Naturalistic Paganism
Musings of a Pagan Mythicist by Maggie Jay Lee: “Step to the Right: Religion and the Divided Mind”
Today we hear from columnist, Maggie Jay Lee, as she discusses Jill Bolte Taylor’s book, My Stroke of Insight, and invites us to “step to the right”.
I recently finished Jill Bolte Taylor’s book, My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey, and I think her insight has a lot of relevance for naturalistic pagans. Many of you are probably familiar with Taylor’s story, which she also shared in a TED talk. Being a neuroanatomist, Taylor has a unique vantage point from which to tell her story, but ultimately her story is not really about the brain. It is the story of a life transforming spiritual awakening, a story which is completely grounded in the natural world.
The Left Brain on Vacation
At the age of 37, Taylor had a massive stroke centered in her left cerebral hemisphere. This stroke affected her ability to move and to sense her physical boundaries in space and time, as well as her ability to speak and understand language. With her left hemisphere severely damaged, Taylor relied much more heavily on her right hemisphere, and she found a lot of difference in the way the two hemispheres experience the world.
When her left brain went mostly off-line, Taylor experienced herself as a fluid, one with the Universe, and felt a sense of deep inner peace.
“My left hemisphere had been trained to perceive myself as a solid, separate from others. Now, released from that restrictive circuitry, my right hemisphere relished in its attachment to the eternal flow. I was no longer isolated and alone. My soul was as big as the universe and frolicked with glee in a boundless sea.” (Taylor, page 69)
For me Taylor articulates so well what I think of as the very heart of spirituality. Spiritual practices set out to awaken our sense of deep inner wellbeing and connectedness with everything, out of which friendly loving kindness to all naturally flows. It is knowing, as Taylor puts it, that: “I am a part of it all. We are brothers and sisters on this planet. We are here to help make this world a more peaceful and kinder place.”
Stories of spiritual awakening are almost always packaged with a metaphysical worldview that is not naturalistic. However, Taylor is a neuroanatomist, and she explains her experience completely in terms of brain anatomy and function without reference to any kind of supernatural being or dimension. According to Taylor, this awareness of deep inner wellbeing and connectedness is present in each of us right now, and we can access it if we can “silence the voice of our dominating left mind.”
“I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind”
I find Taylor’s story so compelling, not only because it is an inspiring tale of resurrection, of human determination and the body’s incredible ability to heal, but because what she says about our minds resonates with so much of my understanding of human nature and my own less dramatic experience of myself. The idea that our two hemispheres, while being intimately linked and mutually influential, have essentially different personalities, different perspectives, different goals and values, brings to mind the idea of the divided self which is such a perennial part of philosophy and psychology.
“It appears that many of us struggle regularly with polar opposite characters holding court inside our heads. In fact, just about everyone I speak with is keenly aware that they have conflicting parts of their personality. Many of us speak about how our head (left hemisphere) is telling us to do one thing while our heart (right hemisphere) is telling us to do the exact opposite. Some of us distinguish between what we think (left hemisphere) and what we feel (right hemisphere). Others communicate about our mind consciousness (left hemisphere) versus our body’s instinctive consciousness (right hemisphere). Some of us talk about our small ego mind (left hemisphere) compared with our capital ego mind (right hemisphere), or our small self (left hemisphere) versus our inner or authentic self (right hemisphere). Some of us delineate between our work mind (left hemisphere) and our vacation mind (right hemisphere), while others refer to their researcher mind (left hemisphere) versus their diplomatic mind (right hemisphere). . . . And if you are a Carl Jung fan, then there’s our sensing mind (left hemisphere) versus our intuitive mind (right hemisphere), and our judging mind (left hemisphere) versus our perceiving mind (right hemisphere). Whatever language you use to describe your two parts, based upon my experience, I believe they stem anatomically from the two very distinct hemispheres inside your head.” (Taylor page 133-134)
I see this dichotomy of perspectives play out all around me. I see it here in our discussions of terms like spirit and energy. I see it in the different ways naturalists talk about nature and religion. We naturalists spend a lot of time judging and evaluating religion from the outside, from the left hemisphere, but I think ultimately religion is a right hemisphere awareness that the left just doesn’t get.
