I’ve written a lot about this time of year, this holiday, which I call Hallows. I’ve been celebrating it for decades. And every year at this time, I think about mortality, the cycle of death/decomposition/recomposition, ancestors, memory. The past, the inevitable future. The Big Picture. Dressing up creepy, or…
I am the first to cop to it: I am a rather disputatious person. I was a debater in high school and college. Fanatical about it, actually: the theory, the logic (and fallacies), the strategy and tactics, endless hours researching evidence and writing briefs in the days long before the…
You know that feeling when your heart soars at a sunset or a moonrise, or a mountain panorama or the ocean? That I-am-so-blessed/so-grateful/so-privileged-to-be living-this-life feeling, where for one brilliant moment it all makes sense and there is a logic and a system to the world and though we are small…
I know you’re struggling. I know that even if your basic needs are met, the state of the world is crying inside you. And if they’re not, I know you’re afraid and exhausted, numbed, perhaps unable even to contemplate the future because the now is taking up every last bit…
Fire circle rituals. Punk rock mosh pits. Raves. Ordeal rites. BDSM practices. And drugs, of course. State of consciousness is…
A mendicant is a beggar: a poor person who importunes others for money or other material support. In Pagandom, we remember many holiday traditions rooted in mendicant practices. This post is about the special wonders of traditions involving house-to-house beggary, and the deeper meanings associated with many of them. I’m…
