I’ve written before about my struggle to maintain regular spiritual practice here and here and here. Today, I came across some great advice in a comment to “Dver”‘s post at A Forest Door, “Do Not Stop You Devotions”, in which “Dver” advises not to stop devotions in times of personal crisis. The comment was on a reblog on “Tales of Biro”: I’d like to add my own thoughts on the subject. There are times the passion for one’s path and spirituality... Read more
Check out my new post at Dreaming the Myth Forward: “But are the archetypes real?” This is a question that haunts any discussion of the archetypes, especially discussions of the gods as archetypes. I have made the argument here and here that the polytheistic experience of deities can be explained in Jungian terms as archetypes. But the question of the ontological nature of the archetypes remained unanswered. In this post, I try to answer it. Read more
There’s a blogging project started over at Patheos, “Why am I a …”, in which bloggers are supposed to respond in 200 words or less. Several Pagan bloggers have responded and their responses are worth checking out. I’ve written before about the things that I love about Paganism. But when I asked myself why I am (Neo-)Pagan, the answer that came immediately to mind was the words of Theodore Roszak talking about the Sixties Counterculture (the same Counterculture out of... Read more
My posts tend to run a little long. So, I’ve decided to start a thought-provoking quote series. I’ll just be sharing the quote, with little to no commentary in the post, but feel free to comment and I’d be happy to discuss the quote in the comments with anyone who is interested. This week’s quote comes from James Hollis, one of my favorite Jungian authors. “The theologian Paul Tillich once observed that the chief curse of our time is not... Read more
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards. — Soren Kierkegaard It seems to me that a human life is like a tree, but lived in reverse. As children, we are as bright green leaves, fragile miracles, proof of the perenniality of life, playfully dancing on the wind, eagerly and indiscriminately soaking up the abundance of the world, holding onto life only by virtue of the strength of our parents, drawing sustenance from roots whose depths... Read more
The latest brouhaha in the Pagan blogosphere is Sam Webster’s post “Why You Can’t Worship Jesus Christ and Be Pagan”. Jason Mankey has written a great response to Webster’s post and I highly recommend it. I’m not going to repeat all the points that Jason makes, most of which I completely agree with. Let me sum up by saying that, in order to claim that Christianity and Paganism are antithetical, one must define both Christianity and Paganism, and in doing... Read more
“All my life I had waited for an inspiration, a manifestation of God, some kind of a transcendent, magic experience that could show me my place in the universe. This experience I made with my first compost.” — Bette Midler, when she was crowned the “Queen of Compost” in Germany in 1994 In honor of the spring equinox, let me share with you a wonderful sermon entitled, “The Gospel of Compost” by Holly Anne Lux-Sullivan, finalist in the CUUPS podcast... Read more
I recently made two attempts to explain why I think why our subjective experience should be given as much importance in our discourse as our attempts to bracket that subjectivity in favor of the ideal of scientific objectivity. This discussion was framed in terms of the relative value of geo-centric and helio-centric perspectives on the phenomena of sunrise and sunset. It turns out, several people have been writing about this recently and articulated themselves far better than I did. Re-grounding... Read more
You have got to check out B.T. Newberg’s newest post at Pagan Naturally, “The ‘Pagan’ question: Beyond belief-blindness“. He writes about the chronic debate about the meaning of Pagan, and states “in no uncertain terms what’s really going on: It’s about kicking people out” (emphasis added). I think he’s right. B.T. goes on to reveal an underlying tension that seems to be tearing our community apart: “There’s a painful cognitive dissonance coming from holding two mutually contradictory beliefs about ourselves:... Read more
I awoke this morning to the sound of a bird chirping for the first time this year. I’ve seen a few wild geese returning in the past week. And when I walked into my office today, I just caught sight of a red-breasted robin outside my window. Spring is around the corner, but there are no blossoms on the trees yet. Yesterday was a cold, gloomy Monday, and my mood suffered accordingly. I also had a setback at work, and... Read more
The Allergic Pagan
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