Good fences make good neighbors
But hasn’t science already debunked all this right verses left brain stuff as a neuromyth of pop psychology? Well as with so many things that all depends on how you look at it. The theory of right and left hemispheric specialization really took shape following the split brain studies done in the 1950s and 60s on epilepsy patients who had their corpus callosum, the massive band of nerve fibers that joins the two hemispheres, severed to stop debilitating seizures. Since each hemisphere controls the opposite side of the body, it was possible with these patients to engage exclusively with one hemisphere or the other. These split brain studies (and later studies using other methods to temporarily “turn-off” parts of the brain) found significant differences in the perception and capabilities of the two hemispheres. The differences in the hemispheres are also dramatically demonstrated in people like Taylor who have had a stroke or other damage to one hemisphere.
This led to a model of the brain as being composed of parts that specialize exclusively in one activity or another. The left hemisphere was thought to exclusively do language and verbal reasoning, and the right to do visual processing and intuition. However, when researchers stuck people in MRI machines they found both hemispheres lighting up for virtually every activity. It is now well established that both hemispheres are involved in language, imagery, reason, emotion and just about every thought and action, but still, as even the detractors admit, the two hemispheres make very different contributions to all these activities. Take language for example, the left hemisphere understands the details of sentence structure and semantics and the meaning of individual words, but it is the right hemisphere that comprehends implied meaning and plays a major role in understanding and producing verbal metaphors and humor, not to mention picking up on all the non-verbal clues that are such an important part of face-to-face communication.
All vertebrates, not just humans, have two asymmetrical cerebral hemispheres. According to Iain McGilchrist, author of The Master and his Emissary: the Divided Brain and the Making of the Modern World, our distant ancestors evolved two separate hemispheres in order to simultaneously give the world two different kinds of attention. To find one’s dinner or catch one’s prey, attention to specific task related details is needed, but to prevent becoming someone else’s dinner, a broad open attention is needed. The left hemisphere provides the narrow-beam, while the right hemisphere is the wide angle lens. This difference in attention is also present in humans, and in many ways forms the basis for the different character of each hemisphere.
Jill Bolte Taylor put in eight years of hard work to fully regain the skills of her left hemisphere. These skills are essential to our ability to effectively and efficiently accomplish our goals, but an unbalanced over-reliance on the left hemisphere can lead to a reductionistic view that misses the big picture and the meaningfulness contained between. As can be seen in experiments with split brain patients and people with right hemisphere damage, the left hemisphere thinks in a black and white sort of way often with a kind of closed-minded certainty in its own correctness. The left hemisphere’s tendency to simplify complexity into graspable abstracted categories helps us effectively manipulate the world, but it can also create a world that is static, fragmented, decontextualized and lifeless.
The title of McGilchrist’s book, “The Master and his Emissary”, refers to a story told by Nietzsche about a wise spiritual king who is usurped by his clever and ambitious but shortsighted vizier, which leads to the demise of a once large and prosperous kingdom. Both McGilchrist and Taylor believe that we as individuals and as a society would be better off if the left hemisphere stuck to its role as emissary and servant to the more farsighted, more relational right hemisphere, or as Taylor puts it, “we should stem from the peaceful consciousness of our right mind and use the skills of our left mind to interact with the external world.”
Spirituality as a Step to the Right
If I had to guess, I’d say Taylor probably fits the “spiritual but not religious” category. She recommends cultivating mindfulness to achieve a more right hemisphere centered way of being and doesn’t talk much about conventional religious practices, but for me it is primarily through my religious practices – my prayers and ceremonies – that I most strongly feel what she describes as her right hemisphere awareness, a sense of deep inner peace and connectedness with the Universe, a Universe full of dynamic vitality. I think awakening and deepening this right hemisphere awareness is at the heart of not just my religion, but all religions.
Religious rituals with their art, music and poetry invite participants to become fully present and open themselves up to the feelings of the moment, and because so much of the scaffolding of religion is already an expression of a right hemisphere sense of things, to me religious practice is one of the most powerful ways to engage the right hemisphere and transcend the limiting perspective of the left hemisphere. This is certainly true of my experience with practicing the meditations and ceremonies of PaGaian Cosmology.
To some, understanding and explaining spirituality and religious practice in terms of brain anatomy and function may seem like left brain reductionism and to an extent it is, but for me it gives a physical grounding to spiritual experience and religious practice that helps my left brain get on-board and explain to other lefts brains the value of “stepping to the right”.
