THE WONDER: Science-Based Paganism: Recent Episodes

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https://theapsocietyorg.wordpress.com/news-and-events/suntree-retreat-2024/

Episode from 2022 Suntree: https://thewonderpodcast.podbean.com/e/live-from-suntree-retreat/

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Mark: Welcome back to The Wonder, Science Based Paganism. I'm your host, Mark,

Yucca: And I'm Yucca.

Mark: and today we have a really exciting group of people to talk about a really exciting upcoming event, which is the Sun Tree Retreat, which is the second of these retreats that we've held in person for atheopagans from all over the world who can come.

Held in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and it's going to be over Labor Day weekend this summer. So, I'd like to introduce our two panelists here, who were at the last one Rana and Michael.

Michael: Hello.

Yucca: Rana, we

Mark: I can't hear you at all.

Rana: Oh, thank you for having us.

Yucca: Welcome. And I think both of you've been on the podcast before, right? So, welcome back.

Michael: Oh, thanks. Can

Yucca: Yeah.

Michael: put that

Yucca: So let's, let's start with the, some of the details because that's coming up really soon, right? That's

Mark: It is,

Yucca: two months, which is not very long.

Mark: nope, not very long, especially if you have to get plane tickets and that kind of thing, so, Really encourage folks that want to go to get registered and get organized around it, because it's going to be a really good time. So, details. The event is August 30th, which is a Friday starting in the afternoon through noon ish or one o'clock or so 2nd.

Registration includes nine meals. As a part of your, your registration fee you also need to register for lodging, which is very affordable and you can find all the information about it by going to the Athe O Pagan Society website, which is the ap society.org, THE ap society.org,

Yucca: And the lodging has several diff oh,

Michael: notes as well for this

Yucca: absolutely, yeah, we'll put that in the show notes so that people can just go ahead and click on it. I was gonna say the lodging has several different options including tent camping, and yurt and

Mark: guest house, you're.

Yucca: I think it's dry camping, but you could, if you have an RV and you're in the area, you can do an RV too, is that correct?

Mark: Yes, there are no hookups, but but there is parking for RVs. We had a couple of people, at least one couple came last time, actually in a school bus,

Yucca: was really cool.

Mark: was converted. It was really cool.

Yucca: Yeah,

Mark: So, Michael and Rana we wanted to talk some about why this event was so cool last time and what we're looking forward to going into this next one at the end of this summer.

So why don't we start with kind of golden moments. Michael, you want to go ahead?

Michael: I wanted to just say beforehand, you mentioned the meals, and one of the high points of it was the options available. Like, every dietary requirement was accommodated, I think.

Mark: Yeah,

Michael: The catering team there are fantastic, and I think people shouldn't feel concerned about food at all because the options were great the food was really high quality I think everybody felt really good about the food, so that was an important, that was a real high point so just wanted to make sure we got that mentioned.

And,

Mark: Yeah, great. Thank you. And, and eating together was really a high point for me. Just sitting down for meals, you know, they had these round tables that I think seated eight or ten or something like that, and different combinations of people would sit together for different meals. And so we got to know one another better in those mealtimes. So that was a high point for me. Somebody want to go with another cool thing that they remember from Suntree in 2022?

Yucca: well, I remember Robin led these I'm not sure what you would really call it,

Rana: yeah, the meal acknowledgement. We have talked about them in the group, but it was really different being able to experience it together. And it was things like bringing to mind the history of our food or thinking about the systems that brought it to us today or the hands that it passed through. And we've had some discussion in Mihal's full moon.

We were doing like a full moon lunch thing for a little while as well where we kind of continued that conversation and, and thinking about that, which is something that I find really enriching and really enjoy. Also want to strongly second the dietary accommodations that they had. I really, really appreciate it because I have a little bit of an odd diet and I felt.

Really good and definitely did not lack for good options for food.

Mark: Mihal, you want to go?

Michael: yeah, what I found really interesting about the, The whole experience was how quickly we created a community in space particularly when we did our Fire Circle get togethers. And the kind of spontaneous sharing that occurred at those events was really amazing. People really just suddenly kind of created this family.

in situ and it was it was great to be part of that. Just sometimes if you go to other kind of retreats it can take a while to kind of break down those those barriers we put up. Just as just as being human but it seemed within a just a few hours we'd kind of already started to create a special Sun Tree community and I thought that was fantastic.

Mark: Yeah, I really agree with that. I mean, I've been to a whole lot of various kinds of pagan gatherings and retreats of various sorts. And it seemed as though we just kind of got at this visceral level that we were among, you know, people that were of like mind and similar values. And so that we were safe.

Right? We were all, we were all going to play nice with one another, and so we could talk about really deep stuff in our, in our lives, and in our, our experience. And I found that really moving throughout the whole long weekend. It was, it was, it came up over and over again.

Yucca: I was also really struck just by the immediate level of respect and consent that was just part of the, Everybody had going in. So I had my five year old with me and in a lot of situations in our culture, people you know, will go up and touch five year old's heads and give them hugs and, you know, all of those sorts of things.

And I remember it just being great because people automatically were so great with her about asking for her permission. Like, do you want a hug? And would you like to shake hands? And that was just the culture of it. And it was just so refreshing and wonderful to just be in that space, just from the get go.

Like

Mark: and I mean, we had, we had laid out guidelines around consent and around conduct because, you know, we wanted to be very clear about, you know, what the expectations are, but it seemed like people read them and were like, yeah, that's civilized behavior. That's how I'm going to be. And the subject Honestly, never came up.

There was never a situation where somebody felt like they had been inappropriately touched or or somehow invaded in that kind of way. And I thought that was, that was really pretty amazing.

Michael: I just wanted to talk about the actual place as well. The Retreat Center is Really, really phenomenal. There's this beautiful forest. You're kind of just on the edge of Colorado Springs, so it's not too far from any stores or anything that you might need. But once you get in there, you suddenly feel like The outside world has disappeared just in this beautiful forest really a fantastic place just to go for walks just to go into the forest by yourself if you want to go for I think one of the big highlights was that we had a lunar eclipse while we were, while we were there, and being able to all, for the whole, all of us to go out there onto this big lawn and just stare up at the, at the moon together, and people howling at the moon, it was It was just a really fantastic experience as well especially just having that, we, we had the the Ponderosa Lodge, which is this big log cabin lodge that we can use for a lot of our activities, for rituals, and for our workshops.

And that's a real, that's, that's a really nice space as well, there are different rooms, so you can kind of break off and do different things with people, or you can kind of come to the main room and have a bigger discussion. We had dance parties there, we had the Carnival of Change, which was a chance to kind of take on a different persona, like dress up.

be a different version of yourself for the evening. So I think the whole, the whole retreat center just kind of facilitates that. There's a, there's a labyrinth there as well, which we didn't really incorporate too much into any rituals the last time around, but I think we're going to try and bring that in more this time around.

Mark: Yeah, it's a beautiful spot. Rano?

Rana: Yeah, the, the shared experience of the lunar eclipse was pretty special and it, it just so perfectly aligned with what we were doing. It was the same night as the Carnival of Change and it just felt like great, like the weather cooperated and we got to see this cool celestial event. It wasn't even at a super late time, like it was, it felt like a

Yucca: like eight or nine. Yeah,

Rana: Yeah, yeah, it felt like started our evening, kind of, or, you know, it didn't, it wasn't, you know, too far on late night or anything. The Carnival of Change itself was really fun, just to be able to play dress up together and listen to some music and, and just have fun. And I also like, like Michael said being able to split off into other little rooms and areas.

It And I think for me, something that I really appreciated was the ability to have these just kind of unplanned moments where so much of our online interactions are very scheduled and it, you just show up at a certain time and there's a group of people and that's kind of mostly how it's gone. But, like, I just remember some folks were up later one night just all chatting and hanging out.

And I love that feeling of if you're up late and feeling a little bit chatty or sociable, you can just kind of see who's up and just take a seat and hang out for a bit. And that's something that otherwise has felt like not really something we have access to. So it was particularly nice just to be able to connect in a more organic way, depending on how you're feeling.

Mark: hmm. Yeah. Nihal?

Michael: Yeah I think we, there was a lot of, there's been some learnings from that event as well, and I think there, we were really concerned about accessibility this time around, because there was a lot of movement between different areas. And so this time around we are definitely going to be making it more accessible as well.

There's going to be designated drivers, so we want to make sure that everybody feels comfortable and everybody's able to take part in all the different events that we're having. So, I, I know that there's going to be a lot of more accessibility this time around, especially just in terms of shuttling people around the property.

Yucca: Because there were a few hills and we were moving from the bottom of the hill back up to the dining room and then back down.

Michael: Yes, yes, yeah, but I think we,

Mark: and we were at 7, 000 feet.

Michael: that was another, yeah

Mark: yeah one of the things that we learned from the Sun Tree Retreat in 2022 is that we had programmed a lot of the time, but some of the most memorable and wonderful moments were the unscripted times. The, the, The break periods when we could just gather together and socialize, or plan what we wanted to do for a rite of passage during the rite of passage period that we had later on, which was one of the most moving things to me.

That was really an experience. So this time we've programmed in more free time. There's still plenty of workshops and, and rituals and experiences to have, but we've made it a little bit looser so that people have opportunities just to hang out and experience the place and one another.

Michael: yeah, yeah, I just wanted to I might talk about the rites of passage a bit more because that was quite a unique experience. I guess we didn't really know how that was going to go because it's kind of like, it's a make your own ritual event, basically. You, you just DIY it with some help from some friends.

So I think people were, they had various things that they wanted to celebrate or commemorate and or mark the end of a period in their life, or the start of a period in their life. And we all came together and celebrated those those events together. And I think what was really amazing was just the creativity that people brought to their rituals.

Really very moving and even though they were very personal, I felt that We all kind of, as a community, came together and it became something for all of us.

Mark: Yeah. I felt so included in all of those rituals. I felt like my being there mattered. And even if just as a witness and that. You know, that there was room for everyone to have the kind of experience that they wanted to have. And it, and we, we ended the rites of passage with a wedding, which was sweet.

It's kind of, you know, the classic act four of the movie, right? And that was really lovely. So, I was, I was super happy with that, and we're doing that rites of passage process again this summer.

Michael: Maybe we could talk about some of the workshops that took, that people liked.

Mark: Oh, yeah.

Michael: I really, I think one of the highlights was the Cosmala workshop, bead workshop, which is basically making a bead necklace that, with each bead representing an important part of, in the life of the universe, or in your own personal life, or just various different events that you want to commemorate.

That's, that's kind of right, isn't it? Or was there any

Mark: John Cleland Host, who is our friend and a real innovator in the whole realm of naturalistic paganism, one of the earliest people to write about it in its new resurgence. He has this amazing more than a hundred bead string. Of, that all, it starts with the Big Bang and it works all the way until, at least until the Sun Tree Retreat, because he had special beads made for the Sun Tree Retreat that he distributed to people so they could put them on their own cosmola.

That was very, very cool. And some of them are signed by people like Starhawk and Jane Goodall and just really a fascinating, wonderful ritual tool and evocative piece of art.

Yucca: so there were a lot of different styles of workshops too. There was a, like a history one and there was a John did another one which was like the Wheel of the Year, which he had some really cool handouts for too for that.

Mark: We live the year for families, which I thought was really wonderful. You know, a lot of people in our community have families that they're working to build traditions with together, and so, and John has really, you know, pioneered some of that, you know, working with his, with his wife and his sons. And just had a lot of great ideas about different things he could do at different times of the year and was, you know, freely sharing all that stuff.

It was great.

Rana: There was also a group guided meditation that we did outside overlooking Pikes Peak on their big, expansive, beautiful lawn with all the ponderosa pines, which I'd never, I don't think I'd ever seen them before. I'd never been to Colorado before. And that was really lovely just to kind of take a moment to be there and be present.

And there was also a body painting. Which, I appreciated the, like, especially interactive stuff because it's something we're normally restricted about online. And I really loved Mihal's presentation about virtual meals because I think food is just such an integral way to connect with other people and you can infuse it with all this symbolism.

And it gave me a lot of ideas. I need to revisit my notes on that and thinking forward to the next one a little bit too, just that ability to share food and those meal acknowledgements really adds to that feeling of making meaning with other people and making community.

Michael: Yeah, we had a food altar as well, which was kind of cool. An abundance of food. People brought stuff to share. And I thought that was fantastic as well. Just, uh, one, one person brought some really good kimbap, which I love. So that, if you don't know what that is, it's Korean sushi, basically. And it was just really good.

Mark: Yeah, there, there was there was just a vibe of generosity and mutual support. Mutual affirmation. You know, I came away from it feeling like, you know, I've got these amazing, super cool people in my world, and they feel the same about me, and that's just good for my life, generally. Even if I'm not going to see them for a couple of years, except online, just knowing that we shared this experience together just helps me to feel affirmed in who I am and what I do.

And I, I, I think I think that was the general vibe that people got out of the event.

Yucca: That certainly was, I felt that strongly as well. I was, you know, riding that for several weeks after coming home.

Michael: Definitely an afterglow of, kind of like, hard to come down from the high of the event as well. It took a while because it was so special.

Mark: yeah, absolutely. So we want to talk a little bit about some of the offerings we're going to have this time. Some of them are repeats from last time, but some of them are new. Let me see if I can pick one. Oh, go ahead.

Michael: I was just going to say, maybe everybody's had a chance to look at the program and if you, if there's any particular highlights you want to, that you'd like to talk about that maybe you're looking forward to.

Mark: There's so many things. Um,

Michael: Well, should we talk, let's talk about the theme first.

Mark: sure, of course. That's a great

Michael: we didn't, we didn't have a theme last time, but we do have a theme this, this time.

Mark: Which is Solarpunk, a chosen family reunion. The idea being that Solarpunk being a very kind of optimistic movement for the betterment of the world, the betterment of our relationship with nature rather than kind of the doom and gloom that we, that we see everywhere around us now, Solarpunk is a, It's a genre of of writing and of art that is optimistic and looks to the future as, yes, filled with challenges, but also filled with opportunities for us to grow and change and do better.

And the chosen family reunion part is I mean, I certainly felt and I think that a lot of us felt at the last Sun Tree Retreat that these, these people were my chosen family. It was, it felt like, oh, wow, all my cousins and uncles and, and nephews and nieces have all shown up and now we're having this great sort of family hoopla together.

It was, it was great that way.

Yucca: And one of the workshops is going to be on solar punk and atheopaganism more specifically, right? That's

Mark: yeah.

Michael: Yeah, Hanna is going to be leading that one.

Mark: Mm hmm. I'm looking forward to that one as well. And of course we'll have some some elements that will be around, you know, learning how to organize rituals or to you know, to design them. Or you know, kind of learning the observational skills about getting more in touch with the processes of nature around you.

Mm hmm. That was something about the, the lunar eclipse last time that it really dovetailed with something that, that Yucca and I talk about on here all the time, which is just about, you know, paying attention, about being present and experiencing the moment and observing what's happening in nature, and That was such a dramatic event.

It really, really riveted our attention for about an hour or so.

Michael: We're bringing back the Cosmala again, because that was so popular, and I think, I'm sure that new people are going to want to try their hand at making Cosmolas.

Mark: I've never made one. I, I'm, it's an oversight. I have to do it now. Going to do a reader's theater. I'm organizing that of a reworking of the myth of Hades and Persephone and Demeter in Greek mythology. Because, even though that's a very popular myth in pagan, kind of modern pagan circles and a lot of different groups have done reenactments of the Eleusinian mysteries that enact that story, it's a pretty terrible story, really.

I mean, Hades, Hades captures the innocent daughter Kore, drags her away and makes her his wife. That's terrible. Not so cool in modern,

Yucca: way of putting it,

Mark: yes, that is a very polite way of putting it, yeah. So, so I rewrote it. I rewrote it to have a different kind of ending and a different set of teachings than the original story did.

And we're going to do a reader's theater where people who come to the workshop can pick up a script and take a part and we'll all read it together. And and it'll be fun and hopefully people will enjoy it. So that's another thing we're going to do.

Michael: Yeah, we've occasionally done death cafes online which are kind of opportunities to talk about death and, you know, I think our movement's kind of a death positive movement, and we want to kind of honor that, and so something I'm going to be leading is an Irish wake kind of experience, and, you know, at an Irish wake, it's not just mourning the dead, it's kind of celebrating life.

