"The truly great ones become less creators of art than conduits for the wild art that exists at large in the Universe."
That line is a joke. Literally. It's spoken by a character in a play of mine, an actress pretending to be an author. It usually gets a big laugh. My playwriting is an integral part of my spiritual practice, part of honoring creative freedom, as we say in the Principles of Unity.
I was backstage during a performance of that play last month, and I thought, What if it's true? What if I am a conduit for the wild art that exists at large in the Universe?
There was a time when Witches (and Wiccans) kept deep within the broom closet, for all manner of reasons, most involving fear of discrimination at work, school, or housing.
Who is this flower above me, And what is the work of this god? I would know myself in all my parts. ~ Feri Flower Prayer
My work of late has been focused around surrender, specifically, surrendering to the moment and surrendering to the Gods. And first and foremost, I have to surrender to my Self, specifically, to my Godself.*
We stand in a circle beside the enormous maple branches that lie across the road, a sort of honor guard to a fallen land Wight. Claire, on whose lot the maple stands, greets each newcomer by name; Susan, who lives across the road and has a gas stove, offers coffee to folks without power.
Scarlett informs us, with a seven-year-old's precision, that the kids (seven at last count, though the number fluctuates as neighboring families walk or cycle past, witnessing our changed landscape) have collected ten earthworms. They've all been presented to us as holy offerings before being released back to the greater Mystery that is the rain-soaked boulevard. Summer has arrived with a bang.
My home Reclaiming community has launched a series of meetings to try to define ourselves as a community. What is our history? What are our values? What is our power structure, and how do we make decisions? Who, exactly, are "we" in the first place?
It's 7:30 on a Sunday morning. I'm writing this in the home of Marianne and Dennis, who I don't think are awake yet. For company I have a cat named Skeksis and a young man named Lee. Skeksis is ignoring me. Lee is dead.
My wife and I spent last weekend at the third annual Paganicon, a gathering of Pagan-identifying folk from the Twin Cities area (and beyond). The Reclaiming presence continues to be small. Apart from my lovely wife and myself, and a couple friends we're slowly pulling into the Reclaiming orbit, I only spotted one person who positively identifies as being part of that nebulous entity known as "Paganistan Reclaiming".
Erin Lale
Fellow faculty at Harvard Divinity School posted an open letter to Wolpe in response to his article. It's available on this page, below the call for p...
Erin Lale
Here's another response. The Wild Hunt has a roundup of numerous responses on its site, but it carried this one as a separate article. It is an accoun...
Erin Lale
Here's another response. This one is by a scholar of paganism. It's unfortunately a Facebook post so this link goes to Facebook. She posted the text o...
Erin Lale
Here's another link to a pagan response to the Atlantic article. I would have included this one in my story too if I had seen it before I published it...
Janet Boyer
I love the idea of green burials! I first heard of Recompose right before it launched. I wish there were more here on the East Coast; that's how I'd l...