Lessons from Shinto

What is Shinto, the traditional religion of Japan? How do Shinto cosmologies and ideas help us re-examine big questions like: What is a religion? How can spirituality help us think about ethics and justice? How can nature-based and ancestor-based spiritual ideas intersect? What exists in the space between ultranationalist, imperialist religion and completely exoteric, open religion? This session is not devotional and does not suggest that participants adopt Shinto, its deities, or its practices. Instead, by taking a cultural awareness and spiritual understanding approach, this workshop combines lecture and discussion to  provide a space for participants to consider key lessons that Shinto may contribute to big questions and understandings of religious, spiritual, and magical communities.

About the Presenter:

Shige Sakurai (they/them) is a social justice leader with international  and national accolades. They are a Unitarian Universalist with atheist, Shinto, Buddhist, and Christian heritages, and involvement in Druidry. Shige has presented…