The Author
Maggie Jay Lee is interested in growing a new religious culture grounded in the everyday shared world and the public revelations of science, that celebrates our relationship with Cosmos, Earth and each other, and strives to bring us into right relationship with the Nature inside and outside of us. She draws inspiration from modern cosmology, evolutionary psychology, and the myths and wisdom traditions of ancient Hellas. M. Jay is a member of the Universal Pantheists Society and the Spiritual Naturalist Society, and she has studied with Glenys Livingston author of PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. She celebrates the creative unfolding of Gaia in west Tennessee, where she lives with her husband, two dogs and cat.
See Musings of a Pagan Mythicist posts.
See all of Maggie Jay Lee’s Posts.
This Wednesday
This Wednesday, John Halstead reviews James Fowler’s Book, Stages of Faith and shares part of the story of his personal spiritual evolution: “Stages of (My) Faith Development”.
Ouroboros Pantheus, by Annika Garratt
Today we continue our early winter theme, “Beginnings”, with Annika Garratt as she explores the history and meaning of the symbol of the Oroboros. For discussion in the comments: What role does the concept of perpetual cyclic renewal of life play in your Naturalistic Paganism? How is this concept related to monism or pantheism for you? What symbols do you employ to express this concept?
- Ouroboros, by Annika Garratt
The Ouroboros represents the perpetual cyclic renewal of life and infinity, the concept of eternity and the cycle of life, death and rebirth. It can also represent the idea of primordial unity. In the Book of the Dead, which was still current in the Graeco-Roman period, the self-begetting sun god, Atum, is said to have ascended from chaos-waters with the appearance of a snake, the animal renewing itself every morning. Plato described a self-eating, circular being as the first living thing in the universe. The famous Ouroboros drawing from the early alchemical text The Chrysopoeia of Cleopatra dating to 2nd century Alexandria encloses the words hen to pan, “one is the all”. In Norse mythology, it appears as the serpent Jörmungandr, one of the three children of Loki and Angrboda, who grew so large that it could encircle the world and grasp its tail in its teeth. The Ouroboros symbol appears in both 14th- and 15th-century Albigensian-printing watermarks and tarot cards. The Ouroboros is displayed on numerous Masonic seals, frontispieces and other imagery, especially during the 17th century. The Ouroboros is featured in the seal of Theosophy, along with other traditional symbols. Carl Jung interpreted the Ouroboros as having an archetypal significance to the human psyche. The Jungian psychologist Erich Neumann writes of it as a representation of the pre-ego “dawn state”.
The Egyptian god Atum was known as the “complete one”. As creator of the Universe he was seen as the underlying substance of the world, the deities and all things being made of his flesh or his ka. In the Heliopolitan creation myth, Atum was considered to be the first god, having created himself. He is the self-creating and self-sustaining Universe; he is the Totality of Being. The Gnostic Basilides called the “Great Archon” ΑΒΡΑΣΑΞ. The name occurs in the Refutation of all Heresies (vii. 26) by Hippolytus, who says that “their great archon” is Abrasax, because his name contains the number 365, the number of the days in the year. Epiphanius designates Abrasax more distinctly as “the power above all, and First Principle,” “the cause and first archetype” of all things. E. A. Wallis Budge describes Abrasax “as a Pantheus, i.e. All-God,” in Amulets and Superstitions (1930).
“A curious evidence of the consciousness of the unity of the divine is afforded by the amalgamation of different deities into a ‘Theos pantheus’, or ‘Thea pantheus’, which might be regarded either as an abstract conception or a new deity according to the fluidity of pagan theology. Usually one deity was chosen, prominent for his merits in the votary’s estimation, and the epithet ‘pantheus’ (‘all-God’) added to the personal name as representative of the totality of the divine. Thus we find in Latin inscriptions ‘Serapis Pantheus’ ….” S. Angus, The Mystery Religions, Dover Publications, 1975.
