THE WONDER: Science-Based Paganism

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S3E23 TRANSCRIPT:

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Yucca: Welcome back to the wonder science-based paganism. I'm one of your hosts, Yucca, and this episode, we're doing something new and kind of exciting that we've never done before. This is our mail bag episode. So we've gotten a lot of responses and questions from all of you on the email.

And we wanted to talk about some of these.

Mark: Yeah. We love it when we hear from our listeners. It's really helpful for us to know what you're enjoying what you'd like to hear more about all that kind of stuff. And we've, we've recently received some messages with some topics that probably aren't big enough for a whole episode by themselves, but they're important questions and we want to address them.

So, yeah, this is, this is the mail bag and I imagine, going forward, we'll probably do more of them as we get more, more messages from listeners.

Yucca: Yeah from you. That's right. So let's start, we've got a few from Paul and I've just cut out the, the bits from the emails, right? I'm not gonna read the whole thing, but this first one is if you guys felt like commenting on any pointers, other podcast books, webpages, etcetera, that could help a nube in the beginning of this journey.

That'd be great. So I think mark, this is one that might be great for you to take. Cause I think you have a little bit more exposure to some of the, the blog world and all of that.

Mark: I mean, I can certainly, there's a, a group of there's a resources and links page on the atheopagan [email protected]. And I would recommend checking out a bunch of those links. Natural pagans.com is a is a an aggregation site that pulls writing on naturalistic paganism from a bunch of different sources and puts them together in one place where you can find them.

So that's one thing to look at the naturalistic paganism website is another great source for information.

Yucca: right,

Mark: if you just want kind of overviews on what Ethiopia paganism is and the principles, and just sort of, broad descriptions about, what it is that we're practicing and what our values are.

The website of the Ethiopia society is a good one to go to. And that is V AP society.org.

Yucca: mm-hmm

Mark: Uh, so that once

Yucca: AP as in atheopagan mm-hmm

Mark: Yes. So it's V AP society.org. That's another place where you can find quite a bit of information and you can legally Orain

Yucca: right, of course. Your

Mark: Just like at the universal life church, it's perfectly legal.

You can perform weddings, all that kind of stuff. Because we are a registered religious nonprofit in the United States. So that's something that's cool and exciting. In terms of,

Yucca: own book, right? Mark has an excellent book

Mark: Oh yes. My book Ethiopia, paganism and earth honoring path rooted in science. You can order it from any bookstore.

I recommend your local independent bookstore because they are great and we support them. And I'm working on another one, which there will be hopefully news about sometime soon. But it'll be a while before it's done. So. In other books, I really recommend rating Sweetgrass by Robin wall Kimmer, which is it's more of a worldview book.

It's not really a, here's how to do rituals book, but it's, she is both a botanist an academic botanist and a registered member of the citizen. Patua Tommy Native indigenous tribe. And so she comes at her perspective about the human relationship with nature from both of those perspectives and weaves them together in this very beautiful and illuminating kind of way.

So that's once against braiding sweet grass by Robin wall Kimmer

Yucca: mm-hmm

Mark: I know that she's written other steps that's out there on the web. You can search for her name and you'll find good stuff that she's published.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: It's not nontheistic, but I do recommend the earth path by Starhawk, which I think is.

Yucca: It was very influential for me as a teenager. Like it's an excellent book.

Mark: It's a really good book. And, I suspect she's always very circumspect about this, but I suspect that Starhawk is not a very woo woo person. My conjecture and this is just apropo of reading and observation and stuff is that, she may not subscribe to supernaturalism. But she's very careful not to come out explicitly and say that because a lot of people around her do, and she doesn't want to be off putting to them.

And she's such luminary in the community that that would really make waves,

Yucca: right. Well, it's, what, what is one's goal, right? What is, yeah. And that's, that's my take with my interactions with her as well, but of course, neither of us are her and can speak for her,

Mark: course, and, and I'm not trying

Yucca: Yeah. 

Mark: The reason that I say that is that the book is not a heavily theistic book

Yucca: yeah, yeah.

Mark: or, or magical, and in terms of supernaturalism kind of book it's really about living life with a relationship with the natural world and in seeking to be a healing presence on the planet towards the natural world.

Yucca: And there is a component in that that you can do or skip, but I really advise doing it there's activities that she gives. I don't remember if it's the beginning or the end of each chapter, but she talks about the concept. She gives examples from real life and then gives you things to do. And if you do those actual activities and those practices, they're really well designed and they, they tie into a lot of the stuff that we talk about here with the being present and observing and noticing.

So, a good, a good one to get into. Yeah.

Mark: Yeah. I, I really agree with that. And similarly her book circle round

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: with Anne hill which is a book for families and with activities for children,

Yucca: That's a great one. That's a little bit more on the theistic side. There's like stories with like deities and stuff, but we've read some of those in, in my family, but we're just really clear with the kids. These are stories. These are not, the, these, these figures exist in the way that Santa Claus exist.

That it's a figure in our minds and it means something to us, but they're not like people walking around. They're not, there's not a person. And boy, we'd be in for a shock if there, if we were wrong about that

Mark: It would definitely reframe the art cosmology a whole lot. But so both of those books, I, I really recommend in terms of practice building for a family or with young children. And then just generally, between braiding sweet grass and the earth path, I think you get a pretty good window into the sort of approach that you and I Yucca take to our paganism.

And, and with my book, thrown in there as well that it is, it's a mindset and a worldview and a way of carrying ourselves in the world.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: More than it is about, worshiping deities or doing, even doing rituals. I mean, even though that is a part of it celebrating the holidays, but at a really deep level, what our paganism is about is how we

Yucca: There's there's another side to this that we can add in which is the wow and wonder part. And that's all the science books, the science books, the science podcast I've been binging planetary radio, that's the planetary societies podcast. And they have, they have a lovely host whose whose voice is just a pleasure to listen to.

Right? And then they bring on just these amazing guests who talk about the incredible things that we're exploring about our world. And there are podcasts that you can listen to that are about, the microscopic world and the, this and the, that, and the books that just all the pop science books, or if you're in a specific field, you can dig really deep in and, and that's, that can be part of your paganism too.

Mark: Sure sure. Because part of the, the wow factor that the sense of wonder in awe about being here at all and. Everything else that's here as well is being informed about it. And so, the, the more you, the more you unravel the universe, the more you, kind of pull on that thread to unravel the sweater, the more you, that stuff you discover, that's just amazing and, and thrilling in a, in a deep spiritual kind of way.

It's just so exciting. When I first learned about complexity theory and emergence, I mean, I read two pages and then I would sort of skip around the room and then I, read two more pages and would do that again. Because these are amazing, amazing things and they answer deep questions about why complexity emerges from simpler systems.

Right. So, definitely, all that science stuff is right up there with, with our paganism. And I think, I think I would, I'm gonna kind of stop there. There's, I mean, I'm sure that there are tons of books that I'm missing and but my, my encouragement would be less to go in the sort of mainstream paganism direction with your reading at least to start with, because a lot of that stuff is really focused on magical correspondences and relationship with theos and, do this kind of spell to get that kind of result.

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: And. We just come at this from a different angle.

Yucca: Right. Wonderful.

Mark: question.

Yucca: So our next question, this is the second part from Paul and there's a lot of questions wrapped up in this. So I'm gonna, I'm just gonna read the whole piece here. I know you are both involved in environmental conservation and activism, as I suspect many athe pagans would be. I wonder if you would have enough material to discuss what kinds of things in your personal life and practice aimed at planetary protection, what organizations might you be involved in?

What experiences have you had with them? Do you organize events like cleanups or fundraising stuff along that line? So there's

Mark: very multipart question.

Yucca: Right. So yes, both of us have been professionally involved in these areas for, for many years. Mark, do you wanna start with your half on that?

Mark: I was gonna invite you to start first.

Yucca: all right, well, I'll

Mark: why don't

Yucca: start on my side.

So my background is I am an ecologist. I'm a restoration oncologist, actually. So I would say that I have not been involved in conservation rather in restoration. And currently a lot of my work has been moving in the direction of the education and science communication, but I still do work.

There's several several projects that I'm working on in which I work with local land owners in working on respirating their ecosystem. So we're monitoring, looking at management strategies and I'm arranged land specialist. So we're looking at grasslands, Juniper shrub lands. And I mean, this is really amazing rewarding stuff because we can.

We can make very small little changes in the way that the land is being managed, because let me, let me step back for this for just a moment we manage land, whether we do it purposefully or not, there's, you're not there isn't land. There isn't anywhere where humans are not involved and not influencing.

And there's this, this myth of the wild wilderness where, humans, if you just let it go, it'll do its thing. Every single thing we do is a choice that impacts our land. And I'm from a part of the world, which is a very brittle environment, which is a very fragile environment. And is in fact, this was, is the case for the whole half of the continent is very wounded.

Right. And it's been, the ecosystems have been really, really struggling for hundreds, actually thousands of years, but especially within the last few hundred years when the last of the, of the megafauna were purposefully wiped out. And so a lot of what I do is we as waterway restoration, but also bringing animals back in very purposefully, bringing back the grazers in a way that matches what would be happening.

If humans hadn't gotten rid of the grazers and hadn't divided everything up with Barb wire and doing all of this. So I work in this, this. Kind of intersection between the ranching world, which is the world I come from. And some of the, the science world in the, bringing that science in, into the restoration for the people who are the stewards of this land and, and really understand it and are part of the land.

So that's a incredibly rewarding and kind of beautiful thing to, to get, to, to be honored, to be in involved with that. 

Mark: Yeah, that's really important work. I'm I'm really glad you do that. Thank you. Yeah. I have, well, let me see. My part of the reason that I invited you to go first is so that I could sort of put this together in my mind, how to, how to do this. I used to be much more involved in the policy advocacy side of of environmental protection and restoration than I am now. I was the founding executive director of an organization in my local county, which I built over the 10 years that I was their ed into the largest environmental group of any kind on the north coast of California, even larger than Sierra club.

And We used grassroots organizing to mobilize thousands of letters and postcards to elected officials on targeted issues, working specifically on local stuff. So municipal stuff, county scale stuff where that kind of outpouring of voter input is unheard of. And it scares the living hell out of elected officials. So we were able to accomplish some really amazing things. We prevented the subregional wastewater system in our area from going to our local river as the discharge point for their tertiary treated wastewater. So instead that water goes up to a natural geothermal field for geothermal energy generation,

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: um, we we got.

Planning ordinances in place approved by voters that drew growth boundaries around each of the cities in our county, so that they would stop sprawling into agricultural and habitat lands. So that now the growth that they do is in density and up rather which facilitates public transportation. It facilitates walkable neighborhoods, all of those good urban planning principles.

We really put on the map here where I am in Sonoma county. And I'm, I'm proud to say that we, we are really on the cutting edge of what's happening in environmental planning in many ways here in Sonoma county. The organization is called Sonoma county conservation action. And though I left it more than 20 years ago.

It's still going and still doing good stuff. And and I'm, I'm very, very proud of that work. Subsequent to that, I worked for seven years a, after being an executive director of a couple of organizations, I focused my attention on fundraising specifically because the public interest missions that I really care about get advanced by nonprofit organizations whose capacities are entirely limited by how much funding they have.

Yucca: Right, right.

Mark: So it's just, it's about fuel for the engine. And if you, if you don't have it, then however, great your mission is it's very harder to make anything substantive take place. So, I really focused on developing skills in grant writing, major donor fundraising, direct mail event production planned giving. Organizing all that kind of stuff. And that's what I've mostly done since I left conservation action. I did spend seven years at a wetlands Conservancy, which did the kind of restoration work that you're talking about except in a California Oak Chaparral wetlands kind of context. So we restored linear miles of riparian habitat within the Laguna to Santa Rosa, which is the largest tributary of the Russian river.

And had a science program as well and an education program for grade school kids. And that I was the second staff person hired there after an executive director. They'd been around as a volunteer group for years, but he and I built the organization's programs to be a really, sustainable and impactful organization.

And I'm very proud of that work as well. And they're still around as well, doing the things that they're doing. In recent years, I've worked more on social services and kind of, social impact organizations than environmental organizations. To some degree, I feel like the 60 hour weeks that I worked during my 10 years at conservation action were kind of like my tour of duty. And after 10 years I was thoroughly burned out and I feel like, I got my medals, I got my, congressional resolution of appreciation and state legislature things. And I was named environmentalist of the year for the county and all that stuff. And I kind of took my medals and went home.

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: So now the stuff that I do is much less around the public impact of stuff. And it's more just kind of how I personally conduct my life. I drive an electric car. I I'm really focused on energy consumption and carbon a lot in just how I live my personal life. I'm not much of a consumer. Buying new stuff is just not really a big thrill for me.

And and I try to live. A simple but comfortable life within the context that I'm in, which is a kind of suburban city. And of course, to vote the right way and to stay plugged into understanding what that right way is. And and that's, that's kind of it for where I am right now, but I've, I've spent many, many years in the trenches really working to make things better for the environment around here.

Yucca: Right. Sounds like you've got a lot of diverse experience.

Mark: Well, I'm old or I'm getting old. And so that's, that's what that'll give you. It's yeah, it's been a pretty, pretty amazing ride. I'm I'm very happy with my career, although currently I'm unemployed. Hoping that that's gonna end soon and I can dive into some new mission that that I'm passionate about and that I can do some good with in terms of organizations that we can support.

My focus has generally been twofold. I have focused on policy organizations and on land conservancies. So the nature Conservancy conservation international the conservation fund, these, those are organizations that are doing stuff like acquiring large swaves of theier Delta, which is one of the biggest bird bird hatchery, Rory estuary places in the world so that they are not developed in ways that are destructive to those creatures.

I, and, and going along with what you said, Yucca they are actively managing those lands. They're not just throwing them behind a fence they're they have actual, land stewards whose job it is to restore and manage those lands.

Yucca: Cause certainly if you do that in a brittle environment, you will starve the land. Right? If you just put a fence around it, say nothing, touch it, it, it gets worse and worse and worse. Yeah. Because it's kind of like, here's that, here's an analogy. You find a dog on the side of the road who's been hit and, and her leg is broken.

If you just leave the leg alone, right. I mean, it was humans who hit the dog. Right. But if you leave the, the leg alone, it, the, the bones, if they survived, the bones gonna heal wrong, right. They're gonna have a, they're gonna have a, a messed up leg their whole life. But if you take them into the vet and you set the bone and, give them the, the care that they need, then they have a chance to recover, even though it was human's fault in the first place that the dog got hit.

Right. So, or a land's kind of like that

Mark: yeah. Human intervention is, is required in the vast majority of kind of habitat management. And habitat bio biological systems biological services, as some people call it because they wanna kind of monetarily quantify the value that's provided to humans. 

Yucca: I mean, that might be coming a little bit from the terminology of ecosystem services, right? That's an old, an old term that is talking about the, the, the service of, of the water, what the things that it provides. So that would be, that might be one of the directions that is came in from

Mark: Right. But some of the, some of the values that we have around conservation are. They're values that don't necessarily directly benefit humans, or if they do, you have to follow a chain in order to find out how they do like biodiversity. For example, I mean, to me, biodiversity is just a core value.

I think it's a good thing, period. Whether it benefits humans or not,

Yucca: Yeah, well, so I think that biodiversity is one of the most important things. It takes a little bit of explaining to help people understand why, but biodiversity is absolutely key to the survival. Everything that we need, the air that we breathe, the food that we eat, the everything is dependent upon that biodiversity.

And when we have areas with low biodiversity, those systems fail, they fall apart, right? Biodiversity is perhaps one of the most important, important things there is for this, this planet, right. Biodiversity is a healthy biosphere.

Mark: mm-hmm yeah. Yeah. I agree. The, the level of diversity prior to humans developing the kinds of capacities that we have now to really impact the environment in a really dramatic way. 

Yucca: Monoculture being the, the really big yeah. For all your P protein.

Mark: right. The level of complexity that existed on the earth at that time prior to the ad, the advent of those technologies is something that we can't even imagine today. And some of it, some of it was relatively recent. I mean, in the 19th century flock of passenger pigeons that took three days to pass over, would go over in migration in migration season.

And the passenger pigeon is now extinct. And that's because they, their tail feathers were desired for hats.

Yucca: yeah,

Mark: And that's what we did.

Yucca: and if you've ever visited someplace like yellow, The entire continent was like double that,

Mark: Mm-hmm

Yucca: Just in terms of the life that was everywhere. Now it's gonna be different life depending on the particular bio region. Right. Although some of those things were across the entire continent, right.

Wolves or things like that. Speaking of Yellowstone just a mention to everybody. My, my brother lives there and he was sending us photographs of his neighbor's houses, like literally floating away. It's a,

Mark: I was gonna ask you when we were done recording. If he was okay.

Yucca: Yeah. He's just high enough up. But a lot of the they're tough Montanans are, are tough. They're a tough bunch, but but there's a lot of tourists who are stuck there too, that are in kind of a panic

Mark: that's in Wyoming, right?

Yucca: No Montana.

Mark: Yellowstone.

Yucca: Yeah. Well it's a big area, but he's in Gardner Montana.

Mark: Huh

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: I've I've been to Yellowstone and I could have sworn that it was in Wyoming

relatively close to the border,

Yucca: but maybe it goes into, but no it's Montana. 

Mark: Oh, wait a

Yucca: of it that are, that are in

Mark: are in Wyoming and also Idaho.

Yucca: Yeah. It's a big, it's a big area.

Yeah, he's in gardener. So that's the, and there are multiple different entrances to the park. But it's, it's, I mean, there's flooding happening in that whole area. Yeah.

Mark: boy, we could sure. Use some of that water here.

Yucca: well, basically all the rain that the Southwest hasn't been getting and the surrounding areas has just been dumping right there.

They got like a whole bunch of inches on top of their snow pack and then that's what came down. But anyways, so, yeah, that's just our hearts go out to, to everybody with that. And there are, you could just go fund me if you're interested. There are just type in type in, Montana floods Yellowstone floods, and there's, there's definitely some support that people can, can get.

It's gonna be a quite a while before some of those roads and, and things are rebuilt. But it is a good lesson to not build your roads at the bottom of valleys. 

Mark: Yeah. Run building your road right along the waterway is a, it's a bad, I it's bad for the waterway for one thing. But it's a really bad idea. If you are in a flashy valley that gets really big storm events periodically because it's gonna take the road out.

Yucca: Yeah. Now this is the highest it's been ever in recorded history. This is the, but it's still, it's something that I think we're gonna have to be really mindful. We should have been over the last, century, but we're gonna have to be really mindful about that moving forward. And I think we'll see a lot more of this in communities having to redesign and those roadways that's where a lot of with the work I do, a lot of the erosion that we deal with was just.

Roads that made sense why they were built that way, because it was the least expensive EC. I mean, if you've ever , if you've ever graded a road, you understand why you're trying to do it the easiest possible, because it's hard to do. But a lot of the erosion is caused by just poorly placed roads where we weren't paying attention.

And we didn't realize on my own land, we have an Arroyo that cuts through that is 30 feet deep. So it's a cut gash 30 feet. And looking at it, I know that that, that erosion feature is can't be more than 80 or 90 years old to get 30 feet. Right. And that's the case across the whole, whole west

Mark: the whole American west. Absolutely.

Yucca: So, but coming back to our question, other, you were talking about organizations

Mark: And then the, the other question was about organizing cleanups or other sort of volunteer activities.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: in my professional capacity, I have organized those kinds of things, for the organizations I've worked for. It is my hope that some of the affinity groups, the atheopagan local, geographically focused affinity groups may at some point do something like that, or at least, go to a cleanup event of some kind wearing atheopagan t-shirts or something like that to kind of represent the. The, the, the movement of non Theus paganism and show that we are putting our, our labor where our mouths are. But that's a new program that just started this year and it's early days yet. In fact, I'm going to an in-person summer solstice celebration to S celebration tomorrow with other folks from Northern California that are, on the atheopagan Facebook group and we have a discord and we're gonna do a summer solstice ritual and have a Noche and it'll be good.

Yucca: when this goes live, I should be meeting up with another atheopagan family. So I'm very excited about that and our kids are gonna get to get to play. So,

Mark: so cool. I, I just, I, I love the idea of Well, it's not even the idea. I love the fact that our community is starting to knit a little bit, even though we're we're geographically far flung. And there aren't that many of us we're starting to make connections in, and I think the sun tree retreat that we went to was a big factor for that.

I know that a lot of people really wanted to stay in touch with the people that went to the retreat with them.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So

Yucca: So before we jump to our next one, I wanted to mention organizations that we're involved with. So I'm involved with and give money every month. We don't have a lot, but every little bit helps. The savory Institute is one that we have really, really value and have seen. And I'm speaking, we, as in my, my family and I seen incredible results with and also my husband is a student of Elaine Ingram.

So we are, starting up our own soil, food web, and those are kind of the, the big organizations that we're involved with. That'd, invite people to check out in terms of like cleanups. We live pretty rural. So if we were in an urban environment, that would be kind of more of a thing. But we do go to the county meetings and and call, know the, the commissioners and call 'em up.

And they, they, they know us. Right. And since it is a rural community, there is people like their privacy, but we also help each other out. So we don't really have barns around here, but the equivalent of barn raising type of things. And that's where a lot of our, our energy goes into is the, the small communities cuz we're, very rural and kind of everybody's their own little ranch homestead out in this area.

Mark: Sure. Yeah. That really contrasts with where I am. I mean, California is obviously very heavily populated, but you know, I'm here on the coast and one of the most attractive things to a human is an area where there's water moving around. People love to go to the beach and so beach cleanups and river cleanups and that kind of thing are, are phenomenon where I am just because there's enough people to make a mess.

Yucca: Well, and even if you didn't have people going to the beach, you'd probably have stuff washing up all the time anyways. So there's just always gonna be stuff to, to go and, and help out with. And you have some amazing,

Mark: Yes 

Yucca: Marine ecosystems right off your coast.

Mark: we do. We do. Yeah. They are endangered the, the kelp forests are being replaced by a sort of gelatinous slime on the bottom of the ocean. And many of the many of the creatures are being replaced by sea urchins.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: But,

Yucca: Kiddos are huge Octa, not fans, if there's any other parents out there, you know what I'm talking about? And their favorite character is Shellington the sea Otter. Who's allergic to sea urchins, but all his other friends eat up the the urchins. They have a whole episode about how important the sea otters are to keeping those urchins in balance.

Mark: yes. And that's another species which was haunted nearly to extinction and is now rebounded quite well along the California coast.

Yucca: I'm glad to hear that. Yeah.

Mark: Yeah. It's, they're so adorable. It's great

Yucca: They're oh my goodness. So.

Mark: so.

Yucca: yeah, our our next question, and this actually ties back to what we're talking about, about the, the community. This is coming from Savannah who did a, a much longer email, really love the email, but I'm just gonna pull this last bit out. Talking about community with the larger pagan community, which may not necessarily be non theist or athe pagans.

So they write, I've been pondering, whether I should start attending local pagan events, which in this area seem to be skewed, more viewed, more theistic, and based in the supernatural, is it worth it? Are there ways to get along? Would I simply have to turn my brain off at a, at certain points, bite my tongue and swallow my allergy to woo.

Or is there a way to be part of mainstream pagan community in a way that's authentic to me. So some good stuff in here.

Mark: Yeah. Great question. And it's one that I think is really pertinent for everyone that's practicing in the non theist pagan realm. There, there is, as, as rare as pagans are, and the best estimate that I've seen for north America is that there's probably about a million of us in in the United States.

And then more in Canada and Mexico. So that that's not very much in a country of 330 odd million people.

Yucca: yeah.

Mark: But there is a community and there are events, there are festivals and there are conferences and there are opportunities to get in their local groups that are opportunities to get together.

And unfortunately there is no way to broadly characterize those. It really depends on the personalities and the culture of what's going on in your local area. So not knowing who those people are. I can't really say whether it's possible for you to be out as atheist pagan with other pagans and have them welcome you.

Some places do some places don't,

Yucca: And it's so personal too. Right? We can give advice, but what's gonna, even if, if you, there were two atheopagan in the same place who didn't know each other, we're having the same question. It's gonna be different for each of those people based on their personalities and their comfort zone. All of that stuff. so we can certainly give the advice, but, but know that it's gonna be different for absolutely everyone. And there's not a right answer.

Mark: Right. My rule of thumb for this sort of thing is that when I'm a guest, I obey the hosts rules.

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: So if I'm invited to a ritual and they're doing all this theistic stuff, I just translate it in my mind, understanding that they may not know that they're talking to air and that that's, that that they're just talking to themselves or not.

But that doesn't really matter. I know that. And I understand what they're trying to get at in terms of the characteristics, the qualities, the nature of the figure that they're invoking, right? Like if they're invoking Zeus, there are particular qualities and characteristics that that figure of myth has, and that's what they're, that's what they're invoking into the ritual that you're working to do.

So I don't necessarily, I mean, I'm not going to pipe up in the middle of somebody's ritual and say, I don't believe that

Yucca: Yeah,

Mark: but so it, it is rude, right. If we get into a theological discussion, I'm going to, I'm gonna be public about my atheopagan, but you don't have to be, if you're not comfortable,

Yucca: right.

Mark: You can say, my, my personal cosmology is really private to me.

Or you can say I look at things somewhat differently, but that doesn't really matter. I'm glad to be here. And, enjoying being with you folks,

Yucca: Or you can steer the conversation away and not actually ask, answer the question that they asked. Right. When they ask a direct question, you just talk about whatever you wanna talk about and just run with the conversation in a different direction, 

Mark: I mean,

Yucca: that's. Yeah.

Mark: I mean, talk about your passion for nature, talk about your, your sense of awe and wonder at, what's happening with the James web telescope. There, there are a lot of different things that you can do that will resonate with the vast majority of practicing pagans that don't have to do with God's and magic.

If somebody, is sort of grilling you about, well, what kind of spells do you really like to do? Yada yada? Well, I'm not much of a spellcaster I've been known. I've been known to use that line a lot. And the vast majority of pagans, at least in the United States are solitary.

They are not people who work in groups or coves or circles. So. That understanding. That means that by definition, it's a very idiosyncratic community of people. Everybody's got their own way of approaching things. So there is a lot of tolerance in the pagan community for difference of many kinds. The problem is that when you, when you explain that you don't believe in deities or supernatural beings of any kind, people can take that as a criticism of their belief. And you want to kind of avoid that implication if at all possible. Everybody has to draw their own cosmological conclusions. We've done that based on evidence and science, others do it based on experiences that they've had. Right. Believing what their, what their sensorium developed as an experience for them believing that that is an actual physical thing that happened in the world.

So if they heard the voice of a God talking to them, they don't think that it was their brain. They think that it was the voice of a God talking to them. And, we, we need to respect that they as humans, they have the right to do that. They have the right to their own spiritual path and the right to their own Conclusions about the nature of the world.

But we don't have to say, oh yes, I see. I, I know how that is. We can, we can divert the conversation or just be, really Franken, but in a vague way. Right. I, I have kind of a different way of understanding that stuff, but that sounds really powerful to me,

Yucca: Yeah. Cause that's, that's another strategy is to just let them talk about themselves and their. Turn it back to them getting to talk about themselves because not everybody, but most pagans are really excited to get to talk about their thing with somebody. Right. You're gonna listen to me. Go on. Right. So like asking a D and D player about their characters, you

Mark: Right. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Well, let me just tell you,

Yucca: yeah.

Now the other thing that we of course need to put a plug in for is and this is kind of a place that, that atheopagan is right now. One of the stages is that we are growing and starting to build a lot of community. So it might be an opportunity for you to. To start building a community, right. If there isn't already an atheopagan affinity group in your area, maybe you could start one, right.

Or maybe there might be, for me, there's just not enough of us in New Mexico. So I'm chilling with the Coloradans, right? Like, okay, that's close enough. I'll go hang out with you. You're, you're only a few hours away, so maybe there's something like that. So

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. And community is a really good thing. And it's an important function of, of religion of spirituality. It's. Well, okay. I, I don't want to get into the difference between religion and spirituality and there are no universally agreed definitions for those terms anyway, but. To me, religion is a communal activity.

It's something that, that, a community builds itself up around, and it's good for us. It's good for us not to be siloed all the time and to be connected with other people of like mind. So what Yucca says is really a, an important point that you know, I, there was this reporter in the bay area many years ago, scoop NICAR who used to say, if you don't like the news, go out and make some of your own.

And similarly with pagan community, if you don't like what they're doing, make some of your own, announce a announce, a Sabba holiday celebration and invite people that you think. Might fit might, might celebrate that, you can have a nice, a nice feast dinner and meet some new people. Meetup.com is actually a really useful thing for that because people who are looking for things to do, looking for ways to connect with others are they're there. That's where they are. So it's a, it's a useful tool.

Yucca: Yeah. Okay. So let's take this last one for now. And again, if you wanna, if you wanna send in your questions or topics please do, but this last one is from Cheryl. And this is kind of a, kind of a fun one, a little bit of a tricky one. So two parts to it. Okay. What positive stereotypes do you hope athe pagans become known for?

And on the flip side, what are some possible negative stereotypes you worry about? And you would like to steer the community away. Yeah.

Mark: Okay. Okay.

Yucca: I mean, I could, some of the positive ones immediately, I could say. I hope that we've become known for being compassionate. Interesting. Open-minded very critical, but in like a Socratic kind of loving of education way, those are some, I mean, basically I'm just taking out my personal values that I like and saying, I want the whole community to be like that.

Right. But yeah.

Mark: Yeah. I think I would like, for us to know, for, to be known for being kind.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: And also critical thinkers and for our genuine love for nature, our, our, our deep passion for this world and our capacity to inspire that in others. I would also like for us to be known as really effective ritualists, people that can really change you psychologically really, transform the hurts within us so that we heal and really put on a great celebration.

That's filled with joy and happiness and connection. So those, those pieces I think are really important to me as well. On the other side on the negative side, what I would like to do is divert our reputation away from the new atheists.

Yucca: mm-hmm

Mark: I don't want to be, I don't want to be perceived in the same bucket as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris and all those guys, Lauren Krause.

Yucca: I mean, for me, for many years, I shied away from using the term atheist because of that association. Right. I think actually there was a, a video like years back at this point that I had made that I had mentioned that. And you had commented in the, the comments section about that. Right. And it was a really nice kind of eye opener, but because you hear a lot of people, you hear the word atheist and the, what comes to mind is the person like shooting down and tearing apart and, and just being very like,

Mark: Being being antithetic

Yucca: and yeah, and just shutting everybody down.

Right.

Mark: right, right. In, in, in with, with the, with the key goal, being this sort of egotistical,

Yucca: Superiority.

Mark: the, and Desi desire to be right.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: And I mean, everybody, everybody thinks their cosmology is right. It's true that people who base their cosmologies on evidence are more likely to be. Right. But being right is cold comfort.

It's not. It doesn't, you can't build community around being right. Which is why atheism doesn't really have communities. There's. I mean, there are a couple of organizations where people belong to them and get together to talk about how right they are. And I've been to a few of those,

Yucca: Yeah. Well at its core, though, atheism is just not. Theist. Right. And then there's so many different then. I mean, that's only just a tiny part of culture. Right. And then there's so much. And so that's, I mean, what, what we've done is we've taken and brought together the, okay. We don't deal with that God thing, but we are pagans.

We, we appreciate science. We use that as a framework for understanding the world, but we also have all of these other values that we are adding to this. You can be atheist and have values,

Mark: Yes. Yes. And paganism by its very nature is culture building rather than being handed culture from a book or from an existing tradition, that's already got all of its own rules. We are in the process of creating culture for ourselves that meets our values and works to help us to be really happy and effective in the world.

And those are things that don't really fit very well in the, in the new atheist schema of things, because they involve a lot of. Kind of soft, cushy stuff that isn't the bright, hard steel of science, right? They involve rituals and psychology and myth and symbols and all the, the artistic impulse, the creative impulse all of those things that are so, so intrinsic to who we are as humans, but not about the thinky part of being humans. They're about the other parts to being humans and valuing those other parts and feeding them and building community around them.

Yucca: Right. And what I really hope for us is that we continue to grow and cultivate an appreciation for both of those sides. Right? Because the, the pagan community at large is really good at those feeling squishy stuff. But one of the things that we're doing is atheopagan is also bringing in the, yeah, let's bring in this logic, let's bring in this critical thinking and we're and we're bettered for it.

We feel it improves our life.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. And, and there's a, I guess I would say there is a, a satiety to the worldview of non-US paganism. There's, there's a way that it fills us up because the world is enough, right. Nature, all the way out to the gala. Super clusters and, macro structures in the universe all the way down, down below the quirks to, the, the, the tiny boons and microparticles.

It, it's so amazing and so enormous to try to get your mind around even a little bit, that we, we are able to be satisfied with it. Somehow we don't need to populate it with human-like figures that are probably pretty unlikely to exist based on the available evidence. And so one of the things that I've said about Ethiopia paganism quite a bit is that we're the spirituality of verifiable reality.

Yucca: like that. Will you say that one again?

