#john halstead

[third-nature]

Gods and Radicals

[lovethewildswan]

It takes an artist’s eyes—or a lover’s—to really see. It takes a willingness to get our hands dirty, to get up close and personal with messy nature, and to use all of our senses. But most of all, it requires a willingness to be open to receiving, as well as perceiving—an openness to being “touched back” when we touch nature.

John Halstead

[pagansquare]

Witches&Pagans #35 - Natural Paganism

This special issue features the stories of Pagans who find their spiritual center in Nature.

"I never ask myself — as I sit at my altar to pray and offer and worship — if my gods are really real. Because my gods speak through the wind, and the rain, and the night sky, and the colors at dusk, and those little cracks that open up in time when I stand still in the sun and hear bird-song and leaves rustling. In those moments, I feel the earth move. And I move with it."—(Aine Orga, "Gods of the Earth, Gods of My Heart", W&P #35)

People, Place, & Practice It’s All About the Water. “I stand shirtless and barefoot on the dry ground. Everything is desperate for water. Then I feel a change in the air and my skin begins to prickle.” Article and photos by Bryan Hewitt. Trees as Otherkin. Minoan Crete, Biblical Religion, and Paganism Today. The religion of prehistoric or “Minoan” Crete involved the cultivation of an intimate relationship with a literally living, numinous, landscape. Article and photos by Caroline Tully. The Path of the Godless. John Halstead interviews T J Fox on the place of a card-carrying skeptical rationalist in modern Paganism. Focus on Nature-Based Paganism So You Think You Can Dance? How, exactly, do you go about becoming an animist? Walk with Alison Leigh Lilly on a journey into connecting with all beings. With original artwork by Dan Goodfellow. From Soil to Sky: Genius Loci in Pagan Practice. In Paganism we often call on the genius loci — the spirit of a place — in our rituals. But how much time do we really spend with these spirits outside of that sacred space? Lupa describes how we can respectfully interact with these beings both in the wilderness and at home. With original artwork by Bob Cuneo. Nature, Thou Art My Goddess. Druid Nimue Brown muses “Nature is what I hold sacred. Life is where I find my sense of the divine — not something stood behind life pulling the strings, but the moment-to-moment experience, with no more meaning to it than the glorious fact that it’s all there.” Wisdom from Our Columnists Introducing our newest columnist: Ivo Dominguez, Jr. has been active in Wicca and the Pagan community since 1978 and has been teaching since 1982. He serves as one of the Elders of the Assembly of the Sacred Wheel and is the author of many books, including most recently Keys to Perception: A Practical Guide to Psychic Development (Weiser, 2017.) His new column, “Second Star to the Right,” begins in this issue. In this issue:

Raven Grimassi on the sentient spirits of the land

Archer on "awe at the edges.”

Hecate Demetersdatter finding natural magic in the city.

Jamie Della on the magic of rosemary.

Jason Mankey asks, "Are you looking for a coven?”

Diotima Mantineia offers an astrologer's perspective on Pagan holidays

H Byron Ballard proclaims herself a “dirt-hugging dirt worshiper.”

Shirl Sazynski shares Heathen workings to honor the land spirits.

Christopher Penczak asks us to find our inner Sovereignty

Our irreverent “Two Many Witches" advice column answers your question: "Should I Take Witchcraft classes?"

Plus there's more: Pagan poetry; Pagan short fiction “River Women” by Patrick Butler with original art by Tanya Stewart ; reviews, your letters in the Feedback Loop (including short articles on Heathery and celebrating Candlemas in Celtic countries) and Mark Green closes out this issue with a meditation on the path of an Pagan atheist. 88 pages, published in February, 2018.

Purchase a print copy here and an electronic PDF version here.

[lovethewildswan]

“The last thing you want to be right now is alone.”

If you wanted to make a commercial for humans’ alienatation for nature, this would be it.

I think about this blog entry a lot.

Excerpt:

The woman, enclosed in her air-conditioned capsule, made of glass and plastic and metal, talking to a disembodied voice, assuring her she is not alone.  Meanwhile, just inches away, the world is there, a world full of life, full of other beings.  Outside the hermetically sealed environment of the car, there is a real place, a place where beings live and interact.  The “no-place” is inside the car, where the woman exists, disconnected from all that life, clinging to an electronic connection to a stranger.

[lovethewildswan]

so much of contemporary Paganism seems disconnected from the here and now. All the candles and crystals, circles and correspondences, cauldrons and costumes (some of which I do like) seem like a distraction, one which threatens to draw me away from everything I recognize as pagan … … away from that quiet devoted relationship to nearby life.

John Halstead

[lovethewildswan]

I think the greatest secret of paganism is an open one. As Lester Mondale as written about the “practical mysticism” of Emerson, “far from being fogged behind seven veils of Rosicrucian obscurity and centered in the inmost sphere of taboo and sanctity,” pagan spirituality is rather “as common and yet as enigmatical as a dandelion”. It’s a secret only to the extent that we’re not paying attention.

https://humanisticpaganism.com/2019/04/22/paganism-isnt-where-you-think-it-is-by-john-halstead/

[lovethewildswan]

Personification, as the term is typically used, means ascribing human qualities to non-human nature.  But I don’t think that is what I am doing when I speak of Goddess.  Animism recognizes that the term “person” is broader than the term “human”.  Personification, then, need not mean ascribing imputing human characteristics, like consciousness, will, intention, and so on, to things that do not have these qualities.  Rather, calling something a “person” means that we can enter into a “personal” relationship with that thing.  It means that that “thing” is more than a thing — more than a dead thing, it is a living be-ing. [...] I think that being an animist must be less about the abstract ideas [...] and more something that you feel in your bones.   Spring is in full swing here in the Midwest. The dogwoods are in full bloom and their petals are heaped along the edges of the sidewalks.  The air feels thick with new life.  The birds are busy in the nest in my gazebo.  The sun is shining and a cool breeze blows through the open windows of my house.  On a day like this, it is easy to feel myself connected to, nay, immersed in, the material world.  On a day like this, it is easy to feel that the world is overflowing with other-than-human persons.  Bird persons, tree persons, and one vast Person, whose body encompasses the bright sun and the blue sky, the wind and the clouds, the soil and the grass, and the blood in my veins and the water in my cells. [...] So, for today at least, I am an animist.

John Halstead

[lovethewildswan]

… Human beings have consistently demonstrated a collective unwillingness to place the needs of our other-than-human neighbors before our own.  The only way to truly protect the river is for humans to identify with the river and to see its needs as their own.  Rather than finding the source of the river’s value in it being the home of another individual like me, I value the river because it is me … and I am it — or rather, we are both part of something else that transcends both of us. “I don’t believe we can re-enchant the world by (re-)populating it with individual gods and spirits in nature.  I think the disenchantment of the world was caused, not when we stopped seeing gods and spirits in nature, but when we stopped seeing our essential connection to nature …

John Halstead