Pagan Bloggers with Naturalistic Worldviews
There was a night—long, long ago—when we had captured fire. This was many years before we knew how to make it. We found it in a tree which had been struck by lightning, carried it in a gourd to where we had made a camp. And that night, we gathered around where the fire had … Continue reading Potok and the Hundred-Thousand Year Fire—A Campfire Tale
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As I’ve written before, Atheopaganism is inherently political. It isn’t possible to revere the Earth as Sacred, to hope for a world where love and kindness and justice are far more widespread without having a political agenda to match. Many Pagans are political, in varying ways. While most lean to the left, some do not. … Continue reading Visions of the Future
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I stumbled out from the trees atop the mountain, Matagalls—the second-highest in Catalonia. I was teaching at a children’s language camp, and at the end of the camp we had taken a day to lead the students on an expedition to climb the peak. Cold weather had moved in and many of them had remained … Continue reading Happiness, Ecstasy, and Threading the Needle
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Whose warm love flows across the land each day Stirring Life, the world’s magic, arms yearning up, Turning each green leaf to follow. Whose generous balm Upon the skin is love’s touch, ahhhhhh heated fingers soothing, Whose roar boils water from ocean to sky Drawing sweet from salt, becoming rain, snow, river, lake; Whose fervid … Continue reading A Dawn Prayer
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These are the kindest and best of days. The evenings grow long, the air is mild. Here where I live, anyway, life is good. For our ancestors, too, these were good days. Planting and early tending of crops were over. Early lambs and hunting of spring animals were abundant. After the long, anxious wait of … Continue reading Hail, the Magnificent Sun!
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Though I generally try to avoid engaging with them, there are those in the broader Pagan community who are quite adamant that their gods are real and that anyone who doesn’t think so isn’t a Pagan. Some of them feel the need to rail at people like Atheopagans and call for our expelling from Pagan … Continue reading What About Those Who Insist Their Gods Are Real? A Policy Statement.
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So, there was a blogosphere dustup about whether Paganism is “dying”, complete with defensive denials, gross oversimplifications, and quite a bit of ridicule all around. All of which rather missed the point, in my opinion. My guess is that—in developed nations, anyway— if you looked at any subculture not made up exclusively of the young, … Continue reading Community Doesn’t Just Build Itself
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What is a religion? Is a religion what you believe? Is that what people in churches and temples and mosques throughout the world do on their appointed sabbath days? Believe? I found myself pondering this question after I fell out of love with Paganism , in 2004, following a series of experiences wherein dysfunctional and … Continue reading On Becoming An Atheopagan
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You can ask me what is wrong with Trump voters, with the manbaby himself, with the terrifying sociopaths in the Congressional majority. You can ask me what the hole is in the world. And if you have the patience, you will hear me go on, for an hour perhaps, about every wrong policy position, every … Continue reading What’s Wrong With Joy? A Rant.
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For thousands of years, since the very advent of human existence, there has been an evolving trajectory of religious history in Western societies. The story passes from the earliest animism and ancestor worship to the rise of belief in gods, the consolidation of authoritarian power under monotheisms, and the complete domination of Western societies by … Continue reading Atheopaganism and the Future
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