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In the Season of Sex
These days, I find it’s difficult just to navigate the world without getting sex all over me. The flowering trees and plants are airing their perfumes. When I get in my car in the morning, the windshield is covered with a fine dusting of yellow pollen. Fortunately, I am not subject to allergies, so it’s amusing, rather than oppressive. Meanwhile, there is all the usual hypersexualized nonsense in our media, of course: the objectifying inside-out world of a repressed people. And then, there is the disgusting story of Kenny Klein. It’s a steamroller, sex is. Grabs a person right by the lizard brain. So much sickness I see in our…
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On Mirth
As I have referenced before, these are challenging days. Much is at stake, and fools are at the wheel. For someone prone to depression like me, it can be hard to keep my chin up and headed forward. This is why Atheopagan Principle 5 is so very important. Because it reminds us that the world of humans is not only tragic: it is absurd. And absurdity is hilarious. I’ve never heard any—perhaps they do not survive—but I guarantee that German Jews in the mid-1930s had Nazi jokes: not only because Jewish culture is generally lively withh humor, but because this is what humans do. We make the unbearable bearable, we knock our problems down to size, even…
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Embracing Joy in Dark Days
Where I live, we are right at the fractal edge of spring: winter is stuttering, and between rains come bright, fresh days in the 70s, rich with the scent of flowering trees and lush grass. There is no doubt: the Wheel has turned. Winter has run its course. It’s days like these when the urge to be outside is almost irresistible: to breathe that scent, stretch out my limbs and welcome the warmth of the long-gone sun. To walk in shirtsleeves and feel that sensuous, liquid air flowing around me. It’s heady stuff, and it conjures forth optimism and energy. Things are looking up! Then I see a headline. And…
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Real Magic
Reality. It’s filled with marvels! It is not, however, filled with every marvel we can imagine. There are no dragons, nor unicorns. There are no pixies or fairies. And there is no “magic” in the sense of spellcasting, “charging” items with “power” or “energy”, hexes, curses, or otherwise affecting the course of events without material cause. Just as there are no gods, there is no magic. If we soberly consider the evidence, the conclusion is inevitable. Except…well, wait a minute. When a ritual adds to your confidence and performance in a job interview, is that magic? When a ceremony breaks open longheld rage and transmutes it to grief and healing?…
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MOON MEET: Call for workshop proposals
If you’re coming to Moon Meet and would like to present a workshop, please contact me ASAP at atheopagan [at] comcast [dot] net to present your idea and start a discussion. [NEW EDIT]: Please submit workshop proposals by March 20, so I can publish the event schedule thereafter. Thank you! There are three workshop slots at the gathering, each an hour and 45 minutes long. I hope to have at least two workshops in each slot, so participants can choose what interests them. Possible workshop subjects include (but are not limited to): Drumming Ritual songs and chants Spoken word in ritual Movement in ritual Focus building Creating sacred space Meditative/contemplative…
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Children in Circle
Recently, there has been some discussion in the Pagan blogosphere about children in ritual circle: whether and when they belong there, what the considerations are. Those of us with experience circling in Pagan ritual know that this can be an issue. A crying baby, an ebullient toddler, a sullen, checked-out teenager who just stands there and refuses to participate…these are all distractions that can make it hard for a ritual to bring participants into the Ritual State* (also known as Presence, Trance, or Flow). I’ll be the first to admit: I’ve been in rituals that were pretty much ruined for me by kids. I’ve also been in rituals where the…
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Moon Meet REGISTRATION IS OPEN!
I have found a venue, and Moon Meet, the first nontheist Pagan festival, is going to happen! Moon Meet is a congregation of Atheopagans, non-theist Pagans and others interested in our paths, to be held from Friday, August 4 through Sunday, August 6, on private land on a redwood-covered mountain near Healdsburg, in the beautiful wine country of Sonoma County, California. Moon Meet—named because we will hold it during the weekend of the full moon—is a group camping gathering; a few indoor sleeping locations will be available for those who are disabled or coming from distance and unable to bring their gear along. We will share meals and workshops, hold…
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Between Worlds
It’s a thing many Pagans say: “We are between the worlds”. It signifies that within the contained context of ceremonial ritual, we are apart from the mundane—that we are somehow outside of the natural world, and suspended in a space wherein all is possible. Where magic can happen. It isn’t something I say. I know that whether or not I have drawn the circle or otherwise created the felt sense of a container of sacred ritual space, I am still in the natural world, which is the only world there is. Many things are possible there, but not all. We are constrained by physics, by the nature of sacred Reality.…
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Pantheacon 2017 and a Growing Community
You know all those friends you have on Facebook who are really dear to you, but you never see? Imagine if there were a place you could go, once a year, where hundreds of them showed up at once. A place full of interesting conversations, and great parties, and meaningful rituals, where hugs abound and laughter is in the air. Real love. Real talk. Real people. That’s Pantheacon, the largest gathering of Pagans in North America. Every year, 1,800-2,500 Wiccans, Wicans, Witches, Heathens, Devotional Polytheists, Animists, Pantheists, and Atheopagans attend. This year’s was particularly sweet. The conference itself ran smoothly, with little drama. I work as volunteer staff, and everyone…
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Green Shoots
The light is returning, and after torrential rains, I am enjoying a day of sparkling sun here in Northern California. The hills are emerald green this winter—a dramatic shift from the sickly yellow of the drought years. What a relief. A week from this evening, I and friends will be leading a ritual at Pantheacon, the largest gathering of Pagans in North America. I’m nervous, and wildly focusing on memorizing the outline and my parts, but I’m also really excited. It’ll be great to see friends I don’t usually get to see, and to hang out with some of my most loved people. Despite the national horror show, I feel…
