THE WONDER: Science-Based Paganism

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S3E33 TRANSCRIPT:

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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 going to talk about cults.

Yucca: right.

Mark: Of the things that when people choose an alternative spiritual path, one of the things that their friends and family will sometimes start to get really worried about is, oh dear, have they entered some kind of a cult? So we're gonna talk about what cults are and about what naturalistic paganism generally is.

And atheopaganism specifically, and then talk about why, what we're doing does not really meet those, those criteria for what a cult is.

Yucca: right.

Mark: This, we, we were talking about this before the recording. If you have a family member that is really concerned that you've gone off the deep end into some terrible culty situation, you could consider having them listen to this episode.

Yucca: Right. Yeah. And at the end, we're also gonna talk a little bit about recovering from some of those kind of religious traumas that, that can come along with having been in a cult situation or things that have happened in, in mainstream religions that we wouldn't necessarily think of as a cult, but still might have some of those really abusive behaviors.

Mark: That's right. One thing that you'll notice when we go over the indicators that a group of any kind has attributes of a cult is that many of them apply squarely to various denominations of mainstream religions. So you know, the word cult gets Bandi about to U be used for little splinter groups or for new religious movements, but that's not really fair.

The kinds of. The kinds of problematic behaviors and factors that go into Colt behavior really also include some very large institutions that have been around for a very long time.

Yucca: Right. And these are things that can come along with groups that aren't necessarily just religious groups. Right? These are any time that you have. A structure in which you can have somebody who has power over dominating over somebody else. A lot of these, these risks come up. So,

Mark: There are PTA associations that are dominated by, you know, one or a handful of people who cannot be questioned and run the show. And they're cult-like.

Yucca: Yeah. Well, we're gonna get ahead of ourselves a little bit. Why don't we start off with, so, you know, what do we do? What is this? Atheopagan what's naturalistic, paganism or paganism in general,

Mark: Sure. Sure. Well, naturalistic paganism is the big category, right? And athe paganism is a single denomination within that big category. So if you think about it, like there's Christianity, which is a whole big, huge thing. And then down underneath that there's Catholicism and Mormonism and all the various Protestant religions and so forth.

So that's kind of a similar sort of, you know, taxonomic relationship between naturalistic, paganism and Ethiopia paganism. So that leads us to ask the question. All right, then. Well, what is naturalism? What is naturalistic paganism? So we'll start with naturalism. Naturalism is a philosophical position.

It is the position that all things in the universe are made of matter and energy and that they follow physical laws. And there is nothing supernatural.

Yucca: right. Everything is natural.

Mark: Yes,

Yucca: This is all nature,

Mark: all nature. And it all follows physical laws and nobody gets to break the physical laws. Now we may.

Yucca: of it.

Mark: That's right. We may not understand all of the physical laws right now, but to our knowledge, nothing out there is able to break physical laws. And what that does is it excludes certain kinds of supernatural beliefs like beliefs in gods and ghosts, souls, and spirits, those kinds of things.

They just really don't hold up in an evidential based evidentiary based critically thinking way of looking at the world, which is what naturalism is.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: So you were going to say,

Yucca: Oh, I was gonna say, well, then we have the pagan side of that. Right. And the pagan side that, that Contras up a lot of different kinds of images. And for some people it brings up the idea of the, you know, gods and deities and you know, all of that. That isn't not all pagans are going to be doing that.

And we're not in that group of pagans that believes in God's and deities, because that's not fitting with the naturalist part.

Mark: Right. But what we do that is that we have in common with other pagan groups is we have a lot in common in the way that we practice our

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: Um, we celebrate the solstice and equinoxes and the points between them, for example. So a solar cycle of Of holidays. We tend to celebrate our rituals in a circle rather than in kind of an audience and performer format.

We Revere the natural world. We hold that out as, as sacred. And so, the primary players in arranging for our creation and survival, like the sun and the earth and the moon become very sacred for us. Right. And this is true of Pagan's largely universally. The, the truth is that paganism is so diverse and such a catchall term that the only thing that every single pagan has in common is that they self identify as pagans.

Yucca: Yes,

Mark: That's that's the only

Yucca: that, that we call ourselves that. Yeah. But there are themes. Like you're talking about that we, we tend to be earth based. We tend to do ritual and celebrate the, the cycle of the seasons and things like that.

Mark: Right. Right. And we understand ritual practices as being at the very minimum, personally, beneficial. Some pagans believe many pagans believe that rituals can actually enact magical forces in the world to change the course of events or you know, what's happening in, in the world. We don't believe that because naturalism doesn't really allow for spooky action at a distance. If new evidence comes along, we may change that opinion because part of the nature of being a naturalist is that you have to be open to new evidence all the time. So 100% certainty is not a thing in naturalistic worldview. We could be 99.9% sure that the sun is going to rise tomorrow morning, but.

There's always the possibility that for some reason it doesn't. And then we have to reconsider all of our thinking about the nature of the world.

Yucca: Right. Okay. So that's the umbrella naturalistic paganism. And then we also have atheopagan, which is one form of naturalistic paganism.

Mark: Right. Think of atheopagan as kind of like Methodism in relation to Christianity, right? Christianity is the big umbrella. Methodism is a particular movement that was created by particular people with particular values and practices and principles atheopagan is a, a path that I created. In the early two thousands, which is built around some basic presets and naturalism is one of them, but also naturalism and critical thinking are among them, but also reverence for the earth and a set of four sacred pillars and 13 principles, which we've recorded about before, which are ethical principles for how to conduct our lives and not all pagans subscribe to those, not all naturalistic pagans, subscribe to those, but those that are, that are, are practicing athe paganism do follow those.

Yucca: right. And something very important to say right up front is that, although mark, you created. The atheopagan you are a founder, you're not the leader. Right. We have a large community of people who each person makes decisions for themselves. We also have the atheopagan society council, which deals with things like putting together events and the nonprofit side of everything.

And you are very much involved in the community, but just because mark says something doesn't mean that that's the law.

Mark: right.

Yucca: And plenty of times people disagree. And one of the things that I really value about the community is that overall people are very respectful about those disagreements, right?

Mark: yeah, I mean, fundamentally. It is not really consistent with Ethiopianism to tell other people what to do. The principles are guidelines for how to live a life that is kind and conscientious and a life of integrity and a life that will help you to be happy.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: If you don't want to be kind and conscientious or happy, you can make other choices, but you, you know, you probably aren't practicing athe paganism at that point, you're doing something else.

Yucca: Yeah. Which is fine. Right. We're you know, we, aren't out here to say join, you know, join us and we're not out there, you know, evangelizing or anything like that.

Mark: right. We're we're not proselytizing people come to us cuz they want to join. And. We're very clear that everybody has their own spiritual path and they need to define that for themselves. And that's why we encourage people for example, to create their own meanings around the wheel of the year celebrations, because people live in different climates and different things, maybe happening in nature.

I, you know, Yucca, you and I have talked many times about how we live in different climbs. And so our understanding of when spring starts, for example, is radically

Yucca: This many months different. And then what spring actually is for each of us is quite different. Right.

Mark: Yes, exactly.

Yucca: And, and also just to say that many of the people who listen to this podcast, we know many of you do consider yourself a pagans and many of you don't right. And that's again, that's also fine, right? Yeah.

Mark: absolutely great. And that's why, you know, we've been very careful over time to talk about athe paganism and naturalistic paganism, you know, not to assume that everybody that's listening to this is necessarily practicing atheopagan as a path.

Yucca: right.

Mark: But,

Yucca: real quick say what the, what the pillars and principles are?

Mark: Sure. But I'm going to have to pull them up. The, the, the pillars, the pillars, I know by heart, the pillars are love

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: beauty truth and life.

Yucca: right,

Mark: are the things that we hold sacred. And by beauty, we don't mean individual sort of cultural definitions of a person's beauty. We mean the beauty of nature,

Yucca: right.

Mark: right?

The, the, the way that the natural world can move us

Yucca: that? Wow. That wonder,

Mark: Yes the wonder.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So those are the four pillars. And I should say, you know, we can find lots of you can find lots of additional information about this at both the atheopagan society website and at the and at the atheopagan blog, which is atheopagan.org.

Yucca: Mm-hmm . And also in this podcast, if you just go back through our archives E we've gone, we've done an episode on each one of these topics and we've been doing it a few years. So there's, we've covered some of these multiple times as well. Yeah.

Mark: Yeah. There's.

Yucca: back through,

Mark: There's a lot out there. So the 13 principles and it was kind of an accident that there were 13, but I was tickled by that because there are 13 cycles of the moon in the year. And for many pagans, 13 is a really special number.

Yucca: it's just a fun number.

Mark: a, a sacred number. Yeah. And of course it's prime and all that.

So the 13 principles are number one, and these are not in a priority order, I should say. So they're think of them as bullet points rather than as a numbered list.

Yucca: Mm-hmm, sort of like the seasons, right? You don't there isn't really a first season. They just come after the, and before the other ones.

Mark: Right. So skepticism and critical thinking. , which is the ability to tell the difference between the literal and the metaphorical, because we work with both in our pagan practices, right.

You know, we work with symbolic enactments of things, many times in our rituals, but we understand at the same time that to some degree we're playing, let's pretend we're not, you know, literally talking to an invisible being there or whatever. You know, when we, when we throw our, when we throw our, our fears into the fire, we understand that's a metaphorical behavior.

That's not a literal behavior.

Yucca: but it still is empowering. Right? It's play, but play is meaningful, right? You can still, you can read a book or watch a show and still be moved to tears in the same way, our ritual. We can still feel those feelings and have that impact us.

Mark: Sure. Very psychologically impactful rituals. So the second is reverence for the earth. We are a living part of the earth and and reverence for that source and kin that the fabric of life is to us is really important.

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: The third is gratitude for the amazing gifts of life. The fourth is humility, understanding that all humans are fundamentally equal and that nobody, you know, is entitled to Lord and above anybody else, perspective and humor, having kind of a big picture understanding of the world and being able to laugh at ourselves laugh at our religion, laugh at even the tragedies in the world, you know, just in order to stay sane and to maintain perspective you know, it's It's amazing what humor people will find in really terrible, terrible situations. The sixth is practice, which is in enacting regular ritual as a part of the practice of Ethiopia paganism. So a paganism, isn't just a philosophy where it's got a worldview and a set of values. It's also got a practice and that makes it a religion. The seventh is inclusiveness, celebrating diversity and being respectful of difference and and embracing the, the vast diversity of humanity.

The eighth is legacy recognizing and embracing our responsibility to future generations, both of humans and of non-humans.

Yucca: mm-hmm

Mark: The ninth is social responsibility, recognizing that our rights are balanced by responsibilities. And this is something that much of the pagan community is often not very good at.

People are really amped about their, their personal sovereignty, but they're not so much into their personal accountability.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: We are very clear that all of the rights that we enjoy are balanced by responsibilities to one another. And that goes into issues like consent. It goes into all kinds of respectfulness requirements on us, including our requirement to participate in our local societies in all ways, from voting to activism, to contributing to the dialogue of the world in a, in a positive way.

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: Uh, the 10th is responsible con responsible sensuality and pleasure positivity. We think pleasure's good for you. We believe pleasure's a good thing. It's nothing to be ashamed of. It's good. Obviously that has to be with people who are consenting. If you're getting pleasure from something you're doing with someone else it has to be with consent.

But that consent is there, we say, knock yourself out. We, we don't care what kind of sex you're having. We don't care. You know, what kind of food you're eating, it's entirely up to you. What, what brings you joy? We, we are a, a projo religion which not all religions are honestly many are about shame and original sin and guilt and all that stuff.

And that's just not us.

Yucca: And the physical isn't bad or dirty or less than below any of those sort. We, we just don't do that. That's

Mark: no. In fact, the most sacred thing to us is under our feet. So we, so we don't, you know, we don't have to look up, even though the cosmos is amazing. We don't have to look up to the higher, more spiritual stuff. The higher, more spiritual stuff is right under our feet.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: The 11th is curiosity, understanding that there is always more to be learned and keeping an open mind to learn more about other people, about the nature of the world about our society, about culture, just keeping a lively mind.

The 12th is integrity. You know, being true to your word, being, being fulfilling your, your responsibilities and being a trustworthy person

Yucca: and honest with yourself too. It not just with others, but with yourself.

Mark: absolutely. And then finally the 13th is kindness and compassion. And the little note underneath it says, I practice kindness and compassion with myself and others understanding that I will not always meet the standards of these principles. You know, we all get mad, we all, we all blow it. We all, you know, fail to clear the bar once in a while, you have to be compassionate with yourself, learn from it.

So you won't do it again. But we are, we are not believers in constantly flogging yourself for something shameful you did 20 years ago. It's just that doesn't do you or anyone else? Any good?

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So those are the 13 principles of atheopagan. Most of 'em are pretty common sensical. But of course I would think that cuz I developed them. It seems like a lot of other people find them common sensical as well. They're like, oh, you know, this isn't painful. These aren't, you know, these aren't terrible strictures that are gonna require me to jump through all kinds of hoops in order to be a, a good atheopagan pagan.

Yucca: Yeah. yeah, no, it's, it's great to have them, you know, written down and spelled out and be like, oh yeah, yeah. I agree with that.

Mark: I.

Yucca: makes sense.

Mark: I think most of them are, can be characterized as generally pagan values. The pleasure positivity the reverence for the earth the social responsibility, the inclusivity, you know, all of those are very common in the pagan community. I wouldn't say universal, but they're very common in the pagan community.

And so all that I've done is write 'em down and codify 'em

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: you know,

Yucca: So this is us, right? This is we talking about what we are. Is there anything you wanna say on that before we go into what a cult is?

Mark: No, let's talk about cults.

Yucca: Yeah. so we actually have a little bit of a list for this one as well. Some behaviors or things to look out for that really characterize a cult that any one of these would be, would be a real major red flag.

Mark: Right. Right. And bear in mind, you know, as we were saying before, with new religious movements or with small splinter groups, people are often very concerned about the idea that these groups are a cult, but very old, very large institutions can also be, can also have these characteristics that are very cult-like.

You know, we're gonna talk in a bit about the, the recovery the, the deconstruction of reli of, especially like sort of conservative authoritarian, religion that people experience when they leave those religions to become atheist or agnostic, or to become Ethiopia, pagans, or other naturalistic kinds of folks.

Yucca: Right

Mark: And many of the people that have those experiences are not coming out of little tiny sects, they're coming out of large institutions. Yes, very wealthy, very powerful institutions.

Yucca: Yeah. So let's start the, our first one. Which is one that you definitely see in like the movies and shows and things about this. Is there being usually one or more like a small group of really charismatic leaders who cannot be questioned or challenged, right. That their authority is ultimate, right?

Mark: And you see this in a lot of sort of charismatic Christian sex. You see this in in Hindu guru sex, but when you think about it, I mean, the head of the church of latter day saints is considered to be speaking for God and cannot be challenged or questioned. The Pope charismatic leader who cannot be challenged or questioned, same kind of deal.

Right. One of the, and, and I put that at the top of the list because I think it's, it it's arguably the most important one, but of course these, you know, there are many others that are, are really important as well. I may be the founder of Ethiopia paganism because I wrote first an essay and then a book kind of laying out the thinking of how I arrived at this position and my ideas for implementation of a path of naturalistic paganism.

But I, and you, you can debate about my charisma, but I certainly

Yucca: got a pretty high Christmas score, frankly. If, if we were in D and D I think you'd be a bar.

Mark: okay. Thank you. That's that's very kind. I like it. But I certainly am not someone who cannot be challenged or questioned within our community. That that is not the case at all. And sometimes I'm wrong. And hopefully when I, you know, when I calm down I admit that I'm wrong.

And then, you know, and I apologize and try to make amends and we move forward from there. The, when we created the atheopagan society, the nonprofit organization to help support atheopagan worldwide and help provide resources and networking and events and education for atheopagan. It was important to me that the board of directors, which is called the atheopagan society council not have me as an officer.

It was really important to me that, I mean, I'm on the council, but I'm not an officer of the council. I'm not one of the ranking people in the council. And I feel that that's important. There are other people who can make decisions without me,

Yucca: Right.

Mark: and I think that's great,

Yucca: Yeah. And, and I think it's important to distinguish in this, that we're not saying that if, if an organization has a leader or has leaders that that makes it culty, the, the problem is the not being able to be challenged, not being able to be questioned that it's that power over everybody else. That's the, the real issue at hand, right?

Mark: Yeah. Awful lot of the rest of this. Is really a function of hierarchy.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: And in atheopagan we strive very much not to be built around hierarchy, to have a very, very flat power structure. Even our ordained clergy who are called clerics that's a, a service role to the community. It's not a status elevation and anybody.

Yucca: with the council as well. It's, you know, people volunteer to do a whole bunch of work, basically. That's what it means to be on the council. Is, are you gonna do all this work for free

Mark: yeah, exactly.

Yucca: yeah, none of, and, and with, within the society, we don't have any paid positions. This is all people doing it because, because we see it as, as service and something we want to be involved in and that we really value.

Mark: That's right. That's right now. I wanna say two things about that. The first one is that as fair disclosure, I, as an individual do have a Patreon. And so I have people that make a monthly contribution to me to support my work in Ethiopia, paganism, like the book that I'm writing now. The blog posts that I make, the resources that I create,

Yucca: you do get royalties on your, your book sales

Mark: I, yes, I do. Yes, I do. So, so I mean, there is some money that changes hands, but it's not the atheopagan so society is an entirely volunteer organization.

Yucca: yeah.

Mark: The other thing that I wanna say is that and we've mentioned this before. If you want to be an atheopagan cleric, if you can embrace those 13 principles, then you can go to the atheopagan society website, which is the AP society.org.

And you can register as a cleric online. And that is a legally binding ordination. You can perform marriages and funerals and other rights of passage, all that kind of stuff. You can do hospice counseling and all that kind of stuff. And you can do that for free. So, we, you know, we really do believe everybody should be the.

The director of their own spiritual path. And if they want to perform those services, they should be empowered to do so.

Yucca: right. And if we can help, then, you know, we can provide resources and community spaces and things like that. And that's, that's kind of the role that the society's doing.

Mark: right. So there's a lot of, you know, there's an introductory guidebook. You can download, you know, that talks about abuse, reporting requirements, how to organize different kinds of rituals. Working with the dying, working with the family of the dying you know, stuff like that, that will be helpful to you.

As a cleric. So let's get back to our list. If you've, you've got these charismatic leaders who cannot be challenged or questioned, that's definitely a problem. The next one is deceptive recruitment tactics,

Yucca: Right.

Mark: and boy, the church of Scientology really specializes in those. I don't know if you've ever been in the situation where someone on a bicycle wheels up to you and asks you the time.

But asking you the time to start a conversation is something that was chronic in my hometown. And it was always about trying to get you to come on down to the church of Scientology and sign up for their classes.

Yucca: right. And this'll come in a little bit later, but especially kind of going after people in vulnerable positions,

Mark: Yes. Yes. It bears saying that prosperity gospel is one of those deceptive recruitment tactics saying if you pray with us at our church and you contribute a bunch of money to our fabulously wealthy charismatic leader, you too will then be blessed with lots of money is a deceptive recruitment tactic.

Yucca: Right. Yeah.

Mark: The next on the list is exclusivity members are not allowed to belong to other groups or faiths. This is not true of Ethiopia, paganism. You can belong to whatever other faiths you want. Although if, if you belong to other faiths that believe in literal gods as being out there in the world, how you figure that out with your Ethiopia, paganism is a mystery to me, but if you can do it more power to you, if that works for you as a, as a path,

Yucca: right.

Mark: The, the whole idea of and we'll talk about this later on as well.

The whole idea of trying to, to keep you away from people who don't believe the same thing as the group is very problematic. It's a real red flag.

Yucca: Yeah. And so in atheopagan, and, and I think most forms of naturalistic paganism in general, you don't belong to anybody. You aren't owned by the group. Right. You're your own. And nobody gets to tell you what you get to believe or not believe or who you get to associate with or any of that that's, that's nobody's business, but yours.

So

Mark: Many religious traditions put a big value on submission.

Yucca: mm-hmm.

Mark: Paganism generally. And atheopagan specifically does not, we, we do not believe that submitting or humbling ourselves before some higher power, any of we yeah. You know, fearing the, the supernatural beings. We don't believe any of that. And what that means is that our path is one of spirituality with personal agency,

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: rather than out of submission or fear or domination.

Yucca: right. Well, and that leads us to our next one, which is the use of intimidation, fear, shame, isolation that are used to punish somebody for not conforming, not going along. That's, that's something that is. a really classic sign of, of cult behavior,

Mark: Yes. Yes. And we in atheopagan we encourage nonconformity in the form of individually tailored holidays and ritual practices. So it's quite the opposite, you know, we, we don't do what I do, do what you do, cuz that makes you feel good. That's that's how we would prefer it to work.

Yucca: and we're not telling you that if you don't do it our way that you're gonna be unhappy and go to hell or any of that, it, we're not worried about that. It's okay. You know, you just do you. That's awesome. It works for you. Fantastic.

Mark: Yes, exactly. And at that at, at this point, it's probably a good thing to point out that in naturalistic, paganism, generally speaking, we don't believe in an afterlife. So there's this idea of the world as approving ground for some sort of future judgment just doesn't exist. Our life is about this life.

It's about how we conduct ourselves in this life. And it's about how much joy we can both celebrate and create in, in the world around us.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So, so it becomes really important that people's practices are individually tailored because the point is for it to work for them, the point is not for it to work for an institution.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: So the next point is religious dogma. That must be followed and. You know, we all know about those that, you know, they can be, they can be dietary requirements, they can be requirements to go to religious rituals or services a certain number of times a, a day, a week, a year. Yes, dress codes, various kinds of sort of shaming behavior to get people, to, to follow what the expectations of the religion are.

And, and a lot of beliefs that you have to subscribe to generally, I mean, in various kinds of fundamentalist Christianity, you are required to literally believe the stories of the Bible. Even though they kind of fly in the face of, of critical thinking. You're expected to believe them literally. And if you don't, then you get intimidation, fear, shame, and isolation from your community.

Yucca: right. So another really kind of problematic indicator and in any situation which is sexual abuse or manipulation So, especially when there is that charismatic leader and those leaders are sexually involved with lower status members. And that is expected as some sort of cha like as an exchange or for elevation in the group or you know, to be able to stay part of the group, you're gonna have to do these things.

Mark: Right. Right. And and of course we see that kind of abuse in religious traditions all over the world. It is rife. In all cases where you see it, the hierarchy is the issue, the power imbalance, because I, you know, in atheopagan we don't care if two members of our group who are

Yucca: or more,

Mark: or, or more have sex yeah.

Have sex with each other. We don't care about that at all. But we don't have any like insider knowledge or special status or initiation into an inner sanctum. We don't have any of that stuff in our religion. So there's no way to hold those things out as kind of allure to try to get people to have sex with you, non consensually.

Yucca: right.

Mark: There are there, has there have been problems with sexual abuse in pagan communities? You know, we need to, we need to say that. And they have generally been pagan communities where there are charismatic leaders who cannot be challenged or questioned and it's, and there's a hierarchical power dynamic and people get abused and it's not right.

Yucca: And I wanna say this is something that happens outside of religious communities as well. You know, there's been over the last few years, quite a lot of talk about that in Hollywood and in different, you know, businesses and moving up and, and, you know, corporate structures, all of that. So wherever you've got that, that hierarchy of the, the power over, there's a, a risk for that.

And it's something that we have to be really careful about. And so the, the way that we structure our communities helps avoid that in the first place.

Mark: Right, right. And so far so good. As far as we know we have had, you know, no, to my knowledge, we have had no incidences of, of problems with this. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So that's good. But we are new, of course the, the atheopagan community just celebrated a 10 year anniversary. So we're relatively new and we're far flung.

So much of our interaction is online, but We do have, we have had in person gatherings and do have in person gatherings. And so far, those seem to have been respectful and conscientious and we have not had any reports of any kind of, of abuse.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: So the next, oh, go ahead.

Yucca: I was gonna say, and I, and I'm, I'm very confident that if we did have something that we did have conflict like that come up, that I've been very impressed by the, the people involved and think that overall people would really try and do their best to resolve the issue in a very respectful and, you know, With lots of integrity and, and really just be very present with that because that's built into our values.

Mark: I agree. I agree. Yeah. Yeah, I, I think I'll leave it there. It One of the things that has been so gratifying to me with a Theo paganism, because I did originally develop it just for myself, is that the people that have gravitated towards it have just been these really remarkable, very grown up, very creative. I mean, everybody's working with their wounds. Right. You know, we, we're all, we're all working on our stuff.

It's the nature of things. But just a lot of kindness, lot of open-heartedness just really fine, fine people I've been, I've been just delighted.

Yucca: yeah.

Mark: So, let's talk about the next point, which is that in a cult or a cult-like institution, there is emphasis placed on recruiting, vulnerable people.

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: So like people that have recently experienced a loss, like a death or a divorce people who are struggling with survival, like maybe homeless people or unhoused people, I should say homeless is not really liked anymore.

And you know, or who have health issues, there's, there's a, an emphasis on trying to find people who are in need and then plugging the religious path into whatever need they have in order to claim that it's some kind of an answer.

Yucca: right.

Mark: And not only is that very cult-like, but I would say it's really shitty.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: That is just truly awful behavior it's predatory. And I just can't imagine. Being a part of anything like that.

Yucca: Right now that isn't to say not trying to help people who are vulnerable, but trying to sell them the religion as taking advantage of their situation to try and recruit them into this, whatever your thing is.

Mark: Right. I, I think of soup kitchens where people are required to pray for their fed, you know, that's just awful.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: who does that? Well, I, we can name some names,

Yucca: that happens. Yeah.

Mark: yeah,

Yucca: that? You know, the, the example works because that it's so widespread. So yeah. oh, go ahead.

Mark: no, go ahead.

Yucca: Well, I was gonna say the next one would be kind of this isolating, right? The really encouraging members to only engage with each other. Um right. Even sometimes to the point of excluding and not disowned family members or previous friends just saying, and that no, we've gotta be really insular.

Right. It's us. Don't go to an I outside, you know, don't go to a therapist, don't go to anyone else. You know, don't have other friends, so that they're really just wrapped up in this one world view without any outside perspectives.

Mark: Right, right. Yeah. That kind of insularity is very widespread in Christianity. I, I would imagine it probably is in Islam and Judaism as well. And I know it is in Scientology as well. But I mean, particularly in conservative branches of Christianity, like, latter day saints, or, you know, some of the evangelical churches, it's like, if you don't belong to our church, we don't want anything to do with you,

Yucca: right.

Mark: or we're telling you, you shouldn't have anything to do with people that are not a part of our church.

And that's just harmful for a lot of reasons, for one things, because it's turning spiritual practitioners into prisoners,

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: which is kind of scary. But for another thing, being exposed to the diversity of humanity is a good thing.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: One of the reasons why we see such incredible narrow mind and bigotry among evangelical Christians, at least in the United States is because they're not hanging out with anybody other than people like themselves.

And it's very easy for them to decide that people that are not like themselves are somehow less or subhuman and that their needs concerns and welfare can safely be ignored. And that's just a dangerous, dangerous path to go down.

Yucca: right. Well, and, and when they're isolated, it's harder for someone to challenge that unable leader. Right to know that some of these behaviors are not normal behaviors and that they're not healthy behaviors, that that's not just how it is everywhere.

Mark: Right. And it creates a tremendous social cost to leaving.

Yucca: right.

Mark: If you decide this is not okay, and I've gotta go. And what that means is that your entire social circle disappears and, or your family disowns you

Yucca: maybe your survival, right. Not just at an emotional level, but the, that that may be you're survival net.

Mark: that's right,

Yucca: How are you going to feed yourself? How are you going? What are you gonna do when you know, you've gotta go to the hospital and someone needs to take you. And all of those things just evaporate,

Mark: right,

Yucca: right?

Your childhood friend, your dog, your, you know, your kids, all of that stuff.

Mark: Yeah, it's some of the stories are just terrible. I mean, it's just as bad where people get ejected because they're gay or they're trans, or they're just different in some way. And they get ejected from the group because the group doesn't approve of who they are and suddenly they have no social resources.

It's just terrible. So the next one is pretty obvious, but it needs to be on the list. And that is financial exploitation of members,

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: um, requiring tithing constantly strong arming people to be paying for, you know, the, the church fund or the, whatever it is, you know, constantly, you know, pressing on people to be giving money.

It's exploitative. It doesn't take into consideration the varying levels of resources that people have available. And honestly, it doesn't let them make their own decision about where they wanna invest their money.

Yucca: Right. Well, and, and you could make the argument, oh, they're choosing to, but when this is in the context of all of this other behavior, it can be really difficult to not do that. Right. And they, you know, the suggestion may not just be a suggestion,

Mark: Exactly. Because the word will get around that you did not that you're not tithing. Right. Everybody else is tithing, but you're not tithing. And so judgements begin to be made and decisions get start being made about where you sit in the hierarchy.

Yucca: Yeah.

And finally, we can say the lack of transparency, right? So in, in an organization like this, the decisions may be made in secret,

Mark: Mm-hmm

Yucca: People don't even know what the decisions are made especially when it comes to finances, but not just finances, social decisions, all of that sort of stuff that there's not a way to track it.

There's not a way to know. And it's just, it just comes down. Right? The decision is made.

Mark: Yeah, exactly. And. To me. It's just, it's a part of that whole non-hierarchical approach to things that, I mean, you have it because the way that the laws of the United States are organized, they can't even comprehend the idea of a non-hierarchical organization. So we have to have a board of directors in order to have a non-profit organization.

Right. But the idea of that group not aggressively soliciting the input of the broader community and communicating out whatever decisions it makes based on those. Just, it's just appalling the idea, especially that these very wealthy institutions could be doing stuff like that is you know, when, when Joel Ostein needs another private plane,

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: you know, Basically he and his cronies are making that decision on their own without any transparency with the rest of the community.

It's just it's wrong. And it's really culty,

Yucca: Yeah. Well, and I mean, the, the reason that we're bringing this up is, again, emphasizing this isn't what fits our beliefs and values, right? There's a lot of groups doing activities like this and this particular list, mark, you would put this together out of several different lists, right? And these are the ones that any one of these is a problem where some of the other lists, you found things that are like, eh, kind of iffy, but maybe it's like, okay, but any one of these, these issues is, is really just a huge, huge red flag.

Mark: Right when I was doing, oh, go

Yucca: I was gonna say, and they usually don't come.

Mark: No.

Yucca: you've got the unable leader, then you probably also have the dogma and the abuse and the, you know, those things. Usually you're gonna have a lot of them together.

Mark: Yeah. When I was researching to, to first write on this the there were some lists that were, you know, if you score four or more, then you, you may have a problem kind of lists. And I, I just, I just took out the, the sort of iffy ones and compiled them, you know, compiled the 10 worst, most egregious concerns into a bullet list.

I think it can be said with some confidence that if you don't have any of these things, you're probably not in a cult.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: You know, you're, you're probably in a reasonably health healthy, reasonably open kind of spiritual path.

