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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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Noble Ancestors
We have our real ancestors–blood relations, going all the way back to single-celled organisms if we go back far enough. But there are also those now dead whom we admire for their exemplary qualities: their courage, their intelligence, their wisdom. While they won’t have followed an Atheopagan path (as we’re just getting started), they still loom large in our memories. I think of these “Noble Ancestors” as the equivalent of Atheopagan “saints”: they were once real people, and they exemplify various qualities we admire. In fact, I have been known to refer to “Saint Carl (Sagan)”, “Saint Galileo”, “Saint Nelson (Mandela)”, “Saint Stephen (Hawking)”, “Saint Charles (Darwin)” etc., with tongue…
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Ave Fortuna!
A guest post by Kaigi-Ron Ave is the principle of gratitude. Of recognizing, in each moment, how incredibly lucky you are…because it could’ve gone another way. It could be so very much worse…but, fortunately, it isn’t. Ave Fortuna! It all started with the Focus to Fortuna. In this world ruled by chaos, she rolls the dice. They cannot be unrolled. So it goes. I added miniature decks (both standard playing card and tarot), a pewter ship (the winds of change), plus a full set of D&D dice. May the Odds Be Ever in Your Favor… …and I’m reminded of a passage from Leonard Mladinow’s book The Drunkard’s Walk – all about how we perceive randomness. Think for a…
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In a Dream of Incense and Candlelight
My Focus is densely populated, because I like it that way. It is rich with meaning and history: places I have been, things I associate with important principles. In its candlelight, illustrations of cave drawings from 35,000 years ago flicker. A Homo Erectus stone tool rests for a tiny percentage of its existence. Images of the Earth, of the Hubble Deep Field image, of rivers I’ve run and canyons I’ve hiked, and precious, beautiful things from Nature; symbols of my chosen family and of this community; A chalice of rain water; a bouquet of wheat; a quartz crystal and one of tourmaline; a slate engraved with a triple spiral; a bowl…
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Turns Out, I’ve Been Living in an Atheopagan Focus
A guest post by Kaigi-Ron. It was the knives that first pointed me to the truth. Seven of them stood at attention by my sink (fastened in magnetic rigor by the new strip I’d just installed), adjacent to the Hello Kitty curtains. And I was struck: OMG, I have a living Housewives Tarot card in my kitchen! What was weirdest, this didn’t seem random: I had recently been the victim of vicious (and untrue) gossip. Yet My Science Nerd Mind knew that there was no way this was “directed” at me by “somebody else”. I pulled the HWT deck from the shelf, found the Seven of Swords, and re-read the copy: GOSSIPS…
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Developing a Focus
A Focus is an Atheopagan word for an altar. I use this word because “altar” seems to me to imply worship and/or sacrifice, neither of which are components of my religion. The Focus is: A curated collection of meaningful objects gathered together for ritual use and placed upon one or more surfaces in an intentional pattern. These objects may be of practical use in a ritual, or chosen solely for their symbolic meaning to the person or people creating the Focus. A Focus may be built anywhere with horizontal surfaces on which to place the objects: a shelf, a table, a mantle, a tree stump, or simply the ground. Often, the…