And kind of celebrating chaos and causing mayhem. So we're gonna have we're gonna have a bit of an Irish wake experience and I'm, people are gonna be invited to bury the things they want to bury, or remember the things they want to remember. And then we will also cause some mischief as well.

Mark: Sounds great. I'm up for all of that.

Yucca: And on Saturday, at lunchtime, we're planning to do the same thing that we did last time. to do a live podcast episode, and that may be an opportunity for folks who can't attend in person to zoom in and connect. Yes,

Mark: Yes, cross, cross your fingers for the internet connection at the Retreat Center.

Yucca: that's why we say May, we're going to try really hard, technology willing, right, Rana?

Rana: So, the last time we had Sun Tree, we hadn't yet started our adult salon. Which we recently rebranded as Adult Forum, and I'm really excited to be able to have that in person for the very first time. I've really valued it as a space to connect and share resources and share a little bit about our experiences and our lives.

And for folks that might not be as familiar with what it is, it is a peer support space to discuss adult topics openly, and it is, we consider it kind of semi structured. We usually start with a topic just as a starting point of conversation, and then we let things naturally flow depending on what the participants want to talk about, what's on their minds, can go through multiple topics in one session.

It is a confidential and non judgmental setting where we're really there to learn from each other's experiences, share our knowledge, especially if you have a range of ages. There's folks that have just lived different lives or experiences that may have things to share feel less alone. In a lot of things that we encounter in life I know.

There's a real epidemic of loneliness, especially in America, and it's something I always have felt really deeply about, but don't really know what to do about it, so I appreciate being able to be a part of this space and have this space together in order to continue that kind of connection and We're going to have a way for people to anonymously submit topics or questions while we're at the event so that the people that are there attending are really crafting what it is that we want to talk about and the topics have really ranged in the past and included things like money, relationship styles, aging, death, altered states, sexuality, and more and Yeah, I've just been really looking forward to it.

It is an 18 plus event, and I just, I can't wait to have that in, in person. I think it'll be a great version of it, just because we've always had it remote.

Mark: Yeah. Michael?

Michael: I know there's one of the FAQs we get around this is that you know, is it going to be recorded? Am I going to be able to participate online? And unfortunately, no, it's just for some of the reasons we discussed. First of all, technology, it's not always reliable, so we can't really do live stuff.

I think it's possible that some of the workshops will be recorded. That depends on the presenter. And, but we don't want to, we want to also, honor people's confidentiality as well. So it's possible that we can record some of them, but maybe some of them won't be recorded. But that's why we also offer our totally online conference every other year as well.

So if you can't make it in person to SunTree, we will be doing our web weaving online conference next year. So that is just a way of bridging that gap where if you can't make it in person, there is still an online space for you to take part in.

Mark: Right. Right. And I, and I should point out the adult forum will not be recorded. It's, it's a totally confidential, just live action space for people to, to have discussions about sensitive stuff. So you needn't worry that you're going to find yourself on the internet talking about personal things.

Yucca: Right, and for any of the presenters who do choose to have their, their presentation recorded, it would just be of them, not of the audience. So there'll be the private, privacy for the folks in the audience.

Mark: Yeah, because, I mean, there are, in our community, there are people who are You know, in various stages of outness in relation to their non theist atheopaganism, right? Some are out as atheists, but not necessarily the pagan part. Some are completely solitary in, in their You know, practice of their path, and we want to be respectful of all of that.

So, it's really important to us that people be able to participate without endangering something that, that is important to them.

Mijo?

Michael: Something that's New this time around, as well, is that we will be kind of having formal vendors. I will be sharing a sign up sheet for people in the coming days, where you, if you want to, if you've got anything you want to sell, or products or services we will have a space for you to do that.

So, if you're, it could be anything, you could be selling, selling your own craft, or, I guess, doing Readings or things like this. We'll just sign up and we'll we'll reach out to you if we need, if we have any further questions about the kind of stuff you're going to be sharing with us.

Mark: We should say, though, that, that the vending is going to be during a particular window of time at the event, because what we don't want is for a vendor to be there stuck behind a counter, and for the entire event and unable to participate in the various activities, right? Because they're part of the community and we want them in with us doing all the stuff.

So we're going to have a marketplace slot in the program, and that's when you can do your vending and, you know, promote your services and all that kind of stuff.

So what else should we say about this? I mean, we know because we've been there, it's really cool. Hope that our listeners

Yucca: to just put that out there for that part of the world. It's a nice warm time of year. Last time

Michael: Will the swimming pool,

Yucca: May, which was a little bit iffy, we got really lucky. last

Mark: we did.

Yucca: I think it started snowing right after we left,

Mark: Yeah, something like three days afterwards it started snowing at the retreat center, but that's not going to happen this time, because we're on Labor Day weekend and it should be pretty temperate and nice.

Michael: I think there's a swimming pool there as well.

Mark: Oh, that's right, it was closed when we were there before, but there is a swimming pool there. Yes,

Michael: We should double check if we have access to that, but I think we will, but we should probably double check that.

Mark: yes, that's true. Ha ha ha!

Michael: I guess you should definitely get booked in quickly if you are intending to come. Because we're, it's coming up fast. I can't believe it's only two months away, so you really need to start thinking about getting your, making your way there and booking your tickets.

Mark: Yeah, yeah it's very affordable especially when you consider that it includes nine meals and the lodging for the, the Yurt guest houses is only 75 for the entire event. So it's you know, we, we, we set price points low because we wanted people to be able to access it and we know that there are travel expenses associated.

We if you, if you want to come, but there are, you know, financial issues, we have limited scholarship support, so please contact us. You can use the the Wonder Podcast queues at gmail. com, podcast email address to contact us, and we'll get back to you about that. But we'd really encourage our listeners, you know, if you like what you've been hearing on this podcast for the last five years now come and, come and meet us.

Come and, and, you know, meet the community and, and check us out.

Michael: It was just, I don't know if I expressed how Amazing it was, but it was just such a unique, a singular event and kind of a highlight of my life, I'd really say. It was just spectacular, and I don't know if I, I don't know if I captured that before, but I just thought it was just an amazing thing to be part of.

And I think it's going to be just as amazing this time around.

Mark: Me too. Yeah. I, I, I can't wait to see you all. And and other folks that, you know, I met two years ago. I'm just, I'm so looking forward to it

rana, I

Rana: so for me, it, it really felt like coming full circle, like I'd connected with you all, and we spent so much time together during the pandemic. so much. My personal life was also going through some transition and Suntree was actually pretty emotional for me. It was good But I don't know it's a little hard to explain But it just felt like I did a lot of emotional processing while I was there But I very much felt like I was in community I was able to finally meet these people that I had connected with and So now it just feels like I have something to look forward to You going forward knowing that we're gonna do this with some regularity.

And for myself as well, it also gave me some more confidence traveling alone because I'm used to traveling with a partner if I go somewhere, especially airplane travel. And so it helped me feel a little bit more adventurous and confident feeling like I went to a state I've never been to before and met up with some people and everything went great.

Like, no, no complaints.

Mark: really felt that same sense of just really being able to be myself. And I was surprised by that because as one of the organizers last time, I thought I was kind of going to have to be on and sort of be a host. You know, for the whole weekend. And that really wasn't the case at all. I, I, I just felt like, you know, I was, I was welcomed there, warts and all, and there were plenty of other people to help.

And it was great. It was just really a good, good time. Well, listen, thank you. Oh,

Michael: Hopefully we can do the, the firewalking this time, because last time we couldn't do it because there was a burn ban, but there is potential for doing a firework walk. So people are into that, that might be available. So we'll see what happens.

Yucca: Keep our fingers crossed.

Mark: that would be exciting. I've never done that, and I'd like to try it. I don't know why I'd like to try it. I, but I would.

Michael: That's the ultimate ritual, I guess. And for anybody who's kind of, their ears are pricking up when they hear that the person leading that has got decades of experience.

Mark: Yeah. And, you know, very, very careful rules around, you know, everybody having to be absolutely sober, you know, being, you know, a lot of focus, doing this in a really sacred kind of container, so that's that's That's all to the good. Let me see. So, we're gonna put the link to the the event in the show notes.

You can go, you can read the program, you can read about the event, you can see a picture of the Ponderosa Lodge and Atheopagan Society website, there's also a gallery of photos that were taken at the last Suntree retreat. So you can take a look at that.

Michael: Could you add in the show notes as well? Could you add the episode we actually recorded?

Yucca: Oh yeah, let's link to that because we, yeah, that would be nice to go back and listen to actually. And what was it like in the moment? So that'll be in the show notes too.

Mark: yeah, yeah, I just, I just remember we're sitting there and we're talking and people would cruise up to the table glowing and sit down in front of the microphone for a little while and talk about the experience they were having and then toddle off and somebody else would come by. It was just, it was lovely. So listen, folks Sun Tree Retreat, you don't want to miss it. Please come join us, visit with us. We, we would so love to see you. And we will be back next week with another episode of The Wonders of Science Based Paganism. Thank you, Rana and Michael. Thank you for being here.

Michael: Thank you.

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Mark: Welcome back to The Wonder, Science-Based Paganism. I'm your host, Mark.

Yucca: And I'm Yucca.

Mark: And today we are talking about golden ages of the past and as well as turning to look at golden visions of the future.

Yucca: Yeah. I think this is going to be a fun one. We were saying right before we hit record, it's it's a right for tangents as well.

Mark: yes, yeah, I imagine we're gonna, we're gonna fall down some rabbit holes on this for sure. Where this originally came from was a conversation that we had in one of the atheopagan community Zoom mixers that happens on Thursday nights, and, or and Michael, who is a member of the Atheopagan Society Council, raised this as a topic and he pasted into the chat a sort of semi facetious myth That many in the mainstream pagan community seem to embrace, which is this idea that once upon a time way back before before the Bronze Age, sometime in the late Either the Copper Age or the Late Stone Age, that there were people living in Asia Minor and in Europe who lived peacefully and in an egalitarian society where that were not characterized by patriarchy and where things were very groovy.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: That patriarchy came along with these bronze sword wielding invaders and the result was militarism and class stratification and eventually the snowball that led us to capitalism and to where we are today.

Yucca: Very familiar with the story and the narrative. It pops up in a lot of different forms.

Mark: It certainly does. And it's a compelling narrative, right? Because part of what it tells us is it's not inherent in humans to be the way we are now,

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: you know, that having a male dominated society is not just a human thing, that it's A cultural thing that took over

Yucca: Mm

Mark: from something that preceded it.

And so it's understandable why that's appealing, because it offers hope, right? It says, well, we could get out from what we're in now. We could move in another direction. So, there's a lot of this backward looking, kind of nostalgic glow in these sort of root myths that inform much of modern paganism. Would you agree with that?

Yucca: I think so. And I think that there's also the more recent ideas of the unbroken line of Grandmothers practicing this witchy tradition that was secret, but it survived through, you know, all of the Christian takeover and, and all of this and that, that connects in a little bit with an idea that we have that something that's old is automatically good.

Or, automatically has more authority because it's an older idea.

Mark: Right, that it's valid, because it's persistent,

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: right, because it's lasted for a long time, it must have some kind of validity. Yeah, that's a really good point, and it's definitely something that crops up a lot in arguments about religion generally, not just about paganism or witchcraft.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: Of course, that was Gerald Gardner's story.

Right, Gerald Gardner, the creator of Wicca although he claimed that he wasn't the creator of Wicca, he claimed that he was initiated into a lineage of, an unbroken lineage extending back into the mists of time of this tradition of witchcraft.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: maybe he believed that, maybe he didn't, but it's been pretty well established that it's not true.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: there's a, there's a book by the, the, pagan and witchcraft scholar Ronald Hutton, called The Triumph of the Moon, which very thoroughly and meticulously goes over all the different threads of this and establishes there's not really much there there.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: Great book, great book, highly recommend it. So, so that's another of these, you know, these stories about antiquity.

Holding a different way of being that we, that we need to grab onto and try to work our way back to, right?

Yucca: Right.

Mark: And I was thinking about the Norse traditions, the, the heathen traditions as well. And in that case, what seems to be lionized most is Vikings, right? There's just a whole lot about Vikings.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Which I get! Very, very, like, appealing visuals, and Feelings and aesthetics, and yeah,

Mark: adventurous, and there's all these sort of macho, warlike values of honor and courage and strength and duty and all that kind of stuff that are all, you know, I mean, they're very macho, but they're, but they're, they're good

Yucca: I get the appeal. Yeah,

Mark: Yeah, I totally do, too,

Yucca: I think that those are, that those can be, can be really good values, right? I don't think we should throw the baby out with bathwater with that, but you know, there's potential with anything for abuse, but you know, those are some pretty, those have their place,

Mark: Yeah, yeah. But once again, it's rose colored glasses, right? It ignores the fact that people who went Viking, which was a verb, not a noun you know, you went Viking they were farmers most of the year. I mean, they were just working the soil like everybody else and, you know, getting food. And, you know, they were farmers and they were traders and, you know, all that good kind of stuff.

Which is, you know, a much less heroic kind of myth than, you know, paddling an open boat across the North Sea to, you know, to, to strike into foreign lands and, you know, take stuff. And I can understand why that part of the story doesn't really get included so much but here we are, we're on a tangent, right?

But still, it's about golden pasts.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: So, Michael's host, Michael's, you know, quote that he put in the chat was very thought provoking because as we learn more, it becomes pretty clear that none of these golden era of the past myths is likely to be very true. There are kernels of truth

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: them. I mean, have, have there been women that were herbalists and knew natural cures for things in an unbroken line since the time of Arwen?

Antiquity? Certainly.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Yeah, of course there have. Now, were they practicing a particular kind of religious framework around that? Probably not.

Yucca: Probably changed with the time as the society around them changed, and their view of the world changed, and, right? Yeah.

Mark: I mean, you know, it's like, did it make that much of a difference whether you invoked some goddess when you tied on a poultice or whether you invoked some saint? It, you know, it may, it may have been exactly the same thing. So, There's all this past stuff and that, that led to a very thought provoking conversation about kind of the nature of nostalgia

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: and this, this very human quality that we have of looking back on times in the past and seeing them fondly, even if they were terrible.

Yucca: Right. Even if we lived through them, or, but especially the ones that we didn't. I saw a short video recently of she looked like You know, maybe 16, 17 year old talking about how she was born in the wrong era, that she should have been from the 80s, right? And I remember, you know, being a teenager and, and the kids around me going like, Oh, we should have been hippies.

We were meant to be hippies from the 60s. And it's, I think people just do that. Yeah. Even if it's, of course, in the 90s, the 60s seemed like forever ago. Right.

Mark: Yeah it's, it's very funny. I, I mean, I was born in the early 60s, so I have, and my father was in a PhD program on the UCLA campus, so I have Other than memories of events, which I have pretty vividly, like the assassinations and

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: body counts announced on Tuesdays and Thursdays on the news, and, you know, the riots and, you know, a lot of stuff like that, but I remember going to my father's lab And all of the students that were around him, and they were all hippies, they were all, they were all dressed in that particular way because they were college students in the late 19, in the, you know, mid to late 1960s.

And there, there is, a flavor of that era that I can remember and that feels, I don't necessarily feel drawn to it, but I feel almost like it's something lost that I wish I could recapture somehow. the same thing is true of the 70s and the 80s. It gets muddy towards the 90s and later than that, and I'm not sure whether that's because we tend to have more nostalgia for times when we're younger, or whether It's because the internet came along and culture got a lot blurrier.

Suddenly, I mean, it used to be like, you can recognize music from the 70s and 80s. By the 90s, I mean, there was a swing music movement, and there was all, there was the world music movement, and there was all this, you know, sort of backward looking.

Yucca: I, I'm not sure I agree with that, because I think if I hear a 90s pop song on the radio, it instantly is, I can instantly place 90s or 2000s so that I would, I would guess that it is more of a 90s pop song. the age and how old we were when we were engaging with that, rather than becoming less distinctive.

Mark: That may very well be the case. I may simply have not been paying as much attention.

Yucca: right.

Mark: You

Yucca: Well, and just being in a,

Mark: career by that point.

