Podcasts about unitarian universalist pagans

Joining us today is Irene Glasse, a Heathen witch, longtime teacher of witchcraft, meditation, and magic, Commissioned Lay Minister at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Frederick, Maryland, lead organizer of the Frederick Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans, and a member of the Sacred Space Conference board. She shares her thoughts on community building, making Pagan organizing sustainable, the biggest challenges facing our movement, what seiðr brings to Heathen practice, and more!Enrollment with the Fellowship Teaching Collective is open for May classes!  I'll be teaching the Nordic Gods, Intro to the Younger Futhark, and Intro to Nordic Ritual, you can find more information and sign up at www.onblackwings.com/classes.I am hitting the conference circuit this spring!  Please contribute by donating whatever you can afford at my Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/ryansmithwfiWant to support this podcast and my other work?  Check out my Patreon!You can also help out by scheduling a rune reading with me!

Join me in welcoming author and Pagan Priest, John Beckett onto the pod! He is answering all of our pagan questions! Yahoo! John is a Druid in the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, a member of Ár nDraíocht Féin (ADF), a member of the Denton Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans, and a former Vice President of CUUPS Continental. He's been writing, speaking, teaching, and leading public rituals since 2003. His books The Path of Paganism (2017) and Paganism In Depth (2019) are published by Llewellyn Worldwide. He is the co-editor of The Book of Cernunnos (2023) published by ADF.   John can be found on his website Under the Ancient Oaks (https://undertheancientoaks.com/), on his Patheos blog (https://www.patheos.com/blogs/johnbeckett/), and Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.   John lives in the Dallas – Fort Worth area and earns his keep as an engineer. We sat down together via Zoom to record this conversation. 

The Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans, or CUUPs, is an organization dedicated to networking Pagan-identified Unitarian Universalists (UUs).  Join us tonight in an encore presentation as we chat with Rev. Jerrie Hildebrand, the president of CUUPs and learn more about this Pagan organization.

Episode 4.7 – Irene Glasse   Irene is the author of the Blackfeather Mystery School: the Magpie Training, a minister for the Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans, and head of Glasse Witch Cottage.   Blackfeather Mystery School: the Magpie Training: http://tinyurl.com/4b2j9rum   Glasse Witch Cottage: http://tinyurl.com/3rwy6mp3   Episode 2.12 – Blackfeather Mystery School: the Magpie Training: http://tinyurl.com/3k4dm2kr     Esoteric Book Club can be found on: Patreon: /esotericbookclub Facebook: @esotericbookclub Instagram: esotericbookclub Web: www.esotericbookclub.org   "Sneaky Snitch" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/  