Yucca: right,

Mark: So we wanted to talk a little bit about deconstruction and recovery,

Yucca: right,

Mark: In the atheopagan community. We have an affinity group that meets once a month on zoom of people who are deconstructing from other religions and feel the need for support. You know, people have real horror stories about ways that they've been treated in a religious context.

And I really honor those people for their bravery in pursuing a new spirituality, instead of just saying I'm done. I'm, you know, I'm gonna live a life without spirituality because I don't, I just don't trust any of that anymore.

Yucca: right. Because the spirituality really can. Can give us so much in our lives. Right. And really can fulfill a very deep instinctual human need that we have.

Mark: Yes, and bring so much joy and gratitude and appreciation and such a sense of warm, shared community. I mean the, the danger is that even in very culty kinds of contexts, people still have that sense of community and they will stick around for it.

Yucca: Well, that's why they're sticking around.

Mark: That's right.

Yucca: Right. That's you know an abusive relationship, whether it's abusive relationship with a partner or with. Different family member or larger community or religion, there's still something in there that is feeding you. And that's why it can be one of the reasons it can just be so hard to, to remove yourself from

Mark: To let go.

Yucca: Right. Because there is that beautiful part. There is that wonderful part. And then there's the not right. Then there is the manipulation and then there's the exploitation and there's all of that. And so, you know, there's, I think that it's, it's really important to have a lot of compassion for people who are in these situations and, and recognize that that it's something that, that we can all relate to on some level or another.

Right.

Mark: Right. In the, in the development of Ethiopia, paganism as a community and as a, as a. A spiritual tradition rather than just sort of my individual path. One of the things that I remain really cognizant of is that there are people coming into this community who are gonna test because they've been burned before.

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: And so they sort of poke with these questions, right? It's like, well, what about this? You know, what about money? Well, we accept donations to the atheopagan society because we do have some expenses. But you don't have to be a member. We don't have members and you don't have to be a member of it in order to be call yourself an atheopagan and practice the, the, the path.

Yucca: and we won't announce if you, you, it's not gonna be an, if you decide to donate, we're not gonna announce and give you special status. And, you know, we'll

Mark: We, we will, we will list you on the, on the patrons list. On the website, if you want to be, if you wanna be anonymous, then we won't,

Yucca: but you're not gonna get like a badge if you're on the Facebook group that says, you know, I'm,

Mark: I'm a donor.

Yucca: I'm a donor. Yes. I'm a class, you know, a class supernova donor or something like that, right? Yeah.

Mark: that's right. Because people have, you know, at times been you know, very sharp in their interrogation of me, you know, what's your role, you know? Aren't you, the final decision maker of all the things the council does, you know, all, all that kind of stuff and no, I'm, I'm not, and I don't want it that way.

What I want is to do this right from the very beginning, my vision has been, what if you did, what if you did an earth based reason based. Spiritual path and you did it, right. You didn't step into any of the pitfalls that have plagued other religious paths. You know, if you are really open and really flat power structure and really transparent open your books to the public so they can see, you know, the money and where the money goes, all that stuff.

And that's what we're doing so far.

Yucca: Yeah, right. And that's, and you know, that's not just, that's not just Mark's vision, that's the broader vision. Right. And that's, that's part of it. So.

Mark: Right. I mean, if you can characterize the atheopagan community At all. It says a group of people who have all kind of come together to say, let's do this really well. Let's do it really well for ourselves and really well for the world. And just, you know, let's do this at a very high level of integrity.

Yucca: mm-hmm and just very thoughtful. That's something that just comes up again and again is just how thoughtful people are about all of this.

Mark: yeah, I agree. Now there are downsides of that for somebody like me, I'm not making a mint on this. But I'm. I'm so happy with how this is all proceeded. The idea of, you know, having to have this be something that I can leverage for a lot of money, just really doesn't cross my mind. And I, to be honest, I think that if I tried the community would vanish, just, just vanish.

Yucca: I don't think they could build this kind of community on that. Right. Certainly communities can be built on those types of principles, but this particular community. I think the reason that we're here, the reason that we, that we're doing all of this is, again, it goes back to what we were talking about before with the principles and the pillars is that we share those things.

Right. And those aren't really compatible with the list that we just gave of, of red flags. That's not that isn't compatible with religious dogma and with, you know, deceptive recruitment tactics and things like that. That just doesn't line up with what we're searching for and trying to cultivate and grow.

Mark: Right. We don't endorse exploitation. We don't endorse exploitation of the planet. We don't endorse exploitation of one another

Yucca: Right.

Mark: and a willingness to indulge. Various kinds of exploitation is characteristic of the sorts of organizations that get into trouble with things like that are on this list. You know, people in our community, they're, they're pretty quick to say if they feel like they've been treated unfairly or if they if they don't feel hurt or if their feelings are hurt and we talk about it and To the best degree possible, we make it right.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: It's just a different approach to things. So there are some resources for people who are deconstructing from religion, who don't necessarily want to be naturalistic pagans or whatever. There is the recovery from religion foundation,

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: um, which is a great organization and they have online groups and a variety of resources for people who are deconstructing from religion.

Encourage you to look into that. And

Yucca: Whether you're interested in non theos, paganism or not. Right.

Mark: Yes,

Yucca: so it could be, it could be useful in both cases. Yeah.

Mark: There's also the freedom from religion foundation, which is more of an advocacy organization for separation of church and state. But they do also have resources for people who are leaving abusive religious contexts and are are seeking support. So, encourage you to look into both of those, you know, if that's your situation.

And also of course, we invite you to, you know, join our community. If you think that these values are things that are consistent with what you wanna do, and you can be a part of that recovery meeting that happens once a month. I think it's the first Tuesday, maybe first, Monday. I'm not sure I'm in a lot of these meetings.

Yucca: Yeah. Well, and also some of the stuff that we, you know, we didn't talk too much about it, but the ritual practice and things like that can really help in healing processes. Right. Whatever it is, whether it was a religious trauma or childhood, or those often go hand in hand actually or whatever it is that, that that you're dealing with, you know, part of what we're trying to do is, is. develop lives and practices that support ourselves and develop the tool sets that help us to be able to do those things in whatever way matches us as individuals. Right? Yeah.

Mark: For example I know people that have done full. Funerals and burials literal burial in a hole in the ground of their religion, of their, the religion that they've left. And that sounds like it might be kind of silly, but it's not, it's very serious. And they feel really different after it's been done going through those symbolic activities to, you know, psychologically divest yourself of something that has been hanging over you for a long time can be really psychologically impactful.

And those are the kinds of practices that we learn how to do in naturalistic, paganism and that we do for one another and that we share.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So if, if this is the first episode of the wonder that you've ever heard, because you're being, you're just joining us or you're A family member or friend said, Hey, you should listen to this because I'm doing this atheopagan thing or naturalistic pagan thing. And I know you're worried about it. So here, check this out.

Welcome. And there is plenty more information about atheopagan at the Ethiopia pagan society website, which is the AP society.org or, and, or at the Ethiopia paganism blog that I do, which is Ethiopia, paganism.org. And there's a YouTube channel. There's this podcast. There's a Twitter feed.

There's the Facebook group. Yes, there's, there's a lot of different places where you can meet others and talk and ask questions and all that kind of stuff.

Yucca: And as we mentioned before, we're, we're pretty young, so we're just growing, but there are some affinity, local affinity groups, which are starting to form, so for different areas of the world or the country. So there might be, you know, people in your local area as well for, you know, face to face conversations and not just over the keyboard.

Mark: Right, right. Yeah. So, thank you for this conversation. Yucca. This has been a good one. I feel like. 

Yucca: There's a lot here today. Yeah.

Mark: yeah, and, you know, there are so many just sort of assumptions that we make about how we're going to do our business that we don't really talk about explicitly. And I think bringing all of those out is really important.

So people see, you know, the kind of people we are and the kind of thing that we're trying to build.

Yucca: and yeah.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah.

Yucca: yeah. Well thank you for this conversation. So, and next week, we're, we're gonna be in October already and we have a lot of really fun topics coming up

Mark: fun topics like death and decomposition.

Yucca: Yes, well, and, and cauldrons and ancestors and all of that good stuff. So, yeah.

Mark: It's gonna be great.

Yucca: All right. Well, thanks everybody.

 .

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at [email protected]

S3E32 TRANSCRIPT:----more----

Yucca: Welcome back to The Wonder: Science Based Paganism.

I'm one of your host Yucca.

Mark: And I'm the other one, Mark.

Yucca: And today we are talking about transitioning into the autumn or the fall. That sort of nesting and collecting of your acorns, metaphoric and, and all of that.

Mark: Yeah, because. I mean, if you're like us, the autumn is a, a really lovely time. It's just, it's a time to be enjoyed for so many different reasons. And as pagans who like sort of the products of nature, right. There's a lot of stuff out there. There's leaves and there's. Pine cones and there's late flowers.

And of course there's all the stuff pouring out of the gardens. so there's just, there's a lot of opportunity to decorate and celebrate and kind of button things up for winter around our homes. So that's what we're gonna talk about.

Yucca: Right. Well, and there's also a lot of those practical things that we're doing that are a wonderful opportunity to invite more meaning and ritual into our lives as we're doing those things anyways. Right.

Mark: Yes. Yes.

Yucca: So

Mark: Yeah. I mean all that food preparation stuff that, I mean, it's practical, right? Because it's food preparation, but it's, it's pretty witchy stuff. When, when you, when you get down to it, you know, the brewing and the pickling and the drying and all that stuff, it's all very witchy.

Yucca: Yeah, well, and, and even things also like you're switching out, you're bringing your sweaters out, right. Bringing those out and, and going through and making sure the moths didn't get into them and putting the there's the heavier blankets on the bed and, and all of those sorts of things, you know, there's, there was an episode we did.

Few years back at this point about the kind, bringing the magic into things we talked about. Like, you know, when you're putting the shampoo on your head, it's not just shampoo, but it's your, your magical potion of charisma or whatever it is. You know, there's so much of that, that this time of year, I think there's just a opportunity for,

Mark: Yeah. There's at, at least in the temperate zone, there's so much of a sense of transition. There's kind of a magic in the air. The weather is changing. The character of the light is changing. It won't be long before. In most places. Daylight savings thing changes. So the whole sense of the length of the day changes and that's just a really ripe canvas for for doing our creative ritual activity around

Yucca: Yeah. So last week we did talk about the Equinox. But there, are there any things that you have been doing? Since then in the, in the last week or so, or things that you will be doing that fit in with this transition theme that we're talking about?

Mark: Well, one thing that I did was my Northern California atheopagan affinity group, which calls itself the live Oak circle went camping last weekend. And that was really cool to, you know, to do, to do an Equinox ritual in person with people. And we're still getting to know one another and still kind of feeling our way.

So, you know, that, that will, that will mature over time, but it's really a lovely group of people. Very diverse, very interesting. And I just, I had a wonderful time And so that was something that I, I did for the Equinox season that I'm really happy about. Go ahead.

Yucca: is, is camping during the winter a, a possibility, or is this really your last camp of the, the year?

Mark: It's a possibility, but you're gonna get rained on

Yucca: Okay.

Mark: and I don't mind snow for camping very much because it's dryer.

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: But rain can really be a pain. Yeah. I mean, it's, everything's all muddy and it, it can really be a pain. But that said the I've gone camping in say February, which is the wet month of the year for us.

And it's been glorious. It's, I've gone out to the coast. The, the waves are all stormy and there are not many people out there because it's not tourist season. So you can really have a wonderful experience doing that.

Yucca: Mm. Nice.

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: And I'm sorry. I think I had cut you off. You were starting to say something else as well.

Mark: Probably, but I have no idea what it was now. So that's something that I did. And my partner NAIA brought home a an armature for a reef. This made out of grape vines this week that we're going to put seasonal things on and hang on our door. So that's another thing that hasn't been done yet, but will be we have to go out and collect some leaves and pine cones and things like that.

Because it's just, the leaves are just starting to turn here. I mean, week before last, we had. We had temperatures from the high nineties to 117 over a space of about seven days.

Yucca: so hot.

Mark: And so now I think the trees are figuring out that, okay, we're done with that now. It's it's time to start shutting down.

Yucca: Right. And some of that is, is cued by the light more than the temperature. It depends on the species, but the, the light can really play a role in, in what they're doing.

Mark: Mm-hmm

Yucca: Hmm. Well, we don't have a lot of trees that do change in the autumn. We have a few but for the most part, you can still feel it in the air here.

But the flowers have really changed. This is the end of our monsoon season. So we had a lot of. Flowers. And this past week, the, the kiddos and I went out and just gathered a whole bunch of flowers. And we had a dear friend with us as well, who showed the kids how to leave the, the flowers and they made flower crowns.

And even though that's something that is more associated with spring, On like a larger level for us, it's more of a fall thing because that's when we actually have the flowers, right. We have like some little tiny things in the spring, but they're just, but usually the, the end of winter is very dry for us.

Right. When we do get snows, it's more in, in the beginning of win, like more in a January, February time. But by the time we get into March and April, there's not much moisture. So there really isn't a lot in the spring, but in the autumn, we've got these All kinds of MOS and sunflowers and Veria and all of these beautiful things to, to weave in and add.

And we were talking about be before we started recording, I was showing mark the, the photos from it. And mark, you suggested, and I love this idea of putting, if you had leaves putting leaves in doing leave crowns. You know, the cone pine cones and, and whatever it is, that's in your environment. That is, that is fall or autumn for you.

Mark: Sure. Yeah. I mean, one idea that you could do as a part of your Equinox celebration actually would be to have to crown like an autumn king and an autumn queen or autumn royalty of whatever gender,

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: To kind of oversee the feast. Right. And it'd be really cute if those were kids.

Yucca: Yes,

Mark: so

Yucca: the kids with, with flower crowns and leaf crowns is just cute. Just too cute.

Mark: you bet. So that's, that's something else that you could do, theoretically. I. I mean, there's, there's so much that's so aesthetically pleasing about this time of the year to bring it into your house and make it clear that there's less of a division between inside and outside, I think is something that can be really valuable for us.

Yucca: yeah. Some of that, depending on how far north or how far cold your climate gets. It is a little bit of a last chance this time of year for some of the outdoor stuff, because when the snows do come, when the bitter cold does come, there's a lot more of that. Just staying nestled inside. So I think of this a lot as like a nesting time getting ready, right?

Just like that's what I see the animals outside doing the ones that stay here. We still have a few that have not left. I saw some hummingbirds today and I'm going, Hey. Get going get going. You're not gonna like it here. But the ones that, that stay here, you know, all of our little rodents and the Jays and things they're busy as can be right now, just packing away their cheeks, full the Jays.

It's so funny. They can have multiple, we leave sunflower seeds out for. Which they've now planted everywhere. But they can fit multiple ones in their beak at once. So you'll see them going by with like three or four seeds in one beak and then the, all the squirrels and chipmunks with their faces just stuffed full of whatever it is that they can find.

Mark: Nice

Yucca: and so I, I kind of feel like that, right. Just stuffing, you know, it's time to stuff, things in, but it's a good time also for a fall clean. We have a spring cleaning as a

Mark: Mm,

Yucca: in the larger culture, but it's a good time to do that. Fall cleaning and clean out all this stuff from summer, that's gone.

Right? You're getting rid of that stuff. You don't need that anymore. And bring out, you know, bring out the things that you do. What are your, the boots, if you're in a, I'm sure this is for your environment. You probably have some big boots. The rain boots

Mark: nice rubber Wellingtons. Yeah.

Yucca: You know, maybe put those flip flops away, bring out the wellies.

Mark: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And I, I think of it this way. We're gonna be spending a lot more time indoors now.

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: Uh, going forward for the next six months or so. Right. Because the conditions are going to get more inhospitable outside. So let's make the inside a place we wanna be, you know, let's make it cozy and comfortable and pretty and practical and all those different kinds of dimensions of what makes a real home.

Yucca: mm-hmm yeah.

Mark: And there are ritual things that we can do that can contribute to that, which is, can be fun. I think, you know, assembling that reef and putting it on the, on the doorstep, I think is gonna be a great thing. I. Also getting dried squashes and pumpkins and so forth to, to decorate the front area just.

Yes. We, we were talking about this before we started to record. Yes, it's true. Pumpkins tend to be associated with Halloween and Hallows, but they're available now and they're actually pouring out of the gardens right now. So, you know, grab a few.

Yucca: Yeah. And there are some, some really fun ones. If you haven't grown them, that's one of the ones I really encourage you to try. Because squash are pretty forgiving for, for being grown. And you can grow in a five gallon bucket and get one of those. You can, you can grow maybe one plant, but you could do something like one of those, those little Jacky littles.

Have you seen those little pumpkins? They're about the size of like your fist?

Mark: Oh yeah.

Yucca: Yeah, those are a great one. And some of the smaller ones, you could grow a big one, but those are ones that you could do in your window. If you don't have any backyard to put it in, if you do, but you gotta have your big container, right.

You can get away with one or so, and then they'll just take over. But the smaller, the smaller, the winter squashes, the more of them you're likely to get. If you're trying to grow one of your, like your huge, like fair winning pumpkin. You're not gonna be able to pull that off indoors or on a balcony, but something little you might be able to.

And they're usually pretty easy to save seeds from too. So if you go to the, the farmer's market or even the grocery store, and you see that really weird pumpkin with all the like bumps on it and those strange colors and stuff. Just save one or two of those. Right. And see if the next, next year, maybe you can get that to, to grow in your house or on your porch or, and if it doesn't work, then would you lose

Mark: Right. Yeah.

Yucca: You're gonna,

Mark: You, you, you had the pumpkin anyway, so yeah, it's what you lost was one bite of toasted pumpkin seeds.

Yucca: Yeah. So, yeah, so pumpkins And depending on how far along they are in your climate, the dried sunflower heads.

Mark: Huh?

Yucca: those ones. Mine. They're not in my area. They're not quite ready. We need another, another couple weeks. But for the big, like the mamma sunflowers and they're just so beautiful, you see that spiral pattern of the seeds, assuming you can get to it before the birds.

Mark: right,

Yucca: Yeah, but if you pick it before the seeds have developed, then you're, they're not gonna develop on the, the head. Right? So if you, if you wanna save one of those, let's say you have several flowers, you can put a paper bag over it, as long as it's still attached to the, the plant, but it won't fully develop.

It's not like some of those little grasses and things. If you cut those off early, then they'll just ripen really quick. There's just not enough time for those big sunflowers to do that.

Mark: that makes sense.

Yucca: So, yeah.

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: So.

Mark: and of course, you know, we're talking about produce. And so even if you don't have your own garden, this is the time for the fruit stands and the vegetable stands. And, you know, it's, it's a time, even, even if you do most of your shopping at a market, you know, if that's where you get most of your food, do some exploring, find out what the local varieties are of things.

You know, play around with some new vegetables, because there are gonna be weird things that you just don't really recognize or understand how to use. And of course you can pick up things for preservation, which is a big part traditionally of this time of year. As people work to save as many calories as they possibly can for the winter, when.

When the food systems are not gonna be producing,

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: so,

Yucca: And this is a fun time of year to, to try with the pickling and the fermenting. Speaking of those sort of witchy looking and feeling things you'd have those nice jars. That's definitely fun to do.

Mark: Yeah, get some local honey and do a quick bead. That'll be ready by hellos. You can do some of that. 

Yucca: Yeah. Mead and insiders are really easy. They're not like they're not like beer that is much more finicky and you need more equipment and stuff

Mark: and there are so many more steps.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: For for beer. Beer is really actually a pretty complicated chemistry experiment when you get down to it making the, the wart so that the food for the yeast is absolutely perfect to create a particular flavor is really, you know, an art. It is, it's an art and there are people that are very good at it.

I'm not one of them because I discovered that. There's all this fantastic beer available for 10 bucks, a six pack and I don't have to learn to be a master. Other people have, have done that for me,

Yucca: Right.

Mark: but I do like

Yucca: gonna be, if it's something you're gonna be consuming a lot of versus something you're making just a small amount for. Just sort of the joy of it, you know, you have different considerations.

Mark: right. Yeah. I mean, if you're only doing the five gallon. Car full, then that's a pretty easy project.

Yucca: yeah,

Mark: So it's something to look into it's and, and there is definitely a sense of pride and accomplishment. When you make a nice beverage like that and people enjoy it and appreciate it, and it gives you an opportunity to be creative about bottle labels and all that kind of stuff.

It's fun.

Yucca: another one to, to look into if you're interested in making things like that, but you don't want as high of an alcohol content is kombucha. Kombucha is really easy to make. And when you make it at home, it can have a higher content than what you would buy in the store. Still not gonna be very much though.

Like if you wanna have an alcoholic kombucha, you've gotta try, you've gotta go out of your way to make it that way. You're not gonna accidentally make it as high content as your CIS or wines, beers, things like that. So you'll get a pretty low amount. That's a really fun one that also, if you're looking for something to feel super witchy with, like it makes this SCOBY on top that it makes is this bizarre, bubbly looking.

It's really cool. And if you've got kids, you can, that you can lay on poke it and stuff and it's, it's fun. So, 

Mark: another option, which is fully non-alcoholic is to make what are called shrubs.

Yucca: mm-hmm.

Mark: Shrubs are syrups that you add to sparkling water. They're made with vinegar and sugar and various kinds of herbs and fruits. So like strawberry and basil is, you know, one combination. There's, there's lots of recipes on the internet for making shrubs.

I know it's a weird name. I didn't get it either, but that's what they're called. They're called shrubs. And they used to be very popular in the 19th century. They were, they were very, very common. And so you make these concentrated syrups and then you mix it with sparkling water and it, and maybe toss in, you know, another basal leaf or something for some fresh aromatics.

And there are these very complex, interesting things to drink, but they don't have any alcohol in them.

Yucca: Yeah. That sounds like something I'm sure that somebody is really passionate about and has their, their blog or channel on the boat.

Mark: yep. Yeah, absolutely.

Yucca: yeah. Well, pivoting away from the kitchen in the home, there's also things that That we might be doing like the buttoning up of the windows. Right. You're making sure that your windows seal properly and that the, the door isn't, isn't letting a draft through or something like that.

And so that's, that's really a lovely time to maybe do a, a home. Kind of protection ritual or cleaning ritual or something like that, where maybe you're checking the window for the drafts, but you know, maybe there's something that you wanna be meditating on at while you're doing that or sprinkling some salt as well.

Right. You're gonna protect from the drafts, but also, you know, protect on, on just sort of the symbolic level.

Mark: Right. And you can be very specific about that sort of thing. I mean, what occurs to me is you can dip your fingertips into some rainwater that you've saved and then sort of flick it at the front door and it doesn't go through. So the, the point being, you know, we're rain proofing the house, we're demonstrating that this.

The weather's not going to get inside.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: Putting salt at the corners of the house is of course a traditional protection thing as well. There are lots of various witchy sorts of activities that I think can give us more of a sense of comfort and solidity and security in our, in our homes. Even though, you know, they're just symbolic actions and we know that, but that, that doesn't matter.

They still affect us. And there's a good feeling about kind of taking care of yourself that way about going through all of the gestures that are necessary in order to feel like you are in a secure and happy, warm, and cozy place.

Yucca: Mm-hmm . Yeah. Hmm. Yeah, this is just, this is just one of my favorite times of year. I just wanna say that, right. just, oh, the chill and the it's still hot in the middle of the day for us, but in the mornings and the evenings, it's got that little brisk and, you know, so there's just so many lovely things. And as always, we really love hearing from all of you.

And you tell us about some of the things you do. 

Mark: Yes, especially if you're in other climbs because you know, there's a, there's a woman who's on the atheopagan council who comes to the Saturday morning zoom mixers pretty frequently. And she was just saying this morning that it's just barely starting to be tolerably. Cool there now it's still pretty hot and she's in Tampa, Florida.

So she's actually in the subtropics.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Which is, it's just, it's a whole other deal, right. You know, the, the dreaded season is not the winter. The dreaded season is the summer.

Yucca: right.

Mark: it's very hot and very humid and just not very hospitable full of bugs.

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: Um, so

Yucca: we're ready for the mosquitoes to take a break.

Mark: are

Yucca: really ready for them to

Mark: I, I see, okay.

Yucca: yeah, but I'm sure their mosquitoes are on a different level.

Mark: Yeah, well, because of all the moisture everywhere, right? There's just there's enough moisture to support so much growth. So all the plants, all the animals, they really go to town.

Yucca: yeah.

Mark: What else I'm trying to think of what else? I mean, this is a real season for paying attention, just watching what's happening with the sky. You know, noticing the branches of the trees against the sky as they get more and more naked and lose their leaves. 

Yucca: And in some places that's a, that's an overnight. It's amazing how quick things change. Right. And in others, it's a slow, kinda drawn out process that, oh, what are we going through? And it just hap and then others, it just happens.

Mark: Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. To me. The the time change is always kind of slamming the door on the remnants of summer and, you know, really, you know, bringing winter on board. But the time leading up to that, you know, the whole spy month of October and, you know, I mean they're

Yucca: have some good topics coming up for October. I

Mark: oh, we do.

Yucca: October.

Mark: Yeah, me too. There's just, there's so much to be said about not only our practices as pagans, but just living a life.

You know, the, the kinds of considerations that we have at that time of year are so profound thinking about mortality and about ancestry and all those kinds of things. But this is the, this is the onset of that. This, this moment right here is when we slip from summer into this different transitional kind of state.

And I, I just really enjoy it. I find myself even more attentive to what's going on outside and around me, because it's so beautiful.

Yucca: Yeah. Hmm.

Mark: So I hope that wherever you are, you're having a similar experience of Of wonderful arrival of autumn wherever you may be and feel free to drop us a note about how you're experiencing that or what any of your traditions are for the autumn and going into going into that. October season you can reach us as always at the wonder podcast, QS, gmail.com, and we always enjoy hearing from you.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So thanks everybody.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Thanks. Thanks for being with us. We always appreciate so much that you listen.

 .

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at [email protected]

S3E31 TRANSCRIPT:----more----

Mark: Welcome back to the wonder science based paganism. I'm your host mark.

Yucca: And I'm Yucca.

Mark: And today we are celebrating the autumnal Equinox, which goes by various other names. I like to call it harvest myself. And the. The holiday is one of the roughly equivalent length of the day and the night around the 20th of September.

And so it's a time when we celebrate many metaphorical meanings of that. And we also observe a lot of what's going on in our natural environment. At this time, as in the Northern hemisphere, we moved from summer into. Into the autumn. So we're gonna be talking about that today and celebrating the holiday,

Yucca: Right. And as always, it's just amazing that we're here already.

Mark: right.

Yucca: is just, just flown by. So,

Mark: It really has. It's. Well, it's extraordinary. I mean, a as you know, Yucca, I've been unemployed now for almost 14 months.

Yucca: wow.

Mark: And I mean, on the one hand, it seems like all the time in the world, but on the other hand, it's like, well, that's kind of flown by in a way it's involved a lot of struggle, but it's. leading to some good things. Now that I'll talk about later on. So I'm, I'm feeling like this is the harvesting season. It's the time when I'm, you know, reaping the benefits of stuff that I've had in the ground for a long time and have really been working to tend.

Yucca: Hmm. That's exciting. Yeah. So for us, and we should mention being in the Northern hemisphere, this is the autumn for us. Although we do see that there are quite a few of you listening from the Southern hemisphere. So for everybody in the Southern hemisphere, it's the other side of the wheel,

Mark: Happy

Yucca: So happy spring.

But for us to September. We're talking about how fast the year goes, but September seems to just really fly by for, with us starting September. It's still summer by the end of September, it's we're full in autumn. It's winter's right at our doorstep, right? It's a, we get a very kind of short autumn and it's says, Nope, here we are.

It's fall. And this is actually one of my very favorite times of the. And I know a lot of people really, really love this time, but let's actually start with what is this holiday often represent in the broader pagan community. And then we can get into our individual practices and, and observances around it.

Mark: Sure. That sounds great. Well, traditionally, this is viewed as the second harvest of the three harvest festivals. The first being the holiday at the beginning of August which is. The grain harvest and so beer and bread and all those kinds of things. Well, this is the second harvest and it it's often conceptualized as the overflowing corn utopia of vegetables, right?

The vegetable gardens are pouring out all of the winter squash and the tomatoes are still really going. And there's all these

Yucca: zucchini. So many zucchini

Mark: so many zucchini, same numbers of zucchinis. You've got, you know, people door ditching zucchini to everyone else. And so it's a time of a great abundance of food.

Much of which is perishable and is not really gonna last into the winter. And so traditionally it was a time when you ate a lot, right? You, you, you put as much, you stored as much of that stuff as you could, like the winter squashes and so forth, but what you couldn't, you ate, you put on your body as, as much as you could in order to kind of fatten up for the winter.

Yucca: Right. This is also the, the time of year where they're the most babies born. So you would think that it would be pretty evenly distributed throughout the year, but we actually see in the August, September, right in this area, right before we're going into the, the season is really switching into that cold time when we see a lot more births.

Mark: that kind of makes sense. Because if this is the time of year, more than any other this in the ne into the next couple of months, when food is really abundant, right? So it makes sense that the time when you would be having births would be the time when mothers could be as nourished as possible. And there would be as good a shot as possible for the babies to survive into the next year.

Yucca: Right. And when you count backwards to the time when you're feeling horrible and having terrible morning sickness, it's the time of the year when there's the least food. Anyways. so you're okay. Right. 

Mark: Never thought of that, but

Yucca: the, yeah, it's, it's how it works. It's so, you know, we, we can forget sometimes in our modern world, how part of.

The rest of nature, we really are. Right. We really are seasonal creatures that have figured out some clever things in the last hundred years or so to, to help us kind of forget that. But, but this time of year is, is, is lovely because it is a reminder that no, this, whether we like it or not, the season is changing and might as well like it and embrace it because it's happen. And it's it just feels like this tipping point time period.

Mark: It, it does. It feels, I was saying before we started recording, it feels kind of like the hinge of the year. There's a lot of preparation that has to happen before winter starts in earnest. For, and for me, This time of year is always a time for sort of taking stock of the last year's cycle. You know, what were my dreams?

You know, of my, my dreams from UL, my plans from From brightening at the beginning of February, you know, how did I implement those and how are they going? And is there something to harvest from those now? This year I'm, I'm hopeful. I, I believe I have a job I will know in about a week. but I believe I have landed a job, which was, will be a wonderful position.

And I'm happy to talk more about it. Presuming that it happens. I'm also. Most of the way done with writing the second book, the second athe paganism book and

Yucca: which is a publish.

Mark: which as a publisher, yes, loyal and worldwide is publishing it. And I have to deliver a manuscript at the end of November, and I'm still figuring out what the last 10,000 words are going to be. But

Yucca: But you've done a huge, I mean, you've done all the other words, so you've done a huge chunk of

Mark: I'm at 45,000 words now. So that's, that's a lot, there's a whole lot there. And it's involved a lot of days of sitting at a desk with a laptop, just tapping away and researching and pulling things in from other sources and synthesizing ideas. In, you know, as, as I see them. So it feels like this fall will be a, a real time of.

Of accomplishment. And the, the completion of some, some long held dreams which kind of goes along with my other conceptualization of this holiday. We've talked about this before, how I map the arc of a human life onto the wheel of the year.