Mark: we're the spirituality of verifiable reality. You, you don't need for there to be a supernatural dimension to the universe in order to be filled with a spiritual sense of awe and joy and purpose and finding meaning in this life. And and so that's what we're about and what I would hope people would take away from encountering us is this feeling of, wow, that's a really cool person.

I really liked them. They were warm and they were thoughtful and they were interesting and they were creative. And I wanna spend more time with those kinds of people.

Yucca: Yeah. And welcoming.

Mark: Yes. And, and welcoming.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Not proselytizing to be clear, not you should be one of us, but just welcoming, if you're, if you're curious about the stuff that I'm into, here's where you can find it. Yeah. As the, as the, the founder of the particular path of athe paganism within the broader category of non-US paganism, my goal has always been from the very beginning to try to do it. All right. And I'm human. So that means that there's gonna be, places where it doesn't get done.

Right. But with a community, I think you can correct for any one person's errors in order to become more and more kind, more and more consistent with your expressed values, more and more mutually accountable and transparent, more and more affirming of the value of every person who's in the community and every person in the world.

And so that really is my hope that we are on this evolutionary journey where as a movement, among the many movements of humans here we're gaining some traction for those kinds of values and way of being in the world with one another.

Yucca: Yeah, I've been very encouraged and impressed by the community. And there's been so many people stepping forward and taking leadership roles and people are certainly not afraid to correct you or anyone else. And you have been you've received that very well in the situations that I've seen and just, just a very mature group of, of really passionate and kind people that are just excited to grow this and create, create this community that, that we're cultivating together.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. I've, I've really found that too. I mean, when I first entered the pagan community back in the eighties what struck me was how incredibly cool the people were. The, they were heartfelt. They were. Open. They were interesting. They were creative. Now a lot of them believed some stuff that I was kind of like, well, I, I'm not sure how that all, I I'm, I'm not sure how that all squares with the evidence, but okay.

In this community, I'm finding all of those same qualities along with a real sort of intellectual sharpness a, a very thoughtful, analytical capacity. And it's just a joy to be a part of I've. I, I so enjoy, the online interactions, the, the, the in person interactions. It's just really been an amazing thing.

Yucca: Yeah, and I am really grateful to share this time with you and all of you listening that, you take a, take a part of your week aside to hang out with us and, and be part of this, this amazing community and this amazing movement and whatever it is that we are. So thank you. Thank all of you.

Mark: Yes. Thank you very much. Thank you for wanting to be the kind of person we're all working to be. Cuz the world needs it. The world, the world needs kind thoughtful, critically thinking inclusive people who care about things like justice and, and nature, right? Yeah.

Yucca: Yeah. And thank you for the, the questions. And we will do another one of these episodes when we get some more questions. This was a lot of fun. I liked having the kind of a lot of the, the smaller topics. I mean, any of these, actually we could have really fleshed out into a full episode actually, but it was nice to get, to get to go through and, and kind of jump from topic to topic and, and go to some very different places in the same hour.

Mark: Yeah, yeah. I really enjoyed it too. Remember you could contact us at the wonder podcast queues, gmail.com. That's the wonder podcast, QS, gmail.com. And we always welcome your, your feedback, your questions, all that kind of stuff. So thank you so much, Yucca. See you next week.

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

S3E22 TRANSCRIPT:----more----

Mark: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-based Paganism. My name is Mark, and I'm one of your hosts.

Yucca: And I'm Yucca. 

And today we're talking about the upcoming atheopagan or a neo pagan Sabbath, which is mid-summer or the summer solstice which is an important station on the wheel of the year. That's celebrated by many pagans all over.

Yucca: Right. And as always, it's amazing that we are here already, right. That also marks the halfway through the year. 

Mark: Right, right. And this is the third episode that we've done on the mid summer holidays. So, if you're really hungry for lots more content on. On Midsummer, you can go back into our archives and look for those other episodes as. 

Yucca: Right. And will probably echo many of the things that we've said. No, both of us have been doing our practices for a long time. And this is one of the big ones that we're that we have a lot of experience and time in. But of course, every year there's going to be something new. There's going to be something fresh to say as well.

So we're going to assume that folks haven't heard the past ones, or if you have fit, whole year has gone by. So we're going to talk about all that again. 

Mark: Yeah. Think of it as a refresher, if you've heard the other one.

Yucca: Well, that's, one of the lovely things about the wheel of the year is that you get to do it again and again, right. You do it. It's not one.

time only. And then that's it, right? It's not like one of these rites of passages where, you become an adult once, that's it, 

Mark: Yeah. And you've got to get the ritual, right. That one time, right? A little forgiving.

Yucca: But this, this is something that happens again and again, and every year there's things that are similar things that are a little bit different.

So let's, let's actually start by talking about what is the solstice and Midsummer and all of that. 

Mark: Well, let's start with the word. The word solstice means the sun stops. And what, what that means in this particular context is that from the perspective. Being on the surface of the earth, the sun's movement towards the north, 

Yucca: From the Northern hemisphere 

Mark: the Northern hemisphere reaches its peak on the summer solstice. It gets as high as it's going to go and it kind of stops there for a couple of days.

And then it starts to retreat back to the self on its way towards the winter souls.

Yucca: Right. And of course, if you are in the Southern hemisphere, it's going to be, the solstices are going to be reversed from the perspective of the Northern hemisphere. Right. 

Mark: Right, but it still moves. It still moves to the north end to the south. It's just that moving to the south actually means rather than 

Yucca: Yes. Yeah. Just because of think about the, the equator. And so part of what's happening is the, when we zoom out, right? So that's our explanation from being here on the earth, right. As part of the earth, but, just imagine yourself pulling out the camera, zooming back, and we're looking at earth as this planet.

Orbiting around our star and we're orbiting around it on a plane, but that plane doesn't match with the tilt of our planet. And that's where we're getting all of our solstices and equinoxes. And all of that is from the relationship between the two planes from there, the ecliptic and the equatorial plane 

Mark: So what ends up in of course, one of the effects of that is seasons 

Yucca: Yes. 

Mark: because climate is dramatically affected by the amount of sunlight and the intensity of sunlight that reaches the surface of. And of course, the heat conviction from that drives weather. It's a very important part of our evolution as life on earth.

It's almost unimaginable. What, how different life on earth would have to be if it, if we didn't have those seasons.

Yucca: Right. And it's particularly noticeable for those of us who live in the temperate regions. Right So, In the tropics there's, there's going to be less of a temperature swing. There may still be rainy and dry seasons and all of that. But in the temperate zones, we're going to have these extreme differences between.

Summer and winter. And that's something that here where I live I'm, at about 36 north or so, I was just noticing as I was walking outside, I didn't put any shoes on and was going, walking across the the ground, which six months ago. I would be, running cause my feet would be freezing on the ground and it's just a, complete.

Different experience to be in the exact same place on the planet. Just six months different.

Mark: Right with

Yucca: Yeah. 

Mark: with a temperature swing that can sometimes be a hundred degrees Fahrenheit or more, 

Yucca: Right. 

Mark: which is. It's not very much in the cosmic scheme of things in terms of the temperatures of stars and the relative temperatures of the surface of other planetary bodies. But for us, it's a huge shift, requires us to be able to adapt to dramatically different temperatures.

It makes perfect sense that over the course of human history, people have recognized this day. As a really important day. We have all of these stone age technology observatories, which we have we've we've observed like Stonehenge, for example, which line up precisely would be the sun on the summer solstice.

Yucca: And That's all over the world too. right Stone hinges is one of the most famous of them. But in all of the the populated continents, we see that.

Mark: That's right in the Americas, both north and south America in in Europe and Asia and Africa everywhere, we, we find these where rocks have been arranged so that they create. Little Ray of light that comes from the rising sun at the summer solstice, which tells us that marking this moment was really important for those early people.

Yucca: Right. Cause that was a lot of work to pill those things to plan them too. And year after year to make those observations. One of the things that, that I think we fall into this trap of in modern society is thinking about our ancestors as though. Weren't sophisticated and not very intelligent.

And that's simply not the case. They didn't have access to the internet and steam engines and electric cars and all of those things that we do today, but they were just as much if perhaps thought more clever resourceful and. And really observant, right? They had to have been for, to be able to create these things.

And we only see this tiny sliver of what's left because the wind and the rain and the forests and all of that have had washed away and grown over the, the records of, of these people who have our many grandparents who came before. 

Mark: Yes. Exactly. So, and among other things we don't tend to recognize. The amount of time that it took to develop the observations that would drive the building of an observatory like that. Because when we think about history, we think, especially as Americans, we think in terms of centuries, right. A century or two, well, it may have taken 15 generations for people to finally figure out precisely that the sun was moving.

Yucca: Hm. 

Mark: And where it was moving and when it was reaching the peak of its movement and how to arrange some sort of an observatory to capture that, that experience

Yucca: And record that for the coming years to get it built in just the right place. I mean, it's a, it's amazing.

Mark: it is, 

Yucca: that's one of the many things I wish we had a time machine for just to be able to watch that. Right. So many things, it would be great to have that for, so it would be. Yeah.

What a field to go into and study.

I'm sure. I'm sure some of our listeners, if any of you actually are in that field, we would love to, to bring you on and pick your brains on that kind of stuff. 

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Archeology generally is just really excited. 

Yucca: Yeah. 

Mark: This was an important date. It was important for the people that made these observatories for whatever purposes they had, whether it was marking the migrate that the migration periods of prey animals, or whether it was marking the the planting and growth cycles of crop vegetation.

This particular holiday or, or even if it was just, well, this is a really great time because the days are really long. can, we can be a lot more productive because our,

Yucca: Right. 

Mark: because, enjoying ourselves, we tend to think of as a sort of extraneous human activity because we live under capitalism, which doesn't value it. If it doesn't get painted. But actually just goofing off and having a good time is a fundamental human behavior. 

Yucca: And really hits. 

Mark: we do it alone. And it's good for us.

Yucca: Yeah. And I would argue that that's a primate thing too, right. That, that, that became part of us long before we became human, because we see it in our cousins and all of them. Right.

So, Yeah, And so this is, this is a day that, many of us don't live in. Hunting societies anymore, or we don't live where many of us live in an industrial world where we're not participating in the agricultural cycles and all of that, but it's something that.

When we are paying attention and that's something that, that we, as atheopagan appreciate doing, right. That's part of our practice is being part of, of the world around us and nature that we're part of, this is something that we can recognize as well. That really helps us to be tuned in with our world because.

Mark: Right.

Yucca: It's there it's happening. We're part of it, whether we recognize it or not, but we get a lot from the recognition of it and the act of participation in it. 

Mark: absolutely. The and this is one of those circumstances, like the winter solstice, those long dark nights. These these bright long days with the, with the lady evenings and the, the, the sort of long golden hours at the end of the day, I think we all recognize how much we value that time.

In the temperate zone, when those of us that do experience that whether or not we understand that it's the summer solstice, we know that the days get long in the summer and then it's, it's something that we can really enjoy. So why don't we talk a little bit about what this means symbolically what, how, how we how we apply, meaning to this astronomical phenomenon that happens to us every year.

Yucca: So there's of course the. The kind of traditional stuff that many people who are influenced by Gardner and all of those that that's kind of taking up after what's happening in Britain. Right. And then in Britain, it, it is kind of getting into mid stage. Right for where I live. This is the beginning of summer.

This is our first summer. It really didn't feel like summer here until last week really is when it, it felt like it shifted. Sometimes it'll shift a little earlier. It'll will shift in mid may, sometimes the by June. Yeah, it's summer, but it's certainly not the middle of summer. But in our practice, we look around it, Hey, what's happening in the world?

What's happening in our ecosystem and this is the time where insects have just really. Just woken up. And we have cicadas here and they are cicadas have different sounds in different places. But here they, they sound like the Dalek from doctor who, right. Th they're not shouting exterminate, they're shouting, like Sam made with me.

It's just really It's quite entertaining. And then the whole night is the crickets and the bees are out and just life is just, it's bloomed and it's amazing. So they, they definitely play this really central role for us. I know a lot of people use like sunflowers and symbology like that.

Those aren't ready, where I live. Right. Sunflowers are not until later on in July and August. And, and, and we were talking about before about, this is kind of like a calm before the storm of, before the harvest starts for us. It's finishing, getting everything planted because our last frost isn't until mid may.

Right? So now we can finally, everything's getting in and it's, it is kind of a busy time, but there's also that. Stretched out long laziness, not just appreciation of the laziness. 

Mark: Yeah, that's really one of the main things that I associate with Midsummer is the it's, it's a, it's a leisurely time in many ways. The gardens are mostly in, around here. Sunflower is still haven't bloomed though. They won't bloom until, late July, something like that. This, this is the time of year when people go to the beach and have a barbecue kind of, it's just, the days are long and it's, it's.

It's a time when it's very tempting to play hooky and just go and do something enjoyable. Lots of sitting around on decks and patios, drinking wine and visiting with friends and just, just enjoying life. And so I've sometimes called this holiday, the Sabbath of leisure because it, it really feels like that to me in the agricultural cycle.

Around here and to some degree in the British Isles as well. This is the time when all the planting is done and it's not, nothing is ready to harvest. So it's mostly just kind of waiting around, and, and enjoying the early fruit, the peaches and plums and apricots and cherries and things like that.

We have a lot of that going on right now. But from a meaning standpoint, I also associate the wheel of the year with the life cycle of a person. From conception to full composting. So the, the whole, the whole life cycle, not just the time when we're alive and I consider this to be the holiday of adult vigor, maybe in the thirties or so.

Thirties to early forties, not middle-aged yet really kind of at the height of your powers before your body starts to hurt. And 

Yucca: You're getting lots of stuff done in your life, whether it's the career family or both, all that stuff. 

Mark: yeah, there's, there are plans being executed and you're really kind of on top of your game. So I, I consider this a time to celebrate those spokes in the same way that Mayday or belting is a time to celebrate young adulthood. This is the sort of full adulthood holiday. And then dimming or summer's end at the beginning of August is the time to celebrate the middle east.

Yucca: Okay. 

Mark: when we're starting to tip down towards elderly men. So it's a good time to do rites of passage into, out of young adulthood and into full adulthood. If that's something that's meaningful to you. And also a time just to celebrate pleasure to celebrate the, the, the joy of just being leisurely and.

Enjoying these long golden days.

Yucca: Mm. 

Mark: So, let's talk about some projects that we can do that help with celebrating these holidays. I know that you decorate your house. What, what sorts of things do you put around your house?

Yucca: We do. So we do a lot of insect and arthropod themed things. And we have a solstice, the summer solstice Garland that we put up that is like honeycomb and bees, the bees that we put up. So that really makes the it's very playful. And they, the kids So this year, we're going to try and make some big kind of like papier-mache ones.

But in the past, we've just had like big paper, just like cut out and have them color it in and learn about the different parts in lifecycle and all of that. So we'll do that kind of thing. And then we also do do gifts for similar solstice as well. And it's very cute this year. My oldest is really into it and has been making the gifts, but they're not, we might buy a couple things like a book or something like that, but it really is about making gifts for people.

And so she's. Everyone that she couldn't think of in her life that she's sick know, she's like, I'm going to make it and wrap it. And, and and then she wants to hang it with the Garland and all of that. So that's a a big part for us and then bringing in the plants and things that we're finding in nature. So yeah.

Mark: That's really great. Is there an equivalent to hanging up a stocking for the summer solstice, 

Yucca: Well, that's 

Mark: in 10.

Yucca: the, yeah, we don't, I mean, that's a good idea. I like that. We've definitely been, I mean, we've been hanging things from the, the honeycomb with the bees. But I, maybe we should make something a little bit more formal because I think in the feature it's gonna start to get a little bit heavy as they add different kinds of things.

And. Maybe hats. Yeah.

Ooh, that would be good. Right? Like the big, because we were the, the big straw hats, because we are We don't have a lot of melanin. We have very little, and we live at 7,000 feet with a UV index of about 10 every day. So yeah, there's, we've got hats all over, but maybe that's a great idea.

Well, have we, maybe we need our special solstice hats or straw hats. So, yeah. 

Mark: Was just thinking something at the opposite end of the body from the toes.

Yucca: Right. Well, and that might be able to fit something, but then not encourage you to have too big of a thing. Some stockings to people have are good fit. My whole body practically in those stockings are impressive. So. 

Mark: Yeah, that's true. People do get carried away with that sort of thing. 

Yucca: Well, and that's

actually, one of the reasons we wanted to do presence at solstice is to take a little bit of the commercial power away from the winter of the Christmas. right.

And go, yeah. So this is a sort of the, it's not all about that. There's other times of year. And then it works out quite lovely that birthdays and our family are all spread out on like each season has a birthday.

So

Mark: Oh,

Yucca: Yeah. So we try and kind of spread that and make it just smaller things and try and make them a little bit more meaningful rather than just like all the presents you can get, still working on the grandparents, like getting that it's hard for the grandparents to, to accept that. But yeah.

So what about any house or are you doing particular decorations or themes that you have.

Mark: Not so much decorations. We have a little altar space. I mean, I have my personal focus, which I decorate for the seasons. And so I'll put a. Kind of seasonal things, sun symbols and stuff like that on my personal focus. Sometimes we have a reef on our front doors sometimes not I don't know whether it will do that or not this year.

I, I have a ritual tool that I up date every year at summer solstice, which is my son broom. Which starts with a, a piece of Oak branch that I found at a local state park. And then it has long strands of wild ride that I've cut down bound around it to make a big shaky sort of brew. And what I do every year is I cut down some new strands and add those to the brew and then retire everything.

So it's got all this accumulated summer souls to see by magic woowoo stuff in it associated in my mind. And I leave it out in the sun all day on the summer solstice and it becomes my son. 

Yucca: Hm. 

Mark: I can use, like at the height of winter, when things are feeling really sort of dismal and cold and dark, I can wave that around, inside my house to bring some of the vibe of the warm days back.

And it works, it works it's it it's, it's one of those wonderful spicy psychology things that we do. And so, that is a tool that I have always put on the focus for Midsummer celebrations as well as, seasonal fruits and other sorts of symbols of just this leisure time. We're doing a, the, the affinity group, the atheopagan affinity group for Northern California, that I'm a part of is meeting in person to do a mid summer ritual next weekend.

And we are going to scope the, the maximum point of, of the sun to the north. And market market with chalk on the ground. And then also do the minimal point all the way, all the way to the south, which is where the winter solstice would be, so that we can see the difference, mark them on the ground with chalk so that we can see the difference.

And then what we're doing is we are all bringing water from our homes and we're going to pour all of those integrated. And then dance a circle, dance, and sing a chant around that, and then use that water to water the garden.

Yucca: That's beautiful. Wow. 

Mark: So, it's, it's definitely the time of year when you need to water the garden. It was a hundred degrees here yesterday. 

Yucca: Oh, 

Mark: So it's it's time to be taking care of our plants in that.

Yucca: yeah. Mulch 

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: That nice protective cover mulches kind of like the. You can in the summer it's that, sweet, cool relief. Although I don't know how cool it gets for you during the summer when we, if you have your a hundred degrees, how much does it drop at night? 

Mark: Typically into the fifties last night, it dropped into the high sixties.

Yucca: Okay, so you have a nice, a nice swing there cools down. You might need to bring a sweater with you, 

Mark: we don't have a lot of, of humidity, although to you, it would probably seem like we do. 

Yucca: Yes. 

Mark: And I got back from the century retreat that the air was not only like syrup, because it was so dense here at sea level, but also because it smelled, everything smelled like water. There was water. And even though we're in this Mediterranean climate, but that's not the same thing as being up at Alpine elevation in the desert west.

Yucca: I've been in your area twice, but it's both times has been during your wet season. That was in February, March kind of. And I remember it feeling very wet. 

Mark: it was very, very, very wet in February.

Yucca: yes. In fact, I remember the, the afternoon rains, which were scheduled to be getting ours here. When I was a child, June was the beginning of the monsoon season. But that has been changing our monsoon season as being, compressing and pressing. So, hopefully we'll get something, but you're what you were talking about with the. Reminded me of was that idea. My oldest had, who likes to make up holidays, I think a few weeks back, I told you about the sneak holiday and all of that. But she wants to do the first rain, which I think is such a beautiful idea of, we could go out and catch some from the first monsoon rain and have like a special bottle.

And the two of them could pick out their bottles to store it in. And of course we, we live on rainwater, right. We don't have a well or anything like that. So we're drinking rainwater all the time, but just the act of catching it and having it be like the special thing

Mark: I do that.

Yucca: season. 

Mark: I do that with big storms. 

Yucca: Hmm. 

Mark: We have a really big storm that pours six or seven inches of rain on us. I could put out a basin to collect it, and then I pour it into a fancy bottle and keep it. 

Yucca: Yeah. 

Mark: And the reason that I do that is that in the fall at Hallo. One of the things that I like to do is to pour water from a big storm, into a dry Creek bed to call the ringback, 

Yucca: Yeah. 

Mark: Which sometimes it works.

Sometimes it doesn't like all of those things, but it makes me feel better that I'm something in quotes about our, our drought situation.

Yucca: Well, and it gives you something to emotionally touch in with, right. And that's what these items, that's for us, that's what the decorating the house is about. It's what the wood, all of that is for is. The state of mind, the emotional state that I feel and the family feels and the whole house, when we see those things just for a moment, right.

We see the, the oversized, child drawn be on the wall and that means something right. And that pebble that we picked up outside and, it just brings us back and just keeps us. Grounded as part of this planet, not just on this planet, not just living off of it, but part of this system, 

Mark: Sure. Sure. Yeah. And there's also this very childlike sense of wonder that comes with it. Like, oh, it's that time again? And there's, there's always something special. W with a new holiday and that's, I mean, to me, the, the way that we can enrich our lives just by celebrating these, these passing seasons is so important.

It just, it helps us to be happier, 

Yucca: Right. 

Mark: being happy, a good.

Yucca: And it's. Helps to slow things down just a little bit. So if you remember when you were a kid a year lasted forever, right. And part of that was because your life experience was so short, right. From seven to eight, that was a huge chunk of your life. But as we get older, things become more and more the same every day.

And one of, and, This realization was distressing me several years back. And so I did a lot of research on it and found that one of the leading ideas is that it's because of the lack of nuance that when we add new things in, we add those new experiences that helps slow down our perception of, of how quickly the years are just flying by.

And that's something that I've intentionally tried to add into my life. And. It feels like it's working, right. I mean, it's kind of, it's a back and forth. It's sort of like, there's the, the clumping of the galaxies and yet the expansion of the universe, gravity and dark energy fighting each other.

So it's like, I think I'm making progress, but maybe not, I'm not sure. That's one of the things that our, that our practice can help do is bring some of that novelty. And so bringing that back to the holiday. So this is a point in the year that we come back to every year and there's going to be those things that are similar every year, but there is the opportunity for the, oh this year, I'm going to go on a walk and I'm going to notice, the particular.

Mosses that are every mosque that I can find on my walk and celebrate that. Or every, can I find a new insect that I have no idea what insect it is, let alone what family or order it even comes from. Right. Just do things like that. I think that that, that can add a lot to, you're gonna have a tradition of doing new things, right. 

Mark: Yep. That's very well said. That is certainly consistent with the reason why I do this practice. It lends a sense of meaning and a sense of joy and playfulness to my life. And all of those are, are good things. And then in. In the broader sense with the atheopagan community. It also gives me a sense of community, a feeling of belonging, and of being a part of a group of people who are of generally like-mind and values and who like one another and like spending time together.

So that's a cool thing. I'm still thinking a lot about the century retreat. And I was on the Saturday morning mixer that we do on zoom. Every Saturday morning and three, I think four, four of the people, five of the people that were on that call were people that had been at the century retreat.

And all of us were talking still about how we're integrating that. And particularly the feeling of. Not having as deeper connection with people in our day-to-day lives and wanting more of that. And how do we build how we find friendships and, build them, develop them. 

Yucca: Right, 

Mark: So that may be something that we'll talk about in a future episode.

Yucca: right. Yeah. And we also did for future episodes let's get some really wonderful suggestions through the email. So we really, we really love that and we'll, we will be talking about some of those and appreciate when you reach out to us about that. So thank you everyone. Yeah. 

Mark: Right. And if you haven't heard it before, way to reboot is the wonder podcast. Q S. gmail.com. So the wonder podcast [email protected] and we really enjoy getting your feedback and your topic suggestions. It's very helpful to us. So happy Midsummer, Yucca.

Yucca: Likewise, mark. Happy summer happy first summer have MOUs myths. What else people call it litho sometimes, right? Yeah, there's another one of those. There's a bunch of names for it. But at least it's one of the ones that, has the astronomical name that we could say. And everybody knows what we're talking about.

Solstice. Yeah.

So, and Dawn is very early. This time of year, right? This is this next few weeks. It's going to be the earliest of the year where I live. It's five 30. But if you do do some sort of ritual where you wake up to greet the Dawn the visible planets are in the morning sky right now, and it is it's so beautiful there, like Juul is hanging in the sky and definitely worth worse.

Getting up for. If you can manage, or some people might find it easier to stay up for depending on your personality. But that could be a lovely idea for, For the solstice, right. Greeting the sun in the morning. And then in the evening, bidding at farewell for the solstice.

Mark: For sure. 

Yucca: Yeah. 

Mark: All right. Well, thanks everyone. And we will see you next week on the wonder science-based paganism.

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

S3E21 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.

Yucca: And this episode, we're talking about adversity. So some of what's going on in the world right now, personal adversity, how we can deal with that, address that, and, really all those topics surrounding that.

Mark: Yeah, every week as we talk about what we're going to discuss. The, the challenge of these times really comes to us. And it's not that other times haven't had their own challenges because they certainly have, but the challenges that face these times that we're living in right now are so extreme and so severe.

And so ubiquitous that even, even. People who are generally pretty privileged are still impacted by them. Only, only the, the fabulously wealthy are able to sort of skate on being impacted by the things that are, that are putting pressure on us humans, as we try to live our daily lives. And so we thought.

That it would be good to kind of come at this head on this week and talk about adversity and approaches to it and how our spiritual and ritual practices can help us with that.

And just kind of trying to map out the territory a little bit on what it feels like when you feel threatened, when. When bad things are happening and they hurt and they scare you.

And and you're, you're challenged in knowing what to do. 

Yucca: Yeah. So one of the things that we could start with is thinking about when you are faced with adversity, with taking a look at. And really honestly, examining what's going on and what components you have control over and which ones you don't, because we can take things really personal sometimes that, you had no control over that forest fire or that hurricane or.

Realistically the, the state of the economy, you as an individual, that's what the Stoics would call inconsequential. Right? Not that it doesn't matter, but that you don't control it. You don't have direct influence over it. But there are some things that you do have control over, your responses.

Yeah.

Mark: Right. And being able to make that differentiation, having the discernment is really important. And some of what's required for that is to be able to step back emotionally a little bit, kind of call them the, the, the panic feelings and, or, or the hurt feelings. 

Yucca: Which takes practice.

Mark: It does take practice. And, you know, the grounding procedures that we've talked about here on this podcast, many times are super useful for that meditation entering into ritual, trance states.

All of those things can really help you with. Being able to step back and take a dispassionate, look as much as possible at the circumstances that you're in and then really try to sift out, Okay.

this is stuff I have some impact over. This is stuff that I can influence. This is stuff that's beyond my control.

And I, I either that, or it's only very marginally within my control. And so as I approached this adversity, I'm going to put most of my effort into the things that I actually have a lot of influence over. Right. I can affect my own behavior. I can affect my own mentality. And part of what, what is required to get to that decision is to abandon narratives that have to do with personal failure, personal lack of worthiness or, or a general sort of despair at the nature of the world, because all of those are very disempowering.

You know, if, if you're, if the place that you're stuck in confronting an adverse situation is why does this always happen to me or It's hopeless. The world is just like that. Then it's very difficult for you to be able to make any changes that are going to improve your situation. So that involves working with that inner critic voice and with your own, self-esteem all the kinds of things we've been talking about throughout this podcast.

You know, relationships feed us and the relationship that feeds us more than any other is our relationship with ourselves. 

Yucca: Yeah. It's comes from a Christian tradition, but I've always been quite fond of the serenity. And modified it. So the, it goes may have the serenity to accept the things that I can not change the courage to change the things that I can and the wisdom to know the difference. 

Mark: There it is 

Yucca: Yeah. 

Mark: Reinhold Niebuhr. 

Yucca: Right. And so that was a slightly modified version. Cause I don't want to start with oh God and heavenly father, because I don't think it's coming from anyone else.

Right. This is, this is coming from inside. This is coming from us and our, our view on the world and our view on ourselves. But I think it's a really useful framework for that.

Mark: And part of what it does is it. It calls on certain capacities within us, that all of us have, right. We all have the capacity to be serene and dispassionate. We all have the capacity to be courageous and we all have the capacity to be. Right. And those are the kinds of things that.

we need to bring to bear when we're in an adverse situation.

So really at the very beginning, there's that, there's that winnowing out of what can I do and what is unlikely to be influenceable by my actions. And this is a place where we differ quite a bit from. Rest of the pagan community because in the, in the mainstream pagan community where people believe in gods and in literal magic, they think they can influence stuff like decisions in Congress by having, or a decision at the Supreme court, by having a ritual and praying to their gods. 

Yucca: Now, I think those things can be influenced, but with act with action, right? Not necessarily ritual. 

Mark: Right. And we, in our naturalistic non-ferrous pagan science-based pagan traditions do not believe that we have super powerful beings to appeal to. It's all about us. We're we're here on earth. And when, when these things happen or change, it's going to be because we make them do that. We meaning humanity writ large. 

Yucca: Okay.

Mark: So this is an important distinction, Right. And to my mind, it's an empowering distinction to often have I heard in the pagan community? Oh, well, that's up to the gods. Which is a dereliction of responsibility. In my opinion, we do have a responsibility for the kind of government that we have. We do have a responsibility for for the kind of world and culture that we're building.

And that from everything from the way that we treat one another, all the way to. Our specific activism in favor of policies that are more kind and more inclusive And more just.

Yucca: Right. going back to what you, to what we were talking about before, though, another way of talking about this, that is all true, but none of us are the chosen one. Right. There is, there's not a chosen one who we individually are going to make that happen. And because the Supreme court makes the decision that we don't want, that doesn't make it our individual fault that we need to have shame about because we didn't work hard enough.

We didn't do enough. We didn't, you know, we weren't enough, enough enough. This is something that we as humanity, we as a community have influence over, but we're members of the community. We are. All of humanity individually.

Mark: Yeah.

That's the flip side of this is not over imagining the degree of power that you have. Each of us is a powerful person, but we're also just.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: And so not having exaggerated or inflated ideas of your own personal influence or underestimated and discounted ideas of your own personal influence, I think is very important.

We talk a lot about paying attention. In this podcast, paying attention to the cycles of nature, paying attention to what creatures are, are thriving and living and going through their life cycles at any given time of the year, paying attention to what's going on inside you so that you can grow and learn and and become happier and freer.

And. You know, a more actualized person and that kind of paying attention is also necessary when it comes to understanding our limits, as well as our capacities. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Where are we now? We we've talked about adversity and the discernment process. Do we want to go into, then what we can do, having, having sifted out the things that we have influence over? 

Yucca: Yeah, I think I mean, there's definitely, there's so many different directions to come at this from there's different kinds of adversity, right? There's, there's personal, kind of individual challenges. There might be the interpersonal relationship between you and your partner or family member, but then there's kind of, there's other scales of things.

There's job loss and sickness and. Those sorts of things. And then, and then really big scale things that are impacting everybody with like climate change and fires and hurricanes and, global economics war. So there's all of these different scales. But a lot of the things that we can do. On an emotional kind of spiritual level are going to be very similar responses to those in terms of how we can take care of ourselves.

But one of the places we could start with is talking about preparing oneself to face adversities, because we're going to, you don't know what it's going to be in your life. Maybe, maybe you're going to be lucky and it's only going to be. The challenge, interpersonal challenges, right. But maybe you're going to have to evacuate in two years.

Maybe there's going to be a car crash and not to be fear-mongering here, but these are, these are possibilities to think about. 

Mark: Right. These are things that happen to people.

Yucca: yeah. 

Mark: And they're the reasons why people buy insurance. The. Where was I going with this? The, the step I think we can take after having made that discernment is to having identified what we don't have much influence over. We don't abandon that. We put it aside. So when an issue like climate change, yes, we don't have much influence as individuals over it. And. Believe me, if you've been sold this idea that it's all up to the consumer to solve carbon in the atmosphere, please disabuse yourself of that because there's about 500 companies in the world that produce something like 70% of the carbon pollution in the world.

It's their fault. It's not our fault. And we really need to be active to be reducing those emissions because that's where the big problem is. 

Yucca: All right. So, so focusing. Where are the points, where are the places that's going to make the biggest impact, whether it is looking at something like, okay, how do we tackle carbon emissions? Where do we put the majority of our focus? But that could also be okay. My family is going through financial struggles right now.

Right? Where can I put my focus in a place that it's going to be the most impacted? Right. There may be some things that you'd normally wouldn't do you normally wouldn't let them have screen quite as much as they're having or something like that, but what what's going to make the big impact. So if I may on just a very practical level, something that actually, this is what we were doing in the house this week.

