Goodreads Review of Polytheistic Monasticism: Voices from Pagan Cloisters

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Photo of the cover of the book Polytheistic Monasticism: Voices from Pagan Cloisters against the background of a dark blue floral scarf.
Cover of my copy of Polytheistic Monasticism:
Voices from Pagan Cloisters

I'm working on a longer review of this book to publish elsewhere and will post a link to that when it's finished, but I wanted to share my Goodreads review for this excellent book. 

Polytheistic Monasticism: Voices from Pagan Cloisters by Janet Munin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A fascinating intro to the concept of polytheistic monasticism from different viewpoints. While the book is slim, its essays from different authors pack in a lot of information to contemplate. Off the top of my head, some of the ideas covered are:

1. Addressing the stereotypes that come up that may be a kneejerk reaction by some when they hear the words "Pagan" and "monasticism" in the same sentence, i.e. celibacy, rules, prayers, devotion.
2. Acknowledging the difficulties of this path while being optimistic about its present and future.
3. Acknowledging that there are good resources out there from other faiths for us to glean from and that doesn't make us "wannabe" anything.
4. Examples of what daily polytheistic monasticism looks like in practice.
5. Terms to research and learn from in the context of monasticism such as discernment and laura (as in cluster cells).
6. Much more that I'm not doing service to here.

This is a quick read, but I find myself going back to each of the essays and finding more gems. Thoroughly enjoyable and gives much food for thought.

View all my reviews

© Trish Deneen

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