Naturalistic Paganism
Call for Essays: Evolution and Evolutionary Science
“Mr. Darwin begs me to say that he receives so many letters that he cannot answer them all. He considers that the theory of evolution is quite compatible with the belief in a God; but that you must remember that different persons have different definitions of what they mean by God.”
— letter from Emma, Charles Darwin’s wife, to N.A. Mengden (April 8, 1879)
Charles Darwin was born this month (February 12) in 1809. February 12th is celebrated as “Darwin Day” by humanists around the world. In honor of Darwin, our HP themes for the month of February will be evolution and evolutionary science. Send your essays to humanisticpaganism [at] gmail [dot] com.
[An Atheopagan Life] “Riverain and Adapting the Wheel of the Year” by Mark Green
The eight holidays of the modern Pagan “wheel of the year” present an annual cycle of Sabbaths tracing seasonal changes, agricultural cycles, and metaphors of the cycle of life. For an Atheopagan, it’s not a bad point to start from, rooted as it is in astronomical fact (the holy days are the solstices and equinoxes, and the midpoints between them) and the reality of seasonal change in parts of the world which have a European climate cycle. And while there is a large body of mythology in the Pagan traditions which ties these seasonal changes to stories about gods, the gods aren’t really necessary for the cycle to work. It doesn’t require them in order to be meaningful and apropos for anyone living today. Read More
[Starstuff, Contemplating] “Celebrating hidden life – Imbolc” by Heather and Jon Cleland-Host
This entry is a continuation in a series describing how Jon and I have created family traditions that blend the traditional holidays of our Ancestors and imbuing these holidays with additional meaning based on our naturalistic understanding of our Earth and its Seasons. Imbolc (Feb 1-2) is the first of the “Cross-Quarter” Holidays on our journey through the year. The cross-quarters fall halfway between the Solstices and Equinoxes. Just as the quarter holidays mark the peaks relating to the amount of day and night, the cross-quarters mark the extremes of temperature. Imbolc (Groundhog’s Day) marks the halfway point through the season of winter. Lunasa (First Harvest) marks the halfway point through the season of summer and is the time when it is the hottest. Beltaine (May Day) and Samhain (Halloween) are halfway between the hottest and the coldest days of the year. All of these mark the halfway point of their respective seasons, but at no time is this felt more strongly than Imbolc, deep in the middle of winter. Imbolc falls on February 1-2 in the Northern Hemisphere, and August 1-2 in the Southern Hemisphere. At this, the coldest time of the year, winter is felt deep in our bones. The winter winds can be so cold they take the breath away, in ancient times, very often literally. Even now, it is something of a relief to know that winter is half over. More than that it is the turning point when we can begin to anticipate the spring. It is almost here. Only six weeks away. The intensity of expectation is as powerful as the cold. Read More
[A Pedagogy of Gaia] “Communities of mind are necessary but not sufficient” by Bart Everson
The Magic of Collins
A quarter century ago, when I was a college student, it was my privilege and pleasure to live in an extraordinary dormitory: the Collins Living-Learning Center at Indiana University in Bloomington. I liked it so much I stayed there for all four years of undergraduate career, never coveting the off-campus apartments that many of my peers seemed to find essential.
What made Collins great was the attempt to unify and integrate academic and residential life. Courses were offered in the dorm itself, and having dinner with profs after class in the cafeteria was not unusual. Every resident was required to plan and implement a personal project that made a unique contribution to life in the quad. I’m using the past tense, but as far as I can tell this approach still holds today.
That was a magical time and place for me. I loved the communal aspects. I liked living together with a bunch of other people, dining and studying and doing laundry together. The typical late-night philosophical bull-sessions, common to all undergraduate dormitories, were transformed here into something deeper and truer, or so I felt. Read More
The Idea Behind PostPaganry, Part 1: Introduction, by Glen Gordon
Back in March of 2014, I wrote an article for Humanistic Paganism about “Why I Am Not Pagan.” In this article I briefly mention my blog PostPagan but did not expand upon the idea of Postpaganry which spawned that project. Since writing for Humanistic Paganism and discovering Atheopaganism written about by fellow HP writer Mark Green, I feel it is time to revive and revise those ideas for HP’s beloved readers. Read More
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