-
Winter Monsters
In central Europe, tonight is Krampusnacht, the night when the goat-demon Krampus, a terrifying figure, wanders abroad dragging his chains to whip misbehaving children with a bundle of birch twigs, stuff them in a sack and take them away (to hell, presumably, in the Christianized version of this probably pre-Christian tradition). You can’t escape Krampus if it is after you. The best you can do is offer it schnapps and hope that it will let you go. Krampus has experienced a bit of a Renaissance in recent years, mostly as an amusing and quaint throwback. While small children may be frightened at Krampus parades, adults are all smiles. And displayed everywhere, of…
-
GUEST POST: When in Rome: My Road to Roman Atheopaganism
Today we offer a guest post by Daughter of Neptune, who is creating her own nontheist Pagan practice focused on the archetypes of Greek and Roman deities. All roads lead to Rome and it was on my intellectual journey to Ancient Rome that I became an atheist pagan. I love learning the history, culture, and language of the Republic-cum-Empire and often wonder what it was like to live under the Caesars and to fight in the legions for the Glory of Rome. Last year, in reading a biography of Caesar Augustus, I was struck by an image of him capite velato (with his head veiled) to perform religious rites as the…
-
Effective Atheopagan Leadership: a Curriculum
As I’ve written before, my conceptualization of Atheopaganism as a path and a tradition does not incorporate concepts of degrees of advancement, or “clergy” as an elevated status within the religion. I just find such hierarchies to be fraught with too many pitfalls, ranging from “higher-level” persons gatekeeping access to knowledge and training from lower-level ones, to those with “status” potentially being able to leverage that status in unhealthy ways ranging from minor pomposity all the way to harassment and abuse. The whole idea of “initiations into secrets” is a holdover from secretive organizations like the Masons, with their roots in the Romantic movement of the 18th and 19th centuries. There…
You May Also Like
The Ritual Mask—A Project
Candle Rituals
Atheopagan Ritual: Denatured? Some Notes.
-
Noble Ancestors
We have our real ancestors–blood relations, going all the way back to single-celled organisms if we go back far enough. But there are also those now dead whom we admire for their exemplary qualities: their courage, their intelligence, their wisdom. While they won’t have followed an Atheopagan path (as we’re just getting started), they still loom large in our memories. I think of these “Noble Ancestors” as the equivalent of Atheopagan “saints”: they were once real people, and they exemplify various qualities we admire. In fact, I have been known to refer to “Saint Carl (Sagan)”, “Saint Galileo”, “Saint Nelson (Mandela)”, “Saint Stephen (Hawking)”, “Saint Charles (Darwin)” etc., with tongue…
-
Yuletide: A Compendium
Over the years, I’ve posted quite a bit about my Atheopagan Yule traditions. I thought I’d pull links to them together here for easy reference. Yule, overlapping so heavily with the Christian/secular holiday of Christmas, is a time when many of our Pagan traditions are widespread, and with many old threads of lore and practice layered over one another. Whether your household goes all out, with a tree and gifts and parties and the Holly King in his guise as Saint Nicholas, or simply lights candles to call back the light into the world, it is a time of both hope and fear, a time for reflection on what has…
-
Happy Wolfenoot!
Some time ago, I wrote about non-Sabbath holidays: special days we celebrate other than the 8 observances of the Wheel of the Year. These can be anything we find meaningful, whimsical, or important to remember. This year, a 7-year-old boy invented Wolfenoot, a holiday about wolves and dogs. The concept is simple: on Wolfenoot… It is when the Spirit of the Wolf brings and hides small gifts around the house for everyone. People who have, have had, or are kind to dogs get better gifts than anyone else. You eat roast meat (because wolves eat meat) and cake decorated like a full moon. From the Wolfenoot website Adorable, right? This concept has caught…
