Death is the great mystery, the undiscovered country, the unavoidable confrontation with the boundaries of who and what we are. Perhaps the greatest and wisest of us can sit directly with that mystery and let the grief just happen, like a leaf falling from a tree. But most of us need some form to our practice. Read more
October 23, 2019
A Zen Pagan Ghost Story For Samhain
October 23, 2019 By Tom Swiss
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But as the creepier side of the season reminds us, sometimes unwelcome presences can push through from that other side. So as the leaves fall this year, as the trees show us their bones, I find myself thinking of a 13th century Zen Buddhist ghost story. Read more
October 19, 2019
PantheaCon, Politics, and Pagan Festival Policies
October 19, 2019 By Tom Swiss
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The Pagan community is growing more diverse. This is a good thing! But it means that we will come into disagreement more often, and so must have policies and norms in place as to how to handle conflicts. Read more
October 9, 2019
Magic Doesn’t Care About Metaphysics
October 9, 2019 By Tom Swiss
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Imagine that we could hop in our TARDIS and jump back to the Golden Age of Athens to grab a musician, and bring them forward in time to talk with a modern musician. Their metaphysical views about music might be completely irreconcilable, but they could still play music together. Read more
September 26, 2019
Breaking the Glamour of Greta Thunberg
September 26, 2019 By Tom Swiss
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The social-media-viral cult of personality around Greta Thunberg is a glamour being cast as what part of artist Hiroyuki Hamada has described as a rebirth ritual — the rebirth of a monster, capitalism. Read more
September 21, 2019
Walking Behind The Waterfall At The Equinox
September 21, 2019 By Tom Swiss
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It strikes me that, if ritual is “poetry in the realm of acts”, then a large part of living a magical life is recognizing found poetry when one sees it. Sometimes that gets institutionalized — found poetry published to others, to stretch the metaphor a bit. I am quite sure that in Japan, a waterfall like this would be the home of a Shinto shrine, and would see a steady stream of visitors. Read more
September 18, 2019
The Aftershocks of Grieving
September 18, 2019 By Tom Swiss
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I share this so that you may know it, if when next you grieve (for that is the way of the world, you will grieve) you wonder at your own behavior. Brains are weird, and there is no right way to grieve. Read more
September 10, 2019
We Have Always Been At War With The Taliban
September 10, 2019 By Tom Swiss
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And our society is too much Aresian and too little Athenian. We are too ready to give in to the easy mindless rage that ends in defeat and humiliation for the aggressor and destruction for their victims, rather than the difficult, judicious, creative — but still valiant and strong — way of wisdom. Read more
September 3, 2019
The Last Minute Still Counts
September 3, 2019 By Tom Swiss
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Because getting something done at the last minute, is still getting it done. Read more
August 22, 2019
Invoke Often
August 22, 2019 By Tom Swiss
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"Invoke often." This simple advice has been offered by Robert Anton Wilson and Aleister Crowley as a key magical practice. But we knew it instinctively as kids, as we hung posters on our walls — posters of musicians whose creativity we wished to call into our lives, or of sports heroes whose prowess we wished to invoke. Read more
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