Atheopagan
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Talking to Kids about the Cycle of Seasons
A guest post by Editor B. This past equinox marks the seventh year running that I’ve come in to my daughter’s school to talk to her class about the cycle of seasons. I started in 2012, when my daughter was in Pre-K. She and most of her classmates were four years old then. I’ve come in for every equinox and solstice since. Now my daughter is ten years old and in fifth grade. I’ve given some version of this presentation 25 times now, and these kids have grown up before my eyes. There have been some changes over the years, and also some persistent themes. I started off by reading…
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Themes for Atheopagan “Welcoming” Gatherings
This past weekend, a handful of us threw a successful Atheopagan gathering for the Harvest Sabbath. Not everyone there was an Atheopagan. Not everyone there had even heard of Atheopaganism. But we ate and drank and socialized and circled together, and a good time was had by all. And isn’t that the point? Where I’m going with this is that wherever you live, there may not be self-identified Atheopagans to gather with. Not right away, at least. But there are people: folks who might very well enjoy a seasonal gathering with a theme, socializing and food, and a short acknowledgement of the meanings of the season in ritual form. Those folks may find,…
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A Warm, Relaxed Gathering for Harvest
Due to the low turnout for Moon Meet 2018, those of us in attendance at that event had a discussion about how best to make local Atheopagan in-person events more accessible and attractive. Some of our conjectures were that it was asking too much to expect people to come for a multiple-day event for their first gathering with us, and that the site for Moon Meet was too remote for some of the prospective attendees. I mention these concerns because we are a far-flung community, distributed across the globe. Any lessons we learn can be used in creating your own events and gatherings*. Accordingly, three of us planned a Harvest gathering…
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Join Us for a Harvest Celebration!
If you’re in the San Francisco Bay Area in the United States, we welcome you to join us for a potluck Harvest celebration on Sept. 22! It will be held from 2 to 6 pm at the Orchard Picnic Area in Tilden Park, Berkeley. Bring a potluck dish to share and something to drink*, your own plates, cups and cutlery, and any items you would like to place on the group Focus to represent your harvested achievements for this year. One of the lessons we learned from Moon Meet this year is to hold events that require less of a time and logistical commitment, so we’re doing Harvest this year in…
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A Virtual Hug
A little more than two years ago, I wrote a celebration of the feeling of “coming home” that has so frequently characterized people’s responses as they join the Atheopagan community. Since then, the Atheopaganism Facebook group has doubled in size. We have had amazing, informative, stimulating and heartfelt conversations, which have generally remained civil even on fraught subjects. We have supported each other in difficult times. It’s been awhile, so I just want to say how appreciative I am—and how proud—of the community of folks who have gathered around these ideas, this blog and the Facebook group. It helps me stay motivated to continue writing and creating, to continue strategizing ways we can…
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What If We Are Screwed?
John Halstead very eloquently and thoroughly puts the question to us in his post “’Everything is Going According to Plan’”: Being an Activist in the Anthropocene”. Take time to read the whole thing. It’s well worth it. So really: what if it’s simply too late for any kind of peaceful transition to a sustainable post-disastrous civilization, and a messy and bloody collapse of industrial capitalism and Earth biodiversity in the context of skyrocketing global warming is now firmly set on course? It could be true. It may very well be true. What does this mean to us as Atheopagans, when we state explicitly that it is a part of our ethos to…
