I’m finding myself craving a Pagan gathering lately. Pagans, for those who are not Pagan, like to gather in groups of 40–2000 people for camping, bonfires, drumming, rituals, and workshops. Some of these gatherings are like family reunions, or compared to the magically-reappearing village of Brigadoon. Others are wild and frenetic affairs, with three-story-tall bonfires, all-night drumming and dancing, and appearances of Pagan celebrities (BNPs, or Big Name Pagans, if you’re feeling polite; Big-Nosed Pagans if you’re feeling a little... Read more

I teach English. I teach school, and I’m new enough at it that I’m still wrestling with questions of my identity as a teacher, and my idealism about teaching is barely touched with the frost of cynical experience. And I teach English, that discipline second only to Social Studies in provoking both thought and outrage with what we teach. Books, ideas, and words–learning to think, learning to feel for others (in fiction or in life), and learning to speak your... Read more

One of my fears in starting this blog was that I will eventually find myself under attack by either certain Pagans or certain Quakers who find it objectionable that I self-identify as a member of both groups. I think I’m more afraid of this coming from the Quaker side of the aisle, actually–probably because, having been a Pagan in some sense for most of my life, and in a formal sense for twenty years, I feel pretty comfortable in that... Read more

There are a lot of reasons I’m starting this blog right now. But I think I’d rather jump in in the middle than at the beginning… I’m going to start with yesterday, and what came up for me over breakfast. I always listen to the news on NPR as I get ready for work. And yesterday, NPR ran a story about the sentencing hearing for Zacharias Musawi. As part of the coverage, they described the testimony of the surviving friends... Read more

“What do you mean, Quaker Pagan? You can’t possibly be both!” Every now and then, we do get a comment on the blog that, if politely worded, does drive at basically that point. Usually the critic is a Quaker and a Christian, though I have certainly heard similar points raised by Pagans. Let me state a few things up front. Peter and I both do consider ourselves Pagan. Neither of us considers ourselves to be Christian–I never was one, and... Read more