Ritual
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Hallows: A Compendium
I’ve written a lot about this time of year, this holiday, which I call Hallows. I’ve been celebrating it for decades. And every year at this time, I think about mortality, the cycle of death/decomposition/recomposition, ancestors, memory. The past, the inevitable future. The Big Picture. Dressing up creepy, or goofy, or sexy. Giving permission to people to let their wild side out. I think about all of it. I’m doing that this year, too. Updating my death packet, as I do every October. Rituals, and gatherings, and the wonderful creepy vibe. Candy for little monsters. Taking the whole ride. I’m even taking a week off, from Halloween through the actual…
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Ecstacy, Ritual, Transformation and Getting High
Fire circle rituals. Punk rock mosh pits. Raves. Ordeal rites. BDSM practices. And drugs, of course. State of consciousness is a function of brain operation, mostly through the varying levels of several key neurotransmitters (examples being the mood-regulating and executive-functioning neurotransmitters serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine). So to change our state of consciousness to an “alternative” one from our ordinary state of awareness, humans conduct activities like those listed above to alter the levels of these neurotransmitters, Why we do this is a mystery, but we clearly have a predilection for altered states of consciousness, from little children spinning around until they are dizzy to adults taking intoxicants, performing extreme feats…
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Mendicant Traditions and the Accumulation of Wealth
A mendicant is a beggar: a poor person who importunes others for money or other material support. In Pagandom, we remember many holiday traditions rooted in mendicant practices. This post is about the special wonders of traditions involving house-to-house beggary, and the deeper meanings associated with many of them. I’m thinking about these traditions, and what they mean. What their function is. But to start with, let’s look at them! First and most famously, there is Wassailing in England: the homes and the orchards. As well as… Thomasing in England: The former custom of going from house to house on St Thomas’s day (December 21) to beg for small gifts…
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It’s Even More Important Now
It’s a natural impulse: what, right now, is the damned point?* What’s the point of spirituality, of religion? What’s the point of personal rituals and seasonal celebrations, of rites of passage? With things as they are, why bother with things like mythopoetic expression? And I am here to tell you that at such times, it’s more important than ever to conduct our rites and to build community around our shared values. Here’s why. First of all, it is the #1 assignment for those of us who embrace values like the Atheopagan Principles that we persist. Even the most evil regimes have not lasted forever. We have to carry the torch…
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It’s Time to Make Your Atheopagan “Advent” Calendar!
A crafting project for a fun countdown to Midwinter, the winter solstice. Check it out! Instructions, images to paste behind the windows of your calendar, and complementary teaching guide are all here.
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What We Turn Back into the Soil, Redux: A Guided Visualization
I improvised this guided meditation for the Atheopagan Saturday Zoom Mixer’s Hallows ritual on the theme I wrote about here, and people liked it so I thought I would write it down before I forgot it. First, get comfortable. Take a deep breath and feel that life-giving oxygen like a wave running from your chest out to the tips of your fingers and toes, the top of your head. If you’re comfortable with it, close your eyes–if not, just lower them so light becomes dim. You find yourself in the woods at night, at the foot of a hill. A warm wind whirls and gusts around you, unseasonably warm and…
