Personal Reflection
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May Eve, the Darkness Before the Splendor
So it’s Walpurgisnacht, the night before May Day. Traditionally, a sort of transposed Hallows, with ghosts and spirits loose in the world before the brilliant dawn of the May. I sometimes think of May Day as the dawning of the World. There is something so grand and magnificent about dawn at this time of year, with the bird chorus and dew-spangled grasses, the cool-but-not-cold that will fade to kissed-skin temperate breezes. It’s luscious, and filled with wonderful memories for me. This year, May morning will fall squarely in the midst of the work week and there is exciting stuff happening at work that I must attend to, so I won’t…
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Against the Golden Age
So, we were talking about “origin myths” in one of the Atheopagan community Zoom mixers the other day. And Mícheál, who is a member of the Atheopagan Society Council, suggested–somewhat facetiously–something like this for much of mainstream Paganism: Long ago, people lived in peaceful, egalitarian matriarchal/matrifocal societies that revered the Earth Goddess in many forms*. Since then, patriarchy has poisoned the relationship between humans and the Earth, subjugated women and created war. We must get back to that prior way of being. Now, this is grossly oversimplified, of course. But it is, at root, the story that many Pagans have told themselves, and often still do. Some still extend the…
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April 8, a Red-Letter Day!
Monday, April 8 will be a day that a lot of people will remember as the Solar Eclipse of 2024. With the path of totality passing over a region housing more than 31 million, it will be a shared experience that many will hold for the rest of their lives. I with I could be one of them. We’ll have a partial eclipse here in California, but the path of totality is far away and I can spare neither the time nor money to get there right now. Too bad, because the next North American total solar eclipse won’t be until the 2040s. I’m likely not to be around by…
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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…
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Keeping Cool Stuff in Ornate Containers
Maybe this is where it all started. I remember, when I was very young, perhaps seven or eight, I read one of those stories about an Olde Curiosity Shoppe that appears, sells something Unusual to the protagonist, and then was gone when he went back to find it again. The shoppe was full of stuff. Cool stuff, in strange dusty bottles and jars and boxes (some of which had eerie sounds coming from within). I loved the sound of that place. I wanted to go to there and root through all the weird, magical things. It started with a brass oil lamp, like an Alladin-style lamp I bought in Spain.…
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New Title, Better Boundaries
If you’re familiar with this site, you may have noticed that the title has changed. Now, it is “Mark Green’s Atheopaganism Blog”. That’s to make it clear that the thoughts, opinions, ideas, and resources presented here are mine. Not necessarily those of the nonprofit Atheopagan Society, which is administered by a Council on which I have one of thirteen seats. We are evolving and growing as a community, and it is deeply important to me that Atheopaganism not be “mine”. So this is a step to ensure that the community and its collective activities are directed by itself, not by me, and that includes speech. Nothing will change here, content-wise.…
