Pagan Bloggers with Naturalistic Worldviews
Update: today, July 10, is the deadline for additional submissions (due to additional ideas and discussion on the Facebook group). Please mail to atheopagan@comcast.net. There will be further opportunities to comment and vote after the 10th. For those of you not on our Facebook group, where voting is happening now, here is your chance to vote … Continue reading Atheopagan Symbol Contest
Read more
It’s a big subject, what it means to be human. We ask it in science, and in art, in literature. We get some answers. Neuroscience and anthropology have identified many facts about our species. But I’ve been thinking a lot about the mysteries of human nature lately. Like: what’s up with music? Why do we … Continue reading Mysterious Impulses
Read more
My Focus is densely populated, because I like it that way. It is rich with meaning and history: places I have been, things I associate with important principles. In its candlelight, illustrations of cave drawings from 35,000 years ago flicker. A Homo Erectus stone tool rests for a tiny percentage of its existence. Images of the … Continue reading In a Dream of Incense and Candlelight
Read more
Walking in nature is a very healthy thing to do. It’s exercise, it fills your lungs with good air and your eyes with beauty, it reduces stress and blood pressure and depression. It is a sacred activity and, all by itself, constitutes an “informal” Atheopagan ritual. This article is about adding a symbolic, ritual dimension … Continue reading Pilgrimage Hiking
Read more
In times like these, those of us who are of sound mind and values know: we must do something. In Atheopaganism, we believe in the power and necessity of human ritual. We understand the science about why rituals work, and why they are important to us. We celebrate the turning of the seasons and personal and familial … Continue reading Rituals Are Important. But They Aren’t Activism.
Read more
Friends and Allies, let us grieve. Let us grieve that an era of progress and forward thinking appears to be drowning in a sea of ignorance, hatred and fear. Let us grieve that reason has been swamped by credulity, and science by superstition and willful ignorance. Let us grieve. Let us tear the words from … Continue reading Requiem and Invocation
Read more
We had a conversation on the Atheopagan Facebook group about a symbol for Atheopaganism, rather like the cross, star of David, crescent and star, pentacle, etc. Now, I should say a bit about this. I have been of decidedly mixed opinion about whether we should have a symbol, and when I present the symbols for … Continue reading Announcing a Contest! Inviting Designs for an Atheopagan Symbol!
Read more
I don’t buy “pagan stuff”. No crystals (mined destructively from the Earth), no chalices or blades or wands or new Tarot decks. Sometimes I’m tempted, but I don’t do it. Well, other than candles. I already have enough incense to last the rest of my life, stored carefully so as to remain fresh and pungent. … Continue reading The Pitfall of Consumer Paganism
Read more
“I don’t get it.” A comment I’ve seen and heard several times in relation to Atheopaganism: “I just don’t get what you’re doing, or why you’re doing it. Why would you do rituals if there is no magic and there are no gods?” (or, “what’s up with these rituals and holidays? Why do you do … Continue reading “I Don’t Get It.”
Read more
I’m asked pretty frequently for sample Atheopagan group (as opposed to solitary) ritual scripts, and I never deliver them. Here’s why. I don’t write ritual scripts. I have hardly ever been to a group ritual where leaders/facilitators “read their lines” (or had obviously memorized them) that didn’t feel like a waste of my time, and … Continue reading Why I Don’t Write Ritual Scripts
Read more