Mark Green's Atheopaganism Blog

Living an Earth-Honoring Path Rooted in Science

Reflections on a Rainy Day

Thankfully, it appears California has dodged drought conditions this winter. Heavy streams of moisture-laden tropical air have been pouring over us, delivering the life-giving blessing of water. It is indeed the season I celebrate as Riverain, historically the wettest time of year around here, and in the squishy…

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The Wheel Turns

The days are a bit longer now. The area where I live has been beset by storm after  blessed storm, so-called “atmospheric rivers” pouring onshore to deluge the parched land of California. We smile beneath our rain hoods and grumble cheerfully about knotted traffic. And despite the dark, pendulous clouds, it…

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The Sabbath of Water

In my Wheel of the Year, the cross-quarter which lands around the beginning of February is Riverain: the Feast of Water. That’s because where I live, in Northern California with its Mediterranean climate, that time of year is the heaviest with rainfall. The mountains grow emerald green with winter grass, the…

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The Spring Fast

John Halstead over at Patheos has an idea that I think is so great I am adopting it for myself and want to it capture here so other Atheopagans can consider it: “Lent for Pagans”, or what I am calling the Spring Fast. February and March were historically the leanest time for…

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Three Percent: a Riverain Blessing

Three percent is all they say The sweet water of a water planet Three percent The cool drink, the soft rain Rare as blood, rare as luck, rare To our wet hands, shining. From the far sky, adrift in curds and blankets Whips…

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An Atheopagan Life: Celebrating Riverain, and Adapting the Wheel of the Year

Originally posted at HumanisticPaganism.com The eight holidays of the modern Pagan “wheel of the year” present an annual cycle of Sabbaths tracing seasonal changes, agricultural cycles, and metaphors of the cycle of life. For an Atheopagan, it’s not a bad point to start from, rooted as it is…

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