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Imagining Ancestors
Much as the Christian Overculture has made it its business to erase, co-opt or appropriate pre-existing religions in the West–as well as to eradicate and supplant other cultures and traditions throughout the world–archeology presents us with treasures now and again that remind me of a different world that existed prior to the imposition of the angry sky gods of the Levant. One prominent such example was discovered buried 13 feet deep in a peat bog in Russia in 1890. It is now known as the Shigir Idol. Made of larch wood, it is 17 feet tall, towering more than three times the height of the people who built it. Now,…
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An Underworld Focus
At this time of year, I pay a lot of attention to one part of my Focus*. As altar-y spaces go, it is unquestionably the “witchiest” part of mine: bones, skulls, fossils of extinct species, a mummified bat, images of prehistoric cave paintings, megalithic spiral carvings and departed loved ones, a dried pomegranate. It is where I keep the black jar of rose water with which I have anointed several dead people, and the tiny jar of cedar oil, veteran of so many Hallows rituals, whose scent reminds me of the inside of a coffin. It is The Underworld. My Focus is built in a bookcase, with one shelf removed…
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Atheopagan “Saints”
They are Honored Dead, at the very least. Giordano Bruno. Galileo Galilei. Copernicus. Isaac Newton. Aldo Leopold. Marie Curie. Albert Einstein. Richard Feynman. Rachel Carson. Carl Sagan. Ursula K. LeGuin. Stephen Hawking. Mary Oliver. And there will be more, when they go: Jane Goodall. Richard Attenborough. Bill Nye. Wendell Berry. The work of these people is so powerful that it persists into today. It resonates across the centuries. It inspires us to seek the truth, to honor reality, to celebrate the great circle of blessed Being. I—only half joking—call them the Atheopagan saints. St. Carl. St. Isaac. St. Rachel. St. Ursula. And yes, we can all have a chuckle about…
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Ancestors: A Conundrum
What the hell am I doing here? I don’t belong here. —Radiohead I have always acknowledged that my particular flavor of Atheopaganism springs from an unlikely confluence of experiences which will not resonate for some. Among them are such elements as having been raised with no religion—really none, not even atheism, but rather a complete blank where the topic might have existed—a deep and passionate love for the natural world, and a personal drive towards seeking for the most likely truths about myself, humanity and the nature of the Universe. An atheistic, Earth-focused, ritually-expressed set of observances and practices was the natural outgrowth of the circumstances from which I came. It is a…