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: Uh, this holiday is the holiday of being elder. so it's sort of the moment of reflection about, okay, well, I'm kind of at the end of this, but What has, what has life been like?

What, you know, what have I learned? What have I experienced sort of running your fingers through all those amazing moments of your life. And so I don't think of myself as elderly quite yet, but I still see that process happening for me this year with the, the things that I'm harvesting. So I, I find that exciting.

Yucca: Hmm, that's

Mark: How about you? How do you celebrate this time of year?

Yucca: Well, this season terms of how, how we see the wheel of the year this is the celebration of the decomposers. This is the, the fun guy and the microbes. And of course there are microbes involved in. All parts of the cycle. Right. But, but the, the, the little ones who are just breaking things down and, and getting the, the compost ready and that, again, that shift that we're talking about, and it's really the, the entering into fall or autumn and getting now is time to be getting things. Right. That's a big getting things ready for the winter and it's just, you know, winter's coming, winter's coming. We can feel it in the air now. It's still hot during the days. And the monsoon season is just finishing up, but you can feel that chill and it's okay. Well, do we have enough firewood? Let's start stacking that and.

Our, our solar panels, we switch them. Cuz this is there's no, there's no grid out here. Right. We're way too far away for that. And so, you know, we've gotta switch the, the panels, the angle now it's like, oh, okay, let's start. You know, we've had 'em down since the sun has been so high in the sky that, but now it's starting to, we can tell it's it's moving down on the horizon.

We gotta move those panels up to be able to catch that light. And. BA all that buttoning up. Right. Okay. Are there cracks that need to be sealed? And what do we have to worry about for this? Not gonna survive the cold? What do we need to bring in all of that kind of stuff? And it's just a, a lovely, it's a lovely time of just shifting and transitioning and, and there's a nice anticipation, but there's kind of a calmness to it.

Mark: Mm-hmm yeah, there's a

Yucca: Satisfaction like what's done is done.

Mark: and there's sort of a stillness, especially to early autumn. In my experience, we don't get very much wind here at this time of year. In the evenings when the heat finally dies down the it's just sort of very mild and there's. There's this kind of it's something in the air.

There's. Sort of presence in the air that I feel at this time of year. I'm reminded of it by our wind chimes. There's just something about the wind chimes, faintly tinkling in the little bit of air movement that's going on. That reminds me that it's fall. The other thing that I hear a lot at this time of year is.

Single crickets instead of a huge chorus like you have in the summertime, there will be one or two crickets outside kind of doing their thing. And it's in the, the warm late, late, late summer night. And it, it really reminds me of this time of year going back all through my life.

Yucca: Yeah. Yeah. You say that and I go, yeah. We have that too here. 

Right? It's the, and there's a, there's a different quality to their, to their song.

Mark: Yeah. Well, almost all their fellows have been eaten by now.

Yucca: yeah. So if they're there

Mark: Yeah, if they're there although if they still haven't made it, then that, that's why they're, that's why they're doing their, their noise. Trying to find somebody to hook up with at the very last minute. But I mean that deafening chorus of crickets that you get in the, you know, at the peak of summer is long gone by now.

And it's just a few holdovers that are, you know, kind of holding down the Fort there every night.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Yeah, I have such a fondness for this time of year. I just, even though we don't. Changing of leaves very much until later in the year, because it's gonna stay warm for us until October. know, we'll have, we'll have days in the high eighties and early, you know, low nineties even into October.

But we may get a rainstorm or two between now and say November,

Yucca: And when is your, when's your first frost? I mean, not till later,

Mark: January.

Yucca: Okay. Yeah. So you, you really don't get much in terms of frost

Mark: Well, we've got that huge buffering Pacific ocean right near us. So that keeps it warmer. The air has to get very, very cold coming in from the east, from, from landward and, and the north in order to drop us down into those frost temperatures. And really it's mostly at the bottom of valleys most of the time, unless we get an Arctic storm.

Yucca: yeah.

Mark: The Arctic storms will put a little snow on top of the Hills sometimes. And, that can be pretty yeah, but this time of year is once again it's, as you say, it's an anticipatory time. This is the time when everybody cleans their gutters because they don't, when, when the rains finally come, they don't want them to be jammed up and overflowing and doing damage to their houses.

Yucca: right.

Mark: All of the vegetation has started to slow down. So, there's much less in the way of mowing and so forth, which I'm thankful for. Not because I do mowing, but because I have to listen to it and

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: I, I'm not, I'm, I'm such a non of lawns and all that they represent. 

Yucca: We don't have lawns here, but when I have visited them, I quite liked the smell of the cut grass.

Mark: it's

Yucca: That's a lovely, yeah.

Mark: That's the smell of spring to

Yucca: Mm.

Mark: having grown up in suburbia. When, when the when the lawns are no longer swamps,

Yucca: Okay.

Mark: And, and can actually be mowed

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: um, long about March or so. That's when you can start start mowing the lawns and it's a wonderful, you know, spring smell to me. So yeah it's a little early for me to focus on decomposition.

I do that later in the year around halls and then kind of going into, I, I think of decomposition and recomposition in new form as kind of taking place between halls and But I'm in a very different climb than you are. I mean, we're just, we're not gonna freeze for a long time and when we do, it's not very much,

Yucca: Yeah, by the time we get to hollows are we've already been freezing for several weeks at that point. So we, I mean that still, it still has that decomposition theme, but now it's, it's, it likes to get started when it's still warm.

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: enough, you know, you've got enough of your mixes of the greens and Browns and, and also for us, we're coming out of, we don't get a lot of moisture.

We get maybe 12 inches in a good year, but we haven't done that in the past two decades since we're in this, you know, mega drought. But with, after the monsoons is when we do get the mushroom. And so we'll get the popup of the mushrooms or you'll turn over a log and you see the MyUM and and you know, we get the warnings every year because we have several mushrooms that you definitely do not want to eat.

Just a reminder of know what you're doing, everybody, because we've got a few here that,

Mark: As

Yucca: really don't want to try. You won't make it to the nearest hospital. That's two hours away.

Mark: As the late great Terry Chet once said all mushrooms are edible. Some mushrooms are only edible once

Yucca: Right. Yeah. But of course, most, I mean the vast majority are, are, you know, not a problem. They're just, there's a few that are, but you know, they're, they're popping up and they're just doing, and all of that is just getting ready to do its thing because we have the moisture, we're getting the chill nights.

It's not baking and, and throughout the winter, It'll slowly, it'll slow down, but that decomposition is happening down there in the soil. It's happening underneath the pine needles, you know, it's, it's working away. So

Mark: Yeah. Oh, there was something else. What was it I was gonna touch on. Oh this is a big time of year for feasting.

Yucca: yes.

Mark: Because of all that, all that garden production and all that perishable food that you, you gotta get into yourself and share with your neighbors before it goes bad. 

Yucca: Get put up if you're doing drawing or canning

Mark: do any of those

Yucca: do. Yeah.

Mark: preservation processes, this is the time and around here where I am.

You know, people are canning apples and, and making apple sauce and apple butter and all that kind of stuff from our apple crop and the the, what we call the crush, which is the grape harvest has started. It's always, you know, right around this time of year, starts in late. August and extends into early October.

So that's a very seasonal thing as well. If you drive around the rural roads in the west county, they all smell like, like wine. They smell like rotting grapes, right? So, so it's a good time to have a feast, you know, invite your friends you know, focus on local produce and, you know, local, local food stuffs.

I was I was mentioning when, before we started to record that this is when the salmon run. One of the, one of the salmon runs comes up the Russian river in our local area. And so we will have fresh local salmon here available, which is delicious. And sustainably farmed or sustainably caught wild caught. It is part of an industry that is doing a lot to conserve and improve riparian habitat and breeding grounds around here. So I, I feel that's an important thing to support.

Yucca: Yeah, that's really important.

Mark: Yeah. I mean the salmon runs of north America and they still are in Alaska, but the salmon runs of the California and Oregon and Washington coasts used to be millions and millions of fish.

There are reports of tributaries to the Russian river during spawning season where you could walk across the tributary without getting. Feet wet because there were so many spawning salmon in these creeks and of course development and deforestation, tation, and climate change, and all those things have had a huge impact, but they're still living runs.

And so this it's something that we like to appreciate this time of year.

Yucca: Yeah. Oh, that sounds wonderful.

Mark: Yeah, it is.

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: So, We wish all of you the, the best of the season really invite you to go out and find out what's growing locally, you know, find out, you know, what does your neighbor's garden have in it? 

Yucca: Yeah. 

Mark: See what, what stuff is coming up, check out the farmer's markets they're overflowing right now.

It's a great time. 

Yucca: This is also a time where, where folks are often cutting back herd numbers. So that's another one

can get as well. Yeah.

Mark: right. Yeah. Traditionally that's sort of more associated with, with Hallows, with the October holiday as the, the so-called flesh harvest, but realistically speaking, I think you're right. I think it's probably earlier in the year uh,

Yucca: it really? Yeah. Well, and this is when you get, you know, if you, you. Talk to the rancher and you kind of figure out there, this is when they're figuring out, okay, what do we, you know, taking account? What, what do we have? What are, what are we gonna need to get through the winter?

Mark: How many, how many of these animals can we get through the winter?

Yucca: mm-hmm

Mark: if we try to get them all through, they're all gonna starve. So, you know, hard decisions have to be made,

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: And. You know, cycle of life. So it goes.

Yucca: And that's, you know, each point in the wheel of the year there. There's something going on. Right. And oftentimes there's an overlap, right? We talk about the, in the spring, we're often talking about these, this planning and this anticipation. And yet here we are in the autumn thinking about the anticipation.

And yet we're planning for winter, right? In the spring. We're planning for summer and the fall. We're planning for winter and then the winter's for the next year. And it's just all overlapping and continuing and continuing. Here we get to be our little moment getting to be part of it with everybody else.

Right.

Mark: Right. And that's one of the things that I really appreciate about this time of year is that because I think of it as a reflective time, you know, the, the, the time of culminations of harvests it, it does give me a chance to sort of sit back and, you know, look at where I've, where was I? Where was I?

12 months ago. And how has that changed? And, you know, how do I feel about how I spent that time? What did I learn? You know, what would I, what do I wish I had done differently? What am I really glad I D I did that. I didn't think I was going to like all those things, right. A a life reflected on is a life well lived.

Yucca: Well, we'd also love to hear from all of you, if there's special traditions that you have this time of year or anything that you wanna share with us, we always love getting your getting your emails and feedback. So

Mark: And you know where to find us the wonder podcast cues at.

Yucca: Gmail.

Mark: Yes.

Yucca: And that's QS.

Mark: QS, gmail.com. And we would love to hear from you. Thank you so much for your comments and your, your questions and your topic suggestions. We appreciate all of them.

Yucca: Happy autumn, everyone.

Mark: Happy sol-Equinox! Sorry.

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at [email protected]

S3E30 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 today. We're thinking about rituals and pagan gatherings and how we as organizers and participants can help make those more accessible to the many different people in our communities.

Mark: Yeah, this is an important one and it, it kind of rears its head up every now and then when. Planning gatherings or designing rituals because it's so easy to slip into the, the. The comfortable accident of designing a ritual for somebody that's just like yourself.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: And we have people in our community that have all different kinds of levels of ability and have various different kinds of challenges.

And we want to make them as welcoming as possible for everybody. So we're gonna kind of kick around different ways of approaching that and reasons for it. Today,

Yucca: right. Yeah. And so I, I love that you talked about it as, as looking at. Designing the ritual just for ourselves or for everybody. Right. And the, the, I think as paganism is growing up a little bit, we are, we have a, a shift in the people and the life stages that are involved. So. A lot of times. I mean, thinking back to, when you talk about when you started in paganism there, it was a lot of mostly young people, right?

Mark: It was a lot of people that were in their. Thirties. I, I think that the big pagan up swelling in the late sixties, early seventies, those were people who were kind of college age. They were, they were late teens, early twenties. And by the time I got involved, those same people were still participating, but they were now, they were now in their.

Some of them into their forties and they, they were having their own kids and, and so forth. But what's happened now is certainly that first generation they're elderly now, right? I mean I'm 60 years old and I'm, I'm from a subsequent generation.

Yucca: Right. You're on the kind of younger. So the, the standing, the standing around in a circle and running around and all of that for 40 minutes is not going to be as possible for some of that generation. Now there's new generations have been entering in. So there still are plenty of people who, who that's a good fit for, but when we're designing, we just need to be aware of, well who's, who's at our ritual.

Right?

Mark: And bear in mind. There are people of every age who have different levels of ability, right? I ha I happen to have foot issues. I beat my feet to death waiting tables on a concrete floor. While I was working my way through college. And so, although I finally discovered some insults that help a tremendous amount for years, I've really been in agony, standing around in pagan circles.

Because it wasn't right to have a chair, right. There was, there was some idea that having a chair out there was disrupting the energy or whatever it was.

Yucca: right. Or if you were in the chair, somebody doesn't necessarily know that about you and they look at you. Right that so we can be self-conscious about judgment from people. And then we can, we can, not purposely being unkind, but sometimes we can make those judgements ourselves without being really aware of whatever that person's situation is.

Mark: Right, which is why I think we have to be overt about it. I, I think that in the welcoming remarks at a, at a circle, one of the things to do is to say, different people here are gonna have different physical conditions and different different challenges that they contend with. Do not feel that you can't pull up a chair and sit down if that's what you need, do, do not feel like you can't leave the circle because that will somehow break the magic bubble.

You, if you need to go take care of yourself, then go take care of yourself. There's nothing wrong with that. And it doesn't cause any harm to the ritual.

Yucca: Right. That's always been a big one for me is that there's been circles that I've been in that that's really important, but it rituals can get really overwhelming. Right. And, and some different types of personalities. We need to step back for a moment and just. Beyond the outskirts or step away or that sort of thing.

And if, and for having children in a ritual, sometimes you need to step away with the kids, need to step away, or, as the parent or the caregiver that the kids. They're about to lose it and it might not look like it to everybody else, but you need to, to get them to move them away and, and let them be able to process or do whatever it is they need and not, blow up in the middle of everything.

And so I think it's important that that be a, be an option that people have and not be judged for taking the removing one's self from the ritual and, and coming back in when ready or something like that.

Mark: Yes. I think it's ironic that I, one thing that I've seen pagan circles be rather good. Is about indulging children who are young and running around and, not shushing them, not trying to get them to sit still, just letting, letting them be the kids that they are. But they don't necessarily give the same latitude to the parents who need to sort of shepherd that energy and, keep an eye on when the kids are gonna melt down.

You

Yucca: And whether they're being safe or not. Right.

Mark: Right when they're, when they're getting sleepy, because there can be that burst of manic energy right before somebody's about to kill right over. And so being aware of all those things and making sure that people feel a strong sense of permission to take care of themselves or to ask for help in taking care of themselves, I think is really, I.

I know that I've been to some rituals where visually impaired people have had kind of a buddy like either assigned to them or of their own choice, who can lead them around the circle so that they're, they're safe. If moving around the circle is a part of what's happening in the ritual there.

And I, I just, I think we can be a lot more conscientious. Accommodating lots of different kinds of folks. As we design our rituals and our, our gatherings.

Yucca: right. And I think. It's gonna depend on each situation, but there's gonna be kind of two levels to that. And one is when you know, who is going to be at your ritual and some of their specific needs, but there's also a level of, of just kind of being accommodating any ways when you don't know, you don't know the specifics, maybe you don't know who's going to be at your ritual or you don't know all the details about.

Mark: Sure. Sure. And it's not their job to disclose all that to you either because people, people have privacy rights, they, they don't have to necessarily lay their whole medical history out in front of you in order to qualify for accommodation. But I mean, there is kind of a middle ground there where people, should be able to advocate for themselves if they need something.

If they're invited to ask for it, then I think they're much more likely to come forward and ask for it. Or avail themselves of it like a chair, for example. I know that in the fire circle gatherings that I've gone to, which is a particular stream of the pagan. Umbrella which is that the central ritual of which is a sort of freeform ritual container around a fire, usually from about 11 o'clock at night or midnight until Dawn.

Yucca: mm-hmm

Mark: And for a long time there was controversy about whether there could be any chairs anywhere in the circle. And as people became older and it became evident that some people just really needed that we started inserting that. At least in the events that I was involved in organizing, we started inserting a little bank of, three chairs in a particular place in a circle.

And they weren't meant to be just for any onlookers. They were meant to be for people that really needed them in order to accommodate their needs. And. Pretty soon. Everybody got used to that and they, they knew where the, where the, the accommodation bench was and they could and people used them and it, it worked out fine.

Yucca: Yeah. So I know we, we did something similar at the sun with that, and I really appreciated there how there was kind of layers where, of where you could situate yourself physically and how How you were being involved, everybody was involved, but you could be up there right next to the fire in the middle of all of it.

Or you could be kind of, snuggled in next to somebody or off to the edge. And there was this, this really, safe kind of beautiful fluidness to it where people could move in and out. And I mean, I remember that as one of, One of the most magical experiences at nights, right. Is, is that experience.

And there was a whole variety of, of how people were engaged. And that's a great example of, of having the mix of chairs and standing. And we had a few little blankets out there and, I know my kiddo was there kind of switching between people's laps, right. and all of that. So.

Mark: Yeah. And I, I mean, I, I felt really good about that and I felt that it, it really did meet a lot of needs. We did get one piece of feedback about about a, an ability concern that had to do with getting from the main lodge to the dining hall. Which was kind of over a hill and we were at high altitude.

And so for some of the people that were there, it was just difficult to, to hoof it from the main hall to the dining hall. And so the next time we do that event in 20 24, 1 of the things we're thinking about is renting a golf course, a golf cart or something like that, so that we can transport people that have a hard time with that walk.

Yucca: right. Well, and maybe we can we can build in more time to. the, when we're at each location. So that there's more flexibility in, in, how long you take to get to some place and not needing to be jumping back and forth between the two places. Right. So that might be something that we could work on.

Mark: Yeah. So it's just a matter of keeping all of these factors in mind and just kind of putting yourself in the position of, okay. If I'm in a wheelchair, how do I negotiate this? If, if I, if I can walk, but I have, limitate limitations in my walking, I can only do it for a certain amount of time or I can only stand for a certain amount of time, all of those, all of those various issues that confront people.

I mean, I'm in, reasonably good condition given my age, but still, I don't wanna stand for an hour on, on my. My 60 year old feet.

Yucca: I, I don't wanna either on mine. that sounds too long

Mark: it

Yucca: I mean, I could do it, but doesn't sound good.

Mark: Well, the other, the other thing about that when it comes to ritual design is. Making sure that there are engaging activities for the people that are there in the circle that they're not just standing there watching other people do sort of performative ritual stuff.

Yucca: It's not a play

Mark: No.

Yucca: plays that you go to watch. Yeah.

Mark: they're they're not a spectator sport.

They are a participatory

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: Um, and it's, I mean, you can incorporate a little theatrical production of people playing different roles as a part of a ritual, but if you're gonna do that and nothing else, do it. In theater style seating where people can sit down and watch. If it's gonna be a circle, give people in the circle, something to do, give them something to sing, give them a place to move, give them, snacks that are passed around, whatever it is.

A craft thing that they can all do. We, we talk about all the different possibilities in rituals, but engagement is so important. For all of that.

Yucca: Right. So a couple that we've mentioned, we've talked about. Being, we've talked about the ability for people to enter or leave the ritual when they need to, and being able to be the one who decides that for themselves. We've talked about having the seating accessibility, what are some other big ones to just be aware of in general, without really knowing who is going to be there, who your audience, or who your participants are going to be?

Can you think of ones that would be helpful?

Mark: Well, the other one that I can think of is. For people that experience various kinds of overwhelm just from crowds or maybe thundering drums

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: you know, just, they, they just, they get that sensory overload thing where it's like, I've gotta get outta here. And rather than have them kind of blow out of the circle in a really uncomfortable and ungrounded kind of way, it would be a lot more sensible to have a quieter, calmer place.

The. To go to, maybe under a tree with some blankets and just kind of a nice, cozy, comfortable place to be. The first fire circle gathering that I ever went to was an event called fire dance in 2002. And They actually had a hollow Redwood tree at this site. That was the grounding zone.

And there was a person who was a volunteer who was stationed to be there to just kind of help people to ground. And they had blankets and there was a little chimney there with some, burning some wood so that it was warm. And. Put up some fairy lights and things in on the inside of this tree.

So it was this charming, very welcoming little space and people could come and they could just, calm down, just, just, relax. And of course you could hear the drumming off in the distance, but it was far enough away from the ritual circle that you didn't feel bombarded by it.

Yucca: right. So you could feel part of it, but not, not overwhelmed by it. If that was.

Mark: Right. And as we become more aware of neurodiversity and of just the incredible diversity of people and what their tastes are and what their needs are,

Yucca: And how that shifts too, right? Because, we can all be very different. And in each day our needs may be different depending on what is happening in our lives and all of the experiences that we're having.

Mark: right. Right. Because someone who is at that very moment able bodied and doesn't have any particular mental diversity or mental health issues. Maybe they just had a loss in their family. Maybe they've, just, become unemployed. And they're really afraid about things. People can become in the ritual context where you're emotionally open.

People can become very. Impacted just by being in the ritual container and having a place for them to land and somebody to kind of, sit with them makes a big difference,

Yucca: Hmm. Yeah. So this has been kind of for a longer ritual, but, but when you're doing a shorter thing as well, these are types of things to keep in mind, right. Even if you, if you consider. At 10 minute opening, here we are, we're opening this, just, still just sort of looking around when you're designing it.

Just thinking about different types of abilities and different people. There can just make such a huge difference.

Mark: Yeah. And making people know in advance that they can take care of themselves, that they can bring their camp chair. That that's welcome at the circle because I mean, what I remember, particularly from when I was first starting out, the idea of a chair in the circle was really sort of taboo. Almost. It was, oh, that's gonna disrupt the energy.

And if people are dancing, they're gonna trip over it. And well, we don't want people tripping over things, but we need to accommodate people that

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: aren't going to be wildly dancing around the circle. Right.

Yucca: Typically, we can, if we're aware of that, that's an issue to begin with. Then when you're dancing, you make the choice to, dance two feet over to the right instead, right.

Mark: Sure. Yeah. I mean, I have seen in rituals, I have seen people who are seated in a chair. Sort holding hands with someone who's standing up

Yucca: Mm-hmm,

Mark: kind of, doing a, a, for the person in the chair, they're doing kind of an above the waist dance and the, and the, the person who's standing is doing kind of a full body dance and everybody is engaged in participating and it's a lovely experience for everybody.

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: So, all of this is just to say that. changing. Paganism is changing. It always has been changing from the moment that Neo paganism got started up again. It's been evolving and changing consistently and it will continue to do so. And My orientation to this has always been let's do what works for people, let's, let's do what actually affects their minds.

Let's do what, what values actually affirm them and help them to live well. 

Yucca: Right,

Mark: And this is just another example of that. Just to be considerate of those who are differently abled than we are.

Yucca: Yeah. And just being intentional about the way that we are growing and changing as a community.

Mark: Mm-hmm mm-hmm . And I will say one other thing about it, which is that when you get a concept for a ritual. Design some, some flash of inspiration. Sometimes you can really get married to it. And sometimes it isn't something that's actually gonna work for everybody.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: then you may need to surrender the idea that you're married to in order to do something that's more accessible.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Hopefully you can do some adapted version of it, but just be aware that, Not all good ideas are implementable, right? Much better to, to let go of what sounded like a really cool thing, because it wasn't really gonna work for the group you're working with than to try to force it on them and have people feel excluded and not seen.

Yucca: Right. And I think that that's pretty good advice, not just for building a ritual, but for any type of relationship, whether it's a group or, two individuals is, is being really present with what is the reality of your group and what are the actual needs of the group. And sometimes that doesn't line up actually most of the time, it's probably not gonna line up with your, with your visions ahead of time, but. if you let it be, it probably will end up being something amazing.

Mark: Yep,

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: because if everybody's engaged, then they're all bringing the magic of their personalities. To bear, right? They're bringing their creativity and their particular unique spark to, to what's going on. And that, that just tends to make a very magical kind of environment.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Well, thanks, Yucca. This is been a little bit shorter of a, of one, but I'm, I'm really glad we had this conversation. I think it's such an important issue for our community.

Yucca: I agree. Yeah, I think, and I think it's great that we gave it its own episode because it really is that important.

Mark: Huh? Yep, absolutely. So, if you have comments or questions, you can reach us at the wonder podcast cues. At gmail.com. That's the wonder podcast, QS, all one [email protected] and we look forward to hearing from you. Otherwise we will see you next week for the Equinox issue because we are back in the holiday season.

It's September hard to believe, but it's here.

Yucca: Yep. All right. Thanks everybody.

 .

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at [email protected]

S3E29 TRANSCRIPT:----more----

Mark: Welcome back to the wonder science based paganism. I'm Mark.

Yucca: And I'm Yucca.

Mark: And today we're here to talk about a situation that really. Affects many of us in the pagan community generally. And in the nontheist pagan community specifically, which is what do we do about longtime friends or members of our family who are hostile to.

Our way of being they, they disapprove of, of atheism or they disapprove of paganism,

Or they disapprove of both because as we were saying before we started recording, we kind of get it from both ends. So, This is something that many of us struggle with. And especially those who have left more authoritarian kinds of religious contexts.

It's not uncommon for parents or relatives or friends to be to be caught up in this idea that you must be the way that they want you to be, or or there's something wrong with.

Yucca: Right, right. Or just the, the programming that you know, in, in some beliefs that, you know, they love and care about you, but they're really worth, you're gonna go to hell. Right. And they truly believe that the stuff that you're doing is gonna make you suffer for eternity or, you know, something like that.

Mark: right. Which is in theory, that's a. of generous and charitable thing to think about someone else, but when you really get down to it,

Yucca: That's pretty patronizing.

Mark: it, it, it is. And it's also I mean, it's something that. I would think, well, okay. I, I have the perspective of having been raised with no religion. So I can't really, I can't speak with any authority about this, but it seems to me that it it's an additive to the health of a person to get out from under that. Extortion right. To get out from under that, the threatening nature of the story of heaven and hell.

And I think that there is a lot of resentment that happens on the part, particularly of parents who raised you a particular way. And then you say, well, I'm not that way. Some other way. And. They as, as people that are in an authoritarian framework because they practice an authoritarian religion, the fact that you've rebelled can lead to a lot of anger.

It's, it's not just about wanting, what's good for you. It's about wanting them to be obeyed.

Yucca: yeah, it's a commentary for them on, on their self worth and, and you know, how good a job they did and, and all of that.

Mark: Right. Right. So it's a tangled web and in some cases, more reasonable parents can be talked with parents, siblings, relatives, whatever they are. In more reasonable cases. You, we can talk with them. We can explain that we are following a path that makes us happy and that we see as fulfilling and that we really just need them to let us do that.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: In other cases, things are so bad that you really need to distance yourself. And that I can speak with, with some authority because my parents were incredibly toxic people, both of them. And I they're both dead now, but my mother, I hadn't seen for 16 years before she died and my father for more than 20.

So, I just didn't have anything to do with them.

Yucca: Well, and, and you, you split or you cut that off. Long before the, the pagan part of your life began even right.

Mark: Yes. Yes. But, and, and I don't know, I mean, going into the specifics of my particular situation, aren't important, but one of the ironies to me is that I was raised in this non. context. And then my father married, my stepmother, who was a devout Catholic, and suddenly he was a Catholic, even though he was a scientist.

Yucca: mm-hmm.

Mark: And I don't know, I could go on for some time about hypocrisy and my father, but rather than do that, because it won't be of interest to anyone but me. The, the disapproval of the pagan stuff definitely did creep in late. You know, when I made a couple of sporadic attempts to try to get along with them but there clearly was no interest on their part to engaging me at all.

All they wanted me to do was a reflective mirror. To the glory of their narcissism and I wasn't gonna do that. So, so I cut it off and it can be very hard because particularly for parents, because we carry with us a, a societal archetype about mom and dad, we an idealized vision of what mom could be like, what dad.

Coming to grips with the fact that, that ain't, what you've got is a long, slow and painful process. Because you know, deep inside us, everybody wants a mother. Right. And if you figure out that you don't really have one, that's super painful.

Yucca: right.

So I think a, a good place to start and we can circle back around. There's so much to talk about in this, but is thinking about your own needs in a relationship. And being able to really reflect on that and see what your needs and what your boundaries are because we're. And, and I think some of this is, is more, there's a lot of gender issues going on as well.

But I know at least for, for my side is, is being a woman that we're not really supposed to have boundaries, right. We're supposed to give, give, give, and a relationship is about what you can give and you're not, and you're selfish and that, I don't think this is true, but this is what we are taught is that we're selfish to, to.

And stand by those boundaries. And at the end of the day, I think that's very unhealthy. Right. I don't think that that's gonna serve us very well, and you've got to, to be able to take care of yourself.

Mark: right,

Yucca: And so that's the first thing to figure out is what do you, what do I need?

Mark: And it's particularly challenging in those authoritarian contexts where the parents are very, you know, power over dominant, because what they will tell you is you don't have any rights. You don't have a right to privacy. We, we have the right to know everything about you. We have

Yucca: for your own good

Mark: Yeah for your, for, for your own good.

We, you know, we have the right to search your room. We have the right to read your diary. We have the right to do whatever we wanna do. However, invasive, it may seem because we have the right to own. You. In effect. And especially once if you come out of that context as an adult, it can be incredibly challenging to tell your parents, you know, my religious life, not really your business, you don't need to go into great detail about your non theist pagan, worldview and practice.

If you know that it's gonna send them ballistic, you can just tell them. Sorry. I, I'm not interested in talking with you about that. Let's talk about something where we can connect,

Yucca: Right. And so hopefully, hopefully they'll be able to leave it. There will be sometimes for some people, the, the case where they, they can't right where the, the parent or, and we're saying parent, but it may be somebody else. Right. But, but often it's gonna be a parent just because of that, that power dynamic there, but that they might not be able to, to let go of that.

And that might just be something that, that you'll need to draw firmer Bo boundaries with.

Mark: Right. Particularly, I'm thinking about going to church.

Yucca: Right

Mark: You know, there may come a time when you do now. I mean, you may decide that discretion is the better part of valor, and you'll just kind of suck it up and go to church with them when you visit them or whatever that is. But you can also very legitimately decide.

I don't want to put any more energy into this institution that I find toxic. And sorry, mom, I'm not going to church with you this week. I don't do that anymore.

Yucca: Right. Or if you've got your own kids, that's gonna especially be an issue with parents or parents in laws that, you know, they have a very strong idea about how you should be raising your family or whatever it is. And you may not wanna put your, put your kids through the same thing that you were put through or that your partner was put through.

Mark: Right.

Yucca: And

Mark: there's harm. There's potential harm there. If you're trying to raise your kids, you know, with body positivity and a sense of gender equality and, and inclusiveness for lots of different kinds of people and sex positivity and all those kinds of good progressive values that will make them healthier people as adults. may very well have to say, no, I'm not gonna let you take my kid to Sunday school. I'm not gonna do it. That's gonna fill their head with stuff that I don't want 'em to have. And you know, maybe, maybe this is a deal breaker for you, but if you wanna see your grandkids, we have to have some agreements about how you will talk with them about these things.

