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Litha Reflection - Power Without Innocence: Pagan Responsibility After the Fire Has Been Lit

Litha Arc: After The Burden of Full Light: When Visibility Demands Accountability exposes consequence, this piece stays with power after ignition. There is a moment—quiet, irreversible, and already past—when power stops being theoretical. Before that moment, we can speak in wishes. In symbols. In ethics shaped largely by intention. We can say we mean well, we’re still learning, we didn’t know…

Litha Reflection - Power Without Innocence: Pagan Responsibility After the Fire Has Been Lit

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When “Streamlining” Means Erasing: Pagans in Uniform Deserve Better

A Policy Change That Feels Like Erasure The Department of Defense recently announced it is streamlining its religious-affiliation codes, reportedly slashing the list of recognized faith and belief categories from more than 200 down to just 31. For Pagan, Wiccan, Druid, Heathen, Humanist, Atheist, and other minority service members, this “streamlining” looks a lot like disappearance. The removed…

When “Streamlining” Means Erasing: Pagans in Uniform Deserve Better

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Litha Reflection - When Strength Is No Longer an Excuse: Ethics at the Peak of Capacity

Litha Arc: After Beltane: A Celebration of Life Fully Awake affirms aliveness, this piece asks what strength owes. There are seasons when survival itself is the work.When confusion is honest.When exhaustion explains our silence. This is not one of those seasons. Light has climbed. Energy has returned. The body—personal or collective—has crossed back into capacity. We may still feel cautious,…

Litha Reflection - When Strength Is No Longer an Excuse: Ethics at the Peak of Capacity

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The Spirituality of Seasonal Transitions

Today is Memorial Day, and for many of us around Kansas City, summer has unofficially begun. The grills come out. Smokers get fired up. Families gather on patios and porches. Lawn chairs unfold beside packed coolers. Flags appear near sidewalks and graves. Kids run through sprinklers. Boats head out toward Longview or Smithville Lake. At garden centers, people line up for flowers, mulch, and…

The Spirituality of Seasonal Transitions

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If That Which You Seek

A Pagan Reflection on Looking Within Without Turning Away from the World “For if that which you seek, you find not within yourself, you will never find it without.” I first read these words in Starhawk’s The Spiral Dance, when I was just beginning to find my way into Paganism, and they have stayed with me for years. Back then, I mostly heard the line as beautiful spiritual language. It sounded…

If That Which You Seek

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Borrowed Fire: Cultural Appropriation in Pagan Practice

Modern Paganism often begins with hunger. We hunger for meaning. For ritual. For rootedness. For some way to live that feels less cut off from land, ancestors, seasons, body, and spirit. Many of us come to Paganism because something in us is searching for an older rhythm, or at least a more honest one. That hunger can be beautiful. It can also make us careless. When we go looking for…

Borrowed Fire: Cultural Appropriation in Pagan Practice

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Touch Grass: A Pagan Take on this Online Insult

Not long ago, I saw the phrase “touch grass” while scrolling through one of those online threads where everyone seemed to be reacting faster than they were thinking. The phrase usually shows up when someone is too deep in online drama, endless arguments, or the kind of scrolling that leaves us more agitated than informed. In the Mental Floss article “Why Do We Tell People to ‘Go Touch Grass?’”,…

Touch Grass: A Pagan Take on this Online Insult

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Outside the Default Path: A Pagan Reading of the Federal “Anti-Christian Bias” Report

Not long ago, I was standing in the woods watching a few deer slowly move between the trees. The forest was quiet except for birds somewhere overhead and leaves shifting in the breeze. What struck me most was how connected everything seemed. Nothing in the forest was really “in charge,” yet everything depended on everything else. The trees shaded the ground. The fallen leaves fed the soil.…

Outside the Default Path: A Pagan Reading of the Federal “Anti-Christian Bias” Report

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Beltane Reflection - A Celebration of Life Fully Awake

Beltane Arc: This essay follows the endurance explored in Standing in the Fire: Sacred Endurance in Pagan Spirituality, entering vitality without forgetting its cost. Beltane is here—and with it comes warmth, movement, and the unmistakable feeling that life is no longer waiting. This is the season when the world feels willing. Light lingers. Green deepens. Energy rises in the body and in the…