Yucca: yeah, different life stage, and at least my memory of the way time has worked is, it just keeps speeding up. Right? When I was four, that a year was an eternity. A week was so long, and now I'm like, oh yeah, a year, like, you know, and I'm told it keeps getting worse. It just keeps going faster and faster.

Mark: does, and I'm not sure whether it's a function of A year being a smaller and smaller proportion of your overall life and memory, or whether it's that we get into routines that cause months to fly by at a time. I'm really not sure what that's about, but it's a little frightening how quickly the years just start to go.

And that's one of the reasons why, yeah, probably so, but that's one of the reasons why I feel it's really important to have a ritual practice to create sort of sublime moments. Either by myself or with other people, of shared observation and celebration of life. So that those, those moments stick out.

I don't look at the last year and see nothing but just going to work and doing the tasks and stuff. There are special days that, that I remember.

Yucca: I think novelty slows us down a little bit, and makes us pay a little more attention.

Mark: Yeah, yeah. That's why traveling is so wonderful, right?

Yucca: mm hmm.

Mark: everything is new. You're in a place that's unfamiliar. And you point yourself towards experiences that are going to be novel, like experiencing museums and cultural events and architecture and art and, you know, being, being in cafes and hearing foreign language around you and, you know, all the various things.

And so we tend to have much more detailed memory of times when we travel than we do when we're at home.

So, it seems kind of natural that these sorts of narratives would, would appeal to people.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: And I think that they may have been part of the appeal of paganism for some people. I mean, some people get into it for a vision of a better world.

Some people get into it for a desire for magical power. Some people get into it for a desire for connection with and reverence of the natural world, like us. And I think all of those are compelling reasons why people are attracted to modern paganism. And I'm

Yucca: combination of those things, too.

Mark: absolutely, for

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: for sure.

Yucca: I think, also, being There's also, for some people, an attraction to being different, right, wanting something that is a little counter cultural, regardless of what the specific values are, but just something different, because whatever it was that they were doing, was not working.

And so they're looking for anything that is different than whatever that was.

Mark: Yes, and, and paganism specifically works very well for those folks because they tend to be folks that don't fit in very well. And paganism is very, inclusive, by and large. It's very accommodating to people who may be neurodivergent or may be strange or may just be very unique people, right? And what I saw when I first came into paganism was that there was this celebration of the uniqueness of individuals, which is something that I have worked to carry forward in my own pagan work because I think Everybody's amazing, and they all need the opportunity to show their amazingness and to have that affirmed and lifted up.

Yucca: Yeah. Well, that's a good lead in to, to thinking about the now, and I guess the golden future, right? We're talking about the golden past. So, what about our visions for the future?

Mark: Yeah and, and I should say that I do think that a lot of these golden past narratives, whatever their factuality, I think they're a distraction.

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: if they were true, I don't think that matters very much. Because we're not then, and we're never going back then. We're only going to be here, and we're going to go forward into the future. Time doesn't work in a backwards manner, it only goes forward. So, my focus, oh go ahead,

Yucca: I, I do think though that there is some value in examining those for looking at what do we value and what do we want to bring forward. So, do we, if we're thinking about, so yes, recognizing that it's probably pretty much a myth about our, our pre Bronze Age egalitarian societies in which, War was not a thing, and there weren't skirmishes and conflict between groups.

But seeing that there is a recognizing our longing for that, I think is valuable. I think it's important to, to also recognize that that may not be factual, but that there is value in that. Mmhmm.

Mark: certainly, of that we would like to have a world in which there was peace, in which there was inclusiveness, in which there was a better human relationship with the natural world.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: And,

Yucca: hmm. Mm

Mark: and one of the things about those myths is that they tell us that it's possible because it happened in the past.

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: I just choose to believe that it's possible because I think it's, it has to be possible.

Yucca: Because we can choose to make it that way. Mm

Mark: Yes. And we have chosen as humans to go far afield of that. Even, even in some of the ways that we have really excelled and succeeded as humans, like through science. You know, the newest science is generally applied first to creating weapons.

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: It's usually applied for figuring out ways to kill people.

And that is a very, very sad commentary on the divorce between values and reason. That we have become very effective at applying our reason In problem solving and to understand the nature of the universe, but the concept of ethical constraints around that is, it's very tenuous. I mean, there is a field of scientific ethics, but I haven't seen much example of that actually applying except in the experimental sense.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: It's like, you know, no, we're sorry, you, you can't test this weird dangerous thing on live people,

Yucca: Right. Yeah, we've got our review boards that we've got to get past to be able to do human or vertebrate subjects, but that's where it pretty much ends.

Mark: yeah

Yucca: you want to do anything with an invertebrate or anything that isn't an animal, and it's, you know, there's, there's no red tape.

Mark: yeah. Yeah. So, you know, re rethinking these things in a really deep sense is important. It's really important. And immediately that makes you subject to some accusations of being very unrealistic because you're, you're thinking far beyond the bounds of what the currently constructed society can do.

Yucca: Mm hmm. Mm

Mark: And and of course also being accused of being radical, right? Because To make those changes would be a radical shift in the way humanity works. Don't think either of those accusations is very persuasive, myself.

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: I think people are so adaptable, and we have so many examples of cultures that have not been colonized by, or have only been partially colonized by, the Western mindset that has taken over virtually everything.

in the world that operate differently, that I believe we do have choices about the way that we go forward.

Yucca: Mm hmm. Mm

Mark: And it starts with values. It starts with making decisions about what we consider to be sacred and what we consider to be worthy. And where we draw ethical lines around not doing things that we can do, but we really shouldn't.

Yucca: hmm. Yeah, agreed.

Mark: Because there's an awful lot of stuff that we do that we really just shouldn't do.

Yucca: Yeah. Can and should. Those are two different things. Yeah.

Mark: And there is a terrible tendency, and I mean, we see this in children. Given the opportunity to make something go boom,

Yucca: Oh, not just children.

Mark: Yeah, I know, everybody likes to make something go boom. It's it can be really fun. But when the implications are, you know, environmental devastation and, and loss of lives we really need to resist that urge to make things go boom.

Yucca: Yeah, we need to maybe get that out of our systems when it's, you know, little pop cans with and vinegar and baking soda and things like that and not do it with, you know, People and buildings and mountains.

Mark: And cities, and yeah,

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So that's what I think. I think that this vision of the future starts with ideas that are around values, rather than structures. But in order to get those values really to propagate in a mass sense, it is going to take some major structural overhaul of the way humanity operates.

And fundamental to that is we have to find an alternative to capitalism that works better for the planet. I think one thing that would help a lot, Would be if there were something, and I am, I'm just sort of spinning and talking while I'm thinking here, so maybe I'll end up in something really stupid, but I think international shipping is a big problem. For one thing, it causes a tremendous amount of of carbon into the atmosphere, just astronomical amounts of pollution.

Yucca: Right. And so many other things. I mean, our, I think that decentralizing a lot of that would be really, really helpful.

Mark: I agree.

Yucca: you know, just the supply chain things that have happened over the last few years is just the tip of the iceberg with that. But if we could, return a lot of our means for survival to be in our own hands, in a more local setting, I think that that would be incredibly powerful because on so many different levels, one, just the practical, if something happens, then so many people are without a paddle, right?

But also, it's really easy to control people when you control their ability to survive. you Other means to survive, right? Yeah.

Mark: the exploitation of cheap labor facilitated by international shipping because producers can go shopping for the most destitute people they can find, pay them as little as they possibly can in order to produce consumer goods that then get shipped back to rich countries where people pay for them. And I mean, That's, that's not just a horror story, that is the standard operating procedure of manufacturing in the world. That's, that's, that's the way it is.

Yucca: That's the origins of most of the objects around you right now. For most people, I don't know, some of you might be actually out you know, sitting in a tree with just your phone and some earbuds in. If so, that sounds awesome. But I'm guessing most people listening right now are probably in a constructed environment.

In your car, in your house, you know, in a bus, something like that.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Yucca: So

Mark: And there's nothing wrong with that, and I want to be very clear, I'm not shaming people

Yucca: we're in the same boat,

Mark: Yeah, I mean, we all have to live, you know, we're talking on computers here I've got headphones on that I am absolutely certain were made in China by someone who was not paid nearly enough for the service of having created this product.

Myself, as, you know, similarly a wage slave in capitalism If that person was actually paid a reasonable wage, I might not have been able to afford these headphones, right? So the whole system reinforces itself, and no one is innocent, and no one other than the decision makers on this are really guilty.

Yucca: Mm hmm. I'm

Mark: You know, we, we all, we're all doing the best we can, given the system that we have, but that system needs to shift, unless we just decide we're gonna eat up the world and go extinct.

Yucca: not so fond of that,

Mark: I'm not either, I, that's just, you know, as, as golden futures go, that's really not one for me.

Yucca: this is a topic that we did do several years back at this point. We did talk about misanthropy and I do see a a strong tendency of that in our culture today. Which is, I find, very saddening. But I, other than I don't agree with that from a value perspective it's very, it's very counterproductive.

It really doesn't help us solve any of these problems, to be really down on, well, we should go extinct, it would be better for the, for everybody, or for the rest of the world, or, you know, all of that. It just, I don't think that, I don't buy that. I think it's not a very strong argument. It's kind of a, it's a cop out.

Mark: Yeah, I was gonna say I agree with you, I, I don't have much truck with that either, and I think it's intellectually lazy.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: I think it's just, oh, there's a huge complicated problem, I don't want to think about it, maybe let's just go extinct. and, and it's a very uncompassionate, non empathetic way of looking at humanity and at, you know, The crises that we confront and I hope to do better than that and I think that we collectively can do better.

Yucca: I think so. And I think it relates to our ability to choose what we are going to focus and pay attention to. And I think that's some of what we were talking about before about the nostalgia. When we're in that, we're focusing on just specific aspects of the past. Right? That nostalgia for the 60s in the hippie era.

Well, there was a lot of things that really sucked about that, right? But when we're longing for it, we're not longing for the war and the turmoil and all of that. We're longing for the parts that were really positive about it. And so we, we have the ability to really shape the way That we behave in the world based on what we focus on.

Not that we shouldn't pay attention to that, we certainly should pay attention to the negative things, but do we focus on solutions to those things? Or do we focus on the misery of how bad it sucks to be human? Yeah, enduring those things.

Mark: Right. Right. Yeah, that's exactly right. And one of the things that I find increasingly frustrating is, is that tendency to simply say, well, we're screwed. And so let's stop trying.

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: Now, trying is going to involve some dislocation because capitalism gives us lots of goodies. It's totally unsustainable, but it gives us goodies that if we were to move into a sustainable modality, we probably wouldn't have nearly as many of.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: But the odds are good that we would actually be significantly happier because Instead of filling our desire for happiness and for satisfactions with the purchase of things, we would have stuff like culture and community and relationships and, and, and celebration like Pagan celebrations around the year, that kind of stuff.

Spirituality art. All of those things that really are shunted to the side by the capitalistic frame, which is that all of those things, because they can't be monetized very well, aren't very important.

Yucca: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. And so the challenge is moving out of that structure in a way that doesn't cause harm as we do it.

Mark: Or the, the, the so called soft landing. You know, there are so many indicators that point towards some kind of collapse or crash coming not very long from now between climate change and and various economic indicators and so forth. You know, it is likely that there is going to be some real privation in our future, but

Yucca: And there is. There is.

Mark: he will, and there already

Yucca: future. I think that there's a lot of places that we can point to in this moment and go, right here, here, here, here.

Mark: Right, yeah, I mean, any Appalachian town that had the top of its mountains shaved off by a coal mining company, and then, which then marched off to, you know, do its next project in Brazil and left all those people with no work in a destroyed environment, I mean, that's a microcosm right there of exactly what capitalism does.

And we need to have a more For want of a better word, holistic understanding about economic development. Economic development needs to be something that benefits people in the ways that most matter, and it is sustainable over time, rather than this endless boom bust thing that we see so often through capitalism.

Yucca: Well, I think remembering the root of that word is helpful in this. The echo is home. That's what the word means, is home. So it remembering that everything that we're doing, we are doing, To our home,

Mark: Mm hmm.

Yucca: so,

Mark: Mm hmm.

Yucca: which we are part of,

Mark: Right.

Yucca: right? A home isn't just a house. A home is the people and the culture in that house.

Right. It's all of the structures that the people depend on, that they're part of.

Mark: And a part of the way that we can start pointing in this direction, I think, is through media. Because people need You know, we're so disconnected now. I mean, let me speak for myself and what I see around me in American society, right? People are very disconnected. They're often disconnected from their own families. Because of the nature of the job market under capitalism, families are atomized to the far corners of the world.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: As people seek jobs and go and work it becomes very hard for people to build communities because they're moving around looking for economic opportunities.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: And they're working themselves to death so they don't have a lot of time to build community and relationships and culture and all that kind of stuff.

So I do feel that getting some of those warm, fuzzy, kind, empathetic values out into media is a way to kind of start the process. Mean, I can think of a couple of examples that just sort of reminded me of. Oh yeah, people can be kind to one another, people can, people can love one another, people can accept one another for who they are.

And one of them is the Australian slash adults animated series, Bluey.

Yucca: Absolutely.

Mark: Yeah, I mean, as a mom, you, you know about Bluey,

Yucca: Oh, I absolutely do. The parents in our household will be watching it, and the kids have left the room. It's a great, yeah, it really hits home. Very sweet.

Mark: It's very kind and very thoughtful, and It's the kind of thing that, that moves the sorts of emotions that I think we need to be fostering more. You know, there's so much stuff out there that's all sort of, you know, post apocalyptic, war like, you know, blockbuster drama, and superhero vigilantes, and all that kind of stuff, and I just think people need to be reminded of how good it feels to be kind.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: the other one that I was thinking of is sensate. Did you ever see sensate?

Yucca: No, I'm not familiar with this one.

Mark: It's the word sense and then the, the letter, the, the numeral eight.

Yucca: Okay.

Mark: And you have to trust it because you won't understand what's going on until about three episodes into the series. It has Daryl Hannah in it and a bunch of people that I didn't know. But it's beautifully done. It's super queer, so it's very inclusive in that kind of way. And wonderful. It's done by the By Lana and the people who did The Matrix, Warszawski's, I, I, it's a, it's a long, seemingly Polish or Czech name that I, that I believe begins with a W. And both of those sisters are trans. When they made The Matrix they hadn't transitioned yet. So, interesting storytelling, interesting world perspective, just really worth checking out.

Yucca: hmm. I've written that one down. I'm guessing that's not something you can watch with a five year old in the room.

Mark: Probably not, no, there's, there's some sex in there, and,

Yucca: wait for after bed.

Mark: yeah and when they announced that it was cancelled, there was such an outpouring of, of rage that they made a movie to wrap it up, so that, there, the, I think it's two seasons and then the movie.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: It's either two or three seasons and then the movie, but anyway, yeah, worth, worth checking out because once again, it's like, oh, cool, interesting, unusual people being happy with each other.

This is great. And, and it's a, it's a dramatic story. It's got tension. It's got conflict. It's got, you know, intrigue and all that good kind of stuff. It's not just people standing around being happy with one another, which unfortunately is not entertaining.

Yucca: Yes. Although I wish that there maybe was some of that out there. Because sometimes that's what I, that's what I need to watch,

Mark: yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. It's yeah, it's a funny thing. It's like, media can be like a companion in some ways, but what it reflects back to us can be really impactful on our worldview and on our feelings. And so getting, you know, getting a lot of the cruelty and, coldness out of what we consume.

And building a market for that more kind, inclusive, warm human kind of way of being, I think is one of the things that we can do to start to shift things in the world.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: And then of course there's activism. I mean, you need to, you need to just advocate that people not be exploited. That the planet not be exploited.

And,

Yucca: And of course, our, our everyday, just the way that we move through the world, right, working on ourselves about the kindness that we bring to the world, or don't bring to the world with us,

Mark: Yes, yes. And that's particularly hard right now, actually, with the cultural divide in the United States, at least, where the rhetoric is so vitriolic. And

Yucca: both sides,

Mark: both sides, it really is.

Yucca: demonization that happens, it's hard to breathe sometimes with

Mark: It is. Well, and, you know, a lot of that is inspired by leader figures. I mean, there's, there's a lot that can be laid at the feet of Donald Trump simply for how abusive he's willing to be to other people. And people see that and say, Oh, well, then I can do that too.