We aren't able to record a new episode this week, so here is a great interview we did with Michael H. of the Atheopagan Society Council. See you next week! S3E41 TRANSCRIPT:   Mark: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-based Paganism. I'm Mark, one of your hosts. Yucca: and I'm Yucca. Mark: and today we have a really exciting episode. We have an interview with a member of the Atheopagan Society Council, Michael, who is joining us today, and is gonna tell us about his journey and what this community means to him and his vision for the future and all kinds of cool stuff. So welcome. Michael: Well, thank you very much for having me. Mark: I'm delighted to have you here, Yucca: Thanks for coming on. Michael: Yeah, no, I'm excited. Yucca: Yeah. So why don't we start with so who are you? Right? What's, what's your journey been to get here? Michael: Gosh. Well, I kind of have to start at the very beginning. So my name's Michael and you know, I've, I start, sometimes I go by Mícheál, which is my Irish, the Irish version of my name. And that's something I've been using more as I've been involved in the Pagan community. My parents are both Irish and. They moved to the United States in their early eighties cuz my dad got a green card working over there Mark: Hmm. Michael: and I was born in America. And then they decided they want to move back to Ireland then in 1991. So already I had this kind of dissected identity. Was I American or was I Irish? I never really lost my American accent. When I, when I moved to Ireland my sister who was born in Ireland, she actually has a slight American accent just from living with me. So she never people always ask her, are you, are you American? And she's like, I've never lived there. So it's funny that it's kind of stuck with her, but I moved to Ireland and I suddenly was kind of got this culture shock at the age of five and moving to this new country. And my mother has a very large family, so she has like, two, two brothers and seven sisters, and then I've got like 30 cousins. So , it was a big, a big change from AmeriCorps. It was just the three of us. Moving back to Ireland and. It was a very, you know, Ireland, you know, is, would've been considered a very Catholic country, and it's been kind of secularizing since the nineties up until now. But back then it was still quite Catholic. Like homosexuality was only decriminalized in 1992 and divorce was only made legal in 1995. So, I guess the first kind of sense of, of what I meant to be Irish back then was, You know, you learned Irish in school, you learned to speak Irish in school, and this was very it wasn't taught very well, I would say, and I think most Irish people would agree with that. It's kind of taught like almost like Latin or something as a dead language rather than as a living language. So you're spending time learning all this grammar. And you don't kind of develop that love of it that I think you should. I did go to like Irish summer camp in the Gaeltacht . The Gaeltacht  is the Irish speaking area of Ireland, and I kind of became aware of my Irishness, you know, just through being part of all this and also. I would've introduced myself as American when I was little but people didn't really like that. It was kind of a, like a weird thing to do. So my mom eventually told me, maybe you should just stop paying that. And so throughout my I, you know, as I mentioned, it was a very Catholic country. And when I was in the Gaeltacht in Irish summer camp one of the kids said they were atheist. And I was like, what does that mean? I'm like, I don't believe in God. And I was, and in my head I was like, I didn't know you could do that, I didn't know that was an option. . So I kind of thought about it for a while. I became, we started studying the Reformation in school when I was about 14. And then I learned that Catholics believed in transubstantiation and nobody had really mentioned that before. They didn't really teach the catechism very well, I guess. I'd done my communion and my confirmation, but nobody ever mentioned that. We literally believed that the, the body and blood, you know, was that the bread and water? Oh, sorry. The bread and wine actually became literally, And the body. And I thought that was a very strange thing, that that was a literal thing. It wasn't just symbolic. And then we also studied Calvinism and all that stuff. And I was like, then I started to read the Bible and I was like, then it fun, it finally just dawned on me that I didn't believe any of this, and it was kind of liberating. But it was kind of a way of being d. In a very homogenous society too. You could be a bit of a rebel. So I think I was one of those annoying teenagers who was always questioning everybody and having, trying to have debates with everybody about religion and they didn't enjoy that . And so I went through school and I just remember hating studying the Irish language until eventually when I left school. On the last day, I actually took all my. My Irish textbooks and burnt them and I feel I . Yeah. I mean I feel so much guilt and regret about that and I think about that how important it's to me now and that, that was a real shame that, but I didn't, partially I didn't put the work in, but also I just think the structure. Was not there. I mean so many Irish people come out of outta school not really know, knowing how to speak the language, you know, and I think it is an effective col colonization as well, where, you know, you consider English is a useful language and learning French or Spanish, that's a useful thing, but there's no use for Irish in people's minds, which is a, and I find that a real shame and I. could go back and change that. In university I studied anthropology and history because I was very interested in religion. All throughout my teenage years, I was obsessed with learning about world religions, you know, there was a world religion class in, in secondary school. I didn't get into it, but I begged the teacher to allow me to. Into it because I was so interested in the topic. And he was like, fine, fine. And he kind of thought he'd humor me in one class one day and he was like, well, Michael, maybe you could talk about satanism. That's the topic for today. And I was like, well, let's start with Al Crowley. And he was like, okay, maybe he actually knows what he is talking about So, I went, I. I went to the university sorry, national University of Ireland, Minuth Campus. And it's funny because that used to be known as so it's actually, it's two campuses. They're St. Patrick's college, which is like a, a seminary for priests. And there's the I, which is like the secular version, and they're both, but they both share the same compass. So it's funny, it used to be the, the biggest seminary in Europe. They call it the priest factory cuz they pumped out so many priests that sent, sent them all over the world. And it's when you go out and you walk down the corridors, you see all the graduating classes. So you go back to 1950 and you see a graduating class of like a hundred priests. And every year as you're going down the corridor, it gets smaller and smaller and smaller. Until I think the year I graduated, there was like two people graduating as priests. Yeah. So that was, that was a, I decided to study history and anthropology at n Y Minuth and one of the books that I read. Was kind of a gateway into thinking about land and language, which are two things that are really important to me in my, when I think about Paganism. It's a book called wisdom Sits in Places by Keith Bato, bass by Keith Bassell, and. I'm just gonna read a little bit here from the book because he was an anthropologist working with the Apache, the Western Apache, to try and remap the land using the Native Apache words rather than the, the English words. So trying to make a native map and working with Apache people to find all the true, the true names of all these. so this is the quote, but already on only our second day in the country together a problem had problem had come up for the third time in as many tries. I have mispronounced the Apache name of the boggy swale before us. And Charles, who is weary of repeating it, has a guarded look in his eyes after watching the name for a fourth. I acknowledged defeat and attempted to apologize for my flawed linguistic performance. I'm sorry, Charles. I can't get it. I'll work on it later. It's in the machine. It doesn't matter. It matters. Charles says softly to me in English, and then turning to speak to Morley. He addresses him in Western Apache, is what he said. What he's doing isn't right. It's not good. He seems to be in a. Why is he in a hurry? It's disrespectful. Our ancestors made this name. They made it just as it is. They made it for a reason. They spoke it first a long time ago. He's repeating the speech of our ancestors. He doesn't know that. Tell him he's repeating the speech of our ancestors. And I'm gonna just there's another section here, a little, a few pages. But then unexpectedly in one of those courteous turnabouts that Apache people employ to assuage embarrassment in salvage damaged feelings, Charles himself comes to the rescue with a quick corroborative grin. He announces he is missing several teeth and that my problem with the place name may be attributable to his lack of dental equipment. Sometimes he says he is hard to underst. His nephew, Jason, recently told him that, and he knows he tends to speak softly. Maybe the combination of too few teeth and two little volume accounts for my failing. Short morally, on the other hand, is not so encumbered though shy. Two, a tooth or two. He retains the good ones for talking and because he's not afraid to speak up, except as everyone knows in the presence of gar women no one has trouble hearing what he. Maybe if Morley repeated the place name again slowly and with ample force, I would get it right. It's worth a try, cousin. And then he, I'm just gonna skip forward a bit and he successfully pronounces the name, which translates as water Lies with mud in an open container. Relieved and pleased. I pronounce the name slowly. Then I, then a bit more rapidly and again, as it might be spoken. In normal conversation, Charles listens and nods his head in. . Yes. He says in Apache, that is how our ancestors made it a long time ago, just as it is to name this place. Mm-hmm. So this became important to me when thinking about the Irish language because something similar happened in Ireland in the you know, we have all our native Irish place. But in the 1820s the British Army's Ordinance survey came and decided they were gonna make these names pro pronounceable to English ears. And so they kind of tore up the native pronunciation and kind of push an English pronunciation on top. So you have these very strange English Anglo size versions of Irish Place names Yucca: Mm-hmm. Michael: Soin in is is probably better known in English as dingle, but doesn't really have anything to do with the Irish. And there are plenty of, there are so many examples of this and I think when you're trying to learn about a landscape in your relation to a ship, to a landscape, it is important to know the native place. It's something that I think about a lot and I try to learn. One of my favorite writers is named Tim Robinson, and he's well he died in 2020. But I had the opportunity to meet him in 2009 and he was an English cartographer. But he moved to the west of Ireland, to the Iron Islands and also to Kamara. So he kind of moved between those two places. He lived there for more than 30 years, and what he actually did was he went out and mapped the landscape and talked to local people, and he was able to find some of the place names that had been lost over the years that weren't on the official maps, and he was able to help recreate a Gaelic map of those areas. I think that's a really kind of religious or spiritual activity to go out onto the land and walk it. And to name it and to name it correctly. And I think that's what I think my pagan path is in a way. It's to go and walk the land and learn it, what to call it. Cause I think language is the most important tool we have as pagans. Mark: Hmm. Michael: So those are, that's kind of when I started to think about this stuff. I've always been interested in folk. It was actually funny. There was, it started with a video game one of the legend of Zelda video games called Major's Mask Mark: Hmm. Yucca: Yep. Michael: in, in the game, they actually have like a mask festival and they dis they discuss the the history of the festival. Anna was just like, wow, I didn't, I ended up making masks with my sister and we kind of pretended to. A little mask festival of our own Yucca: Mm-hmm. Michael: that you're, you're familiar with that? Yucca? Yucca: Yes. Yeah, I played a lot of it. Michael: Yeah. So, but I guess I really started to think about folklore when when I watched the Wickerman as um, as a teenager. I was probably at 16 when I watched it, and it kind of opened my eyes completely. And we've talked a lot about this in the group. And I. It's watched as a horror movie in a way, but I think I really got into the, the paganism idea of, of paganism as a teenager because of watching the Wickman and just the symbolism and the pageantry. And I also just like the idea. These island people turning on the state in the form of, of the policeman. So that's kind of been something I've that I've really enjoyed over the years, watching that every every May as part of my, my, my annual ritual so, you know, after university, I, I moved to South Korea to teach English, and, but at the same time I was quite into Buddhism. I had been practicing some Zen Buddhism from about the age of 18, and, but not like, more as just a practice rather than believing in any of it. Not believing in reincarnation or anything like that. I just found the ritual of it very beautiful. And I ended up going and doing a temple stay in a, in a place at, at a temple. Up in the mountains and it was very beautiful and really amazing. You know, something you'd see in a movie because the monk, the head monk actually brought us out into a bamboo grove and we sat there meditating just with all surrounded by bamboo. And it was waving in the wind and it felt like a correction, tiger Hidden dragon or something like that. And one of the powerful events that happened on that trip. Doing the Buddhist meal ceremony where we ate in in the style of a Buddhist monk. And the idea is that you do not leave any food behind. After you're, after you're finished eating, you've, you eat all the food, and then when you wash the bowls and they kind of put the communal water back into the, the, the waste bowl, there should be no no bit of food, nothing. It should just be clean water. That comes out of, after everybody finishes washing all their bowls. So we followed all the steps to do that and, you know, some people really, really weren't into it. They didn't wanna do the work of, of being extremely thorough. And there were a few rice pieces of rice in the water at the end and the head monk said to us oh, that will now get, you're, you're gonna cause pain to the hungry to ghost. Because the hungry goats ghosts have holes in their throats, and when we pour the water outside for the hungry ghosts, the rice particles are gonna get stuck in their throats. And a lot of people were like, what? What are you talking about Mark: Hmm. Michael: But I thought that was beautiful because it doesn't, not, you don't have to. It's a story that has a purpose, and that's why, you know, It made me think about the superstitions that we have. And I don't know if I like superstition like these, calling it that. Cause I think a lot of these things have purpose and you have to look for the purpose behind them. And the purpose of that story of the honky go story, maybe for him it is about not causing harm to these, these spirits, but it's also about not wasting food. And I think it, it has more power and more meaning. And you remember. More thoroughly when you have a story like that to back up this, this practice. So I think it kind of made me rethink a lot about the kind of folkloric things that I, in my, in the Irish tradition and that, you know, I think about things like fairy forts, which are, you know, the, these are the archeological sites that you find around Ireland. Like, I think there's like 60,000 left around the country. These, these circular. Homesteads that made a stone or, or saw, or saw that you find all over the country and people don't disturb them because they're afraid they'll get fair, bad luck. The, if you, if you disturb the, the fair fort the ferry's gonna come after you , or if you could, or if you cut down a tree, a lone tree. Lone trees that grow in the middle of fields that don't have a, a woodland beside them, just singular trees. These are known as fairy trees and it's bad luck to cut them down. But I feel like these folk beliefs help preserve the past as well, because, you know, farmers who don't have this belief, they don't have any problem tearing down fray, forts and that kind of thing. They just see it as a, something in the way of them farming, especially in the kind of age of industrial agriculture. Yeah. So it just made, that was when I started to think about how important it is to keep folk belief alive. And I've really, and I really started to study Irish folk belief after that point. And I lived in South Korea as I mentioned. I met my wife there, she's from Iowa and she was also teaching in, in South Korea, and we moved to Vietnam after that. And we lived there for a couple of years, and I might come back to that later. But fast forwarding, we moved to Iowa then in 2013, and I'm teaching a course in Irish. At a local community college, but I always start with this poem by Shama Heini Boland. And I just wanted to read two extracts from it. So the first stands out is we have no prairies to slice a big sun at evening everywhere. The eye concedes to encroaching. And then moving downwards. Our pioneers keep striking inwards and downwards. Every layer they strip, they, every layer they strip seems camped on before. So I, I started with that initially, kind of trying to, as, it was almost like a gateway for my students to kind of look at. Look at Iowa with its historic prairies, which don't really exist anymore. It's all farmland. There's very little prairie land left. I think maybe 2% of the state is prairie. But that idea, that idea of our pioneers strike downwards, and I've been thinking about that a lot as well, that that's kind of a, a colonial look at the land because this land, the American land has is just as camped. As Ireland, and I've been kind of experiencing that more and more. I have a friend who's an archeologist here and just hearing them talk about the kinds of fines that they have. You know, we lived in a town where there was a Native American fishing weir was a couple of hundred years old. It you could kind of see the remains, but it mostly washed away by the time we had. But I did see an old postcard of it from the seventies, and you could see it very clearly. And so just make, and then we always it's become a ritual every every autumn, we go up to northeast Iowa to these, to these effigy mounds, which are some Native American mounds up there on a bluff, just overlooking the miss. Mark: Hmm. Michael: And that's really amazing to look at that and experience and experience that. And you know, I'd love to go back, unfortunately, Shamus, he died more than 10 years ago now, but I'd love to go back and ask him if he would consider rewriting that line, you know, because this land is just as a count on Yucca: Mm-hmm. Michael: and I'm trying to, trying to make sense of that and what it means. As an Irish person living in America, Yucca: Mm. Michael: Cuz we, Irish people are victims of col colonialism, Mark: Hmm. Michael: Irish people, when they moved to America, they just became white as well and had the same colonial attitudes as everybody. And I'm trying to kind of, but you know, there's, there's, there's kind of stories of reciprocation as well. Where during the famine, the Irish famine the, I think, I believe it was the Chota Nation sent Emin relief to the AR to Ireland. Even though they didn't have much themselves, they still saw this. People in need across the water and they sent money to help. And, you know, there's that connection between the Chta nation and the Irish has continued to this day. But I am just trying to figure out what it means to be an Irish person and a pagan living in this country. And that's kind of where I, where I am right now. But to get back to how I got into Ethiopia, paganism I mentioned earlier that I was really into the Wickerman and I found this group called Folk folk Horror Revival on Facebook. And somebody one day mentioned that there was this group called Atheopagan. And so I decided to join and I found a lot of like-minded people. And I've been kind of involved in the community for, for, I think that was maybe 2018. Mark: Mm-hmm. Michael: And I've been involved in the community since then and maybe on a bigger, I've been much more involved since Covid started and we started doing our Saturday mixers. And I think I've made maybe 90% of those Mark: something Michael: and we've, yeah, and we've been doing that for the last three years and it's just been. It's a really amazing, it's one of the highlights of my week to spend time with with other people in that, in that hour and 45 minutes that we spend every Saturday. Mark: Mm. Michael: Mm-hmm. Mark: Yeah, I, I really agree with you. That's, I, it's a highlight of my week as well. Such warm, thoughtful people and so diverse and living in so many different places. It's yeah, it's just a really good thing to do on a Saturday morning for me. And. We'll probably get into this more a little bit later, but the idea of creating human connection and community building I know is really important to you and it's really important to me too. I think there have been other sort of naturalistic, pagan traditions that have been created by people, but they just kind of plunked them on the internet and let them sit. And to me it's. That would be fine if I were just gonna do this by myself. But when other people started saying, I like this, I want to do this too. To me that meant, well then we should all do it together. Right? Let's, let's build a community and support one another in doing this. And so the Saturday mixers, when we, when Covid started, I think. I mean, to be honest, COVID did some great things for the Ethiopia, pagan community. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: yeah. Kind of accidentally, but that's, that's Yucca: Well that's the silver linings, right? That's one of the things we, you know, life goes on. We have to find the, the, the benefits and the good things, even in the challenging times. Mark: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Michael: yeah. I think. I'm just thinking back to when we started. So it's kind of, we have maybe six or seven regulars who come to every meeting maybe. And then we have other people who join now and then, but I'm just trying to think back to the first meeting. I think we, that's when the idea of doing virtual ritual began as well in that first meeting. And we were trying to figure out how to do. Yucca: Was that was the first meeting before Covid or was it as a response to Covid? Mark: You know, honestly, I don't remember. I think it must have been in response to Covid because everybody was shut in and, you know, everybody was kind of starving for human contact. Michael: I think the first one may have been March or April. 2020, Yucca: Okay, so right there at the. Michael: Yeah, right at the beginning. Yeah. And I think, I remember in the first meeting we were talking about ritual ideas and I think the first suggestion I came up with was like I'd love to somebody do like a, describe what an atheopagan temple might look. Mark: Oh yeah. Michael: Yeah. And I left, and I think you were recording the meetings at that time, but we don't record 'em anymore, just so people can feel free to be themselves and not have a recorded recording of themselves out there, . But I know that, I think James who you interviewed recently he, he was listening to that one, I believe, and he came the next week and actually had prepared a guided meditation. Of what a pagan temple would be like to him. And it was a walk through nature. I think that was the first, our first online ritual together. Mark: Yeah, I remember that now. Yeah, and it's been, it's really been a journey trying to figure out how, how can you do these ritual things over a, a video conferencing platform. In a way that makes everybody feel like they're participating and engaged. Right. So that there's a, a transformation of consciousness. But I think we've done pretty well, to be honest. I mean, some of the rituals that we've done have been really quite moving. Michael: Yeah. And I think the ritual framework that you've worked at translates very well to. A Zoom conference as well. I dunno if maybe, if he wants to describe that, what the usual atheopagan ritual would look like. Mark: Sure. We've, we've talked about this before. The, the, the ritual structure that I proposed in my book is basically a, a five step process where the first is arrival, which is sort of, Transitioning into the ritual state of mind from the ordinary state of mind, and then the invocation of qualities that are a part that we'd like to be a part of the ritual with us, which is sort of the equivalent in Wicca or other pagan traditions of invoking spirits or gods or what have you, ancestors, what have you. And then the main working of the ritual, which varies depending on what the purpose of the ritual is. But it can be, well, we've done lots of different kinds of things. We've braided ribbons and then tied, not tied magical knots in them. We've made siles, we've we've done just lots of different kinds of things. And then gratitude expressions of gratitude. The things that we're grateful for. And then finally, benediction, which is sort of the closing of the ritual at a declaration that we're moving back into ordinary time. Yucca: So how does that look in, in a meeting, like a Zoom meeting In a digital format? Mark: Michael, you want to take that one or should I? Michael: So you know, you have maybe, I think usually when we have a ritual more people attend that and so we might have 12 people there and often Yucca: cameras on. Michael: Camera's on. Well, it's optional. Yeah. If you don't feel comfortable having your camera on, that's completely fine and you don't even have to speak. We do encourage people just to you know, leave a message in the chat so you can just listen in. You can engage as much or as little as you want. And you, you, so. We have all the people on in the conference, and maybe we'll try and get some more of the senses involved as well. So sometimes we'll like candles and everybody will have a candle in front of them. I do know for for some of our sound rituals. Mark, you've used two cameras where you, you aim one camera at maybe a focus, like what's one of the examples of that that you. Mark: Well we did that both at Sown and at Yu. So both the Halls ritual and the Yule ritual where I would create a focus or alter setup with thematic and symbolic things relating to the season. and then I would point, I would log into Zoom with my phone and point my phone at that. And then, and then I'd log in separately on my laptop for myself as a person, and then I could spotlight the focus so that it's kind of the centerpiece of what everybody experiences on their screen and sets the atmosphere. Michael: Yeah. So just a virtual focus that everybody can, everybody can virtually gather around. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Michael: Yeah. And I think we've also used a Pinterest board in the past as well for people. I think it was at Sound again, we had that Pinterest board where people could put up notes about. Their ancestors or loved ones that they were That's correct, isn't it? Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Or pictures of people that had passed recently or. Yucca: mm. Michael: yeah. So yeah, there's a lot of digital space that you can use for this ritual. We also try not to involve too many props as well. Because we wanna make it as easy as possible for people of all abilities. And just if you don't have the space for something, for a large proper if you don't wanna make a lot of noise, you know, we're not gonna have you using chimes or things like that. So we try and make it as easy as possible. Sometimes we do invite you to bring some food to eat as well, because, you know, a lot of these are feasting rituals. So we maybe, if you feel comfortable bringing some refreshments, you might want to do. And just have a friendly meal with people online. For example, we're actually gonna start doing I'm gonna be leading full Moon meals every month on the, on the, so the first one's gonna be December 7th. And I'll post, post about that on Discord, and I think Mark will post about that in the Facebook group. Yeah. And so the idea is everybody just comes. Joins the Zoom meeting and everybody should have their meal. Whether you're, whether that's lunch or if you're in a different time zone, maybe there'll be dinner or maybe it's just a snack. And then we'll spend a minute just thinking about the providence of the food and then we'll eat us and maybe people can talk about the food that they're eating and what it means to. And I'm hoping to make that a monthly event that we meet every full moon to share a meal together Mark: That sounds. I, I, I really I have pagan guilt over how little I pay attention to the full moon. I'm, I'm always, I'm always aware of what phase the moon is in, but I, I don't do a lot in the way of observances of the phases of the moon. And so, I'm excited to have this added in to something that I can attend. Michael: Mm-hmm. . But yeah, as you can see from that format, it's very simple. And again, you, if, if people listening would like to attend as well, there's no obligation to keep your. Your camera on, there's no obligation to speak. You just, you can just listen in and just feel part of the, part of the community that way. Yucca: Mm-hmm. So in the mixers sometimes ritual, are there discussions or what else do the mixers. Michael: Usually the mixer is kind of a freeform thing. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Michael: Maybe we'll have a topic sometimes, but usually people just come and do a check in and talk about how they're, how they're getting on that week and if there's anything they wanna discuss, we just open it up to that. Depending on the size of the turn, we may require some kind of etiquette stuff. So if there are a lot of people and we don't want people to. Shut it down or have spoken over. So we'll ask people to raise their hands if they wanna speak. That's, that really is only when there's a lot of people and, and often I, I know I'm somebody who likes to talk, so it's a, I think raising hands also gives people who are less confident, or, I'm sorry, not less confident, just not at, don't feel like interrupting. It gives them an opportu. To to have their say as well and be called on mm-hmm. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: Mm. Mark: I think it's really good that we've implemented that. It, it's, it helps. Michael: Mm-hmm. I think one of the really cool rituals we had recently was for like the ATO Harvest, so that was when was that? That was in September or October. In September, yeah. Yeah. So. We were trying, I mean, usually it's, you could do some kind of harvest related and I think we've done that in the past. But I have a book called Celebrating Irish Festivals by Ruth Marshall. And this is my go-to book for, for, for ritual ideas. And this is, and I like to. Kind of some of the traditional holidays and maybe just steal from them. . So Michael Mass is is the holiday around that time in Ireland? It's a Christian holiday, but it's also it's a Yucca: were older. Michael: yeah, yeah, Yucca: Christians took for the older Michael: yeah, yeah, yeah. you know, it's about St. And he's known for slaying a dragon as just as St. George was known for slaying a dragon. But I thought, well, let's turn this on this head and let's celebrate our inner dragons. Let's bring our dragons to life. So it was the whole ritual was about dragons. And we actually drew Dragons, drew our inner dragons and shared them. Talked about what they. And kind of we were feeding our inner dragon so that they could warm us throughout the coming winter. Yucca: Hmm. Michael: Mm-hmm. Mark: as well as watching the home. Star Runner Strong Door, the Ator video, Michael: Oh yeah, Mark: which you, you have to do if you've got dragons as a theme. It's just too funny to avoid. Michael: That's an old flash cartoon from the early two thousands. That was pretty popular. Mark: Mm-hmm. Michael: Yeah. Track toward the ator. Google it, and in fact, I did a, I did the hot chip challenge as part of that ritual as Mark: That's right. Yeah. Michael: where I ate a very, very hot tortilla chip on camera. And. It was it was painful, but I'm sure, I don't know if it entertained other people, but it was, it was fun Mark: Oh yeah. It was fun. Michael: So, yeah, they're like, I mean, these rituals aren't all, they're, they're fun and they're kind of silly and goofy and but I mean, I thought at the same time they're very meaningful because people really opened up in that one Mark: Yeah. Michael: and shared some really profe profound truth. That was one of my favorites actually, and I hope we do another, another dragon invoking ritual in the future. Mark: Maybe in the spring Michael: yeah. Mark: you do it at, at both of the equinoxes. Michael: Mm-hmm. Mark: so you've joined the Atheopagan Society Council, which is great. Thank you so much for your, your volunteering and your effort. What do you think about the future? How do you, how do you see where this community is going and what would you like to see? What's, what's your perspective on that? Michael: Yeah, so just before I discovered the Pagan Facebook group I had attended A local cups meeting. So that's the covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans. And so it was just a taro reading workshop and, you know, I was, I, I like kind of using these kind of rituals just for their beauty and, but not, for not, not seeing anything supernatural in them. I was, it was amazing to, to find a group that was interested in these kind of things too, but without the they weren't incredulous. So I guess what I'm hoping for is that as we, as we kind of find more people who are, are, are aligned with us, maybe we can have more in. Experiences. That was one of the great, the great highlights of, of last year was attending the Century retreat and meeting all, all these amazing people in real life and being able to spend time together in real life. And I hope that as we kind of, as the word gets out about this group, more and more of us can meet in person or as we are able to, Mark: Mm-hmm. Michael: That's what I really hope for the future that you're finding your, your people that we are, we are being able to get these local groups together and then spend time on these important days of the year. And I believe the Chicago Afu Pagan group was able to do that not too long ago. And I know Mark, your local group meets quite regularly as well. Mark: We, we meet for the, for the eight holidays, for the eight Sabbath. So yeah, we're gonna get together on the 18th of December and burn a fire in the fire pit and do a, a ritual and enjoy food and drink with one another. And yeah, it's a, it's a really good feeling that that feeling of getting together is just You can't replace it with online connection, but online connection is still really good. So that's why, that's why we continue to do the mixers every Saturday. And Glen Gordon has also been organizing a mixer on Thursday evenings. Well evenings if you're in the Americas. And. Yeah, there's just, there's, there's a bunch of different opportunities to plug in and it's always great to see somebody new. Michael: Yeah, I think that would be another hope as well that, you know, if you've been on the fence about coming to a mixer I hope that what we've described today maybe entices you to come along. You know that there's no expectations and you can, you can share, you can just sit in the background and watch, or you can participate. There's no expectations and it's just a nice way to, to connect with people, so, Yucca: how would somebody join in? They find the, the link on the Facebook discord. Michael: that's right. Yeah. So I think, mark, you post it regularly on the Facebook group, and it's also posted on the disc. As well. So, and it's the same time every Saturday, so it's 12:15 PM Central for me, so, and that's like 1115 for you, mark, on the, Mark: No, it's 1115 for Yucca. Michael: Oh, okay. Mark: It's 10 15 for me. Michael: Okay. Okay. Yucca: one 15 for Eastern. Then Michael: one, yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yucca: Hmm Mark: And. Michael: and it's always the same time, and I think we've, I think we've only missed one week, maybe in the last three years. Mark: Yeah, I think that's right. I wasn't available and I couldn't find somebody else to host or something like that, but yeah, it's been very consistent. And I see no reason to think it isn't gonna keep being consistent. But yeah, we, you know, we welcome new people. And if you're not in the Americas, that's fine too. We've got a couple of Dutch people that come in all the time. There's a, an Austrian woman who lives in Helsinki who participates. So Yucca: E eight nine ish kind of for Europe, Mark: Yeah. Michael: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We've even had on the Thursday night mixer, we've even had Australians join occasionally too. So Yucca: That sounds like that'd be early for them then, right? Michael: yeah, Yucca: getting up in the. Michael: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. But I'd I'd love for some of the listeners to come and join us on one of the mixers and then cuz you know, you bring new ideas. And I we're always looking for new ritual ideas, Mark: Mm. Michael: That kind of bring meaning to our lives and to everybody else's. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yeah, cuz that's, I mean, that's what we're doing, right? We're, we're create, we're, it's a creative process for us. We've got these sort of frameworks like the Wheel of the Year and the, the ritual format that I laid out. Although people can use other ritual formats too. That's fine. But it's, it's an ongoing process of creation and of taking some old traditions and folding them in where they fit but creating new stuff as well. One of the innovations that we, that we've been doing for the l past year or so is if people want to be done with something, if they want to be finished with something in their. They can write it in the chat and then I take the chat file and I print it on my printer and I take it and I burn it in my cauldron. So it is actually being burnt physically. But it just takes a little bit of technical processing before that happens. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: And it's those kinds of innovations that are really useful for online rituals. And boy, if you have new ideas about things we can do for online rituals, I, I would love to hear 'em. Yucca: So thank you so much for sharing your story and your visions or the future with us. This has been, it's, it's really been beautiful to hear and to get that insight. Thank you, Michael. Michael: Well, thank you for having me on. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: It's been delightful hearing from you and, and I, I gotta say, I, I feel like our community is very lucky. You've been exploring religion and and folklore and ritual for a long time in a lot of different frameworks and I feel really fortunate that you've landed with us cuz I like you so. Michael: Okay. Well thanks very much. I like you too, Mark: Okay folks, that'll be all for this week. And as always, we'll have another episode for you next week on the Wonder Science Based Paganism. Have a great week. Yucca: Thanks everybody.

