I’m back from the 2012 OBOD East Coast Gathering in Medford, Pennsylvania. Denton CUUPS is my spiritual home, but Druidry is my tribe, and there is nothing like spending a long weekend in a wooded campground with 103 fellow Bards, Ovates, Druids, members of AODA and members of ADF. I’ll have much more to say about the ECG in the coming days, but tonight I want to write about a very personal event. On Friday night I was ordained as... Read more

Teo Bishop has a post on Patheos titled “Paganism Beyond the Warm and Fuzzy.” He describes two personal experiences where someone almost died in dramatic fashion and one dream where he was sure he was going to die, then says: All things have their place, and there is certainly a place for the warm and fuzzy in Paganism. But I think it’s also necessary to remember that there are parts of nature, and aspects of the Kindred we worship, that... Read more

In looking through some notes today I realized that while I’ve written about five of the ancient temples I visited earlier this year, I never wrote about the most famous of them, the Parthenon in Athens. The Parthenon, dedicated to Athena Parthenos, is the largest structure on the Acropolis of Athens. It was completed in 438 BCE and was used as a temple for over 800 years until 435 CE, when the Christian Byzantine emperor ordered it closed. Sometime before... Read more

I intended yesterday’s post on the perspective of the gods to be about the importance of taking a longer range view of things, but it ended up going in a slightly different direction. So today I want to come back to the topic of time and the rate of change. What I have to say can be summed up fairly simply: Big changes happen slowly. Work diligently. Evolution is perhaps the most obvious example. After the giant reptiles were killed... Read more

Millions of years of evolution have given us the instinct to live for today – eat all you can now, since you don’t know when you’ll be able to find food again. Thousands of years of civilization have taught us to plan ahead, to plant crops and build houses. The two combined have taught us to moderate our self-interests enough to care for our children and grandchildren, since we know that while we will die our genes – and perhaps... Read more

Following on the heels of the Catholic grandfather whose nine year old granddaughter is a soft polytheist comes this very good essay by rabbinical student Joshua Stanton titled “Finding Language to Describe God.” He says: My belief in God and ability to describe God are not necessarily correlated. During profound spiritual experiences, I am often least capable of describing what makes them feel spiritual. The awe of the moment can eclipse — and even temporarily suppress — my ability to... Read more

Star Foster found this beautiful story of a Catholic grandfather whose nine year old granddaughter is praying to the Greek gods – apparently because he gave her the Percy Jackson series of novels. Explaining it, the nine year old said: When I am at the beach near the water, I feel close to Poseidon. When I am in a thunderstorm, I feel close to Zeus. When I see a beautiful person, I feel close to Aphrodite, and when I hear... Read more

Jeff Lilly had a Google+ post yesterday (that I apparently can’t link directly to) where he pointed out the tendency of online discussions to degenerate into “a zero-information signal, i.e. a statement that is either unverifiable or just false.” In the Pagan community, he says this always comes back to (1) discussions of how “real” the gods are, or (2) how persecuted Pagans are. Both of these ultimately concern the issue of legitimacy: is Paganism a “real” religion? [emphasis mine]... Read more

One of the supposed advantages of Paganism is its inherent plurality and tolerance. Ancient pagans understood different people in different lands had different gods – there was no need to “convert” them. Modern Pagans understand Cernunnos called me and Isis called you and Ganesha called someone else but we can still get together to celebrate the seasons and work together to care for the Earth. But apparently it’s not that simple. Last Saturday Brendan Myers had a guest post on... Read more

The Augusta National Golf Club was in the news yesterday when they admitted their first female members: former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and financier Darla Moore. The playgrounds of the 1% of the 1% may seem irrelevant to ordinary folks, but there’s a lesson in this for all of us – and it’s probably not what you’re thinking right now. For the benefit of those who haven’t followed this issue, here are the basic facts. Augusta National is one... Read more