Yucca: right?

Mark: It's, it's just

Yucca: And I don't think it's a conscious process, for the most part. I don't think people actually say those words in their mind, to themselves, but that that is the takeaway, again, across the board, right? Not pointing to one aisle or the other, that that's, you That's a, it's something that's grown, at least my awareness of it has grown in the last few years.

I think that it's something that's not just my awareness, I think that's a trend that has really really spread.

Mark: Yes

Yucca: and I think some of that is enabled by the systems that we have. Especially with format that social media has right now. And I think social media can, can take different forms, but the form that it has right now is very, is about creating the us versus them mentality, because that's what gets the clicks and that's what gets the advertising dollars.

Mark: Yes. Yes, and to be honest, if it were not for the fact that the atheopagan community spaces are online social media spaces, mostly. I wouldn't be on them at all. I, I know that Facebook does bad things to me. I, I can tell that Facebook is doing bad things to me, and I can tell by the way the algorithm curates my feed that it's trying to rile me up, it's trying to get me mad.

I get this endless stream of, like, right wing Christian stuff.

Yucca: Well, because you look at it.

Mark: Well, even if I don't interact with it, it's

Yucca: but it sees how long you are, even if you don't click on it, it sees how long you stay over that page. So the, if you just keep scrolling past it, don't look at it at all, it won't give it to you as much. But it sees that you linger for that half a second on it, and then it'll give you more the next time, because it worked.

Right? And that, that is a content that, it doesn't actually look at what the content is, it looks at whether you engage with the content or not.

Mark: This is why I love groups, because there are no ads in groups.

Yucca: You can just go right in. Yeah.

Mark: in and you see the posts that people have made in the groups, and that's it. The, the curated feed is something that I try to avoid as much as possible. And, I mean, I used to use Twitter for rapid news, but now that's turned into a cesspool.

I'm not, not gonna

Yucca: Oh, I would say that it always has been. It's had some rough times recently, but it's It's definitely a model for all of that. Yeah. And of course, I mean, it's, each of the platforms have their, their issues. But, well, this has actually been a huge tangent. We we left the golden golden age topic half an hour ago, right?

Mark: Well, what would that golden age look like? To me, the balancing act there, the place where I won't go is the so called dark green resistance. direction. There's a book called Dark Green Resistance and it's, it's very problematic in a number of ways, one of which is that it's extremely ableist. It basically declares that industrialization is, and, and the products of industrialization are things that we're going to have to give up in order to get into sustainability.

And so basically everybody who's disabled and needs that support or needs, you know, prescriptions or whatever that is, they

Yucca: So the, the folks who rely on insulin or other things like that, too bad.

Mark: They can just, too bad. They're, they're, they're washed out. And so I find that very offensive and, and unproductive. I think, and unrealistic, to be honest, because the fact is that people,

Yucca: We're not going to do that,

Mark: no. People do, they, you know, these are family members, they're people that we love. We're not going to do that, and we're not going to let it be done to ourselves, either.

Yucca: Yeah,

Mark: So Me

Yucca: I, I really dislike the framing of the nature versus humanity,

Mark: too.

Yucca: right? That's just so unproductive because we are, we're part of, we're part of all of it and we have to take care of us to be able to take care of the whole system. Because,

Mark: And, and I have another tangent, which is that our, that that conceptualization of the separation between nature and humanity actually informs some of the early environmental laws that we have in this country, like the Wilderness Act that was approved in 1964. Which discusses in its preamble the idea of lands untrammeled by man, which,

Yucca: except that we've been here for 30, 000 years. Thank you very much.

Mark: In a completely racist way erases the presence of native people here for that entire time.

Yucca: who have been actively managing that there isn't any news. Maybe some areas in Antarctica. But other than that, there's, there's no land on Earth that we haven't actively been managing for thousands of years.

Mark: That's right.

Yucca: That's not, yeah.

Mark: Yeah, that's right. And there is still a divide within the environmental community between those who. are apoplectic that the National Park Service might allow these little tiny anchors to be pinned into rock so people can climb, because it's, it's inserting human technology into nature.

And people who are much more reasonable, who understand, climbers are some of the best environmentalists there are. They love the outdoors, they love the wild, they love the wildlife, they, they, they donate, they, they volunteer, they vote, they do all the things that we need to do for our environment. And you're gonna, you're gonna tell them to get lost because they because you're upset about a totally invisible thing way up high on a rock face?

I just, it's, it's, it ain't right.

Yucca: Right. And there's a lot of other examples, you know, we can choose different fields for that. But that's definitely one of the ones that's like, really? That's, that's, that's, that's, That's the, okay,

Mark: yeah, that's, that's the hill you're gonna die on.

Yucca: what you're going to fight with? Okay. Yeah, because it's, okay, full disclosure, I am a climber, so, but but that's not even like arguing about roads, which you could have the argument of if they're improper, if they're not put in right, then you get erosion and trickle down effects from, like, problems with that.

But yeah,

Mark: there's a lot to be said for roadless areas. When the roadless area policy was implemented under Bill Clinton, it did some very good things for some large, unsegmented

Yucca: absolutely,

Mark: of wildlife habitat.

Yucca: yeah. So, I see a lot of problems that have been created by roads. As a restoration ecologist, when I go in, that's one of the first things that we see is, oh, I haven't even walked up that way yet, but I know that there's a road that way. Right, so it's, it's something that, I just brought that up as something that I could see why people would be arguing against a road, but why somebody's going to argue against the little piece of metal in the, the rock all the way up there,

Mark: makes no sense whatsoever.

Yucca: most of the time you don't even know is there unless the person is actively climbing, right?

Yeah.

Mark: Yeah, exactly so. And, I mean, there, as you say, there are other examples of this as well. I mean, the, the terrible wildfires that ran through the Giant Sequoia National Park.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: killed 20 percent of the giant Sequoia trees. And the reason that that happened was because fire suppression practices for a century had built up fuels such that when fire finally went through there, the temperatures were so high that these giant trees were killed. So the

Yucca: catastrophic fires. Yeah.

Mark: because there wasn't beneficial fire, which is a natural part of the landscape and has been used by Native people to manage land for thousands of years. But that's what happened. Big catastrophic fire, a lot of the trees died. National Park Service decided, okay, well in order to help offset this, We need to plant some giant sequoias.

We, you know, we need to propagate and then plant some giant sequoias. The same gang that I'm talking about, organizations like Wilderness Watch, went ballistic. No. You have to leave it alone. Wilderness is, is just that. You, you must, you can't touch it. You can't do anything to it. It must just be left to do whatever it's going to do, which on rangelands means you're going to end up with a whole bunch of invasive non natives,

Yucca: You starve, you starve it. That's how you turn a range into a desert, is by fencing it off, because our grazers are gone,

Mark: mm hmm.

Yucca: right? And if you fence that off, and we don't have any grazers, it can't, you have just disrupted resource cycling. Right? You can't get nutrients into the soil. You're gonna get, you're gonna kill all your grasses, and yeah, you just end up with invasives.

And then, you end up with bare, you end up with dirt.

Mark: With bare dirt, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, this is, and I'm sure we can come up with myriad examples of this, but these are a couple of examples that have come up in the course of my work. And it's very frustrating because everybody involved in these conflicts wants to be doing the right thing, but some of them have some very strange criteria for what that is. And,

Yucca: Well, and

Mark: you know, I go back to, let's go with the science, let's go with what's practical, let's go with, let's, and, and particularly, to my mind, when we are still, especially in the West, having ongoing conflicts over whether nature is to be rendered into marketable resources.

or allowed to flourish as nature. Surely we need to do something so that the people that care about that will continue to care about it, right? There's, there's a very human component to all of this.

Yucca: That, those of us who are, embedded into these ecosystems as part of them and rely on them for our survival, that we are, that we're not left out of that, right? Because one of the problems that happens in my state a lot is that there's a real disconnect between the urban and rural, Communities, and the urban communities will have louder voices often, and will make choices for how, what they think is good for the land, forgetting that, like, yeah, but then we have no, like, then we're going to freeze to death this winter.

If you, if you say that we can't cut any firewood, we're going to freeze. Like, you can't survive in this climate if you don't heat your homes, and great, you've got propane. You don't have to even think about it because you've got natural gas and propane and all that in your city, but, you know, we still need to cut down a couple of trees each year.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah

Yucca: so it's a, it's, it gets very, very complex. Emotions get high with that stuff.

Mark: for sure. Yeah, so as I said, this is a big, long tangent, and I knew that it was gonna be, but it's, it's important. It's an important topic, and one that, that conservationists, We struggle with, you know, we struggle with one another about it. We sue on opposite sides of, you know, of these issues. And I don't have any, you know, quick simple answer for that, but it goes to this idea about what is the golden future.

If the idea of the golden future is that, Nature is a park with fences around it. That's, you know, with, you know, all the abundant wildlife and sparkling springs and all that kind of stuff. That's not a realistic future vision. not how those things work,

Yucca: and then we all live in that Wall City

Mark: right?

Yucca: But yeah. I think that whatever the future ends up looking like, that critical examination and reflection is, is really, I think that that's, that's key. That we not only be able to look at ourselves, but be able to look at our society and look at what, and examine what is it that we want, and how do we work towards that, instead of just sort of, just hitting the ground running and just going with whatever's happening, right?

Mark: and especially what produces quarterly profitable returns.

Yucca: Right? Because that, I mean, that doesn't take very much thought to realize some of the problems with that. Yeah,

Mark: And there are things that we could do, there are policy things that we could do, that would make a huge difference in this. If, if legally you could not sell a stock for two years after you bought it, the economy would utterly transform. Because suddenly, The health of the, of the operation itself, and then of course you layer on environmental responsibility, social responsibility, governance responsibility, the so called ESG that the right wing is freaking out about if, if you put it that way.

Corporate behavior in a frame like that, and make sure that people who invest are actually investing long enough that it, that they actually care about the performance of the company, you will have enterprises that actually succeed instead of simply cranking out something and then, you know, people can dump the stock,

Yucca: mm hmm.

Mark: and they will behave in a much more responsible fashion. So, there's, there are a lot of things we could do, there are a lot of things we could do. And we're not doing them, yet.

Yucca: The fact that they're there is something that I find very hopeful,

Mark: Mm hmm.

Yucca: right, that there are things that, that's just one solution, right? And if there's one solution, how many others are there, right? So,

Mark: Yeah, and far smarter people than me are, are, they're working on this stuff. They're, they're trying to figure out what kind of a, a system we could have. One of the challenges that I have in reading some of that stuff is that it's often very academic and, and Disconnected from the realities of the world because I'm a politics guy, right?

I'm a, I'm a, I'm an implementation guy. I, I want to see how does your idea, how does that get traction and move forward in our society?

Yucca: mm hmm.

Mark: But those are answerable questions in many cases. I think that golden future can happen, and it won't be golden all the time. That's,

Yucca: just like everyday life,

Mark: yeah,

Yucca: right? Yeah,

Mark: but we can certainly build a world that is much kinder.

Much more inclusive, much more sustainable, and where people are a lot happier than they are under capitalism, because capitalism makes misery.

Yucca: For most people.

Mark: Except for a very tiny elite.

Yucca: Even then, those folks don't look very happy.

Mark: They don't.

Yucca: They look terrified, and you can see them going crazy. So, it doesn't, it really doesn't, what we've got going on now, and I don't know if maybe there are some elements of capitalism that are things that, there's some positive elements that we could move forward with and other things we don't want to, but what we've got going on isn't working for most people.

Mark: That's right.

Yucca: So, I think we need to look, to really look at what do we want to move towards instead, and how to build that. And I don't think that we're, personally, I don't like the tearing everything down, because I think a lot of people get hurt in that process. I think it's something that we need to work towards in a, to transform.

not to try and destroy and rise out of the ashes because that rarely ever works. There's quite a few countries to take a look at where that, in recent history, where that's been disastrous. That's not how it, you know, people

Mark: Usually what it gets you is some kind of strong armed dictator who, It promises people that they'll be safe.

Yucca: So, how do we make these changes in a way that supports and nurtures as many people along the way as possible?

Mark: That is the problem before us. It is.

Yucca: And it's worthwhile. It's I'm grateful that that's something that we get to think about. Mm

Mark: you know, I really am too. And we're, we're at a moment in human history where I don't believe it's too late, but we're definitely talking about the big picture now. we're going to make decisions that are going to impact the big picture in a significant way. And it's kind of meaningful to be alive at this time and to have a role in advocating for the kinds of values and, and ethics and behavior that we want to see.

Yucca: Yeah, and getting to, to choose that, right? Mm hmm. I

Mark: I mean, there are a lot of people that don't have a lot of choice about the circumstances of their lives and they aren't good circumstances, but they don't have a lot of choice about that. And they just have to keep repeating the same thing over and over and over in order to barely eke out an existence. It's a privilege to be able to work at a different level than that where you can hopefully have some traction on the future. So you were right. We had a lot of tangents.

Yucca: was gonna say, I loved it. This is great. Lots to think about. So, thanks for a great discussion, Mark,

Mark: Yeah, thank you. Really enjoyed it. Let us know what you think, folks. The Wonder Podcast, queues at gmail. com. That's The Wonder Podcast, all one word, and then the letter Q and the letter S.

Yucca: and we'll see you next week.

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Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com

This big eclipse post has nearly all the links: https://naturalisticpaganism.org/2024/02/24/just-44-days-to-the-eclipse-finalize-those-plans-now-heres-a-ritual-too/#more-23086

Including these links: *Naturalistic Pagan Spiritual Pilgrimages

*Eclipse timer app

*Eclipse parties

*Google map

*Location idea links

*Fully prepared Ritual

*How to make a Cosmala

**Eclipse Portals + other info at this link: https://naturalisticpaganism.org/2024/03/25/what-are-eclipse-portals-heres-how-you-can-create-one-yourself/#more-23247

**Cloud cover forecast – check a day or two before the eclipse: https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2024/03/29/cloud-cover-eclipse-forecast-maps-cities/

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Mark: Welcome to The Wonder, Science Based Paganism. I'm your host, Mark,

Yucca: And I'm Yucca,

Mark: and it's equinox time again. Time for that holiday that's at the midpoint between the dark of the, the dark side of the year and the light side of the year and for many, the coming of spring or the height of spring. And we're going to talk about all that stuff and how you practice rituals around it and what it means to us.

Yucca: that's right. So, happy spring! Or autumn, depending on where you're listening from.

Mark: Depending on where you're listening from, and as I understand it, Yucca, it is snowing where you are.

Yucca: It happens to be snowing today, yep.

Mark: happy hope of spring.

Yucca: Yes, it has sounded like spring, and it has felt like spring. It's just today it decided it was not. Not quite there. So, but it's a wet snow too, so it's not, it's not gonna stick around. It's

Mark: Huh.

Yucca: as soon as there's any sun, it'll be gone. But yeah, how about for you?

Mark: Oh, it's a beautiful day. It's going to be in the mid 70s today. And clear skies with some nice puffy clouds. We, here, the daffodils are already finished.

Yucca: Oh, mine are just poking up there a few inches, starting to grow out of the ground right now. Okay,

Mark: different, different climates we're in. Yeah, so it's been, you know, we have a number of fruit trees around the neighborhood that are blooming right now, and

Yucca: no more frosts for you at this

Mark: no, I don't think so. I'd be very surprised if we had any more frosts.

Yucca: Okay, so it's, it's spring for you. You're into spring. It's not hints of spring, it's spring itself.

Mark: Right, well, that's why on my Wheel of the Year, I call this holiday High Spring. Because spring, where I am, because we have a climate so moderated by the Pacific Ocean it, we get the earliest wildflowers around the end of January. And, you know, acacia trees bloom in the, in February, and that's when daffodils start coming up.

And tulips, which never bloom unless you take them out and put them in the freezer and then put them in. Again and hyacinths and all those kinds of nice things. We have a hyacinth bulb blooming in our living room right now, making the whole house smell delicious.

Yucca: Oh, lovely.

Mark: yeah. Yeah, that was a score from Trader Joe's, amazingly.

