiration.

Re: Clarifying Question

[qos]

A significant number of us are discussing those important questions on the Polytheist Monastic forum: http://polytheistmonastic.com/

You're welcome to drop by and check out the conversation.

No one right way is emerging out of the exchanges there, but some themes keep coming up. With one or two notable exceptions, contemporary polytheists don't have communities to support monasteries, so we continue to live and work in the world. Some have families. Sometimes poverty is something we live every day rather than choose as a spiritual discipline. We do not view the body as an impediment to spiritual development, so we don't adopt many of body mortification practices Christian religious orders have. We realize that simplification of our lives allows more time and space to focus on our relationships with the gods. A lot of it comes down to what we each perceive our patrons as asking of us, and what our individual callings are.

[qos]

I'll be looking forward to this!

What is monasticism?

[(Anonymous)]

This question is out of curiosity: I'm a Catholic, so monasticism is fairly clearly defined. Through colleagues, I also have some awareness of Hindu monasticism.

What does "monastic" mean outside Christianity? Within Christianity, it is centered on avoiding things that distract--so the traditional vows are poverty (stuff), chastity (sex), and obedience (self-determination). But I have no clear picture of what is different about a devout worshipper and a monastic outside the Christian and Hindo world.

Re: What is monasticism?

[ecosophia]

One of the things going on in the polytheist revival is precisely the process of figuring that out. Most of the people I know who are following something that could be called polytheist monasticism started with a very broad ostensive definition -- "something like what monks do" -- and are proceeding to work out exactly what that means in the context of polytheist devotional and/or meditative spirituality.

Historically, that's usually what happens. As you're doubtless aware, Christian monasticism evolved slowly, over a period of several hundred years, as devout Christians felt called to a life in which prayer and devotion to God took precedence over everything else; responding to that call, they worked out institutions, practices, and customs that fostered a life of prayer and devotion within the context of Christian theology. The same thing happened in the history of Buddhist and Taoist monasticism -- I'm not familiar enough with the Hindu monastic tradition to be able to comment on that. The divine calls, and human beings who hear that call work out, over time, the shape of an answer.

Re: What is monasticism?

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you! I'm fairly familiar with the history of Christian monasticism, yes--and it definitely developed slowly over time.

I'm not sure if your answer is "we don't yet know" or if my question wasn't clear, so if I may, I'll ask again. Christian monasticism becomes distinct from general Christian devotion (per tradition) with St Paul of Thebes and St Anthony the Great. Is that distinction-between "monastic" and "devout but not monastic"-clear in any of the modern polytheisms? And if it is, what is the essential difference? It seems there's some specificity by polytheism--the answer may well be different in detail between pantheons, as it is between Hindu and Buddhist practice. But there's a similarity too--one can recognize a Christian monk, a Japanese yamabushi, and an Indian sadhu as "monastic". I'm trying to think through what that essential element is.

Re: What is monasticism?

[ecosophia]

No, your question was quite clear, and the answer is "we don't yet know." The modern polytheist revival is very young -- that I know of, its first stirrings date all the way back to the 1970s -- and it's only in the last decade or so that some practitioners have begun to differentiate themselves from the ordinarily devout and begin pursuing the first tentative sketches of a monastic life. Which differences are essential and how they will express themselves in practice still have to be worked out.

Premature definition is a serious danger here, not least because most existing models of monasticism have been powerfully shaped, first by the idiosyncratic concerns of Axial Age faiths and second by the distinctive needs of prophetic (as distinct from natural) religions. As I've argued in print, we're in the process of entering the post-Axial age, and the polytheist revival is one of the emerging crop of post-Axial religions. The polytheist revival is also natural rather than prophetic ("revealed") religion, as most obviously demonstrated by the distinct shortage of self-defined proclaimers of One True Way in polytheist circles. So it's going to take some time, and plenty of attentive listening to the gods, for the emerging polytheist monasticism to sort itself out.

Re: What is monasticism?

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you,and sorry to have misunderstood the first time.

SamChevre

models for group monasticism

[deborah_bender]

At an earlier time in my life, I was attracted to the idea of living in a religious community separated from ordinary family life, but I wasn't willing to go far outside the religious tradition I was brought up in, which is not at all supportive of that way of life for women. So I had to let it go.

I think the main obstacle to Pagan monastic communities isn't economic and it isn't modes of governance, both of which could be adapted from the best practices of communes and other secular intentional communities. It's figuring out what the group will do to fill the hours when they are supposed to be engaged in spiritual pursuits.

That said, I can think of three Roman Catholic models of spiritual community which might have some relevance for Pagan monastics. One is the Beguines of the late Middle Ages. A second is lay Third Orders attached to the regular monastic traditions such as the Dominicans and Franciscans. The third would be the post Vatican II communities of uncloistered nuns who share urban apartments and have day jobs doing various kinds of community service.

Re: models for group monasticism

[ecosophia]

All of those are highly relevant. The model of the Third Orders in particular is one that I suspect may have a lot to offer.

Monastic Academy

[(Anonymous)]

Interesting! Do you know about The Monastic Academy in Vermont? Daniel Thorson from Emerge is affiliated with it and they seem to be doing very good things, though I think think they're much more heavily Buddhist/Pragmatic Dharma influenced than neopagan polytheism. I found out about his podcast from you, actually, though he has interviewed some of my other favorite thinkers/practicioners (including the brilliant and unfortunately very sick Rob Burbea.)

Best,
Isaac Hill

Re: Monastic Academy

[ecosophia]

Hmm! No, I wasn't familiar with that at all. Thank you.

[(Anonymous)]

Maybe something like Shugendo could serve as an example.

[ecosophia]

That's among the many models I hope polytheist monastics consider.