Beltane Reflection - A Celebration of Life Fully Awake

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Beltane Reflection - Standing in the Fire: Sacred Endurance in Pagan Spirituality

Beltane Arc: This essay assumes action has begun and remains, following the commitments named in Choosing What to Feed: Pagan Discernment Around Energy and Growth. With one week left before Beltane, the season tightens in a way I can feel in my body. What I have noticed, I have fed. What I have fed has begun to take form. The room for reconsideration hasn’t vanished, but it has narrowed into…

Beltane Reflection - Standing in the Fire: Sacred Endurance in Pagan Spirituality

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Beltane Reflection - Choosing What to Feed: Pagan Discernment Around Energy and Growth

Beltane Arc: This essay follows When Clarity Lingers: The Ethics of Knowing Without Act, asking how energy is directed once avoidance is no longer plausible. Desire is no longer subtle. It has momentum now. It has appetite. What was once merely visible is asking to be sustained. This is the point in the season where recognition stops being enough. Seeing desire is uncomfortable; feeding it is…

Beltane Reflection - Choosing What to Feed: Pagan Discernment Around Energy and Growth

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We Didn’t Get Ruder—We Just Stopped Noticing Each Other: A Pagan View of Everyday Harm

Rudeness is not a failure of manners; it is a failure of relationship. I notice it most in the same pressure points around town—highway merges, grocery aisles, parking lots, sidewalks, school pickup—places where movement tightens, patience thins, and people begin to act as if they’re the only ones there. Moments like that make it clear how easily we forget we’re sharing the same ground. That…

We Didn’t Get Ruder—We Just Stopped Noticing Each Other: A Pagan View of Everyday Harm

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“Global Warming” Misses the Point—This Is a Systems Problem

The term “global warming” can be misleading because it makes the problem sound simple—like the planet is just getting hotter. But that’s not what it feels like from where I live. In the Midwest, I don’t experience this as a number. I see it in the weather—storms that seem stronger, seasons that feel off, and patterns that don’t line up the way I remember. What’s really happening is a broader…

“Global Warming” Misses the Point—This Is a Systems Problem

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Beltane Reflection - When Clarity Lingers: The Ethics of Knowing Without Acting

Beltane Arc: This essay returns to unresolved knowing introduced in When Desire Becomes Visible: Pagan Discernment Around Wanting, where insight persists without release. There is a moment that arrives after uncertainty has passed, but before action has begun.We know what we see. We understand what is being asked. And still, we pause. We feel it when the same question returns unchanged, and we…

Beltane Reflection - When Clarity Lingers: The Ethics of Knowing Without Acting

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We Don’t Have a Mental Health Crisis—We Have a Disconnection Crisis

A Crisis of Disconnection This is not just a mental health crisis. It is a crisis of disconnection. Mental-health data points to rising rates of anxiety, depression, and burnout; everyday experience points to something deeper. Our environments, routines, and social structures no longer align with basic human rhythms. This article explores how that misalignment shows up—through the loss of…

We Don’t Have a Mental Health Crisis—We Have a Disconnection Crisis

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Beltane Reflection - When Desire Becomes Visible: Pagan Discernment Around Wanting

Beltane Arc: This essay builds on the pressure named in When Movement Feels Premature: Pagan Discernment in the Space Before Action, as wanting surfaces. A reflection for the weeks leading toward Beltane Late afternoon light has begun to linger in the room again. Not dramatically—just long enough to catch on the edge of a table, long enough that I hesitate before turning on a lamp. That small…

Beltane Reflection - When Desire Becomes Visible: Pagan Discernment Around Wanting

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The Real Meaning of Beltane Fertility (Beyond the Stereotypes)

What Does Beltane Fertility Mean? The meaning of Beltane fertility is not just about reproduction. It describes a shift into growth, action, and expansion in nature and in life. A Shift You Can Feel The fire is already burning when the sun goes down. Smoke drifts across the field, and people begin to gather. It is one of the first nights that feels like summer. Doors are open. Voices carry.…

The Real Meaning of Beltane Fertility (Beyond the Stereotypes)