They had these little, little jars that had a receptacle in the top to hold a bulb. And the, the bottom part is filled with water, and so the roots grow down into there. So, You know, you take it home and a day later or something, because they've just removed it from refrigeration, it sprouts a big spike and leaves and blooms and it makes a beautiful smell.

Yucca: Do you get to see the roots?

Mark: Yes, yeah, it's a clear glass, yeah, it's a clear glass container, so you see the roots going down. Yeah, yeah.

Yucca: Yeah. Well, this year, the, the Equinox is early. Now, of course, it's not that it's actually early, it's just that our calendar doesn't quite line up with the actual orbit of our planet, but it's, in my time zone, it'll be on the 19th,

Mark: Ours too,

Yucca: in the, yeah, so for folks who are in Europe and further east, it'll be the early morning of the 20th, but for those of us in North America, it'll It's the evening of the 19th already, so,

Mark: right.

Yucca: yeah,

Mark: and I mean obviously the main reason for that is the leap year. The ex the extra day that got inserted into the calendar in order to make things work out. But I mean, sometimes the Equinox is as late as the 21st.

Yucca: 22nd

Mark: yeah, sometimes the early, early hours of the 22nd as well. So this is an early one that lands on Tuesday.

But as with all things, I just tend to celebrate about a week of the season.

Yucca: around, yeah, and it interestingly is not technically the day of equal daytime and nighttime.

Mark: right.

Yucca: There's actually another word, which is equilux, Which is great, all of these fun words, right? Equinox is equal night, right? Nox, noche, but lux is for light. And that's going to depend on your latitude, but that's usually a few days before.

I actually haven't looked up when it is for, for, okay.

Mark: where I am.

Yucca: Okay, so Paddy's day then.

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: All right. Yeah.

Mark: record this

Yucca: so, and that's gonna depend on, and there's, you can look up some of the cool reasons for why that is, it's based on, you know, sunrise starts at the moment that the disk of the sun starts to appear above the horizon, where a sunset isn't until it's all the way, and then your latitude and the curving of the light as it goes through our atmosphere.

So. It's not perfect, but what the equinox itself is, when the ecliptic and the equatorial planes, this is the moment that they overlap. So that's why we can have an actual, say that it's night, I don't remember exactly, it was 9. 07 or 9. 08 or something like that, PM.

Mark: yeah, I think 9 0 7. Where you are in 8 0 7. Where I am.

Yucca: Yeah, where there's an actual moment that we say, ah, This is the moment.

Mark: Yes.

Yucca: And my family will set, I haven't set it yet, but we'll set the alarm and when it goes off, we'll all put our hands in the air and go, woo! And then go back to what we're doing. So I'm pleased that it's not two in the morning because then it's wake everyone up at two in the morning and go, woo!

That happens sometimes with solstices or equinoxes, so, yeah.

Yeah, go ahead.

Mark: yeah, let's, for sure, let's, let's dive into it. What does it mean to us? What are the sort of metaphorical meanings that we apply to this time of year? What are the rituals that we, that we use? What do we call it? I think is a good place to start. What do you call this holiday, Yucca?

Yucca: So normally just the equinox for us or its first spring because that's kind of, I mean, that's what it is, right? So we don't have another name for it other than, yeah, it's the equinox, it's first spring. I know that in some, some traditions people use Ostara or things like that, but that name has never really clicked for me.

Mark: It's, it's a completely mythical name. It was mentioned by the, the Christian monk Bede in the 9th century, and that is the entire evidence for even the existence of a goddess named Ostara. Much certainly nothing associated with this holiday particularly, so the whole thing is really pretty sketchy.

Yucca: hmm. And

Mark: So,

Yucca: what is it for you?

Mark: I call it High Spring

Yucca: High spring. That's right.

Mark: because for us that's what it is here. You know, what'll happen now, the hills are a really deep emerald green right now. that will lighten up and then eventually all fade to a gold color by about June ish. We had a really wet winter this year, so it may take a little bit longer, but typically by by the, the solstice, it's all gone yellow and it's time for summer.

Yucca: And for your wheel or arc of the year, what is this holiday?

Mark: Oh, where I map a human life?

Yucca: Yeah,

Mark: cycle on to the, the wheel of the year. This is grade school kids. It's not infants and toddlers, but children, you know, prepubescent children.

Yucca: childhood, kind

Mark: childhood.

Yucca: right? Because when you get into teens, they're, they're not grown ups yet, but it's not childhood anymore at that

Mark: No, they're closer to young adults, really. They're, they're, they're adults in apprenticeship doing, making lots of changes and, and learning how to be adults. and hopefully their brains develop. Vast enough that they don't kill themselves in the process.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: Yeah, so, so this holiday is typically associated with childhood.

And there are a lot of sort of kids activity things that we've done for celebrations of this holiday before. We've had gatherings where we invited people to come and play children's games and drink lemonade and, you know, stuff like that.

Yucca: Mm

Mark: and And, you know, the association with dyed eggs and, you know, candy and things like that is also a real kind of childlike thing, so we've, we've incorporated some of that stuff as well.

Yucca: hmm. Okay. Yeah, so there's, this is one of the holidays that for some people, they do associate with, with Easter, right, because they're, there's some similarities in terms of time of year, they're a little bit farther apart from each other than say, the solstice and Christmas, or Holidays and so on. Samhain, but is there a, or Halloween other than like the dyed eggs and candy, is there any connection for you there?

Or are they kind of like two separate things that just happen at the same time of year?

Mark: my understanding of it runs kind of like this. I think the candy came a lot later, and it was originally in the shape of eggs.

Yucca: Mm

Mark: But dyeing eggs is a very, very old practice in Europe the spring. And there are all kinds of folk traditions about it. Have one of the beautiful Ukrainian pysanky eggs that are just, they're so magnificent.

I don't know how anybody's hand is that steady to do that incredible. Yeah,

Yucca: Nowhere near.

Mark: neither. It's, it's really astounding. We have a goose egg, actually, that's a Posanky egg. It's a really, it's a nice big one. The those traditions go back many, many years. And a lot of those designs are spring designs.

They're, you know, flowers coming up and chickens laying eggs and birds and things like that that are associated with the springtime. So I think the association of eggs with this time of year is because they were the first real protein source

Yucca: Will

Mark: come along after the winter, and then you have lambs it's, it's sort of like the February holidays where you're really kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel of what you've got stored for the winter.

Yucca: Yeah. Well, and who's being, what animal's being born? It's going to depend so much on the species and your climate. Whereas the eggs have a lot more to do with the light than they do with the temperature. So here, The chickens are starting to lay their eggs again. They did a little bit throughout the winter.

But they're probably doing the same thing where you live, even though where you are, it's been warmer for months than it is here. But it's actually about the light signals, not about the temperature signals.

Mark: Yeah. And I just learned today, actually, that there are plants for which the temperature is. The, the signal is the temperature and then there are others for which the signal is the light. Both of those exist. I, I, I knew that, you know, with certain bulbs, you refrigerate them in order to get them to bloom and things like that.

But I never really put it together that it was about temperature signaling rather than light signaling until today.

Yucca: it depends on the species,

Mark: Right, right.

Yucca: And then, you know, how deep the seed is going to be versus not and all of that. Yeah.

Mark: So birds birds do migrate back up north. Many of them quite early in the year. I mean, there's still snow on the ground and stuff for, for a number of them.

And And they start building nests and laying eggs. And people, you know, being protein seeking animals went and would find them and would dye them and so forth. And then, of course, we had domesticated chickens and so

Yucca: birds for a long time at this point, but I mean, the kind of wheel of the year that we talk about is based on agricultural society's wheel of the year, right? And so we've had, you know, we've had these animals living and partnering with us for thousands of years. And sometimes it, depending on where you were, maybe it wasn't chickens, maybe it was pigeons, maybe it was, you know, Whatever the particular animal was, but that's pretty common across much of the temperate world.

Mark: Mm hmm. Yeah,

Yucca: yeah.

Mark: yeah, so, I mean, my feeling is not that the association with eggs and candy comes from Easter, it's more that Easter glommed on to

Yucca: What was happening anyways?

Mark: were already happening and they got folded up with one another and so that's what we have now. So that's why I feel, you know, perfectly comfortable with dyed eggs being a part of my, my spring celebration thing.

It's also just fun to do and it's really fun to do with natural dyes.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: You know, onion skins and cabbage leaves and beets and all that kind of stuff. It's really, really a fun thing to do. Takes longer. You got to soak stuff overnight in order for it really to take the dye. And don't forget that little splash of vinegar that It interacts with the calcium carbonate of the shell and helps to set the dye in the shell. So, so yeah, it's just, it's a fun thing to do, but it traditionally, at least in my life, it's been associated with a childhood activity, something that parents do with children. And so that fits in perfectly with the theme of childhood for, for this holiday as well.

Yucca: Nice. Yeah, for us, Easter is a totally separate thing. Like, it just happens to happen sometimes nearby, right? Because it's, it's it's lunar based, right?

Mark: After the, after the first full moon of the equinox, I believe.

Yucca: Yeah, so, so it moves around. This year, it, we just looked it up, it's the 31st of March this year. So, anyways, but they will go and they have a grandmother, my kids do, that they will go and do an Easter egg hunt with, right? And I pretty much don't participate in anything Easter other than, Mom, look at the chocolate that we got!

Oh, okay. Great chocolate. But, but this time is really about the birds and the egg layers for

Mark: hmm.

Yucca: So we actually have a lot of feathers that over the years we've collected, you know, dozens and dozens of feathers and we like to string them on thread and then you can hang them up around the house. So we have the feathers that are in the windows and.

Mark: Nice.

Yucca: And at the moment we don't have any chickens. Plan to again, we had, we had some bear issues in our neighborhood last year, which delayed the return of chickens for us, but our one of our neighbors does so the kids can go over and actually feed them. find the chicken eggs and that's really fun for them.

But it's also the, the migrating birds are starting to come back and through. And it just, it sounds, it sounds like spring out there. There's certain birds that are coming back. We still won't get hummingbirds for a few weeks, but we won't get our, our last frost won't come till mid May. Right, we'll still be freezing every night until, All the way into May.

So, but there's still birds that are coming back and, and you can start to see hints of colors on some of the males coming in, and there's just so much more activity. So, one of our, I mentioned it on here before, but one of our very favorite things to do is to make comments. Bye. feeders for them

Mark: hmm.

Yucca: to put seed out and water in particular in our yard.

And that's one of, that's my oldest job. She goes out and cleans the water dishes every day and fills up the new water. But what we like to do is take pine cones, and we have lots of different kinds of pines. We've got like the big ponderosa pines, we've got the little pinyon pines, and string them And dip them in, we usually use lard and then put different kinds of seeds on them and maybe some mealworms and things like that and hang it out in the trees.

Because this is a, the next few months is the time that they really need that extra support for breeding and egg laying and raising little chicks and all of that. So, and then When they have eaten everything away, we just have pinecones hanging in our trees, and that's lovely. And it's, you know, it's not like having some piece of plastic or something that's

Mark: Right.

Yucca: but it's a really fun activity to do.

And you can use, there's, you know, you can use different options with peanut butter and things like that, but you just have to really watch the ingredients on. What you're actually putting in

Mark: Huh.

Yucca: for your, for your different area and what, because sometimes there's some pretty sketchy ingredients that they put into that stuff.

Mark: Wouldn't surprise me. Yeah. You know, I don't like any of that adulterated peanut butter. I just like peanuts and salt.

Yucca: Mm

Mark: Um, that's, that's what I always go with, and I think some of that is that the quality of the peanuts is higher.

Yucca: Mm

Mark: I, I think the, the sort of, you know, organic, natural, whatever you want to call it, peanut butter, is made with better roasted peanuts, and they, they just taste better.

Yucca: hmm. That wouldn't surprise me. Yeah, it's not something that we buy particularly often, but I remember you know, reading warnings about, hey, watch out, there's, there's What was it, erythritol, that a lot of them are using now, that that's really toxic for dogs,

Mark: Ah.

Yucca: that people have often given their dogs, like, their pills or medicines and a scoop of peanut butter and they're saying, watch out because, you know, Like, you're giving them these little doses of this chemical that is, seems okay for humans, as far as we can tell, but not so good for the dog's digestive system.

And then, you know, you want to watch out with stuff like that for, for other creatures as well. So, just, you know, do your research on what ingredients you're putting in.

Mark: Speaking of which one thing that's very popular for this time of year is lilies. Calla lilies, regular lilies, all that kind of stuff. Very toxic for cats. Very, very toxic for them. Yeah.

Yucca: as well, but cats in particular will go up and go, I'm gonna chew on your houseplant.

Mark: Right. And no, you don't want that at all.

Yucca: Yeah.

That's a, yeah, that's a good thing to remember. Because they come in those beautiful bouquets that you get this, and faces and all of that this time of year.

Mark: Yeah. I just got a bunch of pink lilies. And none of them had bloomed yet, they were all just sort of in that pod kind of shape

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: but they've all bloomed now, it happened very suddenly, and so there's this big bouquet of beautiful pink flowers, large flowers, and

Yucca: cats, right?

Mark: yes, so they're up on a shelf and they're away from where the cat can go and all that kind of stuff,

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: yeah.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So, ritually, what do you like to do this time of year?

Yucca: Yeah, this is still in that time of year where there's, things are getting going, starting there's a, You know, they're finally warm enough to kind of get out and do a little bit that we weren't before and I am also right now, personally, this is not every year, but I am in full nesting instinct because I am due with a baby later this year, and the nesting is hitting so strong that, that the normal spring cleaning that people do, like, take that and ramp it up, like, 10 times is what I'm doing right now but normally this time of year is just a very It's got that spring cleany kind of feel to me, and so a lot of the personal work and sort of rituals that I'll be doing have to do with that.

But I don't have anything that is set the same way I do for other times of year. Like, I don't have like a A specific holos, like I have a holos, for instance ritual that I do for myself. I don't really have something like that for this holiday. And that might change over time, but it's just, there's so much going on.

Mark: Huh.

Yucca: Just, it does, it does, it's happening, it doesn't feel like I even need to mark it because it's just so there.

Mark: Got it. Got it. Yeah. I like to do the colored eggs and the and things like that. To, you know, put the, Symbolic colored eggs like wooden painted eggs and things like that on my focus. But I don't have a regular ritual that I do for the equinox either. What we discussed in the Saturday Atheopagan Zoom Mixer this morning for our ritual that we're going to do next week, we're going to do the surface tension experiment.

Yucca: Ooh, okay. Mm hmm.

Mark: because this is a time when there's transition between The dark of the year and the lighter half of the year. So there's this, this moment where the membrane gets broken. And so we're going to have colored water, just sort of like colored eggs, but colored

Yucca: yeah.

Mark: Yeah. And lay something very light, like a needle or something like that on top of the water for the, for the.

Surface tension

Yucca: So you're gonna have water in a bowl?

Mark: in a bowl or, or in a glass, something like that. Yeah. And then at the appropriate magical time, during the ritual, we will put a little drop of soapy water in and boom, the surface surface tension dissolves, and the needles will hit the bottom of the glass.

Yucca: That's wonderful. We did that with paperclips

Mark: Huh,

Yucca: Those are a good one because they have the, they're narrow, but then they're wide, so you get that nice,

Mark: right. That's actually a good idea. Maybe I'll use a paperclip instead. Yeah, because they've got that wide area so they sort of support themselves better on the surface membrane. Yeah, so we're going to do that and then have celebratory food and all that good kind of stuff like you do on days that are special.

Yucca: like that. Yeah.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. And it's the kind of thing that you do with kids, right? Is, you know, to do, to teach them about surface tension, you do this little experiment thing. So.

Yucca: Another great one is if you have a coin and a dropper, so you can add drops of water onto the coin one at a time, and it makes a little bulb of water on it, and then you get to the point where it can't hold it anymore. How many drops can you get onto the coin before it bursts?

You can get a lot. You can get it stacked up real high.

Mark: bet. Yeah. Especially because there's that little ridge

Yucca: along the

Mark: around the edge of the coin. Yeah.

Yucca: can experiment with different kinds of, you know, is your dime versus your penny or your quarter, or do you have a euro or some coin from another place that you can try? Those are, I

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: could imagine doing something like that with the colored water too.