Bo has been a practicing pagan since the 90's and a past VP and President of Triad CUUPs (Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans). During the years he has become a Reiki Master Teacher and a certified Great Life Coach. He learned Primitive Blacksmithing Around 2012 and took to it like a duck to water. He was honored to have been a finalist in Our State Magazine for a forged steel and copper rose. He teaches both Primitive Blacksmithing and Magical Blacksmithing in the Foothills of NC. Being a Priest of the Morrigan heavily influences his work and the smithy is dedicated to Her. Bo is also a proud Army Veteran. www.ravenskeepforge.com/ www.facebook.com/RavensKeepForge www.instagram.com/ravenskeepforge/ www.patreon.com/RavensKeepForge

John Beckett joins me to discuss what he calls "the currents of magic" and how they're getting stronger. John Beckett grew up in Tennessee with the woods right outside his back door. Wandering through them gave him a sense of connection to Nature and to a certain Forest God. John is a Druid in the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, a member of Ár nDraíocht Féin (ADF), a member of the Denton Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans, and a former Vice President of CUUPS Continental. He's been writing, speaking, teaching, and leading public rituals since 2003. His books The Path of Paganism (2017) and Paganism In Depth (2019) are published by Llewellyn Worldwide. John can be found on his website Under the Ancient Oaks (https://undertheancientoaks.com/), on his Patheos blog (https://www.patheos.com/blogs/johnbeckett/), and on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. John lives in the Dallas – Fort Worth area and earns his keep as an engineer.

Today on the A Pinch of Magick podcast I'm joined by Sam 'Bo' Thompson as we discuss reconnecting to the magick of metal. Intellectually, I know that I'm surrounded by metal, but after this conversation with Bo, metal has taken on a whole new meaning and significance. We had finished the interview and had stopped recording, and we were continuing to chat and I had to start recording again as I had a huge (yet obvious when I thought about it) a-ha moment about metal in my work! Have a listen and think about metal in a whole new light. In this episode we discuss: Why Bo believes we need to reconnect to metal How we're more connected to metal than we realise How metal transforms us The personalities of the different metals How to incorporate metal into everyday life Why Bo uses a primitive method of blacksmithing His relationship to the Morrigan How Bo cultivated his inner trust to follow the guidance of his intuition and messages from the Morrigan Bo's philosophy for staying true his own path The wisdom of his grandma Metal and divination About Sam 'Bo' Thompson I've been a practicing pagan since the 90's (does that date me or what?), past VP and President of Triad CUUPs (Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans). During the years I have become a Reiki Master Teacher and a certified Great Life Coach. I learned Primitive Blacksmithing Around 2012 and took to it like a duck to water. I am honored to have been a finalist in Our State Magazine for a forged steel and copper rose. I teach both Primitive Blacksmithing and Magical Blacksmithing in the Foothills of NC. The focal point of my Work is on the magical part of blacksmithing and I am currently a full-time magical smith. Being a Priest of the Morrigan heavily influences what I do, and the smithy is dedicated to Her. I am also a proud Army Veteran. Connect with Sam 'Bo' Thompson Website: www.ravenskeepforge.com Free Metal Class: The Inception of Metal Magick Instagram: @ravenskeepforge Facebook: @RavensKeepForge His book: Metal Never LiesCome and share your thoughts over in our magickal community: Join the community Or join me over on instagram: @TheModernWitchWay for your magickal inspiration @IntuitiveCharmcasting to follow along with charm casting fun @YourSherosJourney for a sacred pause in nature Learn more about bringing your own magick to life: www.RebeccaAnuwen.com

