Naturalistic Paganism

The Value of Thinking With the Land, by Emile Wayne

My thinking has been profoundly and wonderfully shaped by a number of authors who deserve credit here. One is So Sinopoulos-Lloyd, whose article I mention below. Another is Lupa Greenwolf, whose frank, no-nonsense blog has me calling “YES!” every time I read it. Books relevant to the discussion below include: The Spell of the Sensuous by David Abram, and Beyond Nature and Culture by Phillipe Descola.

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It’s five days until the Summer Solstice, and the weather is strangely and unseasonably cool here in the high desert of Southern California. It’ll heat up soon, but for now, the high winds Read More

The Summer Cross-Quarter (Summer Thermstice) Approaches!

In the Northern Hemisphere, the Autumn cross-quarter or “Summer Thermstice” is celebrated on August 1 as Lughnasadh/Lammas/Lunasa. How will you be celebrating it?  Astronomically, the event occurs on August 6th or 7th this year.   “Or“?  What?  How can it happen on different days?   Read More

Will This Congressman Reflect on our Earth? By Bart Everson

This past Thursday morning, I took my life into my own hands and rode my bike out to Metairie, to an office building on Veterans Memorial Boulevard. This nondescript edifice houses the office of Steve Scalise, the representative for Louisiana’s 1st Congressional District.

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Dear Pagans: Please Stop Abusing Science, by Lupa Greenwolf

Okay. I’m putting on the Cranky Pagan Hat. You have been warned.

When I was a kid, I always wanted to be some sort of STEM major, whether it was veterinarian or biologist. Unfortunately, my terrible math skills barred me from anything but the humanities. Even my psychology degree is more geared towards counseling practice than scientific research; in grad school, my research methods and statistics classes were specifically for not-math people, just enough to be able to understand the latest studies in counseling-related psychology.

But it was enough. Many of us in the United States get a cursory look at the scientific method in public school, but most of us forget it after we’re done. This is a damned shame, because it’s one of the most important processes in our world today. It is meant to allow us as close to an objective look at phenomena as we can get, in spite of our human biases. Revisiting research methods in my early thirties reminded me that there are reasons we know the things we do, and it’s not just a matter of “feelings”. Read More

Building a Land Shrine, by Anna Walther

Today the sun shone from behind early summer storm clouds long enough for me to walk to my suburban woods. As I walked, the first cicada song of the season blared from the branches of a neighbor’s cedar elm. Above the small clearing that I tend, a mockingbird ran through his repertoire from the bare branches of a dead tree, and bees and dragonflies zipped overhead. Read More