Mendicant Traditions and the Accumulation of Wealth

Posted on 2025-05-28 by Mark Green

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 (usually ingredients for Christmas dinner, such as flour). To the west there is…

The Mari Llwd Christmas tradition in southern Wales, with a horse-skull-headed hobby horse engaging in rap battles. And…

Trick or Treating in the United States, which is rather similar to…

Easter Witches in Sweden and Finland.

But it isn’t just the winter months that have mendicant traditions! Palm Sunday is the day for virvonta in Finland, one of those traditions where you can’t easily parse out the pagan and Christian origins. Children decorate twigs (traditionally willow twigs) and go door to door handing them out and blessing the recipients in exchange for treats. The traditional blessing goes like: “I wave a twig for a fresh and healthy year ahead; a twig for you, a treat for me!” (“Virvon varvon, tuoreeks terveeks, tulevaks vuodeks; vitsa sulle, palkka mulle!”).

There are many more such traditions, and not only in Europe. Places like the Philippines have their own door-to-door ways.

But what is the point of all this? Is it just fun and games for the sake of the seasons?

I don’t think so. I think that fundamentally, mendicant traditions are about gestures at redistribution of wealth.

Nature doesn’t just abhor a vacuum. Nature also abhors accumulated excesses of wealth.

Think about it: when we grow a garden, creatures of every sort will try their best to eat it. When we store tons of grain, likewise: flying creatures, scurrying creatures, climbing creatures, burrowing creatures will all take their shot at a share of the big prize.

Nature uses this function sometimes: in the creation of sweet fruit to help distribute seeds, or nectar in flowers to accomplish pollination. But those aren’t vast, unnatural accumulations of food like humans create through agriculture or mass hunting events. We’re pretty unique in that regard.

And nature will do its best to steal whatever it can from that unnatural mother lode and redistribute it.

Accumulation of vast sums of wealth is not a natural behavior. The impulse–to save–makes sense. Squirrels and acorn woodpeckers and other creatures do it.

But not huge, vast amounts of wealth so large that the creature could never possibly use it. That’s pathological, not natural.

I’ll say it again: the compulsion to hoard vast sums of wealth is pathological.

Now, I’m not talking about people whose worth is mostly a house and a retirement fund.

I’m talking about people who have hundreds of millions, and lust after more.

Billionaires, with very few exceptions, are pathological.

When there are huge disparities in resource availability, redistribution mechanisms will evolve. Ranging from the taking of blood by mosquitoes to human revolutions, they will occur.

Mendicant traditions are safety valves. By exercising a little “generosity”, the wealthy blunt the impulse of the poor simply to overthrow them and take their wealth.

And so, social order is maintained…which suits the wealthy, who created it, just perfectly of course.

So here we are, in late-stage capitalism wherein half of the wealth of the planet is held by 1,000 individuals, and the rest is headed there fast. Because that, after all, is what capitalism is for: to funnel wealth created by those who have only their labor to sell to those who have capital to invest with.

To create “more”, and ensure it ends up in the hands of those who already have more than enough.

I find mendicant traditions quaint and charming. They’re often whimsical, humorous, fun.

But the sequestration of wealth when there is so much deprivation in the world? That’s not humorous, whimsical, or fun.

That’s deadly serious. And pathological.

And sooner or later, something is going to give.

Because nature abhors those empty stomachs.

And those piles of wealth.

Posted in Opinion, Practice, Ritual | 2 Comments

Gone A-Maying

Posted on 2025-04-27 by Mark Green

Joyous, pleasurable, a little transgressive, and underneath all that, sacred.

That’s May Day to me.

Historically in Europe, May Day was the beginning of summer–the time when freezes were generally over and spring foliage was leafing out. It was the time of the custom of “going a-Maying”, wherein young adults would go into the forests to “gather wildflowers” and get some unsupervised time together. It was a wink-nudge practice and everyone was in on the joke, so there are many ribald poems, songs and stories about it:

Now is the month of Maying
When merry lads are playing
Each with his bonnie lass
A-dancing on the grass

So the coming of summer also meant an opportunity to slip out from under the watchful gaze of Mum and Dad for some sexytime–fun!

