Tag: Nature

The return of an 86 year-old thesis about paganism

Earlier this week, on Christmas Day no less, The Atlantic published an editorial entitled “The Return of the Pagans”. It’s behind a paywall, but you can read the whole thing for free at msn.com (also here).

The article is written by David Wolpe, who is an influential Jewish rabbi who has debated prominent atheists publicly. Predictably, the essay reflects the perspective of an Abrahamic transcendental monotheist. Lots of Pagans have responded to this article already (e.g., here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here). Some of the responses seem to miss the fact that, when Wolpe says “pagan”, he’s not talking about the people who self-identify as “Pagan” today: those witches and goddess worshippers and earth religionists and so on, who have been loosely congregating around the term “Pagan” since the late 1960s.

Continue reading “The return of an 86 year-old thesis about paganism” →
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No-Nonsense Paganism: Creating a Ritual

In the last post, I wrote about the when of doing a winter ritual, and now I want to talk about the how. Now that you’ve decided to mark some special event–whether it’s the solstice or the first snow or New Year’s Day–with ritual, how do you decide what to do? Note, the process I describe below can really apply to ritual at any time of the year.

Continue reading “No-Nonsense Paganism: Creating a Ritual” →
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No-Nonsense Paganism: Thinking About Winter Ritual

As I explained in the introduction, I want to strip Paganism down, take away its ancient or faux-ancient terminology, its mythological and legendary pretensions, its foreign folk practices, its superstitious and pseudo-scientific justifications, and its esoteric ritual structures, and get down to the phenomenological core of pagan experience.

Pagan ritual should arise out of our experience of events happening in the world around us, both what is happening in the “natural” (other-than-human) world and what is happening what is happening in the human social world. The distinction between nature and culture is itself a human construct, and one that falls apart when you start looking at it closely. Over the course of this series, I will highlight some of the ways the line between human and nature gets blurred. But let’s start with nature.

Continue reading “No-Nonsense Paganism: Thinking About Winter Ritual” →
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A Stranger in Paradise: On Our Relationship to Nature

Every so often I feel a compelling need to get myself into the woods. I feel soul-starved if I go for too long without immersing myself in the green world. I live in Indiana, which is woefully flat and plowed. But it’s within a day’s drive of some good hiking—Kentucky to the south, Michigan to the north, and my favorite place to hike, West Virginia to the east.

I spent a few years of my childhood in West Virginia, from ages nine to twelve. After my parents’ divorce, my mother moved us to Elkins, West Virginia, population 8,000. My father would drive the six hours from Louisville, Kentucky once a month for visitation over a weekend. There is really nothing to do in Elkins, but it does sit on the edge of the Monongahela National Forest. So my dad broke out some old camping gear which he had inherited, bought a couple of sleeping bags for me and my brother, and suddenly we were backpackers. For the next several years, we spent all our springs and autumns backpacking. And thus was born my love of the woods.

Continue reading “A Stranger in Paradise: On Our Relationship to Nature” →
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The Real Pagan Deal

“Religious morals, in a healthy society, are best enforced by drums, moonlight, f[e]asting, masks, flowers, divine possession.”

— Robert Graves, “Food for Centaurs”

I’ve been to my share of public Pagan rituals in the last decade or so.  The vast majority have ranged from disappointing to excruciating affairs.  (See “Gods Save Us from Bad Pagan Rituals: 10 Signs You’re Half-Assing Your Mabon Ritual” and “Lowered Expectations Is Not the Answer to Bad Pagan Rituals”.)

I have been fortunate to have participated in some notable exceptions.  I think Reclaiming rituals tend to be on the better end of the spectrum.  I would attend any ritual led by Thorn Coyle or Shauna Aura Knight.  The Kali Puja which Chandra Alexandre and Sharanya led at Pantheacon is truly exceptional.

But the absolute best pagan ritualist I have ever met is Steven Posch.  So, I was very excited to receive Steven’s invitation to the Grand Sabbat held at Sweetwood Temenos in Southwest Wisconsin this past weekend.  It was not a festival, at least not like others I have attended.  There were no workshops, for example.  Rather, it was tribal gathering, a gathering of the Tribe of Witches. Continue reading “The Real Pagan Deal” →

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Pagan with a small “p”

Pagan-Adjacent?

I recently met someone who described himself as “Pagan-adjacent”, which I thought was an interesting self-designation.  He was a (self-described) “angry atheist” who followed atheism to its logical end and was left wanting. He intuited that there was something else–something bigger and/or deeper–but no one seemed to be writing or talking about it. Then he discovered David Abram’s Spell of the Sensuous, which he experienced as revolutionary.

He told me that he knows “in his bones” that “the sacred is in the soil and the wind,” but he is turned off by a lot of what he sees in the Pagan community.  By way of example, he told me about an encounter with a Pagan group where he heard one person talking about how great the divination app on her phone was.  I know what he is talking about.  What has a divination app to do with the sacred soil?

I’ve felt pretty much the same way for 15 years, for as long as I have been calling myself “Pagan” in fact.  I came to the Pagan community because I thought here was where I would find that something bigger and deeper.  But almost everywhere I look, I see the small and shallow.  Almost everywhere I look, I see Pagans reproducing the disenchantment of the mainstream culture. Continue reading “Pagan with a small “p”” →

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My Religion is Rooted, Literally.

To polytheists, the gods are sacred.  But atheist Pagans don’t believe in gods.  What is sacred to an atheist Pagans?  Some polytheists mistakenly assume that an absence of gods must mean an absence of sacrality.

I’ve had polytheists come right out and say that, because I don’t believe in gods, then nothing is sacred or holy to me. Implied in that statement is the belief that there is nothing sacred or holy in the world except the gods.  I would have a hard time imaging a less “pagan” statement than that.

Now, as far as I am concerned, you can be Pagan and a polytheist, or a duotheist, or a Goddess-worshipping monotheist, or a pantheist, or an animist, or a non-theist, or an atheist—if you want to call yourself one.  I’m not interested in trying to push anybody out of the Big Tent of Paganism.  But I do not understand a Paganism which cannot find the holy or the sacred in the earth or our bodies or in our relationships.

Continue reading “My Religion is Rooted, Literally.” →

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10 Books that Shaped My Spiritual Journey (Before Paganism)

I love books.  I probably feel more at home bookstores and libraries than I do in my own house.  Books have had a profound influence on my spiritual evolution.  In fact, I can mark certain spiritual transitions by the books I was reading at the time.

This is the first of two posts about the books that have served as markers on the path of my spiritual journey.  This first part lists the books that impacted me before I discovered Paganism.  This is not a list of my favorite books, but books that changed the course of my religious life. The dates below are the dates I read the books (to the best of my recollection), not the dates of publication. Continue reading “10 Books that Shaped My Spiritual Journey (Before Paganism)” →

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Eight Ways Pagans Can Celebrate Earth Day

For many contemporary Pagans, Paganism takes the form of a nature religion or earth-centered spirituality. According to Religious Studies scholar, Michael York, a nature religion is one that has “a this-worldly focus and deep reverence for the earth as something sacred and something to be cherished.” Not surprisingly then, Earth Day (April 22 this year) is a holy day for many Pagans. Here are some ways that we Pagans can celebrate Earth Day. Continue reading “Eight Ways Pagans Can Celebrate Earth Day” →

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