Yucca: Right. And that can be a really tricky thing when it is the, your partner's parents and the partner, and you have different approaches to the boundaries with those. With those parents. And that can be a big issue even when there aren't kids involved. Right. As you know, how do you dealing with the other person's family?

Mark: Well, that then is a, an issue in your relationship,

Yucca: yes, right. And that's

Mark: it's not just a thing about your relationship with the in-laws, it's a thing in your relationship, you know, how are you gonna stick up for me? In relation to your parents' disapproval of whatever, because you're my partner and I expect you to stick up for me.

Yucca: right. So those are, those are things to, to figure out. Right. And, and it sounds like mark you and I share a lot of views on. Where those boundaries might be, but for the listener, that's a, that's a personal thing to figure out, right. Maybe we seem kind of extreme to you or, or like we're taking it too easy, but really starting by figuring out how do you really feel about it now?

How do you think you should feel? How do you really feel and is that what you do want to feel? Right. And if it isn't, do you wanna work on. On practice, a ritual to try and shift that right. And to try and change what, what some of your positions are, but you gotta figure out where you're at and be clear about where you're at,

Mark: and what you want.

Yucca: what you want.

Yeah. To be fair to yourself and to the other people in the relationships, right. To be clear with them. So that it's, you know, they're not guessing about what your boundaries.

Mark: Right.

Yucca: Today it's okay. But tomorrow it's not. Okay. You know, you gotta be clear.

Mark: that sends a terrible signal to everybody. If you're kind of, Kneely mouthed about these things and sort of trying to walk a knife edge for one thing, no one will thank you for it. You know, the people that you're trying to protect will think that you're insufficiently, you know, Viewing to their line and the people whose, whose boundary setting, you know, who need you to set boundaries are gonna see you as weak and ineffectual and not very committed to what you say you're committed to.

So it's important. It really is very important to understand, okay, this is my life. What do I want? What do I want out of this relationship? Is that possible? Out of this relationship. And if it's not, then maybe you have to make some hard decisions about ending communication or, or strongly controlling communication.

I know people who will not let their in-laws go off with their kids,

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: they will only let the in-laws visit when they are present.

Yucca: sure. Right.

Mark: And. That's just how it is for them and the in-laws aren't happy about it. I, yeah, I

Yucca: see the grandkids.

Mark: right. Yeah.

Yucca: That's the condition. Yeah.

Mark: yeah. And maybe that's. You know, and this takes courage. It bears saying, you know, drawing these kinds of boundaries takes courage and, you know, you can end up getting a screening voice on the other end of the phone.

You can end up getting long screened emails that tell you what a terrible person you are, because you're, you know, trying to deprive them of their grandchildren or whatever the is. Especially when you're a parent, you have to think not only for yourself, but for your kids. And think about the wounds that, that religious background put in you, that you're working to transcend what a favor you can do for your children by not letting them be wounded that way.

Or, or buffering them as much as possible from the, the messages that the society gives them about, about their sexuality, about their gender, about their body shape, about their color, about

Yucca: whatever it is. Yeah. And, and we do know that with. With our kids one day, they, they will be exposed to those

Mark: mm-hmm

Yucca: but but that buffering could give them some time to develop and have some literal brain development and self esteem and all of those things to develop first before some of they have to be, you know, smacked in the face with somebody being racist or sexist or whatever it is to them.

Mark: Right. And they know that you're in their corner.

Yucca: Yeah,

Mark: Because you're affirming who they are in all ways. So when they are confronted with that kind of bigotry, they can come back to you for support

Yucca: right. And maybe have some tools to deal with it that they wouldn't have had when they were five or when they were nine or whatever it is yeah. That they can deal with. There's another component that I think is really important to bring in, in this piece of the, the self-reflection and the drawing your boundaries is to really be mindful about what is actually in your control and what isn't in your control.

And when you're setting those boundaries, are you actually setting boundaries for yourself or are you trying to control somebody else's behavior?

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: And just be, just be mindful and clear about that because that's something that can be a little bit slippery sometimes.

Mark: And people can use things that are in their control in very subtle ways to make it hard for you to draw a boundary or stand up for yourself. One of the things that my parents did is I had to go to their house. It was the only, the only way that I could ever see them or my siblings cuz I'm the oldest of seven was to go to their territory, a house that ran by their rules, where they were the authorities

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: and it became quite clear.

That, that was one of the many ways in which they were deliberately disempowering me as well as, you know, bad mouthing me to my siblings and all that kind of stuff.

Yucca: Right. Hmm.

Mark: So, you know, maybe. You know, maybe you set some conditions on the relationship, you know, if you want, see me, come see me. Right. 

Yucca: Or neutral territory,

Mark: yeah. Well, we'll, we'll, we'll meet at the aquarium and look at fish.

Yucca: yeah.

Well, that that actually leads to kind of the second part that I, that I wanted to talk about which we've started with the, what do you do when the relationship actually is very toxic, right? That's what we've been talking about, but there's also, and I hope this is gonna be a little bit more common of a situation than what we've been talking about, the situation where it's just uncomfortable.

They have a particular set of beliefs and you have a different set of beliefs and you don't really kind of agree with each other and maybe you don't really wanna talk about it, but how do you still be able? So you've, you've set boundaries and they're respecting those boundaries. How do you then get to still have a meaningful relationship and share things with them without, without this your choices and their choices about.

You're religious and, and personal lives being a relationshiper. And when you brought up the aquarium, that was one of the things that I was thinking about. You know, I have some siblings who are not pagan, right? My family's very split. We have half of us who are pagan and the other half who are, are quite Christian.

Right. And you know, we still love each other deeply and share things, find things that we both value. And share those particular things. And they are things that I think are, are pretty pagan personally. Right. Let's go look at the fish together. Let's go on a nature walk like to me, like, yeah, that's, that's super pagan, but they're not gonna frame it that way.

I'm gonna frame it that way, but I'm not gonna rub it in their face. Right. I, I'm not gonna be like, oh yeah, you know, we're gonna go do our pig, anything. Also speaking of query, you've got an aquarium shirt on don't you

Mark: Oh, oh, I do Monterey bay aquarium. Yeah. It's Monterey bay aquarium a collection of sharks,

Yucca: Ah, sharks are great. So,

Mark: know, that sharks predate trees. Isn't that amazing.

Yucca: It makes sense when you say it, but wow. Yeah, we went to the aquarium. I took the kids to the aquarium recently, and this week we went to the zoo. And they, they lost their minds with light, with all of the animals.

Mark: Mm-hmm

Yucca: So, but their favorite though, were the PFO. So there was a P H with her little chicks following behind.

And even though it was like there's lions and polar bears, they got to actually like interact with the, with the peacocks and they just were so happy. So anyways,

Mark: Cool.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So, yeah. I think really understanding, maybe even drawing a Venn diagram, you know, what, what are we sharing common? What are our common interests and passions? You know, if we both really love gardening, we can do some gardening together and you know, that doesn't, or, or, you know, or hunting.

Yucca: mm-hmm

Mark: Um, I'm not trophy hunting. I would hope because that's. Awful, but you know, food hunting going out and, you know, getting, getting stuff to eat what, whatever it is

Yucca: That was my brother. Yeah.

Mark: Whatever it is that you share an interest in and are willing to kind of meet them in the middle,

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: then you can build a relationship around those kinds of things.

It's so much harder to build a relationship that's spending all of its time, dealing with stuff where you don't meet eye to eye.

Yucca: Yeah. Or trying to prove things to each other,

Mark: Right.

Yucca: right. I mean, if you both, if, what you're, if what if your Vinn diagram has debate club in the middle, maybe that's different. Right. But , but otherwise, you know, that you can spend your energy, you've got a limited amount of energy to spend on things. So what's it gonna be, right?

Is it gonna be those shared things that you, that you love and can you have a relationship with this person without needing to, to agree on. Certain things. And I think that that's a good approach for not just family members or close friends, but also the community at large. Right. Are you in a community that, that generally has a different take than you do?

Well, what, what is it that you do share together? Right. And connecting with each other on that really human level makes it so that that's a wonderful experience to have. First of all, but also later on, when you have a disagreement, you see each other as human, because you had that connection about, you know, the park or the gardening or the library or whatever it is.

Mark: right. Yeah. And to me that also brings up the, the necessity of finding support for yourself.

Yucca: Mm-hmm,

Mark: Because when you have these kinds of challenges in your family, finding support from people of common values and views, and also potentially from professional therapists, right. Becomes really important. As you're working to kind of emerge from the shadow of a family that. In most cases has felt like it can tell you what to do and what to believe and who to be and all that kind of stuff. It's really important that you find people that are gonna help you stay strong in your boundaries. Stay clear about your priorities and enable you to be yourself, right? People who affirm you in who you are. 

Yucca: We've already been waving it in a little bit, but do we wanna talk about some strategies and activities?

Mark: Sure let's do that. Yeah. Why don't you start.

Yucca: yeah, so, I mean, we mentioned things like the, the zoo and aquariums and parks and all of that, but For the, the family members that, that you can have that more accommodating relationship with. What are some activities that you would suggest

Mark: Well, what comes to mind immediately to me is, you know, finding, finding neutrally. Posed places like a zoo, for example, doesn't really have a whole ideological piece to it other than animals are cool,

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: which is something that generally, you know, people can agree on whether or not they're pagans or Christians or whatever it is.

What's more challenging is when. There isn't a choice of, of venue. Like, you know, being invited over for Christmas,

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: you know, what do you do there obviously? I mean, especially if you have children, the children are gonna be really amped about the presence and probably the sweets and you know, all the other things that tend to go along with celebrating Christmas and it can be very hard. To be in that context, if somebody starts, you know, saying grace over dinner or, you know, going on about Jesus

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: and my take on that has always been it's similar to my take on, you know, going to theist pagan rituals. It's like your house, your rules. I'm not gonna pray with you, but I will sit quietly. I'm not going to protest. And that is kind of the strategy that I encourage. Now, if somebody gets all bent outta shape at you, because you don't close your eyes and bow your head or say amen, then they probably are more controlling than you can deal with in that way.

Yucca: Right. Yeah. Then we're kind of back to the, the start of the conversation.

Mark: Right.

Yucca: Yeah.

Another thing to, to consider when you are going to say like the Christmas situation. And especially if there, if there are kids involved is making a list, a priority list, right. Of what, what is your top thing that you're gonna have your boundary? Right. Is, are you going to be, you know, do you have certain dietary restrictions? That is the thing that you need to be just really vigilant about, and then you kind of let the other stuff slide because you're a guest, right? Or, but, or what is it? The, what is the, what are the things and how important are they to you in this situation, right?

Where are you willing to be giving a little bit in this, this situation where you. in their space, in their home versus what is the big picture of overall

Mark: Right. And the other thing you can do of course, is you can invite people to come have Christmas at your house,

Yucca: mm-hmm

Mark: and then you can maybe make your statement of gratitude to the earth for all the wonderful things that spring from it and keep us alive. And. Sort of leave it in the lap of the people who have come over as guests, if they feel a need to jump in with a statement about Jesus.

Well, maybe that's okay. Maybe you can have both varieties of invocation. It seems as though in many cases, accommodation can be made unless. Unless the primary orientation of the people that you're negotiating these boundaries with is about control and anger at lack of control, because you're an adult, you don't need somebody else to control you. Maybe they haven't got their mind around the fact that you're an adult yet. But it's time, right? You're an adult, especially, you know, you got your own kids, like, come on.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: I'm I'm not 10 anymore. It's time. It's time for you to respect that. I can have my own opinions about things and live my own life.

Yucca: Right. Well, and this gets into other philosophies, but, and with mine, They don't need to be controlling the 10 year old either.

Mark: Mm-hmm

Yucca: They, they are people too and get their own opinions. Now, do you need to keep them safe from not burning themselves on that stove or, you know, that's, there's levels there, but, but you don't magically become a person when you turn 18.

You've been a person the whole time, right? Yeah.

Mark: right. As soon as you're old enough to have. Tastes and opinions, which probably means by the time you're six months old, something like that. Then it's time for those

Yucca: before.

Mark: tastes and opinions to be respected. Right. And they don't have to be explained, you know, it's like, if you don't like strained carrots, you just don't like strained carrots.

We're not gonna feed you strained carrots anymore. And This is something that for, for parents of previous generations, particularly can be very hard to get their mind around because the traditional parenting model in our society is quite authoritarian. And in patriarchal, it's very much about, you know, the man ruling the roost and. being in a power hierarchy where the children are at the bottom

Yucca: Right.

Mark: and if

Yucca: And even a hierarchy within the children based on age and gender and all of that. Yeah.

Mark: Right, right. Absolutely. So, so hopefully that's dying out at least in some places. But. Those places are not everywhere, you know, and we certainly see plenty of toxic masculinity around us expressing itself in that same sort of outraged way of, you know, how dare you have your own opinion, how dare you be your own person?

How dare you not count how to my wishes.

Yucca: yeah.

Mark: And so once again, it, it really comes down to this thing where you have to balance out what do I get out of this relationship versus what am I being what's being demanded of me? Because I mean, that was really, that was really what. What settled it for me, all I was getting from my relationship was with my parents was criticism and anger and efforts at control and gas, lighting and mockery.

And it had been that way since I was a little tiny kid.

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: And it was like, you know what? You don't have anything good to offer me. I don't, I'm gonna stop drinking from this particular tap because it tastes really bad.

Yucca: Right. And you didn't know him anything.

Mark: Nope.

Yucca: Right. And that, that's one of the stories that is, well, you know, we, we raised you and sacrificed for you and guilt, guilt, guilt, guilt, guilt. But it at really at. They are responsible for their emotions and you're responsible for yours

Mark: mm-hmm yeah.

Yucca: you know, it's, you don't have to be, and you probably wouldn't have ever been able to make them happen anyways,

Mark: Oh

Yucca: it's a choice on their part.

Right. No matter what you do.

Mark: they were miserable people and that, I mean, that's part of. I think what infuriated them so much about me is that I was not interested in being miserable. You know, I just didn't wanna be the way they were. So, you know, getting away from my example, particularly, I think. Especially in, you know, some of the, like really conservative, evangelical versions of Christianity. It's like the default position is sort of moral superiority and anger at everybody who doesn't follow along. That's that's not a particularly healthy. Thing to draw from, if that's, what, if that's what you're getting from your parental relationship, then maybe it's time not to have that relationship.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Or to distance it a lot and say, you know, I'll visit you once a year or, you know, I'll talk with you on the phone every six months or whatever it is. There are gradations of estrangement, right? But what I found was that I came away from every communication feeling, yucky feeling really devalued and gaslit to the degree of being told that I was crazy and all that kind of stuff, it was just like, no, I don't need this.

I got better use for my time. Life is short.

Yucca: right.

Mark: And it doesn't mean that I haven't gone through lots of pain over that loss over time. And I, even though they're dead, I can still, you know, have pain over the loss of the idealized parent. You know, the dad that actually valued me, the mom that actually loved me, you know, I can still grieve those ideas.

I'm not, sorry. I don't think I missed out on anything by not communicating with them over all those years before they died.

Yucca: Hmm. Yeah.

Mark: So remember, it's your life?

Yucca: Right.

Mark: Yeah, it's your life and you get to live it. You get to make the decisions that seem to be best to you. And some of them are gonna be fuckups, but that doesn't matter, you know, that's, that's the nature of being a human. Having someone else tell you how you're supposed to think and act is not something you need in your life.

Yucca: right. Because they're not in your shoes. They're not you.

Mark: Nope.

Yucca: actually, nobody really knows what they're doing.

Mark: yeah. Yeah. Yep.

Yucca: It might seem like it. But I think about this a lot. Do you remember being a kid and looking at adults and thinking that they knew what the hell they were doing and now that you're adult an adult. Do you feel like, you know what you're doing? Nobody does. Right.

Mark: well, I mean,

Yucca: to some degree, but

Mark: But, but parents often represent themselves as these competent authority figures to their children, because that's where they get the authority to say, don't do that. Right. And. Yeah, it's all affront. And you, you talk with any parent that will be honest with you about it, and they'll tell you it's all affront it's like, I

Yucca: terrified. I dunno what the hell I'm doing?

Mark: right, right,

Yucca: I'm messing them up. That's what? That, what we all worry.

Mark: right.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Well, In my experience, the thing that somebody needs more than anything else as they're growing up is the sense that there is some adult somewhere who finds them valuable and lovable and is in their corner. No matter what if there's one such person, whether it's an uncle or a grandparent or a family friend, just one such person, it makes all the difference in the world.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So be that for your kids.

Yucca: Mm-hmm or your niece or your nephew, or

Mark: Right?

Yucca: right. And for yourself too,

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: right?

Mark: Yeah. And that can be the hardest of all of those challenges because we hold ourselves to such impossible standards. And that internal critic voice that we've talked about before, it can be so incredibly cruel.

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: Just really over the top cruel, you would never talk to another person the way that that voice will talk to you.

So it's a good idea to find ways to curb it, get it, to get it to calm down and shut up.

Yucca: Yeah, well, you know, this was really fun. We, we went kind of all over the place with this and it was a, it was a great conversation.

Mark: Yeah, I think so too. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Yucca.

Yucca: Yeah. Likewise.

Mark: Okay. We'll be back next week. 

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at [email protected]

S3E28 TRANSCRIPT:----more----

Yucca: Welcome back to the wonder science based paganism. I'm your host Yucca.

Mark: and I'm mark.

Yucca: And this week we have a really interesting topic. We're gonna be talking about. Religion in general, what is religion? What purpose does it have? And also looking at how naturalistic paganism differs from the, the big three in Western society.

Mark: Yeah, I'm really looking forward to this conversation because these are questions that I've spent a lot of time researching and thinking about parti. When I was first pulling the threads together, that would become Ethiopia paganism. Obviously when you think about, well, why do people have religion, then you have to start asking yourself what is a religion, right.

And everything sort of tumbles downhill from there. It's very interesting.

Yucca: Yeah. And you'll certainly get different opinions on what a religion is. We were talking about before this, how there are some folks who will say that they'll define religion in such a narrow way that really only Christianity, Judaism and Islam fit into the category. And they'll kind of ignore the rest of the many, many different possibilities that humans have, you know, just today, not even thinking about what we've had in the past and may have in the future.

But we're gonna be taking a little bit more of a, a broader perspective on that.

Mark: Right. Yeah. I mean, for those religious scholars and anthropologists of religion who focus down on a very narrow, definition of religion that only slots to those. Kind of major movements throughout the world. To me, that's begging the question. I, I think what we ought to be looking for is what are the human needs that are being met and by what kinds of mechanisms and how can we generalize about that into a definition of all of those kinds of behaviors and needs.

And crystallize that down into a definition for what a religion is that that's been my approach.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: So let's get into it.

Yucca: Yeah, we should say before though, that we will be comparing a lot to those big three that we've been talking about and that's, you know, it's not to be picking on them or singling them out or anything. It's just that the societies that both mark and I come from are very steeped in these.

These are the Christianity has really influenced and shaped so much of our cultures in ways that we're aware of it in ways that. often, you know, unaware of as well.

Mark: Right because we are so. Inured to them. They're so normal to us that it doesn't even occur to us that it's possible to live any other way or to think any other way about the world. Particularly we're going to be talking a lot about Christianity because that's what the really dominant religion in the United States where both of us live, but.

A lot of what we're saying could also be applied in areas that are dominated, say by Islam or by conservative brands of Judaism or other faiths that share these kind of general characteristics. So it's not to pick on Christianity particularly. It's it's more to say this is what we're most familiar with and what we see.

Creating the subtext for the over culture of where we live.

Yucca: Mm-hmm right.

Mark: So let's get into it. Where, where should we start?

Yucca: Well, I think with, you know, what a religion is and the purpose of a religion, right. And those two are kind of blurred together. Right?

Mark: Right, right. And of course, depending on what religion you are, you'll have very different answers for that. Because if you ask a Christian, what the purpose of their religion is, it's salvation, right? You're, you're supposed to follow these rules and. Cate yourself to this God, and that will get you a ticket to heaven with various terms and conditions applying depending on what the faith specifics are.

Yucca: The particular sect within there. Yeah.

Mark: Right. But when we look at a, in a broader sense not religious specifically, worldwide. And over time we can see that what religion has done is provide certain things for populations of people. It's given them a sense of shared values.

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: It's given them a sense of community and connection with one another.

It's given them a way of making sense of the calendar in terms of celebrating a, a set of seasonal holidays around the course of the year. And it's answered big questions that That people ask, like, you know, why am I here? What am I here for? What's the purpose of living? What is, what is the nature of the universe even,

Yucca: I mean, it's, it's creating the context, right? It's how do we understand our context, us, our relationship to community and the world.

Mark: right, right. And. As we look throughout the world, we can see that people's spiritual expression. Does those things for them, no matter what kind of spiritual expression it is, even in monastic communities, their communities, right.

Yucca: mm-hmm

Mark: Um, very, very rare to find people who are so monastic that they, you know, essentially go to a cave and do their thing by themselves.

Because humans are social creatures and mostly we like to feel connected with each other in some sort of shared. Enterprise, right. Some way of organizing our society so that we can eat and we can be safe and we can be happy as best we can. So. When I was studying all this stuff and, and I really went down the rabbit hole into brain structures and how the brain evolved that I won't really get into now, but the appetites of the various systems of the brain map, pretty, pretty well onto the things that religion provides.

Right. And. considering all this stuff. My conclusion is that a religion is basically a combination of three things. The first is a description of the universe or a cosmology, and that can be heaven and hell in purgatory and the, the, the world in between, or it can be a wheel of karma that you're trying to get off, or it can be.

The, the narrative described by science, which is the one that we subscribe to the, the description

Yucca: shifting and changing.

Mark: yes,

Yucca: Yeah. But we've got several standard models that we're working with at the moment. Right. And those get challenged and they change slightly. And.

Mark: right. But there's. There's a fundamental belief underneath that, which is that science, that the universe is a material set of processes, which are governed by laws and that those laws are consistent throughout the universe. And that we can understand them. and learn to be predictive of what's going to happen in a given situation, based on our understanding of how those material processes work.

That's a very, very different understanding than a, you know, super mystical Christian view where, you know, the mind of God is unknowable and we, we just never know what's gonna happen because anything is possible.

Yucca: mm-hmm

Mark: Yeah. So. Cosmology is the first piece. The second is the set of values. Every religious movement.

Every spirituality, coalesces around a set of things that things that they think are right and wrong, things that they think are sacred and to be protected and revered and things that they, that they think are profane or or worthy of disrespect, not necessarily the last one, but definitely the first one.

And that's important because part of the way that you build community is by having people of like mind, right? I mean, we talk about a pagan community and you know, you're not gonna find any group that's really much more diverse than that. But the one thing that we do have in common is that most of us share a set of values around.

Independence around personal sovereignty, around consent, around equality around inclusiveness. And of course there are exceptions to these rules, but they are not the rule. They are the exception.

Yucca: Right. Well, and, and those particular qualities or properties when there's exceptions. It's usually there's one or two exceptions, but then the others are held, right.

Mark: Right.

Yucca: Kind of like a metal in chemistry. Right. You have all these properties, you remember in chemistry class that made you memorize, like, oh, it's conductive and it's ductile and all the, you know, there's but there's a few exceptions, right?

Mercury is liquid at room temperature, but it's still a metal, but most of the others they're, they're solid at room temperature. Right. So it's like that.

Mark: Yeah, exactly, exactly that. So you've got your cosmology, you've got your set of values. And then the last is a set of practices. And this is where a religion differs from a philosophy, in my opinion, UN under my definition, because a philosophy can have a set of values and a cosmology, and you can talk about 'em all day long, but that's not the same thing as a a.

As a religion, which has holidays rituals, observances modes of dress dietary restrictions, in some cases, all these kind of strictures around behavior and, and prescriptions of behavior. That go into a, a ritual practice. And so when I was creating atheopagan, this is the model that I used. The cosmology was the easy part because all I had to do was point to science and say, listen to them. The values part, I spent a lot of time on thinking about what the definition of the sacred is. And I came up with the four sacred pillars and then the 13 principles, which are ethical principles for. Best to live our lives.

Yucca: Which we have episodes on. We should revisit that soon. Actually. I

Mark: We should.

Yucca: We really should it's but because I think that would've, we were still the beginning of 20, 21, or we might've still been in 2020 when we did those, but the, yeah.

Mark: It's it's been a while. So the idea there, and this, this is something that was a little radical for the pagan world because the pagan world, people tend not to wanna be told what to do. They're very, very. know, reactive to the idea of anybody controlling them. So there's very little in the way of developed ethics in most of paganism at least modern Neo paganism.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: And I feel like lets us off the hook for having to be ethical people. We do have responsibilities to the earth. We have responsibilities to one another. We have responsibilities to future generations and we need to conduct ourselves in a manner that's consistent with that. And then there are also principles that just have to do with how to be a happy and a good person like Humor and perspective, for example, you know, being able to find the humor in things and being able to laugh at yourself are ways to stay humble and there are ways to enjoy your life and to be able to deal with hardship in a way that that lightens it to some

Yucca: Mm. Mm.

Mark: So that was the value system, the four pillars and the 13 principles. And then came practices and that's where the paganism part really came in with the wheel of the year holidays daily practices, observances of the cycles of the moon rituals, just for whatever purposes we need them for like a job search or.

Recovering from grief or Rite of passage to become, you know, to go from being a teenager, to being an adult, for example. And the pagan community really what's the word I'm looking for? Excels really excels at that aspect of religiosity because we're encouraged to create our own rituals and we learn to be really creative and effective at transforming consciousness through the use of ritual technologies.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: So.

Yucca: We're often described as the religion of doing right. It's about what we do. And there, of course is the belief component. But the, the, one of the things that unites pagans often is what we do. Not necessarily what we believe.

Mark: right. What they call an ortho religion as opposed to an oxic religion. Right.

Yucca: yeah 

Mark: this is very different than many of the. The predominant Christian sex that exist around us because they have prescribed rituals. I mean, the sermon may be different every week, but the ritual itself, the mass, all that kind of stuff.

It's the same all the time. And it it's very carefully stipulated. Exactly. You need to do at a given time of year and the priesthood don't have a lot of flexibility in that. Whereas in paganism you may not have priesthood at all, which we don't in atheopagan.

Yucca: Right. Well, I mean, anyone can become a cleric if they, if they wanna go to the website and sign up so that you can, you know, perform marriages legally and that sort of thing. But, but we don't have anything where. Anybody is in a higher position or any sort of hierarchy,

Mark: That's right. Yeah. The idea there is everybody should have the. To marry other people or conduct funerals or whatever, if that's what they want to do and provide that service to the community. But being an atheopagan cleric is a service commitment. It's not an elevation in status.

Yucca: Right. Well, you're not from a different cast.

Mark: No. And you're, and you're not a gatekeeper of secret knowledge or, you know, special rights that only you can do or any of that stuff.

We don't have that. Some pagan traditions.

Yucca: mm-hmm.

Mark: and that's, that's what they do, but it's not what we do. So that's what I think of when I think of a religion. And what I'm always looking for is can you think of any religious traditions or spiritual traditions that don't include those three things?

Yucca: No. I mean, I can think of. The one thing that I can think of that isn't, that doesn't usually get listed as a religion, but has, well, no, some of the, some of the philosophies kind of start to. Blur into that with particular practices. Right. But then they don't come along with Cosmo. I'm thinking of stoicism for instance, but stoicism doesn't come along with a, with a cosmology, but it comes a you've got values and practices, not necessarily holidays.

So, but in terms of something that is seen really as a religion all of the ones that I have exposure to. Seem like they've got something there. Now many of them don't have, there was something that you didn't say, and that was God's right now that may be included in some people's cosmology, but we don't think that you have to believe in a God or a deity to be, or the supernatural at all, for it to be a religion.

That's just one particular flavor of cosmology.

Mark: right. And it's the kind that has ended up dominating the religious spiritual space for thousands of years. But that doesn't mean that it's the only way to have a spirituality, which I mean, some people try to debate with, but we've got thousands of people that are practicing this thing.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: tell us that it's not spirituality or not religion?

Yucca: Or it's just spirituality at a certain point. Like I, for me, it becomes like a, okay. Fine. You can say we're not a religion, but I mean, we are like, you could say that we're not, but we are in, you know, we have legal status to say so as well,

Mark: That's true. Yes. We, we have been recognized by the internal revenue service as meeting the characteristics for a religious nonprofit organization. So, 

Yucca: paperwork.

Mark: there, there is that. Yeah. I think one of the things. Religion and spirituality that it's always important to bear in mind when we talk about this stuff is that there are no universally accepted definitions for either of those terms.

Yucca: right.

Mark: And very learned people with lots of letters after their names, who specialize in these things, disagree, vehemently about what they need. So it's. It's not really our job to try to resolve all that. All I know is that of all of the spiritual or religious traditions that I have been able to learn about worldwide.

They've all had a cosmology, a set of values and a set of practices.

Yucca: Yeah,

Mark: And in many cases that cosmology is populated by one or more gods or spirits or sacred powers of one kind or another. I'm thinking about the African diasporic religion with the law and I, I know very little about this, but those, I don't know whether those are considered gods or whether they're considered to be, you know, powerful spirits that we, we create arrangements with through our own ritual behavior and offerings.

But all of those are. Stories that we tell ourselves about the nature of the world. Right? And that's what a cosmology is. Science tells a story about the nature of the world. Just like all those other ones do. The difference is that science uses evidence and analysis and critical thinking to, to support the claims that it makes.

Yucca: Mm-hmm well, and one thing about the cosmology is that it seems to often reflect the political and social structures that the people. And I dunno if this is a chicken or egg sort of situation, but that the people are in, right. So if we are looking at Christianity and we're looking at the development of it and what parts of the world it came from and what the political structures were at those time periods.

Well, you know, it makes a lot of sense. I mean, the words even have, have carried over, right. People refer to God as the Lord. Right. And this would've, this is coming from a time period where people, you know, we had very defined. Cast system where we had the peasants and the Lord and you know, different names depending on what culture.

And I think that that's probably one of the reasons that it has one of the many reasons that that particular religion has been falling out of fashion the recent time is because our political structures are moving from. That there's the, the nobility and the peasantry. I mean, on some levels we have this extreme gap that's happening as well, but we just don't, but there isn't the loyalty to it.

Right. We're not loyal to our one percenters. We have very different feeling towards them. But that in the, in the past, there was, there was a reason to try and keep your, the, your peasants or country people. Having a sense of obligation and loyalty to the nobility.

Mark: Right. And I think it bears saying that that's not a coincidence. I mean, the religious systems that have been chosen by ruling classes in order to maintain the the. Their power is not an accident. Constantine chose to convert the Roman empire to Christianity. And in the process, he redefined so much of Christianity into an authoritarian religion that you were supposed to submit to.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: The and at its root. Almost all flavors of Christianity are still that ENT. They, they poit a ENT relationship with the divine or the sacred that we're supposed to bow down. And there's something wrong with us that has to be cleansed. And we have to seek salvation in order to get this stain off of us.

