Source: The Bi-College News
http://www.biconews.com/?p=24581
It’s a Thursday night in Thomas 223 and Athena’s Circle, Bryn Mawr’s pagan club, is having its weekly meeting.
The club’s head, senior Olivia Coplan, sits on the couch at the back of the classroom, near the windows. She admits to the 12 students around the table that she has nothing planned for tonight. At the beginning of the semester, the club creates a calendar of meeting topics or events, like Divination and Donuts, one of their most popular events, or Tea and Tools, where members showcase their pagan supplies, like tarot cards or small statues, over steaming cups of tea. But this semester’s snow days have thrown off the calendar and tonight’s meeting topic has yet to be decided.
The secretary of the club offers to read from a list of ideas the club compiled earlier.
“Myth Swap, discussion of paganism and the afterlife, energy workshop…”
“Arm-wrestling contest?” suggests sophomore Ellen MacInnis.
The table shakes with everyone’s laughter.
“All right, that, I’m going to veto,” Coplan says in her slow, calm voice.
The club decides to talk about Pagan internet resources, which spirals into a discussion of all things Pagan: the unkempt nature of most Pagan men (“It’s like, I’m meant to do the great rite with that?” says one horrified member), the discovery of scholarships for Pagan-identifying students (“I can pay for grad school!” says another member), but also more serious, personal topics, like the struggle to come out as a Pagan to your parents.