This was our inventory week where we were going through and looking at all the stuff that we have. And we'd like to have about six months worth of, if we couldn't go anywhere for six months, would we have enough water? Would we have enough food? Would we have it? And you know, that took us years to get to that.

We didn't just, buy six months of stuff all at once. Cause we, we're low income, tick a lot, but going through and going, okay, what do we need to, what do we need to be preparing for? Right. Do we have, we live in an area that has forest fires. So do we have a bag in the car? That has stuff for everybody, do we know where the, do we know where all our documents are?

Do we know where there's cat food? All those things and getting all of that together so that, we don't want there to ever be a situation in which we'd have to stay home for. But Hey, that actually just happened right. years ago, we couldn't go anywhere. Or, we don't want to be in a situation where we'd have to pack up and leave.

But if we are, we want to be prepared for that. And not like from a fearful place, right. We don't want to do it as like, oh no, we're scared. Or, that sort of thing, but from a place of, of wanting to take care of ourselves, but also. Wanting to take care of our community from a social responsibility place.

Because if, if we don't have to take the resources, there's a limited number of resources for when disasters happen. There's only a limited number of first responders. There's a limited number of that. We don't want to be taking those resources that could be for somebody else who needs it more than us.

So I really encourage people to have a little bit, you know, even if it's just a few, just look at. Whatever it is for your situation. Maybe it's just four or five days of water and food, things like that. Do you have a flashlight, those sorts of things, just to be prepared in the case that something happens, you're going to be in a better place.

So you have that physical side that we talk about a lot in terms of self care, we talk about the health side, how do you take care of yourself and your household and your, and your community and your, your loved one. Before that all happens.

Mark: Right. And I think it's important to notice as we talk about that kind of preparation. That means you're already in adverse. The disaster hasn't happened, but the pressure that the possibility of the disaster puts on you means you're already in a situation where you're dealing with adversity, right?

Because if, if unlike either of us, you lived in an area where there wasn't a danger of wildfires, then you wouldn't have to do that kind of prepper. Right. There might be something else like tornadoes or hurricanes or 

Yucca: floods 

Mark: earthquakes or.

whatever. But you you're, you're not concerned about wildfires because that's just not something that happens in your area.

So I think that. Being aware of the places where we feel those pressures is really important, you know, understanding, Hey, it's, it's wearing on me that in the back of my mind all the time is this possibility that w is really negative for me. So. I've been talking about this almost a year ago, I lost my job and I've been looking for a job ever since.

And just this past week had another job where there were two final candidates and I'm not the one who got the job. And I'll be talking more about that later in the podcast in terms of what I can do relative to what's out of my control. It is in my mind all the time, all the time that we're broke, we don't have money.

We, we, we don't know where the money is going to come from to pay for July's rent yet. We, you know, we're in danger and that danger is in the back of my mind all the time. And that's stressful. It puts stress on us. So be aware of the stressors that are in your life, even if they feel like maybe long shots, you feel enough urgency to do some preparation against something happening, it means that it's stressing you.

That it's possible. 

Yucca: Yeah.

So

we've been talking a little bit about some of the. Practical things one can do, but there's also the practice side, right? So there is the practice of practicing grounding, right? Really just taking those deep breaths, kind of letting that tension out or whatever it is that you do. Some people use visualization with that, you know, imagining a tree or things like that are very, are very common ones.

Getting in the habit of having something like that or having a meditation practice or having your daily moment in front of your focus, those sorts of things can start to build up some emotional resiliency so that when you are facing, whether it's those, those Those kind of in the background, low key ones that we're just talking about, that pressure in the back of your mind of, is there going to be a forest fires are going to be, this is the, the food prices, whatever it is you can be addressing those, but then if something does happen, if you do have to evacuate, if you have lost your job, if you do have that, blow out, fight with your spouse or whatever it is, you've got something that you've been practicing.

That you can, that you can go to, that you can use.

Mark: It can help bring you back to see. Yes, because we don't make good decisions when we're not centered. And often that can compound a bad situation and make it worse. So you really want not to make decisions when you're in the heat of the fear or the anger. That's just not a good time to be making decisions about how to approach the challenges in your life. 

Yucca: Right.

Mark: I find that my atheopagan practice serves me in three different ways. As I contend with the adversity in my life. The first is that it helps me feel better connected with nature. And nature is a tremendous solace to me, even though it is, you know, so beleaguered and besieged by all the damage that has been done still, the fabric of life on this earth at some level is thriving.

It's, you know, there's still life everywhere. It may not be the life that we would like to be there in terms of endangered species of invasive species and so forth. It's still life and it's still turning its leaves to the sun and making sugar and feeding those webs of life all over the world. And to me, that's a very beautiful thing and it helps give me some perspective about the temporary and small nature of my problem. The second thing that it does for me is direct psychological calming. The, the ritual practices that I have, like, seeing my atheopagan rosary, for example, it's, it's good for my self esteem. It's good for my sense of the world. It's good for my relationship with my fellow humans. It just helps. Those kinds of practices and then the third method.

And I think this is something we should expand on a lot is because it makes me a part of a community and. We talk a lot in the United States, especially about how alienated people are in this culture, families, splinter and scattered to the far corners of the country or the world. Families are not particularly intimate with one another.

And often in fact, they're really at one another's throats. People don't tend to make friends after school, after college, which is something that was shocking to me because I have lots of friends that I've made after college. But in fact, I don't have any friends from college that that chapter has come and gone, but The sense of being alone against it all is really prevalent in our society. And that's just terrible. The way that humans have contended with every adversity historically through our evolution has been collectively as a group, you know, we've solved problems together. And we've supported one another in solving those problems.

And so being a part of the atheopagan community, even though we mostly meet online, that has provided a tremendous sense of belonging and support and shared worldview to me, you know, a common set of values that really. It helps me to feel held and valued and seen all of which are just so important for us psychologically.

So, and, you know, being a part of the pagan community generally, which is a, you know, a larger subculture similarly helps me to do that. The.

The, the upshot of what I'm saying is that if you, if you're alone, if you're really alone, if you don't have people in your life with whom you can talk about your deep experience, that's something to work on because honestly, that's your lifeline. That's, that's the. That's, those are the relationships that will save you when you need saving and that where you can save them in turn. You know, this is what people go to mainstream religions for all the time. You know, there are plenty of people attending churches out there who are not necessarily believers in either the supernatural stuff in their holy texts or or in the values that are being espoused from the pulpit. But. It gives them a sense of belonging to a group of people who share something in common and can therefore speak a language that alludes to those things that they have in common and share cookouts and picnics and potlucks and study groups.

And. All those kinds of things. You know, belonging is so important for us humans and American culture has just shattered us into these individuals. And individualism is a, it's a particularly pernicious aspect of our culture. It's not that it's not that we shouldn't develop ourselves and actualize ourselves.

Individually to the greatest degree possible, but we need to do that in the context of a group. 

Yucca: Hmm, it's a, how do they say a mixed can, right? It has some really really very helpful, positive things to it. And there's some others, like what you've been talking about this isolation there's, there's a lot that we lose from it too. 

Mark: Right. Right. And, and, you know, in its extreme, you know, like political libertarianism, that kind of stuff, it turns into this very adversarial us versus them. You know, kind of mean-spirited, I don't care about you. You've got to take care of yourself, sort of mentality. That honestly doesn't serve anyone.

It doesn't serve the people who espoused and it doesn't serve the people who are around them. It doesn't serve the society as a whole. It's just not, it's not helpful. 

Yucca: Hmm. So that's one of the things that we can do though, is the seeking and building really growing and cultivating community. And that's something that can be helpful. Before during and after. Adversity. Because some, sometimes there's a lot of, of trauma that you're going to come out with and healing that in recovery that is needed and ritual practice, we talk all the time about ritual on this podcast, right?

That's an incredible tool. And then also having that love and support and that sense of belonging that in itself can do so much to. Help with the process.

Mark: Absolutely it, and what's amazing is that it can help with the process, even if it's not helping with any of the practical considerations. Like if I go to my community and I say, You know, I'm desperate and I can't find a job. There are some practical things that they can do, like increase donations to my Patrion, which people have been doing lately, which is a wonderful thing.

And I'm so grateful to all the people that have pitched in on that. A lot of the things that they can do or things that aren't practical and they're still absolutely important just simply by saying, I see you. I understand your struggle. I, I empathize with where you are. I'm here to hear your, your, your struggle, your sorrow, your fear.

I'm here for that. And. Too few of us have that in their lives. I think even within intimate relationships, certainly for men. I mean, I, you know, heterosexual men, I don't think are going to their partners very often and saying I'm scared, 

Yucca: Yeah. 

Mark: or I really need 

Yucca: done as a culture to our men, I think is just so it's so painful.

Mark: It's tragic. It really is. And as somebody that works very hard, not to be a part of toxic masculinity and that's always a work in progress it's like trying to be anti-racist right. It's like, it's you never get there. There's always more to be learned and done. But one of the things that I am very grateful for is that I.

I have many people in my life that I can go to, you know, with my deepest feelings and tell them and know that they will be received well. And in the spirit in which they were intended. 

Yucca: Yeah, what a difference. Yeah.

Mark: it, it makes a huge difference. And I think. You know, I was reflecting on this about the century retreat recently because I've particularly a couple of men who were there, were talking about it afterwards as an unprecedented experience for them. And I believe that part of the unprecedented experience was the degree of personal disclosive, Venice.

The people were sharing their, you know, the degree of emotional openness. And I just think that's sad and what's w and what's hard is then they have to go back to their lives where they don't have that. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: And I just feel like there's so much work to be done. But it can be done so much more effectively if we do it together. And that's why I invest a ton of effort in building community. Like-minded community, because if we can rally around a set of understandings of the nature of the world and values that we consider to be just in kind and, and right.

And practices that we share together in order to enjoy and, you know, contend with this complicated life, then I think we're really getting somewhere. And that's why I do this podcast. It's why I do a lot of things. It's, it's why I'm in the nonprofit sector. Professionally, because I want to contribute to a society that is kinder and more just, and more sustainable rather than making widgets or selling widgets or transporting widgets.

So. Processing widgets. So I just drew a complete blank. I had something and it left. I hate it when that happened. 

Yucca: You had mentioned wanting to talk about your bigs.

Mark: Oh yeah. This is something that occurred to me. It's gotta be more than 10 years ago now. I was thinking about wisdom and wisdom is an awkward word. I've, I've actually, I'm working on I've been working for more than a year on a blog post that will eventually be published about wisdom. Wisdom is an awkward word because it's kind of cringy.

When we talk about wisdom, people get uncomfortable. They're like, oh, wisdom, you're going to whip some wisdom on me. It's used more sarcastically than anything else, but the truth is that as we age, as we grow, as we have experiences, as we learn things, as we discover more about ourselves, we become wiser. We become. Better able to make the Right.

decision to say the right thing at the right time to extend the right kind of kindness to another person and to live our lives in a manner that facilitates our happiness and our growth rather than contravening it, or fording it. It occurred to me that much of my perspective on the world comes down to three axiomatic, big things. And I'll explain what those are now. And I, I just believe that if you can really get at a deep level, these three big things, your life just gets a lot better. So here they are. The first. The big. Okay.

And the big, okay. Is simply acceptance of the world as it is. This world is filled with beauty and horror and everything in between. And at some level we have to stop resisting it saying, oh, I wish it were this way. Or I wish I'd done that. Or. You know, you didn't do that. You did something else and the world isn't as you wish it is as it is.

And at some level we simply have to accept it in order to be able to encounter it and navigate through it. Now that doesn't mean that we have to accept all conditions. We can still struggle for justice and for equality and for kindness and for sustainability. All of those things are important. So I'm not saying, you know, that in this very Buddhistic sort of sense.

We should just, you know, have universal acceptance of everything as it is, but we have to at least acknowledge the fact that that's the way it is. Right. We have to, you have to at least cop to the fact that, you know, like it or not, Donald Trump was elected president. You can argue about what the electoral college process is and all that, but like it or not, that's a fact. So that's the big, okay. And the next is the big, thank you. Which is gratitude for having been gifted. Highly improbable life that each of us has, the odds are astronomically against any one of us in our unique genetic combination and epigenetic experience of being raised would become the person that we are.

And it is a treasure. It is the treasure of our existence. And so being able to get to a point of gratitude and seeing all of the many, many, many gifts of beauty and grace and generosity and kindness that we experience in our lives, everything from somebody moving over on the freeway to let you into a lane. To the blooming of a rose in your flower garden in, you know, on a given day. 

Yucca: Well, and all the billions of things that you have, that, that died for you to be alive. Right? All the, every little sprout you ate every animal, every egg, every, all of it.

Mark: All those sacrifices. And so thank you. Thank you to all of those things. Thank you to everything that contributes to my being here and thank you for all the things that helped to make it beautiful. So that's the big, thank you. And then the last of the three big lessons that I think that if you get them deeply, it helps you to be.

A happy person on a path that that will help you to grow consistently is what I call the big. Wow. And that's just all at the nature of the universe. It is in and of this world, particularly the biosphere, it's just all inspiring that this is going on. 

Yucca: Yeah. Look at your hand. That's exploded star. 

Mark: Yep. It is. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: And it's got a a condensed ring of exploded star around it, of supernova product, because you don't get gold without those kinds of pressures. Yeah.

The big, Wow.

is something that I come back to again and again, and that feeling of awe is. Well, we named the podcast after it, the wonder, right?

If you're missing that in your life, go find it because this is amazing. All of this that's going on is just amazing. And you know, I was a pretty depressed kid, but I remember at four years old going to the grand canyon because. Oh my God. Oh my God. The grand canyon. And there's no image that can do it.

Justice. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: It's just simply our inspiring. It. It is, it is breathtaking. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So those are my three big keys to finding a way to settle into life where you don't feel like. Where you don't spin your wheels on hypothetical's. You know what, if I had done this, what if, what if life weren't like this? What if this person wasn't like that? You know, that's a lot of energy that you can burn on stuff that just makes you feel bad. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: And my atheopagan practice helps bring me into contact with those three lessons a lot. I feel a lot of gratitude in relation to my connection with other people in the community and my my conversations with you and my The, the welcoming that I receive for my, the products of my creative gifts there, and just the simple listening and being there, and the fact that I can help to hold a space where new people coming in feel welcome.

And at home. There's this something really lovely about all of that when I'm doing my daily ritual or celebrating one of the Sabbaths around the wheel of the year. A lot of what I reflect on is that, that sense of, okay. Thank you. Wow.

Yucca: Yeah. Well, I think that, that those three big, those three bigs, the, okay. Thank you. And wow. Are a good place to wrap up for today. 

Mark: Okay. Okay. There's, there's so much more to be said about circumstances of adversity and we're all feeling it. Honestly, we've got COVID we've got the rise of this. The mean-spirited right-wing, which has infiltrated our Supreme court and is threatening to take our rights away. We've got severe economic dislocation and many people are really struggling economically, including me. We've got We've got issues of systemic racism and systemic homophobia and systemic transphobia that continue to burn in our culture and stubbornly do not go away. There, there, there is adversity in the world there and it's 

Yucca: of that. Okay. 

Mark: yes, yes. Not okay. In that, I think this is acceptable. 

Yucca: We're not condoning it.

Mark: No, but okay. As in, yes, I recognize this as true. 

Yucca: All right here. It is right 

Mark: now. What, are we going to do? Yeah. 

Yucca: yeah. What, what, what can I do as an individual and what can I not? And the part that I can't that's okay. Right. Not as a way of making an excuse to not be active, but, but understanding that we're, again, we're part of this community, we're part of the system. We are the entirety of it.

Mark: Yes. Yes. And when I, I, I will say this when contending with adversity that threatens your survival, it.

isn't reasonable to expect somebody to drop everything and go advocate on climate change. Because you have to eat, you have to be sheltered. You know, you, you have to take care of your family. We understood, you know, we understand all of that.

It goes to Maslow's hierarchy of values and all that kind of stuff. Right. S creature, and that includes humans will pursue its survival before it pursues other goals. And that is part of what is really challenging about the climate change issue, because in late stage capitalism, where all the resources have been sucked up to the 1%, everybody is struggling and they don't have the bandwidth to address the crisis that's in front of us. 

Yucca: Yeah, which ironically is what it's going to make it a lot harder down the line for all of us. Right. 

Mark: so kudos to everybody. That is a climate activist. Thank you. Thank you for all the work that you do and to the elected officials that are on the right side on that issue worldwide. But also don't beat yourself. That you're not solving the world's problems when you have your own problems directly in front of you. it's not helpful and it's not kind to yourself. And if, if you don't take anything away from this podcast episode, other than this be kind to yourself. So thank you, Jaco.

Yucca: Thank you.

Mark: a good conversation. Yeah. 

Yucca: next week we will be back already with our it will be our souls to sewed, right.

Mark: Yeah. The Midsummer episode, for sure. 

Yucca: Cause we always try and get it the week before. So it's not the episode isn't coming out the day of. So, that gives people time to kind of think and reflect on what they, what they want to do and all of that. So, We're halfway through. 

Mark: Yeah. Amazing. We've reflect we've remarked on this before how the last two years seem like they're simultaneously 30 years long and like, they just went by in an eye blink. It's 

Yucca: yeah,

Mark: very odd. Weird. Anyway, folks, thank you so much. We'll see you next week. Bye-bye.

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

S3E20 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 going to ask one, another questions about our practices. What have they been like in the past? What are they like now? What are they likely or how would we like for them to evolve in the future? Basically just do sort of a Q and a back and forth between one another, to learn more about the details of how our spiritual practices go. 

Yucca: Right. And how there can be very different approaches. I think that you and I share a lot, but we also come at things from, from pretty different perspectives as well.

Mark: We do we do. I mean, particularly in the way that we envisioned the wheel of the year, I think is, is, you know, markedly different 

Yucca: And also just one of the things I love about our conversations is that there's a, there's a pretty big age gap between us is a pretty big just family style, lifestyle gap, you know, gender differences. So I've really valued these conversations. Thank you. And I, I hope that that is interesting to, to all of you listeners as well.

Mark: yeah. I hope it is. And I hope that it's worthy of spending the next half an hour, 40 minutes of your time. And I really value these conversations too. This is a, this is something I look forward to every year. 

Yucca: Yeah, likewise. So, I mean, I think this is a really interesting chance to see how practices can kind of change and evolve over time with the person. So we've, we've talked about it a little bit before, but how did you get into this pagan thing? 

Mark: Oh, 

Yucca: went from, from an atheist to a pagan, right?

Well, you're still atheist, but you know, to an atheopagan 

Mark: Right, right. yeah.

I was raised in a household that Just didn't have any religion and it was never discussed. So it's not like we decided that we were atheists. It's just that we were never anything else?

Yucca: Just we're okay.

Mark: my father was a scientist. My mother was a nurse. Science was the way you, you learned things. The universe was interesting and full of stuff that was knowable and discoverable and and it was really prized to learn stuff and know stuff. So. In relation to all matters, kind of spiritual and religious. I became one of those sort of snotty atheists because I thought that, I mean, every religion that I encountered was filled with nonsense, utter nonsense, talking burning bushes and resurrected people and parted oceans and. You know, 11,000 virgins in heaven and just crazy, crazy, crazy stuff to my mind. And excuse me So I dismissed that entire aspect of human behavior and culture out of hand and had nothing to do with it. My only encounter with it was when I sang in a church choir when I was in high school, which was basically because all of my music. Gang friends also saying in the same choir and the, the brilliant director of music at my high school was also the director of that choir at the church.

So I just went there on Sundays and sang and that, and then a subsequent experience with seeing early music taught me a lot about. Christianity and Christian theology because of the words of all the songs and particularly translations from the Latin of medieval and Renaissance music, you learn a great deal about kind of the mentality and all that. As well as the study of history, because this, the study of Christianity the study of European history is in large part, the study of Christianity and its various fractions. Competitions and all that sort of thing. So really wasn't interested in any of that. And out of the blue, a friend of mine who had been, he'd been a roommate when I was in college and we'd stayed in touch.

He was considerably older than I still is considerably older than I am. Invited me to a, an autumnal Equinox circle. That was being held by his coven 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: and. I don't know why he invited me to this thing. I honestly, I don't have to this day, I have no idea why he invited it to me. I guess he just thought that I might get something out of it.

And I don't know why I went, but I did. And it was really weird in the one hand. I mean, with people standing in a circle, holding hands and drumming and chanting. You know, speaking to invisible presences and, you know, like gods and elements and directions and things like that. And that part was all pretty weird.

But there was also something that was very compelling about it. I realized it's the autumnal Equinox. That's a really important milestone in the year. I'm a deep environmentalist. I am really, really committed to. To nature and to the biosphere and to the health of the biosphere. Why don't, why am I not aware that that's happening? Why don't I know what phase the moon is in all the time. And I realized how disconnected I was in many ways, and this was a valuable way of observing these things that would. Bring me into a closer alignment with the cycles of nature and that's how it started. And from there I went to I was invited to go to the reclaiming, the big reclaiming spiral dance in San Francisco which I've attended several times, but this was the first time it was a long time ago.

It was in the eighties when it was still held at the women's building in San Francisco. And so I had an experience of a ritual of hundreds of people as well as experiences of smaller group rituals, I went to a UL ritual and there was kind of a vigil all night to wait until the sun came up and watched the sun come up.

And by that time I was kind of hooked and set up an alternate. Started doing observances on my own. And within a couple of years, I was leading rituals and writing chants and being a leader in my local community. To some degree I think because that's the sort of a natural trajectory. And also, cause I have some leadership capacity and 

Yucca: Sure. That's part of your personality.

Mark: Yeah.

it's just kind of how I'm built.

And that, that's how I got. That, that honestly is how I got here. And I, it never crossed my mind to actually believe in the invisible presences that they were talking to in the circles. And I didn't really discover until much later that people were literally believing that those were invisible intelligence self-aware beings out there in the universe. Well, how about you? Why don't you talk about your. Rival into paganism, which was very different. 

Yucca: Yeah. So I, I grew up this way pretty much my, and I'll be a little bit vague for the privacy of the people who are alive today. But it, my family, my parents were different. Deeply loved each other got along great, but you know, had different religious beliefs there. My mother was a Christian and that her, her faith was really important to her.

And that was something that she definitely gave to the older siblings. So my family has a pair of older siblings, a big gap, and then younger sibling. But she ended up dying when I was fairly young. So the younger siblings, we were raised more by our dad, whereas the older ones had been raised, by, by both of them.

But my dad had arrived at paganism. From Catholicism with a little bounce into Quakerism you know, kind of stepping stone there. And we just, I also I grew up in Santa Fe, which is kind of a new age Mecca. There was just grew up around lots of lots of everything, right? A lot of the kind of traditional Wu stuff.

But there's a lot of different people there and just an interest in that kind of stuff. So that was just normal. That was around me. There were pagans around me. There were there were all the Tibetans stuff and then way G shops and and then also. Heavily very, very old Catholic communities as well.

And the, the Catholicism of Northern New Mexico and the rural Southwest is very different than the rest of the world. Because if you just, it's a really interesting history to get into. But the church was kicked out. For awhile. And the people continue to practice and kind of developed their own just continue to practice.

And so there, there are little non church legs in this big church, sanctioned little sun patios and things like that. So I know this will be kind of offensive to some. People, but the Catholicism here is very pagan and a lot of ways, very, very earth centered and very kind of into the land. But we.

Rural and paying a lot of attention to what's going on with our land that we were living with. My father was really careful about the types of words that got, you know, we don't live off the land. We live with the land and paying attention to th the solstice is we're having a lot of the words whenever really used.

Right. We weren't calling it Yule. We weren't calling it the Equinox, but, but we'd joke about, okay, well, if you know, the, the light, the sun is going in the right direction now, right. As it starts to get sunny again and, and all of that. And it was really important to him that we be raised also with tools with mental tools and emotional tools that could help with.

In the world. So being able to meditate, that was just something that we were taught grounding. I remember doing like the visualization, practicing, breathing, and practicing the, the bubble or the egg protection and, and those sorts of things. W just were really important that they'd be passed on to us kids.

And at some point, I don't know where I picked the words up, but we're talking early teens. I just started using the word pagan. I don't know. I just, that, wherever that came from was how I, I mean, there were other people who were pagan, but that was just, I started to use it. If I was ever filling out a form of.

Wicked down. I never really considered myself wicked, but that was the thing that I thought would get closest to what I was on a, on a list. So it's like, okay, that'll kind of represent what I am, cause I don't want to put down other, right. I guess it could put down other, but, or, none of the above.

So I put that down. And. The same with, for you? I, it never, it never occurred to me that people literally believed in like the God stuff. Like I was kind of into, like, I liked some of like the goddess stuff. I thought that was really cool. I liked like the image, you know, some of those like old, like, Like figurines, like the Venus figurine and those sorts of things.

I thought that was really like interesting. And I had read the all like the mist of Avalon series and, and all of that stuff. And it was just an enjoy that, that quite a bit. And again, it really wasn't until. In my, probably early twenties when I had been doing the pagan perspective for years and just reading people's comments, that it just dawned on me that wow, these people are literally taking these.

It was like actual beings. Like I thought that's just like, Like the Christians did. And like I thought that was, I thought that pretty much the only people who did that, and I know this is quite naive, but I thought that was really the Abrahamic religions and that nobody else really took it literal. And then of course being educated more, I found it.

Oh, okay. So actually there are other religions too, that, that think of their gods as literal beings. But for instance, the Hindus that I had been exposed to. Talk to me about it being metaphors. They hadn't talked about them as being literal beings. And I also grew up around permaculture and all of that sort of thing.

And so I actually ended up as a teen six, I think I was 17. Probably. I went out to your part of the world and did some. Permaculture stuff with star Hawk that was of course blended in with the paganism and activism stuff and and came back home. And there's a lot of that happening here in Northern New Mexico as well.

And it just was this really good fit, this natural fit. And then I went into the life sciences and just kind of hung out in there and Continue to just have that as being part of my, yeah, this is my identity. This is, who I am or what I like to do, how I view the world, but it's always been very interesting because there is kind of that split in the family where there's like the half that is definitely quite Christian within the like immediate family.

And then the half of my, my closest sibling and father and stepmother and like that side. That's sort of pagan and we just don't ever talk about it at family meetings when we're all together, just don't say anything. So that's since it's very, it's evolved very organically, I've never have really seen a separation between where there was a moment where I'm like, yes, I'm pagan.

Now just kind of always was.

Mark: Well, so let me see would you describe. How would you describe the evolution of, well, actually it's your turn to ask me a question that just occurred to me. 

Yucca: Hmm, I think I'm going to steal your question. So, mark, how would you describe the evolution of your practice from when you. Entered into it to today because you've got quite a bit of big journey between there and here.

Mark: Yeah.

Okay. I should have thought more about my answer to this question before figuring it out for you. The, I was always a kid who wanted to live in a museum. I made my rooms like museums with displays of minerals and seashells and feathers. And. Other natural objects. Right. And as I got older, that turned more into kind of the museum of ethnography and natural history where I have various kinds of ethnic art that I find just so alive and so compelling.

As well as the natural objects and artifacts and all that kind of stuff. And so it became very natural for me to put together an altar with precious objects that had meaning to me, the idea of objects that tell stories. When I look at them was just something that I got very instinctually. And so. that that's my understanding of what a magical item is. Right. A magical item is one that has a sentimental value to you because it has a story behind it. So it kind of started there and with going to these rituals, which were all group rituals, it, it bears saying, because. Paganism has fragmented a lot, even as it's grown a lot in the time that I've been involved with it, most of the practitioners are solitary and there are reasons for that, that we can get into.

But at the time that I got into it, it was a group activity and You know, I, I went to this belt teen festival on this sacred land, up in Mendocino county, and we ran around naked and raised a maypole and danced around it and danced around a fire and had all these wonderful experiences. There were, there were problems with that community that came to the full. After a while, but my early experiences with them were transcendently freeing and beautiful. So that is kind of where my experience started from. So after I took on more leadership responsibilities, I started to settle into more of a sense of myself as a, as an active exponent in a community rather than. You know, somebody that just got invited to events and was a participant. I, I participated more in organizing events and just started to see myself in a somewhat different context that way.

And my circle of friends grew and grew and grew because one of the things that I saw in the local pagan community any way was that they were some of the most amazing and interesting people I had ever met. They were creative and thoughtful and growth-oriented, and generally speaking had really you know, progressive and kind politics.

Were just lots of reasons to, to, to way deeper into this, the subculture. And my practice began to change around the time that that climate began to change in the, in the mid to late nineties, was a big influx of folks into paganism that were former Christian. And it changed the culture. They brought a lot of their frameworks with them. I, they didn't intend to, 

Yucca: but like the idea of. 

Mark: yes. The idea that, 

Yucca: like practice versus faith. 

Mark: right, right. The idea that you had to have faith in the, in literal gods was something that I had never been confronted with in the whole time that I had been practicing and. Suddenly there it was. And there were these debates about, you know, the nature of the gods, whether the gods existed at all, all this kind of stuff.

And I withdrew from attending so many group activities. And particularly, even though I went to Penn via con the big convention every year, I worked there as a volunteer. So most of my time was taken up with my volunteer duties and that was okay because I was there to visit with my friends and go to parties after hours and all that kind of stuff.

The workshops themselves were almost entirely just stuff that I didn't believe. 

Yucca: Right.

Mark: Just things I didn't believe in. And it became increasingly clear to me that a lot of what people were doing in the pagan community was stuff that I just didn't think was real. It didn't seem reality grounded to me. And so, and I've told this story before, so I'll kind of skip over it.

I, there were some unethical things that happened that were excused as the will of the gods in around 2005. And I quit the community and that's when I, about six months later when I was missing it and really seeing that there was a lot of value that I was getting out of religious practice, even though. I wasn't a believer that got me onto this whole investigation about what is religion? What does it do? What's it function for us as humans? How can we get that function without having to believe in a bunch of stuff for which there's no evidence. And that led eventually to my writing, the essay that became the book.

Atheopagan so much. Practice has been much more solitary in recent years, but it's starting to turn again with the advent of the Northern California affinity group for atheopagan ism. We're, we're having in-person rituals and we're planning another one for the summer solstice. And it's exciting. It's a really cool thing.

They're wonderful group of people and. It's feeling like a really exciting new chapter. 

Yucca: Have well, and you have had your ritual circle many years as well. 

Mark: Yes. That's true. Yes. I've been a part of dark sun for 31 years. This this coming sewing Hallows and 

Yucca: And y'all usually do the, the wheel of the year, right? You aren't getting together, every weekend, but you get together typically eight times a year.

Mark: About eight times a year. Yeah. And they, they generally focus around the time of the wheel of the year holidays. The most significant rituals That we do though, are for Hallows and annual. And it's a lot more free form around the rest of the year, which I've always wanted to change, but I never have changed.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: That does sound very similar to many other picking groups as well, but it kind of seems to be the most excitement around those two particular holidays.

Mark: Yeah.

Yeah, I think so. So. So that's how my practice has evolved up until now. And there's some glimmers of things. Th there are things that I really miss about the paganism that I first encountered in the eighties that I want to say. There were things that were really screwed up about that paganism that I wasn't really aware of at the time.

There were real problems with with lack of consent.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Particularly in behavior of men, towards women there were, there were problems like the ethical one that I encountered that caused me to leave the, the community. There were people who had set themselves up as a high muckety muck of some pagan church or organization.

And then. Be charismatic narcissists who are shitty to other people and there'd be financial mismanagement, and there'd be no preferential treatment for people who are young and pretty and just, just 

Yucca: All that.

Mark: stuff. But that.

said there was a beautiful freedom in being able to go out into the woods and. Maybe take some mushrooms and just be free and alive in nature and celebrating these rituals with other people of like mind. It was very beautiful. And I, I miss that and I, I hope to go back to it maybe without the mushrooms. But but I hope to go back to more of that kind of practice because that's really what got me into it in the first place.

It's not an intellectual exercise. It's something that feeds something much deeper in me. And those beautiful experiences are what I treasure from my memories of my pagan life. 

Yucca: It's beautiful. 

Mark: Thank you. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So how about you? How, how have things evolved since, say since, since you were out on your own. 

Yucca: Yeah. It's interesting to think about because a lot of it, I mean, has. Just changed with me as my particular needs have changed. Right. What's and I think that's this, everybody's doing that to a certain extent. It wasn't a lot of it. Wasn't me sitting down and saying, I have a practice. What can I do for my practice?

It was what's going on in my life. And what are the tools that I have to try and be living the life that I want. And so that's, at various times certain things would be more or less important. And I definitely experimented a lot with things like. We actually were chatting a little bit before the recording about things like elements.

Right. I think we both said that, we had both kind of tried using the classical elements at some point in our practice and kind of moved away from that. And, had sort of tried out using, you know, the goddess or the triple goddess, things like that in practice. And just been like this, this isn't really working sort of moved away from that.

I've had something very interesting over the last, I guess, about more than 15 years now, I made my first YouTube channel. I guess it was 17 years ago at this point and started sharing things. And I'm a very, a lot of my practice has been very solitary and telephone. Having my family and then it's become more of a family practicing for awhile.

