The Amazing Randi has left us following a remarkable 92-year life of stage magic, skeptical debunkings, and quotable quips. A beloved figure in the stage magic scene, he was an inspiration to acts like Penn and Teller and to skeptics everywhere as he unmasked deceivers like Uri Geller and Peter Popoff as showmen and frauds rather than psychics, telekinetics or faith healers. For a more exhaustive history of this remarkable man, please click here. Randi’s amazing life and remarkable late discovery that he was gay are chronicled in the film An Honest Liar, which is well worth seeking out. He was an atheist and a progressive. We Atheopagans have him…

I was stunned and appalled to learn last night of the death of US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Justice Ginsburg was a giant of the law, and a shero of women’s rights. For a much more in-depth profile of her than I can research or write, visit her obituary here. Now, we must fight to prevent the so-called President from being able to appoint yet another right-wing toady. I am saddened and afraid today. The world is poorer, and Americans and people of the world are more endangered with Justice Ginsburg’s loss.

The celebrated poet Mary Oliver has left us at the age of 83. Details of her life and achievements may be found here, but I’d like to say, as an Atheopagan, how meaningful her work was to me, and, I think, to all who find grace and meaning in the movements and manifestations of the natural world. Oliver’s poetry was conversational, accessible. Mostly, she wrote in complete sentences broken by white space. Not for her the opacity that so often passes for “great poetry”; hers was a body of work addressed to people who live here, in the world, and who are struck by moments of wonder and reflection. She famously…

Ursula K. LeGuin has died. I won’t recount her many works or the impact she had on speculative fiction in her long career as a writer. That information can be found in the obituary linked above, and elsewhere. No, this is a personal memorial. For of all writers, I believe Ursula K. Le Guin’s impact on me has been the most profound. She dared to ask subversive questions. What if there were no gender? What if people in wealthy societies were required to confront the suffering that supports them? What if human society successfully integrated technology and rich culture and environmental sustainability? What if…what if…what if. She wrote with such…