Personal Reflection
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Bring Me That Horizon
In 2015, it was our home of 18 years being sold out from under us, and having to move, but having no money. In 2016, it was unemployment, deep depression and financial desperation. In 2017, it was the Tubbs wildfire, which evacuated us for 9 days, came within a half-block of burning our home, burned 20% of the city where I live, killed some unfortunates, and tanked our region’s economy. In 2018, it was the smoke of the Camp Fire that turned the sky black and the air unbreathable for days. More death. Paradise, California, erased from the Earth. In 2019, it was the Kincade Fire, which nearly eradicated the…
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In the Silken Air
At this time of year, I like to spend as much time without clothing as possible. The soft Spring air is delightful, caressing my body, and it just feels liberating and alive to be naked. Now, this isn’t for everyone, and I’m not saying it should be. You have to come to terms with the state of your body, which is a real challenge for some of us (not that their bodies aren’t fine as they are, but body-image issues are a real thing). I am a middle-aged man with a typical middle-aged man’s body, somewhat the worse for the COVID-19 (lbs.)’ weight gain over the past year. To be…
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Joy Hunt
It’s been a long time. I mean, a really long time. For many of us, since long before even the pandemic. Since we strode, or ran, or wheeled, or paddled into the wild, lungs gulping precious air, consumed with The Moment of Aliveness. Or, being unable to do any of those things, simply witnessed one of the many miracles of life on this exquisite Earth—a sunset or rise, a rainbow, a bolt of lightning, a crashing wave, a moonrise, snow falling, an aurora—and had our breath taken away. It’s more than a year now since our socialization, our group activities were taken from us. And I’m writing now to suggest…
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Post Five Hundred: Thank You
Once upon a time, on a laptop far, far away, a guy with some ideas posted an essay about them to Scribd. He sent it to some friends who had expressed interest in it, too. It was 2009. Among those friends, there were discussions. After awhile, too, there was a Facebook group dedicated to discussing the ideas. And that group started to grow. People the guy didn’t know started joining the group, expressing relief and joy at having found people of like mind. The ideas grew, too. The dude produced more materials fleshing out the ideas, and posted them as files to the Facebook group, along with long posts about…
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Why Paganism Hasn’t Failed…Yet.
John Halstead has written an article around a table lifted from the anthology Deep Green Resistance*. It’s a great piece: go ahead and read it. I’d say that’s about 2/3 of a perfect assessment of modern Paganism and the current Pagan community…at least in the US, where I am familiar with it. He’s not wrong, and his critiques are apt…painful and embarrassing as they may be for many American Pagans. John orients his piece around this table: Now, I think one of the most incisive and true critiques in this chart are that much of modern Paganism has “adolescent values of a youth movement”: black-and-white thinking, knee-jerk resistance to authorities…
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The Unthinkable
Because it has never happened before, we think it cannot be. And this is ironic, because we believe that in our aspirations and efforts, we can make what has never been. We know that with heart and work, we can make a better, kinder world. Unfortunately, those with awful values and hatred in their hearts also aspire and try. And with enough effort–and enough indulgence and blindness on the part of those who surround them–they, too, can make manifest. As happened on Wednesday in the murderous, seditious attack on the United States Capitol. There is much to say about this and it has been said elsewhere. I don’t need to…
