Naturalistic Paganism

Category: Contributors


[Starstuff, Contemplating] “Our Most Precious Gifts” by Jon Cleland Host

This gratitude fills my life, and comes into special focus with Samhain. So many things in our day-to-day lives can be reminders of that. Small signposts pop up with even trivial prompts. As this year draws to a close and the next approaches, these spur me on to pay these gifts forward to future generations – who are also the children of our Ancestors.

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[Rotting Silver] “Faith in the Earth” by B. T. Newberg

Rotting Silver is a column devoted to this Earth in all its tarnished radiance: poetry, prose, and parables of ugliness alloyed with joy.

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[A Pedagogy of Gaia] “The P-Word” by Bart Everson

I call myself Pagan because wild nature is awesome, and I experience Earth as sacred, and I realize I don’t have a well-delineated self separate from the planetary ecosystem. I call myself Pagan because I think honoring the ancestors is a good idea, and I feel a connection to antiquity, and I like mythology. I call myself Pagan because dancing under the moon is my kind of religion, and a purely rational approach to life is deadening.

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[Starstuff, Contemplating] “The Circle of Death & Life” by Jon and Heather Cleland Host

Samhain is a time of remembrance. It is a time to honor the dead. We celebrate how our dead loved ones have shaped our lives. We are also affected by those who have gone from the living deep into our past. Samhain is an opportunity to remember those gifts, to reflect on what we have gained as human beings from ancient Ancestors that have gone long before us, both human and non-human.

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[Pagan in Place] “Creating a Local Lunar Calendar: Full Moon Names for Central Texas” by Anna Walther

The custom of naming full moons to mark the passage of the seasons appeals to me. It is a practice available to anyone in deep relationship with the land beneath their feet, anyone who knows by direct observation when the days lengthen, when the berries ripen, and when the cold winds come where they live.

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