Personal Reflection
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Embracing Joy in Dark Days
Where I live, we are right at the fractal edge of spring: winter is stuttering, and between rains come bright, fresh days in the 70s, rich with the scent of flowering trees and lush grass. There is no doubt: the Wheel has turned. Winter has run its course. It’s days like these when the urge to be outside is almost irresistible: to breathe that scent, stretch out my limbs and welcome the warmth of the long-gone sun. To walk in shirtsleeves and feel that sensuous, liquid air flowing around me. It’s heady stuff, and it conjures forth optimism and energy. Things are looking up! Then I see a headline. And…
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Between Worlds
It’s a thing many Pagans say: “We are between the worlds”. It signifies that within the contained context of ceremonial ritual, we are apart from the mundane—that we are somehow outside of the natural world, and suspended in a space wherein all is possible. Where magic can happen. It isn’t something I say. I know that whether or not I have drawn the circle or otherwise created the felt sense of a container of sacred ritual space, I am still in the natural world, which is the only world there is. Many things are possible there, but not all. We are constrained by physics, by the nature of sacred Reality.…
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Green Shoots
The light is returning, and after torrential rains, I am enjoying a day of sparkling sun here in Northern California. The hills are emerald green this winter—a dramatic shift from the sickly yellow of the drought years. What a relief. A week from this evening, I and friends will be leading a ritual at Pantheacon, the largest gathering of Pagans in North America. I’m nervous, and wildly focusing on memorizing the outline and my parts, but I’m also really excited. It’ll be great to see friends I don’t usually get to see, and to hang out with some of my most loved people. Despite the national horror show, I feel…
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Reflections on a Rainy Day
Thankfully, it appears California has dodged drought conditions this winter. Heavy streams of moisture-laden tropical air have been pouring over us, delivering the life-giving blessing of water. It is indeed the season I celebrate as Riverain, historically the wettest time of year around here, and in the squishy sodden turf and puddles and lovely pouring wetness I see blessing and joy. How crisp and clean the air is! How cozy to duck indoors as it steadily falls! Elsewhere, of course, it is still dry, even in parts of California. Or buried under snow, which is its own deep and mysterious magic. But I was born and spent my first years in…
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Care and Feeding of the Atheopagan Activist
If you’ve flown, you’ve heard the direction: first, fit your own mask. Then assist those next to you with theirs. It’s good advice in these times, when we are called to service and protest and activism. Compelling as it is to pour service into the oppressed, the threatened, the victimized, we simply must keep ourselves going or we will be unable to serve as completely and for as long as we might wish. This is at least a four-year marathon, folks. We must sustain ourselves, because all kinds of hell are coming down the pipe, and we’re going to be up to our waists in it soon enough. Here are some…
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The Wheel Turns
The days are a bit longer now. The area where I live has been beset by storm after blessed storm, so-called “atmospheric rivers” pouring onshore to deluge the parched land of California. We smile beneath our rain hoods and grumble cheerfully about knotted traffic. And despite the dark, pendulous clouds, it is palpable: the days grow longer. It isn’t December any more. Meanwhile, of course, the greater Darkness we knew was coming after November 8 is now manifesting itself. The petulant toddler we have elected is swinging a wrecking ball in every direction, cheerfully making a mess of all that is decent. This will continue. The wheels are turning: astronomical forces…