Here where I live, the oaks are bright with their new green foliage, the wisteria along my back fence are blooming with that delicious scent, and the dogwood tree out my bedroom window is blooming. Fruit trees are in bloom and the hills remain a rich green, soon to convert to gold as the grasses go to seed and die.

In my Atheopagan wheel of the year, May Day is a time that celebrates young adulthood: sexy, brash, a little foolish and naive, filled with energy. A time of grand aspirations and big ideas, however impractical; often, new things are accomplished because their creators were too green to know they were impossible.

This is the time of life when most of us are conceived: each a new and unique manifestation of the Universe. It is a time of exploring the possible, of extreme creative flow.

Once upon a time, for me it was also a great time of year to find some out-of-the-way place in nature for some outdoor sex. Given proper precautions (like a blanket and a careful eye out for ticks), this can be wonderful fun. It’s been years, but those are good memories.

Of course if you are asexual or simply not doing that at this time, there are alternatives for celebrating the season. It’s not all about sex.

So I encourage you to be thinking about all that creative juice, the wild sap of late spring rising in everything: what do you want to make? How can you find some deep, restorative pleasure at this time?

If it has a message, the season of Maying’s voice says: “Enjoy! Create! Aim high! And GET OUTSIDE!”

The time of budding-out is gorgeous in the temperate zones of the northern hemisphere, just as the drawing-down of the year is beautiful in the south. Take time to get out into nature, breathe some fresh air–there is a sanity to nature that will help you to surf these turbulent times.

For myself, I am going to a Beltane celebration this weekend, on Pagan land north of me which is always magnificent at this time of year. It’s been more than 20 years since I last went; in fact, it was on this land that I had the negative experience that led me to withdraw from Paganism and to begin the inquiries and explorations that resulted in my original essay on Atheopaganism. But the person who caused that negative experience–and a number of others–now lives far away, and will not be present this weekend; I will be able to dance around the Maypole without twinges of anger or recrimination.

It now occurs to me: I should be grateful to him. If not for his abuses, I would not have embarked on this journey of Atheopaganism, and would not have met this incredible community of people.

So there is that. Atheopagan Principle #5: Perspective, and a sense of humor.

That’s May Day for you: learning something new, taking on a fresh perspective, being bold with your heart.

I hope yours is lovely, however you celebrate.

Posted in Holidays | Tagged | Leave a comment

Create Your Own Atheopagan Gathering!

Posted on 2025-04-05 by Mark Green

What I know is this: the gatherings are lovely. Good people, good humor, intelligent conversation, kind values. The kind of people I am proud to call friends.

The Atheopagan Society has now produced two in-person events for Atheopagans: the Suntree Retreats, in Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA. We do them every two years*.

The Suntree Retreats and the in-person gatherings of my local Atheopagan affinity group are precious to me because of how they feel. When I am there, I feel seen and open and surrounded by people who interest and inspire me. Nice as Zoom gatherings are, there is nothing like hanging out with people in person.

Recently, while attending the Zoom Mixers on Saturday mornings and Thursday evenings (see the Facebook group and Discord server for times and links) I have heard a lot of talk about organizing regional or local gatherings so people can meet up with one another more frequently.

I think this is a wonderful idea!

So this post is to provide some help with creating such events. It doesn’t have to be super-complicated and even simple events can be really enjoyable.

Here are the elements of a successful event:

  • Scheduling
  • Location
  • Food and drink
  • Activities

Scheduling

I find that a long weekend is a good length for an event: from midday or afternoon Friday to midday Monday. Knowing when you are doing an event is of course the requirement for reserving a place where you can do it. Give yourself plenty of time in advance so your venue doesn’t book up.

Locations

These do not have to be fancy! I once planned a Pagan campout called Midsummer Dawn at the group campground of a local state park. It was just a simple weekend camping trip with a plan for a ritual on Saturday night; I’m sure it would have been great fun if COVID hadn’t come along and shut everything down. I charged $10-30 per person to cover the cost of the campsite and a communal meal.

