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Doing the Work
As Atheopagans, we’re about being healthier, wiser, happier humans, and through action contributing to a better world. Some of that is about values. Ours are articulated in the 4 Sacred Pillars and the 13 Atheopagan Principles, and in this area particularly Principle 4: humility; Principle 5: perspective and humor; Principle 7:, inclusiveness; Principle 8: legacy; Principle 9: social responsibility, and especially Principle 13: kindness and compassion. Some of it is about healing: healing our wounds and shame, our self-esteem. Our fear. And some of it is about moving through and beyond our bullshit. Which, let us be clear, we all have. Personal work is core and essential in Atheopaganism. Willingness…
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High Spring: An Equinox Compendium
I’ve written various posts on celebrating the vernal equinox over the years. Here are a couple of them, to help you plan your celebration of this Sabbath. Happy Spring! The Sabbath of Innocence High Spring: Themes, Resources and Ideas
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AtheopaganCon: An Aspiration [POSTSCRIPT: We did it!]
For some time now, folks online and in the Zoom chats have referred now and again to “APCon”, an imagined in-person gathering where we can meet, discuss our path, socialize, and share community. Real hugs (with consent, of course)! With the vaccine coming online and hope beginning to stir about life after COVID-19, I am starting to think about this as more than just a dream. I would love to see in person as many as possible of the wonderful, amazing people I have met through Atheopagan Zoom and online forums. Accordingly, I have created a short survey about the concept of APCon that I would appreciate your filling out.…
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Post Five Hundred: Thank You
Once upon a time, on a laptop far, far away, a guy with some ideas posted an essay about them to Scribd. He sent it to some friends who had expressed interest in it, too. It was 2009. Among those friends, there were discussions. After awhile, too, there was a Facebook group dedicated to discussing the ideas. And that group started to grow. People the guy didn’t know started joining the group, expressing relief and joy at having found people of like mind. The ideas grew, too. The dude produced more materials fleshing out the ideas, and posted them as files to the Facebook group, along with long posts about…
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Why Paganism Hasn’t Failed…Yet.
John Halstead has written an article around a table lifted from the anthology Deep Green Resistance*. It’s a great piece: go ahead and read it. I’d say that’s about 2/3 of a perfect assessment of modern Paganism and the current Pagan community…at least in the US, where I am familiar with it. He’s not wrong, and his critiques are apt…painful and embarrassing as they may be for many American Pagans. John orients his piece around this table: Now, I think one of the most incisive and true critiques in this chart are that much of modern Paganism has “adolescent values of a youth movement”: black-and-white thinking, knee-jerk resistance to authorities…
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Brightening
It interests me that the new dawn in American politics comes at the same time that it has become evident (in the Northern Hemisphere) that the days are lengthening. We are no longer in the darkest of winter; the February Sabbath approaches, and the Sun, though young, is definitely returning. A member of the Atheopagan Facebook group dubbed the February Sabbath (or, in the Southern Hemisphere, the August one) “Brightening”, and though in my region I celebrate this as Riverain, the Festival of Water, I like that characterization a lot, as it is so universal. And who knows? It might even share a word root with Brighid, the Irish goddess…
