https://atheopaganism.files.wordpress.com/2020/09/atheopagan-ritual-planning-workbook.v2.pdf

Rites of Passage Episode: https://thewonderpodcast.podbean.com/e/rites-of-passage-1594607805/

We welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at [email protected]!

 

S2E41 TRANSCRIPT:----more----

Yucca: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-Based Paganism. I'm one of your hosts, Yucca.

Mark: and I'm the other one Mark.

Yucca: And this week we are talking about. Starting a practice. So you're interested, you've been hearing about reading, about listening about this pagan thing, this non theists pagan thing. And now what.

Mark: Right. Exactly. Because people can be attracted to these paths because they're creative because they're very individually selected. So you get to do the thing that you find meaningful and because they love the aesthetic, the witchy spooky kind of, you know, a cultish sort of aesthetic. But we. Live in a society where you.

You do the rituals that somebody else has prescribed you to do right. In Christianity or in Judaism or an Islam the, the rituals have already been prescribed and you just sort of go along

Yucca: plug right into what's already there.

Mark: Yeah. Whereas in paganism you create rituals. And so they can be really tailored to what you need, which is a real positive part.

But the challenge is the challenge of all creative endeavors, which is you're faced with that blank page. Now, what, so this episode is about the now what,

Yucca: and we hope that there will be some, some use as well for all of you who are listening, who have a practice, right? Maybe there's some bits in here that.

Can be incorporated into what you're doing or that this might kind of help make things make a little bit more sense.

Mark: Sure. An awful lot of starting a practice has to do with giving yourself permission. And we'll talk more about that as we go along today, but it's not just. Calming that critic voice that's in the back of your head saying, this is stupid.

You're looking silly. This is there's no reason to do this. And if you really grapple with that voice, then I suggest our episode on the critic voice, because we go into depth about how to work with that thing that we all have to contend with. But it's also. You know, getting used to the idea that you have permission to create your rituals.

However, works for you. There are techniques that have been, that people have learned about for thousands of years that are really effective at changing your consciousness, which is what the rituals are meant to do. So we can talk about all of those things and about structuring a ritual so that it, you go through the different phases, all that kind of stuff.

But in the end, what really matters is what do you want out of your ritual practice? And so I'm, I'm here to give you permission to do exactly what works for you in the course of. Building your practice.

Yucca: Yes. And not just, you know, we, we focus a lot on ritual, but the whole container that that's held within.

So not just your ritual, but what, what are you noticing? What are you feeling? What are you observing? What is your whole practice?

Mark: Yeah, because we're also accustomed to this kind of bizarre. Dissociation that happens with many of the, the mainstream religions where you do your religion on Sunday, and then you kind of put it in a box and you'd go off and you'd do your life for the rest of the week.

And then you go back on Sunday and you do it again. And a spiritual practice is a way of. It's a way of looking at the world. It's a way of understanding. What's a value and what's meaningful, and it really comes down a lot of the time as a pagan in relationship to nature to paying attention. We really have to be watching for what's happening in nature right now.

What is happening in the sky right now? I'm not because I'm saying you should do those things, but because there's so much joy and discovery and awe and ecstasy to be found in thos