Considerations for locations include expense; accessibility (both for the disabled and in terms of distance from population centers attendees will come from); proximity to major roads and/or airports; and amenities like a pool, hot tub or hiking trails. Options range from group campgrounds to rental cabins, short-term rental houses (such as AirBnBs), even hotels or retreat centers. But simple and affordable is often easiest; costs can be shared among attendees and there is something wonderful about camping out together. Be sure to consider privacy if you want to do rituals together. Collect fees in advance to pay for the venue; you can use services like EventBrite or SignUpGenius.

Food and Drink

Food for these events falls into four broad categories: bring-your-own, potluck, communal, and catered. The last, of course, is by far the most expensive.

Bring-your-own is the easiest for the event organizer: people simply take responsibility for their own food, and that’s it. But it can be more enjoyable to share a meal by having everyone bring a potluck dish (assign snacks, salads, entrees and desserts) for at least one of the meals during the event. These approaches can be hybridized: bring your own breakfasts and lunches, for example, but potluck for collective dinners.

Communal meals are also enjoyable to prepare, but require buying groceries in advance to make sure you have everything, and will therefore increase the cost of the event. Simple menu items that can still make for enjoyable meals must take into consideration that some people have dietary restrictions, so the best options are select-your-own buffets like breakfast, sandwich and taco bars. There is more information on food options in the Atheopagan Gathering Planning Guide.

As for drink, it’s up to you whether or not alcohol is permitted at your event. If it is, I tend to limit it to beer, wine, cider and mead, and not hard alcohol. Merry, but not sloppy.

Activities

It is good to plan some activities for these gatherings, but be sure to leave a lot of free time to give people a chance for some alone time and to hang out with one another. If children are to attend, be sure to have activities for them, too.

Craft workshops such as mask- or rattle-making, bardic circles (a “talent show” in which attendees share their music, writing, crafts or other creative products), storytelling, group games, and Atheopagan rituals are all activities that fit well in an Atheopagan gathering. Often the rituals are the “big events” for Saturday and Sunday nights, especially if there is the ability to have a campfire**.

Here is an example schedule for a simple campout:

  • Arrive Friday afternoon and set up camp
  • Potluck dinner, early evening
  • Clean up after dinner
  • Light campfire and opening ritual
  • Icebreaker game
  • Bardic circle
  • Saturday breakfast (bring your own)
  • Assemble sandwiches for lunch (communal sandwich bar)
  • Clean up breakfast and lunch
  • Unstructured time (possible hike or walk)
  • Storytelling circle in late afternoon (nap or hangout for those not interested)
  • Communal taco bar dinner
  • Clean up dinner
  • Unstructured time, prep for ritual (face painting, costuming, etc.)
  • Saturday night ritual around the fire (bring drums and rattles!)
  • Sunday morning breakfast (bring your own)
  • Clean up breakfast, strike camp
  • Final closing and gratitude circle
  • Hugs and goodbyes

A weekend like this will be a joyous and memorable occasion, be it for ten people or 50. If that sounds like too much structure to you, strip more out! The event is for you and your fellow attendees, however you would like to conduct it.

I hope to see more in-person Atheopagan gatherings happening soon, and to meet you at one of them!

*In the intervening years we do a virtual conference, the Atheopagan Web Weaving: the next one is coming up on June 13-15 of this year. This is an affordable (sliding scale, and none turned away for lack of funds) online gathering on Zoom with workshops, socializing, a keynote speaker and more. If you are interested in presenting at the conference, there is still time to propose a presentation here. Please share your practices, lore, knowledge and fun!

**DO NOT ever leave a campfire unattended. Put it out thoroughly at the end of each evening’s fire circle.

Posted in Events | Leave a comment

Sacred Turbulence

Posted on 2025-03-02 by Mark Green

I have a predilection for watching trees sway in wind.

Understanding that under the hypnotic dance, swaying resiliently against the buffets of air, there is extraordinary chaos mathematics: that the raised arms of the trees as if to pray to the Sun–for, after all, isn’t that what they are doing?– are both enduring and celebrating. Knowing that this chaos is everywhere in our world, and yet these creatures, like all of us, are built for surviving and know how to bend rather than break.