It was a little partnership practice and then adding in, the kids. But because I did get online and start sharing, I had originally started sharing on YouTube is just kind of a. There was a very different YouTube community at the time. It was its own company. Actually, it didn't even belong to Google or any of those things.

And there was like this interesting little pagan community there where like, we would just kind of share things back and forth. And then, I started building the channel and then eventually I got onto the pagan perspective. And then I was on that for about. Well, until it shut down, like, I guess it was 10 or 11 years.

And Th that was, it was kind of in the way that we, you know, we, you and I talk about different topics every week. It gave me a nice like point to come back to every week and think about this new topic. But almost every week was just a challenge because they were like, so what do you think about ghosts?

What do you think about this? God, and heck a tie in that. And, and, I'd want to try and come up with like a very diplomatic way of, of saying. And like, I don't buy that, but, but still have something of value to say. And it was, it was definitely challenging to be on the, the channel. I had a lot of conflict in the background and kind of felt, kind of picked on and attacked by a couple of the, you know, the more strong, like vegan fronts and stuff.

But I felt it was really important to be on there because I mean, that's actually how we met. You made a comment on one of the. Videos that just, said, no, you don't have to believe in God. That's cool. He can be a pagan and I don't believe in gods. But I just had so many people make comments.

They're like, I'm so glad you made this video. Like, I, I felt so alone. I didn't know that that was a thing I'm so glad that like there's other pagans like me. I kind of felt, although I enjoyed that, I felt like a little bit of an obligation. Right. And I had like this one wanting to serve to be like, I want to provide.

And get this word out here. Even though. You know, it might not be the best kind of emotional thing. But there was that really wonderful, the value of the thinking and the connecting with people which is another reason I'm just so grateful for what we do here, because there's no like secret tension.

no like mark and I are not arguing and fighting in the background. Right. That's not happening. And, but still get to feel like. Contributing to a community and, and offering to a community and sharing to this kind of wide world. That's, that's been really important in that in the last, I guess, decade and a half is to be able to contribute that way.

I'm not sure exactly where I'm going with this, but it's just been very interesting to be a very kind of private person with a very. Kind of solitary practice and yet be talking about it to the world all the time. 

Mark: Yeah, that is, that is interesting. Yeah, so

your, your practice has been solitary, but there's been this kind of public window into it, but by your own descriptions of how you practice and what you think, and those kinds of things. 

Yucca: Yeah. And I think that helps. Well, I understand that I really want to be part of a larger community and that's, I guess, kind of what we could maybe go into is, where do we think we're wanting to go from here, but as my own kids grow and as I'm in a very different life stage than I was before just feeling like.

More community. Right. I want to open up to the world and, and be not just, I haven't felt like my twenties, right. I'm 33 now my, my twenties were about. Oh, goodness. Get some feet under me, survive, get through this, just kind of this scramble and now I'm feeling like, okay, no, and I, you know, put some roots down.

I want to start to grow and flourish and of course the, my practice is part of that. Cause that's just the, the practices is how do I live my life? 

Mark: Sure. Sure. Yeah, that absolutely makes sense. So what's your next question for me? 

Yucca: Well, you started to touch on it a little bit. But you know, what, what do you think right now that, that you're. Maybe missing and working towards, you know, where do you see? What, what are the things that the places for growth that you see.

Mark: there are a lot of different dimensions to that because the atheopagan community is a growing community. And as, as the founder of the path that presents challenges and opportunities to me. A lot of which at this stage have to do with finding ways to get out of the way, finding ways to let go and let other people take on.

Significant pieces of, of what needs to be done. I'm in communication with a woman who is interested in taking over the editing of the atheopagan voice newsletter, for example, which would be wonderful. I mean, I would still contribute content and stuff, but I wouldn't have to do all the work of pulling it together every month.

Yucca: You put, I want to interrupt you for just a second. Mark does a tremendous amount. Of work for the community. It's really, I'm really grateful. There's just so much you worked on putting, helping with the retreat. You're on the council, you do the atheopagan voice. You've been on multiple different subcommittees and getting the Facebook group going and this podcast and everything.

So it's just really, really amazing. 

Mark: Well, it's a, it's a labor of love and I, I appreciate your recognition. And at the same time, it's like, When I first created this path that I called atheopagan ism, it was just for me. And I didn't really expect that it was gonna take off, but it turns out there's So.

many people out there who are, you know, science grounded, and they don't want to believe in a bunch of superstitious stuff.

What they still want to celebrate living. They still want to celebrate the magnificence of the cosmos and the world. They still want to have community and meaning, and to live a good life, according to some virtuous values. And I just kind of came along at the right place at the right time, I guess. But the community is growing and, and we're doing more.

So part of what my hope is to do is to. Divest myself of some of those responsibilities so that they can kind of, you know, fly on their own. And then to sort of rededicate myself to my personal practice a little bit more Without falling into the fallacy of the good old days. There is a lot that I miss about the sense of wonder and beauty that I had when I first arrived in paganism.

Because it was beautiful. It was a beautiful vision for the world. It was a beautiful way of interacting with one another. There was an openness of heart that the people that were attracted to it generally speaking, really brought and all of that was. Back for me by the century retreat, because I saw it once again, you know, people being vulnerable people being courageous and, you know, doing the work to grow people just generally being really good.

Good, amazing, interesting, fantastic people. So I would like to continue building this community by finding new ways to connect people. And, you know, so that's fostering the affinity group program. That's, you know, we're, we're talking about the possibility of maybe doing a, an online conference at some point so that more people could access it, that weren't able to come to the century retreat.

And of course, we'll do another century retreat in 2024. Community building and then turning back and taking a look at myself and saying, okay, well, who am I now? How has this changed me over the last, what, 12 years now? Something like that, that Ethiopianism is benefiting. And where do I want to grow next? Where, where do I. What what's the next piece for me. And if some of that ends up pointing back to running around naked in the woods, I wouldn't mind observers might mind, but I wouldn't mind. So. How about you? What, what do you see happening in the future? 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: And I should also say Yucca also does a lot for our community. She chairs the atheopagan society council. She's our media cleric. So she's directing the The revitalization of our YouTube channel and our Instagram account. There's, there's a lot going on for a mother of two young children. So I'm super, and of course this podcast, so I am super appreciative of everything that you do.

And I so value our relationship. 

Yucca: Thank you. Yeah, well, this is definitely, this is a big component. It feels really good to have that, that community piece. Right. A lot of my focus is there. I know with my practice, another component is bringing. Back in, we talk about this one a lot, but the self care component, I know that that's one that, I talk a good talk, but you know, I'll get into it for a while and then it'll kind of slip out of it, and, and being better about there's some things that I'm really, really, you could say religious about right.

Getting outside every day by. Taking time to myself and doing a little meditation, you know, that that doesn't always happen. And when it does, I feel just so much better and I'm just like a better person, a better, I work better. I'm a better parent, all of those things. So. I'm looking, looking towards growth and looking towards towards the balancing in that area and more effectively.

Right. And so, being able to. Let myself not just be the care giver because that's a role that I've really been in my whole life. Really, even as a kid, I was always the, the person in the background who was, doing, taking care of everybody else and I'm comfortable there. Right. I prefer again. Do this weird thing where like I talk to people on a podcast on YouTube, like I actually prefer to be in the background.

I actually prefer to be doing that background work. And just taking care of everybody else, but working on, Hey, maybe I could be one of those people I take care of. And, so that's, really the, the directions that I see that kind of growing out and the growing down into the ground to that, that rooting.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. I can, I can see that for you. Yeah, that's good. So do you have another question for me? 

Yucca: I do have a question for our listeners. 

Which is what topics all of you would like to hear? Because we, before we know it, we're, we're coming up on solstice already. So we're going to be talking about the solstice soon, and we've got topics that we want to be discussing, but we also really love hearing from you.

What topics that maybe even if we've covered it before, I mean, we're in three years now of topics of what are the things that are really meaningful to you that you want to. So we'd really invite that. Any of your comments or questions on that, that area?

Mark: Yeah, that would be great. You need to understand that from our standpoint, we've been doing this for more than two years now on a weekly basis. That's a lot of subjects. That's a whole lot of subjects, even though eight of them every year are taken up by the wheel of the year holidays. And we always do an episode on each of those holidays.

Yucca: There's another 47.

Mark: Yes exactly. That's, that's just so many different topics. And we are creative people, but we are not infinitely creative people. So there are times when we, you know, arrive at the time to record the podcast and it's like, Hmm, what are we going to talk about? So your help with this and letting us know what you would like to hear our thoughts and input about would be really helpful. And you can of course reach [email protected]. That's the wonder podcast, Q [email protected]. And we hope to hear from you soon. It only takes a second to shoot us an email. And so please do that. 

Yucca: Yeah. And do we, do you know, really appreciate you being here? This is, it's been, it's just amazing to see. And, the downloads and listens and the emails that we get from all of you. So you're a real big part of our lives. So we appreciate that.

Mark: Absolutely. I'm, I'm always, I'm always So thrilled when I, when someone says to me, oh, I heard you on the podcast. And it's like, oh yes, they heard me on the podcast.

Yucca: So thank you all. 

Mark: Yeah, thanks everyone. And thank you, Yucca. Great conversation.

Here's the link to the blog post: https://atheopaganism.wordpress.com/2022/05/21/reintegration/

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

S3E19 TRANSCRIPT:----more----

Yucca: Welcome back to the wonder science-based paganism. I'm one of your hosts Yucca. 

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

Yucca: And this week we're talking about reintegrating. With normal life after you've had some kind of experience like a retreat, which we're going to be talking about.

The one we were just on or a really impactful ritual or something like that.

Mark: There's a lot that happens in our brains when we go through these transformational peak experiences. And there are things that we can do to kind of smooth our transition back into the ordinary routines of our life and to make that emotional transition easier. So we're going to talk about that stuff today. 

Yucca: And to be bringing some of that with us too, right. To not just be closing the door and saying that was one experience. Now, now I'm back to my other one, but being able to bring, bring the things with us that we want from that while still not living in that space all the time. Because as, as much as we want to.

That's not what every day life isn't. It probably wouldn't be very good for us if that was the case anyways, to be in that open and raw and kind of heightened of experience.

Mark: Yes. And I mean, it can be dangerous. One of the things that happens when we're really kind of blown open that way is that we tend to be really focused on our internal experience.

and we can make clumsy mistakes. 

Yucca: Merging into a lane that has somebody in 

Mark: has somebody in it. Exactly. So operating heavy machinery is not advisable immediately after going through some kind of impactful experience like that.

So we're going to talk about all that, but let's start with a little reporting about the century retreat that happened last weekend, that we were both at it.

was. A very powerful experience for me. The people were so kind and so open and so growth-oriented, and so no nonsense in the sense of critical thinking and science orientation.

It was really, I, I, I saw this group of people. Gathered. And it was exactly the same as the picture in my mind of the non theist paganism community that I have always hoped for. 

Yucca: yeah. It was pretty amazing. It was it was just so interesting. All of the different types of people and yet the things that many of us had in common. I personally really appreciated being around other pagan parents. And talking about just the kind of, you know, the one that, just the connection, the human connection, but also having those same kinds of themes and talking about, you know, how these were the things that we were balancing or in our families and considerate and family considerations.

Because that's something that I don't find as much discussion of that in the online spaces, because there's so many different kinds of people, right. But the family orientation, isn't usually the main focus that I find in pagan spaces.

Mark: That's really true. And I think it's especially true in in physical in-person gathered spaces because pretends to be a lot of focus on adult activity And you know, just adults playing the way adults like to play. 

Yucca: There's practical reasons for that, right? Yeah.

Mark: For sure. That said If this is going to be a multi-generational movement, you have to incorporate the next generations.

Right. And so there has to be a place for children and there has to be things for them to do. And the, the rituals, the symbolic activities need to be comprehensible. To children, there needs to be some reason why they would participate. So I was super glad that we had a, a workshop. Building a wheel of the year with your family.

For example, John Cleveland hosts workshop. And there were fun activities like body painting and things like that, that you know, face painting and all that good stuff that would make a lot of sense to a little kid. 

Yucca: Yeah, well, and one of my kiddos was there and she was just delighted and is still, you know, it's still high off the experience of it. And everyone, I was just blown away at how incredible the whole community was just so welcoming with her. And I think she wanted to drop to adopt everyone. 

Mark: Okay. 

Yucca: So they were just amazing.

Mark: Well, she wasn't alone. I mean, I kind of feel like I want to do adopt everyone too. And that is, I mean, honestly, that is really what we're talking about in this podcast is that, that deep connected sense and this sort of longing and loss that happens when you separate and go your, your diverse ways. There's a reason why we feel that. And it's because when we have. That deep human contact. And we feel, we feel a kinship with other people. There's a hormone called oxytocin that gets released into our brains and oxytocin is about pair bonding and hyper-focus and it has. It has a number of different functions, but particularly it's the love hormone.

It's the thing that gets released a lot. When you feel a deep affinity with another person. 

Yucca: Right. It's it's that mammalian connection. 

Mark: Yes. 

Yucca: I think that the oxytocin is in non mammals as well, but it plays different roles in different kinds of creatures, but, and mammals, that's the, that's our bonding. Right. You know?

Mark: Yeah. And by the time century retreat ended and it was only three days I felt really bonded with the people in this group. You know?

we had shared common struggles. We had 

Yucca: How old is the moon.

Mark: how, how old are they at the eclipsing 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: And shared this experience together of doing these workshops, doing these rituals, sharing meals together.

The whole thing was really quite an adventure. And so now the challenge is how do you integrate. What you've learned and experienced from that into your daily life, but also really get your feet back on the ground in your daily life. 

Yucca: Right. And there's, I mean, there's different approaches that I think are all important, but one of the first ones is remembering that we are our bodies and then. When we go through experiences like that, or again, maybe like a, just a really intense ritual or something like that, that we need to take care of ourselves on that really practical level.

Something like a longer experience like that I personally was quite sleep deprived. I think Marcie stayed up quite, quite a bit later than I did. 

Mark: I did. I stayed up til about three o'clock in the morning on both Saturday and Sunday nights. 

Yucca: and then. Breakfast at eight. 

Mark: Breakfast at eight 30. Yeah. I didn't feel sleep deprived in the moment. 

Yucca: And then,

Mark: I'm sure, because of all the sort of neuro-transmitter hormonal stuff going on. But once we started driving home, which was two and a half days for me and the, 

Yucca: yeah.

Mark: guys that I drove home with I was dozing in the car and slept really hard the first night because I was so sleep deprived, but sleep deprivation is actually something that contributes to that vulnerable emotional state. 

Yucca: Right. But once you come out on the other side, There may be some catching up to do, right. Really take a look at that sleep hygiene. All of those things that, that are important on an everyday basis, but especially when you're coming out of that vulnerable state, you're going to really want to. If you can try and protect that time.

Nope. This is the time for the sleeping and whatever it is that you do to help yourself with that, the sleep masks or dark rooms or the temperature, all of those, you know, turning off the screens and that sort of thing. 

Mark: And at the same time, be aware that sleep deprivation can significantly impairs our response times, our eye, hand coordination, a lot of different physical attributes. So it's important, you know, maybe the day after you get back from something like this, maybe you don't get behind the wheel of a car 

Yucca: If possible. Yeah. 

Mark: And 

Yucca: of those things we don't, we don't see it in ourselves. The studies are really clear that our self perception versus the outside objective. Perception of, of us is very different when it comes to sleep deprivation. 

Mark: Yes. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Yes. So it's easy to tell yourself. Oh, I'm fine. You're not fine. And it's important to just, you know, go with your knowledge that you're not fine, even if it feels as though you're fine and take care of yourself do what you can to be safe. And, and I would say that that's true at two levels.

It's true at the level of your body is health, but it's also true of your heart of your, of your emotions because. When you come out of an experience like that, you can be very tender and very vulnerable and you can get hurt easily. And it takes a while to kind of put back up the ordinary callouses that we have to protect ourselves from little things that might affect us otherwise. It's, it's really a strange experience for me this week because I haven't had this kind of experience for quite a while. I mean, I've been to other sort of festivals where I had. Some of this experience, but I've never been to an event where I felt such complete kinship with the people. You know, that we're, we're self-selected to be people who are non theist pagans, and being surrounded by a big crowd of those folks was really profound to me.

And so I miss it now. Right. But I have to keep marching on in my life and doing light life things and it ebbs day by day. And so a part of the way that I have approached this is besides just trying to take care of my physical self is to be in touch over social media as best I can with the people who were there.

And I also wrote a blog post about reintegration to sort of walk through my own experience of this because I suspected that many of the rest of us were having the same kind of experience. 

Yucca: Right. Yeah. So we'll put the link for that. If people want to check that out, the blog post cap.

Mark: Yeah. So, as, as Yucca said, this is, you know, it's, doesn't have to be a big multi-day festival that affects you this way. It can be a really heavy therapy session. You know, where something really shifts or you realize that something has been really stirred up. The same kinds of self-care activities are really important to do at this time.

Anything that really goes to your deep emotions and stirs up your limbic system in that, in that intense kind of way. These are the same things we need to do for ourselves. When we go through a breakup. 

Yucca: Great.

Mark: If it's a breakup that we didn't want or a break up that still causes a lot of loss and regret for us, not the kind of breakup where you're like.

Thanks, bye. Just go away now. 

Yucca: I mean, I know those exist. I've heard about them, but I have never experienced it that way. 

Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Yucca: but that's something that ritual can help with. 

Mark: Yes. 

Yucca: If, well, it's really great if all the parties involved but even if it's just you and you want to have a ritual about that, that's something that, that can be very helpful.

Mark: Yeah, I have conducted a dissolution ritual and it was really pretty powerful, you know, the separate, the symbolic separation of the lives of the two people so that they could go off in opposite directions. It was, it was a powerful thing to do. And of course the trick there is to see whether all the participating parties will actually show up to do the thing.

And you know, in some cases, one or both of them are one or, or more of them are mad. And so they won't do what the other person wants them to do, even if it would be good for them. But it's, it's something, you know, if, if a disillusion is coming in your life, it is something to consider whether you do it for yourself or whether you do it with the, the people that you're splitting up with. So, Yeah.

the, this is re this really goes to kind of the care and feeding of the tender parts of ourselves and. You know, we live in a world that can be pretty harsh at times. I mean, certainly just turning on the news can be just like, oh, ouch. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: And so it's very important, especially if we've done some significant emotional, psychological work to care for ourselves in all those different ways.

And that can also mean connecting with other people that are in our ordinary lives. You know, getting some of that, that bonding feeling with people that were already connected to. 

Yucca: Right. And that's also for folks who have. Who live with non-human animals, like our cats and dogs and, and creatures like that, that we definitely share these really deep connections with you know, your, your good cuddle per session can definitely assist in kind of, you know, easing out of that experience.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So it's, it's funny while I was gone, our cat was apparently extremely needy and, and cuddly with pneumonia. And now that I'm back, she's extremely needy and cuddly with both of us in a way that she wasn't before. But she. Her initial response. When I came back, was this sort of outreach, Meow, like where have you been? So that was, that was good. 

Yucca: That's good. I'm glad you didn't get the the I'm mad at you. Snub cats do sometimes like, oh the, to you, I wasn't hurt or mad that you left. 

Mark: Right, 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: And the other thing you can do is you can, without being obsessive about it, you can, you know, create some reminders for yourself about that experience and what you loved about it. My desktop image Right.

now is the group photo that we took at the end of century retreat, just so that I can see those faces and remember.

You know, the many great interactions that I had over the course of that weekend, particularly the rites of passage section, which was just a really moving, moving set of rituals and ended with a wedding, which is always upbeat and happy. And that was good. 

Yucca: Yeah.

that we, we took a few items. There were, you know, gifts that people had, but we also picked up, we just took a few pine cones 

Mark: I took a pine cone to. 

Yucca: and we live somewhere with a lot of pine cones, but these pine cones got to go in a special spot. And so, you know, there to. That's who experienced it. We know what those pine cones are.

Those specific ones have a important meaning to us. But if someone else was to walk into the house it's oh, there's there's pine cone over there and there's 20 more over there. But no, but these ones, you know, there's they still have that feeling right. When we look at them like, Ooh. Yeah, right. Okay.

That whole thing that's that's real right. That's part, that's part of us. Hmm.

Mark: And it's great to do that too, because that's a part of teaching your kids about ritual creation, Right. I mean, these, these pine cones became sacred objects because they're symbolic of a particular experience. And. That's a great thing to teach kids because then they can choose their own, make their own, start to develop a ritual practice.

Yucca: Right. So let's touch on a couple of other specific things that people might want to keep in mind. We talked about the sleep they're talking about also, maybe not just related to the sleep, but if you can avoid getting behind. Car the wheel of a car or heavy machinery, things like that. But you might also be a little bit more mindful with making sure that you're getting a meal that is going to be, you know, not be spiking, your blood sugar really high and making you super hyper and, you know, taking care of getting whatever the food is.

That really feels good and grounding to you, you know, be mindful about, okay, maybe that's going to be more appropriate than. 

Mark: Right. 

Yucca: Going through your fast food or whatever it is.

Mark: and the impulse may be because there's this sort of longing to get back to this high place. The impulse may be to go for sugar or caffeine or energy drinks or whatever those things are. 

Yucca: try and fill it in. 

Mark: Yeah.

And that's, you know, that is an impulse that honestly should be resisted. It's, it's much better to get something that's solid and wavy and grounding into you.

So that you can. Get get your head straight again in a way that balances the experience that you've had with the life theater in. And then there are creative things that you can do, like writing or songwriting or you know, even spoken word just into a tape recorder about what your experience was like, what you learned, how that.

Can impact your life going forward. I really feel that the people who went to this event were changed. I know I was, and now I'm exploring how was I changed? 

Yucca: Right. Yeah. I certainly know that was the case for me coming home and, and, you know, greeted my, greeted my land coming back and, you know, went inside wherever. Partner and, and youngest child were, and, and cat who was very happy to see us. But I, you know, I remember sitting back down on, on the, the sitting down on the couch and just thinking about some of the things that had really come up for me and re and about the way that people treated each other was just so.

Amazing and refreshing and welcoming and, and kind right. And 

Mark: kind. 

Yucca: tenfold like, like they really paid attention. Right. And that was something I remember sitting down and going, okay. I, that felt good. That felt feeding. How do I make sure that that's something that I continue to have in my life because wow.

That was really. That helped. Right. I'm an introvert. I don't spend time around a lot of people, but, and so on one level, it was that that whole weekend was incredibly exhausting for me just to be around people. But it also was very interesting to go, wow, human interaction can be feeding. How do you know, how do I do this?

How do I make sure that this continues in my life? And so there's this whole period of, of, of. Evaluation and reflection after an experience like that.

Mark: Right. Right. And that's an essential part of the reintegration, honestly, because you don't want to lose the. The lesson content from the experience right? I mean, there's the whole emotional journey that happens with an event like this, but there's also stuff you learn about yourself and about what you want in life.

And. Humanity generally and how humans can be. One of the things that was really striking to me from the very beginning, like the first person that.

I saw, which was Rachel at the registration table actually it was before the registration table had been set up. It was Rachel and joy and joy I had met before, but everybody was on it about consent immediately. 

Yucca: Right.

Mark: Everybody asked before hugging. Everybody asked before a handshake and we didn't have to make any kind of announcement about it. That's just what they were doing. 

Yucca: Yeah. And that was so refreshing. From as an individual, but as a parent as well that no, buddy, it was so nice. Nobody touched my kid without asking her if that was okay. Right. And of course she was like, yeah. Right. But then also having her be around just seeing everybody do that and that isn't just like what mom is telling her to do.

That's just like what everybody is doing, you know, that was so. Wonderful that we weren't, you know, it wasn't like we were fighting to try and like make this the way that it should be. That's just the way it was.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, the implications of that to me have a lot to do with what humanity is capable, capable of. You know, it's, it's, it's so easy to be despairing about humanity right now because we've got some people that are really pretty lost and pretty damaged and you know, doing a lot of harm. 

Yucca: Yeah, we've got a lot of trauma that we're working through. 

Mark: we do.

And part of what was so powerful about this event was that people came with their trauma and they were unapologetic about it, and they were really open about it. The ritual that I did after my workshop the absolution ritual, which you were not involved with you, you weren't in that workshop. 

Yucca: No that I so since I had my kiddo with me, we did need to step aside sometimes to do some naps and just do some breathing. Right. Because please for us, that being there was like being in the middle of the civilization. It's very strange how different people feelings were about it, but it was like being surrounded by people.

And we were like, whoa, lots of people let's go breathe for a minute. And that's the part that's also part of taking care of yourself is recognizing that like, You know, this is this an open raw, so there were some things that I've missed a lot of the rites of passage and those kinds of Brits rules, but the, from what I've heard, I mean, people were just so much to say about them.

Mark: Yeah.

The, there were just a number of times when. You know, given, given an inflection point, given a moment when they could either step forward in their human imperfect wounded glory, or step back and protect themselves and be defensive, they chose the first over and over and over again. And this ritual that I did at the end of my.

My workshop on how to create an atheopagan ritual is called the absolution. And I've done it several times before. And in a nutshell, what it's about is we have people imagined, just focus and think about the most cringe-worthy moment of their life. So the moment that they feel the most shame, the most embarrassment about, and just hold that in their mind, and then.

Ritually one at a time, absolve them of that, make it go away. Have it, have it have its power and its weight. Fade away from their body. It's very simple, but I mean, people have tears streaming down their face and I was, you know, fighting not to cry because there was so much emotion in the room. It was, it was just remarkable.

And I mean, I know that for the people that went through that ritual, there was a, there was a real change in them. And to me, that's just like, okay, all of this stuff, all of this non theist, paganism, atheopagan ism, all this stuff that I'm doing is absolutely worth it for that moment. For the moment of realizing that you've, you've lightened the load for your fellow humans, it, it felt. Well, I wouldn't say this. It's not that it felt like a community. It was a community

Yucca: Is, Yeah.

Mark: Is, a community. Almost none of us had ever seen one another in person before, because we came from all over. We had people from Canada, we had someone from Mexico. We had people from all over the United States and, 

Yucca: impressed how far some folks came. Yeah.

Mark: People were ready for this. They were, they were, you know, the people that, that came. to this event were like, Yeah.

this is, this is the direction I'm going. And I'm going to, I'm going to jump in with both feet. 

Yucca: Yeah. And a few folks told me that, and this was just so heartwarming to hear that the podcast actually helped them like that. That was kind of the thing that got them to, to, you know, take the chance and, and come. And it was just. That was just so wonderful to hear.

Mark: Yes. Yes. I think we were talking about one person that you're going to get together with their kids and your kids. 

Yucca: Oh yeah.

Mark: I'm pretty sure that person had first encountered you on YouTube and then heard about the podcast and from the podcast came into the atheopagan community. 

Yucca: Yeah. I think I'll have to check with them, but I think that. That's the case. Yeah. And so that's something nice to a lot of a lot of us who are kind of close to each other. Now that person, I we're about six hours apart, but we figured three hours driving each way. Does it sound so bad? Right. But there's people in the, in the areas are already talking about, well, what we can do in the meantime, right?

Cause we're not going to do another full one until 20, 24. But we could still get together on, you know, smaller groups and that sort of thing. 

Mark: Right. Well, we, you know, we have that affinity group program. Many of which are regional groups, and I know that the Colorado group is really focused on getting together and doing things together now. So,

that's, that's exciting. One thing that was the. There was a brainstorm in the car while we were driving home is the possibility that we could pick a weekend that would be kind of atheopagan affinity group gathering weekend. 

Yucca: Oh, I see where you're going with this. I like this. Okay.

Mark: And I mean, we could have t-shirts made right. You know, all that kind of stuff. Yeah.

And so it would be the same weekend, but the groups would gather like, you know, my local affinity group, which is called the live Oak circle is the Northern California affinity group. We could gather on that weekend at a local park and do a ritual. 

Yucca: And I'm sure folks from a little bit further away would be welcome as well if they didn't have. Right. So you might get your Oregon or Washington people who are like, well, this is the closest and I'd love to see. Yeah.

Mark: So there's, there's lots of ideas about what could be done in the off year. I speaking from the standpoint of having helped to organize this event, we can't do it every year. It's just too exhausting. I think it would be too much money for people if we ask them to come every year 

Yucca: Well, I think every other is now my daughter disagrees, but I think it's a waste. But as an adult, our perception of time is a little bit different than, than when you're a kid. I mean, 20, 24 is for forever away. 

Mark: that's right. Yeah. Well, think about it. That's a third of her life, right? I 

Yucca: yeah.

Mark: that's, that's you know, for me that would be 20 years, 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: so that's a long time. That's a really long time. What else do we have to say about this? 

Yucca: Yeah. I think really the, the main thesis is thinking about how to care for yourself as you transition between these two kind of worlds that this, that Eve experienced. They're both real. Right. But. Just thinking about in your own life though, how to be mindful about that. And there might be some little rituals to bring in.

One thing we've talked about so much before is the idea of grounding that that's important in everyday life, but especially in points of transition. 

Mark: Right, 

And.

there are, there are little ritual, symbolic things, as you say that we can do, I'm still wearing my registration. Century symbol from the event? 

Yucca: And that was a really lovely touch to everybody. Got one of the, the sun tree. It it's burned, right? We're at, yeah, 

Mark: Yes, it's 

Yucca: Yeah. A little 

Mark: wood burned into a, a little wooden. Medallion. Yeah.

So we were all wearing those and it was, it was cool. So yes on the one hand, I would not want this. Podcasts to in any way, dissuade people from seeking these kinds of experiences because they enrich our lives so much and they help us to become wiser and kinder and more.

More whole, right. The heal, our wounds. So if we've in any way implied that it's a problem that you have this reintegration experience. I, I, I wanna make it clear. That's not what we're saying. It's it, the, the experience of going to this retreat for me was an unequivocal. Good. 

Yucca: Right 

Now on the, on the other hand, we're also not saying that you have to do something like this, right? That if this is something you do, it's can be amazing and wonderful. But you can still be an atheopagan. You can still be whatever you are, even if the. Even if being able to go to one of these things, just isn't where you're at right now.

Cause I know there were a lot of folks who really would have loved to come, but didn't have the means to travel or didn't know the schedule wasn't going to work or whatever. Right. 

Mark: Right.

Which actually brings me to another idea, which we haven't really, this was a brainstormed idea in the car and we haven't really talked about this at all at the atheopagan council or anything, but a possible. Would be to have a virtual event maybe in January of 2024. I'm sorry, 20, 23. Yeah.

We could do workshops. We could have fellowship, all that kind of stuff over zoom. So it would be, you know, possible for people to attend and still get, you know, a little bit of that, that hit of the person that interaction. 

Yucca: That's a really lovely idea. Yeah. 

Mark: And it'd be a lot easier to organize. 

Yucca: yes. A lot less expensive and could allow more people to possibly participate. But yeah, so basically like, a big you know, co conference or webinar kind of style through zoom. 

Mark: Yeah, And we, you know, we could have some breakout rooms where people could fo could, could socialize, you know, we'd have big blocks of time available just for people to interact and say hi and introduce themselves and all that good kind of stuff. So I think that. An idea that has some real legs. And I'd like to talk about it at our next atheopagan society council meeting, which happens at the end of June. But we'll see, you know, we'll see what there is the capacity to create. I know the organizers of this event, myself included put in a lot of work and 

Yucca: and did an amazing job. 

Mark: well, thanks. 

Yucca: you know, everything again, I just keep using the word blown away, but that really. That's that's the sense that I'm coming away with is just everything. I was just blown away by the people and the, how well it was organized and the welcomeness and experience and, and the location was an amazing location.

Mark: Yeah, with that beautiful view of Pike's peak Right. there.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: And the food and the kindness of the staff, you know, the accommodation to dietary considerations, they were just so great about all that. 

Yucca: And it was, it was, it felt remote. And yet we were like 10 minutes from . 

Mark: yeah. 

Yucca: Right? Like, and there were a lots of there's so much life there. That was really fun. There were these swirls. I loved watching the squirrels with the really long ears and the Yeah. And just watching them run up these how tall those Ponderosa is worth.

Those were tall 

Mark: they were. 

Yucca: and down these, you know, we have, ponderosas where I am too, but not, not like those ones. 

Mark: Yeah, it's pretty, pretty clear. They they get a little more water than where you are, I think. 

Yucca: I think they got a lot more water 

Mark: Yeah. 

Yucca: here. Yeah. And they did the, they did a lovely job. Maintaining the area and there was this huge labyrinth and it was just, yeah. Anyways, that we could, we could just keep going on about like all the wonderful things. 

Mark: Yeah.

but shout out to love for a retreat center in Colorado Springs because they were wonderful. It's, it's actually owned by the United church of Christ, which is a very liberal Christian denomination and a part of their mission is that they're welcoming to everybody. 

Yucca: And it certainly felt that way. Every, you know, every staff member that I had any interaction with or watched interacting with anyone else just, just seemed very kind and, and open and 

Mark: Yeah, glad we were there. 

