Personal Reflection
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A Subtle Art, the Medium of Which is Emotion
She was lifting the curtain, looking down from the window in her Civil War blouse, jacket and hoop skirt. Outside, a wagon bearing a flag-draped casket was drawn forward by black horses, flanked with erect soldiers. Suddenly, it was 1865. I was 6, and touring the Custis-Lee Mansion at Arlington National Cemetery with my family. And that tiny moment when a costumed docent lifted the curtain on the scene below transported me back in time, began a lifelong fascination with other eras, living history, modes of dress from other times. It was a feeling, a particular and very specific emotional sense, and I was riveted by that: that in a moment, my sense of where (and when)…
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Eggs and Sprouts
Reflecting here, on a mild day shortly after High Spring, on the currents of newness that have come to and through my life in the past few months. Feeling grateful. For better or worse, my life will change significantly in the next few months. I hope it is for the better, and what better time for hope than the Spring? Here are some of the Eggs I am incubating and the Sprouts I see emerging, already born and angling towards the Sun. Egg: With some luck, I will be starting a new job soon. If it’s the one I hope for, I’ll be working for a great organization with an exciting…
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Why Pagan Temples? A Not-Very-Good Reason.
John Halstead over at Patheos published a great series entitled “Why Church is No Substitute for Religion”, in the final episode of which he concludes that we need to be making our sacred places on an ad hoc and constantly-renewed basis, rather than focusing on buying land and building structures. He points out—quite correctly—that when your entire planet is “the special place”, it’s a bit odd to focus a lot of attention and resources on building and maintaining one particular building. But as I look around the Pagan community, that’s what I see people trying to do. Quite a lot, actually. There’s the Matraeum of Cybele in Catskill, New York. There’s…
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Reflections on Year One: Atheopaganism as Forward-Looking Religion
It is now about a year since I first made my essay, “How I Became an Atheopagan” widely available on the net, and since the Atheopaganism Facebook group became active. It has been exciting and gratifying to see the amount of interest and growth in Atheopaganism over the past year. I created this path for myself and thought some of my friends might be interested; I had no idea that the core precepts and ritual approach of Atheopaganism would resonate for people across the globe. In the past year, I’ve learned a lot about this religion I helped to midwife–among many lessons, that there are plenty of others who are also…
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On Pagan Institutions and Representation
N.B.: This is an “inside baseball” piece addressing the current controversy within the Pagan community over whether or not it is a good idea for Pagans to emulate other religions in creating organizations, institutions, and perhaps even credentialing for clergy or other leadership. As such, this may not be of interest to Atheopagans who do not consider themselves to be a part of the Pagan community. I have written before on Paganism modeling itself on mainstream Abrahamic religions; specifically, on Pagan conceptualization of a “top-down”/parental model of the Universe, and of the creation of modern Paganism with an assumption that in order to be a religion, a path must contain a…
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The Pagan World is Different (Adult)
This post is really meant most for those who have come to check out Atheopaganism from the atheist/skeptic community. Thus far, the material on this blog has all been “family-friendly” from the standpoint of mainstream Western society. Even my post on the 10th Principle was more cautionary than encouraging, though at its core is encouragement that people take pleasure in the sensory experiences they encounter in life. This reflects a goal on my part: I want Atheopaganism to be an inviting path for those coming from the skeptic/atheist community as much as it can be for those coming from the Pagan community. While much of the Pagan community is cheerfully open…
