Ritual
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On Spiritual Burnout and Bypassing
Sometimes, the ways and events of the world can weigh you down. Over the past 18 months or so, we have seen a LOT of that, what with the pandemic and the various awfulness happening in the news. I know things are starting to get to me when I am less drawn to my Focus (altar), less motivated to do my spiritual practices. It’s ironic, because spirituality is the cultivation of a feeling of meaning, awe, connectedness and joy, and you’d think we’d go running for that when times are hard. Some do. I’m just not one of them. Instead, my tendency is to lean into what’s the damned point,…
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GUEST POST: Playing with the Senses During Ritual
by Eloise Martel Something I find useful to immerse into the ritual experience (especially when you start and you don’t really know what to begin with) is playing with the 5 senses: Sight, Hearing, Touch, Smell, and Taste. Playing with the senses can trigger specific memories and help you achieve your goal during the ritual. You can find correspondences (herbs, days, colours, stones etc.) in almost all the 101 witchy books, but don’t forget to ask yourself what associations make sense to you personally. If the goal during the ritual is to make yourself feel certain things, what you are going to use has to speak to you. Sight: Many…
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Riffs on a Meme: Enchanting the Mundane
Today, in the weekly Atheopagan Zoom mixer gathering, I was exposed to an Internet meme that really resonated. It is this: This is so completely an Atheopagan approach to life! Turning pedestrian tasks into romantic and thrilling adventures is a way to add happiness and joy, and to retool our mental approach to them to enhance our motivation and focus. Nothing supernatural required: just a reframing and a playful approach. Currently, I am stuck on trying to get a new job. I’m still so burned by what happened at the last one that I haven’t been able to bring myself even to update my resume yet. But I have to…
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Confronting Our Demons: A Guide to Atheopagan “Demonology”
This article draws heavily on concepts suggested by my friend Hummingbear in an essay he provided to me more than 25 years ago. I no longer have the essay, and he lost it in a computer disaster, but this is my riff on his basic concepts. Thanks, Hummingbear! Our Atheopagan approach to “magic” is that it is psychological: we do rituals to change our consciousness, address our issues, heal our wounds and focus our intentions. We understand that this does not change the physical world, but it changes our internal worlds, and by so doing can lead us to make substantive changes in our lives. Most (but not all) Atheopagans…
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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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Invitation to the Sacred Fire
I invite you, friends. Come with me to a place of celebration. The forest stands, ancient. It is night. The tents and pavilions have been set: your bed awaits you if you want to go. It is midnight. And you don’t want to go there. None of us does. The scent of the damp earth and the old wood, stained with a little smoke, perfumes the air. All is dark save the odd candle, the odd lantern that marks the trail to the Place. There are drums. Incredible drums, rising and falling, pounding into ecstasy, diminishing into intense, near-silent fervent rhythms. The drums call us to the torch-circled Place. The…
