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What Atheopaganism Won’t Do for You
Recently, I have experienced some severe life challenges. A period of disability followed by a one of unemployment drained my savings away. I finally landed a good job with a great organization…only to be told, one paycheck in, by my landlord of 18 years that my beautiful home has been sold and I must move by Sept. 1. Without any money. And 18 years’ worth of accumulated possessions. I believe I will get through this, as people do. I have community and fundraising skills and ideas, and I am earning a salary now. Nemea and I will find another home, and survive. But it occurs to me that members of other…
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A Sticky, Sweaty, Complicated Mess (That Nearly Everyone Wants)
We were up long before the day-o To welcome in the summer, to welcome in the May-o For sumer is icumen in, and winter’s gone away-o! May Day has just passed, which many Pagans know as Beltane, the festival of young adulthood, love, and sexuality. Time for rising early to greet the dawn—if you haven’t been up all night—wearing floral wreaths, dancing ribbons about tall phallic Maypoles, sipping May wine … and making out, at least, if not making love. There is, of course, a great deal of variation within any large community, but part of what distinguishes the Pagan community generally from the mainstream culture is that it describes itself as “sex-positive”.…
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Atheopaganism and the Broader Pagan Community
It’s never going to be a completely comfortable fit. Just as the suggestion of religious ritual and other symbolic, poetic, metaphorical practices will always be dismissed by some in the atheist community, Atheopaganism is always going to be viewed by some in the Pagan community as not rightfully belonging. Let me stop there and say that in my experience, that is a distinctly minority position. Most of the Pagans I have come out to as Atheopagan have been curious and interested in talking about the details of what I believe and do, but they have shown no interest in showing me the door. So let’s start there: this appears only to be an…
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A Subtle Art, the Medium of Which is Emotion
She was lifting the curtain, looking down from the window in her Civil War blouse, jacket and hoop skirt. Outside, a wagon bearing a flag-draped casket was drawn forward by black horses, flanked with erect soldiers. Suddenly, it was 1865. I was 6, and touring the Custis-Lee Mansion at Arlington National Cemetery with my family. And that tiny moment when a costumed docent lifted the curtain on the scene below transported me back in time, began a lifelong fascination with other eras, living history, modes of dress from other times. It was a feeling, a particular and very specific emotional sense, and I was riveted by that: that in a moment, my sense of where (and when)…
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“But I’m Lonely!” Finding Fellow Atheopagans
Atheopaganism is a new religious path. The essay in which I laid out its principles is only five years old, and it has been visible on the web for only a year. This inevitably means that practitioners seeking to find people to circle with are going to be a little challenged. It’s fine to practice as a solitary, but many of us prefer to have a community with which we can share our rituals, our observances, and our exploration of our Atheopagan path. It can be difficult to get started. Here are some suggestions which may help. If you’re already a part of a Pagan community, invite your Pagan friends to…
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Atheopaganism and the Mystical Experience
It was night, nearly pitch black, and I had no idea how many steps extended before me, down into the darkness. Down to the Underworld. I was in a cave in Pinnacles National Park (then Monument) in California. And I was in Greece some 2,500 years ago. I was a Mystes, a Seeker of the Eleusinian Mysteries. I cried on the way down those stairs. I felt my life, my body falling away until I was only a point in darkness, seeing nothing, feeling for each step with my foot carefully and slowly so as not to fall. At first, I heard my fellow Mystai singing, but soon they were left…
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Okay, So You’re an Atheist. Now What?
In my experience, many of those who arrive at atheism from another set of religious beliefs go through a “refractory period” during which their impulse is to celebrate their new perspective and, often, to do a bit of gloating about how much more reasonable they feel they have become than those credulous in supernatural phenomena like gods, effective prayer, and so forth. Some find that stance satisfying, and stop there. In a national study of atheists in the U.S., the University of Tennessee identified 6 sub-groups, one of which, the “Anti-Theists”, comprising about 14% of the total, continually focuses primarily on disagreements with theists and actively advocates that others should follow their lead into…
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Eggs and Sprouts
Reflecting here, on a mild day shortly after High Spring, on the currents of newness that have come to and through my life in the past few months. Feeling grateful. For better or worse, my life will change significantly in the next few months. I hope it is for the better, and what better time for hope than the Spring? Here are some of the Eggs I am incubating and the Sprouts I see emerging, already born and angling towards the Sun. Egg: With some luck, I will be starting a new job soon. If it’s the one I hope for, I’ll be working for a great organization with an exciting…
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Why Pagan Temples? A Not-Very-Good Reason.
John Halstead over at Patheos published a great series entitled “Why Church is No Substitute for Religion”, in the final episode of which he concludes that we need to be making our sacred places on an ad hoc and constantly-renewed basis, rather than focusing on buying land and building structures. He points out—quite correctly—that when your entire planet is “the special place”, it’s a bit odd to focus a lot of attention and resources on building and maintaining one particular building. But as I look around the Pagan community, that’s what I see people trying to do. Quite a lot, actually. There’s the Matraeum of Cybele in Catskill, New York. There’s…
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Reflections on Year One: Atheopaganism as Forward-Looking Religion
It is now about a year since I first made my essay, “How I Became an Atheopagan” widely available on the net, and since the Atheopaganism Facebook group became active. It has been exciting and gratifying to see the amount of interest and growth in Atheopaganism over the past year. I created this path for myself and thought some of my friends might be interested; I had no idea that the core precepts and ritual approach of Atheopaganism would resonate for people across the globe. In the past year, I’ve learned a lot about this religion I helped to midwife–among many lessons, that there are plenty of others who are also…
