Community
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REGISTER NOW for MOON MEET!
Moon Meet—the first Pagan gathering focused specifically on the paths of Atheopagans and other non-theist Pagans—will be held Aug. 4-6. It’s time to register! Moon Meet takes place in the redwood forests of Sonoma County, California, on private land near the city of Healdsburg. Directions will be sent to registrants in early July. The event is priced at only $90, which includes five meals! Two nights and two full days of workshops, ritual creation, celebration, fellowship and creativity, in a beautiful part of the world. For details, go here. To sign up for Moon Meet, click here to go to the Brown Paper Tickets site and register. It’s going to be…
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What About Those Who Insist Their Gods Are Real? A Policy Statement.
Though I generally try to avoid engaging with them, there are those in the broader Pagan community who are quite adamant that their gods are real and that anyone who doesn’t think so isn’t a Pagan. Some of them feel the need to rail at people like Atheopagans and call for our expulsion from Pagan community. So I thought I would spell out my exact orientation to such folk, so my position is clear. Primarily, my inclination is to ignore them. They’re wrong, but they’re entitled to their opinions. If their beliefs make them happy, great. Though given the sour and caustic tone of some of them, there is reason…
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Community Doesn’t Just Build Itself
So, there was a blogosphere dustup about whether Paganism is “dying”, complete with defensive denials, gross oversimplifications, and quite a bit of ridicule all around. All of which rather missed the point, in my opinion. My guess is that—in developed nations, anyway— if you looked at any subculture not made up exclusively of the young, you’d find numbers dwindling. Populations are graying, and that means that many kinds of communities are shrinking. And make no mistake about it: the American Pagan community is indeed getting older, on average, judging from what I see at Pantheacon. It seems that many second-generation Pagans, while they may enjoy being a part of the…
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Announcing NaturalPagans.com!
I am delighted to announce that the Atheopaganism blog is a part of a new aggregation website, NaturalPagans.com, where the writing of nontheist/non-supernatural Pagans can be found in one convenient place! Go check it out!
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Details on Moon Meet (edited July 20)
The first Pagan festival for Atheopagans, nontheist Pagans, and naturalist Pagans is actually happening. It’s called Moon Meet, and it will be August 4-6 of this year, on private land near Healdsburg in Sonoma County, California. It’s coming up, so CLICK HERE to register to join us! I am so excited about this gathering! There seems to be a trend in the naturalistic religion world right now: the drive to connect in real life. Shortly after announcing Moon Meet, I was invited to be a part of an email and Skype conversation involving many of the most prominent voices in the nontheist/naturalistic spirituality community about creating a conference or gathering in 2018. Imagine…
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Protip for Straight Pagan Men
There’s a thing straight Pagan men do. As I’ve observed it, they kind of do it a lot. Recently, I’ve had a couple of conversations that have brought this issue into high relief. They do it mostly to signal to women they don’t know very well—but are attracted to—that they are hip and cool and sex-positive. It’s this: they make sexual jokes. Double entendres, puns. “That’s what she said.” Guys, please stop this. It’s creepy. It makes people uncomfortable. Not to put too fine a point on it, when it’s unwelcome, it’s sexual harassment. By definition, unwelcome sexual overtures, jokes, suggestions are all sexual harassment. And here’s the thing, gentlemen: with…
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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…
