This essay was originally published at Trellia’s Mirror Book.
Not too long ago, this picture of a dress caused an internet storm. Some people (like me) see the dress as blue and black; others swear it is white and gold.* Some people are even capable of seeing it as both, or as different colours entirely. To my knowledge, it’s the very first time that a photograph has caused such a bizarre phenomenon. Read More
People love the idea of a fresh start. A clean slate. A chance to cleanse past mistakes, to right old wrongs, to move forward in life without the burden of bad memories or unhealthy habits. It’s why we’re drawn to significant dates such as the first day of a new week or new month, our birthday, or the New Year. We use that time, that “stroke of midnight” click of the second-hand, to hit the reset button on our lives. It’s a little bit of magic.
For many people, the reset button ushers in lifestyle changes like diet and exercise that we hope will improve our bodily health. How many of us have said, “Okay, I’m going to watch what I eat – starting Monday.”
But what about our spirit? How many of us dig a little deeper to discover that our spiritual and emotional well-being need to be renewed as well? Read More
This month, we remember the death of the German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche ( 1844-1900). Nietzsche is perhaps best known for his declaration that “God is dead”, published in his 1882 work The Gay Science. On the basis of that statement, many commentators regard Nietzsche as an atheist. Others, however, suggest that Nietzsche had a more subtle understanding understanding of divinity. Two poems by Nietzsche, one written early in his life and another near his death, invoke an “Unknown God”. Read More
Note: This series is a follow-up to my essay, “I Don’t Believe in Purification”. In this 3-part series, I offer some additional context for my approach to deity, spirituality, and ritual.
What strikes me as a bit of a paradox is that one of the core pieces of any of the rituals I do is trying to help people get to divine communion. I’m trying to get ritual participants in real connection with the divine. With their own gods and spirits, if that’s their theology, even if I don’t share their theological views.
I’m doing that through ecstatic trance techniques with chanting, dancing, singing, drumming, movement…with open-language and multi-voice trance journeys…with the structure of the ritual itself.
The rituals I facilitate generally have three goals. To help people connect together as a community, to help people connect to their deep selves and/or connect to the divine, and to help people engage in personal and spiritual transformation, to help each person step into their best selves. Read More
Note: This series is a follow-up to my essay, “I Don’t Believe in Purification”. In this 3-part series, I offer some additional context for my approach to deity, spirituality, and ritual.
Deities or Archetypes?
In general, but specifically in ritual, I tend to work with deities as archetypes, as stories. I’m a mystic, but I also have a scientific bent. I think about the various stories of the gods, and culture and sociology and how cultures form around their stories, and around their environment. And I think about how deities change over time just as language changes over time. The Greek word Zeus and Latin Deus and Norse Tiw (Tyr) all come from an Proto-Indo-European root word deiwos. I believe that gods changed over time just as cultures spread and changed and became unique from one another. In fact, if you want a great overview of gods that are connected to each other in function, as well as the etymology of their names/language, this is a fantastic place to start. Read More
Naturalistic Paganism
Naturalistic Paganism 