Atheology
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No, the Blood of the Ancients Does Not Run Through Our Veins
There is something pleasantly romantic about nostalgia. Particularly nostalgia for what has never been experienced: imagined times, long ago. I’m certainly prone to it. I love costuming and living history and reenactments and really good, period-accurate films and television series. Nemea and I enjoy throwing themed costume parties, and I go overboard in my efforts to make them like time travel, like going Somewhere or Somewhen Else for awhile. I think there is also something characteristically American about this propensity. The entirety of the American conservative movement, in fact, is built around a rosy imagined 1950s when things were “normal”—meaning, of course, they were good for middle class straight white men,…
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The Powers of an Atheopagan
They aren’t gods. They aren’t self-aware, and thus have no agency. They don’t communicate. They simply are. Irrefutably. And they are not “worshiped”. They have no egos with which to soak up adulation. They are here. They are real. They are honored, revered, contemplated with humility and wonder. They are the Powers of this world. Earth. Sky. Sun. Moon. River. Ocean. Mountain. Desert. Forest. Yes, we Atheopagans can speak to these. We can tip our heads forward to rest upon the cool rock, or plunge shrieking into the cold water or climb to the airy summit, knowing we are small and temporary and they are…well, also temporary, but large, and well out…
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We Die.
We’re going to die. All of us. Grappling with this fact may be the single most powerful factor in what it means to be human. It is so profound and unarguable a fact that every religion has to confront it in one way or another, and Atheopaganism must, as well. And while most religions—including most flavors of Paganism—promise that death is only temporary; that some future in an afterlife will be provided to the Faithful, I’m sorry, folks, but I’m not going to do that. We die. We really die. We simply have no credible evidence to the contrary. But is that, frightening as it may be, really all that terrible? I was…
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Harvest of Ashes: A Shadow Sabbath
It’s supposed to be a time of bounty: the gardens overflowing, the grapes coming in to be crushed, the hard blue sky of autumn whispering, “hurry, time’s a-wasting.” A time for feasting with friends and reveling in sunsets; a time for sporadic hints of the wild weather to come. But what are we to make of Harvest—of the autumnal equinox—when the crops have failed or burned? How do we celebrate plenty when we are bereft? How, in short, do we observe the Wheel of the Year when life isn’t cooperative with its narratives? When tragedy comes at High Spring, or birth at Hallows, or joblessness at Yule, how do we continue…
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In the Season of Fire
California, it is said, has four seasons: flood, mud, fire and earthquake. With fires raging and an unprecedentedly large El Nino forming for the coming winter, I suspect we’ll see a lot of the first three in the coming months. As to the fourth, who knows? As I write, the Valley Fire in Lake County has burned more than 40,000 acres and 1,000 homes, and has destroyed Harbin Hot Springs, a clothing-optional resort which was for many years the site of the Ancient Ways festival, a Pagan festival which once drew thousands of attendants. AW died out some years ago even as the other event produced by Glenn Turner, Pantheacon,…
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Atheopaganism and Learning to Love
As humans, we can’t really help but view many of our relationships as transactional: I give you X, and you give me Y. If I’m extra-good/nice/obedient, you may give me Z. It’s how we learn to relate to our parents, and sadly, many adult relationships are still based on a transactional model. If they were not, there would be no such thing as diamond jewelry. As Atheopagans, we understand that we are part of the broader Universe. We thus have relationships with one another and with the Universe as a whole. But we know that the Universe isn’t listening to us, judging us, expecting us to “evolve” or develop “wisdom”, or…