Yucca: yeah. 

Mark: Yeah.

Yeah. And we were too. So I think that's it for this week's episode of the one.

Yucca: And we appreciate all of you being here with us and we'll see you next week.

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

S3E18 TRANSCRIPT:----more----

(Transcripts note: The transcript is currently a little rough, I need to edit it for errors and add speaker labels. We currently are on the road headed back home from the retreat, but I wanted to still get the episode up for you at the regular time. Corrections will be made over the next week to make reading easier - Yucca)

Welcome back to the Wonder: Science-based Paganism. I'm your host mark and I'm Yucca. And today we are recording live at the Suntree retreat, which is the first in-person conference gathering of non theist pagans in the atheopagan community here in Colorado Springs, Colorado USA.

And so we're going to be interviewing people here about their experience and you know, how they're enjoying it and what brought them to non-thesis paganism, all that kind of stuff. So it's going to be kind of a free form podcast this time, rather than one centered around a topic. 

Right. And we are recording out outside of the dining hall with a little bit of wind.

So we appreciate everybody's patience with the audio today. And we also have some folks joining us on the zoom call as well, which I don't think we've ever had this many people before.

Right. So, if you'd like, say hi, if you want to introduce yourself and where you're from, just to kind of put a word in, we welcome that as well.

What do you want us to introduce ourselves? So, hi, I'm Addie. My pronouns are she, her and I live in Northwestern, Vermont, a little bit north of Burlington where it is currently 86 degrees in may, which is bizarre. And I'm happy to see everybody. I'm glad to hear you're having a good time. Thanks.

Thank you for joining us. And if anyone else wants to jump in, yeah, go ahead. I'm Bethany and I'm from Sacramento and the high today is going to be 91. Oh.

I'm Glenn in Los Angeles, the high today is supposed to be 94. And on my morning walk today, I discovered I'm in a little city called Monterey park. It's the east end of LA county. And I never would have guessed that my silly little city would have one of those little like mailbox size libraries, but I discovered one and I've never read Daniel Steele.

I don't think it's probably something that I actually want to read, but I'll read a chapter and see how it goes. But that was a pretty exciting to see that just in the middle of a residential area. Nice.

Oh, hi Martin. I'm from the north of the Netherlands. And currently it's 63 Fahrenheit with max or today what? 66. It's currently past 8:00 PM here. So it's completely different.

Hello, I'm Bislama Buena my pronouns. Are he him? I'm currently living in college station, Texas working on my PhD at a and M. And the weather right now is 88 degrees. So, and it's pretty hot and warm here. Yeah. Well, we have beautiful weather here in Colorado Springs. It's probably low seventies right now.

You don't want to be out in the sun because it's high elevation and it really, you know, it burns into you pretty fast, but the air just feels super silky and nice. And we have a very nice view of Pike's peak and the black forest surrounding it. So it's a pretty nice place to broadcast from.

 It can be really unpredictable this time of year may, could be snowing, could be sweaty and hot and really windy. So jump on in here, come around to the side so that we can have you in the mic.

Yep. Yeah. We've never done this live before.

Hello everybody. It's good to see you. So do you want to introduce yourself real quick? So we have someone joining us slide. My name is Glenn Gordon. I've been a part of the naturalistic nontheistic pagan community for awhile. And over the last two years of COVID, I started joining the north mixers and it's just been really exciting to see a lot of the familiar faces that you guys have seen on the mixers together.

And we've had some really good ceremonies I've been posting on the Facebook page a little bit. So if you want to kind of get a little bit more of a feel or details of how that's going, you can find that on the Facebook group, you can also find me posting things on Twitter and Instagram and tumbler as atheo Druid.

But I just, yeah, I just wanted to find a way that you guys could somehow experience a little bit of what's going on here because we, we do miss your presence.

If anybody has any questions. Go ahead. Thanks, Glen. And it's, it's wonderful to have you here. Yeah, you've been participating in atheopagan things for a very long time. Now it's gotta be like eight years or something. Which for us is a long time. You know, that's, that is not long after our founding.

So, welcome. So Glenn, what do you think of the events so far? What, how are you? Glen Gordon. How do you, how are you liking this?

I think mostly I'm getting this. I mean, there is a sense of community that we have really built online and I think we've done so in a way, better than other groups that I've involved with that have tried similar things, but just being here, you know, in person and, you know, seeing those familiar people and being in the same space, ritually just adds this depth.

Like when we're doing a ritual online, you know, they're, they're really fun and engaging, but you know, when you're in person in a, in a ritual, there's just a depth, we can't, we just can't capture with the digital technologies. But yeah, I just feeling overwhelmed with yeah. With that sense of that sense of community.

And I'm very glad that I could be here and it makes a lot of. What we've been doing and the things that we've been talking about for a long time, feel so much more tangible to me in some ways. And, and it's just I was just so excited to have seen what started off as just this little tiny, like enclave of bloggers, you know, there's me and mark.

And we had John Cleveland host, who is the editor for naturalistic paganism. A little workshop about the year the wheel of the year. So it's a little, there's a little bit of a surreal, it's a realness to it too. Yeah. I, I echo that it is a little surreal when, you know, I've, I've seen these faces on the screen so many times, but now they're, they're actually eating in the dining hall behind me.

They're, they're here and, you know, after our rituals last night, we hung out and drank some wine and talked about things and, you know, socialize deep into the night. So it's it's really pretty cool.

So Hannah, did you want to step in? Okay. It would be, it would be to take over Glen's there. It was great to see you all. And I hope that maybe I get to see some of you here again. And when we do this in 2024.

Thanks Glenn. You can pause the bike just with the cat

and now we have HANA.

Hello? Okay. Figure it out the mute. Hi everyone. It's so good to see you all. 

So, do you have any thoughts about Suntree retreat about how that's, how that's going for you and what you're looking forward to coming up on the schedule and stuff like that? Right. Well, it's been a really lovely experience so far.

I just getting to be in the same space as people who, when we've been talking about the essence of this kind of pagan expression being rooted in a sense of place, and then having us all dispersed everywhere, which is very cool, but being able to come together and actually share a space together has has been amazing.

So is as far as what I'm looking forward to Michael and I are doing a workshop this afternoon, really, it's more Michael's than mine, but I'll be helping with with. Art's, you know, it's an opportunity for people to do creative projects and I I just am excited to see what people are going to be inspired by and how that will be expressed.

So, yeah, it's great to be here. Cool. Cool. Well, it's wonderful to have you here. You've been a regular on the Saturday mornings zoom mixers that we do. And it's just so inspiring to meet folks like you in person after years of interacting online. Well, likewise it's and it's really been fun to meet folks who have been connected to this community, like through the discord, which I haven't spent a lot of time on.

And folks here in Colorado who have just sort of had an opportunity because it's near them, they've had an opportunity to check it out and aren't as actively involved in the online community. So it's getting a chance to both see some lovely, familiar faces and neat, some brand new people who are just super cool and have so many interesting stories and beautiful ceremonial flares to, to bring to the, the fire circle.

And so yeah, it's. A lot of fun. Yeah. That's very well said. I've really feel the same way. It's exciting to come together in this way and to realize that our community has matured enough, that there there's a critical mass of people that will actually travel in some cases, you know, thousands of miles in order to come and do this.

It's pretty cool. 

I hope that we, while we continue planning future. Opportunities together. I do hope though, that we keep our online practices and community flourishing, because it's also so lovely to have the opportunity on a regular basis to be able to connect with people in different countries and different parts of the world.

And and of course, Traveling is expensive and not everybody can afford it. And so, it's, it's a great blessing that we have an online community that lets us do things communally even at distances. 

Absolutely. I mean, that was one of the silver linings of COVID that we started doing all of this zoom connection.

And I mean, I certainly don't have any intention of stopping doing that. Even if the pandemic is waning you know, we have a real online community and it, it feels like that. And it's, it's, you know, I'm always excited for the Saturday mixer. Who's going to show up this week and you know, what are we, what, what cool conversations are we going to have?

All right. Well, I am going to go ahead and pass the mic on with gratitude to you, mark, and to Yucca and to everybody who helped make this conference possible. And also with gratitude to people who listened to this podcast who aren't here, but are part of the larger AP if you'll pagan community and make it this wonderful creative space that it is.

So thank you all. Thank you, Hannah. Thank you for being part of it.

 Hi. You want to introduce yourself? Yes. My name is Kaylee and I am new to atheopagan ism and I'm excited to be here. Cool. Cool. Well, thank you for being here and welcome. Welcome to the wonder. It's it's really kind of an amazing experience for me having, you know, met a bunch of these people online over the years, and now they're, they're here in person live attaching names to faces, and it's just such a cool experience.

What are, how are you feeling about, about the Suntree retreats? So. Oh, it's so beautiful. I'm just like looking out and seeing all the trees and Pike's peak and I'm native to Colorado, but I've never been this close. I think I usually go to different mountain ranges, so it's so beautiful. And I think it's really cool to talk about that online community, but I'm somebody who like hasn't been involved in that online community so much.

I don't really socialize there very often, so it's really cool to meet people in person as part of the community without having that background either. Everyone's really open and accepting. It's very cool. 

Well, it's great to have you here. I mean, I'm just, I'm remembering from, from last night's fire circle, you know, everyone's contributions and their, you know, they, these really special moments of song and poetry and stories and observations about what's going on in life.

And you know, I'm just reminded once again, that this is a really special cohort of people, I just feel so happy to be a part of it. 

Yeah, absolutely need to. And it's so great to see how so many different people can meet and interact and socialize and contribute in those creative ways, because it's so difficult to do that in, you know, mainstream culture otherwise.

So it's, it's very unique and very cool to see so many different walks of life come together. Yeah. So, do you have anything that you would like to say to the podcast listeners? Oh man. This is how I kind of got introduced to the topic and to the world of atheopagan isms. So I guess I would say that if anybody is out there listening, that feels, you know, that they get a sense of community from it that there's a lot more going on behind the scenes to get involved with.

Cause it's a lot going on. Yeah, that's true. That's true. It consumes a significant chunk of my life. I'll tell you that.

Very cool. Well, I'm going to go ahead and pass it on. Okay. Enjoy lunch. Thank you.

All right. Hi my name's Teagan, and I'm glad to see all y'all spaces on here. Looking at the zoom.

So Suntree retreat, what do you think? What brought you here and how are you liking it? Yeah, it's, it's lovely out here. I escaped some of the Texas heat to get into this cool weather. But I, I really want to echo what, what folks have been saying and what you've been saying about this in person connection.

It's, it's such a big difference to meet people face to face and have real conversations with them and to sleep alongside people in a yurt is so different than, you know, commenting on a Facebook comment section. So it's, it's really got me thinking which really got me thinking forward to the future, you know, beyond the retreat, the, the in-person connections that we can continue.

So I'm really looking forward to trying to, to grow and strengthen the regional affiliate affinity groups, because I'll be in Chicago. So I want to get that kind of organized and off the ground. And I wanted to ask if, if there's ever been like conversation about organizing like, campus groups.

Cause I just graduated college yesterday and I see a huge potential for student organizers to have atheopagan clubs on their campuses. You know, you know, it probably shows how old I am, but it never crossed my mind the first time I ever thought of it. And it's a great idea. We could, you know, create some materials and you know, sort of a startup kit.

For campus groups that people could download and use as resources. That's a wonderful idea. I like it a lot. Yeah. I'd love to work on something like that because the campus groups are often used to, you know, functioning without a whole lot of resources and financial support. And it's a lot of people who are living in an already kind of a communal environment.

So I think it'd be a great opportunity for people to learn about this intersection of of this naturalists, this naturalistic pagan path and start putting these new practices because your whole life, you know, often gets approved and moving to a new city to go to college. You're away from your family having like holiday celebrations with your, your college dorm mates and cooking food together.

I think, I think if your big aneurysm has a lot to offer college students and they have a lot to offer it. Yeah. It's a wonderful idea. I really like it. And we will be talking more about this idea. I promise ASAM. Yeah, I'm, I'm seeing I'm. I feel like I'm one of the few, you know, younger folks here at third street today.

So I, I hope by the next Suntree retreat, I can see some more people around my age. I'm 22 years old right now. So I think that will be my goal for 2024. Nice. I love it.

All right, cool. Oh, and one more thing before I I'll, I'll pass it along. But last night, mark, you were talking about that society right now seems to be at a place where people are really rejecting this framework that you've been handed. And, and that the atheopagan ism is a large part of kind of reconstructing things that we were choosing to invest in.

And you know, I think young people are right there, you know, we're, we're ready to revolutionize them and radicalized. And so, yeah, definitely want to tap into that, but I, I heard you really equity that sentiment that I hear in my community is of, of young people. Nice, nice. Yeah. I think. I mean for so long.

I mean, for centuries, people have, they've had their lives kind of put on the rails, right. You go to school and at some point your school ends and then you go to a job and you do the job and then you partner up and you have kids, and it's just, you know, this formula that people didn't feel like they had a lot of choice about.

And I think we're asking a lot of questions now about, you know, what about alternative forms of families? What about alternative forms of relationships? What about what about not, you know, running on a treadmill for capitalism for, for your entire life? There, there are other ways to live and a part of what we're talking about in atheopagan ism is how can we build our lives around a different set of values that are much more affirming of who we are as people, as well as the planet.

Absolutely. Definitely agree with all of that.

I'll pass it off to the next person. Thank you.

Hello, Michael. How's it going?

Yeah, it's, it's been it's been a beautiful couple of days here so far. Nice weather and just beautiful scenery and I've been really enjoying it so far. Just getting to, getting to spend time with all of these great people. Well, thank you for your workshop this morning, and I'm really looking forward to, to doing some artistic creation stuff with you and Hannah this afternoon.

It's, you know, the, the workshops have all just been really great and entertaining and interesting and and of course the rituals and the socializing and all of that has just. Just wonderful for me. Yeah. For those who weren't there. We just had I led a workshop about how to kind of bring more ritual into your meal planning and like, how you can make meals more meaningful especially in a community setting.

So, so I gave a few examples and then I had people break into groups and make seven, a seven course meal that had like symbolism important to them. So just to kind of write up a plan for it. And it was, people came up with some really good ideas. One of my favorite ideas that came up during lash during the workshop was.

It was the theme of theme of truth. And somebody suggested creme brulee because you have to break through to get to the truth. I love it. I love it. That's great. Yeah. I was sorry. I wasn't able to be at that part. I was, I had to leave when the, when the breakout group started so that we could set up here for the podcast.

But what fun? What a cool. Yeah, we also churn some butter as well, and we're going to make some oatcakes a little later and then we'll use the butter we made to spread on the old cakes. Did the butter actually come out? I remember there was a question about whether it was the cream was staying liquid or not.

It's still, it needs a little bit more work. It's a work in progress. I think that the issue is that when you are making butter you need to leave the cream out for six to eight hours. So, and we only left it out for three hours, 

so I think it was still, is it that it was too cold? Yes. Yeah. I see.

Cool. And has it's good to see other everybody else here in the call as well, unless I'm sorry, you couldn't make it, but thinking about everybody who we've had square community online for, for two years now, 

Yeah. And we're going to keep doing that. I mean, not, not only the podcast, but we're going to keep doing the Saturday mixers and other online gatherings because, you know, we, we do, we have a real community that, that, you know, has people from all over the world.

So it's, it's pretty cool. But there was certainly yesterday, there was this sort of thrill of like, well, that's my goal. Michael's really here. 

Yeah. It's just strange thing. People in real life after two years of video camera. Yeah. 

Bethany and I met one another at a, an affinity group live meeting that we had for may day.

And it was like, yes. Okay. And that's when I met Glen Gordon for the first time. And I mean, Glenn and I had been online communicating for about eight years in one form or another, and I'd never seen him before in person. So pretty cool. I really love that. We're we're doing this in real life stuff as well as online.

Yeah. So I hope hope we have a bit people who can't make it this time and we'll see you in 2024 at our next Suntree retreat, 

you can put it in your calendar. It's the first weekend in September, 2024. We don't have the bandwidth to do this every year and I don't think people can afford to come to it every year anyway.

But if you can plan for it for, you know, a year and a few months or two years in a few months from now, hopefully you'll be able to come. It'll be at the same location here north of Colorado Springs.

Yeah. Yep. Pretty cool. Very cool.

So, Michael, do you have any words of wisdom for the listeners to the podcast? I'll just reiterate what I said in my workshop, you know, don't be intimidated by trying to build a ritual practice. We already live ritually in a lot of ways. And like the meals we eat every day can be the basis for building something very meaningful. Just just consider the food that you're eating and the time of year and what you want to, maybe what you want to get out of the meal more than just nourishment.

Like, do you want to, do you want joy or do you want healing or do you want to have some fun? Like, what is, what, what are you trying to get out of the meals and bring, bring that into the meal when you're cooking it. Nice. Thank you, Michael. Yeah.

Oh, one thing, that one thing that is kind of a challenge for me here is that I live at sea level and we are now up around 7,000 feet and the air is so thin. It's just, I mean, just walking from here to where the yurts are, where I'm sleeping, I'm huffing and puffing because it's, there's just no oxygen here as far as my body's concerned.

So that's, that's really an eye-opener well, I'm going to get back to lunch and I'm going to pass back to to Yucca again. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. Great to see you, Michael. Bye.

So rounding up people and we have another person here want to jump in.

Hello. Hey, Rano welcome. Good to see all in here. You all welcome to the wonder. Thanks for. So you want to, you want to tell people who you are and what you're doing here. So I'm Ronna and I've been a part of the atheopagan group for the last two years. It's been a very long two years, as you all know, and it's just been wonderful to have this community as a sort of like grounding, especially.

The time that I joined the group was at the very beginning of the pandemic. And it was just very fortunate timing of having a sense of fellowship and community and planting all kinds of interesting seeds of ideas about meaning and creating your own meeting with. Um, Superstition, you know, I know we have a lot of discussion around things like that.

yeah. I mean, you've been a great participant for a long time. I mean, you participate in our monthly adult sex salon conversations every time. And you're often on the Saturday mixers. So you've, you've really been, you know, kind of a linchpin of the, of the online communities and it's been great to meet you in person.

Thank you. It's been very special to have that feeling of belonging. I've always kind of envied people that are religious. I was not raised religious. I've never felt religious and I've always kind of envied them that they have an easier way to have a way to find connection and community as an adult, because it is difficult, especially once you leave like college.

I think it can be really hard to make genuine, meaningful friendships. And there's a real shortcut to that when you share a faith or some kind of path with other people and I've never quite fit into the majority of other. Paths and things that are out there. So yeah, this has been very meaningful and it is wonderful to meet everyone in person and just kind of feels like a nice breath of fresh air after this long, two years of everything.

And, and I, I appreciate that the community also has a sense of holding space. Like you mentioned, the, the adult salon. I think it's important to have these held spaces to talk about things that are vulnerable and that there just aren't a lot of Places sometimes that people can talk or also get resources and information, especially given especially in American culture.

It's sometimes, sometimes there is a great access to that. So I really value that. 

Well, you have been a tremendous contributor in that regard. I mean, you're just sort of a walking resource on all these wonderful, you know, on polyamory and alternative relationship forms and on, you know, and fee agentic drugs and psychedelics and just all these, you know, very interesting, very alternative very thought-provoking and kind of growth promoting things that people are doing now.

And so I just want to say how much I really appreciate, you know, your role in all of that, because I think that those monthly salons that we do have been much richer because you've been in the. 

Thank you. I really appreciate that. It just, it feels really nice to feel like I belong somewhere. So thank you for having me.

Yeah. Well, anywhere I am you belong as far as I'm concerned. 

Oh, thank you. It was good seeing you all. 

Thanks Rhonda. I take care.

Hi, welcome to the wonder. Hello. Excuse me. I'm wearing a mask because there's pollen all over here in Colorado Springs and I am congested from all the pollen and I'm trying to, to not fall over everywhere. So hi.

You want to introduce yourself and say, you know, how you find yourself at a Suntree retreat and how you're liking it. Sure. Yeah, so my name is Kim and I've, I felt pretty lucky that the Suntree retreat was going to be held so close to where I live. I've never attended a pigging event before.

And so this is my first time doing non solo, like very expressly Pegan things for other people. And so, It made it easy for me to make the decision to, to come and attend being so close to where I live. I live in Denver and, and this is just just south of me. Yeah, but it's been really interesting.

 It's cool to see all the different perspectives and different expressions of atheopagan beliefs, even among the small little group that's here. And and it's nice to be able to kind of, you know, throw ideas out and and get feedback. I have reached out to a local a local Drood group cause I'm, I'm involved in OBOD as well.

And. I wasn't, I couldn't quite get a feel on how how literally they were taking the goddess and the gods. And so I didn't feel exactly in place there, even though we share a lot of beliefs, so to come here and to express those doubts freely and openly with with other people who also. If they use the deities in their practice, it's entirely as metaphor.

And you know, being able to explore with them well, how do you, you know, strengthen that metaphor in your mind is kind of useful and to be able to bounce those ideas off people.

Yeah. I mean, I find that with every individual that I talk with, while I'm here, there's something unique, right? There's, there's, you know, some particular spin on, you know, how they do their rituals or, you know, how they look at the wheel of the year or any of those things. And to me, that's just so exciting.

Cause I really, I really think of atheopagan ism is kind of a DIY sort of path, right? It's like there's these frameworks and principles and things, but how you implement it is entirely up to you, right? Yeah. And, and it's a lot, I've kind of struggled a little bit with really bringing my attention and focus into the the pillars and the principles.

And so to be able to attend workshops where those are specifically called out has been actually helpful. That's good to know. Yeah. So, I've, like I said, I've really been focused on my druidic work and this is a great opportunity to really expand with the atheopagan focus and how can I. Bend what I've been working on to more of what you've laid out.

And there are a lot of things about the druidic principles that really integrate very well with the atheopagan concept. So I, I think there's a really rich vein to mine there. I think there's a lot of cool ways to put all that stuff together. So I was like a cool adventure. Yeah. And I know that there are a few other Druids in the group here and we've on the Facebook what is it called?

I think it's atheopagan Druids. Yeah. I was trying to remember the association side or no, the affinity side group. Yes. Affinity group. We had a discussion going, okay. Who's going to be there and let's see if we can, you know, maybe workshops some stuff and try to try to kind of put in our atheopagan principles into some of our Druid rituals and such.

So I haven't actually gotten out and had those conversations yet, but there's still a day and a half, two days left, so yeah.

Well, thanks Kim. It's, it's great to have you here. I'm so glad to have met you in person, and it's really, it's wonderful to have you on the wonder. Thank you. It's very nice to be here on the wonder and thank you for having me. Sure.

Hello.

Hi, John, you want to tell people who you are and how you got here. And what's interesting about Suntree retreat for you. 

Sure, mark. Yeah. Hi everyone. I'm John Cleveland host. I have a background in the sciences and I've done a lot of research and I've also active. Developing and helping promote reality-based pagan pass and atheopagan ism is such a wonderful example of that is so great to see how well it's taken off over the years.

And to that end, I should let our listeners know that John serves John, like Yucca and myself serves on the council of the atheopagan society, which is the nonprofit organization the nonprofit religious organization that we founded a couple of years ago to help support and provide resources and writing and thinking and all that kind of stuff for atheopagan is all over the world.

So really appreciate all of your contributions, John, to, to the, the stuff that we're doing. Thanks, mark. Yeah. And to speak to you asked what I was looking forward to here. I'm looking forward to a lot of things. So a lot of the workshops looks really interesting. The one on pig and history looks interesting and the in so many other activities go beyond.

You know, just learning, but, but experiencing and living the bardic circle tonight should be wonderful. And just being here in this, in this wonderful location where we can look at the mountains and with the Pines all around us. And it's such a vibrant group of people. We've had very interesting, interesting conversations with various people about the different you know, the, the way that they're implementing atheopagan ism in their life and, and how much it's doing for them.

It's really wonderful to see in here. Yeah, I totally agree. It's it's really, I mean, it kind of makes sense that it would be inspiring for me since since I sourced a bunch of the material about atheopagan. To me, it's just so moving that people are really enriching their lives with this stuff.

You know, finding, finding more, meaning more community, more more depth in the way that they're living their lives through. Rituals and practices and observances and getting more in touch with what's happening in the natural world around them. So I just, I'm really excited about it. I think it's so cool.

Yeah, it is it exciting is a great word for that. It's exciting to see how much is there when people start to tap into these deep Wells of reality based spirituality that that can connect us all to so much more that that exists about being human. So many things that our ancestors experienced at different times and that we can still experience today.

Yeah, I completely agree. Yeah. And you, you mentioned our ancestors. I mean, I think that one thing to always keep in mind is that the wheel gets invented over and over again. Right, right, right. You know, there there's, there's a lot that our ancestors knew. You know, going way back going tens of thousands of years.

There's a lot that our ancestors knew about being connected with nature that we in our current over culture or our mainstream culture have really lost track of. And so, reinventing the wheel and going back to some of that perspective and those practices is a way for us to chart a path forward.

That's much less destructive and much more happiness inducing. 

Yeah, for sure. And I think that, I think that I see errors on either side. Sometimes people can forget the, the wealth of knowledge and understanding and experience that our ancestors had and miss the some of the potential there that that can be tapped into.

And at the same time, I can also see sometimes people sometimes idolized everything about the ancestors and the way things used to be. When does there's a lot of things that are better to yeah. Yeah. I'm really not into neolithic medical care myself. Oh, right. Exactly. I mean, you're talking to someone here has had two tooth abscesses, which would have been fatal and had the whole inside of my head carved open for a brain tumor and any of those, and we wouldn't be talking here today.

So yeah, it is, it's certainly it takes attention and balance to look at each thing as it's proposed and considered to say, you know, is this, is this healthy, beneficial, longterm for human thriving and thriving of the entire web of life, our whole family tree of life on earth for each thing. And some of them are, and some of them.

Right, right. Absolutely. That's really well said. Well, thank you, John. Thank you. Great to have you on the wonder. Yeah, thanks. Great to be here at this unbelievable Suntree retreat.

 Hey Robin. Hello, welcome. Yeah. You want to tell people who you are and what you do in here? So I'm Robin. I am one of the council members. I've done a couple of projects, the atheopagan book club, the if you're pigging photo share and the library that we watched too.

Right. So cool. So, what are your thoughts about Suntree retreat? It is really gorgeous. It's wonderful to see everybody in person. I love the conversations that are happening. 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm, I'm just over the moon, just having such a good time 

and I'm, I'm really excited to see what sort of our next steps might be after this, because I think some of the conversations we're having here is about the direction that we want to take and what what's going to be coming down for us in the future and what we have the capacity to do.

Does anybody here have thoughts about that,

Glen Eddy, the som any thoughts about that?

That's cool. Anything off the top of my head? Fair enough. It was asked that, say that again. Oh, I guess my question is, you know, like where do you see us going in the future? What do you think should be our, what should be our next projects? What are the things we should be working on and doing in the future?

You know, I think for me sort of promoting understanding, and, and by promoting understanding, that's an entirely different thing than proselytizing, which I think. Proselytizing in, in my, my own experience is not an effective or helpful thing for anyone ever anywhere. 

It's spiritual violence personally.

I think there's, it's, it's unethical to proselytize a religion. 

Fair enough. I think I'd agree with that. So definitely not that, but you know, somebody a few speakers back mentioned, you know, campus groups and you know, that doesn't have to be proselytizing, but it's, you know, the campus community, in addition to a million other kinds of groups, there are a whole bunch of religious groups.

And so if you're looking for that kind of connection, those are sort of the only choices that university campuses that I know of have. And so I think. I mean, really, to me, kind of it's living by example. It's you know, I, I don't need to preach my perspective to you, but maybe just try to live an authentic life and, and you can take it as you take it.

Yeah. It's amazing to me, how many, and I had this experience too, of finding out, like there are other people that believe the same way that I do. And that I, you know, I've seen a lot of other people coming into this communities, having that same experience, like, oh my gosh, I'm not the only one. And it'd be great for resources to be out there.

And like that knowledge to be more available, not so that we can turn everybody into atheopagan, but so that the people who are already inclined towards this path no it's an option is, would be ideal too. 

Yeah. You know, I remember this is already years ago, but reading an article about, I don't know if it was just the internet generally or something specific, but the idea that, you know, if you're, if you're young and gay in San Francisco, that still could be challenging, but at least you're going to find people.

But if you're young and gay and some small town in the middle of America, you might not know a single other person who's like you. And, you know, you might think you're the only person. And, and, and so this particular article was saying that the internet was great because you could find communities, whether they were down the street from you or another state or another country.

And the same idea that you're expressing just that, you know, it's just existing and letting people have access to that option. That perspective. 

Yeah, that's really well said. By the way, that was Glen in Los Angeles. Who's joining us here on the call remotely by zoom. 

I also one thing that I know I really want to take into the future and what I've tried to do with the projects that I make is like, I think everybody in this community has something to share.

And it's really important to me. To make sure we're creating opportunities for them to share. Like it's, you know, it shouldn't just be sorry, mark, but it shouldn't just be mark being like, well, this is what I think. Yeah. Right. And yeah. And, and so I really like to create opportunities where it's like, Hey, you know, this is the rough format, you know, it's a book club and we're having a discussion about this.

Or you know, it's a photo share and you're taking pictures about this, but you're able to put your own spin on it and share your background. And I would really, I really hope to keep on doing projects like that in the future. And creating. Opportunities to people to share their, their knowledge and their their shrinks.

So, yeah. Great, great. Thank you for everything that you've done already for the community and that you're doing and for for that ethic. Cause I think that brings a lot to the table. There's, you know, the people here and the people in our broader community are so creative and interesting and thoughtful creating opportunities for them to weigh in is really important.

Well, thanks Robin. I think we're going to hand it back over to Yucca and wrap up the podcast.

Okay. Well it looks like folks are getting ready for the next activity. 

Okay, well, maybe you and I need to run and grab some lunch real quick and things. So, but you know, mark, before we do finish up, was there anything you wanted to talk about your experience? I know you've been doing it a little bit, but this has been a long time, a long time in the making.

Have you been feeling it's fulfilling everything I hoped for honestly the, you know, the attendance is enough to really be a critical mass for the rituals and the socializing and all that kind of stuff. And the workshops are thought provoking and interesting. The people are lovely. The, the ritual that we did last night I thought was really moving, you know, people's contributions and their their creativity.

And I know that there's just so much more coming up on the schedule here. So, I'm pretty excited about the whole thing. I just think it's really cool. 

Yeah. Well, it's amazing to be here, so. And I got to meet you in person. I know that was, that was fantastic. It's we've been talking for two and a half years every week or so that's been amazing.

It's been amazing to see people, you know, not just on the screen, but in, in the flesh, so, 

yeah. Yeah, yeah. And it's, it's wonderful to meet your daughter. We've been having a blast. I asked her if she wanted to come on and she was going to, and then she saw some other kids and they're running around. She was excited, but then Nope.

So, well, let's finish up and get some lunch and thank you everybody for joining us and hanging out through the whole, the whole talk. 

So yeah. And we will see you next week on the wonder science-based paganism. 

Join us on Zoom next Saturday for a LIVE recording of THE WONDER! The link is

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85648189246?pwd=a21Wb1RmMXJ3VVFFWG5mZit5cHhLZz09

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

S3E17 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 the other one.

Yucca: And today we're talking do it yourself, ritual tools. So we've got a pretty big list of fun kinds of things that you can be doing. But before we do that, we actually want to get into the why maybe, why would you want to be making these tools yourself rather than just buying the really gorgeous one that you see?

Don Amazon or wherever it is.

Mark: Right. The the, the first reason is obviously expense. You know, there are some very beautiful, a cult ritual tools that are made out there and they they cost. If you have that money, then it's fine to spend on those. But beyond that, there's the environmental concern about the. Putting one more thing.

That's eventually gonna find its way into a landfill into the, the material stream and all of the associated packaging and shipping and all of those kinds of things. So those are, those are things to be cognizant of, but also there is that when you make something for yourself, you feel more deeply connected to.

When we talk about sentimental value, that's what we mean. We mean that something has a personal meaning to us. That's associated with the story, you know, the story of how you made it or where the materials came from or what was happening at that time in your life. All of those kinds of stories that sort of cling to the object and help you to to have a deeper emotional relationship.

All of which is.

rich material for doing rituals. 

Yucca: Right. Yeah. And they, and these are things that can. They can build on each other. Right? So you have the ritual in which you're making the tool and then the first ritual that you use it in. And then the next one, then the next one, and it starts to have this, this long relationship that you have with it that you have that association every time you pick that up, that, Ooh, it brings you back to those right.

Mark: Right. Yeah. So. I'm a big believer in this. And maybe some of that is because many times in my life I've been really broke. But. It's also, I mean, I've, I've said this quote before, but it really stuck with me, which is probably why I've said it a bunch a morning. Lori Zell once said to me, you know, if you can't do it with a stick, you picked up on the way to the circle.

You can't do it at all. And that may be a little broad, but I do think that rituals that are effective are a function of skills. Just tools, you know, the arrangement of a bunch of physical objects doesn't make for any emotionally powerful ritual. And so the tools that we make, if they're meaningful to us, they can be more impactful and can help us to enact a more, a more compelling, powerful ritual.

