Personal Reflection
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Some Language I’m Not Going to Use Any More: An Apology
This post is an apology. It has now been more than two years since I waded into the broader online Pagan conversation on behalf first of myself, and then of what has turned out to be the many Pagans who do not believe in literal gods. In those early days, the posts of myself and others like John Halstead and John Cleland Host were received in some quarters with bitter hostility. As a result, I became defensive. And when I’m defensive, I’m often acerbic. “Hard theists” and I aren’t going to agree cosmologically. We have fundamental disputes over the nature of the Universe itself, and those cannot be reconciled. However,…
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Coming Home to Atheopaganism
Honestly, it’s the most heartwarming thing. Because I know the feeling so well: the feeling that I’m the only one, that there must be something wrong with it. That I must have missed something. When I first discovered Paganism in the mid-1980s, an opening in my heart signalled that I was discovering a part of myself that had always been missing. The reverence for the Earth, the seasonal ritual celebrations, the core values, the warm community spoke to me of all that I had longed for without even knowing it. I was swept with love, and it was only after many years of slowly accumulating experiences of dysfunction and willfully…
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In the Time of Gathering Shadows
These days are hard. Not just the Orlando massacre. Not just the awful depths to which our political dialogue have descended. Not just the prospect of a preening narcissist with complete inability to control his impulses as a potential President of the most powerful nation on Earth. There is the dying of the oceans. The warming of the atmosphere. The not-so-slow roll of the Anthropocene as it snuffs out precious species by the handful, day after day. Beauty is leaving. Harmony is leaving. We can see the future, and it is hard. As atheists, we steel ourselves to look at the world as it is, and not as we would have it.…
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Considering the Moon
What does the Moon mean to an Atheopagan? Well, to this one, at least, the Moon is the bringer of “magic light”. Low light conditions tend to damp down the activity of the pre-frontal cortex of the brain, enhancing the role of the limbic system in consciousness. In moonlight, we are more likely to feel attentive, emotional and alive in the Present moment rather than trailing off into our thoughts. The same is true of candlelight or firelight–though the flickering of flame is a different quality than the serene calmness of moonlight. There’s a reason why gathering under the full Moon is associated with witches and Pagans. A landscape bathed…
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Thank you
Just wanted to chime in here to say that y’all are great. Really: that’s all I want to say. The community of people who have participated here and on the Facebook Atheopaganism page is a joy to me. We have interesting and civil conversations, we share compelling information and thought-provoking articles, and we share the many ways in which we are pursuing non-theistic Pagan pathways. I suspect that as the various flavors and labels of non-theistic Paganism—Atheopaganism, humanistic Paganism, naturalistic Paganism, mythopoetic Pantheism, e.g.—become recognized as a natural part of the Pagan community, groups made up explicitly of our kind will begin to coalesce to practice together, and that’s a great thing.…
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Making Peace with “Energy”
Something I had a hard time getting used to when I first entered the Pagan community was constant bandying of the word “energy”. “The energy was strong,” a person might say after a ritual. Or, “she has really bright energy”. Or, “we’re going to ‘send healing energy’ to Bob”. Or, “there was a lot of sexual energy in the room”. Or, worst of all, that a ritual tool was “filled with energy”. Many Pagans use the term as if it were physical: as if “energy” were a force or substance which can be generated and directed, with which “magical” objects may be imbued, and which inhabits persons, creatures, and inanimate objects. It is spoken of…