The Ouroboros represents the Pantheus, the All-God of Pantheism. H.P. Owen (197) wrote that “Pantheists are ‘monists’…they believe that there is only one Being, and that all other forms of reality are either modes (or appearances) of it or identical with it.” The process of uniting all to a single “oneness” (hen) as a form of salvation is called “henosis”. Plotinus defined henosis in his works as a reversing of the ontological process of consciousness via meditation. Plotinus words his teachings to reconcile not only Plato with Aristotle but also various world religions that he had personal contact with during his various travels. In Neoplatonic henology, the individual is absorbed back into the primordial substance and returned to the infinite non-sentient force—the Source or One—and reamalgamated back into the Universe. Since consciousness is an emanation and is not created, Neoplatonism takes the concept of primordial unity (henosis) as rational and deterministic emanating from an uncaused cause. According to the Pythagoreans, “Monad” was a term for Divinity or the first being, or the totality of all being. Some Gnostics also used the word “Monad” for God, the Supreme Being, The Absolute. The 17th century philosopher Benedict de Spinoza referred to the oneness of reality as Deus sive Natura, “God as Nature”.
The author
Annika is an artist/illustrator from Bournemouth UK. She produces colourful mixed media artwork on canvas as well as fluid ink illustrations, often based on folklore and mythological themes. Annika sells original paintings on canvas as well as fine art prints. If you have any questions about Annika’s work, feel free to contact her by email. You can also find Annika at:
This Wednesday
This Wednesday, Musings of a Pagan Mythicist by Maggie Jay Lee: “Step to the right: religion and the divided mind”.
Mid-Month Meditation: “American History” by Ken Apple
Editor’s note: We encourage our readers to take these mid-month meditations as an opportunity to take a short break from everything else. Rather than treating these posts the way you would any other post, set aside 10 minutes someplace quiet and semi-private to have an experience. Take a minute to relax first. After reading the post, take a few minutes to let the experience sink in. If it feels right, leave a comment.
A European is someone who thinks
that one hundred miles is a long way.
An American is someone who thinks
that one hundred years is a long time.
It’s not that we don’t have a history.
History stretches as far back from here
as anywhere in the vast universe.
But the history here was built of wood
and sinew by men with brown skin.
We’ve done our best to buy it, pave it
and forget it, but it’s still there, asleep
In the soil and the wind and the water
reaching into the mist as it always has
all the way back the very beginning.
The Author
My name is Ken Apple. I am fifty years old, I live in Puyallup Washington with my wife and youngest son. I attend the Tahoma UU congregation in Tacoma, WA. I have worked in book sales for almost twenty years, because I can’t imagine trying to sell anyone something else.
Next Sunday
Next Sunday, “Oroboros Pantheus” by Annika Garratt.
Starstuff, Contemplating by Jon Cleland Host: “Treasures Hidden in Plain Sight”
Join Jon Cleland Host as he rediscovers a sense of wonder at the winter season.
“Winter Treasure”, False Boneset in winter on the Llano Estacado prairie in Texas, photo by Ilija Lukić
Very often, I hear people complain about the weather where they live – including weather which is normal for the season. This has seemed odd to me for a long time. After all, in today’s modern world, we often have a lot of choices about where we live. If one really has an issue with the climate in one place, then why live there and complain? I personally like a climate that includes winters. Without winters, the years blur together into a constant string of days, and it becomes easy to lose track of the passage of one’s life. Without winters, the Wheel of the Year takes a little more effort to feel as it goes by.
So it was fun to watch the wind blow snowy gusts across the frozen fields the other day. With no trees nearby, it was easy to imagine that I was looking out over the frozen tundra of the Arctic. In fact, the weather was the same as the temperatures often seen in the Arctic. It was as if I had been transported there, if only for a little while! Our Earth gives us a huge variety of environments, from a lush, hot forest to the barren and cold tundra, each with its own charm and beauty. Yet, travel is often not cheap or convenient, especially for those of us with a family, home and regular job. Wouldn’t it be a special blessing if the Earth could kindly bring different environments to us, instead of us traveling to them? I realized that the Earth does exactly that! For those of us in temperate regions, we see conditions approaching those of the Arctic during the winter, and conditions approaching tropical conditions in the summer. In some ways, this is even better than traveling to different climates – it’s completely effortless, happening without any work on our part, and we don’t even have to pack! Our entire homes are brought along with us, along with all our local family & friends!