Yucca: Right. And we should note, you said skills, right? And skills are things that we build through practice. You don't start skilled at anything. Right. Humans start with a few instincts, you know, we can cry and we curl when we fall and we know to, to nurse and, blink, if something's coming our way, that's about it though.

Mark: Yeah. 

Yucca: The everything else, walking, talking, all, everything. Those are all skills and ritual is skill too. 

Mark: Yes. 

Yucca: And, and building your tools, creating, crafting those that's a skill as well. And you don't have to be some incredible artist or craftsman for that for you to still be able to build that relationship into your, your items that you're using.

Mark: Right. Right. And so. We've talked about the various kind of core ritual skills in podcasts before skills like drumming And movement and public speaking and singing those kinds of things that can be powerful. Movers of emotion in a ritual. Right. That's not really what the focus of this episode is.

This is more about, you know, what about the material stuff that you use when you, when you lay out a focus or alter in order to do a particular ritual? Well, what's there and. What does it say to you to see those items there? And one of the things that can help those items to speak more loudly is for them to have a real association with you.

So making it yourself can be a really cool thing to do. And in some cases, making it yourself can be as little as peeling the bark off a stick, you know, That's it. That's all that there is, you've got a stick and you like the shape of the stick and you, peel the bark off it and now you've got a want, it doesn't have to be, you don't have to put silver inlay in it. It's, it's just a stick. You like.

Yucca: And you, and it can be something that everything is meaningful to you to write in, because if you buy that beautiful silver inlaid one, maybe it has some particular symbols on it, or it's got some runes or something in it that. It doesn't mean anything to you or it does. And it means something very different to you than it meant to the person who made it.

And that doesn't quite have the right association, but that stick could be just the right curve for you. it could be the right species, or it just, just felt good in the moment. Right. Or you're designing when you're laying that out. Maybe you've got your cloth in and you can put it the way that is meaningful to you.

And it's going to be completely. To someone else, but it gives you that, that freedom that you wouldn't necessarily have, if it wasn't you crafting and creating it yourself.

Mark: Right. Right. And I do want to put in a shout out for artists. 

Yucca: Absolutely.

Mark: You know, it, it, if you want to contract with somebody that, you know, has a lave and turns beautiful WANs and have them do a bespoke wand, that's Exactly. you know, the way that you want it to be out of the materials that you want it to be, you know, more power to you.

We, we need to support our local artists. I'm I'm all in favor. But you don't have to have a sort of professionally crafted wand in order to have a wand that will feel good And work in the context of your ritual practice. 

Yucca: And you don't really need a wand either. Right. But if you do want one then awesome. Right. So, so don't think that anything we're saying here says you have to do this. You don't have to have a wand. You don't have to have, you don't have to anything. Yeah.

Mark: That's that's really kind of core to what our whole practice is about this. It's not science-based paganism is not authoritarian. You know, we, we think of religions very often in that context because the big mainstream religions are authoritarian, but that's not our orientation to things. Our, our spirituality is creative and expressive and so.

You know, doing something creative or contracting for something creative that expresses something that you feel that's all to the good now. If you want something that feels good in the hand and you can kind of point, you know, directing energy, it feels like or, you know, March around in a circle, cutting A line between what's inside the circle and what's outside the circle to define a safe space.

Then something like a wand can be a really nice thing to do. I have several of them that I use for different purposes. I have one that is just a stick from red, from a Redwood, and it's a very nice stick. I've had it for a long time. And there it is. It's a stick. I have one that is a piece of dried kelp from the.

And I mean, you can still kind of sea salt crystals on it and stuff. You know, when I'm, when I'm wanting to invoke that sort of primal power, like the ocean has that, you know, the, just the sheer force and, and power and history and life bringing capability and all those things that we associate with the ocean and with water, then that's generally what I use it for. I have one that's a human feet. That I, that I've used as a wand in in Hallows circles ceremonies. And I have another, that is an Oak branch that has a little silver dragon kind of twisted on to it that I, I put onto it. But it's a very special Oak branch to me because. It was part of a larger piece that I found in a state park and I took it off of that piece and I've seen the rest of it on hikes many times.

So it feels like it's connected to the land here. And so you.

see me telling these stories about these, these items. You can make items that have stories like that too. So, Something to consider. 

Yucca: Right. And just with wherever you are. So ones, aren't something that I do a lot, but I do have one that's actually made from a choice skeleton. So in the Southwest there's, we've got lots of different kinds of cactuses. And one is this one that they often grow these straight long stocks. And then when they die, it leaves behind this hollow wooden tube with holes in them.

And they're just, they're just. Beautiful. And we've done all kinds of things with them. One of my favorite things is actually to fill them with a sewage and give it to the birds. So they have a fun time with that. But one of these ones I took and it was a walk that I had done. Well with my, one of the first walks that my daughter was able to do, and she was big enough to do one of those and we brought it back and we boiled it.

And when you oil it up, it just becomes just so beautiful. And there are a couple of little spines left to take the mow those off. And so now that has that all of that association of the. The walk and the land and the birds, and then the oil, which was the tallow from one of our cows. And like, that whole thing there.

So it's just, it's nice to hear you talk about, redwoods and things that, your experience with that, because we're doing the same thing in very different places.

Mark: Right, right. Yeah. That's a wonderful story. And, and that's a great example of, you know, Part of what we always talk about here is paying attention and getting better connected with what's happening in nature. What are the, what are the, the natural artifacts that are sort of characteristic of where you live?

You know, what are the trees? What are the. The plants you know, if you're in a coastal area, are there seashells that are particularly characteristic? I have an abalone shell that I've used for many years for offerings, pouring libations, burning, incense, all those kinds of things. And that brings me to the next kind of thing you can make, which is a concavity that will hold a liquid. 

Yucca: So a cup or a vessel 

Mark: A cup or a vessel of some kind. whether it's a dish or a chalice. Generally speaking, it's, it's very common for people to put something liquid on there. Ritual focus. I mean, it might be a glass of wine. It might be a bowl of water. It might be a it might be a potion that you make, right. That you stir up with herbs and essential oils and, you know, whatever, whatever else needs to go in there in order to.

Put all the associations together, you can do that. In, you can do that in a large sense with a cauldron which is another thing that many of us want to have it, unless you're a really good black Smith. I recommend purchasing 

Yucca: That particular one.

Mark: that, that particular thing rather than making it, but you can also do it in a bowl or in a chalice one freaking. Activity in many pagan rituals is a period of eating and drinking usually after the main working. And it's kind of a, it happens during the time of gratitude when you're, you're enjoying the fruits of the ritual and of being alive. You're sharing, breaking bread with the other people that you're working with, if you are.

So there's a very community oriented feeling to that. So having some sort of cup or chalice or wine glass or whatever it is is another thing to have as a ritual tool. I have a chalice from a local Potter that I've used for many years. It has a motif of grape leaves on it for the, 

Yucca: What's your region is.

Mark: Yes, very famous for so, but you can make your own you know, you can, you can mold it And fire it, or you can

Yucca: And if you can dig the clay up too, if you happen to be somewhere. Yeah. We have several bowls that we've made from the clay that we dug up and then fired it. So we pit fired it on our own land as well. 

Mark: very nice. 

Yucca: Yeah. And so that, but you can also make things now, this won't work for holding liquid, that you can still make clay.

You can still dig up clay and just not fire it and use that maybe for, and we should talk about this one as well, for things to hold your fire or your incense or your candles or things like that.

Mark: Right, right. And that is another thing that.

very frequently goes on a ritual. Altar is some, some form of fire. There's something about adding fire to a ritual alter or focus. Kind of says this is alive. Now it has, it has this active dynamic chemical process happening. It's not just a static arrangement of objects.

It's something that is dynamic And alive.

Yucca: And what it does with the light, it just makes it look like it's all it's dancing and, and it can, it has that ability to just pull you back. At least to me, it feels like this pull back through time of the thousands and thousands of generations before us of just of us being. Gazing into fires, looking at fires, being around buyers, cooking, it's just, you know, back inside the caves and there's this really powerful, just instantly can transform the feeling.

Mark: For sure. Yeah.

I, I, I feel the same way. I mean, we've domesticated fire ever since homo erectus, which was well before modern humans and there's just, there's something very. And very we have we have a symbiotic relationship with fire in the same way that we have one with dogs in, in many ways.

We would not be where we are now, if it wasn't for our domestication of fire. So bringing that into the ritual space becomes very powerful. And especially if you're doing your ritual after dark, which which I tend to do for personal rituals and Not so much for seasonal observations. I like to do those during the daytime more except for Hallows.

And you'll the rest of them. I like to be during the day. 

Yucca: Yeah. You know, I share that and I wonder if it's like this for you for me the night, field's a little bit more intimate. 

Mark: Hm. 

Yucca: a little bit more, I feel a little bit more vulnerable, a little bit more open. And so when I'm doing any personal work the night, just, I just feel more. Present with it. Then during the day, there's so much happening there.

So, you know, I'm still able to create the separate space in this, away from it to do a ritual, but there's just something about it at night or at the transitions to the Dawn. And dusk are also time to 

Mark: right. 

Yucca: I'll do a lot, depending on what the ritual is.

Mark: Of course. Yeah. I think that's very well said. I, I feel the same way. There's something about, you know, standing naked in front of my altar with the candles burning and no other light in the room and it's just flickering and there's this sort of other worldly liminal space that gets created Bringing us reeling us back in from that long tangent.

That means you need to have a candle. Right. You need to have something. And that can be as simple as a flat stone that you melt wax onto so that then you can stick the candle down onto it, or it can be as elaborate as a candelabra or something like that. But you can make it. It's entirely possible to make your own in, in a bunch of different ways, sometimes people will use like a shot glass and Mount that onto some sort of a base to use as a candle holder. You just have to be careful that you don't let the candle burn down too far, because if it's not Pyrex glass, then, then the glass can break and that's no good. 

Yucca: Yeah, which is something that going back to the fire, just as a note if you are having some sort of fire, like a fire circle, something to be aware of is to be careful about putting rocks into your fire or next to the fire. 

Mark: Oh, yes. 

Yucca: if there's moisture in them, depending on the type of rock they can actually burst and you don't want to get hit by that.

So just as like a quick little aside there, that reminds me of it. 

Mark: That's a really good point. And

my, my experience with doing fire circle festivals has been that yes, you have rocks in the fire, but you let them burn for 24 hours before you have people gather around them. Right? So that if any of that exploding that was going to happen has already happened and you definitely don't want to be pulling.

Boulders out of a stream or from a, from a stream bank that's 

Yucca: Yeah, right. Cause it could seem like I see it being like a beautiful thing of putting the rock in and then you come and get it the next day. And it's more whatever, but like with all of these things, especially when fire is involved, whether it's on your, your altar inside your bedroom or whether it's out around a circle, you just, just to be.

Have that part of your brain still on, that's thinking about, Hey, you know, what's, how is this all connected? 

Mark: well, and you can help your, you can help yourself to feel less anxious and focused on that danger question by having the proper equipment to put a fire out. Immediately to hand. So, you know, if, if there's a fire extinguisher in your house, bring it into your room. If that's where your, your altar is and that's where you're going to do your work.

Just sit it against a wall somewhere. It doesn't have to do anything. 

Yucca: And you can get those little mini fire extinguishers. We actually have one in each room. I'm gonna, you all are listening, but I'm going to hold it up and show mark right here. That was right within here. 

Mark: There it is 

Yucca: is a little one and they have little not very expensive. I think this was like a $15 thing that, you know, you can hang them in your rooms and they're there.

They last for a long time. A lot of these you can get refilled. And if they are starting to go down, then you can save and you can look up some safe things that you can do with them in terms of making dry ice and things like that, which could be very fun for a ritual to have your dry ice to work with.

Mark: Yeah, I've used dry ice in rituals before. It's really fun because you, because I mean, you, you put it in sort of a a deep vessel 

Yucca: And 

Mark: and the fog just. Billows. up. 

Yucca: And the way it moves across the floor. Yeah. 

Mark: so cool. 

Yucca: So you could do some wonderful things with that. Going back to the candles though. Another thing that we've done now, this might not be the, a seasonally appropriate time, but we've done ice candle holders, so you can make ice.

And what we've done before is we've taken the. Like the muffin liners that are the silicone ones so that you can get it off really easily. So you fill those with water, you put it on a little trace, that'll then fit in your freezer and then take the, the silver line liners that come around tea candles and put something in them and weight them down so that it is in your.

Muffin liner that you filled with water, and then you put that in the freezer 

Mark: An ice freezes around. 

Yucca: freezes around it. Yeah. And then you bring that out, take the little silver liner out and you put the actual candle in there and then it it's beautiful. The way that the light dances in the ice. And you would, if you're using it on an altar, you're going to want to have a little plate underneath it because it does melt eventually.

But if you're having it like in an outdoor they could see people using this for like solstice or for February holiday. Right. And just out with the snow or the cold. And you've got the little tiny light in that vast darkness. And that's a really fun one too. If you've got kiddos and you can freeze things into the ice as well.

Mark: Ooh. 

Yucca: So that's a good one to do.

Mark: nice. I like that idea a lot. That reminds me of another thing that you can do With candles, which doesn't require a candle holder. It just requires a paper bag, which is to make luminaria which can be really kind of dramatic looking. If you make a bunch of them like to line a passageway or a path up to a place where you're doing a ritual you know, you, you put the little team.

In the bottom of the paper bag. Wait 

Yucca: SIM with sand at the bottom or dirt. 

Mark: Yes. Some sand or dirt to weight it down so that you know, a wind doesn't blow it over and then light the bag on fire, all those kinds of things. 

Yucca: And those are also known as farolitos. So you might've heard them called either way. 

Mark: ah, little lighthouses. 

Yucca: Yeah. The Illuminati say like, at least here that's like a Southern term and then in the north we call them 

Mark: Ah, 

Yucca: so 

Mark: I like little lighthouses. That's great. But I lead. 

Yucca: yeah.

They're the little ones. They're beautiful. So. That's something that might for Christmas Eve, my city does, it's an old tradition and of course it's got all the, like the Christian associations of leading Marianne and all of that, but it's still, it's still really very magical to be in the cold dark.

And hopefully that'll start back up over the next few years. It was kind of, it wasn't much of it the last few years. 

Mark: Well, I hope so. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So you've got your fire container. Got your liquid container. You've got your pointer slash cutter. And we should talk a little bit about knives because a knife is something that is very commonly used in rituals. Almost always used symbolic. Just as sort of symbolically cutting the connections between two things or between a person and something in their life or something like that.

But sometimes you also use the knife to inscribe a symbol in the wax of a candle, for example, or a. Maybe to do a craft project in ritual space where you're carving a piece of wood in the shape of something particularly meaningful. So having a ritual knife is a good thing. I actually have two of them, one of which is my sort of utilitarian knife that I think.

Cut things with, and the other of which is a, an obsidian knife with an old candle that I made. And the, the point is sharp, but the edges are not. So it's definitely just a, just a symbolic knife. 

Yucca: I've seen someone I know had a, I think it was actually like a little letter Oprah. But it was a fancy, it was like an Excalibur, like repaid, but it's beautiful, you know, it's this little and it's not very sharp. So you could have, your knife could be an actual sharp knife, or it could be something that's just shaped like a knife or a sword or something just kind of in that, that vein, just depending on what your comfort level is with it and your purpose.

Right. So I would imagine the two knives that you described, you'd use those in very different circumstances, right? Whether you choose the obsidian versus your, your utilitarian one, 

Mark: Right, right. Yeah.

The utilitarian one doesn't even live on my focus. It it lives down with the supplies, cause it's just this sort of crappy old life that I use for this stuff. But the but the, the obsidian knife is on my focus and has been for 25 years or something. I don't, I don't remember when I made it.

Maybe it's a little bit less than that. 

Yucca: Now this isn't in the realm of making, but I could see someone having like a real nice Leatherman on their focus. Right. I can see that as being a real, having a real strong association for them, especially if they were using it for its intended purposes. And then you're also using it like, oh, this is the thing that I used to cut this, or to get it into this can or whatever it is.

And when, oh, and the car broke down, I had it. And here it is now I'm bringing all of that with me, into my ritual for this thing that I'm fixing in my life or I'm working on.

Mark: Yes. And it, it means I have all the tools available to do what I need to do. Right. 

Yucca: Right. And I've invested in. And I've invested in the really good ones, right? Yeah.

Mark: Yes. My Leatherman tool is a miniature one. It's about four inches long made by Winchester. Actually, it's the only thing I've ever owned made by Winchester, but it's very well machined as you would expect from a firearms maker. And it's, but it's identical to a Leatherman tool. It has the pliers and all that kind of. 

Yucca: Right. Yeah. And just, we are, we have no brand affiliations. We're all sponsored none of that stuff. 

Mark: no, 

Yucca: So that would be a strange twist. 

Mark: that would be a really strange twist. Yeah.

Yucca: some other things kind of classics is a broom. 

Mark: Yeah. 

Yucca: Okay.

Mark: I make a. Every summer solstice. I make a sunroom. I go out and I find a place where there's some tall, wild ride rowing and that that can get like five feet high, four, four feet, five feet high. And so I cut it off at the bottom. And then I use, and I, I unwrapped the cord from the existing sunroom and I have a handle that is this kind of natural piece of Oak that I found.

And then I use the new. The new rye and bind it with the cord, same cord again, and tie it off. And it makes this broom. I do this on the, on the summer solstice and then it sits out in the sun all day on the longest day. And the rest of the year, it lives in my house. And you know, along about January when it feels like there's never going to be sun again, I can pick it up and wave it around.

And. Symbolically bring the feeling of some sunshine into my house. 

Yucca: Nice. You have another kind of similar thing. Don't you have a. That you make an burn at you make one time of the year and you 

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. I use corn shucks to make a little doll. That's called the rain baby and that the rain baby is born. At river rain, which is the February holiday it's like in bulk or Bridget. But where I live, it's the time when it's raining cats and dogs and will be for a month, or at least when we're not having a drought, it will. And so I make this little figure out of corn shucks, and it sits on the focus for all of the Sabbath. Going forward until we get to Hallows and then it burns in the fire and dies. And then it's time for another one when we come back around to February. So, and people make little corn dough, little dolls or puppets for any of a variety of different kinds of reasons.

Some people make them to represent their family, you know, because. Feel really connected to their family and want their family members with them when they do rituals others do them to represent people they don't like, so they can do mean things to them. Just all depends on what you're trying to get done. 

Yucca: Yeah, so those are things right. And also going back to the. You know, the broom can be used for sweeping things away in ritual, right. For cleaning up or for breaking the ritual. Let's say you did like opening up the, the circle. Let's say you, you literally put something down like salt or a colored sand or something like that, where you drew in the dirt where you're standing, then you can take the broom and sweep that away.

Mark: Sweep it away.

Exactly what works really well for that. If you don't have sand, I mean, sand works really well and it's obviously completely benign, so that's a really good choice. But baking soda is it's very, it's it's, it's cheap. It's brilliantly white and it's harmless it. Won't. 

Yucca: well, and in this case, if you're working inside and you're on a carpet, then you can vacuum that up. Isn't that supposed to be good for cleaning your carpet? 

Mark: it's supposed to be good for the smell for any smells that have soaked into your carpet. It's supposed to be good. yeah.

Yucca: So if that happens to be the time that the landlord who should not be coming into your house without asking, but if that, if they are, and they find you sprinkling something on their carpet, you're you're cleaning, right? Yeah. Well, what about other things that you can mark with? Because that's something that you're often going to want to do, right?

You're going to be wanting to mark the ground or Mark A. Good candle, or maybe even your skin.

Mark: a sigil. Any of those kinds of things. I do have a old fashioned Squibb type pen, you know, with the Stephen. You know, the, that you dip in an inkwell and, and run and rub with. And, and the shaft of it is a bone. I bought it at a Renaissance festival a long, long time ago. And it's really cool.

So that's what I use when I'm doing like ritual inscriptions on parchment and stuff like that. I find that just having really. Quality materials makes a difference when I'm doing rituals. So I wouldn't use, you know, a legal pad. Instead I would get some good quality paper from like an art store to do that kind of work. And there's something that's just wonderful about, you know, dipping the pen into the ink and, you know, That's scratching sound on the paper and, yeah, it's great. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: But besides that, like, if you wanted to write something on yourself, for example, first of all, make sure you've got washable Sharpies that you're using. 

Yucca: Or Mada. Niemi not a Sharpie. I mean, what's your skin, but think about, you might want to use something like face paint or henna or something like 

Mark: Sure 

Yucca: Right. Because remember. 

Mark: the head is going to stain though. 

Yucca: Yeah, that that would be purposeful, right? If you were doing something like a sigil. But yeah, don't, I wouldn't suggest writing you.

Your inner most vulnerable thoughts on your arm and then go into work the next day with everybody reading that. But if you could, if you can put that into a single form or put it into, you know, something like that, but face paint is a great option or for a less toxic option, like the children's markers, there's still not 

Mark: That's that's what I mean. That's what I mean, the washable.

ones. 

Yucca: Okay. My 

Mark: not a regular 

Yucca: like a Sharpie, like a permanent marker, cause that 

Mark: no, no, no. That's, that's a really bad idea. 

Yucca: yeah. 

Mark: I'm glad you clarified that. Thank you. 

Yucca: Yeah. but, but some of them, so yeah, your, your kids markers, or you can actually get face paint markers still, they're probably not fantastic to be putting on your skin. 

Mark: Probably 

Yucca: But then you could also, you might not be able to write very well with these, but if you're thinking about trying to be connecting with your land where you live or the park near you, there's all kinds of plants and things that you can use to make little dyes with.

Mark: Yeah. They'd make pigments for sure. 

Yucca: And that can be just a fun rabbit hole to go down. Right. It's find out, you know, what are the 

Mark: just be sure you got the right? plants.

Yucca: right? Yeah. Well, it's better if you're, you know, you want to be careful when you're, if you're consuming any, any of those, but if it's just, if you're going to be staining paper or cloth, that's another one we should mention, right?

The fabrics. 

Mark: Yeah. Lengths of fabric that you can use to establish the surface for your alter or focus. And those can be a various different kinds of patterns and colors depending on the season or the purpose of the ritual. I have some that are, you know, sort of spiderweb pattern and black others that are, you know, red and colorful and more springy in summary. It just, it depends on what you're working to do, but having those different lengths of fabric is a good thing to sort of stock up on. 

Yucca: Yeah. And you can use them in, in so many different ways. You're seeing putting it on the altar, but you could use it in dance or as a symbolic curtain that you're pulling back, or, I mean, all kinds of things.

Mark: Right. Right. And they don't have to be super expensive. There are remnants at fabric stores for one thing. And also even. Sarongs for example, can be really affordable cotton sarongs and they have beautiful patterns on them. So that's another direction to look. If you have an international store somewhere near around you, 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Another thing that I have that I really like using is a seashell, an abalone shell because we have abalone that are native to the coastline near here where I live.

But also because abalone. Widely treated throughout the Americas. It was very prized by indigenous votes for use in various kinds of decorations. And it's been, you know, Pacific abalone. I'm pretty sure was found in the dig at Cahokia in the St. Louis area, you know, Southern Illinois So obviously it was really prized and really valued.

Otherwise why would you transport it over all that distance and, you know, 

Yucca: Yeah, you have to carry that, that somebody walked it there.

Mark: That's right. That's that's exactly right. So, I, I really enjoy having one of those shells. I can use it to burn herbs in or to burn incense. Abalone actually have little perforations in them, so it's not very good for holding a liquid. There. are little key hole things. In the surface. But other than that, they, because of that opalescent surface that reflects green and blue and all those wonderful colors.

They're So pretty. They, they really make a nice thing to have on an altar, but there are lots of different kinds of shells that would also make, you know, really be a nice thing for an altar. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: And I find that they are. Symbol of nature. Generally just have the beauty that nature can produce. 

Yucca: Yeah.

So, are there any other kind of big categories because it's gonna often depend on what kinds of rituals and the purpose and your specific, you know, individual tastes, but are there other big categories that people would be likely to, to want a tool in,

Mark: Well, another thing that we talked about that isn't really so much a ritual tool as it is kind of a seasonal marking that we talked about before we started recording is a reef. 

Yucca: right.

Mark: People often make Reeves on a seasonal basis, maybe for the five stations of the wheel of the year. What I find to be a useful approach to that is to go to an art supply store or a craft store, but not hobby lobby some somewhere 

Yucca: We don't go to hobby 

Mark: We don't go to hobby 

Yucca: We don't go to hobby 

Mark: Yeah. 

Yucca: We have a Michaels, but. Is there a little bit better, but they're not, 

Mark: they're not, they're not 

Yucca: they're not actively homophobic. They might actually be, but they're not actively 

Mark: They're not pouring money 

Yucca: people over.

Mark: into hurting LGBT people. So, but back to the 

Yucca: Yes.

Mark: you can you can buy a Wicker ring. It's a woven ring of Wicker that is serves as the base for a reef. And then you can decorate that wreath with seasonal flowers and with ribbons and with all various kinds of nice things that remind you of the season.

And then you can hang it on your door on your front door, or you can hang it up in your room or in. Living room in a prominent place, whatever, whatever seems appropriate to you. But what's nice about that is that it gives you a project to do every season and and it's sort of a declaration in a way, you know, okay.

Spring is here, 

Yucca: Yeah, but the new one

Mark: where I'm putting the new one up

It's no longer late spring. It is now summer. So. 

Yucca: and you can having that, that pre-made ring is really nice, but you can also. Make your own initial ring, right? So take your, the different trees that are meaningful to you and take some branches and, you know, do whatever that particular tree is going to need to, to treat it and then wrap that with wire and then you just swap out each season, you swap out what you have on it.

So you could, you could start with the, with that initial pre-made piece, or you can make it depending on what you were. Finances. And what materials you have, 

Mark: right. 

Yucca: It might make more sense just to buy it than to buy the wire that you would then need and the Clippers that you would then need and all of that.

So, yeah.

Mark: And we, we almost forgot the most important thing. Something to sit on. 

Yucca: Right. If you're going to be there for awhile, you might want your nice your cushion or your, what was the one who was the name of the.

Mark: Oh, the, the.

Buddhist meditation cushions are called zafu, 

Yucca: Yes 

Mark: for sitting Zaza in. Right. And they are very comfortable to sit on there. They're densely packed layers of cotton. As I get older, I find that sitting like cross-legged on the floor is increasingly painful. So I have generally gone to a chair at this point.

But it, it is nice if you're, if you're laying something out on the floor, it's nice to be down on that level and with all the stuff that's around you. So, you know, There are so many different ways to do rituals and so many different purposes for rituals that it's hard to generalize about what kinds of tools you might be likely to need.

But these are tools. The ones that we've been describing are the kinds of tools that you might come back to again and again, they're, they're they're multipurpose and they, they serve, they serve good uses in a lot of different kinds of rituals. 

Yucca: It's like building a kitchen, right? It's you know, your cutting board. You're not going to need your cutting board for every meal. You're not going to need that particular knife for every meal, but Ooh, probably a few times a week. It's going to be real nice to have the one that does the job that you want it to do just right. 

Mark: right.

I haven't bought or made a ritual tool other than. And a femoral craft. That's going to be destroyed at some point or burned or something like that in many, many years, but there is a real satisfaction in knowing that you have all that stuff so that if you need to, if you feel the need to do a particular kind of ritual, you don't suddenly find yourself.

Oh, but. This really requires a special knife and I don't have a special knife. 

Yucca: Yeah

Mark: That kind of feeling. Oh, I did think of one other thing that you can do with a chalice. There are, I have two, I have two fun things to do with fire. So remember the part of, remember the part about the the fire extinguisher?

The first one. And you can do this indoors. You just need to be careful. I, so propyl alcohol, 90% alcohol, not the 60% alcohol, but the 90% alcohol burns beautifully, and it burns at a very low temperature. So if you have a chalice or, you know, something else that can withstand heat, you can. A small amount of that in in that container and light it on fire and flames will leap up and make a beautiful dance until all the alcohol is burned away.

It's, it's really pretty dramatic. And especially for banishing work for dispelling things. I've done rituals for other people where they really want something to go away. And boy, you know, you, if you slip the symbol of that into the, the chalice or, or font or whatever it is, pour that alcohol and then light it up and it's all leaping and going, they can really see that it's going away. 

Yucca: Oh, that sounds lovely.

Mark: Yeah, it's cool. And the second trick, don't do this one indoors. Is the use of a handful of instant coffee creamer like coffee mate, which is basically just fat and sugar in a powdered form. And of course, powders and dusts are highly explosive because they have a lot of surface area. It powders and dust that are made of flammable material are explosive because they have so much surface area.

They burn very, very quick. So tossing a handful of coffee creamer into a campfire we'll make these sort of fireball that will burst up from the flames. And, you know, if you're, if you're in the midst of invoking something important and it's time to, you know, here's the climax of the ritual and then boom, you throw this into the fire and Kapow, the giant burst of flame comes up.

It's really dramatic. So it's one of my favorite ritual special effects. 

Yucca: Yes. Oh, that sounds fun. And again, I just cannot emphasize enough. My, my state is on fire right now and very right next to the. One of the largest fires we've ever had in the history of our state. So I'm just, just remember your fire safety, everybody fire is wonderful and incredible, and it can also just consume everything.

So make sure that whatever you're doing, you thought out and you're doing safely.

Mark: Right, right. Yeah.

And candles candles particularly can be deceptive because the flame is so small, but you don't want to get them too close to anything else. Or the flame gets a lot better. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Right. If you, if, if there's anything hanging over it put your hand. If, if there's anything over, you know, above The candle, put your hand underneath it.

If you can't stand the heat. From the candle that you feel coming up, then move the candle because it's too close. There's too much heat coming up. That's a trick you can use to be safe. I usually use chimney candles on my focus because they're stable. They're enclosed inside a glass cylinder.

And they burn down and get farther and farther away from the lip of that

Yucca: The chimney are those like the St scandals. 

Mark: well. It's at these don't have any saints on them. They're just call them columnar 

Yucca: but it's the same. I like, you would often find them with saints, but this is, it's the same kind of concept. 

Mark: Yes. Just a glass, you know, a tone narrow cylindrical glass filled with wax and the WIC. 

Yucca: So one of those was sagging on them once, 

Mark: Oh, I know 

Yucca: make him roll and roll in his grave.

Mark: there's a whole series of saints of science. And you can get other people to you. Can you get Ruth Bader Ginsburg? You can get Martin Luther king. There's a whole bunch of those. And I think that's pretty cool. I wouldn't mind having Ruth Bader Ginsburg on my focus right now. 

Yucca: Thank you. Someone gave my kids a little story book about her and they're really into it right now. They want to read, they want to read the Ruth book. So it was like, cool. Awesome.

Mark: Nice. 

Yucca: So, we didn't, there's so much, there's so much more, we should probably wrap up because we've been gone for a while now, but just thinking about all the different, like types of things that you could use and rituals and things that you can make. And we didn't talk about braiding things and books and all kinds of things.

Mark: Yeah. There, there is a lot to talk about. But the. core point of this podcast is, you know, look around and see what are the things that attract you? You know, a lot of times when we're pagans, we collect a lot of natural things, pine cones and bones and all that kind of stuff. Well, what can you make with those?

What, what, what might you put together, or maybe you don't need to make them, maybe you just use them as ritual tools by themselves. Like my Redwood stick. But, you know, be, be imagining in a different way, what those things.

are. Maybe they're not just decorative. Maybe there's something that can have a symbolic meaning for you as well. So, we need to tell you that next week is a very unusual Episode of the wonder, because we are going to be recording this at the century retreat that Yucca and I are going to next In Herson. 

Yucca: we'll only be a few feet away instead of a few thousand miles.

Mark: It is, it is hard to imagine, but that's actually going to happen. And 

Yucca: of you listening, we know are going to be there as well. So really excited for that.

Mark: You can, if, if you're in the atheopagan is on Facebook group, there's an event there for the Saturday mixer, which says, you know, pay attention. There's a different time for this particular week for the, for the 14th of May.

And what you'll do is you'll log into the zoom. And you can participate with us as we record the podcast, we're going to do a Q and a session and kind of a report about what's going on at century retreat. But mostly we're going to interact with people who call in and just have a good time. So, and then the audio from that will be posted on Monday as usual, or maybe a little later, because we may not have the ability to do that until after you get home yet. 

Yucca: Well, yeah, so it might, it depends on what, I don't know what the technical setup is. You said that there's pretty good wifi there.

Mark: There's pretty good wifi in the dining hall. Apparently it's a little spottier in the other buildings. 

Yucca: Yeah. So I'll, I'll bring everything and we'll, hopefully we'll get it up at our regular time. But if not, it'll probably be you know, Monday night when I get a drive back home. So it's, it'll be, hopefully it'll be the same time, but we'll, you'll get that. You'll get your little lit pop-up when it comes.

So depending on what app you're listening on, so.

Mark: All right. Well, I am really excited for that. It's been coming for a long time. We've been talking about it and it's finally upon us. 

