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Wildfires. Drought. Floods. Violent storms.

For pagans, climate change is a religious problem.

It means that the gods are angry.

What do you do when you wrong someone?

You apologize.

You make restitution.

You don't do it again.

Climate change is a man-made problem. We have wronged the gods.

Paganism Lite usually shies from the language of sin, confession, and atonement.

The ancestors, though, did not fear this language. It was, in fact, part of their religious technology for righting wrongs, wrongs done to the gods.

What do you do when you wrong the gods?

You confess.

You offer sacrifices of atonement.

You don't do it again.

Paganism Lite won't get us through the current state of imbalance, through this War of the Elements.

In our day, as the ancestors did, so let us do also.

The ancestors also acknowledged, though, that prayers and sacrifices are worthless without underlying change of behavior. Call it repentance, if you will.

I began this blog in 2014. A lot of things have happened since then.

When I wrote the first blog post, Modern Minoan Paganism didn't exist yet. I and a handful of others were still groping around in the dark, doing our best to put the pieces together to figure out what the picture of ancient Minoan religion looked like. We hadn't even begun determining how to turn that into a modern spiritual practice.

 Who comes?

A boy of the People, N son of N,

that he may die to his boyhood

and be reborn a man.

Faces white with ash, the men come for the boy; but first, one final rite.

A wooden bowl in her lap, the boy's mother sits on a three-legged stool. The boy kneels at her feet.

Hands on his head, she bestows her blessing.

She gives him the milk. (So began his life as a boy; so also, now, it ends.) When he has drunk, she takes the bowl.

He rises, and turns to go. Never, as a boy, will he return.

From behind, she gives him a push between the shoulderblades.

Naked Mass

I'm standing there at mass, butt-naked.

I've been to Gnostic Masses before, but never in quite this state of vulnerability. Stealthily, I look around me; no one else seems to care, or even notice.

“Oh well,” I think in the dream. Hey, I've been to my share of skyclad rituals before. Do what thou wilt, right?

“First Mass?” asks the avuncular-looking old guy standing next to me. I'm sure I've never met him before, but there's something familiar about him nonetheless.

“Not quite,” I say.

The Mass continues. He follows along the text of the canon in a beautifully-printed missal.

“We turn to the East here,” he says, and shows me the page. Above the prayer, in red, the rubric says: “Facing East.”

I dutifully turn to the East, with my back to my guide. When I feel his hands cup and part my buttocks, I suddenly realize who he is.

If you're looking to deepen your Ukrainian based practice or your connections to Ukrainian gods and culture, here is a list of upcoming holidays in the reconstructed pagan religion Ridnoveri. Some of these may be similar to holidays in other Slavic cultures. They also may have overlap with Christian holidays. 

September

To begin using your magical powers, you must first set the stage, the perfect environments in which to incubate your ideas. You’ll do this by building a stone shrine, your touchstone for daily conjuring and contemplation. By preparing your home and sparking your inner flame, you can clear away personal blocks and invite in the friendly spirits who will aid and abet your supernatural pursuits. It is of the utmost importance to have in your home a shrine or altar, a power center, where you can keep your stones and perform rituals and spells. This is your energy source where you can renew yourself and your spirits every day. The more you use your altar, the more it will build up energy, and the more effective your spells will be.

On a low table, place a white scarf and candles from each of the colors of the spectrum: white, violet, blue, green, yellow, orange, pink, red, and black. Place them in the miraculous arching shape of a rainbow. Take amber incense and place it in a quartz crystal bowl at the center of the rainbow. Amber is good for creativity and healing and also contains crystalline grains of rock resin from Mother Nature. Keep a wand of sage or a smudging stick in a fireproof bowl or seashell on your altar and use it to clear the energy and sanctify the space every day.

Individuation is problematic. That's the unofficial Modern Minoan Paganism motto.

It's sort of a joke, a witty response to difficult questions about divinity. But it's also very serious.