Naturalistic Paganism
Category: Maggie Jay Lee
Musings of a Pagan Mythicist, by Maggie Jay Lee: “Circle Around: Individuality, Community and Creating Religion”
To me, collective religious ceremony and shared devotional practice is not something peripheral, but is the very center of religion. It is the core that holds everything together. I believe without such shared practices, religious community will fall apart, but there are still enormous challenges to developing religion centered on communal ceremony.
Read MoreMusings of a Pagan Mythicist by Maggie Jay Lee: “Step to the Right: Religion and the Divided Mind”
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. It is primarily through my religious practices that I most strongly feel what Jill Bolte Taylor describes as her right hemisphere awareness, a sense of deep inner peace and connectedness with the Universe, a Universe full of dynamic vitality.
Read MoreMusings of a Pagan Mythicist, by Maggie Jay Lee: “Gnothi Seauton: On Being Human”
Gnothi seauton is an important pillar of my sense of spirituality. Gnothi seauton calls me to accept reality, not as I wish it to be, but as it really is. It reminds me that my understanding of reality will always be imperfect and incomplete. Yet gnothi seauton challenges me to strive to know and understand to my fullest ability.
Read MoreWhy do people want supernatural gods?, by M. J. Lee
I hate to admit it but I do feel some animosity toward hard polytheists. I feel as if they have stolen the gods (which of course belong neither to me nor to them, but to their own time and place)….
Read MoreBeing human when surrounded by Greek gods, by M. J. Lee
I see the gods – the names, images, stories – as the poetic encapsulation of our human experience, our relationship with the ineffable forces that shape human life. While this makes the gods no thing, it does not make them nothing. I see the gods as representing very real, powerful, even dangerous forces. I believe the gods are real. It doesn’t matter what we call them or don’t call them. They are real and dangerous, and we will contend with them.
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Pagan Coming Out Day – May 2nd
Naturalistic Paganism 