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Brightening 2024
Today is the midpoint between what I term Midwinter (the winter solstice) and High Spring (the vernal equinox): thus, Brightening. Or Imbolc. Or Brighid. Or–my choice–Riverain, the Festival of Water. Depending on where you live, you might have different names or associations with this point in the Wheel of the Year. (or, in the Southern Hemisphere, this could be Dimming or High Summer for you) It is raining torrentially today, so we have good thematic weather this year. And I find myself thinking about the disparate pieces that make up my traditions for this Sabbath: bits of themes from back when I was practicing (if not believing in) theistic Paganism,…
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Celebrating the Sacred [INSERT GENDER HERE]
In Atheopaganism, we don’t believe in gods, and as a result we don’t have revered beings that embody the Sacred feminine, masculine or other genders. Rather than gendering the Sacred (or, as we see it, the Sacred Universe), we understand it as unconscious and without gender. Insofar as we can tell through the analytical lens of science, the Universe has no personality; it simply is, evolving and unfolding over billions of years in accordance with the laws of physics. But the idea of the Sacred feminine was a revelation not very long ago: it had been erased by the world’s large institutional religions for thousands of years until reintroduced by…
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Rituals in the Heat
It’s bitter here in the Northern Hemisphere right now, but I’ve been thinking about the South and the heat they are experiencing. Seems as though we are rich with ritual traditions and activities for the colder, darker half of the year, but after the Maypole there is very little until Hallows rolls around again. So…what do you do when it’s hot out, ritually speaking? Midsummer and Dimming want to know! So I’m blue-skying activities here, and the classical Greek concept of “four elements” seems to offer itself as a way of organizing them. First, water. This is a basic and human response to heat–we flood (ha ha) to beaches, lakes,…
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MY TAKE: the State of the Atheopagan Community 2024
It’s that time of year again, and I thought I’d share my opinions about how our community is coming along. To be clear: this is just my take, and not “official” in any way. But I like to reflect at the beginning of the year on what’s happening and what I expect to happen in the coming year. Comments welcome, as always! Our community, between Facebook and Discord members, podcast listeners and YouTube subscribers, is now well over 5,000 members, even if we assume heavy overlap between those channels. Going into 2024, we have the largest and strongest Atheopagan Society Council to date. Currently numbering twelve, the Council contains a…
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New Carols for an Atheopagan Solstice
One of the things that can be hard about moving away from the Christian Overculture is that there is a lot of beautiful art that can become meaningless to you. Architecture, painting, sculpture, music…so many centuries of accumulated human creativity and effort, all illustrating the myths of Christianity. For many who deconvert from Christianity and other authoritarian religions, these artworks can be intensely triggering, and they don’t want anything to do with them. Others miss aspects of them, like the beauty of music that has…undesirable lyrics. I was never a Christian, so I only know this from hearing the reports of others in the Atheopagan community. But I do find…
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Diversity and Community
In Atheopaganism, we believe in the elevation and development of each individual to be fully themselves. We celebrate the luminous spark of unique humanity in every member of our community. In order to do that, we have to be open to tremendous diversity in how Atheopaganism is expressed on a person by person basis. Your rituals, Focus, and the way you celebrate the wheel of the year will not look like mine, and that’s great! They should be as you find them meaningful, as you find them moving and transformative. This is markedly different than most other religious paths, which expect general conformity in practices, self-identification, often even dress and…
