Naturalistic Paganism
Mid-Month Meditation: “Song of the Taste” by Gary Snyder
In anticipation of the autumn equinox …
Eating the living germs of grasses
Eating the ova of large birdsthe fleshy sweetness packed
around the sperm of swaying treesThe muscles of the flanks and thighs of
soft-voiced cows
the bounce in the lamb’s leap
the swish in the ox’s tailEating roots grown swoll
inside the soilDrawing on life of living
clustered points of light spun
out of space
hidden in the grape.Eating each other’s seed
eating
ah, each other.Kissing the lover in the mouth of bread:
lip to lip.— Gary Snyder
DE NATURA DEORUM: “Adventures of a Non-Deist, or, Why I Don’t ‘Believe’ in the Gods” by Peg Aloi
De Natura Deorum is a monthly column where we explore the beliefs of Naturalistic Pagans about the nature of deity. This essay was originally published at Peg Aloi’s blog The Witching Hour on the Patheos Pagan Channel.
I was raised Catholic. Not very strictly, but enough to carry away a profound sense of discomfort with anything remotely connected to religion. I did kind of enjoy the music and chanting and stories and pageantry of mass, but of course in later life I understood it was a love of ritual, not a love of Catholic liturgy. I was also raised in a a family fairly in touch with nature: we hunted and fished and grew and gathered much of our own food. So when I discovered neo-paganism in graduate school, I mainly related to the environmental activism and the nature worship components. In fact, until I found out there were witches and pagans in the contemporary world, I basically considered myself an atheist. As I moved in circles of pagans and encountered more and more witches, “Wiccans” and others who followed some form of nature spirituality, I understood many of them worshipped the gods, or, in some cases, mainly the Goddess.Call for a Pagan Community Statement on the Environment
LATEST UPDATE
In honor of Earth Day, the statement has been published at ecopagan.com where you can add your signature on Earth Day or any time after. The statement represents the beginning of a conversation, not the final word. Join us in our call to all people to rise to this historic moment in order to protect all life on Earth by signing the statement at ecopagan.com. You can sign on your on behalf or on behalf of a group or organization.
UPDATE
I am very pleased to announce that the DRAFT Pagan Community Statement on the Environment is available for a period of public comment. The public comment period will be open until April 21, 2015. Share your comments at ecopagan.com.
The Statement will be published in its final form on Earth Day, April 22, 2015, when it will be made available for electronic signature. The Statement only represents you if you sign it. Please wait until April 22 to add your signature.
A lot of hard work has gone into the draft Statement over the past 6 months. It has been an honor to work with everyone who participated in the process, many of whom have been working for reform of our relationship to the environment for longer than I have been a Pagan. If you would like to know more about the working group that drafted this statement or our process, click here.
A Message from the Editor
Inspired by the recent publication of an environmental statement by the Covenant of the Goddess, and spurred on by the increasingly urgent need for personal and societal reform of our relationship to the environment, I am gathering interested parties to prepare a draft Pagan Community Statement on the Environment. Our intent is to a prepare a draft statement which will then be made available for public comment and then finalized for signatures.
Among other things, I would like to see this statement published by the Alliance of Religions and Conservation, which already has published similar statements by many other religions.
If you would be interested in helping to write the first draft of the Pagan Community Statement on the Environment or if you would like to participate in any other way, please email me at your earliest convenience or respond in the comments.
Thank you for your attention to this important issue.
If you would like to read more about the thoughts that prompted this effort, see my recent post at The Allergic Pagan.
[UPDATE: Due to an unexpected number of responses, I’ve had to close the draft working group to new members. Please look forward to the draft statement when it is made available for public comment.]
John Halstead
Managing Editor, HumanisticPaganism.com
“Entering the Isle of Birds” by Anna Walther
During the past year I’ve been learning to identify the bird calls I hear in my backyard. Some are obvious and easy to learn; I’ve recognized the strident screeches of blue jays and grackles for at least as long as I’ve lived in Austin. Other, subtler voices require a more attentive ear.
A little over a year ago I learned to distinguish the call of a Great Horned Owl from the call of an Eastern Screech Owl. Both species live in my neighborhood, and I was lucky enough to hear them calling for mates during winter months, when I was up late or early studying for an anatomy course. During a hike at McKinney Falls this spring, I learned to recognize the loud chip of the Northern Cardinal. While watering my garden a couple of mornings ago, I heard a familiar voice: tea kettle tea kettle tea kettle tea kettle. Though I’d heard the call in my backyard many times before, I didn’t know the owner. I watched the tree branches, and within a minute a Carolina Wren hopped into view. Another morning in the garden I heard someone knocking on a nearby utility pole. I looked up and saw the red cap and black and white barred wings of a Red-bellied Woodpecker, and then I heard its rolling trill-l-l-l. There are many more voices to learn, and I’m a long way from understanding the subjects of their songs. But I’m learning to listen to birds, and I’m beginning to match names, faces, and songs. Read More
“Being a Spiritual Wallflower: How Humanistic Pagans can get off the wall and dance” by John Halstead
Even under the influence of the narcotic draught, of which songs of all primitive men and peoples speak, or with the potent coming of spring that penetrates all nature with joy, these Dionysian emotions awake, and as they grow in intensity everything subjective vanishes into complete self-forgetfulness. In the German Middle Ages, too, singing and dancing crowds, ever increasing in number, whirled themselves from place to place under this same Dionysian impulse. […] There are some who, from obtuseness or lack of experience, turn away from such phenomena as from “folk-diseases,” with contempt or pity born of consciousness of their own “healthy-mindedness.” But of course such poor wretches have no idea how corpselike and ghostly their so-called “healthy-mindedness” looks when the glowing life of the Dionysian revelers roars past them.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy
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Pagan Coming Out Day – May 2nd
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