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Three Percent: a Riverain Blessing
Three percent is all they say The sweet water of a water planet Three percent The cool drink, the soft rain Rare as blood, rare as luck, rare To our wet hands, shining. From the far sky, adrift in curds and blankets Whips and knots, anvils towering thunder hammers Rain the hand of kindness down To our fields, our mouths, the dancing springs And cold rivers, snaking the glens of Earth to the sky again. Do we take you for granted, o three percent? Do we curse you for flooding, pop our grumbrellas On a wet walk to the office? Not I. Not when puddles leap for joy and silver…
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Exploring the Atheopagan Principles: Principle 8—Legacy
This is the eighth of a 13-part series on the Atheopagan Principles as I described them in my essay, “How I Became an Atheopagan”. To read the whole series, click on “Atheopagan Principles” in the tag cloud to the right. The eighth Atheopagan Principle is, “I recognize and embrace my responsibility to the young and future generations.” We’re only here for a short time. In the context of the Universe, we are here for so short a time that you need a microscope to view the lifespan of the entirety of the human species. And so our time is precious—and our responsibility to those who come after us is absolute. Children…
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The Atheopagan Principles (Interregnum): Why Principles? Also, The Mystery Principle.
This is an entry which is part of a series on the Atheopagan Principles as I described them in my essay, “How I Became an Atheopagan”. To read the whole series, click on “Atheopagan Principles” in the tag cloud to the right. This post is an “intermission” of sorts, halfway through the 13 Principles, to address the “meta” of the Principles and solicit input from the community on anything I may have missed. First, what does it mean that Atheopaganism has Principles? Well, let me start with what it doesn’t mean: it doesn’t mean that if you’re an atheist Pagan, I’m telling you you “have to” or “should” believe these Principles. The…
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Exploring the Atheopagan Principles: Principle 7—Inclusiveness
This post is part of a series exploring the Atheopagan Principles proposed in my essay, “How I Became an Atheopagan.” To see the whole series, click on “Atheopagan Principles” in the tag cloud to the right. Principle 7 is inclusiveness. It reads, “I celebrate diversity and am respectful of difference.” Sounds simple, right? Don’t be a bigot, and you’re good. Not so fast, friend. From the time we are newborns, we learn to differentiate Our People from the Others. At first, it’s because they don’t sound the same, don’t smell the same…and then when our eyes begin to focus, it’s because Others don’t look the same as our parents and any other close…
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Why an Acorn?
NOTE: In 2018, the Atheopagan community collaborated to nominate and select a new symbol for our religion. That symbol, the Suntree, is in the header of the blog and is described HERE. I wear a silver pendant of an acorn, and have since my transition out of more traditional Paganism and into Atheopaganism. To me, it is the symbol of my religion. If you’ve been to the Zazzle store, you will see that there are several items for sale there that also feature the symbol of the acorn, and it is also the favicon of this site. Given our diversity and wide range of backgrounds, I’m sure that among Atheopagans, there is…
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Reality, Language and the Inner World
As you may have gathered, I don’t believe gods are real. Thus, the “Atheo-” in Atheopagan. Recently, however, I had a long conversation on Facebook that turned into a discussion about what we mean when we say something is “real”. From that conversation, I have concluded that “real” is a nearly useless word unless it is heavily qualified…and that it would be helpful to have more narrowly-targeted terms than “real” when discussing experiences. In the past, when I have said something is “real”, I meant it has physical, material entity. It’s a thing or a process in the physical Universe. By that standard, there is no compelling evidence that disembodied, interpersonally communicative intelligences such as god,…
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Exploring the Atheopagan Principles: Principle 6 —Praxis
This is the 6th in a series exploring the 13 Atheopagan Principles I proposed in my essay, “How I Became an Atheopagan.” To read the series, click on “Atheopagan Principles” in the tag cloud to the right. Principle 6 states, “I enact regular ritual in observance of my religion.” While cosmology and values embraced are certainly important, the 6th Principle reminds us that religion is something one DOES. To be religious is to carry out religious activities: to contemplate lessons, to celebrate the beauty of the Cosmos, to ceremonially observe holy days and life passages, to create art and other works reflective of an Atheopagan worldview. Principle 6 reminds us that Atheopaganism isn’t just…
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An Atheopagan Life: Celebrating Riverain, and Adapting the Wheel of the Year
Originally posted at HumanisticPaganism.com The eight holidays of the modern Pagan “wheel of the year” present an annual cycle of Sabbaths tracing seasonal changes, agricultural cycles, and metaphors of the cycle of life. For an Atheopagan, it’s not a bad point to start from, rooted as it is in astronomical fact (the holy days are the solstices and equinoxes, and the midpoints between them) and the reality of seasonal change in parts of the world which have a European climate cycle. And while there is a large body of mythology in the Pagan traditions which ties these seasonal changes to stories about gods, the gods aren’t really necessary for the cycle…
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The Focus
This piece is excerpted from the Atheopagan Ritual Primer. A Focus is what Atheopagans call an altar. We choose a different word because “altar” implies worship—or even sacrifice—and we want to be clear that that isn’t what we are doing. The Focus is a work of art: a still life assemblage of symbols and meaningful objects. It can be central to the enactment of a ritual, or it may be off to one side. Multiple Foci may be used if desired, designed around different themes. Building a Focus is a fun and creative activity and can itself be done as a ritual, in an intentional, Present and “focused” manner. Typically, a…
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The Atheopagan Principles Explored: Principle 5: Humor and Perspective
This is the fifth in a series of pieces exploring the 13 Atheopagan Principles. To see the rest of them, click on “Atheopagan Principles” in the tag cloud on the right. “I laugh a lot…including at myself.” So reads the Fifth Atheopagan Principle, and I think it is one of the most important of them. For, wonderful as it is, hard as it can be, one thing can be said unequivocally about this world: it is filled with absurdity. And that warrants many a good laugh. Laughter is a tonic so powerful that it gives us strength to carry on despite long odds and many disappointments. It cements good feeling among friends,…