I can watch for a long time. Poetry of the world in long upraised fingers, in light and shadow, dancing.

It’s good for me. Helps, in times like these.

Turbulent chaos is Sacred. Without it, we couldn’t exist.

Indeed, the turbulent cosmic regions where gas and dust collide and pull together through gravity are where stars are formed, leading, through many phases of change, to us.

And so it is that I look at these times–times when true malevolence appears to be in ascendance–and I say: “Yep. Turbulence.”

Now, I do not believe that there is any cosmic plan beyond the unfolding of the laws of physics. I do not believe that justice and kindness will necessarily prevail in human history. We Atheopagans credit no such predestination, nor to the idea of invisible and super-powered Beings who could shepherd such an outcome.

But it is true that in the thousands of years since we began recording history (only about 3% of human history, let’s remember), things have gotten better, in fits and starts. Not for everyone, and for some a lot more than for others. But still, we have ideas about human and individual rights we didn’t have a thousand years ago. We are aware of our environment in a manner that dominant cultures have often missed, in terms of understanding the systems therein as our life support at the least, our parentage and family at most.

The turbulence, the chaos that comes now is frightening. As with the trees, it shakes us, forces us to bend so that we will not break.

And so we strategize all the ways we can bend, yet resist. That we can be, as Bruce Lee had it, like water: flowing, passing easily, and yet hard as iron when dropped into from a height.

If we dance, we cannot be broken.

Another wave of bad news came this weekend: threats to our forests, this time. These lost, pathetic men filled with greed and malice are nothing if not thorough.

Tomorrow I will go back to work, to finding that way to bend and yet resist, to create out of the turbulence.

Hopefully, it will feel like dancing.

Posted in Politics, Personal Reflection, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

It’s Even More Important Now

Posted on 2025-02-09 by Mark Green

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 for when those values can thrive again. And our spiritual practices feed us: they help us to survive, to keep our heads up, to remember what is important and the long view.

Secondly, people need us. If you’re privileged enough not to be in the direct line of fire, think about the people who are: immigrants, LGBTQ+ folks, people of color, indigenous people, federal workers in the DEI, climate resilience or foreign relations spaces. Those people are going to need us to stand up for them. They expect and require that we resist. We must welcome them into our communities and provide what support and shelter we can through this long, dark storm.

Third, and finally: It’s on us to turn this around. The arc of history doesn’t naturally bend towards more justice, kindness and reason: it gets better when people with better values fight for them. It’s on us to communicate, to organize, to speak out, to do All. The. Things. that will topple the current madness and bring a better era. PARTICULARLY those of us who are privileged, who have the cover of being white and/or male and/or straight/cis: we’re the ones the regime isn’t directly gunning for, so we need to stand up for those it is targeting.

It’s hard to feel motivated when times are bleak, when every day’s news bring a new outrage. It’s easy to fall into Dusty Altar Syndrome, to just skip the observances even though we know they feel good and help us to hold on and persist. If that happens to you, don’t beat yourself up about it: just start again. Start small, if you must, but do something.

Clean that Focus. Say a brief gratitude over a meal.

Something.

In my professional life, I’m immersed in the daily politics of trying to undermine Trump’s disastrous policies on the environment. And as a leader, a part of what I need to do is to remain positive, to set an example for my colleagues and allies that we are NOT beaten down, NOT without hope.

I’ve said it before, but hope is a weapon. Hope gets people through things they never thought they could. Hope paints the picture of a better world, worthy of pursuit.

This is a bad time in history but history isn’t over. So conduct your practice, be of stout heart, and help where you can. It may not seem like much, but if we’re all doing it, it adds up.

I see you, Atheopagan. I see your concern and caring. They count.

* I write this as a citizen and resident of the United States, but the world as a whole is in sad shape right now, with right-wing movements on the rise and crises steadily growing. It really applies to us all.