All of that works very well if you're the king.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Right. That works really well. If you get to decide who gets the thing that washes off the stain and who doesn't and if you're collecting the taxes, right?

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: So a symbiotic relationship between between religion and political power has existed in almost all places at almost all times.

I mean, I would say the same thing about Buddhism.

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: Because in the case of Buddhism, the entire belief is life is suffering. Learn these mental techniques so that you can suffer less.

Yucca: mm-hmm

Mark: That's great. If you live in a completely authoritarian, totalitarian state, it it's not, you know, stand up and fight. Instead, it's sit quietly and learn these techniques that will help you not to suffer under this, you know, deeply unfair and oppressive system.

Now in modern times many Buddhist, especially in the west have adopted strongly political positions and they advocate that out of their values of things like loving kindness. And that's great. But when we look at the history of where it came from, I think it's fair to say that once again, it was a choice that worked really well for the ruling class.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Paganism is very different than that. Paganism is religion with agency. We don't see ourselves as. Sinful or inherently damaged. We don't see ourselves as needing absolution of some kind of sin.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: We see ourselves as beautiful and luminous and flawed and problematic, and everybody has their trauma and damage that they work to recover from.

And we all work to lift one another up as best we can. In order to achieve the, the actualization of ourselves as individuals and as a community.

Yucca: right. And we see ourselves as natural and part of this world.

Mark: Yes. And this world, is it for us, not an afterlife that you're trying to qualify for, or that you're afraid of. You know, there's, there's none of that extortionary model going on there. Some pagans do believe in some kind of an afterlife, but not to the extent that they're willing to you know, Have a miserable life in this life so that they can go to VHA that that's that's.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: That's just not the way that we approach these things. And I, I have to say just as a caveat, I'm generalizing about pagans. Now. It's very hard to generalize about pagans. There's probably somebody out there who's suffering for Valhalla, just, just to make me wrong. But generally speaking, what I'm saying here in my experience is what's true.

Yucca: That reflects my experience as well. Yeah. So we're making some big, big generalizations. That's it seems to be the general case.

Mark: So we really need to talk about this sin thing. It is profound. How impactful and damaging it is to people who live in societies that are dominated by the idea that people need some kind of spiritual washing in order to be okay. Can be I mean, And it permeates so much of our society. I mean, I, I think about Jewish mother jokes. Right. And they're all around guilt and you know, sense of, you know, I'll just sit here in the dark. Well, and then I'm gonna feel guilty because I wasn't sufficiently kind to my mother. Right. Idea that we should be living with guilt and shame and that our bodies are dirty and that sex is dirty.

And all of those things, we are just so awash in that, that we can't even imagine a society that where it isn't. So even for those of us that are living our lives, Explicitly not to be that way. We are still inside ourselves, struggling with some of that same shame, some of that same body consciousness, because we were steeped in it, growing up in this culture.

Yucca: Right. Yeah. Even, even coming from families that were pagan families or were atheists, right. It's just all around us. Right.

Mark: right.

Yucca: I mean, I can tell you as a child, how many times I heard someone go, Ew, that's so wrong. Right. That's just wrong. Right. Just about normal, you know, human things, right. Or, you know, you showed your shoulder.

Oh, no

Mark: Oh no.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Oh God. Yeah. And just because of, I mean, I was raised in an atheist household but. An extremely Sort of sexually phobic household,

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: shameful. I mean, I never even got the talk, right. A, a book appeared on the coffee table for a week and then disappeared. And apparently that was supposed to tell me about sex, but I never read the book, so I kinda missed out on all that.

I had to figure it out later. But yeah, you know, lots of shame, lots of just the usual kind of Protestant stuff. So that's one way that the pagan approach and particularly the non theist pagan approach really differs from these predominant religious movements that dominate. Our society.

Yucca: Right. Is that we're choosing to not use that framework. Right. Although it's something that we have to be conscious about because we're surrounded by it. We are, you know, we, we, it's part of the history that so much, so many of us come from that we can often fall back on it without even realizing that that's what we're doing.

Mark: right. And there can be added dangers because if you're sex positive, for example, but you haven't really got your mind around consent.

Yucca: mm-hmm,

Mark: And you still haven't figured out that you're still steeped in patriarchy. Well, then you become an abuser, right? You become someone who's who assaults people. So it's really important for us to internalize all of these things as a package, you know, recognizing the ways that things are distorted and rendered unfair and iJust.

In our culture so that we can be conscious about how we conduct ourselves, even in the context of being sex positive.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: This I think is, can be said to be. The big failing of the sort of sex free for all of the late sixties, early seventies. It was still very male dominated and the whole idea of consent culture hadn't really rolled around yet.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: So there were a lot of women who ended up having experiences that they did not want to have. And Hopefully, at least we in the pagan community have learned since then. I've been encouraged to see so much emphasis on consent and and integrity around relation relationships and sexuality in the pagan community.

Yucca: Yeah. You know, that was something that I was so delighted to see at the sun tree retreat where consent, and I'm not even talking about sexual consent. I don't know. Maybe people were doing that. I didn't wasn't involved in any of that, but, but it just feel like may people, it was just so normalized where people, you know, asked permission to give a hug.

Right. And I had my, my. My oldest child with me there, and nobody touched her without her permission. I watched over and over again, and that's not something that happens in our normal culture. People just think that they can touch a kid without the kid's permission. They might ask me as the parent for my permission, which is somewhat bizarre to me that.

I mean, I appreciate asking the parent, but it's actually the kid who it's their body. Right. Whether you can, you know, pick them up or hug them or hold their hand, or, you know, you ask the kid. And that was something that, that just was so normalized at the sun tree retreat was just delightful to be around like, oh, I just feel so safe with all of these people.

Like everybody is really respectful of that. And it was just, and it wasn't awkward, right. Because the first time we try and start making changes in a culture, it feels weird and awkward,

Mark: It does.

Yucca: right. To be like to stop and ask before you touch somebody, if it's okay to do so. But, but we've made that not awkward.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah, that was lovely. I, I really appreciated that too. You, you touch on a subject that I think is another major difference between the mainstream religious traditions and. Hours, which is the possessory model

Yucca: Right.

Mark: because in UN under patriarchal religion, children are possessions and women are possessions of men.

Yucca: yeah.

Mark: And I mean, that's just all very awful, but in my opinion, but that's. The way it rolls and that possessory model extends to the entire rest of the world where life becomes something where of wealth or goods or particular desired things becomes the purpose of living and. And worst of all, in my opinion, land ownership,

Yucca: Hm.

Mark: I, I have a real problem with the idea of land ownership.

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: I, I don't think a human should own anything that outlives that that's, that's going to be around for billions of years after they're gone. And I know that that's the model that we have and, you know, that's how capitalism works. Everything is a possession. Everything is a commodity to be bought, but in my own experience if land is in the commons and we're all responsible for taking care of it, and we have an, an internalized reciprocal relationship with the earth, I think we just end up in a much better. World,

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: but of course that's just a thought experiment on my part. They were, they were doing it here in the Americas before settlers got here.

But

Yucca: It depends on which group, but yeah, right there was, there were, there were and are many, many different tribes. Yeah, I mean, that's a, that's a whole nother topic. That'd be interesting. There'd be a lot to, to sort out with that. 

Mark: I mean, it's, it's tough because you have well-intentioned land stewards. Right. And you, you want them to be able to be the people that are managing lands because they're doing it well. Right. Or at least they're trying to be doing it well, like the national park service which sometimes does it well, and sometimes does it not so well, but it's

Yucca: we're private folks. Right? Right. Like I work with a lot. I mean, myself, I'm a landowner and I have a lot of, and I work with other landowners and in working on restoring our ecosystems and, you know, 

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: there's also, there's a. There's also a, a risk when things are sometimes what everybody is doing, may not always be the wisest thing to be.

Mark: Yeah, fair enough.

Yucca: There's, you know, there's certainly certain, you know, health or so-called health and political movements that are happening right now in certain places and not in others. And some that I look at and I go, whew, I. I think you're off.

I think you're really off. I don't think that that's what the sciences is that there really isn't good evidence for that. I think the science is being misrepresented and yet things are being forced in one way or another. The part of the world that I'm from. We, we have had traditions here for hundreds of years and had people come in with very strong ideas about what we should be doing with public lands and not, and, you know, killed very old traditions.

Right. You've got people coming in and thinking that that you shouldn't be that cattle on the land is bad. Just universally, no nuance there. Right. And then peop and then the people who've been doing it for hundreds of years, can't do it anymore. And their, you know, their livelihoods and their culture and their traditions have just been taken away because people came in and who were outsiders?

Frankly, right. They come in from Northern California and from all these other places and go, you're doing our way now. And then they split anyways, they're gone. Most of the people who made those who made those rules, aren't even here and leave the, the destruction in, in their wake. So I, I hear on the one hand what you're saying that I think that it's a, that it's a very tricky matter,

Mark: Well, I agree. I agree. And it's always. Once again, you know, the, the other big aspect of the over culture, other than the religious overlay and all the sort of value pieces is capitalism.

Yucca: mm-hmm

Mark: And it's very hard for us to imagine any other system than capitalism because we're steeped in that too. And it's a fair question. Well, if you're not gonna have capitalism, what are you gonna have instead?

Yucca: and how are you gonna transition there

Mark: Right. And how are you gonna get there? And that's, it's a legitimate question and I don't claim to have all the answers to that. What I know is that, you know, especially here, you know, watching what happens here in California, where we're so populated, you know, every, every. Get rich, quick developer wants to grab parcels on the edge of cities so that they can throw up some kind of quick, make a buck project and then head out of town.

They're not gonna own it. They're just gonna throw it up and sell it. And, you know, we lose a lot of farmland that way. We have whole huge sprawling cities built on top of some of the finest farmland in the world.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: So. I don't know. Yeah.

Yucca: a pretty impressive fault line too.

Mark: Yes.

Yucca: I might not be the, just putting that out there might might be maybe someplace that you might wanna reevaluate where you're putting large population centers. That's another question looking at well then where, where do you put large populations that

Mark: Well, you D well, you don't put 'em somewhere where you don't have any water. That's that is where I would start.

Yucca: that's a, and that's gonna be a problem in the area. We are look at it with the developments going up here and going, but there isn't you're you literally will not have water in 15 years. Like, what are you doing? Right.

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: So,

Mark: Yeah. We're gonna see suburban ghost towns. I'm sure. In places that just simply can no longer serve water to the, the people that they're under contract to. Okay. But we're, we're a.

Yucca: off the field. Yeah. And, and I should say, I did mention, you know, I. I actually do level folks in Northern California, but that was, that is one of the specific areas where we've had issues, where people come from a very different cultural area, very different attitudes, access to resource and money.

And then, you know, come here, make a bunch of changes and then split to the next new, cool place to be in. And. Know, those of us who were just kinda left behind, like, oh, thanks. that? Okay. You just you know, tripled our property taxes and priced out of our own town and destroyed our livelihood stake. So yeah.

Mark: Let's go back to religion.

Yucca: Religion. But the, the attitude, some of those attitudes, I think. They come out of our, what we've been talking about with the religious cosmology and the political systems, which informed those cosmologies

Mark: Yes. Yes. I really think that's so, the, the very concept of democracy struck right at the heart of the domination by Christianity of the west.

Yucca: mm-hmm

Mark: Um, the, because of course the. The core principle of political rulership in Europe anyway, was the divine right of Kings, which was a declaration that was made by first the Catholic church.

And then, you know, church of England and whoever that the

Yucca: Jesus said give onto Caesar. Is that where they were getting it from?

Mark: I have no idea, honestly, I don't, I don't know where it comes from, but there was some kind of I rationalization and that, that if your king is cuz God wants you to be king and therefore the structure of our society unfair and oppressive as it may be is God's will.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: And the idea of democracy really strikes.

The, the foundations of that. And as problematic as the founders of the United States were in so many ways and as

Yucca: Even for their own time period at many boy.

Mark: yes. In, in some cases, even for their own time period nonetheless. What they chose to do in setting up the United States was really very radical at the time. Now it it's not radical anymore.

It needs a refurbish, but at the time and of course it was an inspiration for the French revolution.

Yucca: mm-hmm.

Mark: Which was also seeking to overthrow specifically the domination of not only the royalty, but of the clergy class the, they, they very much called out the churches as being culpable in the oppression of the people.

Yucca: Yeah, it's a really interesting time, period.

Mark: Very.

Yucca: I mean, I think most time periods are interesting, but there's, there was so much change. Happening in the Western world at that point.

Mark: Yes. Yes. And unfortunately what ended up happening was that they ended up with a dictator, but eventually they became a democracy and now Francis in reasonably good shape overall in terms of actually having a functioning democracy, of course, they've got a weird fascist part of their country that wants to vote.

Marine Lappen. But other than that, but I, I digress. I digress,

Yucca: gone on one tangent already.

Mark: right. Let's okay. Let's leave it there. So when we talk about paganism, really what we're talking about is a, a radically different way of understanding ourselves, our relationship to the world, our relationship to our society around us and how. We envision an ideal world, all of those things. And it took me a lot of years to kind of soak up all of those things because you know, a lot of it, it's not like there's a book, there's no secret text in paganism. That'll just tell you, well, you know, here it is, this is, this is how we understand the world. And that's part of the reason why. You know, it's good for us to do a podcast like this to sort of spell out, you know, this is how we have come to understand living as pagans in the United States confronted with the issues that all of us confront.

Yucca: Right. Well, and we should, at this point, say we do not speak for all naturalistic pagans. We don't speak for all athe pagans. We're, you know, We can talk about general themes that we see in most people or most atheopagan. But, but again, we're two people, right? And that's a, that's another big difference is, you know, we're mark.

You're not the, you're not the Pope of, of atheopagan. Right.

Mark: I'm the Nope of atheism 

Yucca: And, you know, there is a, there is a atheopagan society council. And, but again, we don't have the that's that's like you were saying, those are positions of service, right? That's that's, those are jobs that we're doing to try and help the community. Not because we're bossing and making decisions for everybody else.

Mark: And that's a part of the core values of paganism is that we value diversity. And in valuing diversity, that means that we have to acknowledge that we're not all going to get into lockstep in March. Now hopefully we can agree about some common ideas and you know, proceed from there in order to help improve our world and to have good lives.

But we also have to acknowledge that there are gonna be people on the fringes that disagree with us about core stuff. And they're still pagans.

Yucca: Yep.

Mark: They're still, you know, they're still doing rituals and maybe they're worshiping gods or, you know, observing the wheel of the year, whatever it is. You know, we're not, we're not trying to gate keep people who don't fit our model.

Yucca: Yeah, well, and there's, there's a good cautionary tale about being in lockstep. There's a bridge in R. Which is a city in Southern Spain, and it has a very famous, beautiful bridge. And it's the stone bridge. It's amazing. It goes across this huge Gorge, but it's the second bridge that was built because the first bridge that was built, they went across, there was a procession.

I think it was Simon. And they, the bridge collapsed because everybody was in step when they went across the bridge

Mark: So they hit the residence frequency of the bridge

Yucca: it collapsed. Yeah.

Mark: it to death.

Yucca: Yeah. And so when they rebuilt the bridge, they built the most overdone, its beautiful stone bridge. It's huge. Really look it up. It's just amazing. But

Mark: It's gorgeous.

Yucca: okay. Yeah, I lived there for a year. So walked across that bridge, you know, every day just stunning, but yeah, the first bridge came down and that's not, you know, there's warnings about other bridges.

They tell you don't do that. When you go across, you know, you have to, don't be in step.

Mark: The Romans learned this they, they had outstanding orders that their legions had to break step to cross bridges.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: and it's still a military thing today. You know, if you're gonna cross a bridge, you do not March across because you never know if you're gonna hit the wrong frequency and knock your bridge down.

Yucca: So, bring that back as a metaphor of, you know, I think it's probably a pretty good thing that we aren't all in step with each other because we could, you know, we could hit that wrong frequency. So

Mark: Yep. Yep. So what else did we have on our, on our

Yucca: You know,

Mark: of things to talk about?

Yucca: we had to put as a category to talk about specifically how we differ from Christianity. But I think we've really been covering that. We kind of woven that in. Is there anything else that you wanted to mention specifically about that?

Mark: Not, not that I can think of except insofar as acknowledging religious trauma.

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: A lot of people arrive in both atheist spaces and in pagan spaces, having really been wounded by their experience with mainstream religions. Because they've been told that they're valueless and that they're tarnished and that they're That, that their only value is as a servant of God and that they're sinful and all those things.

And in many cases, and particularly people that are marginalized you know, who, who can suffer greatly at the hands of mainstream religion. And I just feel like. It's important for us in the pagan community to acknowledge that this is happening and to do what we can to provide resources for people so that they can heal. When I've attended atheist conferences, what I've seen is a lot of angry people who just wanna argue against religion

Yucca: Right,

Mark: and, you know, having never been. A Christian or, you know, a member of any of those religions. I don't have that injury. And so my question is always, okay, well, so we're atheist now. What,

Yucca: right.

Mark: how do we live?

How do we be happy? What's important. What, you know, what do we do?

Yucca: Right.

Mark: So, I really encourage our listeners. If you feel like that woundedness describes your situation, there are organizations and we can put a link in the show notes for people who are recovering from religion to get help and you know, really welcome you to our communities, if you choose to be in them.

And Hope that you will find yourself feeling better about that stuff soon and able to move on into a better part of your life.

Yucca: Right. Well, and that's also something to emphasize that we don't believe. What we do is necessarily the best fit for everybody, right? We're not worried about converting anyone. You know, we wanna be welcome welcoming and inclusive and invite, but certainly we have no interest in trying to go and. Make you believe the way we do or change your opinion on this or any, you know, this is, you know, this is by, this is a at will thing that we're doing, right.

You're invited to join us and we'll love if you do, but if you don't, that's fine. Right?

Mark: As, as, as people have sometimes said, if you don't like it, you can't have any

Yucca: And so, well, This has been a good conversation.

Mark: Yeah, I think so too. Thank you, Yucca. I really enjoyed kicking this around with you and I imagine we'll get some interesting feedback as always you can reach [email protected] and thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week.

Yucca: By everyone.

 .

Book mentioned: “Powwowing in Pennsylvania: Braucherei & the Ritual of Everyday Life” by Patrick J. Donmoyer

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40605053-powwowing-in-pennsylvania

Eric's website is at www.ericsteinhart.com

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at [email protected]

S3E27 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 have a very special episode of The Wonder. We're really excited to discuss urban paganism with two guests from New York City, Joh and Eric Steinhart. And so welcome to both of you.

Eric: Hello.

Joh: Hi, thank you so much for having us great to be here.

Mark: really delighted to have you, so I guess, to get started why don't we just ask you to tell us a bit about yourselves? How did you come to non paganism? You wanna start Joh?

Joh: Sure. My name is Joh. I've lived in New York for about 16 years. My path is very new. It's only about four years old. I've always been drawn to certain. Aesthetics around the occult I was a teen goth in the nineties, which perfect for that, but I never, I never really thought that I fit into any of those paths.

I couldn't put my finger on why. A few years ago I purchased a, a beginner's book on, on witchcraft and developing your own identity as a witch. I got it just for fun, for a long train ride. There's a bit in there in the beginning that outlines different kinds of witches or witchcraft like green witches, kitchen, witches, chaos, magic, wicca.

I'd heard some of these. Terms before, but they're described very plainly in the book and it gave me a little bit of a glimpse into how vast of a world paganism might be that I didn't know anything about, or I hadn't realized. So I started reading a lot more about developing a practice, but still didn't really feel like I fit in.

I couldn't relate to the belief system parts. And in one of my internet rabbit holes, I learned about the book godless paganism, which described paganism from a more science based lens. And I just got really excited about what that sounded like. So I ordered it to my local bookstore and I devoured that book, the concepts, it taught me even more about how personal one's path can be and that there is this little corner of this world that felt like a fit and like I could belong.

So then I started looking for a community because I was so excited and I wanted to talk about it with people. And I was clicking on links and links and links online and finally found the atheopagan Facebook group, which was the first active community that I had found that actually had recent activity in there.

So I, I joined and I've been in that community for about two to three years, and it's just such an incredibly supportive, inspiring place that gives me ideas of how to develop my practice even more. And you know, now fast forward to today, I'm just really grateful to have found this community and group and little subset of of the path.

Mark: That's great. Thank you.

Yucca: Yeah, Eric, what about you?

Eric: Yeah. So, I mean, I come from a very strange place. I mean, I'm Pennsylvania, German and Pennsylvania, German culture often known as Pennsylvania, Dutch, but we're not Dutch. We're Germans. And that culture is a magical culture and, you know, magic was normalized in that culture from the very beginning from its very roots.

And so I grew up with a lot of that stuff. I mean, I grew up in, in a culture that was filled with magical practices of all sorts. And I mean, nominally, I mean, you know, nominally explicitly a Christian culture, but probably a lot of Christians would say, no, you know, you guys are doing some weird stuff. And, you know, I, I became attracted to science and early on and, you know, just don't really have a theistic worldview at all.

So combining some of those things got me and I, you know, and I was in, I was involved sort of in, in atheist movements for a while and found a lot of atheism to be kind of, practically shallow, you know, there's, it's like, yeah, after you're done being mad at God, what do you do then? I mean, and there was like nothing.

And you know, my, I would always say things like, look, there's no atheist art. You know, there's like atheist music, you know, there's just, you know, there's, there's no culture, right. Or the culture is, and more and more people have observed this. It's kind of parasitic on Christianity in a way. And so I found that very unsatisfying, right?

Certainly I know plenty of atheists. I'm a philosopher, I'm a philosophy professor and I know plenty of, you know, professional atheists and all they do is talk about God. And so I'm like, look, I don't wanna talk about God. Let's let's let's talk about something else. Let's do something else. And I found that paganism in various forms, it was just kind of, kind of starting, but in various forms, you know, had a culture had art, had aesthetics, had practices, had symbols had a fairly rich worked out way of life.

And as a philosopher, you know, I've got plenty of training in ancient cultures, particularly Greek and Roman but also also Germanic. And you know, I just thought, oh, This stuff, all kind of fits together. And so I became very interested in thinking about ways and I've advocated among atheists to say things like, look, you guys have to start.

And, and, and women too, you've gotta start building a culture and you can't build a culture of negativity, you know, a culture of no, a culture and especially not a culture. That's essentially a mirror image of Christianity that all you're doing is talking about God. And you know, I've had a little success there, but it's a, it's a tough hall.

But I think more and more something like a kind of atheopagan could really be a live option for the future of lots of aspects of American culture, right? As people become de Christianized, what are they gonna do? And some people say, well, they're just gonna be secular. But that's not really an answer and that's not a culture.

And as you start looking around, you start to see these other cultures that are kind of bubbling up and developing. So yeah, I mean, I came to it from, you know, both the sort of old ethnic, Pennsylvania, German angle, the kind of philosophy and science angle and dissatisfaction with you know, sort of mainstream atheism.

So lots of different roads in

Yucca: Wow. That's a, that's a really interesting path to, to come on. So it'd be interesting hear more about the practice, the magical kind of practices that you talked about.

Eric: well, there's a good, there's a good book by this guy, Patrick, Don moer called pow wowing. So you can check that out. It's incredibly rich and incredibly weird stuff, you know,

Yucca: well, we'll find that and put it in the show notes. If people wanna take a look at it.

Eric: Right.

Mark: Yeah. Well, both of your stories are really very interesting that way in, in in that identification of Something being missing, but the, the main, the main offerings that are, that surround us in our culture, not really fitting that hole. That's certainly what I found as well, you know, and it's the reason that I wrote the essay that first started out a paganism.

And I, I should probably introduce at this point that Eric, you, you especially have been involved with various non theist pagan efforts since long before I wrote that essay I just was, did a poor job of research and didn't find the other naturalistic non-theistic paganism efforts that were being done around the world.

Until after I had already, you know, published and was starting to get attention for atheopagan So, as urban pagans living in the city what do your practices look like? Joh, you wanna, you wanna start on that?

Joh: Sure. My practice may not be super urban sounding, but, but. There's some stuff about like spots in the city that, that I do. But generally my, my daily practice is in the morning. My apartment faces east and I wake up early enough to catch the sunrise every day. And I'll kind of first just stare at stare at it and kind of greet the sky every morning.

I do stretches to start the day and I position my mat to face that window so that I can really connect with the day while I'm waking up. I have a small focus that I decorate seasonally. I really connect with ritual and the different physical objects around my practice, probably because I was raised Catholic and I always loved the sacred spaces, the incense, the bells, the rituals, and the regalia of it all.

So it's a very tangible practice for me. And I have a. Personal calendar with the, the, you know, the solstice and the equinoxes in it. But also with other days that are very personal to me. Like I celebrate Freddie Mercury's birthday every year, for example, and, and the anniversary of when I move to New York and I'll actually take that day off of work and like use that whole day to really explore parts of the city that I love.

And don't as easily make time for during the rest of the year. And then I also try to cook and eat seasonally as much as possible and really understand what the, what the ecology of this region is like. And I made this spreadsheet that tells me what's in season around here based on what month it is. It makes it easier to shop for and plan meals and things like that.

Mark: Hm.

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: Wow. That's a lot.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Yeah, that's very cool. Thank you, Joh.

Yucca: you have any parks nearby that you go to? Is that part of your practice or more? Just the relationship with the city and the sky.

Joh: There is a really beautiful community garden in my neighborhood. That's open to the public a couple of days a week, and sometimes I'll walk there or ride my bike there and just kind of slowly walk down the paths and see how everyone's set up their plots and what they're growing. And there are bees everywhere and some benches off to the side.

So sometimes I'll sit there and journal a little bit, or just kind of stare into space. And, you know, the people who have plots there are required to volunteer, you know, certain number of hours every week. And there's this section at the end where you can see everyone composting and things like that. So there's that piece.

And then. In the city as well. There are different ways. Speaking of composting, that you can participate in kind of that cycle. So you can go to a drop off spot and bring your food scraps and they'll compost them and, and then use that for the public parks and things like that.

Yucca: Oh, nice.

Joh: that's like another way that allows me to feel more connected to the public parks and spaces of nature that are kind of engineered in such a dense area.

Mark: Uhhuh. Nice. Nice. Eric. How about your practice?

Eric: Yeah. I mean, my practices are probably a little too intellectual. I mean, one of my main practices is trying to figure out how all this stuff can work out and how to make sense of, of, of pagan ideas and practices. Right. That's cuz I'm a philosopher. That's what I do. I mean I do have a little I have a little altar and I do, you know, things, things like that, but I, I do try to think.

A lot about how what paganism means and what kind of pagan concepts are relevant, for instance, in an urban context, right? I mean, cities are not trying to be forests. That's not what they're trying to do. They're not. And, and, you know, trying to work out pagan contexts or concepts and beliefs and practices in an urban setting it may, you, you have to think a little bit differently, right.

Because there's a lot of you know, what you might call mainstream paganism that has a very I think very biased view of what paganism is or should be like we're all supposed to be farmers or, or, or Amish or something. I mean, I grew up with the Amish, you know, I mean, so I'm like, no, no, I know what that is.

And so, you know, thinking of the ways that that cities are natural spaces and that cities are ecosystems not because they're trying to be, you know, a national park, right. I mean, and there's more and more wonderful research among, you know, biologists and ecologists of, of how cities themselves are ecosystems, you know, they are not, they're not phony ecosystems like, oh, New York.

City's great because it's got central park. No, you know, the, the city isn't eco, I mean more and more research onto this is fascinating stuff because you're finding all these species, not just humans, humans are a natural species, but you know, raccoons, cougars, coyotes, you know, and New York city has there, there's beautiful research that's been done in New York city.

Right. We have herds of deer. Wandering the city. We have, you know, foxes. I mentioned the, the raccoons, I think the bird life in New York city is, you know, and so you find things like, and there's a term for this, a technical term for these kinds of critters, right. Sin, Andros, right. These are animals that have adapted to humans and now live.

They flourish with humans. They flourish in cities, right? So, New York city for instance, is an extraordinary place to be a Raptor, a bird of prey, right? New York city has some of the highest Paran, Falcon and Hawk populations anywhere. Right? Because they love the tall buildings. They love the bridges.

Like the bridges are filled with Paragon, Falcon nests. And you're like, yeah, these, you know, life is adaptive. And So I try to think of all the ways that we live together with all these things in the cities and how humans have made a home, not just for humans, but for, for a whole ecosystem of, of critters.

And, you know, like urban raccoons are not like rural raccoons, right. They've things. Right. And it's really interesting, you know, and people study this, you know, scientists, they study like how cities are driving bur particularly birds and raccoons. Are the species been studied most to become more intelligent, they're learning how to solve all sorts of problems.

Right. So, so I find, you know, so part of, I guess my practice is sort of learning about that, observing that, thinking about ways that I mean, we haven't, we have a general issue. In the United States, right. Which is that so much of our space and structure is thoroughly Christianized. And it's not an easy thing to say, oh, well, let's, we're, you know, we're just gonna do something different, right.

When all of your space is structured around a certain way of life. And so, you know, I, I try to think about ways that we can think of all kind like, okay, the four elements, you know, fire earth, air and water for me, light, you know, how do those relate in an urban context, right? Then in the, in a great way in New York city, you know, you can actually go into the earth.

You know, in ways that most ordinary people can't right. And you can go deep into the earth right. In the, in the subways. I mean, you can do that on a daily basis. Right. And you can, you know, I mean, being stuck on a subway, train deep in the earth right. Is a way to like, encounter something that's terrifying and forceful.

So how do you think of that sort of thing in, in a, in pagan ways, right? How do you think of, I mean, New York city is also very close to water. I mean, that's the reason the city exists. Right. It's one of the greatest bays in the world. We have dolphins, we have whales in the Hudson seals thinking of that kind of life as part of the city too.

And I'll mention one other thing, thinking of things like, I don't know if people know about, I mean, you know, about Manhattan henge. Right. So, so you've got, you know, you've got structures there that people recently have started to say things like, Hey, we Stonehenge, we have Manhattan henge. You know, we have a, we have a thing and it wasn't designed that way, but

Mark: Eric, would you like to explain what that is for our listeners? That don't know what it is?

Eric: Yeah, Manhattan henge because Manhattan, the you know, the streets are in a sort of Southeast Northwest orientation. There are two times of the year when the sun come, you know, if you're stand on 42nd street in the middle and you've got skyscrapers on either side, my head is the sun, right. And the son just comes down between, you know, vertically between the skyscrapers and sets, right.

You know, across the water sort of like Stonehenge, right? Like coming down between these monoliths. And I've seen it is, is really incredible. And people, you know, thousands and thousands of people go out in the streets to photograph it. And Thinking about ways that that kind of stuff can develop.

And it might not be stuff that somebody says explicitly like, oh, this is pagan, like it's Wiccan or ARU or drew it, or, or whatever, or witchy witchcraft or something, but these are cultural things that people start to do. Right. And if you start to look around, you see all kinds of little shrines in the city, you know, I mean, there are, there are some obvious big ones in the statue of liberties, like a big pagan statue.

