-
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,…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
Cozy
Here in the northern hemisphere, it’s dark time now. Three weeks to the solstice, with lights going up on houses and cars with trees atop showing up in traffic, en route to home and decoration and love. There is the consumer frenzy of the Overculture, too, of course, but I avoid all that. We no longer give gifts–we have enough things, and when we really need something, we just buy it. We choose instead to have lovely experiences and celebrate a bunch of holiday observances, which are detailed here. As the skies darken and the days shorten, grow wetter and colder, I find myself drawn more and more towards comfy…
-
Now Comes the Tainted Holiday
It’s American Thanksgiving again. Time for turkey, stuffing, cranberries and cognitive dissonance. Like so much of the history of the United States of America, Thanksgiving is a happy smiley story layered over appalling crimes against humanity. Ask the Wampanoag what they feel about the meal they shared with white colonizers 400 years ago. It is not a happy, smiley story. They are not grateful for encountering those people, or for that day. And yet, part of me is so pulled to the concept of a holiday for gratitude. Which is, after all, one of the Atheopagan Principles. Shouldn’t we have one of those? Yes, I think we should. The Harvest…
