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FROM THE COMMUNITY: What Atheopaganism Means to Me
It’s Atheopaganism Day! In honor of the tenth anniversary of the Atheopagan Facebook group, which really launched us as a movement and a community, here are some statements from members of the community throughout the world on what their practices mean to them. They reflect the range of approaches, perspectives and practices of our diverse spiritual community. Atheopaganism means I can be my authentic self. It means I can have a deep and meaningful religious practice without having to compromise my core belief that truth matters, and that critical thinking and the scientific method are the best means we have to ascertain truth about the universe we live in. Dani…
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The Dimming Sabbath, 2022
After much struggle to find a worthy name for this cross-quarter holiday, I have borrowed a suggestion from a member of the Atheopagan Facebook group and gone with Dimming, with its corresponding Brightening in February. “Dimming” says what this holiday is: yes, it’s summer, but the days aren’t so long now. Where I live, a long, wan late summer will persist well past Harvest (the autumnal equinox), though if we’re lucky we will get a rain storm in September or so. Dimming is filled with meanings, both traditional and in my personal Atheopagan observances. It is the time of the first harvest festival, typically associated with harvests of grain and…
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You Can Receive the Monthly Atheopagan Voice!
Formerly only emailed to registered Atheopagan clerics, the Atheopagan Voice newsletter contains resources, seasonal craft projects, recipes and other useful stuff for Atheopagan practitioners. Now you can receive it too! Just go to the website, and sign up with your email address in the field in the sidebar. Your email will not be shared with anyone, and you will only receive the Voice and (rarely) event announcements.
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Please Support My Work
Hey, folks, this is an appeal for you to join my Patreon. Patreon support is critically important to me right now and is helping to keep Nemea and me afloat while I write the next Atheopaganism book. I treasure my Patrons and recognize all of them (except the ones who wish to be anonymous) here on the website. If you can, please consider a $5, $10, $25 or more pledge per month at the link below. I deeply appreciate the community’s support. Much love to all of you! Mark Patreon.com/atheopaganism
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An Exciting Announcement!
I am pleased to report that Llewellyn Worldwide has contracted to publish my next book, ROUND WE DANCE: Joyous Living Around the Year and Throughout Life. This is an Atheopagan book about incorporating rituals into your life, and will go into specific seasonal themes, rites of passage and personal rituals, with ritual outlines and techniques and associated craft projects and recipes. I’m excited! I am busily working on this volume while looking for my next full-time job. I “go to work” at my desk every morning, take a break for lunch and return to writing until 5:00 in the afternoon. I haven’t ever been this disciplined about writing before, but…
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Atheopaganism, Cultural Appropriation and Creating New Culture
Atheopaganism as I initially described it in my essay and book was intended to create new culture: a modern Earth-revering Paganism. Rather than drawing on existing cultures or ancient ones, the oldest element directly incorporated into Atheopaganism is the “Wheel of the Year”, which has global and ancient roots for some of the holidays (like the winter solstice), but was set forth as a package in the mid-20th century by an Englishman. No cultural appropriation there. This was deliberate. I wanted to avoid the wholesale cultural appropriation of indigenous cultures from Africa, Southern Asia and the Americas that I have seen in Pagan and New Age spaces and practices. Rather,…
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A Reminder
These are hard times. We have a global climate crisis, a global health crisis, rising authoritarianism and cruelty. Simply reading the daily news can be a real challenge to our mental health and well being. All of this is true. You struggle with it. I struggle with it. And yet: look out the window. Above, the short-wavelength light scatters through the atmosphere to create a blue vault dancing with white, ever-changing clouds, bringing the rain that is life. Below, the green things, breathing our waste carbon and turning the light of the Sacred Sun into the sugar that will feed, eventually, nearly everything on Earth. Flitting birds: adventurers across thousands…
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GUEST POST: Finding Meaning in the Journey
A guest post by Jaala Hemingway After finishing the Atheopagan cleric’s course, we were given an assignment to go to a beautiful and sacred place, preferably in nature. About a week after the course, on the day I took off for May Day/Beltane, I decided to go to Maxwell Falls – a moderate but fairly short hike close to my house. My intention was to keep the hike short to give myself time to figure out my ritual. If you read no further – the hike became my ritual. Shortly into the hike, I took a wrong turn. This path felt the most straightforward and I didn’t stop to check…
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The Post I Never Wanted to Write
The US Supreme Court overturned the 50-year-old precedent Roe v. Wade this morning, erasing the Constitutional right to an abortion. And they’re not done. “Justice” Thomas, in his concurrence, encouraged the Court to overturn the precedents establishing the right to access to birth control, to private consenting behavior among adults (in other words, preventing government from regulating your sex life), and to same-sex marriage. Just to be clear about where we stand as a community, here are planks 8-11 of our 13-point Statement of Political Values, approved by the Council of The Atheopagan Society: VIII. Body sovereignty is paramount, particularly with respect to reproductive choices. Only the individual can make…
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The Overculture vs. Reciprocity, Redux
In western societies (like all societies), people have fundamental and largely unspoken assumptions about how the world is supposed to work and how we are to behave. Subscribers to these assumptions believe that they are inherently entitled to certain rights, for example, and that governance should protect these rights and enable redress if they are violated: something called justice. They assume that sexually exclusive life commitment by two partners is the default and only “real” relationship format, which is known as monogamy. They view men as superior to women in a wide variety of ways, and that women exist primarily to advance the wishes of men, a system called patriarchy.…
