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Suntree Retreat 2022: A Revelation
Suntree Retreat 2022 has come and gone, and now I have to try to communicate this amazing, moving, inspiring event and how it has affected me, as well as its implications for the Atheopagan community going forward. My voyage to get there took 2-1/2 days, carpooling with fellow Atheopagan Society Council member James from the earliest hours of Wednesday so we could be in Colorado by 3 pm on Friday. We drove through green vineyards, over into the broad flat of the Sacramento Valley, climbed into the snowy peaks and forests of the Sierra Nevada past Lake Tahoe and then down to the broad sagebrush desert valleys of the Great…
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Creating Your Own Wheel of the Year
In Atheopaganism, similar to many other Pagan paths, we celebrate eight Sabbaths, or holy days: the solar equinoxes and solstices, and the points between them. But I encourage folks to adapt this calendar to fit the circumstances of the places where we live, choosing our own names and meanings for these holidays as necessary. Why your own? Because we all live in different climates, and the traditional Pagan/Wiccan Wheel doesn’t really reflect any except that of England and places with similar seasonal cycles. Ours is an Earth religion, and connectedness to our local seasonal cycles is essential: our celebrations should reflect the land on which we live, not somewhere else. I live…
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Some Language I’m Not Going to Use Any More: An Apology
This post is an apology. It has now been more than two years since I waded into the broader online Pagan conversation on behalf first of myself, and then of what has turned out to be the many Pagans who do not believe in literal gods. In those early days, the posts of myself and others like John Halstead and John Cleland Host were received in some quarters with bitter hostility. As a result, I became defensive. And when I’m defensive, I’m often acerbic. “Hard theists” and I aren’t going to agree cosmologically. We have fundamental disputes over the nature of the Universe itself, and those cannot be reconciled. However,…
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Eggs and Sprouts
Reflecting here, on a mild day shortly after High Spring, on the currents of newness that have come to and through my life in the past few months. Feeling grateful. For better or worse, my life will change significantly in the next few months. I hope it is for the better, and what better time for hope than the Spring? Here are some of the Eggs I am incubating and the Sprouts I see emerging, already born and angling towards the Sun. Egg: With some luck, I will be starting a new job soon. If it’s the one I hope for, I’ll be working for a great organization with an exciting…
