Descriptions
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GUEST POST: A Memorable Mabon
A guest post by Sue Irwin In 2016, after a lifetime of religious affiliation, I walked away from it all. I became an atheist. Although it took me several months to realize it, I was a new atheist with a hole. I was a new atheist with desires. Freed from the mental and financial shackles of the organized religion I’d been born into, I realized I could do anything that I wanted to do. For someone raised in an oppressive religion, this thought is life changing. And what did I want to do? Two things topped my agenda. First, I wanted to read anything and everything I’d missed in all…
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GUEST RITUAL: Annual Lascaux Cave Rediscovery Celebration
This ritual was proposed by Michael Halloran of the Atheopagan Facebook group and perfected through input of other members of the group. Perform this ritual every September 12 to commemorate the accidental finding of this French cave in 1940. Objective: Celebrate the rediscovery of this impressive prehistoric cathedral as a community. Since most people can’t visit caves like this, and it’s often actively discouraged in order to preserve the works of art, this is a way to learn a little history, connect with the past, and have some fun as a community or family. You could use this as a lead up to your autumnal equinox celebration, since it takes…
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An Atheopagan Tarot Spread
I have written before about “divination” and particularly the use of complex symbol systems such as runes or Tarot cards in Atheopaganism. We can use these symbol sets to access our intuitive and subconscious understandings of our situations, despite the fact that the arrangement of the cards (runes, bones, tea leaves, etc.) is random. When reading Tarot, what I am always looking for is that sense of deep recognition: when a particular card in a particular position just feels wise and right and true. I have long since divested myself of the commonplace “Celtic Cross” layout which is the most commonly taught layout for the cards, and thought today I…
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With Both Hands in Grave Dirt
‘Tis the season for we Pagany/witchy types. There is an entire aesthetic we—or most of us, anyway—enjoy that has a brief moment in the waning sun each year, and this is it. Now, as Atheopagans, we don’t believe in ghosts or spirits or Dark God/desses. But that doesn’t matter: there is plenty of rich fodder for ritual, for reflection, and for psychological transformation at this time of year. We’ve all been hurt. We’ve all suffered loss. And we have only to look out to the world around us to find ample and overflowing reason for rage, for sorrow and for lament. Bones, skulls, graves and funerary ceremonies are powerful images…
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UNFROZEN: A Ritual for Getting Unstuck
Call it anxiety or procrastination or what have you*, life often grips many of us in a tense paralysis wherein we know we must act, we have obligations and deadlines and must-dos, but we just can’t move. It is a terrifying feeling: to watch the sand dripping through the glass and yet not be able to make one’s self do what must be done. It can affect every aspect of a human life. It’s crippling. What it’s about, fundamentally, is how the brain processes dopamine, the neurotransmitter of initiative and reward, but also of dread and anxiety. Personally, I have problems producing dopamine. I take medications to keep my dopamine levels elevated, because…
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Patriotism and Ritual Cleansing
It’s the 4th of July: Independence Day in the U.S., a time of patriotic celebration. I am a patriot. By that, I mean that I 1) love the land, water, air, creatures and people of the United States, and want the best for them; 2) I am well familiar with and do not deny the historical and current moral failings of this country, and seek to improve our record and behavior going forward. I do not mean that I cheer lead the American Empire, nor that I jingoistically hail flags, weapons, militarism or the idea that the United States is somehow superior to all other nations, all metrics contradicting this…
