When we become seriously ill, we go to western medicine for treatment. The problem, however, with a lot of western medicine is that it relies almost completely on the body to “deliver” the treatment to the desired destination. We wrote…
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Dipping into the Cauldron of Changes
Last weekend UU-Pagan ritual was celebrated again at First UU of Austin, facilitated by yours truly. Thirteen of us cast the circle in a grove just south of the sanctuary. We drummed, chanted, shared poetry and storytelling, honored ancestors, and tasted (Minister Meg’s wonderful homemade) apple sauce from the Cauldron of Changes on the Isle […]
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This Samhain Put the Heroic Ancestral Women of Technology and Science on your Altar, by Dandelion Lady
The idea of honoring Heroic Ancestors came to me a few years ago when my grove was working on a Lughnassadh ritual and we wanted to connect with our inner warriors. … I’ve always had a great deal of reverence for a number of modern heroes, including Harriet Tubman, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King Jr. The rite was a wonderful success, empowering each of us to strive to be more like those people who had come before.
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A Good Enough Witch is the Best Witch
What do you want from your witchcraft? I don’t know about you, but from my Witchcraft, I expect results. In general, my Witchcraft should support an ecstatic relationship with a the world as it is, a world full of many different people, processes, and stories. It should help me make meaning of mortality, of the… Continue reading A Good Enough Witch is the Best Witch →
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Visions of the Crash
We are warned now that we may have only a dozen years before global climate change reaches the 2 degree C. tipping point that will render Earth’s climate so unstable as to create ongoing crises in health, agriculture and, fundamentally, human survival. Our population continues to climb, ocean fisheries are crashing, extinction mounts worldwide. Something … Continue reading Visions of the Crash
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Contrasts
Saturday night, I was dancing around a cauldron ablaze with candles, with drums thundering and voices lifted high in song, at the monthly Spark Collective gathering. Sunday morning, I attended a Unitarian Universalist service. Tellya, there are differences. Paganism is fundamentally an ecstatic practice: it’s about living in the body, embracing physicality both of ourselves and … Continue reading Contrasts
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Ritual Tools I Find Useful
Ritual tools are physical objects with which one performs symbolic ritual acts. In more formal “occult” systems there are prescribed sets of these tools, but in Atheopaganism, we’re strictly practical about them; we use what is useful to us. The items below are things I use in rituals, in combination with objects symbolizing the qualities … Continue reading Ritual Tools I Find Useful
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Samhain (The Fall Equitherm) Approaches!
Got your house decorated yet? Samhain (the Fall Equitherm) is only a few weeks away! For many of us (including me), this is one of the most sacred times of the year – a time when I feel my Ancestors…
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Paganism, Gothic Aesthetic, and the Sensibility of Darkness: An Observation
‘Tis the season, so let’s talk about it: it’s a thing, among us Pagans. Cemeteries, bones, skulls, ravens. Vampires and absinthe and Ye Olde Occulte Symboles. Dark. Spooky. Sexy. It scares some people. Particularly non-Pagan, white-light-obsessed Christians and New Age folks. At this time of year, the Pagan community leaps with particular gusto into the seasonal … Continue reading Paganism, Gothic Aesthetic, and the Sensibility of Darkness: An Observation
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A word of power: VOTE
“Happy for the outcome; sad he had to be treated so badly,” a woman commented on my mother’s Facebook post in celebration of the Senate’s confirmation of Justice Kavanaugh. My mother and her friend teach preschool together in deeply conservative Northeast Texas, where I grew up. Lots of nice, white Southern ladies live in my… Continue reading A word of power: VOTE →
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