Pagan Bloggers with Naturalistic Worldviews
2017 saw more content than ever posted at Atheopaganism (as well as an upsurge in membership of the Facebook group). Here are five of my favorites among this year’s posts, in no particular order. Farewell, 2017, and happy New Year to you all! A Dawn Prayer Care and Feeding of the Atheopagan Activist There is … Continue reading My Five Favorite Posts of 2017
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The backyard compost pile is easily the most magical place of my family’s suburban home. We alternate layers of kitchen scraps with dry brown leaves, and in about a year the pile transforms our coffee grounds, onion skins, apple cores, and carrot tops into rich, dark brown compost, which I use to fertilize our herb… Continue reading Composting the Old Year →
If you are gathered with friends or family for New Year’s Eve, here is a light ritual you can do that isn’t interruptive of festivities but can add some meaningful heft to the launch of the new calendar year. Place a dollar coin, for luck and prosperity, into the bottom of an iron cauldron or Dutch … Continue reading The Cauldron of Hope: A New Year’s Eve Ritual
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There has always been something about the Wiccan Rede that has bothered me, and I’ve finally figured out what it is. The Wiccan Rede, for those new to the community or coming into Atheopaganism from atheist/skeptic circles, is the only widely (though far from universally) adopted moral precept in the Pagan community. It reads: “An (if) … Continue reading “Harm None” Ain’t Good Enough: A Call to Action
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Happy Solstice!
It’s been a rough year for many in my personal circles, and it’s been a rough year for our larger communities. Some of my friends have struggled with illness, some with loss, some with financial strain. White nationalists have marched openly in our nation’s streets, and an ill, ignorant, unrepentant bully sits supreme in the… Continue reading Season of the Dark Mothers →
My final wish for you all this Yule season is that you be surrounded with love. We are social apes, we humans, and loneliness is a terrible burden to us. Here at the dark and cold time of year, we can feel even more isolated, even more as though we must face life’s trials on … Continue reading Yule Offering #3: Love
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My second hope for you at Yule is that you engage the season with bravery. This is the time when we stand up to darkness and cold and the prospect of much more of it, and we do so with a combination of brazen silliness and real strength: the kind of strength it takes to … Continue reading Yule Offering #2: Courage
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Here’s my first hope for you at (what I consider) the New Year: the Winter Solstice, or Yule. That after the holiday frenzy of Silly Season, after the parties and dinners and rituals, there comes a moment when you can just stop. And be still. And feel within you the glow of all your life’s wealth: … Continue reading Yule Offering #1: Stillness
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For every gem of genuine ecological wisdom I have found in the Pagan community, there is a deluge of crystals and correspondences, divinities and divination apps, wizards and wishful thinking. Maybe it’s time to face up to the fact that, while I am spiritually and religiously “pagan” with a small-p, culturally I am not a capital-P “Pagan”.