Mark: Huh. Yeah. Yeah you could do like blue water and dripping red, red water so that it turns it purple.

Yucca: and mix it? Yeah.

Mark: Very, very transformational, yeah.

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: I, before, before we close I wanted to announce something for our listeners who live in the San Francisco Bay Area, or near enough to get there if they want to. I have organized a book launching party.

Yucca: Oh, great.

Mark: It's happening at a community space called Kinfolks, all lowercase k i n f o l x which is a African American owned business and community space in downtown Oakland, California, and this will be on Saturday the 13th of April from 3 to 6 p. m., and I will be promoting it on Facebook and Discord and Thank you.

Bye. All that good kind of stuff, but mark your calendar, because you know, I'll, I'll do some readings, and I'll sign books, and all the usual book launch party things, so come and have a glass of wine, or a coffee, or a juice, or something like that, and And come and help me launch this book.

I'm excited about it.

Yucca: That sounds fun.

Mark: Yeah,

Yucca: you got a place for it too.

Mark: me too. First place I approached. They just, you know, they got back to me right away. They just seemed really nice and really easy to work with. And the space was available that day.

Yucca: Fantastic.

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: Well, wonderful. Well, thank you, Mark. Happy spring. Happy Thai spring, equinox, all of those good things.

Mark: And happy first spring to you.

Yucca: Thank you. And thank you everyone for joining us. We will see you next week.

Mark: Yeah. Have a good one, everybody.

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Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com

----more----

Mark: Welcome to The Wonder, Science Based Paganism. I'm your host, Mark,

Yucca: And I'm Yucca,

Mark: and it's equinox time again. Time for that holiday that's at the midpoint between the dark of the, the dark side of the year and the light side of the year and for many, the coming of spring or the height of spring. And we're going to talk about all that stuff and how you practice rituals around it and what it means to us.

Yucca: that's right. So, happy spring! Or autumn, depending on where you're listening from.

Mark: Depending on where you're listening from, and as I understand it, Yucca, it is snowing where you are.

Yucca: It happens to be snowing today, yep.

Mark: happy hope of spring.

Yucca: Yes, it has sounded like spring, and it has felt like spring. It's just today it decided it was not. Not quite there. So, but it's a wet snow too, so it's not, it's not gonna stick around. It's

Mark: Huh.

Yucca: as soon as there's any sun, it'll be gone. But yeah, how about for you?

Mark: Oh, it's a beautiful day. It's going to be in the mid 70s today. And clear skies with some nice puffy clouds. We, here, the daffodils are already finished.

Yucca: Oh, mine are just poking up there a few inches, starting to grow out of the ground right now. Okay,

Mark: different, different climates we're in. Yeah, so it's been, you know, we have a number of fruit trees around the neighborhood that are blooming right now, and

Yucca: no more frosts for you at this

Mark: no, I don't think so. I'd be very surprised if we had any more frosts.

Yucca: Okay, so it's, it's spring for you. You're into spring. It's not hints of spring, it's spring itself.

Mark: Right, well, that's why on my Wheel of the Year, I call this holiday High Spring. Because spring, where I am, because we have a climate so moderated by the Pacific Ocean it, we get the earliest wildflowers around the end of January. And, you know, acacia trees bloom in the, in February, and that's when daffodils start coming up.

And tulips, which never bloom unless you take them out and put them in the freezer and then put them in. Again and hyacinths and all those kinds of nice things. We have a hyacinth bulb blooming in our living room right now, making the whole house smell delicious.

Yucca: Oh, lovely.

Mark: yeah. Yeah, that was a score from Trader Joe's, amazingly.

They had these little, little jars that had a receptacle in the top to hold a bulb. And the, the bottom part is filled with water, and so the roots grow down into there. So, You know, you take it home and a day later or something, because they've just removed it from refrigeration, it sprouts a big spike and leaves and blooms and it makes a beautiful smell.

Yucca: Do you get to see the roots?

Mark: Yes, yeah, it's a clear glass, yeah, it's a clear glass container, so you see the roots going down. Yeah, yeah.

Yucca: Yeah. Well, this year, the, the Equinox is early. Now, of course, it's not that it's actually early, it's just that our calendar doesn't quite line up with the actual orbit of our planet, but it's, in my time zone, it'll be on the 19th,

Mark: Ours too,

Yucca: in the, yeah, so for folks who are in Europe and further east, it'll be the early morning of the 20th, but for those of us in North America, it'll It's the evening of the 19th already, so,

Mark: right.

Yucca: yeah,

Mark: and I mean obviously the main reason for that is the leap year. The ex the extra day that got inserted into the calendar in order to make things work out. But I mean, sometimes the Equinox is as late as the 21st.

Yucca: 22nd

Mark: yeah, sometimes the early, early hours of the 22nd as well. So this is an early one that lands on Tuesday.

But as with all things, I just tend to celebrate about a week of the season.

Yucca: around, yeah, and it interestingly is not technically the day of equal daytime and nighttime.

Mark: right.

Yucca: There's actually another word, which is equilux, Which is great, all of these fun words, right? Equinox is equal night, right? Nox, noche, but lux is for light. And that's going to depend on your latitude, but that's usually a few days before.

I actually haven't looked up when it is for, for, okay.

Mark: where I am.

Yucca: Okay, so Paddy's day then.

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: All right. Yeah.

Mark: record this

Yucca: so, and that's gonna depend on, and there's, you can look up some of the cool reasons for why that is, it's based on, you know, sunrise starts at the moment that the disk of the sun starts to appear above the horizon, where a sunset isn't until it's all the way, and then your latitude and the curving of the light as it goes through our atmosphere.

So. It's not perfect, but what the equinox itself is, when the ecliptic and the equatorial planes, this is the moment that they overlap. So that's why we can have an actual, say that it's night, I don't remember exactly, it was 9. 07 or 9. 08 or something like that, PM.

Mark: yeah, I think 9 0 7. Where you are in 8 0 7. Where I am.

Yucca: Yeah, where there's an actual moment that we say, ah, This is the moment.

Mark: Yes.

Yucca: And my family will set, I haven't set it yet, but we'll set the alarm and when it goes off, we'll all put our hands in the air and go, woo! And then go back to what we're doing. So I'm pleased that it's not two in the morning because then it's wake everyone up at two in the morning and go, woo!

That happens sometimes with solstices or equinoxes, so, yeah.

Yeah, go ahead.

Mark: yeah, let's, for sure, let's, let's dive into it. What does it mean to us? What are the sort of metaphorical meanings that we apply to this time of year? What are the rituals that we, that we use? What do we call it? I think is a good place to start. What do you call this holiday, Yucca?

Yucca: So normally just the equinox for us or its first spring because that's kind of, I mean, that's what it is, right? So we don't have another name for it other than, yeah, it's the equinox, it's first spring. I know that in some, some traditions people use Ostara or things like that, but that name has never really clicked for me.

Mark: It's, it's a completely mythical name. It was mentioned by the, the Christian monk Bede in the 9th century, and that is the entire evidence for even the existence of a goddess named Ostara. Much certainly nothing associated with this holiday particularly, so the whole thing is really pretty sketchy.

Yucca: hmm. And

Mark: So,

Yucca: what is it for you?

Mark: I call it High Spring

Yucca: High spring. That's right.

Mark: because for us that's what it is here. You know, what'll happen now, the hills are a really deep emerald green right now. that will lighten up and then eventually all fade to a gold color by about June ish. We had a really wet winter this year, so it may take a little bit longer, but typically by by the, the solstice, it's all gone yellow and it's time for summer.

Yucca: And for your wheel or arc of the year, what is this holiday?

Mark: Oh, where I map a human life?

Yucca: Yeah,

Mark: cycle on to the, the wheel of the year. This is grade school kids. It's not infants and toddlers, but children, you know, prepubescent children.

Yucca: childhood, kind

Mark: childhood.

Yucca: right? Because when you get into teens, they're, they're not grown ups yet, but it's not childhood anymore at that

Mark: No, they're closer to young adults, really. They're, they're, they're adults in apprenticeship doing, making lots of changes and, and learning how to be adults. and hopefully their brains develop. Vast enough that they don't kill themselves in the process.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: Yeah, so, so this holiday is typically associated with childhood.

And there are a lot of sort of kids activity things that we've done for celebrations of this holiday before. We've had gatherings where we invited people to come and play children's games and drink lemonade and, you know, stuff like that.

Yucca: Mm

Mark: and And, you know, the association with dyed eggs and, you know, candy and things like that is also a real kind of childlike thing, so we've, we've incorporated some of that stuff as well.

Yucca: hmm. Okay. Yeah, so there's, this is one of the holidays that for some people, they do associate with, with Easter, right, because they're, there's some similarities in terms of time of year, they're a little bit farther apart from each other than say, the solstice and Christmas, or Holidays and so on. Samhain, but is there a, or Halloween other than like the dyed eggs and candy, is there any connection for you there?

Or are they kind of like two separate things that just happen at the same time of year?

Mark: my understanding of it runs kind of like this. I think the candy came a lot later, and it was originally in the shape of eggs.

Yucca: Mm

Mark: But dyeing eggs is a very, very old practice in Europe the spring. And there are all kinds of folk traditions about it. Have one of the beautiful Ukrainian pysanky eggs that are just, they're so magnificent.

I don't know how anybody's hand is that steady to do that incredible. Yeah,

Yucca: Nowhere near.

Mark: neither. It's, it's really astounding. We have a goose egg, actually, that's a Posanky egg. It's a really, it's a nice big one. The those traditions go back many, many years. And a lot of those designs are spring designs.

They're, you know, flowers coming up and chickens laying eggs and birds and things like that that are associated with the springtime. So I think the association of eggs with this time of year is because they were the first real protein source

Yucca: Will

Mark: come along after the winter, and then you have lambs it's, it's sort of like the February holidays where you're really kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel of what you've got stored for the winter.

Yucca: Yeah. Well, and who's being, what animal's being born? It's going to depend so much on the species and your climate. Whereas the eggs have a lot more to do with the light than they do with the temperature. So here, The chickens are starting to lay their eggs again. They did a little bit throughout the winter.

But they're probably doing the same thing where you live, even though where you are, it's been warmer for months than it is here. But it's actually about the light signals, not about the temperature signals.

Mark: Yeah. And I just learned today, actually, that there are plants for which the temperature is. The, the signal is the temperature and then there are others for which the signal is the light. Both of those exist. I, I, I knew that, you know, with certain bulbs, you refrigerate them in order to get them to bloom and things like that.

But I never really put it together that it was about temperature signaling rather than light signaling until today.

Yucca: it depends on the species,

Mark: Right, right.

Yucca: And then, you know, how deep the seed is going to be versus not and all of that. Yeah.

Mark: So birds birds do migrate back up north. Many of them quite early in the year. I mean, there's still snow on the ground and stuff for, for a number of them.

And And they start building nests and laying eggs. And people, you know, being protein seeking animals went and would find them and would dye them and so forth. And then, of course, we had domesticated chickens and so

Yucca: birds for a long time at this point, but I mean, the kind of wheel of the year that we talk about is based on agricultural society's wheel of the year, right? And so we've had, you know, we've had these animals living and partnering with us for thousands of years. And sometimes it, depending on where you were, maybe it wasn't chickens, maybe it was pigeons, maybe it was, you know, Whatever the particular animal was, but that's pretty common across much of the temperate world.

Mark: Mm hmm. Yeah,

Yucca: yeah.

Mark: yeah, so, I mean, my feeling is not that the association with eggs and candy comes from Easter, it's more that Easter glommed on to

Yucca: What was happening anyways?

Mark: were already happening and they got folded up with one another and so that's what we have now. So that's why I feel, you know, perfectly comfortable with dyed eggs being a part of my, my spring celebration thing.

It's also just fun to do and it's really fun to do with natural dyes.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: You know, onion skins and cabbage leaves and beets and all that kind of stuff. It's really, really a fun thing to do. Takes longer. You got to soak stuff overnight in order for it really to take the dye. And don't forget that little splash of vinegar that It interacts with the calcium carbonate of the shell and helps to set the dye in the shell. So, so yeah, it's just, it's a fun thing to do, but it traditionally, at least in my life, it's been associated with a childhood activity, something that parents do with children. And so that fits in perfectly with the theme of childhood for, for this holiday as well.

Yucca: Nice. Yeah, for us, Easter is a totally separate thing. Like, it just happens to happen sometimes nearby, right? Because it's, it's it's lunar based, right?

Mark: After the, after the first full moon of the equinox, I believe.

Yucca: Yeah, so, so it moves around. This year, it, we just looked it up, it's the 31st of March this year. So, anyways, but they will go and they have a grandmother, my kids do, that they will go and do an Easter egg hunt with, right? And I pretty much don't participate in anything Easter other than, Mom, look at the chocolate that we got!

Oh, okay. Great chocolate. But, but this time is really about the birds and the egg layers for

Mark: hmm.

Yucca: So we actually have a lot of feathers that over the years we've collected, you know, dozens and dozens of feathers and we like to string them on thread and then you can hang them up around the house. So we have the feathers that are in the windows and.

Mark: Nice.

Yucca: And at the moment we don't have any chickens. Plan to again, we had, we had some bear issues in our neighborhood last year, which delayed the return of chickens for us, but our one of our neighbors does so the kids can go over and actually feed them. find the chicken eggs and that's really fun for them.

But it's also the, the migrating birds are starting to come back and through. And it just, it sounds, it sounds like spring out there. There's certain birds that are coming back. We still won't get hummingbirds for a few weeks, but we won't get our, our last frost won't come till mid May. Right, we'll still be freezing every night until, All the way into May.

So, but there's still birds that are coming back and, and you can start to see hints of colors on some of the males coming in, and there's just so much more activity. So, one of our, I mentioned it on here before, but one of our very favorite things to do is to make comments. Bye. feeders for them

Mark: hmm.

Yucca: to put seed out and water in particular in our yard.

And that's one of, that's my oldest job. She goes out and cleans the water dishes every day and fills up the new water. But what we like to do is take pine cones, and we have lots of different kinds of pines. We've got like the big ponderosa pines, we've got the little pinyon pines, and string them And dip them in, we usually use lard and then put different kinds of seeds on them and maybe some mealworms and things like that and hang it out in the trees.

Because this is a, the next few months is the time that they really need that extra support for breeding and egg laying and raising little chicks and all of that. So, and then When they have eaten everything away, we just have pinecones hanging in our trees, and that's lovely. And it's, you know, it's not like having some piece of plastic or something that's

Mark: Right.

Yucca: but it's a really fun activity to do.

And you can use, there's, you know, you can use different options with peanut butter and things like that, but you just have to really watch the ingredients on. What you're actually putting in

Mark: Huh.

Yucca: for your, for your different area and what, because sometimes there's some pretty sketchy ingredients that they put into that stuff.

Mark: Wouldn't surprise me. Yeah. You know, I don't like any of that adulterated peanut butter. I just like peanuts and salt.

Yucca: Mm

Mark: Um, that's, that's what I always go with, and I think some of that is that the quality of the peanuts is higher.

Yucca: Mm

Mark: I, I think the, the sort of, you know, organic, natural, whatever you want to call it, peanut butter, is made with better roasted peanuts, and they, they just taste better.

Yucca: hmm. That wouldn't surprise me. Yeah, it's not something that we buy particularly often, but I remember you know, reading warnings about, hey, watch out, there's, there's What was it, erythritol, that a lot of them are using now, that that's really toxic for dogs,

Mark: Ah.

Yucca: that people have often given their dogs, like, their pills or medicines and a scoop of peanut butter and they're saying, watch out because, you know, Like, you're giving them these little doses of this chemical that is, seems okay for humans, as far as we can tell, but not so good for the dog's digestive system.

And then, you know, you want to watch out with stuff like that for, for other creatures as well. So, just, you know, do your research on what ingredients you're putting in.

Mark: Speaking of which one thing that's very popular for this time of year is lilies. Calla lilies, regular lilies, all that kind of stuff. Very toxic for cats. Very, very toxic for them. Yeah.

Yucca: as well, but cats in particular will go up and go, I'm gonna chew on your houseplant.

Mark: Right. And no, you don't want that at all.

Yucca: Yeah.

That's a, yeah, that's a good thing to remember. Because they come in those beautiful bouquets that you get this, and faces and all of that this time of year.

