O cold, inexorable darkness Draw back now beyond these circling walls. Should fear, and want, and danger walk It shall not be, it is not here. Let this place of warming light Bulwark against freezing night: a promise Holding through the day that we, come nightfall…
The Powers of an Atheopagan
They aren’t gods. They aren’t self-aware, and thus have no agency. They don’t communicate. They simply are. Irrefutably. And they are not “worshiped”. They have no egos with which to soak up adulation. They are here. They are real. They are honored, revered, contemplated with humility and wonder. They are the Powers…
We Die.
We’re going to die. All of us. Grappling with this fact may be the single most powerful factor in what it means to be human. It is so profound and unarguable a fact that every religion has to confront it in one way or another, and Atheopaganism must, as well. And while…
Harvest of Ashes: A Shadow Sabbath
It’s supposed to be a time of bounty: the gardens overflowing, the grapes coming in to be crushed, the hard blue sky of autumn whispering, “hurry, time’s a-wasting.” A time for feasting with friends and reveling in sunsets; a time for sporadic hints of the wild weather to come. But what…
The Truest Safety Net
I called my brother yesterday, for his birthday. I left a message. I haven’t heard from him in eighteen months…although I did the same thing last year, too. We last spoke in January of 2014. We aren’t estranged. At least, I don’t think we are. I think he’s at a…
Midsummer: The Sabbath of Ease
We’re now in the long, golden days of the Northern Hemisphere summer, approaching the very longest day: Midsummer. Historically, for those of us whose forebears are European, this was the time of year when grain crops were in the fields and not yet ready to harvest, but fruits and early…