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com   S3E43 TRANSCRIPT:----more----   Mark: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-Based Paganism. I'm your host, mark,  Yucca: and I'm the other one, Yucca.  Mark: And today we are talking about all things related to the winter solstice and youe. Happy Yule, everyone, or whatever you choose to call it. Yep. Happy solstice. Yucca: It's it's amazing that we're here already. I think we say that about every holiday. Really? Yeah. But we,  Mark: we do, we just can't believe we're getting older. Is is what's happening here?  Yucca: Yeah. Well, December thing seems like it just started and yet here we are already. So, yeah. But speaking of that, this is something that we've been doing for a really long. I think that's a good segue into our first section here is let's talk about what this holiday is because it's based on something very real. This isn't just a day that we randomly assigned some random meaning to. It's something that humans. all over the world have been observing as far as we can tell, for thousands and thousands of years. Yes.  Mark: Yes. The, I, I just learned of a new New to me, archeological find in the wheelchair plane, which is where Stonehenge is and so forth. There was apparently a gold plate found with a a v incised on it, a large v, and the V is exactly 82 degrees. The angle is 82 degrees, which is the difference between the summer solstice and the winter solstice on the. Hmm. So apparently this plate was. used as kind of a portable observatory in a way where you could shoot the sun on the summer solstice and say, okay, well it's gonna be over there on the winter solstice. I mean, for all we know, it might have been an engineering tool used to help build stone head . Yeah. Because Stonehenge lines up perfectly with the winter solstice, right? With the sun rising on the winter  Yucca: solstice. Right. And that, that kind of structure, something that we see again all over the world, we see that in the Americas and in Eurasia and, and really all over. That's right. And sometimes it's the winter solta, sometimes it's the summer. But it's the same ideas that we have been paying attention to. What the, the relationship between where the sun is in our sky or the it's apparent position and what that means to the rest of the ecosystem that we're in. It'd be very important to.  Mark: Right. Yeah. Right. I mean, we were talking about this before we recorded. I mean, in the, in the case of the wintertime where food is becoming very scarce, not only that, but there are fewer hours in the day to go look for it. Mm-hmm. so. You know, noticing when the hours were going to start to get longer again would be a really big deal in terms of your survival. As we get later into history, we see that this is the time when all of the, the harvest that had not been preserved in some way by pickling or drying or smoking or salting or, you know, whatever. Had to be eaten because things were starting to go bad. Mm-hmm. . And we need to get all those calories into ourselves so that we can survive the lean months coming up before eggs start to become available. And some of the earliest greens start coming up and the lambs start being born and all that kind of stuff. Mm-hmm. , right? Yeah. . So it's a time That is it. It has kind of an internal paradox in it, right? It's the time to have a big party and eat a lot. So it's a time to get together, celebrate with our loved ones, share food, share, drink, share company in, and sort of keep that light alive through the darkest time of the year. But it's also confronting the fact that things are gonna get tough. coming up in the next few months. These, these are not gonna be a lot of fun. So this is sort of the last hurrah in a way. Mm-hmm. , before we get to some very, you know, before the advent of modern supply chains and agriculture, these were times when things, things can get pretty  Yucca: dicey. Yeah. It's what you've been preparing for all. . Right. Really? Yeah. Right. This is what you've been cutting the wood for all year. Mm-hmm. , this is what you've been raising the food for. This is, this is it, right? Yeah. To  Mark: get through this gap Yeah. Of the next couple of months, next three months, you know, depending on where you are, maybe even longer. Mm-hmm. , that. Where the natural world is not going to produce easily available food for you. Mm-hmm. . And you've gotta rely on your stores. And I mean, that's an inherently anxiety producing phenomenon, right? Watching your stores get lower and lower and lower every day as you eat to survive. And trying to kind of eyeball, well, are we gonna. are we gonna make it to the season when the birds are laying eggs and we can start to get some calories?  Yucca: Right? So it has that, all of that around it. And I think there's also a bit of in a celebration of the darkness as well, right? Yes. There's a celebration of the light in the darkness, but also that. Quiet darkness. This is, we haven't done an episode on the dark in a few years. We did a few years back. I think that might be one we should revisit. That's true in the next couple months while we are still in this dark period. And the, in the importance of that quietness and that time of reflection and that time of the waiting and the rest, that really comes with the dark of the year. Right. And that's the. The time around the solstice is quite literally the darkest time of the year if you aren't lighting it up with, with artificial lights, right? Mm-hmm. .  Mark: Yeah. And when you think about it in kind of grand cosmological terms The darkness is the source that the light kind of blooms out of, right? Mm-hmm. , I mean, we start, we, we start with an incredible burst of explosive light, but very quickly everything cools off and we have this sea of undifferentiated particles at first, but as stars begin to kindle, light begins to come back into that darkness, and so it becomes, , it becomes a, a powerful metaphor for how things are born in darkness. Mm-hmm. and, and then evolve into the the waking world. The daylight world, yeah.  Yucca: Hmm. Well, let's talk a little bit about how, what, what that means to us personally as pagans. What is that in our practice?  Mark: Sure. Would you like to go first?  Yucca: Sure. So we use the framework of the wheel of the year in our household and the winter solstice. This is the time where we're, we're thinking about those things that we've just been talking about. But we also, this is when we're honoring the forests as. So there's a lot of, of imagery for us and smells and things like that that have to do with the forest, especially the evergreen forest. And this also happens smack in the middle of just. So many holidays, , there are just so many holidays this week that we're going into. I don't know how my kids are gonna make it through all the holidays because we have the solstice happening right in the middle. The Hanukkah starts . So we're recording this Saturday. So Sunday night, Hanukkah starts. So they'll do that on my side with their softa. They'll do Christmas with their grandmother on the other side. And it's just this, this, all of this activity and bustling and just the celebration and the, you don't have  Mark: an aluminum pole for celebrating Festivus.  Yucca: You know, we don't, but I think that if I suggested that to my partner that it would show up , I'm pretty sure it would, we would have it. But the, the solstice itself in the middle of all of that is a if. , we, we do secular Christmas and solstice is separate for us. Mm-hmm. than that is. Although on the other side of the year we do do presents with summer solstice as well, but the, the presents are, are Christmas presents. But the, the solstice is more of a moment of reflection. Right. It's a, we'll wake up and watch the sunrise and watch the sunset and be. And spend a little bit of time going out. We'll run out if there's snow, we'll run outside barefoot in our little barefoot feet and come back in and sit in front of the fire and, and have that kind of reflective moment that you were talking about earlier. That that reflection that, that comes along with this time of year that I think is something that isn't really emphasized in the secular. Approach to this time of year.  Mark: So, yeah, I agree. I agree. I, sorry to interrupt you. Oh no. Please, please jump  Yucca: in. Yeah.  Mark: I mean, obviously the commercialization of the holidays has meant that. it's become very much around stuff and accumulation of stuff, purchasing of stuff, distribution of stuff as well as lots of, you know, rich food and drink. Mm-hmm. , , and that seems to be MO and family, certainly family is a theme. Mm-hmm. , you know, for, you know, people gathering together, at least in the ideal mm-hmm. Conceptualization. But it is true that the whole. I'll, I'll come at this a little bit sideways. I'm, I'm an, I'm a singer and I'm, I've done a lot of singing of early music, medieval and renaissance music, and a great deal of what that, what the liturgical music of that period is about. And of course, it's all Christian. Mm-hmm. , but it's this, it's this contemplation of the great mystery, right. The. The incredible thing that happened that, you know, where God made Mary pregnant mm-hmm. and, and it's a contemplative thing. It's a, it's, you know, sort of trying to grasp the mind of God in a way. Mm-hmm. , I think we, pagans have something very similar. We, we naturalistic non-theistic pagans since we're not thinking about gods at this time. Right.  Yucca: If some, some people do have this as the birth of of whoever their God is that, you know. Right. That is part of some pagan paths. Yeah. Yes.  Mark: But I do think that in our tradition, This is the time of year when the natural world comes as close as it ever does to stopping. because of the cold temperatures, everything slows way, way down. And what is implicit or potential for the coming cycle is only just starting to be conceived. Mm-hmm. And that's something that we can, can meditate on as naturalistic pagans. As atheopagan, because we can focus on what. Imagining for the coming cycle, what we're aspiring to in the coming year? For many of us, this is the winter solstice is the beginning of the new year. Mm-hmm. , that's how I consider it. And so in many ways it's this sort of birth moment and at births we, we have a lot of dreams. for, for our children. We have a, a lot of things that we hope for for them. We wish them the best and we have pictures in our minds about what that might work out to be. And I think that that can be true of the coming cycle of the year as well. Mm-hmm. ? Yeah. So. . But you were talking about celebrating the forests and the evergreens particularly and the millions of holidays.  Yucca: Yes. So, so  Mark: many, so, mm-hmm. . So at, at a deeper level, what, what does this, what does this holiday mean to you, Yucca? What does it, what does it encourage you to do in your practice? Yucca: This really is, this is a time. of reflection and being and I know you were just talking about the dreaming portion, but for me, that comes a, that comes a little bit later in winter. Oh, this is more of a, just being in the now. Here we are. I'm not, I'm not getting ready for anything now. Right. Got ready for the winter. The winter is here. The wood is stacked. The, the, our water tanks are full. The our pantry's full and now, and in my work cycle too. You know, I just taught my last class for the semester. I'm not teaching well for, I do have some international classes, but I'm not teaching any of the, the North American kids until we're back in the, the new Year. Right. So it's like, uh, no, I just get to be, just to hang out, to be, to exist, to kind of look at what, where, where I am right now, really just take stock, not in a. Planning for the future, because that will come, right? Yes. But how, but I can't really plan for the future until I'm very clear with where am I at right now? And that's just what's mm-hmm. like on emotional level. And of course there's the practical too of, you know, don't, don't go to the grocery store without checking what's in your fridge first, you know, . So, but, so that's on a, but take that and. To for life. But this is like on an emotional level. So that's emotionally what we're doing. But that theme also, you're talking about a family and just, just enjoying life right now. You know, it's really about that. Just enjoying, and here we are and you know, this is what we  Mark: got. That's, that's great. And, and as you mentioned it, it's, you know, I, I, I feel, I guess that I do a lot of the same. I mean, it's a time to enjoy the pretty lights and the holiday traditions and. not particularly to do work. Mm-hmm. or or even much planning for the future. When I, when I talk about dreaming and imagination, it, that's a very pre-planning Yes. Sort of state. It's just really sort of blue skying. Kind of what, what can we imagine possibly happening over the course of the next year? Yucca: Right. think of it kind of like still being under the blankets in the early morning. Mm-hmm. , right? Where you haven't really started to make your list of, okay, what do I actually have to do for the day? But you're kind of in that like, oh, here I am, I'm okay. I'm awake when I'm in the soft blankets. Just thinking about everything. Dreaming about everything. Huh.  Mark: Yes. Warm and comfortable, which is so much a, an aspect of of what this holiday is supposed to be about. Mm-hmm. , , know, so many of the rituals that we do for Yule or mid-winter or, you know, whatever you call it, the winter solstice, have to do with experiencing cold and darkness. Mm-hmm. for a while, just to really kind of rub it in, make sure that we Yeah. That we know, you know, what's really going on out there and just how harsh and and bleak, it can really be out there. And then bringing that light back into the home, back into where it's warm and sheltered and the wind doesn't get to you, and the precipitation doesn't fall on you. And coming back into warmth and comfort again. Mm-hmm. .  Yucca: Yeah. Hmm. So what are, what is it for you? .  Mark: Well, let me see. To start with yes, there certainly is a flurry of holidays and we do have an aluminum pole on the 23rd. On the 23rd, we erect the aluminum pole and air our grievances in, in the time honored tradition of the Seinfeld Festivus. Mm-hmm. . It's just so funny and we happen to have this old floor lamp with. Upright, that's a pole, so we just couldn't resist doing it every year. . But we do a lot of the, the sort of Christmasy yule traditions, like a yule tree and eating well and Let me correct that. Eating, eating richly heavily. Yeah. Heavily. Yeah. Richly not necessarily. Well, although ne mayo's pretty good about making me eat my vegetables. . The, but the time of year, there's a, there's a. It's ironic because for many people this is a very stressful time of year and they feel the tremendous pressure to buy things for everyone and to deal with the financial stress of that and to do all those things. We don't do gifts. . We would, if we had children in our lives, we would give them to children because it's really unfair to ask them to watch all of their peers getting gifts at this time of year and not getting any themselves. That would just be cruel. Right.  Yucca: Oh, and especially if, if the, the peers are doing the Santa thing where like, it's a magical, it's a magical being who's bringing you these gifts, you know? And, and you know why I Marcos next door, get a, you know, this, the. PS five or whatever they're on. I don't know what they're on now. Right. Why do they get that? You know, and, and you know, this magical being can't even bring me anything. Yeah. Or, you know, he brings me socks. Although socks are fantastic. We're big sock  Mark: fans here. Yeah. Boy, I, I love socks. . So, so because we don't do gifts, we're not really under those kinds of pressures and. Work stuff fades away because the whole. Commercial world other than retail, kind of takes a breath around this time. Mm-hmm. . Although that's certainly not true for many of the nonprofits that I've worked for, which are cranking out services like crazy for people who desperately need them. Yucca: Sure. Yeah. Because people, people need housing and food and medical care and all, you know, that doesn't, in fact, much of that when it comes to medical care and things like that, that increases during the wintertime. Yes,  Mark: it does. It does. Yeah. Yeah. So, but we just enjoy doing all of our traditions and having time to, as you say, just kind of be in the moment of the season enjoying our circumstances and enjoying We, we still have a few trees that have beautiful leaves on them. Most of them are bare by now, but some of the very late changing ones are just kind of coming into their colors now. Mm-hmm. , And we've had a few rainstorms come through, which are always a delight to hear on the roof and go out and feel on your skin. Watching the sky a lot. Mars and Jupiter have been brilliant recently. Wow. Yeah. And,  Yucca: So many meteors  Mark: too. Yes. Yeah. I, I heard that there were a lot of geminis. I, I didn't go look for them, but I heard that they, there were a lot of meteors. Yeah,  Yucca: we spotted a couple, but it gets down into the single digits or the teens at night for us here. And Uhhuh, then Fahrenheit, so. We, we limit the amount of outside time at, in the early morning ?  Mark: I would think so. Yeah. I mean, our our low temperatures have been mid twenties. Mm-hmm. . So not, not too bad. Bad for the plants outside, but not so bad for for but not, not nearly as bad as single digits. Yeah. So, and it's also because there is that sort of generalized. Cultural agreement that we're all going to do this together now. Mm-hmm. , what in, in whatever flavor that might happen to be, there are a lot more opportunities to see friends and so forth. I was mentioning before we recorded I have six Yu gatherings this year. We did quite a few Saturday. We did the Saturday Zoom mixer, Yule ritual this morning. I'm going to meet with my ritual circle this evening. Then tomorrow the Northern California atheopagan Affinity Group meets. And then after that I'm going to The, the gathering of the Spark Collective, which is a ritual collective that I used to work with a lot in the East Bay east Bay area, San Francisco region, and then on Wednesday, The Solstice, the local Unitarian, the solstice itself, the local Unitarian Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans group. is doing a winter solstice as well, that I have a roll in and then I'll come home and naia and I will build a Yu log and burn it and do a bunch of our things. So, Six distinct celebrations and I'm, I think I'll feel thoroughly ued by the time it's all over.  Yucca: Yeah, that is, that's quite a lot. So, Hmm. And we were just talking about the actual time of the solstice itself. So in, I'm in Mountain, so on Wednesday, that's 2 47. So for Pacific for you, that's 1 47. 47. Yeah. Yeah. And we like to set the, in our house, we set the alarm. And it's nice when it happens in the middle of the day. And when it goes off, then we'll all cheer because sometimes it does not happen in the middle of the day. Sometimes it happens at three in the morning and you gotta wake everyone up to go, whoa, , and go back to sleep . But that's a fun thing to do, especially if you've got, if you've got kiddos, but I think kids of any age, sure, then enjoy that.  Mark: Absolutely. I think if I were going to do that and it turned out to be three o'clock in the morning or something, I think I would re combine that with the midnight Margaritas tradition from Practical Magic and do that as well, which is a lot of fun. So, mm-hmm. So where are we? What, what else have we got to talk about here?  Yucca: Well, it's always nice to talk about some suggested ri suggested, ah, that's a hard one. Suggested rituals and you know, kind of little traditions that people can try or share things that we do and see what kind of sparks people's imagin. Mark: Yeah. Okay. Sure. Well, I am very fond of the eLog tradition. I, I think for one thing, I think it's very old. Mm-hmm. . I think the idea of decorating a special log and throwing it onto a bonfire at this time of year is probably something that people have been doing for many, many centuries. . If you don't have a fire pit that you can burn something outdoors in, or a fireplace indoors or a wood stove, you can drill holes in the top of the log and put candles in instead, and let those tapers burn down as a part of your tradition. Mm-hmm. . But I really like to use the bottom part of last Year's Yu Tree. Oh. And. and I saved that for all year. Mm-hmm. . And then we bind it to a piece of split Oakwood so that it's big enough because the, the yield trees are only about three inches. Yeah. Mm-hmm. . So we used Twine to, to bind that to a, a piece of, you know, a third or a quarter of a log and then. Evergreen branches and holly branches and pirate kaha with all the berries and missile toe and all those kinds of things into the, the twine to decorate the, the log. All with natural stuff that will burn. Mm-hmm. . So nothing plastic. and then we write our, our hopes for the coming year on little notes and tuck them underneath the evergreens and so forth. Mm-hmm. . And then we take it out to burn mm-hmm. and let those wishes go skyward to wherever they will. And it just feels like, it feels like setting something in motion. Mm-hmm. , which is. . Just a really lovely feeling, I think.  Yucca: Yeah. That's beautiful. Yeah. I've seen some just beautiful U logs that people have done. Mm-hmm. , it's just a mm-hmm. . That's not something that we've done very much, but it's, it's something that we're interested in. Right. ,  Mark: well, you certainly have the circumstances for it. I mean, you, you, you use firewood for your, for your ordinary fuel, and you've got a fire pit outside and mm-hmm. , you know, all that. Or you could burn it in your hearth if. Do you have a wood stove or  Yucca: is it fire? We, we have a wood stove. But it's got a, a glass front to it so we can Oh, we can see. I like seeing the fire, so every day I clean the sit off of it so that we can see the fire in it. Oh, . So it'd be lovely. Yeah. And we do have the, the pit outside, so, yeah. And all of the firewood stuff is a big part of this, this year, this time of year for us. Right. The kids, I'm sure. That was something that getting ready for the year that we had them do is make the little Kindle bundles. Oh. So as we were getting into fall and, and they're, they're so little right now. There's not really a lot of things that they can do yet to really be uh, Significant contribu contributors to the, like, happenings of a house, right? They're four and six. Sure. But they're, they were great at tying these little bundles of sticks together. And every day when we use one of those little bundles because we also have a greenhouse that heats the house, so we don't have to have the fire going constantly. So we do have, but we'll, we'll run it usually at night. So we start the fire up and we'll use the little bundle of sticks. They, their Kindle bundle and they get to go, oh, here's the, the bundle that I made, and, and they get to, you know, help light that up.  Mark: That's great. That's great. Yeah. I mean, engaging, engaging children in, in the industry of the house. I think is a really wonderful thing. I, I mean, so long as it doesn't turn into an endless list of chores that are just drudgery and, you know, sort of child labor. Mm-hmm. ,  Yucca: Yeah, we don't want like Cinderella type of scenario. . Yeah. .  Mark: But you know, giving them an opportunity to feel like participants in all the stuff that makes the house go, I think is just a really wonderful. Yeah.  Yucca: Well, I think that's really important for, you know, just our sense of, of belonging and port and importance. And I think that that's something that we can extend to when we're talking about the holidays, right? Is that everybody get to have something that they feel that isn't too stressful, right? Because sometimes people don't need more on their plates if they already have a lot to be doing. But something that is important that doesn't just feel. That they get to be part of that, that, that they're responsible for and that, you know, they bring this to the table I think is something lovely to do with them. Yeah. With anyone. Yeah. Absolutely. So one thing , you were just talking about the eLog. One thing that we do is we make a lot of sew it for the animals. Oh. And we have little silicone molds, which are they look like little trees . And, you know, you can, you can find recipes online for Sue it, but it, it's really not that, that hard. Right. You. You know, we use lard or tall and you get your fat and then you mix in your seeds and your berries mm-hmm. and all of that. But we'll make these little ones that, you know, they're a few inches across. Mm-hmm. , and then we'll hang the twine from it. And we had tried putting ornaments in our trees. Before, but the birds just so they attacked the ornaments and it didn't work out. Oh no. So now we're making them the little seit blocks and hanging it up in the tree as our decoration, like our outdoor, that's tree.  Mark: That's great. Yeah, I could see they actually use Mylar tinsel in the vineyards here to help keep birds away because apparently they don't like it. Little flashes of light. They, they, they don't like the little flashes of light. So I can understand why they were attacking the ornaments. Get that thing  Yucca: outta here, . Yeah. Well, and, and we have a lot of bird. We're a little like a bird oasis here, but it was the J's in particular, they were like knocking them down and could see they didn't like 'em at all. So, uh, and I didn't want to put anything like tinsel out cuz I was, I was worried they might try and take that and use it for testing or eat it or choke on it. Right? Yeah. Wanna make sure that there's nothing that would be dangerous to them. . Right. And then I don't want the, those little pieces getting in the wind and mm-hmm. Getting, messing all over the place. So I think whatever our celebrations are, it's important that we're being respectful and responsible to, to all the other life around us. Of course. Yeah. And that's another thing we try and do is, is not by a bunch of junk that is just gonna get thrown out, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. , . So, so making little things for the gifts, you know, making little clay things and smell this time of year, I think smell any time of year, but I really associate. Some of the smells of like the Cinnamons and like frankincense is another. The cloves. Yeah. All of those are just so wonderful. And the pine, we'll take we'll actually go and take needles cause we have a lot of, of pinon. Pine is the main tree that we've got here. It's like this little pygmy pine and we'll bring in the, the needles from it and sometimes the sap and you put, put that in boiling water on the stove. And you could do this with your, with your kitchen, you know, your electric or or gas stove as well. It doesn't have to be a wood stove. And that just Fills the house with that smell. You can put other things in as well. If you have a little bit of cinnamon from the kitchen or your clothes, any of those, like pumpkin spice ones, those are gonna work really well in, in that. Yeah.  Mark: Nice. Very nice. Yeah. What was I going to say? There was something that went along with that.  Yucca: Was it smells  Mark: or were we back on the birds? No, it, it was back on the birds. Yeah. We, we have a lot of takers for our bird feeders at this time of year too. Mm-hmm. , the, the birds that don't migrate. It's it's not nearly as sparse here as it is where you are, I'm sure. Mm-hmm. , but still we get a lot of customers this time of year. Yeah. We have a regular feeder that we put sunflower seeds in and then we have No. Is it sunflower seeds? Yes. It's sunflower seed pieces. Mm-hmm. . And then we have a hummingbird feeder as well that we put sugar water in.  Yucca: Oh, so you still get hummingbirds this time of year? Mark: We do. Yeah. We have hummingbirds here that don't migrate. Oh, wow. Because it's, it's mild enough that they can, they can take it through the winter. So  Yucca: yeah. Ours are all in Costa r already. Uhhuh ,  Mark: they're, they're long gone. We have, we have pretty large populations of Canada geese here that don't migrate either. They just hang out. Annoy everybody and eat amphibians and do what they do. ,  Yucca: I love birds. Me too, so much. They, they, they give us so much in entertainment. .  Mark: Yes. That's  Yucca: very true. Yeah. We have birds and, and we've got chipmunks that live around here. And on the warmer days, I think the chipmunks, they don't do like a full hibernation here. They, they kind of wake up and come out in the warm days and, and they have like little wars with the, the birds around here. They'll chase each other back and forth and fight over who gets what, you know, what seeds and Oh. And we will also, we have we'll sprout some seeds for. Our animals too. A lot of bird seeded. You can just take it and the same way you would sprout, you know, anything else that you would in the kitchen. You just mm-hmm. , soak it in the water and change the water out every few days. Or you could put it in a little bit of soil and we'd take that out and give them a little bit of green in the winter. Um hmm. And so now we've got, that's. We've got a whole variety of folks who come to visit,  Mark: so probably gives them more sugar too. Once, once the, once the plants germinate, they start generating more sugar, whereas the, the seed is largely fat.  Yucca: Yeah. You know, it's definitely gonna change what the composition is. We'll, we'll do a mix, so not just the sunflower, but like the millet and the all kinds of things for them. Yeah, we like, we, we spoil our birds. , , so  Mark: I'm sure they appreciate it.  Yucca: Oh yeah. But water is actually the most important one. Oh, I understand. Depending on where you live, where we live, water is, is not easy to get. This time of year it might be a little bit different where you are, you're in a wetter, I mean, you're just coming out of your dry season though. But, but giving them fresh water, that's really the tricky fine thing to find this time of year. So that's another one of the kids' jobs is they go out with the you know, we clean out the bowl every day so that we're not letting any, we're not spreading any. Diseases between the animals. So they go out and change the, they bring out a new fresh bowl of water, and then they take in the old one. We wash it up and get it ready to take out for the next day. So that's something that they can do as well.  Mark: Wow, that's great. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's a simply a lovely time of year. Mm-hmm. , I, I really enjoy the, the, the yule season. The many, many Solstice traditions that have grown up around it. And of course, we've only scratched the surface of all those traditions, you know, throughout the world that people have celebrated as a part of observing this important moment when the days start to get longer again. And there is some prospect that eventually there will be more food. . Yes. Uh uh and. I don't know. In, in a way it sounds when, when you compare this sort of romantic dramatic story that Christianity has about Christmas and the meaning of the birth of Jesus and all that kind of stuff, the, the idea of describing this holiday as one that's basically about the food supply. Mm-hmm. sounds a, it sounds a little. A little dull by comparison, but a little underwhelming, to be honest. Yeah. But realistically speaking, that's what's going on. We're, we're organisms and we, we like to eat. We don't do well when we don't, and this is the cycle that we're born into. So, I think it's a, a wonderful thing to reflect on years past and the conditions that people managed to survive through, um mm-hmm. in order to bring us here.  Yucca: Right. Yeah. And, you know, that's, that's what our great, great, great grandchildren are. You know, it's just gonna keep, hopefully keep going. So  Mark: hopefully, yeah. Yeah.  Yucca: and it's, it's lovely to think about that connection to all the other humans that have been, right, right. That have gone through something similar. I mean, when you're at the equator, it's a little bit different, um mm-hmm. , but the higher and higher your latitude is, whichever way you're going. The more, the more and more noticeable, the bigger and bigger a deal the solstice  Mark: becomes, Yes, I was watching a YouTube video yesterday by a woman who lives in the north of Sweden and winter winter's intense up there. Yeah. I mean, there's very little light and she, at one point she put a chair outside and sat in the sun and she said, you. . You know that feeling when you're very thirsty and that first sip of water hits your mouth. Mm-hmm. , that's what it's like when the sun hits my skin at this time of year. Mm-hmm. It's. You know, you, your body is just so starved for, for the sunlight. Yeah. And of course she takes vitamin D supplements and all that kind of stuff, which they do as well. But there's nothing quite like sunlight. We're, we're built to like it.  Yucca: Yeah. Yeah. I was actually just talking with one of my students earlier today who's from a same part of the world, and he was saying that that day, is four and a half hours long for them when they get to the winter solstice. It's about nine and a half for us, which feels short. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. , but four and a half hour day once. Wow.  Mark: Yeah, it's about nine where I am. I'm, I'm considerably north of where you are.  Yucca: Yeah. I'm just about 36,  Mark: so yeah, I think I'm, I think we're at 42. You're that  Yucca: far north? I think so. Oh,  Mark: okay. , maybe 40.2. I don't know. I haven't looked somewhere that, yeah, . Yeah, somewhere. Somewhere in there. So, yeah. And my hope for all of our listeners is that you have meaningful observances if that, if that's what you want. And if not, that you have a good long break. Mm-hmm. , and a, a relaxing and restorative time because I do think that this can be a restorative time if we don't drive ourselves crazy with busyness. Yucca: Right. If you have cats, make sure to get some cat snuggles in Oh, time of year  Mark: for that. . Yes. My cat is sleeping just over there, just like four feet away from me. Mine's  Yucca: on top of my keys. left the keys on the table. He's right on top of them. So .  Mark: So listen everyone, we have really enjoyed spending the last it's, I mean, we're coming up on three years now of doing this. And thank you for taking this journey with us around the course of the Wheel of the Year for 2022. It's been, it's really been a great cycle and we've had wonderful comments and feedback and input from listeners and we're really looking forward to doing more of this coming up, starting next week. Yucca: That's right. So happy solstice.  Mark: Happy Solstice.  