And there are statues of old Greek and Roman deities in the city. There's like, mercury and Atlas are down at Rockefeller center, right? There's a statue of pan at Columbia university there. These, you know, these things exist. And not to, I mean, I, I think also, you know, a lot of urban places in a sort of practical sense of things to do things like art museums, right.

Where you can go in, in New York, the metropolitan museum, and you can see lots of in fact they just are now having a big show on what old pagan statues used to look like. Right. Because they weren't white, they weren't white Mar they were painted. Right. They were dye. And so they've taken a bunch of them made replicas and they could still find microscopic traces of these dyes in the rock.

And so they've now repainted them as they looked. So I'll go see that soon. So there's lots of opportunities for people to do all kinds of things. And I, and I real, but I really do think that. There's a, still a need to develop a lot of cultural infrastructure, right? You could go out in central park and, and do some ritual on the solstice or something, but that's really not.

That to me is like something that sort of slides right off the surface of the culture, cuz it doesn't have any connections to things. There used to be some larger connections before COVID there was a network of drum circles. I don't know if people had been to prospect park in Brooklyn, there were some immense, there was immense drum drum stuff going on there.

COVID kind of brought an end to a lot of that. So we'll see how that starts up, but I, I think there's a lot of There's there's a lot of thing. And if you do wanna go out in, in you know, in a kind of less urban environment, you know, New York city is actually is the highest density of Woodland trails over 2000 miles of trails within a 60 mile radius of the city, cuz the Appalachian mountains just arc right across the north.

Mark: Right.

Eric: And so you can, you can, yeah. It's the highest concentration of Woodland parks and trails anywhere in the United States.

Mark: Wow.

Eric: There's a lot, there's a lot still to be done. And I think I'll just, I'll just leave off with that.

Mark: I was that's. Yeah. There's so much to say there. I mean, you mentioned the met and it's that talk about sacred spaces? I, I mean, the metropolitan museum of art is one of the great sacred spaces of the world. It's like a shrine to all human culture. Joh, I, I know you live in Queens, so I imagine you get to the Cloisters which is another super sacred space for me.

This is kind of out of order of the, the questions that we talked about doing, but are there specific places or sacred spaces that you think of? When you, when you think about urban paganism in your city,

Joh: Yeah. One thing that New York really does well is bigness. There are a few very stereotypically New York spaces that I have like religious experiences and in their giant. So the inside of grand central terminal is one of them. It's massive. It's echoy. The ceiling is painted with this beautiful night sky scene with the Zodiac constellations on it.

Part of what feels so humbling being in there is going off of something. Eric said before is knowing that it's also this hub of this massive living transportation network that enables the movement of thousands, millions of people within this tri-state area. Another one is the branch of the New York public library with the very iconic lions out front it's, it's a beautiful piece of architecture.

It's also inside cavernous full of this beautiful art, larger than life and quiet. It's really like church almost. You feel like when you're in there, cuz you have this like reverence and respect and gratitude for all of this knowledge that's contained in there and that it's free. Like you can just go and like getting a card is free.

It's it still blows my mind. This one is pretty kind of cliche, but the empire state building it's so tall, but the city is so dense that I never expect to see it when I do so I'll be walking somewhere, probably distracted, multitasking, and then I'll look up and it'll just be there in front of my face.

And it's this like instantly calming moment for me and kind of resets me in whatever's going on in life at the time. And then there's like smaller little smaller spots. Like there's a Steinway piano showroom near times square that I like to go visit. I play the piano and it's a really silencing experience, even though it's so busy around there and, and crowded and, and loud, but just to stand outside and gaze in at these beautiful pianos that are handmade just across the river in Queens, like it's really, really cool how accessible places like this are because of that, you know, that network that connects, although the parts of the city, so well, the subway.

So yeah, those are, those are a few that come to mind. how about you?

Eric: Yeah, I think, I think Joh says some great things. I mean, one point there is like the urban sublime, right? Like these, you know, towers that rise to infinity. I mean, it, you can have a kind of experience. That's hard to get anywhere else. If you go like up to the observation deck on the, you know, the freedom tower that replace the world trade centers or the empire state building or Rockefeller center, right.

You go up on tops of these things and you see, you know, from a. Point, and that kind of space is you know, I mean, it's commercial, right? You pay, you're going up to the top of, of a skyscraper, but you, it can induce kinds of experiences that are hard to get elsewhere. And sure, grand central station, that's like a great example of a kind of space that's already, you know, sort of semi pagan in its kind of classical thing.

Like the Zodiac is there and it's this immense space and you can, you can go in and just be you can experience awe and, and, and humbleness and things like that. A lot in the city. And I think, you know, especially when I first started coming to the city and, and probably a lot of people would have a similar experience.

You, you just feel overwhelmed. I mean, the, the sheer size of these things that are around you and unlike I mean, other cities have some of this, but you know, it's not like in New York city, you can walk, you walk a few blocks and you're out. Right. I mean, if you're in Manhattan, you can walk for like 12 miles through this amenity and you're sort of like, I mean, it's, it's humbling.

So I think that, I think, and I think there's a lot of symbolism that goes into that. I'll mention that there have been a couple of urban terror decks, right? That use, I mean, if you think of the tower and you think of just, well, the tower, you know, or you think of things like that, there have been some there have been, there are a couple of urban TA decks, some better than others, but you know, people are, and this is what I think about the cultural infrastructure.

People are starting to build that kind of thing. Right. And start to see these symbolisms in these, in these places. So, yeah, that, I like, I like that. What Joh said about sort of the urban sublime and what mark, you said about kind of these museums that hold all this, this cultural stuff and. You know, I often think of, of paganism in terms of the symbolic, right.

Rather than you know, I'm not much for, for ancient, ancient roots. That, that seems a little racist to me. I'm more into thinking about the future and thinking about things like, you know, if I think about superhuman minds, right? I mean, the city itself is like a high of mind. You know, the city itself is a super organism.

It's a superhuman intelligence. Right. And, and things like me, I'm just like a little sell in this organism. I'm passing through contributing something to it, but the, the amount of energy that flows through San Francisco or New York, or, you know, something like that is astonishing.

Mark: Yes.

Eric: And it's it's information too.

I mean, places like, okay. New York, Tokyo, you know, San Francisco, you know, are, are some of the most information rich places on the planet.

Mark: London, Hong Kong.

Eric: Right. And, and so if you think of like, you know, you think of a deity like mercury or somebody like, or thought, or Glen, you know, these, you may think of these divine minds and these patterns of information.

I mean, I prefer to leave those Dees in the past where they lived, but now you look at super, if you want a symbol, cuz for me, a lot of this is symbolic. If you want symbolism for superhuman intelligence, you know, superhuman mind a superhuman agency, right? I mean the place to one place to find that there are other places, but one place to find that is in the, you know, the rich information flows the density of information flows in cities.

Mark: Mm-hmm

Eric: Right? You, you can really, you can, you don't have to think like, I mean, Okay. I lived in New York city. This means I am part of something that is immense it's 400 years old. It's I don't know how long it'll last, but you know, so many people have contributed to it and you're there you feel it you're like, yeah, I there's this thing, you know, it's immense, I'm a tiny little part of this huge thing.

So.

Mark: and, and I think that's really well said, and it also, it extends beyond the bounds of New York city so much. I mean, I, I think about watching old movies where pretty much everybody came from New York or their immediate family came through New York. It's like the entire culture of the United States is deeply informed by this urban collective experience that then spread throughout the rest of the country.

I was thinking about, you were talking about culture and of course, city is where the culture is, right? I mean, there's culture everywhere, but big cities are there're places where it's easier for people that are cultural creatives to make it. There are more opportunities for them to, to make a living.

And it reminded me, I've lived in two big cities in my life. I've lived in San Francisco and in Barcelona. And one of the things that attracted me the most about both of those places is busking in the underground.

Eric: Oh 

Mark: the, the caliber of musical performance that you can experience. Just at random, you know, by stepping off of a train and suddenly finding yourself surrounded by it is it's like this, this spontaneous moment of, you know, truly religious kind of joy to me.

And it's, it's one of the things that leaps immediately to mind to me, when I think about my fondness for those cities, right.

Eric: Yeah. I mean, I, I think, and maybe Joh can speak to this too. I mean, the you know, thinking of those of those spaces where you can go and, and, and hear music and often the, the cultural thing is, is mixtures of cultures too, like in San Francisco or Chicago or New York. I mean, I can, you know, there are all these little I think, was it, Joh, did you mention Centia, did somebody mention that somebody mentioned that, but you know, there are all these, there are all these, you know, Afro-Caribbean cultures that have come into New York city and you could find all these little things, like all over the streets.

You know, and they have some, you know, Afro-Caribbean significance and there they are. Right. And so you already find lots of, you know, there are lots of alternatives to a dominant, this sort of dominant Christian narrative. There are lots of alternatives already in these urban spaces, right. That come from from other other sources.

Joh: I was actually also thinking about the, the mixture of different cultures. When thinking about some of the places that I like to visit there, there are a couple of neighborhoods in downtown Manhattan that I like to just I'm drawn to them. And I just like to walk around in and think about. The history and evolution of culture in those neighborhoods, like the history of music, of counterculture, of the different immigrant communities that settled there over time and everywhere you look, you can see little remnants of all this history from like a German inscription in the brick facade of a building or a plaque telling you that Charlie Parker lived in that building a 24-hour Ukrainian diner founded by refugees in the sixties that like still you know, still you can't, you it's always a weight.

So there's that, there's that kind of magic too. And then I think just walkable urbanism in general, like increases the likelihood that you'll have chance encounters with not just different cultures, but like different kinds of people who are living different lives from you. Like. There's a community of local businesses and neighbors, and then the city workers, and it's all happening all in the same space.

Like there's no alleyways in New York city. There's like two in the whole city. And so all that stuff is, and activity is just running up against itself and like keeping the environment running and thriving and kind of with this magical energy all the time.

Mark: Yeah. And, and when you think about that, when you think about all those different cultures and different sort of value systems and so forth, all kind of coming together and finding a way to coexist, then it's no surprise that it's the cities that are the blue parts of the United States, right? It's like in the cities, people have figured out how to get along, cuz they have to, there's no choice about it,

Joh: Yeah. And to coexist peacefully.

Mark: And eventually to thrive. I mean, not, not just to coexist, but I to actually have melding of cultures and you know, new and interesting combinations of stuff like jazz, for example in new Orleans and New York and Chicago. Anyway, I, I don't know where I was going with that, but it, it occurs to me that the, the values that we associate with paganism, right?

The inclusiveness, the tolerance, the the appreciation for beauty and culture and diversity and all those things, they really thrive more in the cities than they do in the, in the rural areas, which we think of as more natural, right.

Eric: Yeah. I mean, that's a weird, you know, you find that kind of, to me, very, almost paradoxical or contradictory view in a lot of paganism, which is like, oh, the rural environment is the pagan environment. And you're like, no, the rural environment is filled with fundamentalists, man.

Mark: Well, not entirely, not, not Yucca.

Eric: nah, well, I mean sure, but, but still it's it's yeah, I mean, if you have a sort of polycentric culture where you've got lots of different cultures and lots of different religious ideas and lots of TISM lots of mixing of different religious ideas and you've got, you know, intelligent raccoons and, and you know, sparrows and yeah.

Racoons have little hands, you know, they're learning to work stuff. They're gonna, that's what we're that's what's gonna take over after we're gone. You know, so, so I think that that's already seeing the multiplicity. I, I think of paganism often in terms of multiplicity, instead of, you know, unity, it's like, yeah, there are, there are many perfections and many ways to bring those together and, and integrate them into a system without, you know, reducing 'em to a, to like everybody has to act the same, you know?

And I do think so. I think in, in that sense mark, what you said yeah. About cities having that, all those combinations right. Are really good. Really good. I don't think we're quite there yet in trying to figure out what, you know, the sort of next culture is gonna be, but won't happen in my lifetime, but I, I hope it will happen.

So.

Yucca: One of the things to kind of shift a little bit that, or some qualities that are usually not associated with urban environments that sometimes are, are highly valued in certain pagan circles are things like solitude and stillness and quietness. And those are things that I'm curious. Do you feel like.

It is a fair assessment. That that's not something that really happens in urban environments. And also, is that something important in your practice? If it is, how is that something that is a pagan you, you search out or cultivate in your life?

Joh: This made me think of something really specific. So it's actually, I feel like one thing that happens here is there's so much stimuli going on all the time. That it's actually, for me, at least fairly easy to, to, to be find myself in solitude. I, I live alone and You know, during the pandemic, especially, I didn't see anybody.

And it was, it was very quiet. Actually, if you, you know, if you live in a more busy part of the city and you have an apartment facing the back of the building, that's like a sign that it's gonna be quiet. It actually can get really quiet here, surprisingly. But one thing that I don't know, I think this happened in multiple places around the world, in the beginning of the pandemic, but this, this thing started happening here where at 7:00 PM every day, everyone would leave their apartment and go outside and start clapping for the healthcare workers and essential workers who were actually having to still leave their apartments and help the city run.

And this happened for months and months, every day at 7:00 PM, everyone would go outside and start clapping and, and it really helped, I think with the. Precarious kind of mental health situation that we were all finding ourselves in because we were trapped in these tiny boxes for so long, like scared of going outside because of the density and everything.

And it helped us feel kind of alone together in a way. So that, that goes veers a little bit off of what you were asking, but I think it's actually not that it's pretty easy to find that piece and that, that that quiet and solitude if you if you try, like, not during a global pandemic, but but yeah, that just my mind kind of went there when you asked that.

Eric: I think that was, that was a, a great place to go. I mean, I remember that we didn't go outside, but we leaned out our windows and banged on pots and pans, you know? And that's that was kind of a collective ritual.

Mark: Yeah.

Eric: I mean, it kind of, I mean, it was a collective ritual and I think, you know, I, I wonder about some of that solitude or something.

I mean, certainly in, in lots of urban areas, there's a lot more, I think maybe I'm maybe I'm wrong here, but you know, a lot of collective action, there's a lot of political awareness political activity. And maybe that solitude, isn't quite what people are wanting. Right. Because it's not like I'm gonna go into myself and, and I'm gonna go, I mean, cities face outward, right.

I mean, and that energy gets radiated outward. And I, I probably, if I had to think of my most well, you know, the two very pagan moments in New York city, both were musical. One was when I heard the band high long in New York, which was. You know, almost surreal in the, in the, the juxtaposition of this, this high, long shamanistic, you know, whatever they're trying to bring up.

And it's in, it's in a theater in Manhattan and there are thousands of us there and we're all chanting and clapping and dancing and stuff like that. But probably even, even a little more, you know, pagan than high, long was like one time when I went to a Patty Smith concert in Manhattan. And that was just an, you know, an, I don't like to use this word, but that was intense.

You know? I mean, that was something that was, I've been to a bunches of concerts and that was, you know, everyone just collectively this was, I think the 50th anniversary of her horses album and that's what they played.

Mark: Oh,

Eric: Right. And everyone knew all the words of course, and everyone was simply. Well, like in this unison and that's already you know, Patty Smith's already like, what space is she in with with these kinds of cultural things?

You know? So I, I think there's a lot of opportunities for those kinds of collective mu I mean, music is one, art is one political, you know, political gatherings are be they protests or just activist gatherings. 

Mark: Dancing thing.

Eric: Dancing. Yeah. All those kinds of activities really happen in, in cities. So I wouldn't go with the no, I mean, yeah, like, I mean, Joh was right.

You can be solitary in the city if you want to. I mean, it's probably more solitary there than anywhere else. Right. Because it's certainly in New York because you know, if you're not engaged, like nobody's gonna talk to you.

Mark: Yeah.

Eric: Right. I mean, they're gonna leave you alone. And but I, I do think that there is an enormous amount of col I mean, that's the point of a city it's collective activity.

Right. You know, I lived on a farm. I know what I know what rural isolation is. Like I, you know, I don't wanna do that ever, ever again, so yeah, I dunno if that answers that, but there you go.

Mark: You know, it occurs to me when you talk about that. When I was, when I was in late high school and, and into my first couple of years of college, I was really into punk rock. And of course I was living, you know, very close to San Francisco and there was a huge punk rock scene there at the Maha gardens and some other places.

And so I saw a ton of shows and one of the things that always struck me was these bands never come 60 miles north to where I live. They, they don't leave an urban environment. Right. Because punk lives in the cities and and many of those concerts were truly ecstatic experiences.

Eric: Right.

Mark: I, I mean, the mosh pit was just this glorious experience of mutual trust, where we knew we weren't going to hurt one another, but we were going to fling one another around.

My partner NAEA tells a story about being in a pit in Philadelphia where somebody lost a contact lens and the entire pit sort of went who to make a space so that they could find their contact lens. And they actually did find their contact lens. So, you know, it very, I mean, there's a, there's a very abrasive kind of quality to the punk aesthetic, but really people who cared about one another and, you know, were, were part of something.

And that was very much an urban experience.

Yucca: Hmm.

Eric: Right, right. I mean, I think you, can you get that kind of you get those kinds of energies and a lot of that so far is kind of aesthetic, right? Music, art, dancing, things like architecture, you know? And, and it'll be interesting to see, you know, people translating that more. You know, that's why, I mean, I think for instance, sort of the pagan music is really interesting and the ways that that can go.

And different kinds of artistic expressions. And one of the things we didn't really talk about, which I think of as kind of pagan is sort of the, the visionary community, right? The transformational festivals and, and, you know, visionary art and that stuff, which to, to my mind, is in entirely a pagan culture, a pagan subculture.

And that's, that's there too. Right? A lot of that is in urban areas. Also in New York city, there was an San Francisco too, I believe, but they're a big, you know, I think of stoicism as, as a pagan movement, contemporary stoicism, and there's an enormous enormously rich stoic groups in in New York.

San Francisco comes to mind and a few, there are a few other cities that have, but yeah, San Francisco certainly has all this transformative tech stuff. 

Mark: And the, the whole burning man phenomenon, which is really interesting when you think about it. Because a lot of the people who go to burning, man, don't come from urban centers, but they have to build a city

Eric: right.

Mark: in order to have. The kind of crucible of creativity that they want. And burning man is a very pagan experience in, in at least the one time I was there.

It definitely was not necessarily in a worshipful kind of way, but in a, in a cultural way, the, the kind of mutuality and celebration and expressiveness and creativity that you have in those kinds of environments are they remind me of the pagan community. And of course there's a lot of people there who are pagans.

Eric: Oh yeah.

Yucca: A lot of rituals.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah.

Eric: Yeah, that's gotta be like a paradigm case of how to do religion differently than it was done before. Right. And yeah, I mean, I teach a lot about burning man and you know, I always say to my students, I'm like, well, what do you think a new religion would look like? It's not gonna look like the old ones, you know?

And you find, I mean, there's a lot of that around, I mean, that's, that's obviously closely connected with San Francisco, but there is a lot of that around not just burning man, but there's a, there's lots of places around New York city that are filled with that kind of stuff. I mean, yeah. I'm thinking in particular of like Alex Gray's chapel of sacred mirrors,

Mark: mm-hmm

Eric: which, which used to be in Manhattan, Joh, did you ever see that?

Joh: No, I didn't. Unfortunately.

Eric: It used to be in Manhattan. And now it's moved up the river into the Hudson valley and COVID kind of shut it down, but that guy used to have like weekly I'll just say raves at his place. Right. Wa in Weiner's falls check an hour north of the city. So, so that stuff is all around. Right. And it will be interesting to see if it gets more, you know, as things go on, if it gets, I mean, maybe it will just remain at a kind of level where it's people doing aesthetic things.

Right. And they'll come together in these kind of groups and maybe it'll get more organized. I don't know.

Mark: Hmm.

Eric: Yeah, go to go to, Wappinger go to the chapel. I can't wait till the chapel sacred mirrors opens up again. I went with my, my friend, my friend of mine, Pete, and there was something about, I don't know what, you know, iowaska or something. And Pete looked at me and said, I didn't think this guy would be into drugs if you know, Alex

Mark: Alex Gray. Really?

Eric: yeah. It's like,

Mark: the man who envisions gigantic halos of color all around the human form.

Eric: you know, like 47 eyeballs, you know, like yeah, right. A little irony. But you know, that's, that's you know, it's all around and you know, maybe people don't conceive of it as pagan in a unified way, but maybe they should. Right. So we'll, we'll see where that goes.

Mark: And I think, you know, the other part of it is that people are looking for rituals for, for shared communal experiences. Some of which we've just been talking about, but even people that are doing rituals in a more formally pagan kind of way, they have a much easier time finding others of like mind in a city than they do in an area like mine.

For example, even though I'm close to San Francisco and there's a pretty large population of pagans here there's exactly one atheopagan other than me living in my county to my knowledge. Oh, that's not true four, there, there there's four of us, including me. And that's a, you know, there's half a million people living in my county, so yeah.

Cities become this focus of such energy and, and collaboration.

Eric: Yeah, I think they might. I mean, I, I, you know, there's probably like, you know, 7 million atheopagan in, in New York city. They just don't call themselves that.

Mark: Huh?

Eric: Right. And I think that's an inter I don't know if that's quite true, but it's, I think an interesting point, right? That you have people that are maybe nominally secular, but yet they do all these kinds of things.

Right. And they don't I mean, I make contact with this through my students. Right. Who don't identify as, you know, pagan or atheists, but yet they're doing all sorts of they, you know, if you ask them, do they believe in God? No, but they don't identify as atheists. It's just, they just, they just don't do that stuff, but then they do all kinds of other things.

Right. And you know, they, they do all sorts of, I mean, witchcraft was a kind of popular thing. I don't know if it still is, but they do things right. And they have all sorts of little rituals. Some of which are, are, come from family, traditions, others, you know, they do strange things with crystals, with their cell phones.

Right. Those kinds of things could easily become more you know, a little deeper and a little more widespread where people start to think organically like, oh, what? And sometimes they might just not say, no, I'm not doing anything religious because they think of religion as Christianity and maybe they're right.

And maybe that's right. And so I do find it an interesting point. That you say like, yeah, there might be a lot of atheopagan around you. They just don't call themselves that,

Mark: right.

Eric: you know, and they don't, you know, I mean, I know Masimo is a big leader of the stoic community and we just have this debate about whether or not he was a pagan.

He'd be like, no, cuz that's like star Hawk. And I was like, no, dude, you're reviving, you're reviving an ancient pagan way of life, which is, oh, by the way, your own family history by your own admission, you know? And he's kind of like, like, guess that's true, you know? But he wouldn't call himself a pagan.

Right. But he's doing the thing. So I, I do. And all those people out in San Francisco who do like the transformative text stuff and. A lot of the kind of consciousness hacking and things that goes into like some Americanized forms of Buddhism and things like that. That's, you know, there just might not be a single word for it yet.

Mark: Sure sure. And all the, all the tech millionaires going to south America for iowaska ceremonies, you know, I mean, these, these are not the, the men who founded IBM in the 1950s and all wore an identical blue suit with a white shirt and tie. You know, this is, this is a very, very different culture that we've got now.

Eric: Yeah. I think so. Was there, Joh, were you gonna say it, that it looked like you were gonna say a thing.

Joh: The thing you were the thing you said about, you know, there, there might be 7 million Athens here, but they don't call it that. I just keep thinking about that because there's so many parts about like the set of values and the just human universal human needs, or like seeking for community for for ritual.

The I've, I've seen acts of service, like in the past couple of years, like just becoming more community based here, like mutual aid, community fridges things like that. And, and what you were describing, like not, not your IBM founder, you know, people kind of looking for more right. Trying to. To look for more meaning it's all these little pieces kind of just existing at the same time, but not being named in any way.

Eric: Yeah, or people aren't quite sure. That's why I think that, you know, building a cultural infrastructure, you know, some way to fit things together that says, oh, you guys are all have a lot in common. Right. I don't Joh, maybe, you know, maybe you're tapped into the secret networks. I mean, I don't know, like allegedly there's a zillion you know, iowaska rituals, like all the time in New York or there were before the pandemic.

I don't know what the Panda, I mean, the pandemic transformed so much. There are big psychedelic conferences in New York, right? The the horizons which I've gone to. And but I, I don't know if this stuff is all, is all, you know, secret or, or not.

Mark: Well, it seems as though we're at a time where culture and particularly the monopoly of Christianity has really shattered. And of course it's rebelling right now and trying to lock down everything it possibly can, as it loses its grip on the population. But there are all these fragments of things that are kind of floating around.

It's like the accretion disc around a star, you know, Those things are going to, to glom onto one another and get bigger and bigger. And some of them will just spin off into space and be their own thing or dissolve. But I feel like nontheistic paganism is a kind of an organizing principle that a lot of these things can fit under because it provides meaning it provides pleasurable activities that people find joyful, provides opportunities for people to be expressive and to create family in whatever form that is meaningful and helpful to them.

So it's, it's kind of an exciting time and I, I agree with you, Eric. We're not gonna see the outcome in our lifetimes. I don't think, but this, I think we're at a really pivotal time in this moment. And so working to be a culture creator is a really exciting thing.

Eric: Yeah, I think that's true. And I, I mean, sure. I mean, I think that you know, and I don't know what to make of this as a, you know, an American who's growing older, but yeah, the, the sort of angry Christian nationalists trying to lock down what they can. And I don't know what it's like to live in, you know, Tennessee or Georgia or Indiana.

I lived in the Northeast and, you know, Pennsylvania's an interesting case too, but I mean, you know, New York and north and east, it's like, Christianity's gone.

Mark: Yeah.

Eric: It's like, it's not here anymore. And I don't know if California or the west coast is that way. Certainly you have pockets here and there, but what a strange, yeah, that's just strange,

Mark: After 2000 years of complete hegemony, right?

Eric: Well, right. And you know, how are people living their lives around that? I mean, one of the things I like to do is catalog the existence of stone circles in the United States, you know? And like they're all over the place. I just found one like three miles from where I am now,

Mark: Wow.

Eric: know? I mean, and so what are people doing?

Like what,

Mark: It's a lot of work to build a stone circle. They must be doing something.

Yucca: Is this is this in a park.

Eric: No, this is on private land, up in the Hudson valley, you know, and I, and I just, just learned about it and you know, so I, I, I think we're all gonna, my prediction is we're everybody's gonna smoke weed and look at birds that's gonna be the, that's gonna be the thing, you know, bird.

Now he's a bird, you know, now that now that weed is legal, but yeah. Where's this gonna go, Joh? You're young. It's up to you.

Mark: Yucca is young

Eric: Yucca is young too. That's right. You guys are young. Not, not is old, old foggy like us.

Mark: Yeah.

Eric: So what are you gonna do? I telescopes you got it all there.

Yucca: Oh, yeah, I'm a science teacher. that's this is my classroom back here. Yeah.

Eric: Oh, all right.

Mark: Well, this has been an incredible conversation and I know we could go on for hours. But I think it's probably a good point for us to kind of draw down for this episode. And I would imagine we're gonna get a lot of really positive response from this episode. And we may ask to have you back to talk more about these things, cuz it's, it's really been just wonderful and super interesting talking with both of you.

Yucca: Thank you for joining us so much to think about.

Eric: Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for having us. Thanks for having

Joh: Yeah, thank you so much. Us on, this was super fun to, to reflect on and think about, and talk about in this group. So thank you.

Mark: You're very welcome. And of course we welcome feedback and questions from our listeners. The email address is the wonder podcast, QS, gmail.com. That's the wonder podcast, QS, gmail.com. So we hope to hear from you have a great week, everybody, and we'll be back next week.

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at [email protected]

S3E26 TRANSCRIPT:

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

Mark: And I’m Mark

Yucca: And this week we're talking about the summer. and connecting with our local ecosystems in general, whether that's rural wilderness, urban, whatever it is, where you are, the.

Mark: right. Yeah. We were talking about this before we started recording, it's, it's inevitable that in the dark and, and. And cold times of the year in here in the tempera zone that we get driven indoors by our climate. And so our observations and rituals and activities tend to be really indoor focused at that time of the year.

Well, now we're at the opposite end of the year, and it's a time to get out and do things and explore the world because as pagans. One of the things we really want to be is really engaged with the world in our lives.

Yucca: Right. Right. And, and we really encourage people to. Be getting out and experiencing things anytime of year, but this time makes it a lot easier. And there are a lot of things that are already happening. Outside is when there are lots of outdoor gatherings. It's pretty typical that somebody might be having a barbecue or anything like that.

Now of course there are some environments. If you are in Tucson, for instance, You might not be wanting to go out during the date time, you might be spending a lot of time at night outside during the summer, rather than being out in the middle of the day at 110 degrees.

Mark: Right. Right. And the desert is amazing at night.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: That's, that's well worth exploring checking out what it's like to be, out there in that nighttime environment with all those millions of stars. So, yeah, so let's talk a little bit about this. One of the things that we, that we talk about a lot here is how all of what we experience on earth is nature, right?

There's there's, there is no, bright line distinction between the so called artificial, which is the human made and the natural, which is the stuff that's made by everything else. Humans. A part of nature. And what we do is natural. Some of what we do, isn't very good for the rest of the biosphere.

But it's still natural. And so engaging with both what's going on in human culture, as well as with with the biological world is it's an important part of our practice. And so, one of the things that we talked about and, and have mentioned many times is this practice of paying attention.

Yucca: And that, I mean, there's so many benefits to that. And some of it is, is just on a very practical level of just how you end up feeling in your health as, as another animal. And some of it is also the sense of connection and satisfaction and. Wonder and awe that we get on that very emotional level as well for just tuning in, right.

Mark: right, right. And that tuning in it can tell us things about what's going on in the hidden world that we can't see of, of. We, we don't get to follow a bee around and find all the, find out all the things that the bee does. Right. We may see the bee on some flowers and then it flies off. And the rest of what it does, unless you're a beekeeper is kind of mysterious.

And the cycles of all of the living, things that are going on around us are very much like that. So we're kind of, observing the tip of the iceberg of everything that's out there. But even that can tell us a lot about what's happening with our climate, what what's happening with the time of year, how that might have changed from our previous year.

And so one tool that we encourage you to take up if you haven't already is what's called a phenology journal. And a phenology journal. Literally, what that means is what happened. Phenol phenology is just keeping track of what happened. And so if you go out and in the morning before you get ready to go to work, if you sit for 10 minutes and write down what you see and what temperature it is and what the sky looks like.

Pretty soon you will have a data set that will give you a lot of information about how to cha, how to celebrate your

Yucca: Mm-hmm right. And, it's kind of funny when we talk about, oh, so what topic do we wanna talk about next episode? Or, what, what can we talk about that we haven't, since we've done, almost three years of episodes and occasionally we'll be browsing through topics, like pagan.

And blog ideas or something like that and come across the idea of a book of shadows and both of us have gone. Well, I don't really do that. I don't really have much to say about that. But this is kind of, this is at least for me, the closest thing that I would do to a book of shadows, where it's a recording of what I see, what I noticed what's happening.

Not so much about me on the inside. But about the land around me, about the, the area where, where

Mark: mm-hmm yeah. And that isn't mutually exclusive with a more traditional book of shadows either. I mean, you could put your, the rituals that you're practicing, whatever Toro cards you drew that day, you could put all that into that journal as well. If you wanted to, or you could keep that stuff in a separate journal

Yucca: Right.