Posted in Activism, Practice, Holidays, Politics, Rites of Passage, Ritual | 1 Comment

Keeping the Flame Alive

Posted on 2025-01-19 by Mark Green

The cruelty will be the point. The incompetence, we get for free.

Today is the last day of the Joe Biden Presidency in the US. By all factual accounts, Biden has done a sterling job: orchestrating a “soft landing” for the US economy after the plunge of the pandemic, shrinking unemployment and promoting unions, providing unprecedented leadership on climate change and conservation, reestablishing credibility with allies, and pushing through the largest investment in clean energy and US infrastructure since the creation of the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s.

But right-wing media and propaganda are an increasing presence in our lives, and first Biden, and then Vice President Harris were trashed with specious claims about inflated prices they had nothing to do with, enabling the racist demagogue and convicted felon Donald Trump to return to the White House tomorrow.

The agenda for Trump’s second term is intentionally punitive of his opponents and supposed “enemies”, include massive deportations of immigrants and deliberate dismantling of much of what has been achieved over the past century in the way of social, worker and environmental protection.

Trump’s first term was marked by incompetence at a grand scale. Many of the harmful things he tried to do were defanged by court rulings or sheer failure on the part of the toadies he appointed to positions of power. His appointees this time around appear to be in the same mold, but there does seem to be more danger that he will actually be able to carry some of his more draconian proposals out.

Meanwhile, as he departs President Biden is doing what he can to batten down the hatches for the accomplishments of himself and former President Obama, whom Trump particularly loathes. One such final action was the designation of two new national monuments protecting about 820,000 acres in California. In my professional life, I lead an organization, CalWild, that did a great deal of work to advance these monument proposals, and as I result, I was invited to the White House to meet the President and witness the signing of these monuments into law.

That’s me with the President in the Oval Office, second from the left. Others shown are Moises Cisneros of Sierra Club, and three other Executive Directors besides myself: Jun Bando of California Native Plant Society, Laura Deehan of Environment California, and Janessa Goldbeck of Vet Voice.

This was pretty thrilling, of course.

But in a larger sense, the celebrations afterwards were like attending a funeral. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland–the first Native American ever to hold that position–choked up as she thanked her staff and her colleagues in the administration by name. Others from US Department of Agriculture, the White House Council on Environmental Quality and other agencies recounted the many achievements of this administration even as they are walking out the door to be replaced by unconscionable brutality and disregard for the public good.

So what does any of this have to do with Atheopaganism?

I write all this because now those of us in the US who care about the planet and our fellow humans must mount a vigorous defense. We have seen decency, competence and compassion rejected by an electorate which is uneducated, propagandized, angry and selfish, and must now fight to keep the flame alive through a dark period in our history.

We Atheopagans are good at holding something beautiful in our hearts even when it’s not safe to express it. We’re a religious minority both in being Pagans and in being atheists. We aspire to a better, kinder world, and know we can help to build it even when confronted with avarice and cruelty.

I spent last week in Washington with hundreds of goodhearted people deeply invested in that better world, who have devoted their lives to helping to implement a vision for how we can live in relation to our planet home. It warmed me despite the frigid temperatures to know that so many, in so many places and organizations, are working to advance these values as hard as they can.

They may not identify as Atheopagans, but I’d bet a lot of them might if they had ever heard of us.

So I say this: find and build alliances. Build community around shared values, even if it’s just a dinner club that meets once a month to share food and talk about something important. Stand up for those the Trump regime will target. Don’t make it easy for them. Live the Atheopagan Principles and be a beacon for those around you. Care for yourself and your communities with rituals and kindness and generosity.

These are hard times. I won’t deny it. The pathway to a better future is obscured by dark clouds and hard to discern. But I remain certain that it exists.

It exists.

And you’re a part of it, and I am. We all are.

Tomorrow, surrounded by billionaire cronies, Donald Trump will place his hand on a bible he has no regard for and lie his way through the oath of office. Again.

They have power, but so do we.

Be of stout heart. Engage with this community for support, to be seen and known.

We will endure, first, and then thrive.

Posted in Activism, Atheopagan, Politics | Leave a comment