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Suntree Retreat 2022: A Revelation
Suntree Retreat 2022 has come and gone, and now I have to try to communicate this amazing, moving, inspiring event and how it has affected me, as well as its implications for the Atheopagan community going forward. My voyage to get there took 2-1/2 days, carpooling with fellow Atheopagan Society Council member James from the earliest hours of Wednesday so we could be in Colorado by 3 pm on Friday. We drove through green vineyards, over into the broad flat of the Sacramento Valley, climbed into the snowy peaks and forests of the Sierra Nevada past Lake Tahoe and then down to the broad sagebrush desert valleys of the Great…
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Welcome to the Resistance (US)
With the leak of a draft opinion overturning the pivotal Supreme Court ruling Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed all people with uteruses the right to an abortion through the first trimester of pregnancy, shock waves are rippling across the United States. It won’t stop here. This Court has revealed its radical, reactionary and activist nature. It is highly likely that the right to access contraception, the right to privacy in consenting conduct between adults (which legalized same-sex sexual acts but also has implications for people in alternative relationship configurations like BDSM relationships and polyamory), and even the right to same-sex marriage are on the chopping block. Unless some unforeseen change…
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GUEST POST: A Moon Ritual to Dispel Imposter Syndrome (Plus: Added Imposter Syndrome!), Pt. 2
A guest post by D. J. Smith As I was going through the motions, I started to wonder if this was going to be one of those spiritual lessons where I needed to just learn to forgive myself for being imperfect and not always having the right answers. I started working a mantra, getting into that “woe is me” mindset that begets sympathy, and I distinctly remember how volatile my reaction to that mantra was. I didn’t want to be pitied, I was answers! What I felt next could best be described as “Pride”. In some religions, Pride is shit on as a sin to be forgiven, but in my…
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GUEST POST: A Moon Ritual to Dispel Imposter Syndrome (Plus: Added Imposter Syndrome!), Pt. 1
a guest post by D.J. Smith “The Devil is in the details” is a perfect encapsulation of what these 72hrs felt like to me. I originally intended for this post to be a cute, sorcerous spin on Pink Moon rituals, but this instead became a fight for my pride and an exploration of my quirks (to include some experiential learning on altar etiquette). I’ve broken the post into 4 main parts: the story, the ritual, the math, and a conclusion. The post’s themes will bleed into all 4 parts, but this ordering made the most sense to me. Also, if you like math, hang tight, because there’s gonna be a…
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Guest Post: My Atheopagan Life (Pt. 2)
by Holly H. Weekly In my kitchen I have five bins; one of general recycling and one for glass recycling, both of which are picked up by my council, one compost bin of food waste that I compost myself for the garden, one general bin which normally contains bread or fat food waste and is rarely used. The final bin contains all the plastic or foil film packaging that food producers are still insisting on wrapping around various foods. This last bin is something I created in the last couple of years, having discovered that my local supermarket now has a big cage in which you can recycle everything from…
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Guest Post: My Atheopagan Life (Pt. 1)
by Holly H. I began taking a meandering path towards Atheopaganism when I left Protestant Christianity in my early teens. As a thirteen year old who had recently become alienated from the concept of deities following the death of my grandfather, I took a walk along a canal tow-path in rural Wiltshire, UK. It was a sparkling early summer day, the kind where the world around you seems to be dancing with the joy of living and I became suddenly aware of the glory of nature around me. Being a quiet and introspective young person, this soon turned into thoughts about the wonder of the ever-stretching universe, the fragility of…
