(On impulse I shaved my head for the opening plenary on Dec 3rd)

The morning after the opening plenary, the Parliament of World Religions convened in Melbourne. This event happens every five years, in a different international city each time.

On the first day, I attended a morning dual Catholic-Buddhist meditation focused on the concept of breath in either religion, then a panel on Paganism as the lost indigenous traditions of Europe (and thus the true ancestral spirituality of caucasians). I followed this with an excellent panel discussion on Middle-East conflict resolution, with both Palestine and Israel represented, and ended the day attending a talk on the history of the growing global Interfaith Movement.

This represented about 5% of the programs being offered on that day alone.

There were thousands upon thousands of participants from every religion you've ever heard of, and some you probably haven't.

I was very quickly realized I was in over my head...