Guns or Religion? The Danger of Simple Answers

June 15, 2016 By John Halstead

Clarity can be a scary thing sometimes ... people who believe that killing others is justified can have a frightening clarity. As we work our way through the difficult questions in the following weeks and months, let us beware the simple answers. And let us embrace the complexity of our problems. Let us see those we disagree with, not as stereotyped one-dimensional opponents, but as fellow human beings with whom we must work out a way to live. Then maybe, just maybe, the means will become the ends, and we will just win our way through toward a peaceful and just future. Read more

An Earthseed Solstice: Festival of the Teacher

June 13, 2016 By John Halstead

Our teachers Are all around us,. All that we perceive, All that we experience, All that is given to us or taken from us, All that we love or hate, need or fear Will teach us— If we will learn. God is our first and our last teacher. God is our harshest teacher: subtle, demanding. Learn or die. Read more

I don’t often agree with polytheists, but when I do …

June 8, 2016 By John Halstead

I don't often agree with polytheists about religious matters, so I am excited when I come across a polytheist idea or practice that resonates with me. I recently came across two articles by polytheists who I usually find on the opposite end of the spectrum of any discussion I am in, but in this instance I found myself nodding my head vigorously. Read more

Home is a Place You Have Never Been: Finding Eternity in Change

June 5, 2016 By John Halstead

Is it possible that there is a kind of permanence to be found in the midst of change, a kind of peace in the heart of war, a kind of home to be found in homelessness? Read more

Review of Godless Paganism at Endless Erring

June 2, 2016 By John Halstead

“… Paganism articulates an alternative approach, one where deity is not necessarily dismissed as by the so-called “new atheists”, but is reinterpreted in a non-literal, non-anthropomorphic, often archetypal way. Amongst the many contributors are Wiccans, Druids, “Godlauss” Heathens, Humanistic Pagans, Naturalistic Pantheists and even one “Zen Pagan Taoist Atheist Discordian”, so the views expressed are wide-ranging and show that non-theistic pagans are not a monolith, and that non-theistic approaches exist in virtually every pagan path. …” [CLICK HERE TO READ... Read more

Why I Chose to Get Arrested (with photos): My Winding Path to Environmental Activism (Postscript)

May 24, 2016 By John Halstead

"What are you going to wear to get arrested?" This was my wife's question as I mentally prepared to be arrested as part of a non-violent direct action protesting the petroleum industry and demanding a just transition to renewable energy. A couple a years ago, I didn't even recycle. Over the past 2 weeks, I've been describing my journey from there to here. It's fitting, then, to conclude this series with a description of my recent arrest as part of Break Free Midwest. Read more

Paganism’s Promise: My Winding Path to Environmental Activism (Part 10/10)

May 22, 2016 By John Halstead

Earlier in the summer, Patheos Pagan had invited its bloggers to answer the question, “Has Pagan Environmentalism Failed?” I continued to wrestle with that question for months after. I’ve decided that, whether or not there is time to prevent global catastrophe, I choose to act as if there is. And I believe that, if were are to going to really change things, we need to change our relationship with the Earth in a fundamental way. It seems to me that... Read more

We’re Already Living in a Tree: My Winding Path to Environmental Activism (Part 9/10)

May 21, 2016 By John Halstead

There were other experiences too that fall that contributed to this transformation, quotidian but no less significant. There was the smell of burning leaves on the crisp autumn air one day in particular. There was the taste of raspberries from my backyard and the last tomatoes from my garden when I came from work. There was the sound of wild geese flying south, “announcing my place in the family of things,” as Mary Oliver says. All of this culminated in my... Read more

Voices in the Wilderness: My Winding Path to Environmental Activism (Part 8/10)

May 20, 2016 By John Halstead

The writings of John Muir and Rachel Carson, the "father of the national parks" and the “mother of the environmental movement,” inspired me to learn more about deep ecology and to become an activist myself. Read more

It Should Have Happened on a Mountaintop: My Winding Path to Environmental Activism (Part 7/10)

May 19, 2016 By John Halstead

I guess we don’t get to choose the time and place of our epiphanies. Read more