Mark Green's Atheopaganism Blog

Living an Earth-Honoring Path Rooted in Science

Pleasure as a Sacred Experience

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…

Read More

Just do it.

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…

Read More

The Sabbath of Water

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…

Read More

Mulled Wine

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…

Read More

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…

Read More

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…

Read More