Tag: Paganism
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What do we want from our Pagan leaders?
In this last week of post-Pantheacon decompression, I’ve discovered a few things about myself. First, as much as I am invested in my online work, either through blogging or social networking, nothing compares to real-life, skin and sweat, handshakes and hugs interaction. You can imagine all you want about how great it would feel to dance, […]
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Oh my Gods, I’m at #Pantheacon.
I’m buzzing. Vibrating. I know that sounds New Age-y, but that’s really what it feels like to be in my body at this moment. I’m sitting in the lobby of the San Jose DoubleTree Hotel, and Pantheacon is exploding all around me. There are men in skirts, women in top hats, people whose gender is a […]
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The Lactating Ewes of Imbolc
I don’t know much about cows. Or sheep. I know that cows tip (not from personal experience, though). I know that sheep are cute, and I love their hair. I was just working with some last night. I also, on occasion, like to eat a bit of both. I’m a city boy, born and bred. I […]
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Is Anything “Un-Sacred” to a Pagan?
I spend a good bit of time in airports. Culturally speaking, airports offer an interesting glimpse into the generic, surface-level identity of any given place. As I write this, I’m surrounded by Canadian Maple Leafs, shelves of syrup, stuffed moose toys, and — strangely, but not surprisingly — Starbucks. Canada is a big country, as […]
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Questioning Paganism… Again.
I’m not sure why I’m a Pagan. I type those words, and I know I’m taking a risk by making this admission, but it’s what’s going through my head. My Paganism, as well as my Druidry, is feeling more like subject matter for this blog rather than a way of living my life. Being Pagan […]
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My Pagan Yule Sounded A Lot Like Christmas
Pagans sang Christmas carols at the Yule ritual, and it totally caught me off guard. The song sheets handed out to the attendees contained three classic, Christian favorites, re-written with Pagan, mostly Wiccan-themed lyrics. We Three Kings, Away in a Manger, and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen were retitled and reworked as Moon of Silver, Away From […]
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Humbled by the Darkness of Winter
I started out this December with a nose dive into Christmas cheer. Then, I spent some time exploring what parts of the Christian holiday were still resonant with me, and what I’d happily left behind. Now, the introspection of the Dark Days has set in. It hit me unexpectedly. One moment I was working my […]
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A Conscientious Objection to the War on Christmas
While this Pagan was in the middle of the most Christian part of our country, singing “Silent Night” to rooms full of cheery Jesus-folk, a small group of vocal and well represented Christians took up arms in a supposed “war on Christmas,” and now my Pagan brothers and sisters across the internet are all in […]
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A Pagan Reclaiming Forgiveness
In the midst of this Christian extravaganza, standing beneath the red and green blinking lights, and surrounded by the sound of Jesus followers singing hymns and secular Christmas classics, I’m rediscovering the act of forgiveness. I didn’t expect forgiveness to be a theme of this brief caroling experience. I thought my time singing Christmas songs […]
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A Pagan’s Christmas Message
I’m in Nashville, home of the Christian Contemporary Music Industry, home of LifeWay Christian Stores, and home of the Southern Baptist Convention. This week, in a kind of radical re-immersion into Christian culture, I’m going to spread the message about Jesus to Jesus-people, and I’m doing so in the most subversively effective way imaginable: through catchy […]
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On the Nature of Salvation for Pagans
The conversation born out of my last post has been, by far, one of the most stimulating dialogues to take place on Bishop In The Grove. My mind is a flurry with thoughts of Gods and Goddesses, mysticism, my own need for a deeper and more engaging practice, and — for the first time in […]
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On Converting a Christian to Paganism
I’m a convert to Paganism. I was born into a Christian tradition, and spent most of the first 25 years of my life identifying as a Christian. I’ve written of this before, but the subject keeps coming up for me. There’s something about how we arrive at our tradition that seems worth reflecting on, especially […]
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Holy Crap… I think I may be a Wiccan
So I’m talking with one my best girlfriends this morning, pacing around her kitchen as she cooks up some kale, and I’m telling her the story of me being told by a women that, “Women, by nature, understand the Goddess better than men,” or that, “There’s just something about women that makes it easier for […]
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What To Do On Samhain When You’re Dead
Earlier this week the air took a turn toward December, becoming wet and visible, and the moisture that fell in cold, slow-motion stuck quickly to the cars, the streets, and the sidewalks. On the morning after the storm a massacre of tree branches covered the earth around my house, proving both the strength of water […]
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The Day The Heathens Built A Chapel
The burly, bearded, leather wearing Heathens didn’t quite know what to make of Sister Who, but that didn’t stop them from helping build her Interfaith Chapel. Sister Who squinted as she gave the instructions for how to put which pole into which joint, and when she did her fake eyelashes fluttered like plastic butterflies. Every […]
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Where Does Belief Belong?
I’m having a difficult time identifying the right place for belief. I was brought up a Christian. Episcopalian, to be specific. Belief, for me, was connected to creeds. If you’ve never recited a creed, it goes like this: I believe X, and X is this. X did this, was this, is going to be this. […]
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A Druid in Los Angeles on the Autumn Equinox
The weather in this town is a betrayal of my religious sensibilities. It’s all bright and warm and sunny without ceasing. This is the Land of Perpetual Summer. This town resists death at all costs; be that the death of youth, the death of popularity, the death of green. Death is frowned upon in Los […]
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More On Christian-Pagan Relations
Pagans hate generalizations made about Pagans (he writes with a smirk). That’s one generalization I feel confident in making. In my last post I made some bold statements about the unwillingness of Pagans to accept the existence of the Christian god, knowing full well that those statements were not completely accurate (or, perhaps even close […]
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Christian-Pagan Couples Counseling
Pagans don’t want to accept the possibility that the Christian god is real. Doing so might open us up to a diatribe about salvation, our inherent sinfulness, or our “need for conversion”. We’ve had that talk a time or two, and – thank you – we’ll pass. Christians are of the “One and Only God” camp. Not […]
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An Early Autumn Chill
Our realtors walked through our bedroom and pointed out that my jewelry (a.k.a. Pagan Bling) would need to go, as would our book shelf of Buffy DVD’s and the half-dozen, brown, wooden elephant figurines left over from our big, gay wedding. They were pleased with the size of the closet, though, if not a little […]
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The Christo-Pagan Conflict
Christianity and Paganism: are the two mutually exclusive? The subject came up after the Full Moon ritual, and it got a little heated.