Yucca: Yeah, you're about to leave too. Aren't you? Cause you've got a ways to drive to get, since it's in Colorado, near in 

Mark: In California.

Yeah. I leave Wednesday morning early. So I've still got a little bit of time. We're recording this on Saturday as usual. So I've, I've still got a little bit of time, but there's oh, there's just so much to do between now and then it's it's very exciting.

I'm just, I can't wait. Okay. 

Yucca: thank you so much, everyone.

Mark: Yep. Thanks everybody. And hope to see you on this, on the live zoom call next week. We'll post it in the in the podcast notes for this podcast, 

Yucca: Cool.

Mark: how to join next week. 

Yucca: Great. Yeah. So just look at that. It'll be right above the transcripts since as usual. And we look forward to seeing y'all 

Mark: Yeah. All right. Have a wonderful week.

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

S3E16 TRANSCRIPT:----more----

Mark: Welcome back to the Wonder: Science-based Paganism. I’m your host Mark. And today we're going to talk about ways that nature-based or science-based paganism differs from a lot of the mainstream paganism practices that are happening out there in the community. are ways that what we do are fundamentally different there are reasons for that.

And so we're going to address what those are and talk about the differences. 

Yucca: Right. And this isn't an episode about bashing anyone for being different or saying that they're bad or anything like that. It's just talking about how we have a different approach, right. And there's paganism is a really, really big umbrella. And so you might find a lot of these things when you look up paganism or neopagan, but it is.

Necessary that not everybody is going to follow or share these ideas. So we found a few really good kind of classic ones to talk about.

Mark: Right. Yeah, because

there are, and, and we should be clear. There are lots of pagans out there that are. Practicing using these ideas. And they, they may be practicing using other ideas that are different than what we do. Heathens, for example, folks that are following north Germanic of traditions, they may not, be using the more Wickens style formatting of rituals or principles.

But This is very, these are the things that we're going to talk about are very widespread. And so we're going to talk about the ways that what we do is different. And I think it will be illustrative for folks that have been in the pagan community 

Yucca: Oh, 

Mark: or have heard about the nature of the pagan community about why a science-based paganism approach is substantively different than some of the other pagan approaches that are out there. 

Yucca: Right. So, which of these do you want to start with?

Mark: Why don't we dive into the three-fold law. 

Yucca: Right. So the idea of this is that whatever you put out there is going to the universe is going to send back to you three times. This. Right. And some people think this is only when you're doing ritual or spell work and some people take this as just in life in general. 

Mark: Right. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Right. we don't believe that. And the reason that we don't believe that is multiple one of the main reasons is that I'll, I'll speak for myself and you can chime in, if you have a different take I do not believe that the universe has a moral order. 

Yucca: Right.

Mark: The university isn't conscious it, isn't trying to make us a particular way, follow a particular set of rules act in a way that is honorable or that meets some sort of ethical or moral frame.

And you have to have that in order to have the three-fold law because the. There, there has to be some sort of judgment. It's like, whatever is coming back to you, threefold. Well, is it good or is it bad or is it know, what, what would be an appropriate reflection back to you? If that were really going to happen.

And I, I just don't believe if that's the way the universe works. I know that many pagans and following other religions, such as some flavors of Buddhism really and even Christianity want to believe that we are here on earth in order to establish some sort of morality. And in my opinion, working to establish morality is fantastic, but it's for this life and this world, it's not for an afterlife.

It's not in some great cosmic scheme. It's just that I want to act as a good and moral person so that my impact in the world is a positive one. As much as I can. 

Yucca: Right. Yeah. That's also really well said. I agree with you on. And I think also the math doesn't really work out on it. That just doesn't really make sense for that. I do think that there is, there definitely is something where the way that we behave does influence our experience in the world, but. In this law of this one to three kind of thing.

Definitely where if I am in a better mood and I smile to the cashier or, you know, I'm in a better place when I'm driving, like all of these things are going to influence how I experience the world and how people are going to respond to me. But. But I don't think that it's, as you were saying that, the universe or this or anything like that, doing it right.

That this is just the natural response. Right. I do something there's a response to it and it's not there's nothing, mystical or accounting. That's, there's no accounting happening.

Mark: Right, right. That's the simple cause and effect of social relationships, right? When. we relate to people in an affirming way, in a way that says, I like you, then they tend to 

Yucca: Yeah. 

Mark: back with, I like you too. If we treat people in a manner that says, I don't like you, then likewise, they tend to respond with.

I don't like you. 

Yucca: Hey. 

Mark: It's a very, you know, simple, fundamental, but also very human thing. It's not, it's not sewn into the laws of physics. It's sewn into the nature of the social dynamics that we have as people. 

Yucca: Yeah. That's social primates, right? 

Yeah. That's, that's just, millions of, years of evolution there.

Mark: Right. And I mean, I always use This example when we talk about the three-fold law Yosef Stalin, who arguably the most murderous human ever to walk, the planet died peacefully in his sleep. He probably killed 25 million people possibly more through starvation and extermination programs and just a whole lot of really horrible, horrible 

Yucca: Okay. Right. This is not this knowing perfectly well what he was doing. Yeah. 

Mark: He, he killed millions of people in Ukraine, through starvation by exporting all of their food Russia and leaving them with nothing. Which is a huge piece of the subtext between and Ukraine. That's going on now. 

Yucca: Right.

Mark: That's, that's a history that is not forgotten.

It's very recent. So anyway, stolen. Died peacefully in his bed. Didn't get any kind of, you know, negative feedback from this terrible stuff that he did. And when you think about it, even if he had, what could that have been? he have been killed 25 million times? 

Yucca: 75. 

Mark: Oh, 75.

million times. You're right.

Cause it's threefold. So it's just, it's very hard to fathom how that rule would really work in any sort of a literal sense. It all or, or like many sort of truisms or aphorisms about human experience. There's a kernel of truth there about, you know, the way you behave. Often gets reflected back to you by other people 

Yucca: yeah.

Mark: as we were talking about.

And that is a kernel of truth, 

Yucca: Right. 

Mark: that it's this mathematical thing and that it always happens is really not not the case as far as we can tell. 

Yucca: Right. 

Mark: The other piece about about the, the three-fold law is that what's often used as kind of an excuse for why the three-fold law doesn't seem to work out.

In some cases like Stalin is that, oh, it'll happen in a future life, Right.

That there's reincarnation. And as science based pagans, we do not believe in reincarnation 

Yucca: Yeah, I don't see any evidence for it personally. 

Right. 

Mark: I don't believe in it. And the, the primary reason that I don't believe in reincarnation is because of dualism, which we talked about before, on a previous episode, the idea of the self, the personality being different sort of an energetic thing, being different than the body, whereas.

My perspective is that it's all integrated. 

Yucca: Yeah. 

Mark: comes from the body. The mind can't exist without the body. And when the body dies, the mind is gone. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: And that means that there is no reincarnation.

Yucca: And then it's changed throughout its life. That it is not the same. Mind or body that it was when you were born to when you die, 

but they're different. Just very, very different. Yeah.

Mark: There are even sort of logical challenges with aspects of the three-fold law. Like if I did something really shitty when I was 25, does it make sense for me to, you know, reap the damages of that when I'm 60. Because I've changed. One of the things that I've 

Yucca: Um, 

Mark: about is learning what a crappy thing it was that I did. And not doing that again. And so, mean, I have things that I've done in my life that I'm ashamed of and that I would never do again. And I, I did them for reasons that I understand now most of The most of them involving cowardice 

Yucca: The trauma. 

Mark: just, fear, you know, rooted in trauma.

but There, there are things that I would never do again.

And I do not feel that at this juncture, I deserve some sort of punishment for having done those things way back then. 

Yucca: Right? Well, and then if that did happen, And then wouldn't you be more likely to do more shitty things and then just, it becomes this, really strong, positive feedback loop of more bad things happen, you do something bad and then that bad things happen to you. So you respond in kind and do more bad things and then more like it just spirals completely out of control there.

Mark: Right there. Are there a lot of different ways that you can look at this and just say, you know, when you really unpack it from a logic standpoint, it doesn't make, just doesn't make a whole lot of sense. And once again, that is not to say that, you know, people that are practicing with that belief are not doing so with a motivation and, you know, the desire that, be a guideline.

For being a positive force in the world, because it's clear that that's what people mean by it. It's just. I, I find that it's a lot more useful for me 

Yucca: Oh, 

Mark: the atheopagan principles to have things really spelled out for me in, in a, in a very specific sort of way. So, you know, we're going to review the earth, we're going to practice rituals to embody our religion.

We're going to have integrity. We're going to be inclusive. We're going to, you know, seek justice, all of those kinds of things. Because it's, it's very, very clear exactly what those things mean. 

Yucca: Right. So you had touched a little bit on afterlife. So I think that's another good. Just to come back to, we sort of spoke to it a little bit, but, but that's something that neither of us believe in and it's because right that it, it needs there to be a soul. It needs there to be something separate from the body and there's no, real evidence to support that it would be there.

So, so. 

Mark: Yeah. 

Yucca: This kind of cosmic karma. It wouldn't make sense for that to be carried through either 

that okay. We're. 

Mark: no. And, and honestly, there is a moral reason why I think. Ideas are not only incorrect from a scientific standpoint, because what they do is they turn the earth into a proving ground for moral just in the same way that Christianity and Islam and Judaism do. And the idea is that there's some kind of reward some kind of a reckoning.

That happens after death. 

Yucca: Great. 

Mark: what that does is it relegates the earth to a disposable status. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: You know, this is, this is just this temporary situation where we have to perform, but it's not, it's not worthy of our primary focus And reverence and service. And that is the opposite of how I view my relationship with the earth.

The earth is it life is it. And if I am going to have positive impacts in the world, if I am going to enjoy this, this one-way journey that I get through the miracle of having been born against. Astronomical odds with my particular genetics in my particular upbringing to become this particular person.

Then I'm really missing the point 

Yucca: Yeah. 

Mark: I'm, I'm kind of spinning my wheels in my view.

Yucca: And also it, it can justify letting really terrible things happen to people, right. Because, oh, it's there. The a kid being in the neighborhood that gets bombed and it works zone, right. 

It could be, oh, well, that's, you know, it's karma. Yeah. But that's, you know, oh, they were stolen last life. Okay. It's fine.

Right. Like, 

no, they're just a kid. They're just a kid in the neighborhood that it's not okay to be, bombing them or whatever the particular thing is. Oh, it's okay. 

Mark: Yeah. the approach that, that I have and that I believe you have as well, Yucca is. Because it's all about this life and this world, the burden of responsibility on us is much higher. You know,

you would, you would think that, you know, if trying, if you're gunning for a particular kind of afterlife, you know, that would put more pressure on you to behave well and so forth.

And maybe That's true from a fear-based standpoint, but I don't want to live my life. From fear. 

Yucca: That's right. 

Mark: to live my life from joy and from generosity. And from from a real sense of reverence for the surrounding that that I am interpenetrated with. right.

We've talked about this before, you know, in. 

Yucca: We're an open system.

Mark: That's right. We've got air going in. We've got water going in. We've got waste going out. We've got sweat. We've got all of that, all that stuff. We are blurred into the fabric of life, all around us. And so in our. Our inability to see water vapor or oxygen or any of those things kind of gives us this illusion that we're these discrete little billiard balls bouncing around in the world, we're not, we're, we're deeply interpenetrated with the rest of the world.

And. So my sense of responsibility to this life, to myself, for my experience and to my society advocating for values that that serve people and serve my sense of what is just an equitable It is much higher, I think, than it would be if I believed in an afterlife, especially in afterlife where I get to try again because reincarnation or karma, as opposed to like the sort of heaven or hell differentiation, where it's just sort of a one-shot 

Yucca: before you die, you're cool. Right? That's fine. It doesn't matter.

Mark: Right. Which I mean, that's a formula for sociopathy, right? Because you can do all these terrible things, then all you have to do is repent and accept Jesus on your deathbed. And you're cool. I think that's a disaster myself and I certainly see in very conservative Christians, kind of idea that they can be awful people, but Jesus loves them.

So it's okay. That is not a framework that I am the least bit living interested in living within. And I don't believe it jibes with what we know about the universe at all. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So what else were we going to talk about in terms of these 

Yucca: Oh, 

Mark: pagan ideas 

Yucca: well, here's, here's the big one. Now this is specifically a Wiccan, but, and if he harm none, do, is he well, 

Mark: Oh yeah.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which I believe originates with Alistair Croley who was 

Yucca: Yeah. 

Mark: deeply problematic person. I think it's fair to say. I think where he was going with that was, was a, a radical. Differentiation from the, the mentality of Christianity, which is here, are these commandments here, these rules in a sacred book, have to 

Yucca: conform. Conform. Conform. Yeah.

Mark: And he was saying, no, don't conform. If you're not, if you're not causing any harm, then do what. And my problem with that is not that idea in and of itself. It's that first of all harm, none is impossible. 

Yucca: Yeah. It's as simply not possible. I mean, what's happening in your body right now? Who do you consider? None, 

you know? Yeah. 

Mark: are the bacteria and the cells that are dying and being killed as you digest and as, as you, as your body metabolizes, that harming somebody? 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: I mean, it's certainly harming those cells. They're being torn apart into component materials And being used to feed your body.

Yucca: And we're heterotrophs no matter what particular diet you got, somebody dying for you to be alive, is that, is that harm, right? 

What about the house that you're living in, you know, on and on?

Mark: right. Yes. And so, The question is what kind of harm and how much. And we have to make choices, understanding that there is no such thing as a fully pure angelic kind of existence 

Yucca: We're not, 

Mark: cause any harm to anything. 

Yucca: yeah, we're not Sims we're, we're real things. Right. So, and I think that that going back in. If you haven't listened to our episodes that we do about Beth and decomposition, when we get around to hollows time, that could speak to a lot of this. But that, yeah, the world is we look around at this beautiful, incredible world that we're part of and soil it's soil.

Death right. It's life, but it's just, all soil is made from the bodies of trillions upon trillions of others who died. And I would argue the bed dying is harming that wasn't great for them, right. For them as the individual. Yeah. 

Mark: Right. But there is a, there is a greater good or a, a larger systemic good that comes out of the process of death, which is the, the, the sustaining of future life. Future 

Yucca: Okay. 

Mark: of life. mean, I'd be good for us 

Yucca: No. 

Mark: die of. But it's, but our decomposition feeds more life and continues for, for the thriving of life here on earth.

Yucca: Great. 

Mark: So it isn't so much that, that if it harms none, do what you will is wrong so much as that it's vague. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: It doesn't really acknowledge. The nuance of how we, we exist here and what kinds of organisms we really are. And it doesn't acknowledge all of the situations where either you have to harm 

Yucca: Okay. 

Mark: And then you have to decide what it is you're going to harm. Which is the decision that we make in the course of food choices all the time. Right. Am I going to eat this vegetable was grown in crop agriculture that kills tons of wildlife? Or am I going to eat this cow with. Was a living animal big brown eyes and, 

Yucca: Family and. 

Mark: and.

In a, in a personality because cattle do have individual personalities, they're not super bright, but like all mammals, they do, you know, they there's, there are characteristics that are notable.

You know, that one cow will differ from another. 

Yucca: Yep. I've had some that have purposely, knocked me over that's they liked and others that don't right. They're like, yeah, I'm going to step right up next to you and bump you. 

Yeah, that was on purpose. 

Mark: cows that like human tipping. I like it. 

Yucca: Yeah. That's it's you got to watch out. But yeah, so that, that's a really wonderful example of it's, it's something that we're going to do. I think that being conscious of it is, is an important. Right. And on sort of a, on a surface level, like yeah, I'm into that idea. Don't, as long as it doesn't hurt anybody else.

Yeah. Go ahead and do whatever you want. Right. And I think on a sort of a social level. Yes. But as we're talking about the closer you look to it, I don't think that it's like this hard rule that you can follow. I don't think it is. You can't, I don't think it's possible to follow the rule because that's not the way.

Organic life works.

Mark: Yeah.

think that what this can do though, is it can urge us to think about the impacts of our behavior. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: And that's an important consideration. You know, because as we act in the world, especially as humans with all the tools that we have and the infrastructure that we've created, that can cause us to have a tremendous amount of impact.

If we If we so choose being aware of what those impacts are and choosing to have impacts that are positive and as lit as harmful as possible is, is something that I think is of value. And that goes back to the thing that we just harp on in this podcast, which is attention.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Paying attention to you are in the world. What's going on with the biosphere in the world, what your places in the world, what your impact is in the world. of those things are just so very important to really be living a nature-based paganism your feet on the ground, and really aware and integrated and celebrating and respecting the natural processes going on in and around. 

Yucca: Right. And that's actually a really good lead into another of these topics that we wanted to talk about, which was the elements and directions. And so both of us have this take that our specific location. Is really important, right. That we try to match our practices with where we are. What is it like here?

Cause I can tell you where I live is very different than where you live or very different from Britain, bam, same hemisphere, but, but similarities, stop there. 

Mark: Right, 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Yeah. And know, when, Gerald Gardner first published his books on witchcraft, you know, what became WCA and then. Kind of propagated into other forms of paganism, modern Neo paganism as well. Obviously he described the seasonal holidays as reflecting the weather cycle that he was familiar with.

That makes total sense. it seems to have gotten lost in the translation that we should be celebrating the nature where we are rather than the nature in England. So for many practitioners, there's this sort of idea of, you know, the, the snowbound in bulk holiday, for example, Or the or the, the bright cheery.

Belton when it could be, you know, pelting sheets of rain, or even continuing to snow, depending on where you are in the world. 

Yucca: Or in areas that, if you're, if you're in Miami, the difference between your belting and the February, not going to be a huge difference there, you're not. Going to have that same kind of the subtropics is not the temperate zones, 

right?

Mark: Yeah.

The difference there is mostly measured in humidity rather than in degrees. 

Yucca: Yeah. 

Mark: So same is true with the directions and the elements. Steven poach, who is a wonderful pig and writer out Of the Midwest. And I highly recommend his writing. He, he writes short, pithy, wonderful little blog [email protected], which is also a place where I publish stuff.

Once in a while. Stephen post P O S C H M. He tells this wonderful story about how he once a ritual by the banks of the Mississippi river. They were to the west of the Mississippi river and when they invoked the directions, they drove invoked water the west across more than 2000 miles of mostly extremely dry land.

Yucca: Of complete brittle ecosystems. 

Yeah. 

Mark: to get to the Pacific ocean to call their west right when they were standing right next to the Mississippi river, which of course this, this gigantic watershed and, you know, very powerful river system. So if it had been me and I was going to invoke water into that ritual, I would have pointed at the Mississippi and.

You know, invoked it the east, from the east, right. Because I want to be reflective of the place where I am. And so these kinds of arbitrary assignments of earth to the north air, to the east. Fire to the south and water to the west, don't really work for me because what, if you're in the Southern hemisphere and the, the really cold part is to the south, 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: you, that should be flexible. 

Yucca: Or if you live right next to some mountains, what is that going to be for you or? Yeah.

Mark: Exactly or you live in a place where the predominant winds always come from one direction. You probably want to point that direction in order to invoke air, but I go a little bit further with that. I don't use the classical Greek elements at all. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: And the reason that I don't use them is that even though they are useful in some metaphorical kinds of ways, I see them as a discredited pseudoscience.

now know that there are more than a hundred elements that compose all of the things of the universe and. The idea that everything contains with it, air earth, water and fire is outdated. It's old, it's like astrology and alchemy and, you know, palmistry and all those kinds of things, which can be fun to engage in.

But don't actually tell you anything about the nature of the world. 

Yucca: Right with those ones in particular, I'll talk to my students about them as they were stepping stones. Right. They helped us to get to that, the idea of an element. Okay. Yeah. We still have that idea, but now. We understand it on a very different level. Yeah. We don't think of it as being four elements. We think of our hundred and 18.

Right. And then, we figured out that, oh, actually, there are things smaller than elements. Let's talk about what that was. And same thing with astrology, which the name always bugs me because it's not a science, but the ologies makes it sound like it should be a science, but astronomy came very much out of astrology.

Mark: Right. 

Yucca: Right. They've they used to be together and merged and they've gone in different directions. And so it was, it was useful at some point, but it's not. But now we have a much better and deeper understanding of our world and how it works. And probably at some point we'll look at things, humans we'll look at the stuff we're doing now and go, that's not how it works.

Right. We're wrong about that. But that's something that. That in science-based paganism do is that we look at our beliefs and are willing to challenge them. And when we get new data, we're the ideas that we should be willing to let those ones go and, and have new beliefs based on the new available evidence and understanding.

Mark: Right right I know that some people use these elements to sort of stand in for the different phases of matter. So, you know, gaseous, liquid, solid and plasma, although a fire isn't really plasma. 

Yucca: It is. Yeah, they can't, some fires can have plasma, but not very rarely the temperatures that we're going to be experiencing fires that that will actually get to a 

plasma. And then there are way more phases than just the four observable phases. Those are just the ones that we're going to interact with on our scale and be able to see.

Mark: yes. Yeah. So, I mean, I can understand using that as a metaphorical stand in. If that had pertinent to the point of the ritual I mean the invocation of the different phases of matter. I'm not sure how useful that is in, you know, thematically because I suppose you could do those four and then you could call the center as energy, But 

Yucca: But all of them, that is, the phase basically is how much energy, how much kinetic energy the particles have, which changes some of their properties. Right. So what are the proper then you could keep going with, okay. So what are the properties right? That are embodied in each of these. I think that, there's definitely some really interesting intellectual stuff that you can do with it.

I don't particularly mind to people do, I've kind of gotten away from using those elements, 

right. It just doesn't really, you know?

Mark: I'm I'm with you. I don't mind it. 

Yucca: Yeah. 

Mark: It doesn't, bother me. I just see it as another of these kinds of ye olden days, artifacts that got sewn into modern paganism because somehow the idea that older cult systems were valuable or Colt systems or valuable ritual systems.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Got the, you know?

from the beginning Gardner was claiming that he was learning a tradition that had been handed down from the middle ages. 

Yucca: Yeah. The old 

ways. 

Mark: Right. So the idea of the antiquity of these ideas was provided as an argument for their validity. And we don't subscribe to that. You know, sometimes a new idea is the best one. And certainly in the scientific community, very often a new idea turns out to be the one that fits the data the best. 

Yucca: Right. And often we have to throw out some of those old ones, right. 

Mark: right. 

Yucca: Yeah. How long did we take Aristotle's? Some of Aristotle's like stuff as the absolute truth. Don't you dare question that or you'll be under house arrest 

Mark: Right. 

Yucca: or worse. 

Yeah. 

Mark: worse. Yeah.

Exactly. And that was because the Roman Catholic church subscribed to Aristotle as an absolute authority for some unknowable reason. 

Yucca: Even though he's a, Peggy was a pagan

Mark: Well, yeah, he was not only, not only that, but 

Yucca: and their broad sense of pagan.

Mark: Yes. I think that what it probably boils down to is that he was the only real authority they had to point to for a cosmology.

And he had believed in systematizing stuff. You know, when he, when he wrote about rhetoric, for example, and the art of persuasion and all that, he defined each of the human emotions that he was aware of. And he. You know, talked about the, the logic of of ethos logos and pathos, for example.

But I that's a, 

Yucca: Yeah, that's another, that's a whole nother podcast.

Mark: is. Yeah. And that, that actually gets into what I did my undergraduate degree in. So it's a rabbit hole I could happily jumped down. So from our standpoint that the use of those elements isn't really necessary. But it's not necessarily objectionable either. just, I prefer at that phase of a ritual simply to invoke the qualities and characteristics that I want to be with me, as I invoke as.

Evoke ritual as I enact ritual. And that will sort of be a takeaway for me after having done the ritual. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: so where, where are we now? What else? 

Yucca: I think that this brings us to our last one. There's so many more that we could do, but looking at the theory versus the reality as really is in our, in our places, in our world. Right. 

Mark: right. 

Yucca: Cause there's definitely. And I think this goes back to, to some of the stuff we were talking about with Gardner and this romanticization of the English countryside and this idea of nature.

And this is very, kind of over fantasized romantic way. The moon is always full and shining through the leaves and the wind is just a soft thing. And you know, all the animals are little foxes that are running around and where, that's, that's great. I think the mode is not always full, but the rest of that.

Okay. Maybe like, yeah, that's, that might be the life that you've got there, but that's not most of the world and that's not where most of them. Awesome. Great for you. If you do right there, we know that some of you are listening to this podcast from there, but, but for me, I've got coyotes outside my window and, black bears, very different worlds and cactuses, 

Mark: And as, as we have always said from the beginning of this podcast and, and I have to say as sort of a little bit of a tangent, one of the things that's been great about this podcast for me and our conversations Yucca, is that having an opportunity to really kick around these ideas evolved my. About some of them where I had kind of a half formed idea before. And I feel like I have a much clearer, more easy to articulate, understanding about some of these ideas now. So I really appreciate that. 

Yucca: Thank you. Likewise. 

Mark: What we go back to over and over again is the idea of immersion into place of being. Living animals conscious self-aware animals, you know, with that special gift, having evolved that, special capacity that humans have and other animals seem to have much less of you know, in a place, in an environment and understanding what that environment is doing and celebrating that. Even if it's. You know, what the, what the place is doing right now is being 115 degrees Fahrenheit. And what it's trying to do is kill me. You know, 

Yucca: Or on fire like mine.

Mark: Yes. I'm, which I'm really sorry to hear about. the fire season start already is 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So really encourage you in your science-based pagan practice to. You know, study the natural flora and fauna where you are, what are the, what are the cool, special things that happen in nature, where you are. And, and I promise you, there are cool, special things happening in nature, wherever you are, you know, whether it's Caterpillar's dissolving into goo in a Chrysalis and reforming themselves into a moth or 

Yucca: Lichen on your. Um, wall, just look into what lichen is. That's a rabbit hole to go down.

Mark: it is or bats coming out at Twilight to eat to eat insects or fruit. There are just so many things that are happening around us all the time that are just delightful. If you're aware of them and becoming more aware of the mix, it all the easier to sell. This earth and this life that we're granted and what we hope for you is a celebratory life, a life where you enjoy the pleasures of this world, and really feel a deep gratitude for your existence and pass that on to others.

You know, communicate to others that, that sense of gratitude and a sense of and inclusion and appreciation for for the ways that they're similar than you and the ways that they're different from you. Right. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So, this has been a great conversation and I imagine we'll probably get some comments or responses on this, which is great. Our email address is the wonder podcast Q S at gmail.com. That's for the wonder podcast questions. So the wonder podcasts, Q S all one [email protected]. And you know, we're happy to kick these ideas around.

We understand that what we're doing is a very modern form of pagan practice. You know, we're, we're, we're deliberately dispelling or, not to spit to spelling where we're. We're leaving behind lot of the old occult or old witchcraft kind of, traditions and preserving ones that hold up in the light of modern science, like the idea of a wheel of the year, for example, solstices and equinoxes, which are very real astronomical events the mid points between them that mark important seasonal transitions in, in many places. So, thank you for listening as always. We love our listeners and you have a wonderful week and we'll see you again on the wonder next Monday. 

Yucca: Thanks everyone.

May Celebrations That Aren’t About Sex: https://atheopaganism.wordpress.com/2019/04/10/may-celebrations-that-arent-about-sex/

Beltane 2020 Episode: https://thewonderpodcast.podbean.com/e/its-beltane/

Beltane 2021 Episode: https://thewonderpodcast.podbean.com/e/beltanemay-day/

S3E15 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 talking may day Beltane second spring, all of those, whatever name you call it.

Mark: Yay. Summer is a coming in. And winter's gone away. Oh 

Yucca: It is, I, we were just saying, this is actually our third may day episode that we'll be doing. 

Mark: Yes. 

Yucca: So we'll put the links to the other ones. If you want to check those out as well for inspiration and things like that, we'll probably talk about a lot of the same things this time around is that's one of the things about it was cyclical holiday year, right?

We come back to some of the same themes each year, but hopefully there'll be some new things in this episode as well.

Mark: Sure for sure. Especially because you know, now at this particular moment, we are in a place where we're sort of gingerly, tentatively coming out of COVID. 

Yucca: I think we've said this so many times. 

Mark: I know, I know. And who knows? I mean, there, there could be another variant that. Pigs the needle again, but I really hope that this around this time, when it seems that the numbers are generally low, people can have gatherings in person And, celebrate because in most places in the Northern hemisphere, the weather is beautiful and it's just a really lovely time of year.

Yucca: And, and it's a holiday that is often associated with outdoor activity. Unlike say the winter solstice where it's a lot of it's about being bundled up and inside and cozy and sharing drinks with each other. And. You know, 

Mark: right, 

Yucca: has more of an outdoor, you know, in the park bonfire, those of you who live near the beach.

Bet, that would be amazing know fire on the beach. Maybe that would be wonderful, but yeah.

Mark: The. The image that I have in relation to Mayday or Beltane . And we're going to talk about naming in a minute has to do with emergence into the outdoors. It's like, you know, we've spring arrives in at different times in different places based on climb in elevation and, and All of those different factors.

But by the beginning of may, mostly. It's comfortable to go outside and there's this kind of exuberance about getting out from the walls and, you know, out into the sun and experiencing the bright new leaves of the foliage and All that wonderful stuff. So it's just, there's a, there's an enthusiasm about this holiday that I really love. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So let's talk about names cause we've got a bunch of them, the the, the word bell team, which is used by most of the pagan community to, to designate this holiday. And we'll talk about what defines the holiday in a sec comes from the Irish bail to. Which is actually just the name of a month. It's the name of the month of may.

And there's a similar word in Scott's Irish as in Scott's Gaelic as well. And both of those are often used as You know, kind of placeholder for the beginning of may holiday. But I don't actually use those Celtic names myself because I don't.

Yucca: You don't have a specifically Celtic practice. 

Mark: I I don't. And and I also deliberately sort of stripped cultural references out of my practice when I started doing atheopagan ism, because I wanted to avoid any possibility of cultural appropriation, which we're going to talk about in a future episode. And and I wanted there to be kind of a blank slate for people to create their own new traditions and symbols and all that kind of stuff. 

Yucca: Sure and add, add to it. What is part of what's meaningful to them? 

Mark: Yes. 

Yucca: Right. Yeah. And no, and not saying at all that there's anything bad or wrong with any of the Celtic stuff. I mean, that's a big deal for my family. Right? We were, we identify as Celtic American, you know, we, we speak one of the Celtic languages.

Actually my daughter was really interested in learning Irish because that was her grandpa's first language when he was little and in the home. When she was given some choices about what do you want to learn now? She didn't want to learn mom's language. She wanted to learn graph is language. So she's been learning it.

And I'm in the background. I've been picking up on it a little bit. Right. Which is really very, quite fun to see the differences between the languages. So. So just to emphasize to everybody, this is not in any way of saying like, oh, like the Celtic side is bad or whatever. It's like, no, we're just saying, you know, everybody's going to be different.

Their backgrounds are going to be different. My family happens to have a strong connection to that side of, of, of our heritage and, you know, for other people that's not their heritage or not a part that they connect with. Right. And that's totally fine. But the name Beltane is, is used pretty. Widely and much of the kind of Neo pagan community.

Mark: Right. And, and it bears saying that we need to acknowledge that new modern Neo paganism, mostly stemmed from. You know, Gerald Gardner in the 1930s and forties and early fifties. And so it CA it was kind of a UK Britain, England centric. 

Yucca: Yeah, well, he was English. 

Mark: he was English. And so that was the lens that he was looking at everything through.

And a lot of what we have inherited from those traditions is very Anglocentric, 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: but paganism in and of itself inherently in terms of a relationship with the earth and and a ritual practice. That's key to the seasons of the year that, that. It's everybody and it has no language and it there's no particular culture that, that slotted to. So here's this holiday and it's defined as the mid point between the spring Equinox and the summer solstice. So it's.

Yucca: It's the other side from, from Salween or 

Mark: Or Hallows. 

Yucca: So, yeah.

Mark: exactly. So, and there are lots of cool parallels that you can do with those opposite sides of the year where built-in is often associated with sexuality and kind of life and vitality and fertility and all that kind of stuff. And Hallows is associated with death and decomposition and fallow fields and all that kind of stuff.

Right. So you've got the, kind of the polar ends of the, the human experience happening there. So what are some other names that we use? I, I say may day, which is a little problematic, because what if you're celebrating? Not on May 1st. 

Yucca: Right. There's made a, and there's also the association. I usually say Mayday as well or second spring. But there's the labor. Wright's association with may day as well. That comes up for a lot of people, which I think was a, was purposeful. And the, when that was chosen. But for some people they don't who aren't part of the pagan community.

They don't know the pagan association and they only have the, the labors rights 

Mark: Right, right. There's an interesting thing about international worker's day, which is May 1st which is that the United States deliberately put its workers day at the end of summer. In order to avoid engagement with those socialists and communists who were celebrating international workers' day on May 1st.

So we have our labor day on the first weekend in September and nobody else does, but when those holidays were being defined like today there was a lot of fear around, you know, communism. So that's,

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: how it happened. So, Yeah.

