Three steps toward creating a naturalistic devotional practice toward the earth.
10 Books that Shaped My Spiritual Journey (Paganism and Beyond)
I love books. I probably feel more at home bookstores and libraries than I do in my own house. Books have had a profound influence on my spiritual evolution. In fact, I can mark certain spiritual transitions by the books I was reading.
Five Mistakes We Make When Criticizing Other Religions
Religion is far more than a set of propositions to which we intellectually assent or dissent. Religion is inextricably intertwined with our social networks and our cultural context. And religious behavior, including religious speech, is far more than an expression of belief; it is a performance which binds us to our religious communities. When secularists, atheists, and religious naturalists attack a religion on the basis of the demonstrable falsity of the beliefs of its adherents, we reveal our own ignorance of the complexity of this thing we call religion. 
An Earthseed Solstice: Festival of the Teacher
The summer solstice coincides with the birthday of Octavia Butler, June 22. So we celebrate Butler’s life and work, as well as the beginning of summer. Through the ritual, we will seek to deepen our understanding of the words of the Book of the Living: “God is Teacher” and “Partnership is learning and teaching”. The ritual will involve song, like Peter Mayer’s “God is a River”, and call-and-response. The center of the ritual will be a “meditative teaching” and the construction of an altar or “focus” to honor teachers who have inspired us.
How a Hobbit Would Celebrate the Summer Solstice
When we light our solstice fire this year, I will be thinking of shadows. I will be thinking of ruined landscapes. And I will be thinking of Hobbits. Little people who took up farm tools and kitchen implements and drove out the shadow of desolation from their homes. 
How Wonder Woman Both Perpetuates and Challenges Christian Dualism
The movie Wonder Woman is a Christianization of Greek myth, with Zeus taking the role of the Christian God and Ares taking the role of Satan, making Wonder Woman a female Jesus. A certain kind of Christian dualism has worked itself so deep into our collective psyche that it seems we can’t even tell a story about pagan gods without replicating that dualism. 
3 Reasons to Seek Out Profound Religious Experiences
There are real benefits to seeking out mystical or ecstatic states: They open our minds, they can be transformative, and they feel good.
I am an atheist when the wind is north-northwest.
I am an atheist but north by northwest. When the wind is southerly, I know a deity from a deist.
Worshiping the Dark at the Summer Solstice
Neo-Paganism is all about balance. It is about bringing opposites together into harmony. If we celebrate the birth of the Sun Child on the longest night, what else would be celebrate on the longest day but the birth of the Dark Child from his mother, the Goddess of the Sun?
What American Gods Tells Us About the Need for Religious Ecstasy
American Gods possibly reflected and probably magnified a dissatisfaction among many Pagans with popular forms of Paganism. And it offered one possible alternative: literal belief in the gods and devotional forms of worship. Popular Paganism was failing to produce the kind deep religious experiences that many of Pagans craved, and devotional polytheism promised to answer that craving. There is a lesson here for Godless Pagans and other Religious Naturalists. If we want our religions to thrive, and if we want to experience the depths that spirituality has to offer, we must find ways to tap into the experience of transcendence and ecstasy.