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S2E32 TRANSCRIPT:

----more----Mark: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-based Paganism. My name's Mark. 

Yucca: And I'm Yucca.

Mark: And today we're talking about nature based paganism. What is nature-based paganism? What the point of nature-based paganism and how are, how can we, pursue a nature based practice as a part of, practicing our science-based pagan approach? 

Yucca: That's right. And we'll get in a little bit to what is nature and why is that important as well?

Mark: Right. Yeah. always the best first thing to do when you're talking about anything is to define the terms. So, we'll, we'll jump into that right away. when we first. Conceptualized this podcast, the idea was, you know, we are we're Earth oriented pagans. there are some folks who self identify as pagans who are not as focused on the Earth, who are focused on gods Or particular pantheons of bygone cultures that they're working to reconstruct or. 

Yucca: magical practices or things like that.

Mark: kinds of magical practices, certainly, or, 

Yucca: The occult in general.

Mark: yes, or work with, spirits that they. I believe they have influence over and can, you know, make arrangements with there's a lot of different ways of coming at this sort of broad umbrella of, practices that we call paganism. But we're very clear that we, like, I believe most pagans are really oriented towards the Earth, which means nature. 

Yucca: Okay.

Mark: The, the difference in our approach is that we are rooted in science and critical thinking. And therefore, rather than sort of a romantic kind of Bambi, 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Disney-fied sort of orientation to nature. We're really about the real nature. That's, that's here and out there and in our own bodies and very excited about all the, the manifestations of life here on Earth.

 So that's, that's where we start from that. we are products of, and participants in. This tremendous complex, interesting, amazing, beautiful fabric that occupies planet Earth's biosphere sphere that comprises planet earth biosphere, really. and of course, therefore is also supported by the substrate of the rest of the universe.

Right? All the, all the amazing physics of the rest of the universe. 

Yucca: Yeah, we're part of a solar system. That's part of keep going up and up and up, you know, go past Laniakea to Cosmic Web and on. But I think that you said something really, really important that is that we are part of nature. I think that's a really, really important place to start because in our language we often talk about humans and nature. And we talk about things being natural versus human-made. And we create this line in this distinction, in our minds, which doesn't always serve us. And certainly in today's world, where many of us are living in. An urban centric society. Even those of us who aren't in an urban environment who live in a rural environment, our culture in our society is still very urban based in which we have really tried to strengthen and define that line of human versus nature.

Now we've built a concrete wall and reinforced it with steel to try and say this were two different things. And yet we really, really aren't. And when we can start recognizing that our lives are very enriched.

Mark: Right, right. Yeah. There's a lot to be said about where that line came from and where the romantic ideas of nature stem from. I mean the whole, the romantic movement of the late 18th into the early 19th century. Has a tremendous influence over not only our understanding of our relationship with the natural world, but also particularly the, the, the eventual development of modern paganism. You know, the idea of wild, beautiful nature outside of the city, as you know, something to be exalted. And, in many cases, emulated, if you look at some of the big romantics like Byron, for example, he thought that being kind of a rude, irresponsible, abus