Personal Reflection
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“Familiar Spirits”
Something light for a Wednesday… Wikipedia: “In European folklore and folk-belief of the Medieval and Early Modern periods, familiar spirits (sometimes referred to simply as “familiars” or “animal guides“) were believed to be supernatural entities that would assist witches and cunning folks in their practice of magic. According to the records of the time, they would appear in numerous guises, often as an animal…” If there is one thing that folklore seems to have gotten right about witches and pagans, it is that we like our animals. In some cases, LOTS of animals. And why not? Having animals can ease depression, reduce sense of loneliness, lower blood pressure and even reduce the chance of stroke or heart attack (study sources on the last…
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Atheism, Paganism, and Agreeing to Disagree
I’ve been thinking lately about the crossroads where Atheopaganism lives: straddling lines between atheism, Paganism, and activism. In the atheistic world, skepticism is a given. There, when you propose something—a policy, a factual claim, a strategic approach to problem solving—it is assumed that you will have both material evidence and cogent argumentation to back your position. Others are welcomed to interrogate, prod at, and refute the position as best they are able. This is a process by which we can arrive at a position which is more likely to be correct than if we did not so critique the initial proposition. The process is central to the operation of science…
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Beyond Faith. Beyond Fundamentalism.
Let’s start by acknowledging that the definitions are fuzzy. There is no universally agreed-to definition of what a “religion” even is. “Spirituality” is just as indeterminate. So all we can do is look at religions of the world and try to identify the elements that compose them. When I do that, I conclude that a religion, functionally, comes in three pieces: a cosmology, which is a description of the nature of the Universe which is subscribed to by adherents of the religion; a set of values which define what is Sacred, what is important, and how we should live; and a set of practices such as rites, holidays, traditions and…
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Sifting for Gold
It’s a soft, rainy spring day. I’m grateful for the rain—we need it—and for the lush green it has brought to the hills and meadows, the vineyards carpeted with bright mustard flowers. These are such challenging times. The circumstances of my personal life are stressful and frightening; the broader culture is caught in the nightmare of Donald Trump’s willful smashing of all that is decent and righteous. Friends are struggling to make ends meet; my area is still grappling with the incomprehensible shock of last October’s wildfires. As I said: challenging. I find times like these—although, to be fair. there have never been times as extreme as these in my…
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Five Great Reasons to Be an Atheopagan
This is a bit of a bandwagon post. John Beckett and Jason Mankey have just posted about “Five Bad Reasons to be a Pagan” and “Five Good Reasons” to be one, respectively. They’re at Patheos, which I no longer link to, but you can find them easily if you like. Their posts got me thinking about how happy I am with my Atheopagan practice. It’s been ten years this year since I stripped the god-imagery that I really didn’t believe out of my practice and completed my essay on why I wasn’t going to pretend any longer. At that moment, a profound sense of relief and “rightness” swept through me.…
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Woodland Dreaming: Missing Ancient Ways
I’m back from Pantheacon, and had a wonderful festival again. I was involved in three conference offerings—a ritual for activists (“Arming the Earth Warriors”), a mixer for non-theists, and the annual ritual by the Spark Collective, of which I sit on the Core group—and all were well-attended and received. Our non-theist ritual had nearly twice as many attendees as did last year, so things are growing. As for the conference itself, it was a flurry of reconnecting with friends I rarely get to see, late-night parties (followed by early-morning work shifts), resultant sleep deprivation and diligent efforts to make sure I remained fed, hydrated and grounded. It’s an otherworldly environment where…
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Unpopular Ideas
On this day in 1809, Charles Darwin was born. 50 years later, he would publish “On the Origin of Species”, which pretty well blew the doors off the scientific world, outraged the contemporary religious culture, and established the key scientific foundation of the field of biology for all time. Darwin knew what he was doing. He sat on “Origin” for years, aware that the core implication of his work—that no God was necessary to explain the diversity of life on Earth—would bring him a deluge of hatred and ridicule. He was right. 159 years on, Christian fundamentalists still rail against Darwin’s discovery. Their entire worldview is threatened by his simple…
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On the Other Hand…(A Love Letter)
So, I’ve been a little hard on the Pagan community lately. I’ve decried abuses and hierarchies, lack of political engagement, and the leftovers of the sexual culture of the 1960s that still thrive in many corners of it. Those things are true, in my opinion, and I stand by them. So why, one might ask, do I continue to be a part of a community of people who I find so problematic? Well, let me tell you: because it’s wonderful. In all my experience, no cohort of people has ever been so smart, interesting, creative, unique and, by and large, genuinely good-hearted. Weird, yes—but isn’t that just a synonym for creative? Despite blind…
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Children of the Earth Tribe, WAKE UP
Back in September of 2015, I asked, is Atheopaganism political? Go ahead, read it. It lays out why I believe that any religious path that is truly about this Earth—any path of integrity—must, in days such as these, be one of activism. Since, I’ve had plenty of opportunity to consider the Pagan community generally through this lens. And I am sorry to say that I have been sorely disappointed. Most of the visible voices, most of the “Big Name Pagans”, are anything but political. At best, they may voice the occasional political opinion in passing, but mostly they’re about rituals and magical tools and cultural traditions and “mysteries”. Oh, and selling…
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In Memoriam: Ursula K. Le Guin, Cultural Radical and Deep Humanist
Ursula K. LeGuin has died. I won’t recount her many works or the impact she had on speculative fiction in her long career as a writer. That information can be found in the obituary linked above, and elsewhere. No, this is a personal memorial. For of all writers, I believe Ursula K. Le Guin’s impact on me has been the most profound. She dared to ask subversive questions. What if there were no gender? What if people in wealthy societies were required to confront the suffering that supports them? What if human society successfully integrated technology and rich culture and environmental sustainability? What if…what if…what if. She wrote with such…