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com   S3E41 TRANSCRIPT:----more----   Mark: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-based Paganism. I'm Mark, one of your hosts. Yucca: and I'm Yucca. Mark: and today we have a really exciting episode. We have an interview with a member of the Atheopagan Society Council, Michael, who is joining us today, and is gonna tell us about his journey and what this community means to him and his vision for the future and all kinds of cool stuff. So welcome. Michael: Well, thank you very much for having me. Mark: I'm delighted to have you here, Yucca: Thanks for coming on. Michael: Yeah, no, I'm excited. Yucca: Yeah. So why don't we start with so who are you? Right? What's, what's your journey been to get here? Michael: Gosh. Well, I kind of have to start at the very beginning. So my name's Michael and you know, I've, I start, sometimes I go by Mícheál, which is my Irish, the Irish version of my name. And that's something I've been using more as I've been involved in the Pagan community. My parents are both Irish and. They moved to the United States in their early eighties cuz my dad got a green card working over there Mark: Hmm. Michael: and I was born in America. And then they decided they want to move back to Ireland then in 1991. So already I had this kind of dissected identity. Was I American or was I Irish? I never really lost my American accent. When I, when I moved to Ireland my sister who was born in Ireland, she actually has a slight American accent just from living with me. So she never people always ask her, are you, are you American? And she's like, I've never lived there. So it's funny that it's kind of stuck with her, but I moved to Ireland and I suddenly was kind of got this culture shock at the age of five and moving to this new country. And my mother has a very large family, so she has like, two, two brothers and seven sisters, and then I've got like 30 cousins. So , it was a big, a big change from AmeriCorps. It was just the three of us. Moving back to Ireland and. It was a very, you know, Ireland, you know, is, would've been considered a very Catholic country, and it's been kind of secularizing since the nineties up until now. But back then it was still quite Catholic. Like homosexuality was only decriminalized in 1992 and divorce was only made legal in 1995. So, I guess the first kind of sense of, of what I meant to be Irish back then was, You know, you learned Irish in school, you learned to speak Irish in school, and this was very it wasn't taught very well, I would say, and I think most Irish people would agree with that. It's kind of taught like almost like Latin or something as a dead language rather than as a living language. So you're spending time learning all this grammar. And you don't kind of develop that love of it that I think you should. I did go to like Irish summer camp in the Gaeltacht . The Gaeltacht  is the Irish speaking area of Ireland, and I kind of became aware of my Irishness, you know, just through being part of all this and also. I would've introduced myself as American when I was little but people didn't really like that. It was kind of a, like a weird thing to do. So my mom eventually told me, maybe you should just stop paying that. And so throughout my I, you know, as I mentioned, it was a very Catholic country. And when I was in the Gaeltacht in Irish summer camp one of the kids said they were atheist. And I was like, what does that mean? I'm like, I don't believe in God. And I was, and in my head I was like, I didn't know you could do that, I didn't know that was an option. . So I kind of thought about it for a while. I became, we started studying the Reformation in school when I was about 14. And then I learned that Catholics believed in transubstantiation and nobody had really mentioned that before. They didn't really teach the catechism very well, I guess. I'd done my communion and my confirmation, but nobody ever mentioned that. We literally believed that the, the body and blood, you know, was that the bread and water? Oh, sorry. The bread and wine actually became literally, And the body. And I thought that was a very strange thing, that that was a literal thing. It wasn't just symbolic. And then we also studied Calvinism and all that stuff. And I was like, then I started to read the Bible and I was like, then it fun, it finally just dawned on me that I didn't believe any of this, and it was kind of liberating. But it was kind of a way of being d. In a very homogenous society too. You could be a bit of a rebel. So I think I was one of those annoying teenagers who was always questioning everybody and having, trying to have debates with everybody about religion and they didn't enjoy that . And so I went through school and I just remember hating studying the Irish language until eventually when I left school. On the last day, I actually took all my. My Irish textbooks and burnt them and I feel I . Yeah. I mean I feel so much guilt and regret about that and I think about that how important it's to me now and that, that was a real shame that, but I didn't, partially I didn't put the work in, but also I just think the structure. Was not there. I mean so many Irish people come out of outta school not really know, knowing how to speak the language, you know, and I think it is an effective col colonization as well, where, you know, you consider English is a useful language and learning French or Spanish, that's a useful thing, but there's no use for Irish in people's minds, which is a, and I find that a real shame and I. could go back and change that. In university I studied anthropology and history because I was very interested in religion. All throughout my teenage years, I was obsessed with learning about world religions, you know, there was a world religion class in, in secondary school. I didn't get into it, but I begged the teacher to allow me to. Into it because I was so interested in the topic. And he was like, fine, fine. And he kind of thought he'd humor me in one class one day and he was like, well, Michael, maybe you could talk about satanism. That's the topic for today. And I was like, well, let's start with Al Crowley. And he was like, okay, maybe he actually knows what he is talking about So, I went, I. I went to the university sorry, national University of Ireland, Minuth Campus. And it's funny because that used to be known as so it's actually, it's two campuses. They're St. Patrick's college, which is like a, a seminary for priests. And there's the I, which is like the secular version, and they're both, but they both share the same compass. So it's funny, it used to be the, the biggest seminary in Europe. They call it the priest factory cuz they pumped out so many priests that sent, sent them all over the world. And it's when you go out and you walk down the corridors, you see all the graduating classes. So you go back to 1950 and you see a graduating class of like a hundred priests. And every year as you're going down the corridor, it gets smaller and smaller and smaller. Until I think the year I graduated, there was like two people graduating as priests. Yeah. So that was, that was a, I decided to study history and anthropology at n Y Minuth and one of the books that I read. Was kind of a gateway into thinking about land and language, which are two things that are really important to me in my, when I think about Paganism. It's a book called wisdom Sits in Places by Keith Bato, bass by Keith Bassell, and. I'm just gonna read a little bit here from the book because he was an anthropologist working with the Apache, the Western Apache, to try and remap the land using the Native Apache words rather than the, the English words. So trying to make a native map and working with Apache people to find all the true, the true names of all these. so this is the quote, but already on only our second day in the country together a problem had problem had come up for the third time in as many tries. I have mispronounced the Apache name of the boggy swale before us. And Charles, who is weary of repeating it, has a guarded look in his eyes after watching the name for a fourth. I acknowledged defeat and attempted to apologize for my flawed linguistic performance. I'm sorry, Charles. I can't get it. I'll work on it later. It's in the machine. It doesn't matter. It matters. Charles says softly to me in English, and then turning to speak to Morley. He addresses him in Western Apache, is what he said. What he's doing isn't right. It's not good. He seems to be in a. Why is he in a hurry? It's disrespectful. Our ancestors made this name. They made it just as it is. They made it for a reason. They spoke it first a long time ago. He's repeating the speech of our ancestors. He doesn't know that. Tell him he's repeating the speech of our ancestors. And I'm gonna just there's another section here, a little, a few pages. But then unexpectedly in one of those courteous turnabouts that Apache people employ to assuage embarrassment in salvage damaged feelings, Charles himself comes to the rescue with a quick corroborative grin. He announces he is missing several teeth and that my problem with the place name may be attributable to his lack of dental equipment. Sometimes he says he is hard to underst. His nephew, Jason, recently told him that, and he knows he tends to speak softly. Maybe the combination of too few teeth and two little volume accounts for my failing. Short morally, on the other hand, is not so encumbered though shy. Two, a tooth or two. He retains the good ones for talking and because he's not afraid to speak up, except as everyone knows in the presence of gar women no one has trouble hearing what he. Maybe if Morley repeated the place name again slowly and with ample force, I would get it right. It's worth a try, cousin. And then he, I'm just gonna skip forward a bit and he successfully pronounces the name, which translates as water Lies with mud in an open container. Relieved and pleased. I pronounce the name slowly. Then I, then a bit more rapidly and again, as it might be spoken. In normal conversation, Charles listens and nods his head in. . Yes. He says in Apache, that is how our ancestors made it a long time ago, just as it is to name this place. Mm-hmm. So this became important to me when thinking about the Irish language because something similar happened in Ireland in the you know, we have all our native Irish place. But in the 1820s the British Army's Ordinance survey came and decided they were gonna make these names pro pronounceable to English ears. And so they kind of tore up the native pronunciation and kind of push an English pronunciation on top. So you have these very strange English Anglo size versions of Irish Place names Yucca: Mm-hmm. Michael: Soin in is is probably better known in English as dingle, but doesn't really have anything to do with the Irish. And there are plenty of, there are so many examples of this and I think when you're trying to learn about a landscape in your relation to a ship, to a landscape, it is important to know the native place. It's something that I think about a lot and I try to learn. One of my favorite writers is named Tim Robinson, and he's well he died in 2020. But I had the opportunity to meet him in 2009 and he was an English cartographer. But he moved to the west of Ireland, to the Iron Islands and also to Kamara. So he kind of moved between those two places. He lived there for more than 30 years, and what he actually did was he went out and mapped the landscape and talked to local people, and he was able to find some of the place names that had been lost over the years that weren't on the official maps, and he was able to help recreate a Gaelic map of those areas. I think that's a really kind of religious or spiritual activity to go out onto the land and walk it. And to name it and to name it correctly. And I think that's what I think my pagan path is in a way. It's to go and walk the land and learn it, what to call it. Cause I think language is the most important tool we have as pagans. Mark: Hmm. Michael: So those are, that's kind of when I started to think about this stuff. I've always been interested in folk. It was actually funny. There was, it started with a video game one of the legend of Zelda video games called Major's Mask Mark: Hmm. Yucca: Yep. Michael: in, in the game, they actually have like a mask festival and they dis they discuss the the history of the festival. Anna was just like, wow, I didn't, I ended up making masks with my sister and we kind of pretended to. A little mask festival of our own Yucca: Mm-hmm. Michael: that you're, you're familiar with that? Yucca? Yucca: Yes. Yeah, I played a lot of it. Michael: Yeah. So, but I guess I really started to think about folklore when when I watched the Wickerman as um, as a teenager. I was probably at 16 when I watched it, and it kind of opened my eyes completely. And we've talked a lot about this in the group. And I. It's watched as a horror movie in a way, but   I think I really got into the, the paganism idea of, of paganism as a teenager because of watching the Wickman and just the symbolism and the pageantry. And I also just like the idea. These island people turning on the state in the form of, of the policeman. So that's kind of been something I've that I've really enjoyed over the years, watching that every every May as part of my, my, my annual ritual so, you know, after university, I, I moved to South Korea to teach English, and, but at the same time I was quite into Buddhism. I had been practicing some Zen Buddhism from about the age of 18, and, but not like, more as just a practice rather than believing in any of it. Not believing in reincarnation or anything like that. I just found the ritual of it very beautiful. And I ended up going and doing a temple stay in a, in a place at, at a temple. Up in the mountains and it was very beautiful and really amazing. You know, something you'd see in a movie because the monk, the head monk actually brought us out into a bamboo grove and we sat there meditating just with all surrounded by bamboo. And it was waving in the wind and it felt like a correction, tiger Hidden dragon or something like that. And one of the powerful events that happened on that trip. Doing the Buddhist meal ceremony where we ate in in the style of a Buddhist monk. And the idea is that you do not leave any food behind. After you're, after you're finished eating, you've, you eat all the food, and then when you wash the bowls and they kind of put the communal water back into the, the, the waste bowl, there should be no no bit of food, nothing. It should just be clean water. That comes out of, after everybody finishes washing all their bowls. So we followed all the steps to do that and, you know, some people really, really weren't into it. They didn't wanna do the work of, of being extremely thorough. And there were a few rice pieces of rice in the water at the end and the head monk said to us oh, that will now get, you're, you're gonna cause pain to the hungry to ghost. Because the hungry goats ghosts have holes in their throats, and when we pour the water outside for the hungry ghosts, the rice particles are gonna get stuck in their throats. And a lot of people were like, what? What are you talking about Mark: Hmm. Michael: But I thought that was beautiful because it doesn't, not, you don't have to. It's a story that has a purpose, and that's why, you know, It made me think about the superstitions that we have. And I don't know if I like superstition like these, calling it that. Cause I think a lot of these things have purpose and you have to look for the purpose behind them. And the purpose of that story of the honky go story, maybe for him it is about not causing harm to these, these spirits, but it's also about not wasting food. And I think it, it has more power and more meaning. And you remember. More thoroughly when you have a story like that to back up this, this practice. So I think it kind of made me rethink a lot about the kind of folkloric things that I, in my, in the Irish tradition and that, you know, I think about things like fairy forts, which are, you know, the, these are the archeological sites that you find around Ireland. Like, I think there's like 60,000 left around the country. These, these circular. Homesteads that made a stone or, or saw, or saw that you find all over the country and people don't disturb them because they're afraid they'll get fair, bad luck. The, if you, if you disturb the, the fair fort the ferry's gonna come after you , or if you could, or if you cut down a tree, a lone tree. Lone trees that grow in the middle of fields that don't have a, a woodland beside them, just singular trees. These are known as fairy trees and it's bad luck to cut them down. But I feel like these folk beliefs help preserve the past as well, because, you know, farmers who don't have this belief, they don't have any problem tearing down fray, forts and that kind of thing. They just see it as a, something in the way of them farming, especially in the kind of age of industrial agriculture. Yeah. So it just made, that was when I started to think about how important it is to keep folk belief alive. And I've really, and I really started to study Irish folk belief after that point. And I lived in South Korea as I mentioned. I met my wife there, she's from Iowa and she was also teaching in, in South Korea, and we moved to Vietnam after that. And we lived there for a couple of years, and I might come back to that later. But fast forwarding, we moved to Iowa then in 2013, and I'm teaching a course in Irish. At a local community college, but I always start with this poem by Shama Heini Boland. And I just wanted to read two extracts from it. So the first stands out is we have no prairies to slice a big sun at evening everywhere. The eye concedes to encroaching. And then moving downwards. Our pioneers keep striking inwards and downwards. Every layer they strip, they, every layer they strip seems camped on before. So I, I started with that initially, kind of trying to, as, it was almost like a gateway for my students to kind of look at. Look at Iowa with its historic prairies, which don't really exist anymore. It's all farmland. There's very little prairie land left. I think maybe 2% of the state is prairie. But that idea, that idea of our pioneers strike downwards, and I've been thinking about that a lot as well, that that's kind of a, a colonial look at the land because this land, the American land has is just as camped. As Ireland, and I've been kind of experiencing that more and more. I have a friend who's an archeologist here and just hearing them talk about the kinds of fines that they have. You know, we lived in a town where there was a Native American fishing weir was a couple of hundred years old. It you could kind of see the remains, but it mostly washed away by the time we had. But I did see an old postcard of it from the seventies, and you could see it very clearly. And so just make, and then we always it's become a ritual every every autumn, we go up to northeast Iowa to these, to these effigy mounds, which are some Native American mounds up there on a bluff, just overlooking the miss. Mark: Hmm. Michael: And that's really amazing to look at that and experience and experience that. And you know, I'd love to go back, unfortunately, Shamus, he died more than 10 years ago now, but I'd love to go back and ask him if he would consider rewriting that line, you know, because this land is just as a count on Yucca: Mm-hmm. Michael: and I'm trying to, trying to make sense of that and what it means. As an Irish person living in America, Yucca: Mm. Michael: Cuz we, Irish people are victims of col colonialism,  Mark: Hmm.  Michael: Irish people, when they moved to America, they just became white as well and had the same colonial attitudes as everybody. And I'm trying to kind of, but you know, there's, there's, there's kind of stories of reciprocation as well. Where during the famine, the Irish famine the, I think, I believe it was the Chota Nation sent Emin relief to the AR to Ireland. Even though they didn't have much themselves, they still saw this. People in need across the water and they sent money to help. And, you know, there's that connection between the Chta nation and the Irish has continued to this day. But I am just trying to figure out what it means to be an Irish person and a pagan living in this country. And that's kind of where I, where I am right now. But to get back to how I got into Ethiopia, paganism I mentioned earlier that I was really into the Wickerman and I found this group called Folk folk Horror Revival on Facebook. And somebody one day mentioned that there was this group called Atheopagan. And so I decided to join and I found a lot of like-minded people. And I've been kind of involved in the community for, for, I think that was maybe 2018. Mark: Mm-hmm. Michael: And I've been involved in the community since then and maybe on a bigger, I've been much more involved since Covid started and we started doing our Saturday mixers. And I think I've made maybe 90% of those Mark: something Michael: and we've, yeah, and we've been doing that for the last three years and it's just been. It's a really amazing, it's one of the highlights of my week to spend time with with other people in that, in that hour and 45 minutes that we spend every Saturday. Mark: Mm. Michael: Mm-hmm. Mark: Yeah, I, I really agree with you. That's, I, it's a highlight of my week as well. Such warm, thoughtful people and so diverse and living in so many different places. It's yeah, it's just a really good thing to do on a Saturday morning for me. And. We'll probably get into this more a little bit later, but the idea of creating human connection and community building I know is really important to you and it's really important to me too. I think there have been other sort of naturalistic, pagan traditions that have been created by people, but they just kind of plunked them on the internet and let them sit. And to me it's. That would be fine if I were just gonna do this by myself. But when other people started saying, I like this, I want to do this too. To me that meant, well then we should all do it together. Right? Let's, let's build a community and support one another in doing this. And so the Saturday mixers, when we, when Covid started, I think. I mean, to be honest, COVID did some great things for the Ethiopia, pagan community.  Yucca: Yeah. Mark: yeah. Kind of accidentally, but that's, that's Yucca: Well that's the silver linings, right? That's one of the things we, you know, life goes on. We have to find the, the, the benefits and the good things, even in the challenging times. Mark: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.  Michael: yeah. I think. I'm just thinking back to when we started. So it's kind of, we have maybe six or seven regulars who come to every meeting maybe. And then we have other people who join now and then, but I'm just trying to think back to the first meeting. I think we, that's when the idea of doing virtual ritual began as well in that first meeting. And we were trying to figure out how to do.  Yucca: Was that was the first meeting before Covid or was it as a response to Covid? Mark: You know, honestly, I don't remember. I think it must have been in response to Covid because everybody was shut in and, you know, everybody was kind of starving for human contact. Michael: I think the first one may have been March or April. 2020, Yucca: Okay, so right there at the. Michael: Yeah, right at the beginning. Yeah. And I think, I remember in the first meeting we were talking about ritual ideas and I think the first suggestion I came up with was like I'd love to somebody do like a, describe what an atheopagan temple might look. Mark: Oh yeah. Michael: Yeah. And I left, and I think you were recording the meetings at that time, but we don't record 'em anymore, just so people can feel free to be themselves and not have a recorded recording of themselves out there, . But I know that, I think James who you interviewed recently he, he was listening to that one, I believe, and he came the next week and actually had prepared a guided meditation. Of what a pagan temple would be like to him. And it was a walk through nature. I think that was the first, our first online ritual together. Mark: Yeah, I remember that now. Yeah, and it's been, it's really been a journey trying to figure out how, how can you do these ritual things over a, a video conferencing platform. In a way that makes everybody feel like they're participating and engaged. Right. So that there's a, a transformation of consciousness. But I think we've done pretty well, to be honest. I mean, some of the rituals that we've done have been really quite moving. Michael: Yeah. And I think the ritual framework that you've worked at translates very well to. A Zoom conference as well. I dunno if maybe, if he wants to describe that, what the usual atheopagan ritual would look like. Mark: Sure. We've, we've talked about this before. The, the, the ritual structure that I proposed in my book is basically a, a five step process where the first is arrival, which is sort of, Transitioning into the ritual state of mind from the ordinary state of mind, and then the invocation of qualities that are a part that we'd like to be a part of the ritual with us, which is sort of the equivalent in Wicca or other pagan traditions of invoking spirits or gods or what have you, ancestors, what have you. And then the main working of the ritual, which varies depending on what the purpose of the ritual is. But it can be, well, we've done lots of different kinds of things. We've braided ribbons and then tied, not tied magical knots in them. We've made siles, we've we've done just lots of different kinds of things. And then gratitude expressions of gratitude. The things that we're grateful for. And then finally, benediction, which is sort of the closing of the ritual at a declaration that we're moving back into ordinary time. Yucca: So how does that look in, in a meeting, like a Zoom meeting In a digital format? Mark: Michael, you want to take that one or should I? Michael: So you know, you have maybe, I think usually when we have a ritual more people attend that and so we might have 12 people there and often  Yucca: cameras on. Michael: Camera's on. Well, it's optional. Yeah. If you don't feel comfortable having your camera on, that's completely fine and you don't even have to speak. We do encourage people just to you know, leave a message in the chat so you can just listen in. You can engage as much or as little as you want. And you, you, so. We have all the people on in the conference, and maybe we'll try and get some more of the senses involved as well. So sometimes we'll like candles and everybody will have a candle in front of them. I do know for for some of our sound rituals. Mark, you've used two cameras where you, you aim one camera at maybe a focus, like what's one of the examples of that that you. Mark: Well we did that both at Sown and at Yu. So both the Halls ritual and the Yule ritual where I would create a focus or alter setup with thematic and symbolic things relating to the season. and then I would point, I would log into Zoom with my phone and point my phone at that. And then, and then I'd log in separately on my laptop for myself as a person, and then I could spotlight the focus so that it's kind of the centerpiece of what everybody experiences on their screen and sets the atmosphere. Michael: Yeah. So just a virtual focus that everybody can, everybody can virtually gather around. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Michael: Yeah. And I think we've also used a Pinterest board in the past as well for people. I think it was at Sound again, we had that Pinterest board where people could put up notes about. Their ancestors or loved ones that they were That's correct, isn't it? Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Or pictures of people that had passed recently or. Yucca: mm. Michael: yeah. So yeah, there's a lot of digital space that you can use for this ritual. We also try not to involve too many props as well. Because we wanna make it as easy as possible for people of all abilities. And just if you don't have the space for something, for a large proper if you don't wanna make a lot of noise, you know, we're not gonna have you using chimes or things like that. So we try and make it as easy as possible. Sometimes we do invite you to bring some food to eat as well, because, you know, a lot of these are feasting rituals. So we maybe, if you feel comfortable bringing some refreshments, you might want to do. And just have a friendly meal with people online. For example, we're actually gonna start doing I'm gonna be leading full Moon meals every month on the, on the, so the first one's gonna be December 7th. And I'll post, post about that on Discord, and I think Mark will post about that in the Facebook group. Yeah. And so the idea is everybody just comes. Joins the Zoom meeting and everybody should have their meal. Whether you're, whether that's lunch or if you're in a different time zone, maybe there'll be dinner or maybe it's just a snack. And then we'll spend a minute just thinking about the providence of the food and then we'll eat us and maybe people can talk about the food that they're eating and what it means to. And I'm hoping to make that a monthly event that we meet every full moon to share a meal together Mark: That sounds. I, I, I really I have pagan guilt over how little I pay attention to the full moon. I'm, I'm always, I'm always aware of what phase the moon is in, but I, I don't do a lot in the way of observances of the phases of the moon. And so, I'm excited to have this added in to something that I can attend. Michael: Mm-hmm. . But yeah, as you can see from that format, it's very simple. And again, you, if, if people listening would like to attend as well, there's no obligation to keep your. Your camera on, there's no obligation to speak. You just, you can just listen in and just feel part of the, part of the community that way. Yucca: Mm-hmm. So in the mixers sometimes ritual, are there discussions or what else do the mixers. Michael: Usually the mixer is kind of a freeform thing. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Michael: Maybe we'll have a topic sometimes, but usually people just come and do a check in and talk about how they're, how they're getting on that week and if there's anything they wanna discuss, we just open it up to that. Depending on the size of the turn, we may require some kind of etiquette stuff. So if there are a lot of people and we don't want people to. Shut it down or have spoken over. So we'll ask people to raise their hands if they wanna speak. That's, that really is only when there's a lot of people and, and often I, I know I'm somebody who likes to talk, so it's a, I think raising hands also gives people who are less confident, or, I'm sorry, not less confident, just not at, don't feel like interrupting. It gives them an opportu. To to have their say as well and be called on mm-hmm. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: Mm. Mark: I think it's really good that we've implemented that. It, it's, it helps. Michael: Mm-hmm. I think one of the really cool rituals we had recently was for like the ATO Harvest, so that was when was that? That was in September or October. In September, yeah. Yeah. So. We were trying, I mean, usually it's, you could do some kind of harvest related and I think we've done that in the past. But I have a book called Celebrating Irish Festivals by Ruth Marshall. And this is my go-to book for, for, for ritual ideas. And this is, and I like to. Kind of some of the traditional holidays and maybe just steal from them. . So Michael Mass is is the holiday around that time in Ireland? It's a Christian holiday, but it's also it's a  Yucca: were older. Michael: yeah, yeah, Yucca: Christians took for the older Michael: yeah, yeah, yeah. you know, it's about St. And he's known for slaying a dragon as just as St. George was known for slaying a dragon. But I thought, well, let's turn this on this head and let's celebrate our inner dragons. Let's bring our dragons to life. So it was the whole ritual was about dragons. And we actually drew Dragons, drew our inner dragons and shared them. Talked about what they. And kind of we were feeding our inner dragon so that they could warm us throughout the coming winter. Yucca: Hmm. Michael: Mm-hmm. Mark: as well as watching the home. Star Runner Strong Door, the Ator video, Michael: Oh yeah, Mark: which you, you have to do if you've got dragons as a theme. It's just too funny to avoid. Michael: That's an old flash cartoon from the early two thousands. That was pretty popular. Mark: Mm-hmm. Michael: Yeah. Track toward the ator. Google it, and in fact, I did a, I did the hot chip challenge as part of that ritual as  Mark: That's right. Yeah.  Michael: where I ate a very, very hot tortilla chip on camera. And. It was it was painful, but I'm sure, I don't know if it entertained other people, but it was, it was fun Mark: Oh yeah. It was fun. Michael: So, yeah, they're like, I mean, these rituals aren't all, they're, they're fun and they're kind of silly and goofy and but I mean, I thought at the same time they're very meaningful because people really opened up in that one  Mark: Yeah.  Michael: and shared some really profe profound truth. That was one of my favorites actually, and I hope we do another, another dragon invoking ritual in the future. Mark: Maybe in the spring Michael: yeah. Mark: you do it at, at both of the equinoxes. Michael: Mm-hmm. Mark: so you've joined the Atheopagan Society Council, which is great. Thank you so much for your, your volunteering and your effort. What do you think about the future? How do you, how do you see where this community is going and what would you like to see? What's, what's your perspective on that? Michael: Yeah, so just before I discovered the Pagan Facebook group I had attended A local cups meeting. So that's the covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans. And so it was just a taro reading workshop and, you know, I was, I, I like kind of using these kind of rituals just for their beauty and, but not, for not, not seeing anything supernatural in them. I was, it was amazing to, to find a group that was interested in these kind of things too, but without the they weren't incredulous. So I guess what I'm hoping for is that as we, as we kind of find more people who are, are, are aligned with us, maybe we can have more in. Experiences. That was one of the great, the great highlights of, of last year was attending the Century retreat and meeting all, all these amazing people in real life and being able to spend time together in real life. And I hope that as we kind of, as the word gets out about this group, more and more of us can meet in person or as we are able to, Mark: Mm-hmm. Michael: That's what I really hope for the future that you're finding your, your people that we are, we are being able to get these local groups together and then spend time on these important days of the year. And I believe the Chicago Afu Pagan group was able to do that not too long ago. And I know Mark, your local group meets quite regularly as well. Mark: We, we meet for the, for the eight holidays, for the eight Sabbath. So yeah, we're gonna get together on the 18th of December and burn a fire in the fire pit and do a, a ritual and enjoy food and drink with one another. And yeah, it's a, it's a really good feeling that that feeling of getting together is just You can't replace it with online connection, but online connection is still really good. So that's why, that's why we continue to do the mixers every Saturday. And Glen Gordon has also been organizing a mixer on Thursday evenings. Well evenings if you're in the Americas. And. Yeah, there's just, there's, there's a bunch of different opportunities to plug in and it's always great to see somebody new. Michael: Yeah, I think that would be another hope as well that, you know, if you've been on the fence about coming to a mixer I hope that what we've described today maybe entices you to come along. You know that there's no expectations and you can, you can share, you can just sit in the background and watch, or you can participate. There's no expectations and it's just a nice way to, to connect with people, so, Yucca: how would somebody join in? They find the, the link on the Facebook discord. Michael: that's right. Yeah. So I think, mark, you post it regularly on the Facebook group, and it's also posted on the disc. As well. So, and it's the same time every Saturday, so it's 12:15 PM Central for me, so, and that's like 1115 for you, mark, on the, Mark: No, it's 1115 for Yucca. Michael: Oh, okay. Mark: It's 10 15 for me. Michael: Okay. Okay. Yucca: one 15 for Eastern. Then  Michael: one, yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yucca: Hmm Mark: And. Michael: and it's always the same time, and I think we've, I think we've only missed one week, maybe in the last three years. Mark: Yeah, I think that's right. I wasn't available and I couldn't find somebody else to host or something like that, but yeah, it's been very consistent. And I see no reason to think it isn't gonna keep being consistent. But yeah, we, you know, we welcome new people. And if you're not in the Americas, that's fine too. We've got a couple of Dutch people that come in all the time. There's a, an Austrian woman who lives in Helsinki who participates. So Yucca: E eight nine ish kind of for Europe, Mark: Yeah.  Michael: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We've even had on the Thursday night mixer, we've even had Australians join occasionally too. So Yucca: That sounds like that'd be early for them then, right?  Michael: yeah,  Yucca: getting up in the. Michael: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. But I'd I'd love for some of the listeners to come and join us on one of the mixers and then cuz you know, you bring new ideas. And I we're always looking for new ritual ideas, Mark: Mm. Michael: That kind of bring meaning to our lives and to everybody else's. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yeah, cuz that's, I mean, that's what we're doing, right? We're, we're create, we're, it's a creative process for us. We've got these sort of frameworks like the Wheel of the Year and the, the ritual format that I laid out. Although people can use other ritual formats too. That's fine. But it's, it's an ongoing process of creation and of taking some old traditions and folding them in where they fit but creating new stuff as well. One of the innovations that we, that we've been doing for the l past year or so is if people want to be done with something, if they want to be finished with something in their. They can write it in the chat and then I take the chat file and I print it on my printer and I take it and I burn it in my cauldron. So it is actually being burnt physically. But it just takes a little bit of technical processing before that happens. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: And it's those kinds of innovations that are really useful for online rituals. And boy, if you have new ideas about things we can do for online rituals, I, I would love to hear 'em. Yucca: So thank you so much for sharing your story and your visions or the future with us. This has been, it's, it's really been beautiful to hear and to get that insight. Thank you, Michael. Michael: Well, thank you for having me on. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: It's been delightful hearing from you and, and I, I gotta say, I, I feel like our community is very lucky. You've been exploring religion and and folklore and ritual for a long time in a lot of different frameworks and I feel really fortunate that you've landed with us cuz I like you so. Michael: Okay. Well thanks very much. I like you too, Mark: Okay folks, that'll be all for this week. And as always, we'll have another episode for you next week on the Wonder Science Based Paganism. Have a great week. Yucca: Thanks everybody.  