Mark: Yeah. I just got a bunch of pink lilies. And none of them had bloomed yet, they were all just sort of in that pod kind of shape

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: but they've all bloomed now, it happened very suddenly, and so there's this big bouquet of beautiful pink flowers, large flowers, and

Yucca: cats, right?

Mark: yes, so they're up on a shelf and they're away from where the cat can go and all that kind of stuff,

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: yeah.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So, ritually, what do you like to do this time of year?

Yucca: Yeah, this is still in that time of year where there's, things are getting going, starting there's a, You know, they're finally warm enough to kind of get out and do a little bit that we weren't before and I am also right now, personally, this is not every year, but I am in full nesting instinct because I am due with a baby later this year, and the nesting is hitting so strong that, that the normal spring cleaning that people do, like, take that and ramp it up, like, 10 times is what I'm doing right now but normally this time of year is just a very It's got that spring cleany kind of feel to me, and so a lot of the personal work and sort of rituals that I'll be doing have to do with that.

But I don't have anything that is set the same way I do for other times of year. Like, I don't have like a A specific holos, like I have a holos, for instance ritual that I do for myself. I don't really have something like that for this holiday. And that might change over time, but it's just, there's so much going on.

Mark: Huh.

Yucca: Just, it does, it does, it's happening, it doesn't feel like I even need to mark it because it's just so there.

Mark: Got it. Got it. Yeah. I like to do the colored eggs and the and things like that. To, you know, put the, Symbolic colored eggs like wooden painted eggs and things like that on my focus. But I don't have a regular ritual that I do for the equinox either. What we discussed in the Saturday Atheopagan Zoom Mixer this morning for our ritual that we're going to do next week, we're going to do the surface tension experiment.

Yucca: Ooh, okay. Mm hmm.

Mark: because this is a time when there's transition between The dark of the year and the lighter half of the year. So there's this, this moment where the membrane gets broken. And so we're going to have colored water, just sort of like colored eggs, but colored

Yucca: yeah.

Mark: Yeah. And lay something very light, like a needle or something like that on top of the water for the, for the.

Surface tension

Yucca: So you're gonna have water in a bowl?

Mark: in a bowl or, or in a glass, something like that. Yeah. And then at the appropriate magical time, during the ritual, we will put a little drop of soapy water in and boom, the surface surface tension dissolves, and the needles will hit the bottom of the glass.

Yucca: That's wonderful. We did that with paperclips

Mark: Huh,

Yucca: Those are a good one because they have the, they're narrow, but then they're wide, so you get that nice,

Mark: right. That's actually a good idea. Maybe I'll use a paperclip instead. Yeah, because they've got that wide area so they sort of support themselves better on the surface membrane. Yeah, so we're going to do that and then have celebratory food and all that good kind of stuff like you do on days that are special.

Yucca: like that. Yeah.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. And it's the kind of thing that you do with kids, right? Is, you know, to do, to teach them about surface tension, you do this little experiment thing. So.

Yucca: Another great one is if you have a coin and a dropper, so you can add drops of water onto the coin one at a time, and it makes a little bulb of water on it, and then you get to the point where it can't hold it anymore. How many drops can you get onto the coin before it bursts?

You can get a lot. You can get it stacked up real high.

Mark: bet. Yeah. Especially because there's that little ridge

Yucca: along the

Mark: around the edge of the coin. Yeah.

Yucca: can experiment with different kinds of, you know, is your dime versus your penny or your quarter, or do you have a euro or some coin from another place that you can try? Those are, I

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: could imagine doing something like that with the colored water too.

Mark: Huh. Yeah. Yeah you could do like blue water and dripping red, red water so that it turns it purple.

Yucca: and mix it? Yeah.

Mark: Very, very transformational, yeah.

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: I, before, before we close I wanted to announce something for our listeners who live in the San Francisco Bay Area, or near enough to get there if they want to. I have organized a book launching party.

Yucca: Oh, great.

Mark: It's happening at a community space called Kinfolks, all lowercase k i n f o l x which is a African American owned business and community space in downtown Oakland, California, and this will be on Saturday the 13th of April from 3 to 6 p. m., and I will be promoting it on Facebook and Discord and Thank you.

Bye. All that good kind of stuff, but mark your calendar, because you know, I'll, I'll do some readings, and I'll sign books, and all the usual book launch party things, so come and have a glass of wine, or a coffee, or a juice, or something like that, and And come and help me launch this book.

I'm excited about it.

Yucca: That sounds fun.

Mark: Yeah,

Yucca: you got a place for it too.

Mark: me too. First place I approached. They just, you know, they got back to me right away. They just seemed really nice and really easy to work with. And the space was available that day.

Yucca: Fantastic.

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: Well, wonderful. Well, thank you, Mark. Happy spring. Happy Thai spring, equinox, all of those good things.

Mark: And happy first spring to you.

Yucca: Thank you. And thank you everyone for joining us. We will see you next week.

Mark: Yeah. Have a good one, everybody.

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https://www.llewellyn.com/product.php?ean=9780738775364

Season 5 - Episode 7

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Yucca: Welcome back to The Wonder, Science Based Paganism. I'm your host, Yucca.

Mark: And I'm Mark.

Yucca: And today, we have an episode I'm actually really quite excited for. It's going to be a little bit different. Mark, you have a book coming out in less than a month. So, yes, at long last, and we're going to talk a little bit about that.

So I'm going to ask you some questions, and hopefully this is something that our listeners are going to be really interested in. So, can you Tell us what, what book.

Mark: Well, the book is called Round We Dance, Creating Meaning Through Seasonal Rituals, and it's coming out from Llewellyn. It'll be released on April 8th which is also the day of the eclipse, the solar eclipse that's happening here in North America. And

Yucca: Get your glasses,

Mark: yes, get your

Yucca: of totality, you'll still be able to see it if you're in the lower 48.

Mark: Yep. Yeah. I have already gotten my glasses. In fact, I ordered them after the last time we talked about this. So, that's, that's the book. It's kind of a follow on book to the Atheopaganism book in some ways. But it's also meant for a broader audience.

Yucca: Okay, so it's not branded specifically as atheopagan, but is it, it's branded as pagan in general? Do you say that's

Mark: Well, it's, it's, it's not even really branded as pagan in general. Now, in the text of the book, I talk about Atheopaganism. And it's values and practices and ideas among other things. But the book itself is really intended for anyone who doesn't have a spirituality in their life right now and really wants one.

You know, for, for folks, for example, who belong to the so called nuns. The, the people that express no religious affiliation, maybe they've left Christianity or Islam or, um, or they're, they're just atheists or agnostics many of those folks who come into our community, the atheopagan community find that they're, they want something that gives their life a sense of meaning and a sense of connectedness to what's happening here on earth and in the universe.

In some cases, they want to have a value set that they can impart to their children,

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: You know, and ritual practices that they can conduct with their families. This book is for those folks.

Yucca: Okay.

Mark: You know, basically, it's a book for anybody who wants to develop a ritual practice.

Yucca: Mm. And what about people who They already identify maybe as atheopagan and are just getting started or looking to deepen their practice

Mark: Oh, for sure. Yeah, this, this book, it'll, it'll serve as a great resource for folks like our listeners. Who you know, they have you know, it's like we have the equinox coming up right now, right? So, you know, you can turn to the section about the spring equinox in the book and get some ideas for themes and ritual activities, recipes, craft projects And that's true of all of the Wheel of the Year celebrations.

It's true of all of the Rites of Passage. So it, it really goes into some, some degree of extensive coverage of different ritual techniques and reasons for having rituals.

Yucca: hmm. So this sounds a lot more like a how to book than your first book, right? The first book you were really digging into the, the what and the sort of intellectual side of things. What's this all about? And this is the how to practice. Mm

Mark: That's right. The first book was mostly an idea book. It essentially told the story of how I had gone through, An internal exploration about, you know, what is a religion, and how can I get the benefits of religion without having to believe in the supernatural? You know, how could that work? And then the second part of the book, the first book was about describing atheopaganism as one implementation of a non supernatural religious path.

That was focused on the, on the earth. This book is much more, as you say, a how to. It gives lots of examples and and it also talks about, you know, crafting your own individual rituals, ritual skills, like we talked about last week, a week before last. Talks about you know, personal rituals for your, for yourself when you need them, when you want to be confident or you want to be focused, those kinds of things you know, what, what some folks in the pagan community might call spells as well as the seasonal and rites of passage celebrations.

Yucca: Great. So how is this structured? Because I've heard you talk about different holidays. Is it based on the wheel of the year? Or do you have a larger structure around that?

Mark: There are sections that are about each of those areas. It starts out with kind of an idea section that's called a primer, and it's, talks about what spirituality is and why people have it and about rituals and then it goes into the basics about developing rituals and developing a practice for yourself.

And different skills and art forms and so forth that can be used in the course of a ritual practice. And then the second part is about rituals in practice. Occasions for celebrating. Some of those are on the calendar. They're seasonal things. Some of them are like stations in life, particular passages that we make in our lives.

There's a section on working with the dead and dying. Personal and healing rituals, building community for sharing rituals and then about just living a life that's consistent with the spiritual practice that's described here in very broad strokes, because everybody's going to have their own implementation of this, right?

It's, this isn't a dogma book this is, this is a book of examples and ideas. To help inform people as they craft their own individual practice. And then the last section is called resources. And that is your craft, your recipes, guided meditations, recommended ritual music glossary, a bibliography, those kinds of things.

Yucca: Fun. Okay.

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: Yeah,

Mark: Yeah. So there's, there's, there's quite a lot to it. I'm really very proud of this book. I think it came out very well. And and I've been waiting forever for it to come out. Working with a publishing company working with Llewellyn has been great. Let me say my editor has been great. And, you know, the marketing people and all those folks have been really great.

But still working with a publishing company is a lot slower than self publishing.

Yucca: right.

Mark: know, once you've got a manuscript and you've got it all laid out, you can do a print on demand really quickly and, you know, start to get your book out there in the world. So, I actually finished the manuscript on this more than a year ago and I'm, and we're just going to see it April 8th.

So, I've been anticipating this for a long time and I'm really excited about it.

Yucca: Yeah. So in terms of the writing process, was that very different for you than when you self published?

Mark: You know, it was because the, my first book, the Atheopaganism book, that was an expansion of what started out as an essay. There was about a 40 page essay that I wrote as the concepts of atheopaganism were developing in me, as I was discovering things, as I did research about the nature of religion and the evolution of the human brain and all that kind of stuff.

I wrote an essay because that's, that's kind of the way that writing is the way that I have a dialogue with myself.

Yucca: Mm

Mark: So I wrote this essay essentially to kind of get my own thinking straight about, you know, what am I doing here? And what's the rational underpinning for it? And what does that look like?

And so I had that essay already, and I was able to bulk that out with a lot of stuff from the blog and additional writing. It wasn't a sit down, develop an outline, and then write to it kind of thing, which this second book is. It's actually my third book. My second book is a collection of poetry called A Red Kiss.

But this third book, Round We Dance. I would lock myself in my room and pound away at the keyboard day after day after day until it was finally done.

Yucca: And did you have an editor that was waiting for pieces on a deadline or things like that

Mark: No, they, they wanted the whole manuscript. So, we made, yeah, we made an agreement. When was it that I had to deliver it? Actually, no, it was longer ago than a year. I think it was the end of October of 2022.

Yucca: Mm

Mark: Yeah, it was the end of October of 2022 when I delivered the first manuscript. And then, of course, there's editing and grammatical and, you know, reorganizing various sections.

As recommended by the editor, there's, so there's a lot of, a lot of pieces that, a lot of processes that go into that. But we've had pretty much the finished thing since last fall, and it's just been a manner of getting to the point where they can print.

Yucca: Right. So, they've got other

Mark: And the copyright,

Yucca: go to the press and everyone who's test to go through it. And yeah.

Mark: and you know, they've got to develop the cover art, all those various things. I collected testimonial paragraphs. For people who read the, the advance copy, the, the advance proof you know, with their feedback on it so that they could print those on the back cover, all those sorts of things. I love the cover art.

You listening on the podcast, you will not be seeing it, but it's, it, it's really a very handsome book. I'm super pleased with it.

Yucca: Yeah. So, what was your favorite part? If you can choose one favorite out of all of this,

Mark: Favorite part. Oh boy. All right. I'm going to look at the

Yucca: or maybe two, maybe a couple of favorites.

And I suppose we should

Mark: you know,

Yucca: why, why you wanted to make this particular book, right? Because this is quite a different one than your previous works.

Mark: sure, sure. I think, you know, one of the things that I really that I really like about the book is at the very beginning where I talk about spirituality and why that's important. I go into the atheopagan principles there as an example of a value set that people can embrace. for their lives to be happier and more meaningful and more kind.

So those things I'm, I'm happy about. And also towards the end of the book, before the resource section when I talk about, you know, living the spiritual life engaging with the community and kind of beyond the ritual behavior building community and embodying the, the kind of practices that, and meanings that, that I talk about in the book.

So, you know, both of those I think are, are good sections. I, I like them. But of course I would because I wouldn't have submitted them if I didn't. So, your mileage may vary. I really and, and Yucca, you've read the book because you wrote the foreword.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So you may have your own opinions about these things.

But let me, let me read a little bit from the introduction. I'm going to do that.

Humans thrive when they feel meaning in their lives, joy in living, and connection in community. These days, those things don't just happen. They have to be cultivated. They have to be created. Too often in our modern world, we fill our time with busyness, acquisition of money or possessions. or pursuit of fleeting pleasures.

Those can provide a momentary sense of happiness, but they don't last. They're empty calories that soon wear off, which is why alienation and loneliness are so often cited as top concerns in polls about mental health. I've lived some of those struggles. I grew up in a hostile environment and have suffered chronic depression since grade school.

Thankfully, it's been in remission for 10 years with good medication and practices. This book is about finding more sustaining nourishment that brings deep contentedness with our lives. The celebration of moments, large and small, that help us to understand our lives as worthwhile and joyous, to feel connected with our fellow humans and creatures, to feel a worthy part of the magnificent universe of which we are a part.

A powerful means to these ends is to have a spiritual practice. Maybe that involves activities you perform daily, if that's what you like. Or maybe just a handful of times every year, but having them, practices and rituals that you bring, that bring you into the sense of meaning and connectedness, can mean all the difference between a rather hollow life and one overflowing with moments of joy.

Yucca: Beautiful. So that's right at the beginning, right? Right.

Mark: kind of what's, what's the point of this book and who's it for? and and I'm very clear in the book that this is This is, this is a book for anybody that's looking for the answers to those kinds of practical questions about how, how can my life feel better?

How can I feel more of a sense of purpose and a sense of belonging in life? And I provide examples from atheopaganism, but I'm very clear on multiple occasions in the book, you don't have to do this. You know, you can, you can use all the stuff about the crafting of rituals here to create something that's very, very different than what I have or what atheopagans are practicing.

So it's a, it's a more generalized book, I would say.

Yucca: Okay. So people could plug this into different kinds of traditions. They might be a member of another tradition that it's about the tools and resources, not, they don't have to necessarily buy into the non theism component of it or things like

Mark: Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't talk about theism particularly because that's not my thing but The various techniques, for example, like guided meditations and solo journeying kinds of internal meditations and the various phases of developing a ritual all of those things will work for anybody. I'm actually reading a really good book right now about ritual. called Ritual, How Seemingly Senseless Acts Make Life Worth Living. That's a great complement to this book, I think. It's by a cultural anthropologist who's specialized in studying ritual throughout the world. And I'm only partway into it, but it provides a real, it and my first book provide a real sort of theory, anthropological underpinning to why the techniques in Round We Dance.

Are effective, and why we as humans are the ritual making species, and we're one of the ritual making species. There are a lot of others. And so, you know, we're built for this. Every culture on Earth has ritual practices. And we've lost a lot of that in modernity, and it's good for us to go back to some of it.

I don't think it's good for us to go back to it with a lot of supernatural belief around it. That's my personal take but having those kinds of meaningful practices, it just helps people. It helps them to, to live better.

Yucca: So is this a book that people could jump into with no background in the area? Could somebody give this to their sister or their cousin or something like that?

