You weary Nations, perhaps I am some new being you’ve never encountered before. Yet there is nothing about me you can’t recognize. I live in the place where you perceive nothing. Look again! — Geoff Bartley, “The Language of Stones” Recently, P. Sufenas Virius Lupus published an essay at Patheos entitled “Bringing Back the Gods”. There’s a lot worth discussing there, but I want to address now a part of his post about the difference between Polytheistic worship and “nature... Read more
… you may find your Pagany books in the Religion section, instead of in the New Age section. Elysia over at Llewellyn has posted about “The Biggest Pagan News that No One is Talking About”. The BISAC code [the codes developed and maintained by the Book Industry Study Group] that used to be OCC036020 Body, Mind & Spirit / Spirituality / Paganism & Neo-Paganism (a relatively recent addition on its own) is also now listed in Religion, as REL117000, or... Read more
1. B.T. Newberg has published a fascinating breakdown of the Naturalistic Pagan Community: Jungians, cognitive-evolutionary types, Pantheists, Cosmic types (Sagan’s Pagans), cultural/philosophical types, environmental types, and other atheists/agnostics. I’ve recently been educated a little about the diversity of the Polytheistic community when I wrongly assumed that all Polytheists approach their gods in the same way. It’s a useful reminder that Naturalistic Pagans are just as diverse. 2. Over at PaganSquare, I just published a response, from a Jungian perspective, to... Read more
Jonathan Korman (whose post I can’t seem to talk enough about) recently described an awkward interaction he witnessed at a Pagan festival: I was at a public Pagan festival a while ago and a passing non-Pagan asked one of the people working at the information booth who we all were and what we were doing. The person in the booth provided an unhelpful, incoherent non-answer with the gods and nature and magic bobbing about in a froth of words, and... Read more
Star Foster recently added her name to the growing list of Polytheists who have dropped the Pagan label. [It looks like her post has now been taken down.] (It wasn’t too long ago she was telling everyone how much she loved being Wiccan.) Jason Mankey says there’s no running from the Pagan label (There’s nothing like telling people they can’t run to make them want to run.) and then appeals for “Big Tent Paganism”. (There’s over 200 comments too!... Read more
I want to take a time out from my 2012 blogroll review and talk briefly about the latest attempt to resolve the Pagan identity-crisis. No, I don’t mean Star Foster ditching the Pagan label a few of days ago — something which was not at all surprising given her attitude toward other Pagans six months ago, and even less surprising considering that, about a year before that, she abandoned the Wiccan label shortly after being initiated. The evolution of Star’s... Read more
Over the past several months, I have come across many posts on other blogs that I really wanted to comment on in detail here. As the list piled up, I realized I was never going to get to them all, so allow me to briefly draw your attention to several items of interest, in case you missed them. I also hope to foreshadow some of the topics I still want to cover here in 2013. 1. B.T. Newberg interviews Dr.... Read more
About a month ago, Jason Mankey wondered whether the controversies in the Pagan blogosphere have anything to do with Paganism “closer to home” in a post entitled, “Outside Looking In (or Is Anybody Really Listening?)”. Due to the holidays and family crises, I haven’t gotten around to discussing it. But since it hits close to home, I wanted to comment. The two examples Jason gave were the “embarrassment in/of the Greater Pagan Community” issue, which started with a post by... Read more
A couple of weeks ago, I was thinking about New Year’s resolutions in anticipation of 2013. I was looking forward to publishing my 200th post before the end of the year (this is No. 201) and I was considering taking a hiatus from blogging, just a short break, thirty days to refocus on my spiritual practice. I had been reading D.T. Strain’s series on “Distractions to Spiritual Practice”. In it, D.T. identifies “cosmology” (by which he means what I would... Read more
I got some really awesome Christmas presents this year, so I thought I’d brag a little. “Ashes and Snow” by Gregory Colbert The first was the Ashes and Snow DVD. If you’re not familiar with Ashes and Snow, it’s a “poetic field study” by Gregory Colbert that depicts a world in which the natural and artificial boundaries separating humans from other species do not exist. Here’s a clip on YouTube. I already have a beautiful photograph by Colbert hanging in... Read more
The Allergic Pagan
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