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S2E12 TRANSCRIPT:

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Mark: Welcome back to The Wonder: Science-Based Paganism. I'm your host, Mark.

Yucca: And I'm Yucca.

Mark: And today we're going to talk about families, about approaching your family with your non theist. Science-based paganism, about how to negotiate the conflicts or mutual incomprehension that may arise from that about how we integrate our personal spirituality into our families and just other issues that have to do with relating to families as a part of our life and our practice.

Yucca: That's right. And this is one of those topics that is huge about a year ago. At this point, we did talk about family and we talked about what is the role of family and blood versus chosen and all of that, but there's no way that we can cover all of it in one go. So we're back again, to look at it from these different angles.

Mark: Right. And it bears saying that today when we're recording is the day before Easter. And so there's a lot of kind of confrontation of family that happens at around Easter time because at least in the United States where the Christian holidays have become secularized and made normative for people to practice, even if they're not Christians.

Or if they're just very nominally Christian. People get expected to go to Easter dinner or to come over for an egg hunt or to do something with the larger body of their family. And that may be uncomfortable if all of the symbology and the supposed meanings around the Easter holiday are things you don't believe in or support.

Yucca: There's going to be a huge range of what of listeners are going through. But I suspect that some of our listeners are in the position of this being something that the being a pagan is something new in their life or something that perhaps their family that they come from doesn't know. And they don't know how they, the family might respond or maybe they do know.

And it's it. Isn't what they're looking for.

Mark: Right. Yeah. And there's kind of a double whammy in our particular neck of the woods, because it's not only by the way, I'm, you know, a godless heretic. It's also, I'm a, you know, wild heathen I'm doing both of

Yucca: Best kind of combination though, in my opinion. Right. I like it.

Mark: I'm right there with you, but especially when you consider how propagandized some people in some sects of especially Christianity, but also Islam and even the very conservative Jewish traditions.

You know, they can have heard all kinds of horrible things about people that are atheistic about people who are witches or pagans, and it can be a very difficult bridge to cross when trying to get all that stuff out of the way and actually meet your family and say, Hey, look, this is who I am and it's good for me.

Yucca: I think that the, that approaching this, I mean, there's again, so many directions to go, but one of the first places is to think about the different roles that families can play in people's personal lives. And this, a lot of this depends on the larger culture that people are from. And then the family culture and personal beliefs in terms of what is the role of the individual and what is the role of family and where does authority lay within that?

And how much does everybody's should be or not be in everybody else's business and there's not a right answer. This is a cultural answer. Whether family or larger culture.

Mark: Right. Yeah. I mean, there are some, some cultural traditions, like, Greek and Italian traditions, for example, where you have, you know, kind of matriarchs and patriarchs of the family that have tremendous influence and power. And, you know, if you're on the outs with them or they've decided that you're somehow you know, a bad pe