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…
Happy Yule!
May all of you enjoy a warm and nourishing Yule. May we all get through this darkest night feeling loved and safe. Wolcum Yule!…
Yule: The Light in the Darkness
It’s a very dark one this year. And, as for our ancestors, it promises to become darker and colder still in January, after the celebrating is long over. Our Sabbaths are rich with meaning. And sometimes that meaning persists beyond a season. We are about to go through a very,…
On the Edge of Darkness: Hallows Reflections 2016
It’s a gray, dim day here in Sonoma County, under a foreboding blanket of low and heavy clouds. Forecasts are for showers throughout the day; it’s one of those Halloweens where parents crane their necks and scowl at the sky throughout the day, wondering whether they’ll get away with a…
Harvest 2016
We’re coming up to Harvest this week. I’ll be having friends over to enjoy a feast of locally produced food and drink, which is how I like to celebrate this sabbath: as a kind of Atheopagan Thanksgiving. Last year, I wrote about the shadow sabbath: what happens when…
The Ecstasy of the Mosh Pit
I love punk rock. I was in high school at exactly the period that disco became a popular genre (which means that it was already dying in the gay bars and minority clubs where it had been born; by the time straight white people took it—because there was money to…