Mark: as, just as easily, but the, the.

The practice of paying attention in that very detailed way of being an amateur scientist and observing and gathering the data about what's happening around you can be really illuminating. And what I find is that it's illuminating about myself too, because if I look at, if I look at my journal entries, I'll notice.

Well, okay. This day I was apparently really distracted cuz I didn't capture very much. This other day I was really engaged because I wrote a whole page of stuff that I was observing. And so you kind of learned things about yourself as well. So. Having said all that about how great it is to pay attention and to, keep track of what we're learning, what you can learn about what's happening around you.

This is the time of year for field trips,

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: uh, which some people call vacations or weekends of camping or whatever it is. And that doesn't have to mean going to a spot of so called nature. Because human activity is, as I just said, human activity is also nature and culture is something that's also very interesting.

So, going to a concert, going to a, a special restaurant, going to a lecture or. Museum, all of those things too, can, be informative of your pagan experience because what we want to be, the reason that we're Pagan's right, is that we want to be engaged with the world. We wanna celebrate that as we go forward.

So I invite you, whether or not you're able to take time and, and go away to somewhere that's, more trees and animals than it is buildings. 

Yucca: Right.

Mark: So bring that, that kind of curiosity to the experiences that you can have in the urban environment too. And we are, this is sort of a, a preview.

We're gonna do an episode on urban paganism. It's a, it's an idea that was just suggested to us, and we want to do that, but it's gonna take a little bit to set up, cuz we'd like to do, we'd like to have some interviews with that.

Yucca: Yeah. So, so thinking about some of the things that. In an urban environment, let's say, you, if you could do a trip to the mountains for camping for a week, like wonderful, but that's unlikely to be what most of us can do. There can be just little moments too, like stopping for half an hour. And people watching or going to the park or actually even just taking a different route home on your commute and noticing what do you see?

What do you pick up on, right? Or is there part of the town where. When you do your, your grocery shopping, if you go to a particular store, is there that same store on the other part of town that you can go to and you can go there just a few times a year and kind of check in like, oh, what is it like in the early spring?

And what's that part of town like in the, the fall or that sort of thing, just that in making a point to pay attention and be aware in the little moments. That is that's

Mark: Right, right. One of the things that we're learning about human memory is that memory, memory that's accessible, that you can, that you can reach back to and, and, bring conjure the, the moment up again, it tends to be of things that are novel.

Yucca: wonderful and helpful

Mark: Things that are new, which is why traveling is so wonderful because every experience is a new experience.

You're not in the rut of the same house, the same car, the same workplace, the same route to work. So introducing novelty into your life that way can make your life a lot more memorable and feel like you're having. More life, you, you don't, you don't wake up one day and realize God, three years have gone by how did that happen?

Cuz you're doing things that are interesting and and keep you awake and alive.

Yucca: Right. And that's one of the thoughts about why it felt like years lasted for so long when we were kids. And then the older we get, the more, it just seems to be flying by. Some of that is perspective in that, the one year is just a much shorter period of our lives now, but when we were a kid, everything was new.

Right. You learned, you learned that other continents existed for the first time. At some point when you were a kid or the first time you learned about the periodic table, or you heard an owl or a something, all of those things were new. The whole world was new and actually. Even though we're, I'm assuming most folks listening are, are adults.

Maybe we've got some, some awesome youth listening as well. But even though things are, are, we've experienced a lot of the world we've not experienced anywhere, close to all of it.

Mark: Mm-hmm

Yucca: could have something new, a novel every single day of your life. If you are looking for it. And paying attention for it.

Mark: Right. And that's why this

paying attention is so important for having an engaged life. One of the big differences between paganism, including non theist, paganism and. The the big monotheisms is that. As far as we're concerned, we're living for this world, we're even, even pagans who believe in an afterlife, don't generally believe that they're trying to qualify for some afterlife.

That's a good one. They believe that something else is gonna happen after you die. But in the meantime, our job is to live this life as well as we possibly can.

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: And as non theist pagans, as far as we're concerned, that's it, you die and nature disassembles you and forms you into new stuff.

So this life and engaging with this world that has brought us forth becomes the central mission. Of our existence and that's a really profoundly different approach than the mainstream approach. And it's so important, I believe for introduction of that into the culture, because it's the only it's that ethic that's gonna enable us to really tackle problems like climate change.

People have really got to understand how important this world is in order to make the appropriate and sometimes uncomfortable adjustments that are gonna be required in order for us to solve this.

Yucca: Yeah. Right. And, and being aware of what this world is, that's a big step in that, right. Because as we've been talking about the, the human world of culture and all of these, that's totally valid and it's extremely important, but it's not all of it. It's a very, very small, tiny sliver of what's happening.

What's part of this planet and this

Mark: Yes. Yes. And so. Having a respectful curiosity about all of these things becomes a really useful default position.

Yucca: system mm-hmm

Mark: I mean, I would take that one step further. I would say that having a respectful curiosity carries into successful to successful relationships, successful business practices, all that kind of thing, because it keeps your mind.

It means that you're listening and it means that you are acknowledging the the dignity and worth of the people that are around you and of the non-human entities that are around you, the, the creatures of the world.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So really encourage you during these summer months to get out there whatever out there means to you. I mean, with COVID, we've been staying in a lot and of course we want you to be safe, but take a field trip, take a walk in a different direction than you used to take a different route home from work rearrange furniture in one of your rooms, shake it up.

Yucca: Yeah. And if you do have an opportunity to maybe do something a little bit more than you typically would if you do have a chance to go camping or just to put that tent up in your backyard, if you have one where you might have just stayed home for your day off, that's also of the things about the summer is that it's a time where you just gotta do.

Right in the winter often we're hunkered down and we're starting the late winter, early spring. We're planning in the summer. Now's the time,

Mark: right.

Yucca: it's the time to do it, if you're gonna do it, do it. And at least for me, sometimes that's the hardest part. Great. At the planning. . And then I just wanna sit there and keep planning about how I will go and do this thing.

But then I gotta actually get up and do it, so that's, everybody's gonna be different with that, but just encourage people if you have the opportunity, whatever it is. And then once you get that momentum going, it's easier to carry it into the colder months or into the times of year. That might not be quite as comfortable or pleasant to be out.

And again, it's gonna really depend on what your climate is. Mark, I would imagine where you live being outside in. January might not be so terrible. Right?

Mark: No. I mean, it, it could be wet. At least we hope it is cuz we're in the middle of a terrible drought. But other than that, I mean the temperatures are still in the forties and fifties. It's just 

Yucca: so it's sweater, weather, sweater, and a raincoat. Yeah.

Mark: Sweater and a raincoat. Exactly. It's not, I mean the kinds of overcoats that people wear in areas that get really cold, we just never see them here because nobody ever needs them.

Yucca: right. Yeah. Very different. But it very, very different than if you were in Missoula. Right. Trying to go out. And, and in January. So, but, but the point is like, whatever it is for you getting that, that momentum going this is a good time for that. If that's where you're at.

Mark: It is. And one trick in doing that is to enlist allies.

Yucca: Mm

Mark: One way I imagine you can make things happen. Yucca is by telling your kids that they're going to happen,

Yucca: Yes, it it, and then.

Mark: then

Yucca: They are. Yes. Oh, they

Mark: hook.

Yucca: ex and you think they forget about it. Right? And then you hear the little voice mom, you said like, oh yeah, I did say it, but it's bedtime now. Nope. Okay. I promised all right, let's go do it.

Mark: Okay. Yeah, it is. It is amazing how the expectations of others could leverage us,

Yucca: Yeah. And if you maybe make a, make a date to, to see somebody in the park, right? Hey, we're gonna meet for half an hour. We're just gonna talk for, hang out for that half an hour and then we're gonna go home. That other person is, is expecting you.

Mark: Right.

Yucca: And yeah, that's a, that's a wonderful point.

So that goes back to some of the stuff we've been talking about, about, finding community and building community. And that can be powerful, but if you don't have that, you can still have that amazing private. Personal relationship with whatever it is you're doing the new route home that you're taking, or the sitting at the park, or, you know what, taking a moment to, to drink your morning caffeine on the porch or whatever it is that you're gonna be doing.

You can do that in that, those quiet moments of

Mark: right, right. So, this is a somewhat shorter episode this time and that's because we want to encourage you to go out and find it, whatever it is. It's it's summer. Which means a lot of different things in a lot of different places. But what it does mean universally for those of us that are in the Northern hemisphere is that the days are long.

There's a, there's a lot of time to do stuff. And so, we hope that you will seize the opportunity to do exciting novel and interesting things and engage with your world.

Yucca: right. And we will be back with you next week to already be talking about that August holiday coming up.

Mark: That's right. Yeah. The, the wheel continues to turn, so we'll be here and we hope you will

Yucca: Thank you everyone.

 .

Black Nonbelievers: https://blacknonbelievers.org/

Women of Color Beyond Belief 2022!: https://happeningnext.com/event/women-of-color-beyond-belief-2022-eid4snwbi8rcw1?fbclid=IwAR1vCa_QiR-nqp6tdsh4jVJgyaBV9MCaR-F-SaEMAMwhMJVs0RxTsyQernI

https://wocbeyondbelief.com

S3E25 TRANSCRIPT:----more----

Mark: Welcome back to The Wonder: Science-Based Paganism. I am one of your hosts, Mark. And today we are really excited because we have an interview with Mandisa Thomas of the non-profit group, Black Nonbelievers, and we expect to have a really interesting, exciting conversation about the intersectionality of atheism with, black indigenous and people of color and all of the, the unique situations and challenges that go with that.

So welcome Mandisa.

Mandisa Thomas: Hi, thank you both for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Yucca: Thank you for coming.

Mark: Yeah, we're delighted.

Yucca: Do we maybe wanna just start with, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and about Black Nonbelievers and.

Mandisa Thomas: Absolutely. So I am a New York city native born and raised. I have lived in the Atlanta Georgia area since I was 21, which is over half my life. And I wasn't formally raised religious. I wasn't indoctrinated into a Christian or a formally religious household. However, my upbringing consisted of many of to various religions and, and mythology and folklore.

So it was early in my years that sort of had a peripheral, experience with However, it was enough for me to conclude that it just really wasn't for me. My mother made a conscious decision. Not to raise my brothers and I in the church. And my father who raised in the church really, really hated it.

he just did not get anything out of it. So realized that experience is of an anomaly, especially coming from black communities. But as the years went on and my family and I relocated to Georgia where a most common question is, what church do you go to? And realizing really just coming to terms with my atheism and my humanism.

I wanted to seek out community and I found that it was very lacking for people of color. In the Atlanta area in like in person community. And so while I did connect other local groups, it became very important or apparent that a group for that, that helped bring out black atheists, more black folks who were questioning and doubting their religious beliefs.

It became apparent that it was necessary. So in 2011 the group called black nonbelievers was formed, but then we, it turned into an organization simply titled black nonbelievers in 2011. And later that year in November. And we have been going strong since then more sub substantive community and support for blacks and allies and other people of color.

Who are living free of religion, who are questioning those beliefs if they were believing. also who need to know that there are others who can identify and as an organization, also work on diversity equity and inclusion efforts along with other organiz. And I really take from my upbringing.

When I take my approach comes from upbringing growing up, seeing religion, learning about how the church in particular in Christianity was very much a catalyst for white supremacy, racism, as well as the subjugation of people of color, but understanding that the church, the black church in particular.

Really played a strong role in those communities.

Yucca: Mmm.

Mandisa Thomas: it is very, very paradoxical in that way. And having been a student of black history in particular I know that the church and Christianity does not totally define black communities. and that it shouldn't be seen as an anomaly in any way.

And also to help normalize atheism and what it means to be an atheist, that stigma also helping others who are coming to terms with that and, and letting them know that there is, there is support out there for.

Mark: for you. That's such important work. We, we contend as, as atheists, we contend much with the stereotype of, the kind of snotty white guy the argumentative snotty white guy. Who's gonna tell you how it is. And that doesn't reflect well on any of us. It's so harmful and it's so uninclusive, it, it doesn't make room for, for the diversity of people that's actually out there.

Are the goals of black? Non-believers sure.

Mandisa Thomas: So, and, and let me just say that there will absolutely be times where. We, we can't be as tactful as we want to be when it comes to engaging religious folks, because the stigma of atheism is still so very, is still so very strong that sometimes we have to defend ourselves and sometimes we have to call out.

That, that Christian nationalism, especially as we see the rise of white Christian nationalism rare is, and it is rearing its ugly head. We really do have to say those things. However, it doesn't always have to be condescending. It doesn't have to be a dismissive of what other marginalized communities go through.

And that, with that being said, the mission of black non-believers and our goals. Are there, there we have multiple missions and multiple goals. So first and foremost, we provide and, and cultivate a very safe, informative, friendly community where people will feel, like, it's not just simply about many books we've read and how much we know, but how we can communicate and support each other.

also we do try to encourage, open identification as a nonbeliever and openly advocating for our voice openly advocating for our rights and openly stand openly openly sharing what we stand for. And we also, and we encourage pride in those identities. There's nothing shameful about being a nonbeliever.

nothing shameful about being an atheist humanist, however you choose to identify and what we also encourage people to stand on those identities on an informed basis. So, and then we also educate about the history of atheism and humanism. In black communities, which there is, is a history, even though it is, it still isn't as well known as it should be. There have always been black folks with question religion who've rejected the concepts of God on the principles of Christianity, as well as what we see in like, like in the public, in the public sphere.

Mark: mm-hmm sure.

Mandisa Thomas: And we also are an organization that organizes we, we organize our own events.

do also, we, we also do charitable initiatives and we also partner with other organizations on, on projects that benefit all communities. So we do a lot. pretty much do a lot. We are very, very proactive and on the ground as an organization. So, and we take on many components, like education, networking, community, and support.

and those are all very, very important to us.

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: That sounds like a lot. And it sounds so important. I mean, especially in the deep south, it's just incredible that you're doing that work. I, I, I just wanna thank you for, for taking that on and, taking that role on that's that's. Incredible.

Mandisa Thomas: Thank you.

Mark: what do you see as the top priority issues facing black non-believers and, and your community?

Yeah, mm-hmm

Mandisa Thomas: Um, let's so of course, now we are seeing what's going on in the media. We are seeing, mass shootings, we are seeing gutting of reproductive rights here in the United States, those issues directly and disproportionately. Impact black communities, especially black women and other women of color to deny a re abortion access to deny access to birth control.

But yet we are still dealing with these racist stigmas of, well, these black folks are less than or inferior too. We we also see a lot of these conservative Christians and also some conservative athe. Who, thumb their nose and who and, and, and ignorantly dismiss critical race theory.

They are very uninformed about that. And they're they're, they're, they're getting up in arms in it without even really understanding what it And they falsely paint this picture that we're just teaching white people to hate themselves which isn't true. And so those are when it comes to directly issues that directly impact, black communities in particular and, and, and the black non-religious demographic, all of these things are a result of Christian, nationalism Christianity roots and racism and white supremacy.

And people don't even realize it because how you perceive. lot of people of color to be, and you're going by the stereotypes. It's, can be, it can be very easy or even subconsciously play a huge impact on how you engage people of color. And also how much do you care about our, about the issues that we. and whether it is steeped in, white saviorism or this idea of elitism it also plays a huge part. So, we, we have people, we, we deal with folks who wanna get involved or they say that they care about these things, but then either still aren't ready to listen to those of us who are doing this work and who are experiencing.

Or they are very reluctant to support our efforts and, and, and the work that we do, because we certainly have just never waited for these issues to resolve themselves. look back to the civil rights movement. can look back to the suffrage movement. We can even look back to the feminist movement in which there were many black women with that, even though their voices tend to be overlooked.

So we can look to many of these, of these movements here and, and, and see that never just stood by and engaged in suffering, at least for the most part. However, we still do. We still do encounter a lot of Christians and others who think that God is just going to resolve this problem. And it's like, well, if God didn't resolve it during slavery.

And also if you look in the Bible, says that the, which condos slavery, which was the there, there comes. There, there, there lies a very important question about what it means for liberation, which does include the elephant in the room conversation about religion and how it has impacted black communities.

So there are a number of, there are a multitude. of things that we face and and, getting people to understand that church separation activism does and should also include people of color go through how it, it, how it shows us how white supremacy shows itself and an evangelicalism shows itself in the way law enforcement interacts with black communities and people of color.

How, how, when we talk about the wealth gap, we talk about health disparities, all of these things intersect, it goes simply beyond people wanting to pray in schools or, these things, these things have impacted us institutionally and trying to get more people to understand how all of these things and how they also impact all of.

Disproportionately. So there's a level of education and information that sometimes that many times falls on deaf ears, which can be very, very frustrating. And it's also seen as if our voices are invalid and we often sound like broken records. People ask about how we can recruit. You know how we can recruit more people of color, more young people, more women.

thankfully that's changing in the community. That really is, we are seeing a lot more people of color, women of color getting involved. a lot of student activism and also there is a fundamental approach being taken what it means to be hands on and on the ground when it comes to our activism community building. Part of the, what part of the problems though, is that so many people have been indoctrinated by that That they tend to forget that community organizations still need support none of us are trying raise funds simply for our own gain or, or I wouldn't say everyone, but most of us in this because we do care about what, what is going on.

We, we care about what people go through and that does warrant a a significant amount of support. I mean, this position for me is still volunteer. But we still do the things the resources that we, that we have, because they're important. So I'm sorry if that went a little too long, it's just, we know we have a lot, it's a lot to, so many things to do.

Mark: I should say well, on the topic of fundraising, we will put a link to black non-believers in the podcast notes we encourage our listeners to contribute and we will also be contributing to black non-believers as well. as the society. So, definitely a very worthy cause. And as somebody who's worked in the nonprofit sector for 35 years, you, there are limits to what you can do without money.

You, you need money in order to achieve your mission. So, I really encourage people to support,

Mandisa Thomas: Thank you so very much. 

Yucca: Well, actually we've got a lot more things to talk about, but I wanted to circle back around to something that you had mentioned at the beginning. And you said, moving to the Atlanta area, one of the first questions you get is, okay, well, what church, what church do you go to?

And how. How do you answer that? And how do you encourage people who are just coming into the community who are uncomfortable with, with admitting that, that they aren't believers? Because there's a lot of shame around all of that in a.

Mandisa Thomas: So that has been a challenge over the years. I remember when I was first asked it was by a my, my former hairstylist. And I was caught off guard because I was not expecting that question. And I think I might have said, well, I don't really go to church. That's not really a thing, that I do.

I didn't outright say I was an atheist or nonbeliever because at that time wasn't really sure of where I stood.

I do. I think I do tend to tell people about that. Yeah. I don't go to church. And, I've had like the from other folks, particularly black women who, when I say that they, they respond well, he look so familiar and church is where I spend all my time and I'm like, yikes.

that may not necessarily be a good thing. I do remember one person inviting me to world changers ministries, which is which to lead evangelist there is Creflo dollar. And he's, he's very, very, I mean, he has a huge mega complex, not too far. It's right up the street from where I live and There are so many, I mean, a few years ago, he, there was a video that he made where if you don't pay your ties, you should get shot. He has recently recanted that statement saying that he was wrong for yes. Yes he has. Since recanted. This was also, if you can recall, this is also the, the, the, the one who. Needed a new private jet. And so his board, or, the, the church created a GoFundMe to try to finance that. And there was so much ridicule behind that, that I think they just ended up approving it to get him a new private jet, to, to, to travel across the world, to do his ministries. And I thought, wow, it is it is a shame these, these guys are, or these people are able to generate that much in revenue that they can actually afford to live well beyond the means of the people of their parishioners and the people who support them. it is just, it is astounding how much the prosperity gospel has taken off and actually affected.

People it is just, it is, it, it, I wouldn't even say it's astounding. It's disgusting and far be it from me to denounce anyone who wants to make a better living for themselves. But how can people who are already at a disadvantage that for themselves, if they are just constantly giving to their church, or if they're giving their last penny or dollar to their churches.

Which there are many of them that who, who have, who have encouraged that type of giving. And it's like, wow, how can we better? How can we help people in communities to help themselves? When there is a mentality of the more you give, the more your blessings will come. But the only one who is being blessed is the person in charge.

Mark: Right, right, right. Yeah. Boy, that's just a whole huge can of worms. We could talk about the whole hour just by itself. But I, I so completely agree. I mean, Christianity, especially evangelical Christianity is so exploitative it exploits people's prejudices, it exploits people's anger and their resentment and their want.

And. And their fear of those who aren't like them. It's, it's just, it's just a really sad thing to see. And especially living in a culture where you're kind of to go to a church that must be super challenging. On a, just on a day to day basis, as you meet people, Our community the non FIAs pagan community.

And just to explain that in a super tiny teacup we are rationalists we're we're naturalists, meaning, we, we believe in what science tells us about the world. We don't believe in the supernatural or gods or spirits or any of that kind of stuff, but we do Revere the earth as sacred because it's what keeps us alive.

And it's where we came. So we celebrate holidays in honor of the turning of the seasons and so forth, but it's a very non supernatural kind of religious 

Mandisa Thomas: mm-hmm

Mark: Our community contains a lot of former Christians, especially evangelicals, NX, Mormons, and also a lot of former how do you support your communities?

Folks as they're going through their deconstruction. . And how would you say that their experience may be different than say white deconstructionists

Mandisa Thomas: So many of we have very, a lot of members and, and a lot of our A lot of our members are former like Jehovah's witnesses. That, that cult very much has impacted a number of people, black and white. But definitely a huge of, of the black community. So we tend to be a very we, we do, we love celebrations.

We love holidays.

And we also try to educate. Folks on the origins of holidays, or we encourage people to educate themselves. Like for those who think Halloween is evil, it was a pagan holiday. Of course the church villainized it the, the holiday of Christmas, which was originally Saturn, Alia was not a religious holiday.

And so anything that we can do to bring people together, especially around food, music, any of those things is always good. And the one thing I can say is that having been and raised explicitly specifically in the black community is good for us. To we don't have to reinvent certain wheels because a lot of things that a lot of black folks do are secular.

Anyway, just don't realize it and it may be hard to separate the idea of, church or religion, but it isn't, it actually isn't as hard to do as people think it is. So I take a lot of what I learned. And, and speaking of like science and the scientific method, it is important to understand that, practitioners of the scientific method not always been genuine, there has been scientific racism at one time,

Mark: Oh, you

Mandisa Thomas: people use science justify or to say that blacks were inferior, that we have bigger, that we have bigger brains and therefore not smart.

So there was a lot of racist. There were a lot of racist practices had nothing to do well, or which had very little to do with religion at all. With, with religion, there may have been some, a lot, some byproducts of definitely white supremacy in that, but it's important for us as a community to acknowledge and be honest about that.

And also that, the scientific method is never 100%, AB it's not absolute. But what's important is the, the methodology, it it's the, the hypothesis, the testing, and then the conclusions. And if the conclusion calls for, for a different result, then what was originally intended, then you either go back to the drawing board or, and, and that, that's what I love about it.

It, you can, it can show itself to be about things. Unlike religion or unlike believe in God, right? God.

Yucca: self corrective.

Mandisa Thomas: Right, right. God is everything, even though we can't see, even though we can't hear, even though we can't, we, we just know because we know, and it's like, that is, that is not sufficient of, of a re that is not a sufficient enough reason to, to disbelieve and believe blindly.

But I, I think definitely and, and we, we have, we unpack that as an organization and as a community to just, having to unpack those, those those institutional race, institutional racism and injustice

Mark: good.

Mandisa Thomas: that has, that has very, very much impacted all of. So that is another layer that we find that many non people of color have never had to think about.

Now. Certainly have been a lot of, there are a lot of white atheists who experience economic disparities. But I mean, it, the thing is that what's important to know is that you will never, ever simply be judged based on your skin color, at least you don't have to have societal or institutional factors impact you because of your skin color

Yucca: Yeah.

Mandisa Thomas: And this is important for, for, for people to understand when it comes to public perceptions, stigmas, of those things, and it also makes it much more of a challenge. because to be seen as being black and atheist is to be seen as rejecting the black how can you reject the very thing that got us through all of these evils, all of these ills in the world, which it hasn't because we're still seeing things that are taking place affect our communities.

And so, really getting people to. Understand that. And also just because of the still very high numbers in black communities, the very high numbers of, of, of religious people. It does make it a challenge for folks to find each other. And when you walk into a room of atheists and humanists, Most of the times they are gonna be white.

Most of the times they will be male. of the time they may be speaking on things that aren't necessarily relatable, even though the information can be good. It may not necessarily be relatable to some of the people who are looking to seek community as well as support. And so. That is that tho that is a, those are some challenges that we have to deal with as well. How do we, as a community that is on the ground and who directly relates to the black community, how do we, and also, how do we get folks to better understand that you don't necessarily have to come in and simply try to.

You don't have to overcompensate for the fact that you're not black, but simply supporting and listening to, to our listening to us is gonna be extremely important.

Yucca: one of the things for within our, within our community atheopagan or non Theus pagan community we really strive to welcome all comers, but. We're already coming from this predominantly white atheist communities.

We often really struggle bringing or attracting and making it feel welcome to members who are from other communities than just the white atheist or the white pagan communities. I know this is something that probably is, asked over and over again. But do you have any thoughts about, how we should proceed or how to make a community more attractive in a more safe space?

Mandisa Thomas: So what I find. Is happening is a number of things. So I know that there are so many people who mean well and would love to genuinely connect with other people of color. However, what, when we, when the issues that we face are directly discussed, we find that times it's not, not being discussed.

and when they're brought to the table, often dismissed. Also what's happening is that the leadership in many of these organizations are so predominantly white and also their policies dictate that, certain issues may or, or, or the programming it's like, well, you may or may not be appealing to, people from diverse backgrounds and ethnic.

And that's going to be important to incorporate, if you are being told or if you are, and, and also your imagery, if everything only represents a, an, it represents an overwhelmingly an overwhelmingly majority of people without any forethought as to what you are presenting, even in your, your, your marketing.

That can be a challenge as well. Of course you don't want to mislead people. However, it is important to encourage and incorporate incorporate the voices. Of people of color in your leadership does that necessarily mean that and, and does that mean they should be the ones responsible for solving those diversity problems?

No. And that's another problem. That's another challenge is that that is often solely on the backs of people of color to resolve an issue that has, like I said, been institutional, which means that has been taking place for a very long time. and then it's expected to be resolved in a shorter amount of time, which means that's a setup for failure.

So we have to, we have to cultivate an environment yeah, an environment of change and also doing things and seeing what, what has been, what has been done before, what is, or isn't working. including people and having people in your leadership that aren't afraid to try new things that will, that that is also very important.

Also how you engage the general public,

Yucca: Right.

Mandisa Thomas: which may not necessarily go over well with everyone at the time, but it's important to do it you never know you put yourself out there. And I know a lot of people are diverse. They are. To what they would be, what they would consider evangelizing or proselytizing, because that's what we got from religious communities.

However, it is important for us to put ourselves out there, even for those, especially for those who didn't know that our organizations and groups existed, but so that they can also be a part of it. And definitely. Retaining a community that people don't just come one time and then don't come back. Those, and, and those take on a, a variety of activities.

I, I think that many groups can benefit from incorporating more social events and and not just social, but also getting involved and, and know, and collaborating organizations that that uphold or that, that share our values

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Mandisa Thomas: many of us as atheist, humanists, pagans of us champion reproductive justice, many of us cha we, we champion racial justice, justice, even environmental justice, which is also.

For many people that, you know, or that intersects with racism, that intersects that intersects with economic injustice. So, and also really caring, genuinely caring about uplifting the voices and amplifying the voices of those who have been further marginalized. And again, not just as one time efforts.

It's gonna take a lot of work. It can be very, very difficult. And you also wanna make sure that you are not once again, not inundating that one loan or maybe very few people of color to, to just, to just be at the forefront of changing the community, it's gonna take everyone there. It's also, it is also going to take being mindful of how, previous members or current members.

Are engaging in treating new people. Because if they say something that is off putting then the other, the other people may not come back and there's also an accountability piece there. We can't just say that it mean it, or, there's a, there's a, there's an age gap there. People need to be held responsible the things that they do.

There is there's, it is good to redirect and try some correction for, not the church. We, we, we can't just try to sweep that under the rug and it's important to be honest. And, and I will just speak for myself when I say that don't like doing the guilt and shame thing, or I don't intentionally do that, I do, I, I do point out the challenges as well as solutions possible solutions, because this is something that we can all learn from because mistakes happen.

When you come out of, when you come outta religious indoctrination, you realize how much you really didn't know and how much you realize that are responsible for when you say certain things and do certain things. If you can't just hide that behind religion. So, understanding that accountability is a, and, and really correcting ourselves a lifelong process.

And just even admitting, okay, well, I didn't know this before. I am going to do better, listening, and also doing have been my main principles for, for this. And there are so many other groups that could benefit.

Yucca: Wow. Yeah. Thank you. There there's so much in that. I'm gonna be re-listening to, to everything you just said there. One of the things that I really appreciate you pointing out is the. took a really long time for us to get to where we are here and it's not gonna be a quick, it's not a flip a switch, right.

We're not gonna just fix everything just because, we have the intention to, there's so much to unpack and, and, just figure out what's going on. And that it's gonna take a long time to fix as well. And as long as we keep working at it and being consistent at working at it and not just thinking, oh, it's done.

Mandisa Thomas: Right, right.

Mark: I think of it kind of like way trails get built in parks or, or roads, even to cities, you just, somebody goes and then somebody else goes and then somebody else goes, and pretty soon there's a Warren trail, but we want to go somewhere else. And it's gonna take a while to wear a trail to the new place.

we wanna arrive. We wanna arrive in a different location and that means we're going, and it's gonna take some Bush whacking for a while before we, it, before it becomes easier for us to be on this, on this better path. Mm-hmm

Mandisa Thomas: also what's important is that, it's important to understand that these things know, just like rose, they, they need, they need repair. Do they? They need it's, they need maintenance. You don't just build it and then just let it, crumble. You have to put resources into it to keep it going. And it, it takes not just one person or one entity to do that. It takes many it takes many things to do so. And you also don't ignore the people on the ground doing it, the person who, it. And the per and everyone from the person actually doing the work to maintain it.

And those are often the ones who are overlooked the workers on the ground.

Mark: Right, 

Mandisa Thomas: So I love that. I love that comparison, and I love that correlation because are so many things that can be taken from that. And that we can learn as a community many, many of us pride ourselves on our intelligence and our intellectual capabilities. But what about improving on our practical skills? How are we engaging? How are we, how are we directly resolving the problems and not just simply talking about them or simply reading about them.

Mark: That's a great question. Yeah. Thank you. I'm, skip down to our last question, cuz I think we already covered of the stuff in the rest of the questions that I had there and that is we as a community and we, we have this enshrined in our documents and in our policy positions and all that kind of stuff.

We are. deliberately antiracist anti homophobic, anti transphobic, inclusive community. And you think of ways that we can work together to advance free thought and to create a broader community?