John Beckett grew up in Tennessee with the woods right outside his back door. Wandering through them gave him a sense of connection to Nature and to a certain Forest God. John is a Druid in the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids (OBOD), a member of Ár nDraíocht Féin (ADF), a member of the Denton Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans, and a former Vice President of CUUPS Continental. He's been writing, speaking, teaching, and leading public rituals since 2003. His books The Path of Paganism (2017) and Paganism In Depth (2019) are published by Llewellyn Worldwide. John can be found on his website Under the Ancient Oaks (https://undertheancientoaks.com/), on his Patheos blog (https://www.patheos.com/blogs/johnbeckett/), and on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. John lives in the Dallas – Fort Worth area and earns his keep as an engineer. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/aseekerspath/message

Welcome to Weird Web Radio! This episode features our great friend John Beckett! This is the third appearance on the show for John, and once again he delivers with excellent insightful discussion. We spend a great deal of time discussing Tower Time. This is a term John uses to describe the way we are facing serious challenges in our world while also recognizing what seems to be a huge spike in activity from The Other. Spirits, ghosts, fairies, deities of all types are making themselves known in more and more lives. What is going on and what can we do about it? Tune in to find out! John's Bio: John Beckett grew up in Tennessee with the woods right outside his back door. Wandering through them gave him a sense of connection to Nature and to a certain Forest God. John is a Druid in the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, a member of Ár nDraíocht Féin (ADF), a member of the Denton Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans, and a former Vice President of CUUPS Continental. His blog “Under the Ancient Oaks” is part of the Pagan Channel of the multifaith website Patheos. John has been writing, speaking, teaching, and leading public rituals since 2003. His books The Path of Paganism (2017) and Paganism In Depth (2019) are published by Llewellyn Worldwide. John lives in the Dallas – Fort Worth area and earns his keep as an engineer. Places you can find John: John's Main Site: Under The Ancient Oaks Direct Link To John's Courses Facebook Twitter Patheos Amazon Want to know what John thinks about Sacred Spaces and Sacred Places?! We have an in depth discussion on the Bonus Audio! All that and more in the members only bonus audio extended interview! Join here! It's time to sport a new look? Hell yes! Check out the Official Weird Web Radio Store for Shirts, Hoodies, Hats, and more! Real quick! Do you want a Tarot Reading from an international award winning professional? Look no more! I'm here! Go to my site http://tarotheathen.com to reserve your reading today!   Are you dealing with Stress & Anxiety? I'm a Certified Professional Hypnotist, NLP Practitioner, and Meditation Coach with solutions to help you take back your mind! Find out more at https://althypnosis.com You can also come join the Facebook discussion group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/weirdwebradio/ New Instagram for Weird Web Radio! Follow for unique content and videos! https://www.instagram.com/weirdwebradio/ You can make a One-Time Donation to help support the show and show some love! Is this show worth a dollar to you? How about five dollars? Help support this podcast! That gets you into the Weird Web Radio membership where the extra goodies appear! Join the membership at patreon.com/weirdwebradio or at weirdwebradio.com and click Join the Membership! SHOW NOTES: SUBSCRIBE ON iTunes, Stitcher, YouTube and Spotify! Also streaming on mobile apps for podcasts! Intro voice over by Lothar Tuppan. Outro voice over by Lonnie Scott Intro & Outro Music by Nine Inch Nails on the album ‘7’, song title ‘Ghost’, under Creative Commons License.

