You’re going to think I’m crazy, but the last couple days in Florida, I really started to miss Chicago-land weather — the cold and the gray. I had trouble making sense of it myself, but I felt a distinct sense of disjointedness. And I’m pretty sure it was all the sunshine and warm weather. It was great for the first week, but then I started to imagine what it would be like to live in Florida year round and I... Read more
So, I’m in Florida over Winter Solstice/Christmas and thinking how strange it is to be celebrating the darkest time of the year with sunny days and 80º weather. We were at the beach watching the sunset and Dylan Thomas’ poem came to me: Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. I understand the desire to rage against the dying of the... Read more
Confession time. Spiritual discipline is not my strong suit. I left the Mormon church when I realized that I lacked and always would lack the discipline to live the Mormon lifestyle. Why did I lack the discipline? Because deep down I lacked the desire. Sure I wanted to be a good Mormon. But did I want to do all of my church duties? Did I want to refrain from watching rated-R movies? Did I want to avoid reading anything that... Read more
We had our first snow of the season yesterday. My daughter was ecstatic. I’ve always loved the first snows of early winter. It seems to justify the cold weather. And the way it covers everything in a blanket of white feels like forgiveness. I always regretted tromping through freshly fallen sheet of snow in a yard or a field, disturbing the perfection with the evidence of my existence. I have since given up on such conceptions of perfection and forgiveness. ... Read more
I recently picked up D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers. I’ve been wanting to read Lawrence ever since I read Ronald Hutton’s Drawing Down the Moon, in which he groups Lawrence with such proto-Pagans as Robert Graves, W. B. Yeats, Ernest Westlake and Harry (Dion) Byngham (of the Order or Woodcraft Chivalry), who were part of the “matrix” out of which Neopaganism was born. According to Hutton, Lawrence was influenced by James Frazer, Jane Ellen Harrison, and Edward Carpenter, author of... Read more
Have I not seen the sky and sea Put on a look as hushed and stilled As if some ancient prophecy Grew close upon to be fulfilled? — “Have I Not Seen”, Don Marquis, UU Hymnal #337 I recently came across the following passage from John Trevor’s autobiography, My Quest for God. In it, he critiques the Unitarianism of his day, and the passage resonated with my own experience. Now, I have only been exposed to Unitarian Universalism for about... Read more
I am currently discovering D.H. Lawrence, who was a kind of proto-Pagan. I just came across the following discussion of symbols in his Apocalypse. Written in 1930, Lawrence’s Apocalypse is a re-imagination of the Book of Revelation as a ritual initiation into a pagan mystery religion. Lawrence speaks of symbols in much the same way that I discussed poetry and ritual in my previous post, as unconscious and as transcending all attempts at fixing a “meaning”. When Lawrence speaks about... Read more
Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason. — Novalis My wife hates poetry. I think she feels intimidated by it, like it’s a secret someone is keeping from her. I like poetry. Now I am no T.S. Elliot fan, but I love Rilke and Mary Oliver. The first poet I fell in love with was Jacques Prevert, who I was introduced to in high school French class. I just find Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “How Do I l Love Thee” so... Read more
When I was young, I developed an unhealthy perfectionist mentality. This was a product of a combination of my own obsessive personality, the unreasonable and unpredictable expectations of a bipolar mother, and a religion (Mormonism) which took the ideal of perfection seriously [“Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matt. 5:48)]. Looking back on my youth with some objectivity, I can now appreciate that I was a great kid: well-behaved, respectful to adults,... Read more
“Solipsism” is a word I learned in college. It refers to the belief that only one’s own mind is real. Everything external to one’s mind is like a dream. The word is also an epithet used to describe ideas which tend toward, but are not actually, solipsistic. When I heard this word for the first time, it was like having a name for an undiagnosed disease you’ve had your whole life. My disease was solipsism — or at least a... Read more
The Allergic Pagan
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