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Posted by on in Paths Blogs
What's so Radical About Naturalism?

One of the hottest points of contention between Atheopagans and both theists and hard-antitheist atheists has to do with naturalism. Naturalism is a philosophical position which holds that there is nothing which is not of the physical Universe: that there is nothing which is supernatural, and that such claimed supernatural phenomena as gods, spirits, souls, ghosts, and magic are fictitious.

Theists dispute this out of hand, of course. It makes sense that nontheist Pagans have friction with theists over this point.

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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Mark Green
    Mark Green says #
    For the record, one fundamental difference between naturalistic Pagans and many others is that we embrace the scientific method wh
  • Aryós Héngwis
    Aryós Héngwis says #
    Mod note: Just a reminder to keep discussions courteous. We can agree to disagree on subjects of theology without being dismissive
  • Mark Green
    Mark Green says #
    I disagree. There is no credible scientific evidence for the existence of disembodied intelligences. Arbitrarily declaring that th
  • Erin Lale
    Erin Lale says #
    One need not discard the world of spirit to embrace nature. That is a false dichotomy, which springs from the monotheist religions

Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs
“The ears of this language do not often hear the songs of the white egrets, the rain falling into stone bowls. So we make our own songs to contain these things, make ceremonies and poems, searching for a new way to speak, to say we want a new way to live in the world, to say that wilderness and water, blue herons and orange newts are invaluable not just to us, but in themselves…”
 
--Linda Hogan in  Sisters of the Earth
 
You may wish to place one hand on your heart, one hand on your belly and hum gently to center yourself in this time and in space. Call yourself in, feeling yourself present in your body, on this earth, breathing in and out, in and out.
 
This past weekend I priestessed an overnight Red Tent Retreat. As part of the retreat experience, we went on a pilgrimage through the woods to a nearby spring on my parents' property. For our Creative Spirit Circle mini ritual this week, I made an audio recording describing the experience of this pilgrimage as an everyday heroine's journey, an Inanna's descent into the underworld and her return, bearing lessons for her people. The recording is available here.
 
In the recording, I also explore the cards I chose for the week ahead and also share a poem, a quote, and some additional reflections on being an “everyday Inanna.” 
 
Our card for the week from Womanrunes, was The Circle, rune of self, beginnings, and potential. How are you tending to yourself? What is beginning for you? What potential feels like it is ready for you to tap into? This card reminds us to pay attention to the everyday miracles around us, including our own breaths. Pause and witness the miracle.
 
From the Goddess Guidance Oracle, we received Abundantia, the goddess of prosperity. This card reminds us to be open to receiving. And, she reminds us of the power of visualizing and affirming our own capacity for abundance, remembering that abundance may come in many ways including time, support, and ideas. Where have you experienced abundance lately? To what abundance are you open? What types of prosperity are you experiencing? There are many ways to prosper!
 
Take a deep breath and smile. Feel yourself expand into spacious possibility and the energy of creation. Reach down and touch the earth. Open your arms to the sky. Bring your hands back to your heart and belly, centered right here on this beautiful Earth. Feel aware of the cycle of life into which we are all woven. 
 
May you make ceremonies and poems, witness many miracles, and receive abundantly. 
 
Affirmation for the week: I welcome new beginnings and I prosper.
 
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Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs

b2ap3_thumbnail_June-2016-052.JPGAs someone who comes to goddess spirituality from a feminist thealogy perspective, I have found it important to distinguish between the lineage and history of goddess spirituality and that of contemporary paganism as a broader and larger movement. While the roots of goddess spirituality are indeed entwined with paganism and Wicca, there is still a distinct “herstory” of the goddess movement in the United States, as well as qualities, traditions, values, perspectives, and tenants within it that are worthy of consideration on a stand-alone basis.