Rev. Jerrie Hildebrand The Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans, or CUUPs, is an organization dedicated to networking Pagan-identified Unitarian Universalists (UUs).  Join us tonight as we chat with Rev. Jerrie Hildebrand, the president of CUUPs and learn more about this Pagan organization.

The Ravens wish to express our gratitude for our patrons this month:Simon - from GreeceCarol - from California Natalie - from CaliforniaThank you for your support! Tyler shares some of the highlights from his recent trip to Japan where he discusses what he learned about Japan's people, culture, torii gates, shrines, and animism. For more information about Torii Gates: https://www.japanvisitor.com/japanese-culture/torii-gates The Ravens embark upon another road trip for a Pagan conference. This time it's to attend the final PantheaCon. PantheaCon is held in San Jose, California over President’s Day weekend each year. It is a conference for Pagans, Heathens, Indigenous Non-European and many of diverse beliefs Over 2000 people attend more than 200 presentations that range from rituals to workshops and from classes to concerts. In additions to a fabulous Vendor hall, there are many diverse groups who host Hospitality rooms for meet and greets. Established in 1994 it is currently the largest Pagan gathering and convention in the world. https://pantheacon.com/wordpress/ EDIT: This year is the 26th annual event not the 21st.The Pagans of Color Caucus is to be organized by Crystal Blanton, MistressPrime, Tanuki Wise, and Nikka Tahan.CUUPS - The Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans: https://www.cuups.org/

Paganism and Unitarian Universalism – Similarities and Differences with Eileen Macholl Many Unitarian Universalist churches have formal affiliations with neo-Pagan spiritualties, typically in the form of having a congregational group called CUUPS, which stands for the Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans. This session will provide a brief overview of ancient and neo-Paganism and will examine some of the beliefs, principles, and practices that overlap with Unitarian Universalism, and what distinguishes one from the other. There will be time for Q&A. Eileen Macholl has been worshipping within the Reclaiming Tradition of witchcraft for a quarter-century and was initiated as a Priestess over ten years ago. While working at Auburn Seminary, she became interested in exploring the range of traditions and practices under the wider umbrella of Paganism, or earth-based spiritualties, and she helped Auburn expand its definition of “multifaith” in the process. She has served as the Executive Director at All Souls for the past 5 years.

Welcome to Weird Web Radio! It's a brand new season! Welcome to Season 4! Our first guest this season is also our first repeat guest. Say hello again to John Beckett! John was a guest in season 1 before I started asking occult and pagan guests about the paranormal. He was even here an episode before I started the bonis extended interviews so this was his first time on the merry go round of morbid curiousity! We dig deep into the harder questions of religion and Paganism. We deal with atheist agendas, and yeah, we get into ghosts and folklore too! This one is a closer look into his book Paganism In Depth.  Some changes this season include discussion of the guests favorite local folklore in the show rather than the bonus section. I added some new more in depth personal questions to the bonus section as well to see how guests deal with failure and success alike.  John's Bio: John Beckett grew up in Tennessee with the woods right outside his back door. Wandering through them gave him a sense of connection to Nature and to a certain Forest God. John is a Druid in the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, a member of Ár nDraíocht Féin (ADF), a member of the Denton Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans, and a former Vice President of CUUPS Continental. His blog “Under the Ancient Oaks” is part of the Pagan Channel of the multifaith website Patheos. John has been writing, speaking, teaching, and leading public rituals since 2003. His books The Path of Paganism (2017) and Paganism In Depth (2019) are published by Llewellyn Worldwide. John lives in the Dallas – Fort Worth area and earns his keep as an engineer. Places you can find John: Facebook Twitter Patheos Amazon Want to know what John thinks about the afterlife and even what he may or may not want to do with his own remains? You'll find that and more in the members only bonus audio extended interview! Join here! Real quick! Do you want a Tarot Reading from an international award winning professional? Look no more! I'm here! Go to my site http://tarotheathen.com to reserve your reading today! You can also come join the Facebook discussion group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/weirdwebradio/ New Instagram for Weird Web Radio! Follow for unique content and videos! https://www.instagram.com/weirdwebradio/ Is this show worth a dollar to you? How about five dollars? Help support this podcast! That gets you into the Weird Web Radio membership where the extra goodies appear! Join the membership at patreon.com/weirdwebradio or at weirdwebradio.com and click Join the Membership! SHOW NOTES: SUBSCRIBE ON iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify! Also streaming on mobile apps for podcasts! Intro voice over by Lothar Tuppan. Outro voice over by Lonnie Scott Intro & Outro Music by Nine Inch Nails on the album ‘7’, song title ‘Ghost’, under Creative Commons License.

3rd Friday of the Month at 8 PM Central you can join Rev Mike Neal for Pagan's Shine.  Tonight Michael Neal invites Patheos Blogger, John Beckett.  John is a Druid graduate of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, the Coordinating Officer of the Denton Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans and a former Vice President of CUUPS Continental. I've been writing, speaking, teaching, and leading public rituals for the past thirteen years. Every Friday at 9 PM Central you can join Host Rev Donald Lewis and Rev. Lori B  for the Correllian Family Hour as we explore the exciting world on Correllian Wicca.  News and views, interviews, and information on the Correllian Lifestyle. Tonight join Lord Don and Lori B will discuss World Tarot Day .

Welcome to Weird Web Radio! I'm your host, Lonnie Scott. This episode features John Beckett! John was wonderful to interview. I had a hard time bringing it to an end while keeping a lot of questions on the table to explore. That means a part 2 in the future for sure. In fact, John and I discussed a possible episode I think many of you will enjoy if and when we find the time to put it together. Yeah, I know that's a little vague. Surprises must be surprises. John Beckett's own description from his blog: "I grew up in Tennessee with the woods right outside my back door. Wandering through them gave me a sense of connection to Nature and to a certain Forest God. I’m a Druid graduate of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, the Coordinating Officer of the Denton Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans and a former Vice President of CUUPS Continental. I’ve been writing, speaking, teaching, and leading public rituals for the past thirteen years. I live in the Dallas – Fort Worth area and I earn my keep as an engineer." John Beckett is a modern Pagan writer and Druid Priest that dares to go deeper with questions on spirituality, the Gods, how to worship, magic, morals and ethics, politics, and challenging our worldviews. We explore everything from breaking free from fundamentalist Christianity, Human Sacrifice, and hearing the Gods all the way to his own personal journey. I hope you enjoy the show! Here's some helpful links: John's blog - http://www.patheos.com/blogs/johnbeckett/ John's post about escaping fundamentalism - http://www.patheos.com/blogs/johnbeckett/2015/09/escaping-fundamentalism.html Wild Hunt's Review of John's book - http://wildhunt.org/2017/03/book-review-the-path-of-paganism-by-john-beckett.html John's Book The Path of Paganism on Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/Path-Paganism-Experience-Based-Modern-Practice/dp/0738752053 Show Notes: Intro voice over by Lothar Tuppan. Intro Music by Nine Inch Nails on the album ‘7’, song title ‘Ghost’, under Creative Commons License. Outro Music by Dark Sunn on the album ‘Mint’, song title ‘Hunt’, under Creative Commons License.  

Hello and thank you once again for joining me down at the crossroads for some music, magick, and Paganism. Where witches gather for the sabbath, offerings are made, pacts are signed for musical fame and we cross paths with today’s most influential Pagans, occultists, and deep thinkers. I am your bewitching, bald headed, host Chris Orapello and tonight Tara and I meet with CUUPS officer, Druid, and Patheos blogger John Beckett to discuss his work and experiences with the Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans (CUUPS) as well as a recent blog post he wrote titled "The Otherworld is Bleeding Through" which touched upon real life otherworld experiences and dealing with them as people of the 21st century. I grew up in Tennessee with the woods right outside my back door. Wandering through them gave me a sense of connection to Nature and to a certain Forest God. I’m a Druid graduate of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, the Coordinating Officer of the Denton Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans and a former Vice President of CUUPS Continental. I’ve been writing, speaking, teaching, and leading public rituals for the past eleven years. I live in the Dallas – Fort Worth area and I earn my keep as an engineer. - Patheos: About John Beckett Featured Songs: "The Battle of Evermore" by Finvarra "1157 (Till It's Over)" by S.J. Tucker (from The Green Album) "Hourglass" by Bekah Kelso (from The Green Album) "Point of You" by Elephant Revival "The Swing" by Eivør "How Can We Believe We Own It All" by Damh the Bard (from The Green Album) Links Mentioned: Patheos: Under the Ancient Oaks "The Otherworld is Bleeding Through" by John Beckett "Talking About Our Experiences" by John Beckett Denton CUUPS Chapter Many Gods West Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans (CUUPS) CUUPS Convocation 2016 in Salem, MA The Green Album  

In this episode we talk with Pat Mosley, a Gardnerian witch in North Carolina. We talk about how Wicca takes on the culture of where it’s at, and how it’s not that much of a stretch for people to be multi-faith practitioners. Pat discusses his coven, Granny Magick, and his involvement in CUUPs. We also talk politics and #HB2 (also known as the “bathroom bill”) and how, on the ground in North Carolina, there are more people who are against it rather than for it. Pat talks about the uphill battle in challenging their state government and the disconnect of their elected leaders from the people they represent.   Note: After recording this podcast in May, and after another blow up around  transgender women in women’s only spaces (primarily concerning Budapestian Dianic Witchcraft), Pat has announced a call for submissions for a anthology called “Arcane Perfection”. You can click here for more information.   Pat Mosley is a Weirdo Inspired to Create Here (WITCH). He writes semi-regularly at Patheos Pagan, but more of his work can be found at his website. Pat is a Gardnerian Witch, and is currently conspiring to author a book on one Appalachian coven's vision of Wicca in the next year or so. Pat is also a coordinator for Mountain CUUPs (Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans) in Boone, North Carolina--where everyone is welcome to share a meal and sing a spell.   Links http://www.patheos.com/blogs/commontansy/ https://patmosley.wordpress.com/ https://mtncuups.wordpress.com

In this episode, we talk to Cara Freyasdaughter, where we discuss her journey to Heathenism, her introduction to Freya and Freyr, and some of the issues that are challenging modern Heathenism. What are  CUUPs and ADF? What does the lore say about racism and other issues that have been being dealt with within the Heathen community?   Cara Freyasdaughter is a devotional polytheist dedicated to Freya and Freyr who works within a "reconstructed-ish" Heathen tradition. A current member of The Troth and ADF, she writes a biweekly blog on Patheos' Agora channel called "Happily Heathen". Currently, Cara leads Heathen rituals and Runes 'n Lore classes for the White Oak Grove CUUPs group and is a member of the Sinnissippi Tuath ADF Grove in northern Illinois.   Links Email:  cara@goldandredthread.com The Troth (http://www.thetroth.org) The Troth is the largest International heathen organization. They are open and welcoming to people from all backgrounds. Ár nDraíocht Féin: A Druid Fellowship (https://www.adf.org)—While this is officially a “druid” fellowship, all Indo-European mythologies are honored. ADF has a large, active, and diverse Heathen contingent. Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans: http://www.cuups.org/ "Happily Heathen" on the Patheos Agora Channel (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/agora/author/cfreyasdaughter/) "Huginn's Heathen Hof" (http://www.heathenhof.com) "A Community of Gods Surround Me" (communityofgods.wordpress.com) "Freya: The Gold Thread" (thegoldthread.wordpress.com)   Books Modern Heathen Practice: Original Sources:  

Pagans Tonight Radio Network presents: 8PM CST - Circle Sanctuary's Circle Talk:  (A Circle Sanctuary Radio Ministry program): Unitarian Universalist Pagans Debra Rose talks about her own work with UU Pagans and interviews Circle Sanctuary minister Jerrie Hildebrand of Massachussetts about her work with Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans over the years. 9 PM~ Pagan Music Project: Kellianna visits before heading to the UK and Europe on Tour.