Pagan Bloggers with Naturalistic Worldviews
(Winter Solstice/Yule for those in the Southern Hemisphere) Happy Summer Solstice! Sun goddesses/gods are very common across cultures, and Solarcentre published this poster of some of the main ones just in time for the Solstice. Celebrations The ways that many…
After the stinger was removed and the wound cleaned, they applied a thick coat of honey to help bring the swelling down (a cruel irony), and I began to hate bees. But little did I know how essential bees are to our heritage, our history, and our planet.
These spiritual experiences are an astounding gift that can be powerful fuel for our actions – motivating us when other lights have gone out. How could I receive that gift, and not want to use it responsibly, to help empower me to make a better world? 
The Summer Solstice approaches! Ready? This is the last Solstice before the eclipse – something that can be part of this year’s Summer Solstice ritual if you choose. A bunch of ritual and celebrations ideas can be found here.
We owe cyanobacteria our respect. And they might deserve our fullest gratitude as well if it weren’t for one nasty trait.
I hope that moving forward, we are able to disagree respectfully, as friends, to recognize our common goals and community, and sometimes, to join in powerful and moving rituals, regardless of the fact that some of us see the underlying basis of those rituals differently. With that, we might be able to bring a life-centered Paganism to millions, who might fit better into this or that part of our wider Pagan community, with many of us working together to build a better future for the whole web of life.
Whether the gods are objectively real is the least interesting question you can ask about a person’s religious experience. What is much more interesting is the subjective reality of their experience. What was the experience was like for them? And what does it mean to them in the context of their life? People’s religious experiences aren’t going to help us put a person on Mars or cure cancer, but they can help us understand why we want to put a person on Mars or why should try to cure cancer.
The disenchantment of the world happened, not when we stopped seeing gods and spirits in nature, but when we stopped seeing our essential connection to nature. Personifying rivers and trees with dryads is not going to accomplish this. Rather, we need to realize our essential oneness, the manifold ways in which we are connected to the rivers and the trees–whether or not we find gods in them.
In spite of the tendency of many Pagans to confuse the pre-rational with the trans-rational, in spite of the uncritical attitudes and superstitious ideas that haunt a lot of Paganism, I still call myself a Pagan. I am still a Pagan because I believe that Paganism is a door to the trans-rational. I believe that Paganism has the potential to bring together the wisdom of our animistic forebearers and the discoveries of contemporary science in a way that has the power to reenchant the world.
Science is, after all, an endeavor of humans and our machines. What would it mean to put this endeavor at the service of Mother Earth? Presumably, our efforts must always be guided by human discernment, in all its fallibility. Who decides what best serves this vision of the Greater Good? 