Brew this delicious sparkling spiced mead now, and it will be ready for your Yule celebrations. Enjoy!
...An Atheopagan Path: Journeys in the Sacred World
Musings, values and practices in non-theistic Paganism
Mark Green
Mark Green is an activist, writer and nonprofit professional with a background in environmental public policy and electoral campaigns. He is the author of "Atheopaganism: an Earth-Honoring Path Rooted in Science", published in 2019. A Pagan since 1987, he presents at Pantheacon and has been published in Green Egg and the anthology "Godless Paganism" (for which he wrote the foreword). His Pagan writing appears here, at the Humanistic Paganism website (humanisticpaganism.com), at the Naturalist Pagan site (naturalpagans.com) and at the Atheopaganism blog.
This article draws heavily on concepts suggested by Alan A. Young in an essay he provided to me more than 25 years ago. I no longer have the essay, and he lost it in a computer disaster, but this is my riff on his basic concepts. Thanks, Alan!
Our Atheopagan approach to “magic” is that it is psychological: we do rituals to change our consciousness, address our issues, heal our wounds and focus our intentions. We understand that this does not change the physical world, but it changes our internal worlds, and by so doing can lead us to make substantive changes in our lives.
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Join us in May 2022 for a LIVE gathering of Atheopagans at the magnificent La Foret retreat center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA, May 13-16, 2022!
This 3-day, 3-night retreat will feature workshops, rituals and lots of socializing time in beautiful spaces and around the fire. Ticket includes meals (Friday dinner through Monday lunch), and bunkhouse lodging in yurts onsite. The facility includes a magnificent meeting space, the Ponderosa Lodge; a fire circle; a beautiful labyrinth and more!
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There was a night—long, long ago—when we had captured fire.
This was many years before we knew how to make it. We found it in a tree which had been struck by lightning, carried it in a gourd to where we made a camp.
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As Atheopagans, we’re about being healthier, wiser, happier humans, and through action to contribute to a better world.
Some of that is about values. Ours are articulated in the 4 Sacred Pillars and the 13 Atheopagan Principles, and in this area particularly Principle 4: humility; Principle 5: perspective and humor; Principle 8: legacy; Principle 9: social responsibility, and especially Principle 13: kindness and compassion.
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400 years ago today, the Mayflower dropped anchor in Cape Cod Bay, near what is now Provincetown. My 11th-great grandfather John Howland, a servant, was aboard, along with Elizabeth Tilley, whom he would eventually marry.
This is a source of academic curiosity to me, but certainly not a point of pride.
The establishment of Plymouth Colony was the beginning of an ongoing nightmare for indigenous people of the Northeast and beyond: a nightmare which has yet to end. I needn’t go into the details, but suffice to say that the vehement and intolerant flavor of Christianity the “Pilgrims” brought with them did not allow for the humanity of non-Christians: a position that persists today among many Americans.
400 years.
A year later, having been saved from starvation by the compassion and generosity of people whose land they were in the process of stealing, the surviving passengers of the Mayflower celebrated the first Thanksgiving. It was September, but we now celebrate our rosy-lensed version of this event in November.
400 years of murderous hell.
It’s hard to know how to end this.
Happy Thanksgiving?
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This is a source of academic curiosity to me, but certainly not a point of pride.
The establishment of Plymouth Colony was the beginning of an ongoing nightmare for indigenous people of the Northeast and beyond: a nightmare which has yet to end. I needn’t go into the details, but suffice to say that the vehement and intolerant flavor of Christianity the “Pilgrims” brought with them did not allow for the humanity of non-Christians: a position that persists today among many Americans.
400 years.
A year later, having been saved from starvation by the compassion and generosity of people whose land they were in the process of stealing, the surviving passengers of the Mayflower celebrated the first Thanksgiving. It was September, but we now celebrate our rosy-lensed version of this event in November.
400 years of murderous hell.
It’s hard to know how to end this.
Happy Thanksgiving?
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A Happy Harvest Home to you as well.
Classic depictions of Death personified include skeletons carrying an hourglass or a scythe, mummified persons extending leathery hands, armies of skeletal warriors mowing down the living, or Pale Horsemen laying waste to kings, priests and children, as in the Coleman-Waite "Rider" Tarot deck.
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