It’s so easy to take this for granted – we’re used to it as a normal part of life. But consider what it would be like to describe the “seasons” to an otherwise similar person who lived on an otherwise similar planet with little or no axial tilt. It might go something like:
“… you’ve got to be kidding me. You’re saying you sometimes shift Northwards on the planet’s surface?!?”
“Not exactly. I mean, we don’t actually move. But the weather becomes like that of the North.”
“And you don’t have to move? It just happens? Like, without warning?”
“Oh, we know when it’ll happen – it happens with one cycle about every 365 days.”
“So one day it suddenly gets cold, then warms back up the next day?”
“No, no – it’s gradual. It kinda blends into the next season, so we get at least weeks of each climate. That’s on top of the regular variation like you have.”
“So everyone gets to sample the different climates?”
“Most people – it doesn’t change as much near the equator. Each climate (or “season”) lasts just long enough to fully experience it – much longer and it might get tiring or boring.”
“That would be amazing! How do you still do your regular work – isn’t everyone fascinated by it, going outside everyday to see the change?”
“Everyone expects it, as a fact of life. Sadly, some even seem to take it for granted! But it is pretty cool. In fact, it’s become a major part of many of our different cultures, and is often part our religions, holidays, cooking choices, clothing fashions, and more!”
“But what about the animals? Don’t these ‘seasons’ as you call them, cause massive extinctions? Don’t they wipe out all the animals, since an animal from one climate obviously can’t live in a different climate?”
“Some animals have evolved to be able to survive in multiple climates, growing more fur every year just before winter. Others have evolved to migrate South to avoid the winter.”
“Wow, I knew evolution often gives rise to amazing adaptations, but automatic fur growth and mass migrations of entire species on schedule? Can you give me a reliable reference source for all this, in a peer-reviewed journal? Forgive me for being skeptical.”
“Ok, I’ll find one – but wait until you learn about hibernation! Some animals, such as turtles and frogs, hibernate through the winter. Their bodies nearly shut down, and cool to just above freezing (or lower, for those with anti-freeze blood), with their heart rate and breathing becoming so slow that they look dead. Then, they revive every spring. Oh, and some trees lose all their leaves, growing them all back a few months later. The leaves change color before falling off – from green to orange, red, and yellow.”
“Oh, rrrrrriiiight. You almost had me going for a minute there with the fur, but the zombie frogs and techni-color leaves were just too silly! OK, funny guy – no, really, what about the animals? How do they really survive? I mean, evolution is powerful, so what did it actually come up with?”
“I’m not making this up! Really! Look, I’ll get you some pictures, and other sources.”
“Sssure, you will …”
As a Naturalistic Pagan, just looking around me at our world often fills me with amazement and joy. Here I am, able to enjoy winter things like building a snow monster with my kids as if I lived in Alaska – knowing that in just a few months, the snow will melt away on its own, and I’ll be in a nearly tropical climate. And I get to experience this with every turn of our Wheel of the Year! The Earth’s tilt gives me this, just as it has given our Ancestors the Wheel of the Year itself! Wow!
We are so lucky to live at this time, the first moments in human history when we can understand our 14 billion year history, when we can understand not just our glorious seasons and the tilt of the Earth that gives them, but can see the connection between that tilt and our origins. Understanding deep time and our Great Story allows me to look back at that Hadean time of collisions and appreciate how those impacts (including, perhaps, the Theia impact) gave us the seasons we enjoy today. So our Wheel of the Year itself is a reminder of the Earth’s violent beginnings, something to remember at this time at the beginning of the year.
Many cultures have stories of treasures hidden in a person’s normal day to day world – whether it’s gold under the floorboards, a priceless painting on the wall thought to be a cheap knockoff, or similar stories. Like discovered treasure, I’ve found that Naturalistic Paganism, with Deep Time eyes and knowledge of our Great Story, helps me see many of the incredible things we have to be grateful for, which surround us every day, available if only looked for.