The Goddess in America, forthcoming from Moon Books this fall, is a highly recommended anthology of insightful essays about the meaning, role, goddess in americaexpression, and experience of the Goddess in the United States. This is not a 101 or introductory book, but rather a complex exploration of a variety of topics including cultural appropriation, differences between feminist goddess spirituality and Wicca, contemporary priestessing, pop culture goddesses, goth goddesses, polytheism vs monotheistic concepts (i.e .the difference between “all goddesses as one” and each goddess as an individual), goddesses and the land and whether goddesses can be “transported” to other locations/lands, and much more. The book contains contributions from nineteen writers with diverse perspectives and experiences and it identifies the “enduring experience of Goddess Spirituality through a four-part discussion focused on the Native Goddess, the Migrant Goddess, the Goddess in relation to other aspects of American culture (Feminism, Christianity, Witchcraft, etc.) and the Goddess in contemporary America.” As someone who loves books, I believe that anthologies are possibly one of the greatest inventions of all time. Indeed, the only problem I had with this book was that the writers were so talented and have written so many other interesting books, that my to-read bookshelf now becoming even more extensive!

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Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs

“As I continue writing stories about people who are transforming religion and culture through including the Divine Feminine in sacred rituals, hope stirs within me. As I hear their visions for the future of the Divine Feminine, my vision expands.”

–Jann Aldredge-Clanton, Healing, Freedom, and Transformation through the Sacred Feminine.

“…monotheists have described the divine as ‘Father’ for over 2,000 years. Even if we neutered the God, to be labeled only an ‘It,’ we would still have the masculine echo ringing in our ears for another thousand years. So maybe it would make sense to call her the Goddess for a millennium or so, if only to even things out. Then perhaps we could move on to something more gender inclusive.”

–Tim Ward, Why Would a Man Search for the Goddess

“I don’t believe the Goddess is stupid or suicidal. I believe she evolved human beings for a purpose, to be her healing hands and loving heart. We may be growing into the job.”

–Starhawk, Earth, Spirit, and Action: Letting the Wildness In 

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Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs
Book Review: Naming the Goddess

“On any spiritual path, and most especially on one that is simultaneously a path of magical practice, our real progress and growth is measurable largely in the capacity to pass the challenges that are set before us. The easy parts of the journey are not the most important.”

–Philip Kane (in his essay on Laverna, Naming the Goddess, p. 232)

Naming the Goddess, published by Moon Books, is a collaborative work bringing together essays written by over eighty scholars and practitioners of Goddess Spirituality, including contributions from Selena Fox, Kathy Jones, Caroline Wise and Rachel Patterson. A unique aspect of this book is that it is a two-part project with the first part of the book containing a series of contemplative and scholarly essays and the second part serving as a “gazetteer” of different goddesses, making it useful both as a reference book and as well as one that encourages reflective spiritual thought.

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Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs
Goddess Body, World Body

Here is your sacrament
Take. Eat. this is my body
this is real milk, thin, sweet, bluish,
which I give for the life of the world…
Here is your bread of life.
Here is the blood by which you live in me.”--Robin Morgan (in Life Prayers, p. 148)

All religion is about the mystery of creation. If the mystery of birth is the origin of religion, it is women that we must look for the phenomenon that first made her aware of the unseen power…Women’s awe at her capacity to create life is the basis of mystery. Earliest religious images show pregnancy, rather than birth and nurturing, as the numinous or magical state” (Monica Sjoo and Barbara Mor, The Great Cosmic Mother, p. 71)

I am working on a thesis project about birth as a spiritual experience. As I collect my resources, the quotes above keep running through my head. Birth as the original sacrament. Breastfeeding as the original communion. Blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone, women transmute blood into breath, into being, into life for others.

Abrahamic theology in its root mythology, sets up the male body as "normal" as well neatly includes the notion that there is a divine hierarchy in which men are above women in value, role, and power. It also twists reality, by asserting that women come from men’s bodies, rather than the other way around. This inversion didn’t begin with Christianity, it has roots in more ancient mythology as well. Connected to the conversion of women’s natural creative, divine-like powers of the womb into the originators of sin and corruption, we readily see the deliberate inversion of the womb of the Goddess into the head of the father in the gulping down of Metis by Zeus and the subsequent birth of Athena from his head. Patriarchal creation myths rely heavily on biologically non-normative masculine creation imagery. I really appreciated the brief note from Sjoo in The Great Cosmic Mother that, “In later Hindu mysticism the egg is identified as male generative energy. Whenever you come upon something like this, stop and ponder. If it is absurdly inorganic—male gods ‘brooding on the waters’ or ‘laying eggs’—then you know you are in the presence of an original Goddess cosmology stolen and displaced by later patriarchal scribes” (p. 56).

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