Mayday or a second spring is another good one. I know that that's how you celebrate your, your holidays in terms of first and second seasons for each, each quadrant.

And so let's talk a little bit about, you know, what the themes are and, and how we celebrate it. And then talk about some specific ritual things that we can do. 

Yucca: All right. Well, there's definitely. Like you were talking about this coming out, this emergence, this, you know, waking up around it. For us, we think about it a lot as well for the annual plants, because this is the time where. You're getting the gardens going. I mean, our last for us usually isn't until the 15th, we'll still have a couple good frosts.

And of course the fruit trees that aren't from this area are all blooming already. And going here we are. You know, zapped by another frost. But we definitely associate it with, okay, here are the, the annual plants that are coming back, the things that we're planting in the garden and the the flowering plants and all of our, you know, our Forbes and things like that.

And the color. So it's still kind of blend. Sometimes the holidays blend a little bit. The last one for us was more about the birds and the feathers, but there were bright colors with that. And then coming into this, more of the colors and just again, that, that awake, that youthful that, you know, here we are, 

Mark: Yes, everything's so, so fresh and new and sex is everywhere that trees and plants are all kind of hanging their parts out there saying, come and get me. And it's, it's just a very vital, very central kind of time. The air is perfumed in many places with the smell of all the different kinds of flowering plants.

We just had 

Yucca: clouds of Paul and the go by 

Mark: Yes. Yes, exactly. 

Yucca: clouds 

Mark: Yeah, you can't can't help, but get it all over you. And if you have allergies, it's miserable. So it's, you know, it's a time when the world is really vital and even in desert climates, the world is really vital. I mean, the, the desert is palpably green. When you look out after the rainy season and, and after the snows have melted and you can see that things are really genuinely green they're there.

They're not like tropical green, but they're definitely. Is 

Yucca: like it does after winter? 

Mark: I'm sure. Yeah. Where it's black and white 

Yucca: Oh yeah. 

Mark: it. 

Yucca: Yeah. Even so even in places or even, especially in places in brittle environments, there's just such a change between one season to another. 

Mark: Sure. 

Yucca: just, the more you tune into it. I noticed for me every single year, I mean, I've lived in other places, but I came back to where I'm, where I'm from.

Even growing up here every year, I noticed something different and new despite by being out and hanging out outside and just paying attention.

Mark: Yeah.

There's I mean, life itself is opportunistic, right? Life, life is always looking to worm its way into whatever niche it can find in order to thrive. But right now there's so much opportunity for so many different kinds of organisms and they all kind of pop at once. And so you get this, this feeling of genuine exuberance and delight.

From from the world, you know, everything's doing its thing and seems pretty happy about it. So, you know, that may be me anthropomorphizing my plant environments, but there's a, there's a. There's a way that that it seems enthusiastic. I go back to that word again and again Beltane or Mayday.

Isn't an enthusiastic holiday. And in, in my wheel of the year, I associated a lot with young adulthood. Where there's lots of energy things are brand new and you're kind of trying them out because, you know, oh, wow, look, I've got these leaves which I didn't have right. A month ago. I've got all this, this new agency as a young adult, I can make decisions for myself.

I, I have power that I didn't have before. I have autonomy that I didn't have before. And so I'm going to experiment. I'm going to try new things. I'm going to. Make friends I'm going to connect sexually and explore myself and find out what works for me and how that whole dynamic works with other people.

So it's there's, there's just a lot of, of of, of trying and getting it done happening around this time of year. 

Yucca: Yeah. Yeah. I definitely feel that too.

Mark: So, it's a glad time and it's not a surprise to me that the Christians decided to put their Easter right around this time, because there is a general feeling of. Of thankfulness for having gotten through the winter and have joy in the beauty of nature as it's blooming in front of us, that comes at this time of year.

And while their themes are a little bit different in terms of salvation and resurrection and all that kind of stuff. The resurrection piece works well with dormant plants coming back to life and all that the salvation piece. Pagans don't have anything to do with, we got nothing to do with that. 

Yucca: At least most of us don't, there's, you know, there's a lot of different kinds of pagans. 

Mark: That's certainly true, but the, but the joyfulness, you know, there's a, there's a sense, even in the Christian Canon of this kind of joy and relief, right? Oh, we've been saying. Hooray. Whereas, you know, we don't feel like we need to be saved from anything but freezing and starving to death as pagans, but but we're really nonetheless that we didn't starve to death. 

Yucca: I like that sun being higher in the sky. That is great. We got a lot of sun here, but it was getting a bit much in the winter. The winter lasts a bit long.

Mark: Yeah. There's something about February, especially, that's Just really, really rough. It just, 

Yucca: ah, let's keep rolling.

Mark: Yeah.

it, it won't last forever, even though it feels like it's already lasted forever. 

Yucca: Yeah. 

Mark: So, shall we go into some ritual things that we can do or what our practices are?

Yucca: So, I mean, before we go into specifically rituals, are there types of things that you're doing this time of year, just that, or are your sort of may day-ish season things that you do?

Mark: Well, I like to get flowers in the house. And we just had our wisteria bloom along our back fence. And that of course smells delicious. And it's these beautiful cascades of purple blossoms and they're there they're mostly done now, but they were just so pretty when, when they were 

Yucca: months ahead of us. Ours here will not flown for another few weeks probably. Yeah. 

Mark: So there, there was that, and we've got roses blooming, and we've got Calla lilies, and there's an, there's a beautiful.

purple Iris. That's growing in one of our wine barrels right now. So there's just. You know, paying attention to all that. Once again, we come back to paying attention, but really acknowledging, wow, it's just awfully good to be here.

And there's a lot of beauty around that's, that's really the primary thing for me for this, this holiday, that, and I feel my body waking up. I, I have a higher sex drive. I have a Bigger appetite. I, I feel, and I, I'm kinda antsy about sitting around, I, I wanna leave the house and go and do things and all that kind of stuff.

So, there's, there's just this kind of, I don't know, coming out of hibernation and being hungry, sort of quality to it as well. 

Yucca: Yeah. 

Mark: How about you? 

Yucca: Well, it's a busy time of the year for us. And a lot of it is the focused on, again, not just going back out, we always change out colors in the, in the house. And that's kind of a gradual process of changing. I mean, it's the sort of thing we'd be doing anyways. The types of curtains we've got up during the winter are different than the ones we've got up in during the summer.

And you know, changing out what's on the couch and all of that. And this year it's been quite fun because this is our. First like real season where we're at. And so we planted in the fall, we planted a bunch of perennials and I'm seeing which ones made it because that's one of the things of making it through that first winter.

And I took some chances with things. This is not from our climate at all, but I thought I'll give it a shot. I have, there's a couple of little microclimates on our property. And so I tried some Papas, some American Papas and I'm going okay. So they, you know, they feel, find them in like, you know, New York, upstate New York, which is colder than us and they survive there.

Mark: right. 

Yucca: So three of the five I planted made it. Right. So that's, you know, We'll see how they feel about our summers, but 

Mark: Right. Right. And they may, and they,

may be a bit thirsty too. They may, they may want a lot more water than your desert plants. 

Yucca: Well, I plan to do them in an area that gets that has some it's for us, a wet area drains into it. Yeah. And then it's so fun every year because the kids are getting older and coming into really being like people now. And my daughter's just making up all kinds of holidays. Right. And the reptiles are.

So we've decided that we spent the winter learning about the different mammals in our area. And now we decided it's time to learn about the different lizards that we have. And there's all kinds of lizards that are here. And there's a whole bunch that I'm going. I don't know how I'm going to tell the difference between these three species.

Cause they all look the same. You're telling me there's a little red dot behind one of their ears. Okay. So, That again, just that sort of bringing the spring in and bringing the humans out. Right. The humans out of that house, we're living half outdoors again. So yeah,

Mark: Nice. Yes. So. So why don't we go into some specific rituals that we like to do around this time? One of the things that I do when I, you know, seasonally redecorate my, my focus, my altar is I have some ribbons that are from a maypole dance that I did years ago. And there's a, there's a portion of a tree branch.

That's. My focus sits up about 10 inches high. And so I drape, I've tied them together at one end and I drape these ribbons over the top of this branch so that it becomes like a little maypole. There. And we also have embroidery hoops that we have glued ribbons, colored, colorful ribbons around the top of, so, and then we cut them off.

Three feet long or even longer. So what you end up with is this ring that you can hang from a tree and it's got all these beautiful ribbons hanging down from it that wave in the wind. And we put those in the, in the foliage outside as well, 

Yucca: Oh, lovely.

Mark: So it just kinds of create some thematic stuff around it. 

Yucca: Yeah, we, we put ribbons, we've got a specific tree that we like to put things and, you know, we put little like, you know, Christmas bulbs and things like that in the winter. And then we put some of the ribbons out. And then we go out and untangled them because they get very tangled. 

Mark: Of course. 

You do Cloudy's do you know. 

Yucca: What are Cloudy's

Mark: Cloud, is there an Irish tradition? I think, I think, or it may be a Scott's tradition. I'm but I seem to remember it's an Irish tradition and they are cloth that you hang in a tree and particularly with wishes for health, 

Yucca: Mm.

Mark: and they, you know, various colored clogs and that kind of thing.

So it, it sort of creates a prayer tree. 

Yucca: Okay. So like a prayer flag tree kind of. Okay. Yeah. We haven't done that, but that's a lovely idea 

Mark: Yeah, I like it. I like it too. And then of course there is the classic, which is the maypole dance. We will put a link to a blog post that. I [email protected] called how does that maypole thing work? And it's, it's step-by-step instructions for how to do a maypole circle. Maples are just so much fun there they're really joyous and dancing around one with a partner with, you know, all these couples with ribbons going in the opposite directions and weaving the ribbons up on the pole. 

Yucca: Bumping into each other. Occasionally.

Mark: into each other a lot, Especially as you get closer to the pole, cause your ribbons are winding up and they're getting shorter and shorter. And you know, there's always music playing and it's just a very joyful, happy kind of time. And I have many memories of going to, built-in or may Mayday gatherings, you know, people where they're colorful clothing and it.

It's just a really, really sweet spring celebration and a very old tradition of course may have existed in, not just in England, but also in other parts of Europe, continental, Europe,

Yucca: in the Northern areas, which sometimes they're associated more with solstice, 

Mark: Yes. Yes. In Sweden. I know they do a maypole things that summer solstice. And that may just be Because it's, you know,

Yucca: Because that is Sprig

Mark: that is spring that's when it finally just gets warm enough to get that hooray. We're going outside feeling. 

Yucca: and hopefully it'll be on a weekend. 

Mark: Yes. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Well, and if it's not, then you just push to the next weekend. I mean, 

Yucca: well, that's what we do. We use it like you were saying at the beginning that, you know, maybe it's not going to be on May 1st week kind of just do it around this time of year when it works for everybody. 

Mark: Right, right. Because it would be really disappointing if half the people you wanted to come, couldn't make it. Just because you insisted on doing it on a Wednesday. The other thing to bear in mind when it comes to, you know, being diligent about doing things exactly on the day, That's great, but bear in mind that the actual midpoint between the Equinox and the solstice is actually around May 7th. So. I consider May 1st through May 7th to be the week of may day, the week of Mayday or the week of bell pain. In the same way that Hallows is from Halloween to about November 6th or seventh, depending on the year. So, you know, give yourself a break. Don't. You know, force yourself to do something that creates a lot more insertion and trouble.

It's okay to wait till the weekend to do something that, that you want to have a gathering with. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: I'm excited because The, the atheopagan community created a new program earlier this year called affinity groups. And those are groups that are, that share geographical affinity or that have some sort of identity or interest connection.

So there's an LGBTQ group and there's a crafters group and there's a neuro-diverse. Diverse group and an activist group, but there's also groups that are in different geographical areas. And we have one for Northern California that is now called live Oak circle. And we are meeting in person at one of our houses to do a Mayday gathering on, on May 1st.

And I'm really excited about it. I think it's going to be a really Nice.

time. 

Yucca: That's great. 

Mark: Yeah. 

Yucca: And all, you'll be seeing some of those folks again and another, the next weekend, in fact, 

Mark: Yes, one of them, one of them will also be at the century retreat. 

Yucca: Yeah. So just a plug for that. I think that the day this comes out is the last day for registration, right? 

Mark: That's right. 

Yucca: the 25th of April. Yeah, because we need to know who's going to be there so we know how much food to have.

Right.

Mark: Right. Exactly. So, when you hear this podcast, if you hear it on Monday, the first, if you are still thinking about coming, please at least contact us through the, the contact email on the century re. Page to let us know that you want to come. You can, we'll work out getting your registration completed over the next couple of days, but we need to know that you're coming.

And how many are in your party? 

Yucca: Yeah. We just need the count of what's going to be there or not. Yeah.

Mark: because it's only, it's three weeks away. 

Yucca: Yup.

Mark: We're in three weeks. We're going to be there. 

Yucca: Yup.

Mark: And the whole, the whole thing just seems preposterous to me. I mean, I haven't left the state of California in a long time now And 

Yucca: either actually the last place I went was Colorado Springs was Colorado Springs or w w for the baby moon before my oldest was born six years ago. We went there cause it was the closest borders 

Mark: really? 

Yucca: bookish people. Yeah. We were like, Hey, let's go somewhere and spend the night somewhere. Cause we're never going to do this again for like 18 years.

And what do we want to do? I want to go to a bookstore. Yeah. I want to go to a bookstore too. So we have lots of little bookstores as well, but we wanted one that was a little bit more like. Like wandering through a big library. So that anyways, yeah. That's the last time I've been out of state. It's been a while.

Mark: Yeah.

well, you know, there's been COVID and you've had kids and there's, there's all that stuff.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So, yeah, it's it's going to happen so soon now I'm really, I got to go to my storage unit and get out of suitcase and all this stuff. So. What else do we have to say about Mayday and oh I we're, we're developing a re a relatively large list of things to put in the in the episode notes, but I do want to put in also, I have a blog post about may celebrations that aren't about sex. 

Yucca: Okay. Nice. 

Mark: So for people who, you know, are, are a sexual or a romantic, Or 

Yucca: Or do you want it to be a family thing and it's not appropriate for the particular people in the family right 

Mark: Right. Or they just aren't into it, you know, whatever that is. There's some ideas there for things that you can do to celebrate this time of year. So I want to 

Yucca: That's a great, yeah, because it really doesn't. I mean, I like the sex part, but it doesn't have to be about that. 

Mark: That's Right. 

Yucca: There's plenty of, of reawakening and all of that stuff that doesn't have to doesn't have to be it. 

Mark: Absolutely. And as always, we're working to be as inclusive as we possibly can. This non theist pagan science-based paganism path is something that really is open to everyone and not just in a tolerance sense, but in a true welcoming sense. We want you to have a practice. Really works for you, you know, that feels moving and meaningful and gives you a sense of place in the world and a sense of purpose in living. So that's, that's the thing. So what else do we have 

Yucca: You know, I think I'm just feeling happy about it being spring. 

Mark: Me too. 

Yucca: that's what I have to say. Spring awakening being outside color the bugs coming back, got all kinds of interesting things out. That's that's what's going on for us. So.

Mark: Yep. That's what's happening here too. And we, we really love it. So, I got to get out on a trail. I haven't actually gone hiking for quite a while and I really want to do that. So I've got to, got to get myself going soon. 

Yucca: Good time for that.

Mark: It is so happy spring everyone or summer, if that's the way you count it, which we didn't really talk about.

But many people consider the cross quarter holidays to be the beginnings of the seasons instead of the solstices and equinoxes. Which is why summer solstice is called midnight. Often and the winter solstice is called mid-winter. But it just depends on how you count it. Calendars are arbitrary. 

Yucca: they are. Yeah. I mean, for where I am, the seasons are not equal. Winter and summer are really long and we have like a few weeks of spring and a few weeks of fall. And then. You know, we basically have winter and summer. I mean, there's nuances, but really just jumps right in. Yes, June is not spring for us.

For some people, June a spring, but June is like not Judas 90 degrees. So yeah. Well, anyways, as we were saying, just happy spring or happy summer, everyone. And for those of you, cause we do see that there are quite a few of you listening in the Southern hemisphere. So the other way around, happy bottom for you.

Mark: Yes, and I'm happy Hallows or solemn, meaningful Hallows, and be sure to look in the in the podcast archives for our has episodes, because you can certainly use all of that stuff for your celebration here in may as well. 

Yucca: Great. And is there a Southern hemisphere affinity group?

Mark: There is yes, it's small right now, but there is a Southern hemisphere affinity group. 

Yucca: Yeah. So definitely check that out if

Mark: Yep. if you're interested in joining an affinity group, you can. go to the atheopagan society website, which is the AP society.org, the AP society.org forward slash community. And that will take you to the page that lists all of the affinity groups. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Okay. Well, thank you so much, Yucca. It's been a pleasure as always. 

Yucca: Thank you, mark.

Suntree Retreat: https://theapsocietyorg.wordpress.com/news-and-events/suntree-retreat-2022/

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

S3E14 TRANSCRIPT:----more----

Mark: Welcome back to the wonders. Science-based paganism. I'm mark. And I'm one of your hosts.

Yucca: And I'm Yucca.

Mark: And today we're going to talk about pleasure and sensuality and how we relate to that psychologically and what we can do for ourselves in order to more deeply. Enjoy our lives in essential sense.

It's spring time and it's getting warmer out and people are wearing less clothing and it's just kind of feeling like everything's getting going again and we're coming up on Mayday or bell pain. So we thought this would be a good time to do this episode. 

Yucca: Exactly. Yeah. It's definitely something for any time of the year, but particularly right now it feels, it feels like a good moment for it. And yeah. And we'll come back next week. We'll be talking more about Mayday or belting and some of the themes that can go along with that, which will, we're getting into a little bit today.

We're going to focus more on that physical pleasure side today.

Mark: Right, right. Yeah. Next week we can talk about rituals and observances and all that good kind of stuff for the holiday. But thematically, this is something that's kind of a bigger human issue so where should we start? 

Yucca: Why don't we start with the idea of pleasure, because this is something that in. Paganism. We tend to have a different take on then much of the over culture does. And a lot of the other religions

Mark: Yeah, that's certainly been my experience. I mean, one of the earliest things that I heard when I entered the pagan community was that one of the things that defines us as different from the predominant over culture is that we, our pleasure pauses. And that is it's principle 10 of the atheopagan principles.

It's something that I have not only observed broadly in the community, but also have taken into myself as something to embrace. Not without struggle. I should say. And we're going to talk about that a lot. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: But fundamentally from a values standpoint, we don't think there's anything wrong with enjoying. Quite the contrary, 

Yucca: Consensual, right. Few episodes back. We talked about. About consent and all of that. And we're, this is all assuming that this is consensual, you know, this is, or we're talking about in yourself, but in no way, are we saying that, you know, it's okay for you to just do something that hurts somebody else? Cause you like it.

That's not what we're 

talking about. We're saying that it's, it's okay for you to feel good. In fact, it's probably really, really good for you and good for everybody around you and the rest of the world, because. Miserable people are not good company and aren't very effective that change.

Mark: No, no. And having spent many years in the activist community, I can testify to the. You know, the sort of bitter angry zealots that that are interspersed amongst the activist community, who they just, they don't have a positive word to say about anyone or anything. And you can just tell that they're miserable and you know, really what they need is a lot of kindness.

And. A lot of pleasure to just kind of transform the idea that they have of the world is a horrible place. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: And it's, you know, we're not saying, we're not saying that there aren't horrors in the world because there are so, you know, we're not implying, oh, you know, feel good, have a great time. By itself.

You know, this is within the context of understanding that there are terrible things in the world that we need to change and we need to work to change. But while we're doing that, we're living our one precious life. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: precious life is to be enjoyed. It's it's, you know, we have all of these nerve receptors all over ourselves, not just to Not just to tell us when something is injured or hurts, but also to bring us pleasure. Right. Otherwise, a massage wouldn't feel good. Sex wouldn't feel good. A delicious pastry wouldn't taste good, 

Yucca: Long bath or, 

Mark: Or. 

Yucca: a nap in the sun. Yeah.

Mark: all those wonderful things. We have pleasure centers for a reason and it is perfectly okay for us to stimulate them. And there's no, there's no downside to that. So long as everybody who's involved is consented, which kind of brings us to.

The the over culture. I mean, we just talked about the pagan culture and we can talk more in examples about that, but. The over culture has a radically different way of looking at this. That's rooted in Christianity and Christianity, particularly Protestant Christianity, since the Protestant reformation is deeply suspicious of pleasure.

And in many cases shaming about it. 

Yucca: Right.

Mark: It, there are lots of arbitrary rules about where, when you are allowed to feel pleasure. And when you're not 

Yucca: And what specific times? Right?

Mark: there are arbitrary times of year when you're supposed to deny yourself things that you enjoy, just because reasons, 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: And all of this conspires to inculcate within us, this feeling of discomfort at the least, but in many cases, real shame around enjoying ourselves in a sensual sense.

And that is crippling to people. It's very, very hard to be a happy person. If that's the context that you, you live. 

Yucca: Yeah. And I think one of the sources of this is control, right? It's a way of controlling people. Shame is a way. Making sure that that system, that structure is maintained. And when you have people feeling bad and shameful about the things that they could be doing that might, that might make them realize that they don't need to be doing what you're saying, or don't need to be following this, or it's, you know, that, that, that whole system starts to crumble when people just.

Don't feel bad about these things that they're supposed to. And, and you mentioned this coming from a lot from the Protestant and I agree, but I think that it, it comes from that a lot, but it influences all of us today, whether we're from those particular religions or not, that has a huge influence on everybody.

And especially if, if you went through the school site, Right. There's a few, a few folks out who might have that this point been unschooled, but pretty much everybody else went through the school system, which was designed to control you based on, on a lot of different things. But one way denying you from, from enjoying things and punishing you for enjoying those things and making you do these other things.

Mark: Right. And teaching you about obedience to authority and denying yourself in the name of somebody else's rules. 

Yucca: Right. Don't question, right. That's not, you know, it's not whatever, it's not respectful. It's not proper. It's not don't you want to learn what are all these, these things. And so I think that, that it happens that has happened to all of us to some degree. Yeah. That we are making the conscious choice as pleasure, positive Higgins.

That's a nice one. That's a piece in there that, that we don't want to agree with that, but it's something that we have to think about not necessarily every day, but think about because it's, we're surrounded by it. We're steeping in it, it slips back in without us even thinking, without realizing, being conscious of it.

Mark: right. Yeah. I mean, even after 35 years of being a pagan I, I confront this on a daily basis, right. Because the window of my room faces onto the parking area of the complex that I live in. Now, people aren't generally walking around, it's unusual for somebody to actually pass in front of my window, but I have to get dressed. And I don't sleep with clothing on. So, which is pleasurable by the way, at least it is for me, which is why I do it. Just 

Yucca: know about you, but the nice sheets, this like 

Mark: Oh yeah, 

Yucca: And you get underneath the sheets and you can like rub your legs together. And it's just wonderful. 

Mark: yeah. 

Yucca: That's one of my favorite things. 

Mark: Huh. yeah.

so, Okay. Agreed. But then I have to get out of the bed and suddenly I am on display to the neighborhood and. I work very hard not to have that impact, you know, so that I'm not rushing. I'm not, you know, running to the closet to get myself a pair of pants. I'm not doing any of that. I'm taking my time and doing the things that I want to do in the morning. And by God is somebody outside gets offended. Then I'm going to deal with that when it comes along.

But yes.

Yucca: Okay. Yeah.

Mark: Yeah. So, and you know, thus far, no one has seen me and we've been here for almost a year. Because you know yeah. 

Yucca: depend that long. Wow.

Mark: well, yeah, we moved in in oh, no. We, we got noticed that we had to move in. May we moved in July, 

Yucca: Okay. 

Mark: so it's 10 months. 

Yucca: No, it's practically a year. Wow. Okay.

Mark: Time flying. So, you know, here's, here's a perfect example.

It's like at this time of year I mean, we just had a little rain here, so it's a little chillier now, but we've been having days that are like 75 degree days

In the best of all possible worlds. Other than maybe a hat and some sunblock, I wouldn't wear anything. I would just go outside and walk around.

Cause it's nice and the sun feels good on your skin, but we live in a culture where you can't do that. And it's actually enshrined in law that you can't do that for no reason. Other than that, the V over culture, which is driven by Christian ideas. Encourages this idea of shame of the body and shame of central pleasure. And it's just, it's a shame. But when you think about it, it's a pretty clever con 

Yucca: Hm.

Mark: because, okay, we're going to make you ashamed of. These natural things that you gravitate towards and we're going to call them sins. And then the only way you can get the sins taken off is through our institution. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Right?

It's like, it's rather like having a car where the parts are only made by. The particular company that manufacturers your car. And so you will keep going back to them for parts over and over and over again. So we were talking about this before we started the recording and there is a word for this. There's a term for this, which is purity culture. And you had said some really interesting things about that Yaka. 

Yucca: We were talking. Places where we see this. And one of the places that I see this is in is around diet culture, whatever the particular diet is. You know, people talk about, you know, clean eating and you know, clean lifestyles and all of these things. And I think that that framing is a, is a really destructive and harmful framing.

Mark: Because what is, what is dirt? Right? What is dirt? Dirt is soil the most miraculous stuff on earth. 

Yucca: it's earth. Right. 

Mark: the stuff that gives us life. 

Yucca: Yeah. And, and also stuff that gets used, like cheat meals and things like that. I'm like cheating. Like what you, what are you implying by all of this?

Mark: Right. Yeah,

When, when you say cheat, you're automatically asserting a moral framework, right? There is a virtuous behavior and there is an unvirtuous behavior. And the virtuous behavior inevitably has to do with some sort of shame-based thing You can see it on the labels of food products. You know, it'll say natural or low fat, or, you know, low sugar or, you know, all these things.

Yucca: the thing is.

Mark: Whenever the thing is that are, that is. directly keyed to a shame response that you have within yourself because you learned it because you learned it from parents, from authority figures, from the society at large, from advertising. And for one thing, there's no such thing as purity. There just isn't, it doesn't exist.

It's 

Yucca: Yeah, it's made up. It's not.

Mark: an arbitrary and destructive idea, just like virginity, it's an argument. It's a, a destructive idea that doesn't help anything. It just doesn't help anything. For another. It, when it's pursued to its logical extremes, it has very destructive impulse impacts. I'm sorry. I mean, certainly you see it in ever angelical Christianity where teens are being bombarded with these messages about their bodies, about sexuality, about relationships, about all this stuff. And it is so.

Harmful. And there aren't countervailing voices in many cases to provide an alternative perspective. 

Yucca: it's not even just starting with the teens, it started way, way younger than that. 

Mark: You're right, 

Yucca: Yeah. It's you know, that we will start to hear about it from the teams because sometimes there's the team because of the teams will start to talk about. Right. But the younger, the kids, they don't know that they don't have platforms to talk about it yet, but but yeah, there's just some, there's some stuff out there that's like, wow.

Like, oh, that, that hurts just to think about, you know, just the, the you know, just being. Ashamed of your body, of yourself, of your gender, your sex, whatever you are, you know, on top of just all of the other things about how, you know, we're with the advertising about, that's always there to try and convince us that.

Not good. We're not perfect. And here's the thing to make us perfect. And, and even once you get the thing, it doesn't work because you never, that never was the problem in the first place. And there's just all of this about just trying to tear the person down. And we just internalize that even when we're aware that it's happening, it's a conscious effort and fight to not internalize it.

Right.

Mark: Yeah. I mean, we, in this culture, we encourage people not to like themselves too much. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Right. Because that's pride, right. Heaven. Forfend that? You should be proud of who you are. 

Yucca: Especially if you're a woman, 

Mark: Well, particularly if you're a woman Yeah. 

Yucca: I mean, it happens to everybody, 

Mark: Or gay or non-binary or trans yeah.

It's. I D I, I get worked up when I think about this, it it's so destructive and it's so completely unnecessary.

All that it is, is a set of tools that were used to perform social control, starting thousands of years ago, certainly centuries ago in its latest incarnations. And we are still stuck with it. And one of the things that is really outraging the Christian right wing in the United States right now, is that the younger generation ain't having it. They're just not, they're not, they're not viewing these authorities as authorities. They're not following their moral codes. Pursuing new relationship structures. They're experimenting sexually there. They're just not doing it. 

Yucca: Yeah. And those older powers are freaking out. 

Mark: They are. 

Yucca: Yeah. That's where a lot of these ridiculous, you know, don't say gay and bills and things like that are coming from.

Mark: right. Yeah. I mean, Presuming that we're still around in 50 years. I think we will see that this time will be seen as kind of the last gasp of the evangelical. Right. Because they. They're trying to nail down everything they possibly can for their agenda now, because they know that their voting power is dwindling rapidly. It'll only be a few more election cycles when they, you know, when their generation has dwindled away enough that they're no longer able to call the shots. That's my theory anyway, and I'm, I'm cautiously optimistic that that's what will actually happen. So, pleasure it. 

Yucca: circle back around with think it's good.

Mark: we think it's good.

We, we think your body was built for pleasure and you should be having some.

And what that means to you individually can vary widely You know, for some people it's like, you know, elaborate sexual escapades for some people it's having their head scratched. You know, for some people it's a foot rub for some people it's, I'm sitting in a hot tub, for example, or I'm having a massage or eating something delicious without feeling guilty about it or.

Taking some kind of recreational drug, which as a sovereign individual, even though it may not be your, your legal right, is your right as a person, you, you have the right to make choices for yourself about what happens with your body. And that's one of them. You have a Right.

to make.

Yucca: Right. 

Mark: You just have to be careful in relation to law enforcement.

If it's not one of the sanctioned drugs in our society 

Yucca: walks, right. Just getting that, it's getting some fresh air and breathing that in, or you know, Sandra between your toes or I was joking before getting, but there's a serious, if you've never tried, it is one to give bag of rice and put your bare feet into a bag of rice and just wiggle your toes around.

That's one that is just delightful. 

Some 

Mark: have to try that out. 

Yucca: Yeah. I mean, some people don't like that kind of sensation, but it's, you know, a bag of rice or a bag of beans. Some people really like that. There's just something about it. Or But just something that, that feels good and that you experienced, you know, in your body, right?

Those that there's mind pleasures too, but there's also something about just being really present with your body, enjoying whatever this feeling is.

Mark: Right. Right. And, and that doesn't have, you know, as, as the examples that we've been talking about make clear, doesn't have to be a sexual thing. If you're an asexual person or any romantic person, it can still be, you know, those, there can still be these central pleasures that, you know, that, that fill your body with those good feeling chemicals.

The The Mary Oliver poem, very famous Mary Oliver poem. Wild geese says you do not have to be good. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. And that's that's truth. That is really true. You do not have to be good by the lights of this culture. I mean, don't get yourself in trouble because then you won't be getting pleasure. 

Yucca: Sure.

Mark: You know, being punished arbitrarily for things that shouldn't be punishable. But just let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. And, you know, for some of us it's work, you know, we have parents that drilled into us that, you know, various things were shameful. Don't, don't let that slow you down.

No in your heart that you deserve the pleasure that you have, and that it's okay for you to do something just for that purpose. It doesn't have to be productive. It doesn't have to be it doesn't have to, you know, be economically contributing. It doesn't have to make anybody else happy. You, you know, if you're doing it with anybody else to know it's presumed that you have consent, but it is enough just to make yourself feel pleasure. 

Yucca: Yeah. And to let go of that deserve not deserve stuff. That's just a way of, of just trying to maintain control over you. You deserve it, but 

Mark: It's that inner critic again, right? That inner critic will tell you that you don't deserve something or that You should,

feel shame about something. And as we talked about before, the critic is not on your side, it's the voice of, of culture, of authority, of parental messages. It's not on your side.

And

you do, you deserve to come out from underneath. The oppression of what that voice wants you to believe. You can be more than that and you, and you should be I'm I'm I'm I getting my I'm wagging my finger at you and saying you should be because you are more and that's, that's the important point is that you are more than that.

And and your life is more than that. And so live it live it.

So, do we have more to say on this topic or shall we save it for next week?

Yucca: I think this is a good place to pause and come back next week. So we'll, we'll return to this a little bit next week, but we'll also talk about the other side of. What it, what belting or may day or all the many different names, again, whatever this, this may holiday is. There's a lot to say about that.

So 

Mark: Yeah, absolutely. One more thing yeah, which is the century retreat, which the last day of is a month from the day today that we're recording. So it's in four weeks, but if you're thinking of going, you really need to get your registration in. The deadline for registration is April 25th because we have to tell the retreat center How many meals we're ordering. And so we have to have a count by April 25th. So, go to the atheopagan society website, which AP society.org and go to the events page. And there's a link there that will take you to everything that you need to know about the event. But and we hope that you'll join us there both Yucca and I will be there.

And I talked with some other folks this morning at the Saturday zoom mixer who are going to be there and we're all getting really excited. 

Yucca: Yep. Just around the, really around the corner 

Mark: It really is. Yeah. So

thank you, Yucca. Thanks for a great conversation. 

Yucca: likewise.