As I practice and have described it, the tenth Principle of Atheopaganism is responsible sensuality: the cultivation of pleasure for its own sake, so long as in doing so we are not harming others or the Earth. It’s May Day weekend, that sexy festival of fertility and…
Shame. It impedes so much. It’s easy to succumb to the impulse to think that it’s something to be overcome, and that’s the end of it. Freedom, eh? And yet… Someone completely without shame is a sociopath. Shame is a guide. It can help us to understand how best to fit…
Words have power. In ritual—even solitary ritual—the spoken word can move, inform, reinforce, set intention and make more “real” what is not yet real. By speaking and hearing words, our minds are reshaped around their meanings, and we begin to believe, just a little bit more, that they are true.
I hate that this empowering phrase has been coopted by a sweatshop-operating shoe company, but I’m not going to let them have it, either. This post is about getting your practice going, and keeping it going. Paganism–including Atheopaganism–is something you do. It isn’t just about having a particular worldview, although worldviews…
In my Wheel of the Year, the cross-quarter which lands around the beginning of February is Riverain: the Feast of Water. That’s because where I live, in Northern California with its Mediterranean climate, that time of year is the heaviest with rainfall. The mountains grow emerald green with winter grass, the…
It begins where the smoke hits your eyes: smouldering peat, Mutton stew on a broad iron hook, Deep snow. How can it ever have been summer? Apples wrinkling and mice in the barley— With so much to fear, thank fortune for company! We’ll tell our…
