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The mainstream current of modern Paganism has made much of celebrating “Ancient Ways” and “Old Gods”. This creates an inherent tension between old (or putatively old) practices and beliefs and the innovations and achievements of modernity.

Elements of the broad Pagan umbrella range widely across this expanse. At one pole, you have Reconstructionists, for whom ancient ideas and practices are pretty much everything, and those of other paths who choose to continue to believe (despite much scholarship to the contrary) that today’s Paganism derives from an unbroken lineage of tradition stemming from medieval times or earlier.

As I celebrate the Wheel of the Year, the midpoint between the summer solstice (Midsummer) and the autumnal equinox (Harvest) is Summer’s End. I call it that because this is the moment when Autumn first becomes detectable in my region: in the angle of the light, in the hard blue of the sky, in the sputtering of the fog cycle to bring searing hot days, and in the first turning of early leaves.

Summer’s End’s metaphorical meanings relate to work and craft, to technology and toolmaking and effort. It is the time when the harvests of hay and blackberries and early summer vegetables are at their height, so there is a lot of work to be done. Gardens are producing and gophers are marauding and the relaxed waiting of Midsummer is gone as the fruits of labor begin to come to ripeness. It is the beginning of Autumn: the time the labor of early harvesting begins in earnest.

In an atheistic world, many ask: what’s the point? What is the purpose of living if there’s no judgment, no afterlife to be attained, no cosmic plan or purpose?

I can’t tell you what is meaningful in your life. Perhaps it’s your art, or your family: being the best parent (or grandparent, or aunt or uncle) you can be. Perhaps it’s the sacred calling of a career of service to the Earth, or to fellow humans. Perhaps it is simply to enjoy the pleasures of this abundant world.

Whose warm love flows across the land each day

Stirring Life, the world’s magic, arms yearning up,

I’m asked pretty frequently for sample Atheopagan group (as opposed to solitary) ritual scripts, and I never deliver them. Here’s why.

I don’t write ritual scripts. I have hardly ever been to a group ritual where leaders/facilitators “read their lines” (or had obviously memorized them) that didn’t feel like a waste of my time, and I don’t want my rituals to be like that. I want them to be engaged and juicy and alive.

The Sun broom is both a Midsummer ritual and a tool you can use ritually around the year.

You will need:

I’m drinking a beer as I write this.

That’s not a big deal. I’m not drunk and I don’t intend to have another. But I’m sitting at my local with a laptop, and I’m surrounded by a typical Friday afternoon crowd, which will swell considerably after 5:00.