Blessings of the snow,
The Author
In addition to writing the Starstuff, Contemplating column here at HumanisticPaganism, Dr. Jon Cleland Host is a scientist who earned his PhD in materials science at Northwestern University & has conducted research at Hemlock Semiconductor and Dow Corning since 1997. He holds eight patents and has authored over three dozen internal scientific papers and eleven papers for peer-reviewed scientific journals, including the journal Nature. He has taught classes on biology, math, chemistry, physics and general science at Delta College and Saginaw Valley State University. Jon grew up near Pontiac, and has been building a reality-based spirituality for over 30 years, first as a Catholic and now as a Unitarian Universalist, including collaborating with Michael Dowd and Connie Barlow to spread the awe and wonder of the Great Story of our Universe (seewww.thegreatstory.org, and the blog at evolutionarytimes.org). Jon and his wife have four sons, whom they embrace within a Universe-centered, Pagan, family spirituality. He currently moderates the yahoo group Naturalistic Paganism.
See other Starstuff, Contemplating posts.
See Dr. Jon Cleland Host’s other posts.
This Wednesday
This Wednesday: Mid-Month Meditation by Ken Apple, “American History”.
Postpagan Ceremony & Ecology by Glen Gordon: “Sacred Seasonal Narrative for Today’s Humanism and Naturalism”
photo by Ken Williams, http://www.shadowsandstone.com
The possibility for ceremony is one of the things which appeals to me about both religious humanism and spiritual naturalism. Ceremony draws upon established traditions to celebrate significant events. Many religions focus their ceremonies on important events from their traditional narratives such as the birth of Christ for Christmas (in Christian Tradition) or the creation of Adam and Eve for Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year). In Neopaganism, the “Wheel of the Year” is inspired by many European seasonal narratives and made popular by Gerald Gardner, Alex Sanders, and Robert Cochrane. The original emphasis of the Wheel of the Year was on fertility rites and a gender-binary theism. However, the past two decades have seen varied adaptations of the Wheel in theme, content, and ritual.
Intent
What defines ceremony is the intent behind it. Not only is ceremony held for religious events, but also to mark the passage of time within one’s life. Thus we have secular ceremonies such as birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, funerals, naturalization (becoming a citizen of a country), and military ceremonies. New ceremonies with new rituals and narratives can be created for different purposes with an intent unique to religious humanism and spiritual naturalism. Likewise, established ceremonies can be adapted to new intents. Religious humanism is a perspective on religion as a social construct designed around human experience and needs, and thus its ceremony focuses upon the human condition. Spiritual naturalism holds that the existence of the material world is sacred on its own merit and that nothing exists beyond it. Religious humanist worship tends to be drawn toward community, and spiritual naturalism celebrates the wonder of the natural living-world. The two overlap easily and complement each other. Both share an appreciation for scientific knowledge and include a variety of theological perspectives from deism and process thought to atheism and agnosticism. The concept behind the “Wheel of the Year” has been a source for solstice and equinox celebrations within Unitarian Universalism, a religion with a strong disposition towards humanism and naturalism. Many times, the typical Wiccan calling and releasing of the directions are incorporated into UU celebration of these solar events. However, they are distinct UU ceremonies with UU values and principles behind the intent. I have helped organize a handful of solstice and equinox events for my own UU congregation. These experiences have taught me that the seasonal narrative running through our lives continues to be important and changes to meet the times we live in.
Sacred Seasonal Narrative
Holy days are the observation of sacred events. The word holy derives from proto-Germanic meaning sacred1 — having qualities dedicated for religious or spiritual veneration.2 3 Since the solstices and equinoxes are observable astronomical events, they have become common ceremonial gatherings for religious humanists and spiritual naturalists. Due to this, environmental science provides the backbone for a modern narrative that can be weaved into ceremony. Below is a rough outline of solar holy days based upon the work of Rua Lupa of Ehoah. Due to the circular nature of solar seasons, flexibility is granted to when the year begins and ends and is best determined by local cultural and environmental variables.
Winter Solstice
Ehoah name: Nox4 northern hemisphere: Dec 21-22 southern hemisphere: Jun 20-21 The longest night of the year The northern hemisphere’s pole leans away from the sun. During this time, the sun is southernmost in the sky. Many narrative focus on the return of the sun, due to harshness of winter. Because of climate change, our attitude towards winter might change. With continued record high temperatures throughout the year, winters are becoming milder in some places, allowing for a break from the scorching sun of summer. In these places, the anticipation of the sun’s return is not conducive to the new seasonal patterns, and the winter solstice could be a celebration of darkness, focused on the germination of seeds planted in autumn, giving one time to reflect on the depths of one’s life.
