PaganSquare


PaganSquare is a community blog space where Pagans can discuss topics relevant to the life and spiritual practice of all Pagans.

  • Home
    Home This is where you can find all the blog posts throughout the site.
  • Tags
    Tags Displays a list of tags that have been used in the blog.
  • Bloggers
    Bloggers Search for your favorite blogger from this site.
  • Login
    Login Login form
Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in future of paganism

 Lot Detail - Blatz Beer Flat Top 39-3

Like most tribal elders, I worry about my people. Is there a future for pagans?

In a group of, say, 50 pagans, one could make a case that, arguably, there are actually 50 different religions represented. How can so fragmented (not to mention self-obsessed) a group possibly have a future together? How can we possibly achieve anything lasting?

Well, something that I heard at a workshop at Paganicon 2024 gives me hope.

 

Hero Tales

His great-grandfather was a drunk.

He had recently moved back to the old family farm, land in-taken by said great-grandfather. According to family tradition, the old man had liked his booze, and then some.

So at Samhain, he'd take down the treasured bottle of 40-year old Scotch from the shelf and pour a dram or two for his ancestor-in-the-land.

After a year or two of this, one Samhain night, great-grandpa himself turns up in a dream and slaps him up side the head.

“What's this shit?” he says. “I want Blatz!”

(Blatz is a local beer that could charitably be described as a “beer-drinker's beer.”)

The man who told this story on himself was a respected local elder, founder of one of our regional pagan land sanctuaries.* When he told his tale, my heart leapt up and I thought: Ye gods, maybe there's hope for us after all.

Last modified on

Swine Farrowing Barns - Hobby Farms

 

I live in Minneapolis. Our sister-city across the river is named for Christianity's (arguably) ookiest saint: Miss Paul ( Saul) of Tarsus.* Ugh.

What's a poor pagan to do?

Across the New World, in repeated acts of verbal imperialism, places bear the imposed names of foreign religions. As we move toward a post-Christian America, what do we do with these irrelevant old names?

Well, I've heard pagan Califians refer to LA as Yangna, the name of the Indigenous village in the same location. That's one approach, if such a name is available.

In this particular instance, of course, St. Paul isn't the city's real (= original, pagan) name. The city was first called Pig's Eye, and the story sounds like something out of Celtic mythology.

Now, it so happens that the guy who built the original trading post in the area one day lost his prize sow. (Her name, alas, is lost to history.) She had a tendency to wander off anyway, and was about to farrow, so her disappearance was extremely worrying.

Finally he finds the sow lying by the Mississippi with her numerous new farrow suckling greedily. (How's that for an omen?) Giddy with relief, he looks around him at the place where she's chosen to give birth.

“Hmm....” he thinks.

Welcome to Pig's Eye, boys and girls.

Last modified on

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
The Columns of Aya Sofia

All of the world's big-box religions—including, be it noted, Hinduism and Buddhism—have built their houses on pagan foundations.

As we rebuild the paganisms of the future, this fact has implications.

Let us be frank: much—most—of the Old Lore has been lost forever; there's simply no way ever to recover it.

So, when it comes to the intangibles—tunes, tropes, vocabulary—I would contend that, as pagans, it's our right to take from the Dispossessors whatever we might wish.

Think of it as Reparations: the making-good of that which has been taken from us. In the old Hwicce/Witch language, this would have been called a grith-geld (as in wergeld): payment to make peace between communities.

As for the tangibles: the places, the fungibles? All in good time, my little pretty: all in good time.

If we're wise, for now, we'll draw the line at intangibles. Remember that pagans are the Original People.

If there's one thing we know, it's how to wait.

Last modified on
Is Paganism Dying? (Atheopaganism and the Future)

For thousands of years, since the very advent of human existence, there has been an evolving trajectory of religious history in Western societies.

The story passes from the earliest animism and ancestor worship to the rise of belief in gods, the consolidation of authoritarian power under monotheisms, and the complete domination of Western societies by Christianity. It continues through the Enlightenment, the steady gains of science shattering the cosmological monopoly of the Abrahamic monotheisms, the increasing tension between orthodoxy and individuality splintering these monotheisms into thousands of sects, and finally, most recently, to the rise of the Nones: those who describe themselves as having no religious affiliation at all, which is well established in most of the rest of the developed world and advancing quickly in the United States.

...
Last modified on
Of Antler and Wing: The Convergence of Paganism with the New Age

In the line of work that I do, I have many opportunities to attend trade shows and fairs, setting up my business information and a small array of books and such for purchase.  Many times, given the titles of books on display and perhaps my brochure outlining services and modalities I provide, I have found myself facing the question “Are you New Age?”  Though some of what I do and what I offer does touch on aspects that are considered New Age, it is not a tag I have felt resonated with either my personal path or work.  But the question has often caused me pause.  Stymied on how to respond, I have pondered: What is New Age exactly?  What constitutes New Age practices?  What is different about what I do?  And, if not New Age, then what am I?

Last modified on
Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Tiffany Lazic
    Tiffany Lazic says #
    Hi, Courtney ~ Yes, there is something of great profundity, I find, in opening ourselves to the full experience of life. I appreci
  • Courtney
    Courtney says #
    Thank you for sharing. I enjoyed this article a lot. I find the immanence of Paganism much more appealing than what you find in Bu
Pagan News Beagle: Watery Wednesday, February 10

We take a look at what it means to live in the Year of the Monkey. Pagan handfastings are legally recognized in parts of Britain. And the next generation of Paganism is considered. It's Watery Wednesday, our weekly segment on news about the Pagan community! All this and more for the Pagan News Beagle!

Last modified on
Pagan News Beagle: Watery Wednesday, December 9

Who will be the gods of future space colonists? Should we be fearful of the divine? And what's it like celebrating a Pagan fertility ritual in Russia? It's Watery Wednesday, our weekly segment on news about the Pagan community. All this and more for the Pagan News Beagle!

Last modified on

Additional information