Naturalistic Paganism
Rituals are powerful. They are at our beginning and our end. They teach the stories that shape and preserve cultures. In recent history, both spiritual and national rituals told a hierarchical story of separation from nature.
Now evolutionary rituals are essential. — Carol Kilby, Evolutionary Dancer
So many of us recognize that our traditional holidays often no longer serve us in building a healthy, sustainable world, and instead teach detachment from nature, colonialism, patriarchy, and the supernatural. But how can we replace them when they are what we know and are familiar with? How can new celebrations and rituals be created when anything new seems unfamiliar at first? In the Pagan community, we are empowered to create rituals and practices which enrich our lives. Even with that fact, it helps to have others working with us, giving ideas and building energy. Here is your chance to bring this joy to yourself and those around you! As Samhain approaches, may we all remember how our Ancestors time and again built rituals and practices that served them. But hurry, the class starts on November 1st! Sign up here!
This unprecedented planetary crisis is an evolutionary moment. Our holy and holiday practices too often feel detached and irrelevant. Evolutionary rituals connect us to the peril and promise of our cosmic reality.
Evolutionary rituals integrate the wisdom of the New Cosmology, ancient Creation Spirituality, and emergent Consciousness!
You’ll learn, these, and more!
1) The Power of Ritual in our Lives
2) The Components of Evolutionary Rituals
3) How to Reclaim Traditional Forms
4) How to Create Unique Practices
5) Altars for Eco-activism
6) Rituals as Vessels of Conscious Evolution
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Session Descriptions
Session 1 (Nov. 1), The Power of Ritual: Rituals are culture’s “cookie-cutters.” Explore the rituals that shaped us! Historically rituals created resonance, cultural and personal identity. Today ritual can aid our retraction from the very stories, values, and norms that have brought us to a planetary crisis and expand the story out of which we live, move, and have being. Experience the r’evolutionary ritual, the Dance of Immensity.
Session 2 (Nov. 8), Strands of Evolutionary Rituals: New rites and practices are gifts of the new story: we live in an emergent Universe. They are a dance of unique wisdom traditions: Science – the new Cosmology and Ecology, Creation Spirituality – inherent in all classical and indigenous religions, and Conscious Evolution – Universe is becoming consciousness of itself through us in these critical times.
Experience the Dance of Identity.
Session 3 (Nov. 15), New Symbols, Language, and Altars: Trapped in the language and imagery of a Newtonian worldview, we lack the words necessary to transition from a worldview of separation to one of interconnection. Bringing new images and vocabulary from cosmology, ecology, and the mystics to create wholistic personal and cultural altars and holidays is a form of environmental activism. Experience the Evolutionary Ritual, the Dance of Radiance.
Session 4 (Nov. 22), Reframing Traditional Rituals: Traditional rituals have unexplored layers of meaning and potency and can be reframed inside a Deeptime Cosmic context to deliver fresh experiences that unleash energy and capacity for facing the crises of our day. Experience a Cosmic Communion and Cosmic Beatitudes.
Session 5 (Nov. 29), Creating Evolutionary Rituals: Never-before times call for never-before rituals. Remembrance Day for Lost Species was such a ritual. Following our allurements, which Brian Swimme believes is how we bind Universe together, we’ll identify where Evolutionary Rituals are called for. Doing so we will participate in the most ancient tradition of ceremony there is: creating rituals the land told us to do. Experience the Dance of Becoming.
About Carol Kilby, M.Div., D.Min., Author:
Carol Kilby is A member and presenter on the Deep Time Network, Kilby is author of Evolutionary Dancer, Out, In and On the Fringe of the Church. An ordained clergy in the United Church of Canada, she stepped out of the pulpit in 2005 to found the Gaia Centre for Eco-Spirituality and Sustainable Work where she hosted teachers of the emerging scientific and spiritual consciousness including Brian Swimme, Miriam MacGillis, Matthew Fox, Jennifer Morgan, Drew Dellinger, Barbara Marx Hubbard and more. A member of the Deeptime family and graduate of the Deep Time Leadership program, she is currently compiling her second book, Evolutionary Rituals – Because We Can’t Get There from Here!
Teaching Model: A personable and visionary zoom-leader, she uses a model of emergent leadership including images, movement, break-through groups, presentations, and MECs – pauses for evolutionary consciousness. Kilby’s aim – the participants’ fullest engagement. Passion for the Earth community, ritual, creativity, humour, and learning – Kilby brings all these to on-line meetings. And awe! carolkilbyauthor@gmail.com https://www.carolkilby.com/
Naturalistic Paganism 