Mark Green's Atheopaganism Blog

I was fortunate enough to be one of the celebrants at the very first Moon Meet, and I am deeply grateful.

Events like this don’t happen nearly enough…sometimes it seems like we have more total eclipses than we do truly bonding, inspirational experiences such as this.

Note to Self: Do Everything Possible to Help Create More of These. I truly believe that this one thing will help make our poor, wounded world just a little bit better.

I learned things – about myself, about our emergent IRL Atheopagan community, and about obscure topics like soil drainage in California’s redwood hillsides. For example, did you know that those maddening, meandering, 4WD-only roads are actually planned that way So that when there is a storm or flooding of a waterway that courses through the area, erosion is minimized? Our host explained it to me in impressive detail as he took me back down to our temporary MM parking lot. (I think stuff like that is cool. But then, I’m a nerd.)

Anyway, I expected to meet cool people and participate in workshops and rituals. I expected to deal with the usual camping-in-deep woods issues, which for me (being, apparently, a delicacy for the local mosquitoes) meant remaining soaked in DEET 24/7.I expected the weirdness that is meeting a bunch of new people (whew! – they turned out to be immensely cool!).

But I didn’t expect to have a transformative experience.

I’d brought along a book that stood for everything awful that had happened to my family when my dad got sick, lost his mind, and joined a cult. I ritually slaughtered it. I destroyed it. And everyone else joined in and somehow spontaneously made up a song and we all danced and it felt even better!

And I thought after: But wait — aren’t you supposed to need Gods or Fairies or Forces or Energies or Woo[TM] in order for this kind of experience to happen?And there wasn’t a particle of any of that.

My Science Nerd Mind Declared This Was GOOD. Very Good INDEED. It was Real, it was something I could trust.

I think we Atheopagans may be onto something.

We may have finally whipped up the perfect blend of Ritual and Reason. We may have actually solved the conflict of Science vs. Religion! And I (an Atheist from childhood) can finally say “I have a Religion, too! One that isn’t based on BS, greed, patriarchy, Ponzi schemes, mind control or any other awful thing. YAY!!!”

And another thing I didn’t expect:

The Potbellied Pig who loved belly rubs and would lie there happily grunting probably for hours if you wanted.

Yeah, the Pig was cool, too.

Thanks to Kaigi-Ron for being a part of Moon Meet and for this report on her experience!