Vernal Equinox
Eoah name: Equilux4 northern hemisphere: Mar 20-22 southern hemisphere: Sep 20-22 Day and night are equal The earth’s axis is aligned at a right angle to the sun. This is when an equilibrium between night and day is achieved. In this spirit, equity within our environment and community can be the focus. With the seasons and weather becoming more extreme, springtime becomes more of a transitional time between winter and summer weather. Now would be the time to prepare for the coming of summer, and to keep in mind those who you share your life-place with (human and other-than). Take stock of what you have, what you need, and the needs of others. This is not only a time of personal preparation, but community participation, a time to reach out and connect with the world through our relationships. We can visit family and friends, and participate in activities of planting, raising animals, and tending to the needs of those around us.
Summer Solstice
Eoah name: Lux4 northern hemisphere: Jun 20-22 southern hemisphere: Dec 20-23 The longest day of the year The northern hemisphere’s pole leans towards the sun. During this time, the northern hemisphere is tilted toward the sun. Around the world, summers are becoming warmer and a real danger to humans, animals, and plants. As this trend continue, it will result in longer growing. This could now be the time to prepare for the sun’s departure. Burning rituals are important in symbolizing the heat of the sun, but also a means to remove the unnecessary and unneeded. With access to clean water being a primary concern, ceremony can take the form of activism related to water pollution and conservation.
Autumnal Equinox
Eoah name: Equinox4 northern hemisphere: Sep 20-22 southern hemisphere: Mar 20-22 Day and night are equal The earth’s axis is aligned at a right angle to the sun. Night and day are once again equal in duration. This is another time in the year to take stock of where you are and who you are with. Make time to welcome newcomers into community through celebration. As the weather will likely shift from summer and winter patterns, making long term plans dependent on weather can be difficult. This is opportunity for mindfulness and mindful living, taking advantage of unexpected opportunities, strengthening relationship bonds, and gathering resources for yourself and the community. Feasts are appropriate ceremonies to take advantage of what this time of year offers.
Make it Meaningful
Religious humanists and spiritual naturalists are experts at finding meaning in the ordinary. Marking sacred days, such as the solstices and equinoxes, reminds us of the sacred mystery of life that we interact with everyday. Some people are moved by complex and elaborate ritual packed with tradition and symbolism. Others are content with the meaning found in the simple and understated. The way religious and spiritual naturalists implement ceremony is up to the individuals involved. However, doing things for the sake of tradition alone is rarely a trait of the humanist or naturalist. Done correctly, humanist and naturalist ceremony can serve a wide spectrum of personal convictions in alignment with the environmental and social realties of our times. The solstices and equinoxes are not the only events that can be held sacred to religious humanists and spiritual naturalists. There is nothing holding anyone to these events in particular. The possibility for ceremonial observance is endless. What are other events that can be marked by ceremony?
- Online Etymology Dictionary definition of holy ↩
- Online Etymology Dictionary definition of sacred ↩
- American Heritage Dictionary definition of sacred ↩
- Eoah entries for Nox, Equilux, Lux, Equinox ↩
The Author
Glen Gordon was introduced to Paganism by friends while living overseas in Europe during the late 90′s. He underwent both Wiccan and Neodruidic training during his formative years, but had not self-identified as a Pagan when his path diverged into land-centered spiritual naturalism ten years ago. His focus has been on cultivating beneficial relationships with the natural living world surrounding him wherever he lives. During this time, he discovered Unitarian Universalism and has been active in his local congregations for many years. Since 2007, he has worked on varied projects regarding BioRegional Animism, including this five minute video, the words of which came from a short UU sermon he gave. He has spoken on the topic of ecology and the land on a few occasions for his local congregation and facilitated a now-disbanded group of UU Pagans and spiritual naturalists. In the past, he maintained the blog, Postpagan, and is excited to share some of that material at HumanisticPaganism. Currently, you can find Glen writing occasionally for No Unsacred Places and helping achieve Green sanctuary status for his beloved UU community, where he helps create and lead ecological aware earth- and land-focused ceremonies for the solstices and equinoxes.
See Postpagan Ceremony & Ecology posts
Next Sunday
Next Sunday, we hear from Jon Cleland Host, Starstuff, Contemplating: “Treasures Hidden in Plain Sight”.
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