Naturalistic Paganism
The Naturalistic Pagan Toolbox: Speaking of/to Nature
This column was conceived by Rua Lupa, who proposed gathering practical resources for Naturalistic Pagans in one place. This column is dedicated to sharing ideas for religious technologies which we might use or adapt to deepen our Naturalistic Pagan practices. It includes the ideas and experiences of others, as well as some of my own, and I welcome you to send me your ideas for sharing in future posts. If you have discovered a ritual technique which works for you that you would like to add to the Naturalistic Pagan Toolbox, click here to send me an email.
Language and Experience
Language shapes our experience. And this includes our experience of nature.
We tend to think of language as only reflecting your experience, but in reality is that language and experience interact in a cyclical fashion. To a certain extent, our experience is limited by what we can say about it. As Wittgenstein said, “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” For example, lacking words for certain colors or hues may limit our ability to see them.
Another example is peculiar to the English language. Although many other languages use gendered pronouns for non-human objects, English only has the gender-neutral “it”. “It” is not a neutral word. Referring to a human person as an “it”, for example, is insulting. Calling someone “it” is a refusal to recognize the subjectivity of the person, reducing them to an object. Read More
The May Cross-Quarter (Vernal Equitherm) is just two weeks away!
The Vernal Equitherm is coming! It is the midpoint between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. For those in the Northern Hemisphere, spring is well and truly coming and summer is around the corner. Flora is bursting to life even in the northern climes, and fauna frolicks in the verdure. Those in the Southern Hemisphere experience the opposite, as autumn passes into winter. Read More
“Naturalistic Polytheism and Our Patron Goddess” by Tom L. Waters
I wish Henry Nelson Wieman had been a polytheist. If he had been, UUs might have less of a “theological identity crisis” than we do today.
It seems Wieman is well known to most UU ministers, but is sadly obscure among the broader membership. A Presbyterian-turned-Unitarian, Wieman was an inventive theologian who worked within the tradition of religious empiricism, maintaining that a theology could be built up from human experience, in a manner analogous to the way science builds theory from observation and experiment. What type of experience forms the basis for theology? Wieman’s central insight on the subject was this: that human life may be transformed for the better, and if we can identify the agency of such transformation we have identified God.
An empirical definition of God such as this carries with it a very stimulating implication. For “that which transforms human life for the better” need not, upon investigation, turn out to be anything supernatural. In fact, the definition leads us (as it led Wieman) to see God as a natural process occurring within this world. God, in fact, becomes something we do. Although distanced from supernaturalism, Wieman’s naturalistic theism nevertheless preserves a religious aura around its God, because the transformative experience through which God is known is itself full of profundity and a bit of mystery. Read More
Early Spring Theme: Diversity
In Deep Time, early spring can match the time from the first animals to the diversification of life in the Cambrian. And what forms! Though many of the basic animals we are familiar with were just a glint in a simple eye (there were no fish, spiders, mammals, etc.), there were many new things – arthropods, jellyfish, chordates, etc. Our debut of the Godless Paganism book already highlights our Early Spring theme of Diversity. As with all themes, this just an optional muse.
Early Spring (March 20 – May 1)
Cosmic event: First animals to Diversification
Theme: Diversity
Questions: So many different kinds of any given category! What diversity do you see around you, enriching our lives?
The first review of Godless Paganism has been published!
Interested reviewers please send me an email inquiry about receiving a free .pdf copy.
Scholastic Paganism has posted the first review of Godless Paganism: Voices of Non-Theistic Pagans. If you’re wondering whether you should purchase a copy, check out the review here. It’s not unequivocally positive, but it is laudatory and insightful. Here are some excerpts: Read More
Buy Godless Paganism (paperback)
Buy Godless Paganism (ebook)
Pagan Coming Out Day – May 2nd
Naturalistic Paganism 