I dreamed a few nights back that I was in a hurry. I was rushing along through cleared fields and woods roads, up and down hills like the ones I remember from the town where I grew up. Though it looked nothing like the specific landscape behind the house that Peter and I are moving to this month, in the dream it was part of that landscape. I was in a hurry because it was almost dark. There was a... Read more

We’re guest blogging over at The Wild Hunt today. Come see! Read more

Pagans and Quakers spend a fair amount of time thinking about what is going wrong: wars, global warming, species extinction. And if we’re not careful, we can get caught up in feelings of helplessness, cynicism, or despair. Today, reading about another effort to save yet another endangered species, I found my heart aching with something, something like this: Photo Credit: KetaDesign It doesn’t matter if we’re going to succeed or not. Not to you and me, and not to what... Read more

I went for a walk in the woods yesterday. Though it’s not the regular occurrence in my life I wish it was, it wasn’t just the fact of being in the woods that made the walk important to me. It was the fact that, after thirty years as an orphan from the woods of my childhood, I was once again walking in woods of my own. Peter and I are buying a house, and the house has woods behind it.... Read more

Writing Cheerfully on the Web, an anthology of Quaker writing, is now available for order. And Quaker Pagan Reflections is in it! Edited by one of my favorite Quaker bloggers of all time, Liz Oppenheimer, it also features the work of many of my other favorite Quaker bloggers, including Chris Mohr, Robin Mohr, C. Wess Daniels, Aj Schwanz, Peggy Senger Parsons, Micah Bales, Will Taber, and Peterson Toscano. Sections include Ministry & Worship, That Of God, Convergent Friends, and Love... Read more

Ask me where I feel Pagan, and I will hold out my hands. Ask me where I feel Quaker, and I will touch my heart. The other day, at my Quaker meeting, I had just come in the door before meeting for worship and was quietly greeting friends. I was, however, inwardly, already making the transition to worship in my mind, and as I was happily smiling at a friend who had just walked into the room, my hand found... Read more

I am just a tiny bit of a control freak. I’m not just the kind of person who alphabetizes the books on my bookcase, but for years, while I was studying Wiccan history, I had the books in our Pagan bookshelf organized by date of first publication. (There were little white date stickers on all the spines, too.) It bothered me a bit, deciding whether or not to list books like Carlo Ginzburg’s The Night Battles by date of first... Read more

Some things that feel odd at the time just get odder after the fact, in hindsight. There’s this thing that has happened to me a number of times since I became a Quaker. I haven’t heard any other Quakers talk about it, but I bet I’m not alone in having experienced it. For want of a better name, I’ve come to think of it as the Quaker confessional. Talk to any average person on the street, and if they know... Read more