I have a strong opinion that those who point out problems have an obligation to offer solutions. Perhaps professional journalists can be exempted, but for anyone else – and that includes politicians, editorialists, bloggers, teachers and religious leaders – if you’re going to complain then also say what you think would make the situation better. Otherwise you’re not fully engaging the problem – you’re just whining. On Tuesday I told my story of weight and fat and health and the... Read more

Last week the Pagan internet exploded with posts on the issues of obesity, health, body image and the mainstream society’s impossible standards of attractiveness. It started with this well-meaning but ultimately insensitive post by Peter Dybing asking why we don’t talk about the relatively high percentage of Pagans who are obese. Star Foster logged in from her vacation to respond with “My Fat Is My Business.” Thorn Coyle wrote a very balanced piece that still managed to offend some when... Read more

Pyramid of the Magician, Uxmal, Yucatan Apocalypse NotDenton Unitarian Universalist FellowshipJuly 22, 2012 Introduction – The Maya and Their Calendars For a long time we’ve been warned something big is coming at the end of this year. On December 21, 2012, the Mayan long count calendar comes to an end, and with it, the end of, well, something or other. The Maya were one of the most sophisticated pre-Columbian civilizations in the Americas. They had a fully developed system of... Read more

Early this morning a 24 year old man in Aurora, Colorado went into a midnight showing of the new Batman movie and opened fire. As I write this, 12 are confirmed dead and 59 more are injured. James Holmes was a graduate student in neuroscience, but he was preparing to withdraw from school. He had one traffic ticket, no criminal record, no apparent connections to any terror or extremist groups, and no accomplices. He carried an AR-15 assault rifle, a... Read more

I’ve always known Chick-fil-a and the people who run it have different values than I do. That’s OK – I don’t have to share your values and I certainly don’t have to share your religion in order to do business with you. As fast food goes, Chick-fil-a tastes good, is reasonably priced, and is less unhealthy than most. I like it and I’ve eaten a lot of it over the years. Most businesses aren’t so open about their religious orientation... Read more

One of the problems with occult studies is that they’re occult – hidden. What does a real magician do? Most of us don’t run into magic workers in our daily lives and when we do we don’t recognize them. Fictional stories of magic workers are fun and can be inspirational, but most of those stories involve magic that simply doesn’t exist. We don’t have good, tangible role models. That’s the real value of Low Magick by Lon Milo DuQuette. It’s... Read more

In all my years of schooling – kindergarten through graduate school – I have only two regrets. One is that I dropped Spanish after 10th grade, once I found out none of the colleges I was considering required a foreign language for a degree in engineering. The other is that I never went to Florida for Spring Break. Spring Break in the early 80s wasn’t the big deal it is now, but it’s been on every college student’s radar since... Read more

Today’s edition of The Wild Hunt is a speculative piece on the future of Pagan festivals. Jason Pitzl-Waters, inspired by this blog entry by ritual magician Frater Barrabbas, wonders if despite record attendance at large festivals like Pagan Spirit Gathering and Pantheacon, perhaps the days of the Pagan festival are numbered. The argument is basically that large Pagan festivals are, well, large. They draw people from long distances who have to burn fossil fuels to get there. As people who... Read more

the Temple of Olympian Zeus, seen from the Acropolis The Temple of Olympian Zeus in Athens is huge – 134 feet by 353 feet, just slightly smaller than an American football field. It was supported by 104 columns 55 feet high. Today only 15 columns remain standing, plus a 16th lying on the ground. Some of damage came from looting, but most came from “recycling” materials to build churches and mosques and such by the various powers that ruled Greece... Read more

The issues of doubt and faith have come up multiple times recently, which probably means it’s time for me to write about it. Eric Scott has this piece on Patheos where he discusses his disappointment (though not surprise) at being unmoved by an energy current that others could feel. Jeff Lilly dug up this two-year-old essay by UU minister and Zen Buddhist James Ishmael Ford titled “All Religions are False.” And Daniel Fincke at the atheist blog Camels With Hammers... Read more