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GUEST POST: An Atheist’s Spirituality, by Gwendolyn
(Please note that this article will use terms like “true” and “untrue” surrounding religion and various religious beliefs. I typically try to avoid words like those, but doing so is not an honest description of my experience, and I want to be perfectly honest here.) I’m an atheist, a materialist, a determinist, a naturalist. I believe in the physical world and nothing else. I was raised that way, chiefly by my loudly atheist father. I’ve always had the world figured out, always had the right answer, and was often confused by the fact that people kept asking questions that they thought were supposed to stump me. Questions like “what is…
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In Memoriam: Ruth Bader Ginsburg
I was stunned and appalled to learn last night of the death of US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Justice Ginsburg was a giant of the law, and a shero of women’s rights. For a much more in-depth profile of her than I can research or write, visit her obituary here. Now, we must fight to prevent the so-called President from being able to appoint yet another right-wing toady. I am saddened and afraid today. The world is poorer, and Americans and people of the world are more endangered with Justice Ginsburg’s loss.
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The Atheopagan Calendar of Moons: an Optional Set of New Observances
In the Atheopagan Saturday Zoom Mixer conversation this week, the group came up with a fantastic idea: to correlate the 13 Atheopagan Principles with the 13 cycles of the Moon each year, and observe each Moon as a time to contemplate and celebrate that particular Principle. This is optional, of course. You don’t have to observe them that way if it doesn’t work for you. But I was excited about the idea and I know the rest of the group was, too–it’s a way to add a celebration of lunar cycles to the Solar cycle of the Wheel of the Year in your Atheopagan practice. Each 28-day cycle of the…
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Invitation to the Sacred Fire
I invite you, friends. Come with me to a place of celebration. The forest stands, ancient. It is night. The tents and pavilions have been set: your bed awaits you if you want to go. It is midnight. And you don’t want to go there. None of us does. The scent of the damp earth and the old wood, stained with a little smoke, perfumes the air. All is dark save the odd candle, the odd lantern that marks the trail to the Place. There are drums. Incredible drums, rising and falling, pounding into ecstasy, diminishing into intense, near-silent fervent rhythms. The drums call us to the torch-circled Place. The…
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GUEST POST: Seeds of Hope
By K.M. On returning to my home from a walk the other day, for the first time in a long while, I truly noticed my lone flowerbed as I approached my front door. How many days had I walked on by it? I couldn’t recall the last time I had actually looked at it. Today, it grabbed my attention. I had intended to fill it with mulch, flowers, and shrubs earlier this year. But, the threat of disease and general bedlam we have collectively been experiencing was enough to keep me away from the shops. So, it lay mostly untouched. I had half-heartedly thrown out two packets of zinnia seeds…
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On Appeasing Gods
I can understand right now, with giant fires bearing down on us, and billowing toxic smoke and plague in the air, how people less informed about the nature of the world would try to put a face on these implacable forces and somehow petition them for relief. I can imagine all the rituals I would do, and see the temptation to make sacrifices, as if the Giant Force might be satisfied with eating just a little instead of the whole countryside. And I can see how it would be deadly serious business, if, say, you lived on an island composed of live volcanoes, or a place prone to earthquake. My…
