-
PLEASE VOTE! Atheopaganism book nominated for a “Witchie” Award!
I am so excited to announce that some wonderful person/people nominated my book, Atheopaganism: An Earth-Honoring Path Rooted in Science for a Witchie award! The Witchies are kind of like the “Pagan Oscars”, and include categories like Best Book, Best New Author, Best Vlog, etc. Atheopaganism has been nominated in the Outstanding Self-Published Book category. You can vote and help decide who wins! Visit THIS LINK to cast your vote! Thank you!
-
A Deeper Look into Atheopagan Moon Observances
Not long ago, I posted about a wonderful idea that arose during the weekly Saturday Atheopagan Zoom mixer: to corollate the 13 Moon cycles of the year with the 13 Atheopagan Principles. This enables us to have “themes” for each Moon cycle of the year, and to more deeply contemplate each of the Principles as its cycle rolls around. So I floated the idea before, but no details about how each of these Moons might be celebrated. Here is a more fleshed-out presentation of these Moon themes and what we might incorporate into our celebrations of them. Note that because the Moon cycles do not mesh regularly with the solar…
-
GUEST POST: An Atheist’s Spirituality, by Gwendolyn
(Please note that this article will use terms like “true” and “untrue” surrounding religion and various religious beliefs. I typically try to avoid words like those, but doing so is not an honest description of my experience, and I want to be perfectly honest here.) I’m an atheist, a materialist, a determinist, a naturalist. I believe in the physical world and nothing else. I was raised that way, chiefly by my loudly atheist father. I’ve always had the world figured out, always had the right answer, and was often confused by the fact that people kept asking questions that they thought were supposed to stump me. Questions like “what is…
-
In Memoriam: Ruth Bader Ginsburg
I was stunned and appalled to learn last night of the death of US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Justice Ginsburg was a giant of the law, and a shero of women’s rights. For a much more in-depth profile of her than I can research or write, visit her obituary here. Now, we must fight to prevent the so-called President from being able to appoint yet another right-wing toady. I am saddened and afraid today. The world is poorer, and Americans and people of the world are more endangered with Justice Ginsburg’s loss.
-
The Atheopagan Calendar of Moons: an Optional Set of New Observances
In the Atheopagan Saturday Zoom Mixer conversation this week, the group came up with a fantastic idea: to correlate the 13 Atheopagan Principles with the 13 cycles of the Moon each year, and observe each Moon as a time to contemplate and celebrate that particular Principle. This is optional, of course. You don’t have to observe them that way if it doesn’t work for you. But I was excited about the idea and I know the rest of the group was, too–it’s a way to add a celebration of lunar cycles to the Solar cycle of the Wheel of the Year in your Atheopagan practice. Each 28-day cycle of the…
-
Invitation to the Sacred Fire
I invite you, friends. Come with me to a place of celebration. The forest stands, ancient. It is night. The tents and pavilions have been set: your bed awaits you if you want to go. It is midnight. And you don’t want to go there. None of us does. The scent of the damp earth and the old wood, stained with a little smoke, perfumes the air. All is dark save the odd candle, the odd lantern that marks the trail to the Place. There are drums. Incredible drums, rising and falling, pounding into ecstasy, diminishing into intense, near-silent fervent rhythms. The drums call us to the torch-circled Place. The…
-
GUEST POST: Seeds of Hope
By K.M. On returning to my home from a walk the other day, for the first time in a long while, I truly noticed my lone flowerbed as I approached my front door. How many days had I walked on by it? I couldn’t recall the last time I had actually looked at it. Today, it grabbed my attention. I had intended to fill it with mulch, flowers, and shrubs earlier this year. But, the threat of disease and general bedlam we have collectively been experiencing was enough to keep me away from the shops. So, it lay mostly untouched. I had half-heartedly thrown out two packets of zinnia seeds…
-
On Appeasing Gods
I can understand right now, with giant fires bearing down on us, and billowing toxic smoke and plague in the air, how people less informed about the nature of the world would try to put a face on these implacable forces and somehow petition them for relief. I can imagine all the rituals I would do, and see the temptation to make sacrifices, as if the Giant Force might be satisfied with eating just a little instead of the whole countryside. And I can see how it would be deadly serious business, if, say, you lived on an island composed of live volcanoes, or a place prone to earthquake. My…
-
Intermediaries
When I think about Paganism, the first thing that comes to my mind is reverence for Nature–for the physical Earth. For Life, here and now. And I think that’s true of a lot of theistic Pagans, too. For Pagans–theists and Atheopagans alike–direct access to the Sacred* is a core aspect of our spiritual experience. We need no intermediaries–unlike, say, the Abrahamic monotheisms, where the sacred rites must be performed by a trained man (usually) who serves as an intercessionary between their god and ordinary humans. In Paganism, on the other hand, subjective personal “gnosis” is often presented by theists as evidence of their gods’ reality. It seems to me that…
-
The Reality Settles In
I ‘m hearing it all over: the days are blending into one another. Every week is the same. My memory sucks. I feel anxious all the time. I’m depressed. I’m feeling it, too. Even though I still get to go to work every week (and yes, that feels like a privilege), I feel cooped up and like nothing ever happens except work. Work itself is incredibly stressful: the food bank has doubled throughput of food since March and everyone there is stretched just short of the point of breaking. The “adventure” phase of the pandemic has passed. No longer is this a project of pulling together and overcoming adversity. Now…