Mandisa Thomas: first it is going to take for us to, or many to realize how they have been subconsciously impacted by racism and privilege, and also white supremacy, because often it's not as overt. Well, certain cases, it is still very, very overt. We can look at the January 6th shooting in 2021 or, or the insurrection.

We can look to the ma the recent mass shootings. We can look to a number of things where we blatantly see white supremacy and racism, but oftentimes it is more

Mark: Mm-hmm

Mandisa Thomas: Um, it, it comes, you, you see it in microaggressions and certain things that are being said people and that is where it is going to count.

And that free thought and that, and that, that evidence based premise doesn't just simply stop with with religion or it doesn't, it doesn't simply stop there. There are other things that we question, but not to the point where are simply skeptical of everything but. Having an approach to, I said, anti-racism a diversity, equity and inclusion of what that looks like supporting the organizations, the grassroots organizations, doing that, doing this work directly.

And how to do that without a sense of privilege or this idea that somehow you must absolutely be involved in every aspect. And just throwing your weight around learning how to take a step back and let the people support, support those who are doing this work in specific without, without centering yourself, we talk about decenting whiteness and de decolonizing, These, and, and also getting away from these Eurocentric ideals of what atheism and humanism are and learning more about perhaps more indigenous people.

what practices and, and, and practices that, that are along the lines of humanism, because many of them are learning more about those. and getting out of that comfort zone, , that's what it's gonna take as well. Because there are, and, and, and when, like I said, we're a community that prides ourselves on when we leave religion behind and to build supportive communities.

That's a huge part of it is, is learning more. And Perhaps sitting with some things that you weren't necessarily prepared to hear and could, can be uncomfortable, but that if you are willing to put in the work it is possible. It, it, it is possible. You can accomplish it.

Mark: Mm. Great. Great. Thank you. at, at this point, do you have questions for us about our community or our approach to things or for us personally, or any of those kinds of things? Mendi? So.

Mandisa Thomas: I can. I definitely wanna ask that, but, but first I would like to encourage people support and attend the women of color beyond belief. If, if they, if they can, if they can it takes place from September 30th to October 2nd in Chicago, Illinois, and online all of the speakers and producers are women of color and you hear the perspectives of women of color and how these issues us.

And we can, if, if folks will love to support that, we welcome it. . And so I would like to put in a plug for that, if I could.

Yucca: Oh, absolutely. We'll put the link to that in the show notes as well. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah.

Mandisa Thomas: It's gonna be great. This is our third time doing it. A joint production of black non-believers black skeptics and the women's leadership project. other two organizations are based in Los Angeles.

Mark: Oh,

Mandisa Thomas: so how long has. community been around? How long have y'all been doing the podcast well?

That would be I would love to know that

Yucca: this is this is our third year. So we started just a couple weeks before the COVID stuff

Mandisa Thomas: mm-hmm

Yucca: That was one of our early podcasts looking at that and going, huh? This, we better talk about this. this is something's happening in the world, so yeah.

Mandisa Thomas: Okay. Cool.

Mark: The, the atheopagan community specifically has been around for about 10 years.

Mandisa Thomas: Okay.

Mark: We started on Facebook now we're up to about 4,000 members. And though, but that's all over the world. So still spread pretty thinly in most places. And we have a. Blog and the society has a website. I can send you some links if you're interested. Great happy to do that. So yeah, we're, we're working to build a community of people who experience their spirituality without the supernatural and who understand activism for a better world as a part of our spiritual responsibility. One of the things that I find really kind of infuriating about most flavors of Christianity is that, you go to church on Sunday and then on Monday, you're a rapacious capitalist again.

Right? It's like you throw your morals out the window except on Sunday. And I really feel like, we need to, if we want a better world, we gotta work for it. We gotta. it's everybody's responsibility and we all gotta do it

Yucca: And that happens a lot in, in many pagan communities where it's like, don't bring, don't bring your politics in here. It's like, well, but, but we're all saying that we, that we believe that, nature is important and that we believe in like equality and all of this, then how can we not bring.

The

Mandisa Thomas: Right. We wanna know that. that's a part of our civic duty is to vote and to vote for people who represent our values. That is very important. And, and, and not discussing that. Tends to breed a lot of very, very bad ideas and keeps people in certain groups who can be very, very disruptive to the community, to the community building aspect.

And so what we've seen now is you, you see a faction of communities, especially in the atheist community, who's talking about the woke people or, their anti woke. now there are more, there's more dialogue and conversation and actually practices that are more inclusive of the issues that folks face people of color face that, whereas they didn't have to deal with that before.

They tried to, they tried to make it seem like it was an umbrella issue and it ISN. . And so how people were being treated within our own communities when ignored for a very long time. But as there, there was, there were calls and actions for accountability, for even those who were upholding patriarchy, misogyny, and white supremacy in our communities.

Now, all of a sudden, they can't say what they want anymore. And, and this idea that, oh, you are so woke now and, and we're being canceled. we can't say things that we used to say anymore.

Yucca: Yeah, so we can't oppress you as easily anymore. So our, our freedom is being

Mandisa Thomas: Denied,

Yucca: our freedom's denied because we can't like oppress you. Yeah.

Mandisa Thomas: Yeah. It's just like Christians who say, well, their rights are being trampled on because they, they they're complaining that they, they can't pray anymore. Like the, like the high school coach who prayed on the 50 yard line. It's like that, that is a gross violation. One church and state separation, but also that should be a gross, that's a gross violation of school policy and that you don't.

Yucca: your students, right? You're pushing your stuff on them. How do you know that they're not uncomfortable with it? They're not gonna tell their coach that they're not uncomfortable with it. What's what's coach gonna do, right.

Mandisa Thomas: right.

Yucca: You still wanna play next season, right?

Mandisa Thomas: Right. Yeah, it's a bully pulpit and it's, it can be a bully platform and we have to discuss these things, because now as we're seeing the erosion of reproductive justice on the national level, even though president Biden signed an executive order, which is great, but we saw the, the decision when it came down to overturn Roe V Wade and where that came from, which is absolutely horrific. And so yes, there, there is a point in time where we have to talk about where our values are in politics who our elected officials are who is representing us. That is very, very important.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. So all of those things that in spiritual circles, you get a lot of what Yucca was talking about, where it's like, oh, don't bring your politics in here. And. The truth is it's like, no, we need to be talking about voting. We need to be talking about lobbying. We need to be talking about protesting.

to talk about boycots. We need to talk about supporting unions. We need to talk about all kinds of stuff here, because how does, how do our spiritual values get implemented if none of those things happen, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yucca, where are we for time?

Yucca: We are coming close on about an hour now. Yeah. So we've, this has flown. Yeah, I am so inspired by all of this. Thank you for, for sharing with us and just bringing so many things to think about. And just the way that you've, you've talked about and expressed these things, are just, it encourages me to just read more and learn more and listen more.

So I really value you coming on and sharing with us.

Mandisa Thomas: Thank you. And if you look on our website on under we do have a recommended reading and viewing tab under and there is, there are works black atheist authors content creators to better understand. How religion impacts black communities in particular, as well as, as well as the history of, of humanism and free thought in, in black communities.

not just how that benefits black communities or black history, it, it, it actually benefits American history.

Yucca: that's great.

Mandisa Thomas: So, that is, that is that is another important aspect. So yes, there is a, if you're, if you wanna get into some reading, we definitely have some some material for you.

Mark: Great. great. Yeah. Yeah, I'm really inspired too. I'm I've, got all kinds of things spinning around in my brain now for things we need to be talking about and things we need to be doing and it's yeah, it's very exciting. Yeah. I am so glad that that your name was, was recommended to us for an interview for the podcast and that you so generously agreed to come on and give us your time.

Mandisa Thomas: Problem.

Mark: I will say that, one thing that I have, that's really been impressed on me by other folks has been that when dealing with marginalized communities, the people that are doing the work, you don't ask them to do it for free. So, I, so I, once again, want. Say, we're gonna make a contribution to black non-believers I really wanna encourage our our listeners to do the same.

This is work that's happening in our sphere, in the sphere of, of, non-believers and it, it is so important that we be doing this work towards inclusiveness and justice. And thank you once again, for being with us Mandisa, it's been a fantastic conversation.

Mandisa Thomas: Thank you very much for having me. And I'm so happy to learn of your community as well. So, if there's any way that we could work together on things, I would love to

Yucca: Yeah,

Mark: Great. Yeah, I will take you up on that.

Mandisa Thomas: perfect.

Yucca: All right. Well, thank you so much, everybody.

Mark: see you next week.

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at [email protected]

S3E24 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: Today, we are going to talk about something that is very central to pagan practice of all kinds. And that is trance.

Yucca: Right. And this is something that we see in paganism. We see it in a lot of other religions as well. It seems to be a very like, a very important experience for. being in that space, having those transformations, when really important things are happening, there's often a trance state.

Mark: Right. The attainment of altered states of consciousness is often something that is viewed as holy. In various religions or is viewed certainly as transformative or divinely inspired or or divinely provoked. There are a lot of different frameworks for understanding what this is, but there are so many examples all over the world of people using various different kinds of techniques in order to enter a trans state.

Yucca: Right. And since we are non theist, we're not coming at it from a, from the divine perspective. So we're looking at it, we'll look at it from a more neuroscience perspective and the usefulness of it as well, because it really is very useful.

Mark: right, right. The, and I guess the, where we need to start with that then is to talk about what it is.

Yucca: Right,

Mark: trance is kind of a. It's a general term that isn't used by many other religions, other than paganism to describe a particular neurological state. And you can get to that neurological state through a lot of different approaches. Repetitive motion is one of them listening to very dreamy kinds of music with beautiful harmonies in it can take you into that state.

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: Um, and it's the state that's characterized by being very much in the present. So you're not thinking about. Your list of things to do or about worrying about the future or any of that?

You're very much in the present moment. Also with a very kind of emotional openness and a sense of focus, a sense of of experience that you're having.

Yucca: Right. And, and I, a word that does get used in, in the common cultures, often in the zone, right. When someone talks about being in the

Mark: That's exactly right. Another term that is used by people like sports, psychologists is flow.

Yucca: zone, that's actually a trance state, right?

Mark: When you, when you are in a flow state, you're very creative, you have access to your subconscious You're not distracted by thoughts of other times or other obligations. You're really in a, kind of a peak optimal state for for working with your own creativity and your own psychology.

Right.

Yucca: right.

Mark: So there are other, oh,

Yucca: Oh, I was gonna say, this is something that I see. Young children do very, very naturally. They get into a state like that. And it's something that later on, we don't tend to practice as much. We kind of train ourselves out of it, but I think that there's, there's something very instinctual about it, that humans.

That we, we gravitate towards that. We really do that when given the opportunity to

Mark: There's something about trans that is play.

Yucca: mm-hmm

Mark: Because it's creative. In, in many cases now, in, in the case of some religious traditions, trans states are very narrowly defined as only being allowed to be particular kinds of experiences. And so there isn't as much creativity associated with them. But we'll be talking later on about how to induce these trans states.

But when you think about, Hildegard Von, BGAN having her, Amazing sort of visions of the Virgin, Mary and all these angels and saints and all that kind of stuff. That's very much a trans state. Now the odds are good that in her case she was probably epileptic and One of the, one of the characteristics of epilepsy is that people can go into a, kind of a phasic trans state, which can lead them into a very altered reality.

Right? Oh disconnected from the current present physical circumstances and often unable to.

Yucca: Hm.

Mark: There are there are often when people go into a trans state, they, they, they are often in kind of a pre-verbal state and they really aren't able to summon language to address what they're experiencing or to communicate that with others.

That can be a problem sometimes. I've, I've. There have been people that I've worked with at pagan festivals who have gone kind of way, way out there and are having a hard time taking care of themselves. They're kind of stumbling around the fire, not cuz they're drunk, but because they're really, really entranced. And there's a certain amount of danger associated with that. And so when I've tried to sort of steer them a little further away from the fire and. Check in with them and see how they're doing. In some cases, they simply can't summon words because those parts of their brain aren't what is

Yucca: that's not the active part at the moment.

Mark: That's right. It's not at the forefront. So let's, let's think for a minute about some examples of trans states that are used in various sorts of religious contexts throughout the world. And I should say that it's not just religious contexts that have trance or flow or the zone artists know this space really well.

Yucca: yeah. Artists and writers

Mark: As a writer. I know when I'm writing good stuff, I can feel that it's, it's just pouring out of me and I'm just typing as fast as I can to try to capture it.

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: Um, and it's, it should be said, this is a pleasurable experience. Trans feels good. It's associated with high levels of serotonin in the brain, and it's a, so it's a state that people tend to want to gravitate towards many people who are deeply religious, do their religious practices in order to reach that pleasurable trans state, which they may interpret as communing.

Deities or with the entirety of the universe? All of those kinds of feelings.

Yucca: So one of the religions that immediately pops into my mind when we talk about that is the SoFi,

Mark: Mm-hmm

Yucca: right? That's a that's probably the, the picture most people think of when they think of the SoFi is the whirling Dees. Right. And that they're doing that and getting into this shared trance state.

Mark: Sure exactly. It's this very slow, steady, repetitive movement, which of course also kind of spins their their middle ear. So that there's this. This potential for dizziness, but it's sort of a managed dizziness. It's a learned technique that they use to take themselves into this very out there kind of space of communing with, with what they believe is their God.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: And what's interesting to me is that this is such a beautiful and impactful kind of experience that people will actually pay money to go and watch Sufi spinning in place. Right?

Yucca: Oh, I hadn't heard about that. There's a pretty big community in, in my area, but I hadn't heard of people go paying to watch that happen.

Mark: there's at least one touring troop. Of of dervishes. Yeah, I I've seen them advertised. I haven't gone to actually see them do it, but I've, I've seen them advertised. In other cases we can think about the sort of intense altered states that come with. And of course, once again, in a pre-verbal kind of sense with people who fall into speaking in tongues or who who ki kind of lose control of their bodies and fall down through this incredibly intense trans like, experience happening in their brain. And. I mean, I'm, I'm not telling any secrets out of school here. We, we here don't believe in divinity. We don't believe in, in gods. And so when we look at that phenomenon, we don't see it as the Christian God reaching down and touching these people. And they're having this, sort of Transy spasmodic experience.

We're seeing it as a, a psychological and neurological phenomenon.

Yucca: Yeah. Which does not make it less valuable, just because we might have some understanding on what, how it's happening, why it's happening. It that's not less. To use the word magical, right. It's not magic in a Harry Potter sense, but it's magical in a, in a, in a meaningful wow, amazing kind of way.

Mark: Right, right. Yeah. Because just because we understand how something works does not, as you say, make anything less wonderful about it. So we can understand, for example, that, that. The experience of love is very high levels of serotonin and oxytocin, right? Your body is like singing with these neurotransmitters, that connote connection and affect and focus and a bunch of other things too, like not being hungry and having a hard time sleeping and a lot of other things that go with that.

Now does that mean that love isn't real? Well, of course not, of course not, but that's what, when you're, when you're experiencing being in love, that is what is happening in your brain.

Yucca: Right. Or if we're watching the sunrise.

Mark: Mm-hmm

Yucca: Understanding in fact that in some ways to me makes it even more inspiring is to start to see those deeper connections to wow. Right. And when we start thinking about the neurotransmitters, thinking about, how many generations. How many millions of generations of mammals were there for using those same neurotransmitters.

And then we were using them before we were even mammals for different purposes and all of that.

Mark: Right. And, asking the big questions, like why did we evolve to have these states? I mean, we can understand why we have love because it draws us together for reproduction for caring in, in survival and caring for our offspring. Right. But. Why a sunrise, why a sunset, why the beauty of leaves blowing in wind?

Why the Aurora Balis, why the shapes of clouds moving in the sky? All of these are things that can really inspire us and move us with the sheer beauty of the universe. And you have to ask the question, why did we evolve the capacity to feel that.

Yucca: Yeah,

Mark: It's a great question. I don't have any idea of the answer, but it's a super question,

Yucca: right. Yeah. That's, that's a question to work on.

Mark: But the good news is we do have this built into ourselves. We have this capacity for trance, this capacity to be transported by the moment and brought into a state of focus and clarity and a feeling of belonging and connection, all of those things. And one of the things that we as pagans are about is crafting the skills.

Learning the skills to be able to create that state at will. And, and that is something that's kind of unique about the, the broad pagan umbrella. There are, there are other religious traditions which teach you to go into deep trans states. Zen Buddhism, for example, sitting Zen, looking at a blank wall.

But they're very constrained in how they use that experience and how, the rituals around it are very, very strict, right? Whereas as pagans, we create a lot of our own rituals and so we can use this trans state for a lot of different purposes.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So why don't we talk a little bit about why then you would want to go into this, this trance state.

Yucca: Yeah. the first thing is, at least from my perspective is you have a lot less in the way. When you're going into a state like this, you're setting aside the, the worrying about the rent for next week and the, this and the, that. And you're, you're kind of going to this, this deeper level where you're dealing with the, with the, your raw emotions and beliefs and feelings.

Mark: Mm-hmm. mm-hmm . Yeah. And what's cool about that in my experience is that trans is an opportunity to kind of get in under the hood and tinker with those things.

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: We know now from research that our memories are not recordings. They are retellings of stories and they get edited and embellished and pieces get dropped all the time in the stories that we tell ourselves about our lives.

So we have the capacity when in this very open emotionally malleable state to get in there and actually change some core assumptions that we have change our story or our, our uh,

Yucca: or

Mark: Conclusion our beliefs about an event that happened to us in our lives, right. That can help to bring us closure. It can help to bring us healing.

It can help to instill greater self-esteem. It can help to bring us more confidence as we pursue our goals. It can do lots of really cool things like that. All in this kind of glowing present. Very pleasurable. Experience. So it's, it's, it's a way of doing it. It's an opportunity to do things that are good for you while also having an experience that isn't an ordeal that instead is something powerful and moving and and happy.

Yucca: And it can be the real heart of a ritual. Right? A lot of times when we're setting up a ritual, a lot of the things that we're doing are to help get us to that state.

Mark: yes. Yes. In the, in the atheopagan. Recommended ritual structure that I put in my

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: for example, the whole point of that is induction into a trans state doing stuff while in that trans state and then transitioning back out of it and back into a normal sense of reality. Right. So the arrival phase, you have things like grounding and you have things like sensory stimulation that brings you into the present moment in your body.

And you have things like invocation of safety and security, so that you feel okay about opening yourself to the experience stuff like that. And then In the qualities phase, you invoke the, the various characteristics and emotions that you would like to be with you during these things, so that you feel like you have allies and ingredients to work with. And then in the main body of the ritual, which is the, the working or the deep play, that's when you're in the trance and now you can do this transformative work, right.

Yucca: yeah,

Mark: And then the other two phases are coming out the other side. So that, that it really is about a technology of trance ritual is, is in my experience, a technology of trance.

Yucca: right. So why don't we talk a little bit about some of the hows, right? We've been talking a lot about the why.

Mark: Okay. Okay. That sounds great. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: there are so many ways to get there and the, there can vary a lot depending on which one you use. I don't want to, in any way, imply to people that all trans states are the same. They, they aren't, they aren't The kind of trans state that you have from dancing to incredibly rhythmic drumming, for example, or, electronic dance music, stuff like that is not the same thing as the kind of meditative trans state that you can enter while sitting quietly, smelling the scent of a little incense, calming yourself and opening yourself in that more gentle kind of way.

But they're both trans states and they both present opportunities for growth and learning and, and joy.

Yucca: Yeah. Well,

Mark: So, oh, go

Yucca: To share a technique for going into that kind of quiet sort of meditative trance state. One thing that, if you've never played with this before, that you can do is find whatever the situation is. You, you it could be quietly inside or sitting out, looking at the stars or the sunset or whatever, but sitting down, creating your space.

And then, calm your breath, do your grounding and stare at something. Stare very, very intently at it. And then start to relax your eyes. And if you can blur your vision a little bit, just go ahead and blur that and bring it back. And just bring, feel like you're bringing that blurred relaxation back into your, back through your eyes, into your head and down through your body as you're staring and letting that focus shift, right.

Just playing with that focus in your eyes and that seeing that as your body. And for me practicing that, that's something that can get me into a trance state very, very quickly. Is that staring. Relaxation.

Mark: great. Yeah, that's, that's a very effective way. One thing to be aware of when you do that kind of a practice, is that the thing that you're looking at may appear to disappear? Because of the holes in your retina, where your optic nerve is detached. When you really calm down your eyes, stop vibrating, back and forth, which is what they do in order to adjust for that hole in your retinas so that they can collect data about what would otherwise be in the hole.

Yucca: right. And all of that, you're getting your depth perception. You're getting all kinds of information from those tiny, tiny little movements. Yeah.

Mark: Right. So, if you are calming yourself and staring at something and it disappears, don't worry about it. That's there's there, there are reasons for that. And it's okay.

Yucca: And if there's a little bit of color difference that happens too. Like you see some spots where like the color is a little bit like pink or, or blue or things like that. That's again, that's totally normal. Yeah.

Mark: Right. We mentioned drumming drumming is either, either doing the drumming yourself or being in a place where there is, powerful drumming or very, very simple, steady heartbeat, kind of drumming, which can also be very transi in its own way. Those are, those are technologies that are as old as humanity.

They probably go back to pre-human, predecessors. 

Yucca: And the rush of water. That's another one too, that, that either the trickling for a fountain or the rush of the, the stream or the filling of the, the tub.

Mark: mm-hmm, the sound of waves crashing on the ocean.

Yucca: Yeah. Right.

Mark: Or of wind in trees, all of those kind of white noise,

Yucca: I,

Mark: somewhat varying, not, not entirely the same all the time. They just, they kind of low you into this very nice sort of dazed, calm, Transy space.

Yucca: suspect that they remind us on a very primal level of hearing our mother's blood inside the womb.

Mark: That sounds very reasonable to me.

Yucca: Right that rushing.

Mark: Right. Yeah, that that's cous. The another way is to contemplate something that leaps and dances like fire staring into a fire is a very Transy activity. And it's a way to you can do that with a candle flame. You can do it with a campfire. Don't do it with a wildfire. 

Yucca: Well, I, I mean,

Mark: I mean, you

Yucca: a safe distance yeah. Right. If, if you're, if you're in a safe situation and you're not being called upon to, be part of the effort in that moment yeah.

Mark: So that's another and I, I go back to this a lot because I find this very Transy when, when wind is blowing through trees and leaves are kind of shaking and dancing as the bows move in the wind. To me, that's a very Transy experience. I, I just. I, I, I, I start to enter the trans experience, reflecting on

Yucca: thinking about it.

Mark: just, just thinking about all the math that goes into.

All those motions, all those calculations, the, with the pressure and the, the friction coefficients and the angle of the leaves and all the different things, theoretically, you could actually calculate how this tree is going to move based on the wind that comes up against it. But in practical terms, it's impossible,

Yucca: Yeah. You'd have to have all those initial conditions. Yeah.

Mark: Right. So, I don't know. I wrote a poem once where I talked about wind and trees and mathematics as the language of God, it's, it's this, this in a Einsteinian sense, right? The, the language of the way the universe manifests.

Yucca: Yeah. Right.

Mark: So that's another, kind of way that we can end. Dancing lights. I mean, there, there are reasons why dance clubs have low light conditions with lots of, dancing around colored lights, Because it puts people into a trans state and in a trans state, they feel less inhibited, more comfortable, more safe and more able to express themselves.

So, and it's very pleasurable and that's why they go,

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: yeah.

Yucca: Also the full moon, right. That's one hanging out and just watching that full moon.

Mark: yeah. Watching the line of the Moonlight move across the floor is one that I really enjoy. Yeah. So, dancing, drumming, singing, singing in harmony with other people is a very trans activity, especially if you're doing kinds of music and harmonies

Yucca: some of those chance can really get you, get you

Mark: Really take you out there. There's a, there's a, a church in Southern France called in a, in a town called where they have a, a specific practice of doing these Catholic chant.

Very simple Catholic chance. And people come to sing and have this experience at TA. And there are songbooks that you can buy with these Chan in them, and the chance are simply beautiful wonderful stuff to sing. So you know what your fun, what, what you may be realizing as we talk about this stuff, is that a lot of the things that people.

To enjoy themselves or because it puts them in a trans state,

Yucca: Right.

Mark: right. An awful lot of things that we just like are things that we enjoy because they tend to lead us in that direction. And as pagans, we can then take advantage of that, not just to have a good time, which we are all in favor of. We are in favor of people having a good time.

But you can also make some use of that in a ritual context.

Yucca: Yeah. And like so many things that we talk about, there's this very. Intuitive instinctual component of it, but the practice can, can really help you to build in making it easier to slip into it, making it more effective. The practice element really is important.

Mark: It is and using a focus or an alter,

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: um, is one way to kind of, what's the word I want to use? Kind of fast track that

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: Process, because if, if there's a particular place that you go in your house and a thing that you look at where you are accustomed to going into a trans state before it, whether it's to read to road cards or light candles and incense, and.

Meditate or, or to place things for that are seasonal symbols to represent the time of the year or to put pictures of your ancestors so that they'll be remembered, whatever that is. The, the speed with which you will drop into that trans state. Really increases the more you practice in front of that focus. I, I find that when I first started my pagan practice, especially because I have ADHD and so focus and concentration are not exactly my strongest suit. And so my brain would be going all over the place and it was kind of hard to get into that trans state. But now all I have to do is step in front of my focus and light the candles and close my eyes and then open them to this rich display of symbols and items that, that are meaningful to me and tell me stories.

Right.

Yucca: mm-hmm

Mark: I'm there. I'm I'm in the trance state and I'm ready to do some kind of inner work.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So

this varies from person to person, there are people for whom like modern dance is the way that they get there, and that's great. It's good to know that about yourself. If you're just starting your practice. And you're just learning about how to work with trance, with yourself, try some different modalities.

Think about what has been, what has been enjoyable for you in the past.

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: And maybe for you, it's sitting down with some art supplies and a blank canvas and, going into that zone of creativity you, you can do. Paintings or sculptures or whatever it is that have a symbolic quality that can then help to work with your psychological nature as well.

That's another, way that you can approach this. So, for those that are new to the practice, I really encourage people to experiment, try different kinds of stuff.

Yucca: Right. And in that ex experimentation, trying different kinds of things and trying the same thing multiple times too, because the very first time we do things, sometimes they're re it's, it's really awkward. Right.

Mark: Yes, that critic voice that we talk about erects itself in the back of your head and says, this is stupid and you're making a fool of yourself and yada yada, yada, yada. And after you have some practice with this. That voice doesn't have the kind of power that it used to. It just doesn't, it doesn't impact you the way that it used to.

Which is good for you on all kinds of levels, because the self critic is a cruel voice. It's not good for us. And an ability to set that aside and say, no, I'm doing this now. Cuz it's good for me is one opportunity that we have to heal as people.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So what else do we have to talk about on trance?

Yucca: It's like so many of the things in paganism that it's, it really is a about experiencing it. We, we find things to talk about on a weekly podcast, but really what we're doing is about. experience, how we feel our relationship and interaction with the world with ourselves. And it's just, it's a, we're a doing religion, right?

We're an experience religion.

Mark: That's right. That's right. And. Our, our experiences are our life, right? And so enriching those experiences and making them as powerful and as positive for ourselves as possible is central to what our paganism is about. Because we're not. Worshiping gods or making offerings to them, or, spirits or demons or any of that kind of stuff.

What we're doing is we're working with our own psychology. And with that, of those that we share rituals with for the betterment of all.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: And so yes, practice try out different modalities, even little as, as you were saying, Yucca even little kids do this. Little kids will spin and spin and spin and spin and spin until they get dizzy and fall down because they want to be in an altered state.

Yucca: Listen to them on their own. They'll they'll we didn't talk about this mantras, right? They'll come up with their own mantras and they'll repeat that over and over and over, I was watching my daughter play just was absolutely fascinated by a tree that had some SAP. And she was out there for, it had to be 30, 40 minutes just in just watching that SAP, looking at that SAP and just, I couldn't quite hear what she was saying, but she.

Singing something to herself over and over, just in just super engrossed entranced. Right. And we just, we, when given the opportunity we do that, right. And of course there's different types of personalities. Some peop some personalities will do that more than others. Some personalities are, hyper-focusing like my personality, you were talking about, focus, being something you've cha that. is a little bit more challenging for you. For me, it's kind of the other way. It's hard to get myself to get out of whatever I'm focusing on. There's different personalities, but it's something that is kind of still in all of us to a certain degree.

Mark: Yes. Yeah. And when you look at cultures all over the world, you see that the attainment of altered states of consciousness is something that humans just gravitate to everywhere. And whether it means that they have to build these soaring cathedrals with stained glass, windows, and burn incense and candles, and have, flickering low levels of light and, and Gregorian chant.

Yucca: and out.

Mark: Right. And, have Gregorian Chan singing and leaders telling people what they're supposed to do to get their trans experience, or whether it's as simple as, spinning on one foot, like the Sufi. 

Yucca: Or wake up for Dawn

Mark: mm-hmm

Yucca: and just hang out with the Dawn.

Mark: yeah, yeah. Especially at this time of year when the sunsets and sunrises are so long.

Yeah. It's really, really a good time. Well, so as with so many things that we talk about here on the podcast, really encourage you to do this stuff. It's a, it's a kind of a strange thing to me. One of the things that I heard a lot when I first entered the pagan community is you have to read these 70 books. Some, some huge stack of you have to read this and this and this and this and this and this and this. And a lot of what I found was in those books was stuff that I don't really subscribe to now. To me, what really made the difference was having the experience, going to the rituals, sharing in those experiences, getting to know the people and then.

Yucca: practice.

Mark: Daily practice. Absolutely. And then starting to craft the rituals myself and starting to invite others, to join me in doing, rituals that, that felt meaningful and, and impactful. So, that is a very joyous joy. It's a, it's a really enjoyable path to travel. And if you're just getting started, I really encourage you to set forth, find out how you best fall into trance.

And maybe you wanna learn to be a really good drummer, it'll, you'll, you'll be a, a super asset to the other pagans around you because you can help them to go into trance. And you will always have a means available of going into trance as long as you have something that you can tap on.

Yucca: just be your. Right. If, if you have nothing else, it could be your, your belly or your thighs or or that beautiful drum that you hand painted and whatever it is. Yeah.

Mark: I'm, I'm actually buying a drum this week. I'm excited about it. My, my frame drum, big round kind of flat frame drum disappeared at an event the event where I broke my arm back in 2017 and my friend whose truck it flew off the back of apparently has always said that he.

Wanted to wanted to buy me another one, but he has never gotten around to it. So now I'm going to go buy it and he's going to pay me back for it. So I'm excited about having a frame drum again. That'll be really cool.

Yucca: nice.

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: Hmm. Well, thank you, mark. This was a lovely and inspiring conversation. We're supposed to get some rain this afternoon and I think maybe I'll sneak away and see if I can trance out with the rain.

Mark: Yeah, that sounds wonderful. Especially that wonderful blood warm rain that you get in the Southwest. It's so nice.

Yucca: Yeah. yeah,

Mark: Yeah. All right. All right. Thanks again so much Yucca. And we'll see you all next week

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