Mark: yes, yes. And, and that, that is definitely, was definitely at the forefront of my mind as I wrote it. It was not intended to be something where you had to read the atheopaganism book in order to get what's going on in Round We Dance. Which is why I've synopsized some of the material from the Atheopaganism book in Round We Dance, so that it's a standalone volume.

My motivation in writing it, other than simply to say to, you know, a much broader audience, Hey, you know, there's something here, there's something here that people are finding of value. You don't have to make that great irrational leap into the supernatural. in order to embrace this stuff in your life in a meaningful way.

Um, but also in my mind, there's sort of a, an amorphous idea of kind of an ecosystem of, of informational resources for atheopagans and non theist pagans and so forth. My first book is an example of that, as is this podcast, the Atheopaganism YouTube channel, my blog. The Atheopagan Society, all that kind of stuff and so part of that is kind of a list of books that I, I want to wish into existence for our community that can serve as resources for people and this was the next one on the list the and it incorporates a number of the Things that I think are really important, like it talks about death and dying and working with the dead and the dying and funereal rituals, as well as like naming rituals and passages into adulthood and all that kind of stuff.

And so, for example, we've mentioned a couple of times the idea of an Atheopagan Families book. And, you know, that I just think there's a real need for that book. It's just kind of hanging out there waiting to happen. And but this book was the next one. This, this was the the next one that I felt really needed to happen,

Yucca: Yeah. Well, that is really exciting that it is. Just around the corner. So it officially releases on the 8th of April, right? But it is available for pre order.

Mark: It is. If you go to the Llewellyn website, and we can put a link directly to the page in the show notes you can order it for pre order it's 19. 99. And you'll, you'll get it in the mail in April. Um, I,

Yucca: The moment it's just a physical book, right? There isn't an audio version. Okay.

Mark: That's right. And to be honest, I don't know that an audio version of this book would be all that useful because so much of it is instructions for craft projects and recipes and, you know, things like that. Where just reading it out loud, probably people are not going to get a lot out of it.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: I don't know, maybe. mean, the first Atheopaganism book had a bunch of that stuff too, and the audiobook is paired with a PDF of downloadable resources that go with the book. that's, that's a way to approach it. What else was I going to say? Oh, I'm, I'm working on organizing a book launch party in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area.

And I'm planning on doing that on the 13th of April, which is a Saturday.

Yucca: So that's the

Mark: I don't have a location. It's the week after it comes out. Yeah. And presumably Llewellyn can get me books by then. And I can sign books and sell books and do a reading and know, schmooze with people and talk about what the purpose of it is and all that good kind of stuff.

But I haven't found a location yet. I haven't really tried yet. So, watch my blog, atheopaganism. org

Yucca: something here on the podcast, too, when you know, right?

Mark: great. Great, good. It's it's funny, I've dropped into interviewee mode. So, oh, you'll do that. That's great. Thank you.

Yucca: Yes. No, we'll make sure to include that, along with the reminders about the Sun Tree Retreat, and other things that are coming up so very, very soon, because this year is slipping away already.

Mark: We are in the last month of the first quarter of the year. It's

Yucca: It's almost equinox.

Mark: over.

Yucca: Yeah. That's amazing.

Mark: is coming around. And as we record this isn't true in all places, but tonight, we're recording on Saturday, the the 9th. And tonight is when the clocks spring forward and everybody gets all cattywampus for

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: of days while they're adjusting to this completely unnecessary aberration in our plot.

Yucca: Which, by the way, does not change at the same time as Europe or Australia. They're all different, which is for when you, I teach a lot of classes online and it's just, this whole month is havoc because this, this country doesn't change and this country does, and it's at a different time, and it's, ugh. So, and then, in a few months we'll have to do it all again.

Mark: right,

Yucca: Because it's not like it's a nice even six months. So,

Mark: No, and I sure wish it was. I mean, one of the things that I appreciate about where I happen to be is that the The daylight savings change back in the autumn happens right on top of the midpoint between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice. So right at hallows time suddenly you're plunged into darkness.

And there's It's just kind of cool. You know, suddenly everything, it's like, welcome to the dark time of the year. Boom. There you are. It's dark. Not so much with spring.

Yucca: Spring is harder.

Mark: I wish that we were, it is.

Yucca: Oh, yeah.

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: I'm sure people can remember every year I complain about this. I just want us to do away with it. I don't care which one we stick to. Let's just stick to one of the times and knock it off with the going back and forth. And I mean, as a kid, I appreciated the fallback, because for those A couple of days before your body got used to it, it felt like you got to sleep in a little extra before getting up in the cold and getting on the bus and everything, but now I'm just like, no, no, this is just too much of a hassle. Let's, let's all do, like, Arizona.

Mark: and it serves no practical purpose. It doesn't increase productivity. It doesn't It doesn't save energy. It doesn't do any of those things. The study on it is, is really assiduous and it does not do any of the things that it was proposed to do when it was first imposed.

Yucca: Yeah. But we've got the momentum of it, and changing that is, that's the tricky part, and I think it's hard for one state at a time to do it. I think it just needs to happen on the national level, and then,

Mark: Yeah. Well, there are a lot of states that have now passed laws, California is one of them that say that if the federal government changes it and gets rid of

Yucca: Then this is what time we will be.

Mark: Yes, we, we will go along with that. So, because states can independently change their mind about that. They can make their own time zone rules, which is one of the weird things about our system of government.

Yucca: Well, our, our state, every year we have a bill, it makes it pretty far through the legislature, and then it ends up getting blocked by the folks from CRUCIS, because and because they're so close to El Paso, they don't want to be Like, sometimes, like, yeah, they don't want the clocks to, yeah so,

Mark: politics is local.

Yucca: yep.

So, but yeah, I would rather we just stick with Arizona the whole time and then we'd be good. We could just be our little, our little friends.

Mark: one of the only ways in which I can think I want us to, like, be like Arizona, but other than the beautiful landscape, I mean,

Yucca: I was gonna mention, they have some amazing, yeah, that's a whole different conversation, but some amazing,

Mark: we've had our tangent, we've already had our tangent for the for

Yucca: I know, I thought we weren't because this was going to be an interview one, but we had it anyways. So, is there anything else that you'd like to let people know about the book, or

Mark: You know,

Yucca: coming up?

Well,

Mark: the book, or I closed the kind of narrative section before you get into the resources with a poem called Ecstasy, and I think I'm going to read that as kind of a close. Ecstasy, ever more open, arms flung wide, let the warm, wet wings of your chest be spread. Until barehearted there, only the longing of joy is with you.

The sweetness of life's unfolding generosity. They are all there, the great and tiny miracles daily given. A breath, a golden pebble, a scarlet cloud at sunset, the voice of the cosmos singing out to cold space, out to blackness and beginnings, all whirling and singing and spinning, sacred, ever changing. The glory of the world in your heart's red petals there, where first it placed a red kiss in your mother's womb, saying welcome. And that's, that's the life I invite people to share, to build for themselves.

Yucca: thank you. Thank you for putting all of the time and energy and love into writing this. So I'm really excited to see it come out to the world.

Mark: me too. Well, thank you for having me on. I really appreciate the opportunity.

Yucca: Yeah, thanks for joining us. We should do it again. All right. Well, I think next week will be equinox already.

Mark: Yeah. Yep. We'll be talking about the equinox. So, so onward it goes.

Yucca: On and on. All right. Well, thanks, Mark.

Mark: Thanks, everybody. See you next week.

View Details

EARTH PATH by Starhawk

COMPLEXITY by Mitchell Waldrop

RED MARS by Kim Stanley Robinson

CHAOS by James Gleick

UNSCHOOLED by Kerry McDonald

THE PAGAN BOOK OF LIVING AND DYING by Starhawk and M. Macha Nightmare

ALWAYS COMING HOME by Ursula K. LeGuin

DIGITAL MINIMALISM by Cal Newport

GOOD WITHOUT GOD by Greg M. Epstein

To order Mark's new book, visit https://llewellyn.com/product.php?ean=9780738775364

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Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com

Suntree Retreat 2024: https://theapsocietyorg.wordpress.com/news-and-events/suntree-retreat-2024/

Season 5 - Episode 5

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Mark: Welcome back to The Wonder, science based paganism. I'm your host, Mark.

Yucca: And I'm Yucca.

Mark: And today we're going to visit the four core ritual skills. Now, obviously, there are a lot of different things that can be useful in leading rituals and in in participating in them, but these are four clusters of activity. That if you're good at them, you're going to have a lot more success both in leading rituals and in submerging yourself into the ritual trance y state, the flow state where you can really have effective things happen in rituals.

Yucca: Great.

Mark: that's what we're gonna do today.

Yucca: And this is more from the lens of a group ritual than necessarily a private ritual because there's a few things we'll be talking about, like the speech part, which maybe you might do in a private ritual or maybe you don't. But when you're, when you have that interaction between multiple people and what we're going to be talking about, you can apply a lot of that to your private rituals as well, to your solo or individual.

Mark: Sure. I know people who are who are pagans and whose solo practice involves a lot of dance, for

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: because they're very movement oriented people and that's, that's what they do even, you know, in the privacy of their solo rituals.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: so yes and, and beyond that, these are good skills just to have in the world, you know, it's, it's helpful to have these.

So why don't we start with public speaking,

Yucca: Yeah. So, especially when you are leading the ritual, the words are how we communicate with each other and communicate these really complex ideas. We're gonna communicate other things through our body language, through movement, but when we're trying to communicate nuanced ideas, it's words.

Mark: right? And this is the, the whole cluster of things that go into verbal communication, right? So it's not only speaking in coherent sentences and, you know, having an interesting modulation to your voice so that you're not speaking in a monotone. It's engaging. People are, you know, want to listen to it, but also the physical ability just to project your voice out, right?

So that people that are in that space can hear what you're saying. All of those things are, are, they're learned skills. All of our speaking abilities are learned skills. I mean, we watch little kids slowly accumulate the ability to communicate about complex

Yucca: Right? We start with a half a dozen sounds. Words that are instinctual, that are, I'm hungry, I'm in pain, and that's it. Everything else that, how many thousands of words do we know in each language, right? Each language's vocabulary amazing,

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. And clearly, evolution has strongly favored our capacity to do this because a whole lot of brain space is taken up by our capacities to learn language and to speak. And then, of course, the whole separate factor of being able to read and write, which is a different set of skills, right? And a set of skills that we're not really talking about so much today.

Yucca: right,

Mark: Now, not everybody is a natural. Public speaker. I feel very fortunate that I happen to be gifted in that regard and that I can just sort of improvisationally talk about things that interest me not so much about things that don't interest me, but that's an ADHD thing, I think,

Yucca: mhm. And I'm the opposite. Speaking is very difficult. I didn't speak till I was four. This is all learned and hard earned hard, it was difficult to learn to do, and I'm not comfortable with public speaking, despite doing it for a living but it's, if I was to be leading a ritual, it would be something that I would do.

be practicing ahead of time. And that's just different ways of being, right? You just kind of need to know yourself that, Mark, it seems like you could just kind of go into it, you know, have a little bit of an idea and be able to know what to say in the moment. I'd have to think about that ahead of time.

Mark: yeah, often I can just go into it with kind of a mental outline. If I'm giving a long address, like an hour long, Something. I'll work from a, an outline, but that's usually only a page. So it's just, I don't know, it's, it's something that, that I have an aptitude for and I feel really fortunate for that.

And I also don't take any credit for it because it's just a genetic die roll. I happened to, to land that. The, so there are a variety of different techniques that you can use in order to improve your ability. To, to do public speaking, it's, it's very, very difficult for people to remain interested in watching someone read something aloud.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: That's very challenging. So if you can speak from an outline, like on an index card, that can be A much better way to go, but if you need to, like, write out the first sentence of every paragraph or something to kind of give yourself a launching point to go from there are just some practical things you can do that will make it easier for you to do that in a ritual context.

Use a binder, for example. It looks a little more formal, and you don't have to worry about pages shuffling all over the place. You can hold the binder, you know, like people do when they're singing in a choir or something like that, and just refer down to it, and then look up to make eye contact with people in the group so that they feel engaged.

That eye contact piece is very important.

Yucca: Yeah. And the, and it's a practice thing as well, but the length of eye contact is going to depend on how many people you have in your group. But often Your one to three seconds is kind of that sweet spot where it's, you're acknowledging the person, but not, it doesn't become uncomfortable. You're not,

Mark: Right.

Yucca: having it feel like they're being examined or peered into.

It's There's just that moment of connection. Now, if you've got a group of 20 people, you don't have time to make three second eye contact with every single person there. But if you have a group of four people, then that's a, you know, you just gotta have to judge it in the moment.

Mark: Right. In the, in the case of that group of 20 people, you can pick individuals out of the group that you make that eye contact with and then maybe use a different set the next time you look up so that eventually everybody feels kind of included. And the, the trick with eye contact, which I know is very uncomfortable for some people, is that you can look somebody right between the eyes, straight between their eyebrows, and you're not making eye contact with them, and they won't know it.

Yucca: And it's, yeah, it still feels like it. Rather than focusing on, you know, when you're making true eye contact, you're really looking at one of the pupils, right? But you don't actually need to do that, yeah.

Mark: Just, just that little bit of difference at any kind of distance at all, they're not going to know. In many cases in ritual settings, we're working under low light conditions, so that makes it even a little bit fuzzier. And that's a way that you can keep yourself from becoming as self conscious as you might be by looking someone straight in the eyes.

Yucca: Right, because if you are, now this is if you're leading it, you are keeping track of a lot of things. in your mind at that moment. But for the eye contact, being a participant in a ritual, there's the eye contact with the person who is leading it and with the others, and that's just a nice, that's a nice trick to have, just a nice tool, not trick in like a manipulative way, but just a nice tool for your social toolbox.

Mark: Sure. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's a way to self, save yourself from a feeling of, that you're too exposed. Because that's the thing about eye contact is that it feels very exposing to both of, both people who are, who are meeting their gaze. And so if you fudge a little bit, it, it can make you feel a little bit less exposed and more confident.

Yucca: right.

Mark: Now I, I, oh, go ahead.

Yucca: Oh, I was going to say, and it can be something on just the eye contact is something that can be very powerful when it's consensual, right? Like if some of the most powerful experiences I've had with others is just sitting and having a few minutes of just looking into their eyes.

Mark: Yes.

Yucca: And it can just be really, really moving just a very powerful experience.

But it has to be consensual, right? And that's, that's something that we need to mention about everything with ritual, is that there needs to be consent for whatever is happening in the

Mark: Indeed. And that's why it's important to give people an overview at the beginning of a ritual about what we're going to do. Now, that doesn't mean exposing every little detail. It can be fine to have things that are surprising not in a negative way, but you can have, you know, surprises along the way that transformative and go, Oh, wow, look, that's what's happening now.

But you do want to make sure that everybody has pretty well signed on to going on this ride with you. That's,

Yucca: Especially if there's going to be any physical contact,

Mark: Oh, yes.

Yucca: right? Like, if people are going to hold hands or, you know, put their hands on someone's shoulder or anything like that, that's, it's really important that people know that that's what they're getting into. Because people have very different experiences with that.

They don't owe it to us to explain why they're not comfortable or are comfortable with it. That's their business, right?

Mark: Exactly so. Um, and I, I referenced a minute ago something, and I'm, and I'm glad that I reminded myself about this because, okay, so, so you're listening to the things that we're talking about here. You've got your, your outline in a binder, and you're, you know, reading that first sentence or getting the reminder of what that next little statement is supposed to be about, and then looking up and looking at people between the eyes so that you don't have to feel uncomfortable about actually meeting their gaze, and then you realize that you can't see what's on the page because you're in low light conditions, and then you get out your flashlight, and And try to hold it in your mouth and read at the same time.

And it doesn't work

Yucca: for everyone listening, Mark literally put a flashlight in his mouth in that moment that you just happened to have right next to you.

Mark: Yes, there happened to be one on my table here. So what you want to do is you want to have some sort of a light source that will clip to your binder, One of those, you know, little, you know, night,

Yucca: lamps so that you don't wake your partner up in bed, sort of thing, or yeah,

Mark: Very useful tool for a ritual leader to have. They make a, a little light, they've got a little shade on them so that it isn't blinding to other people.

And it really gives you the light that you need without being too obtrusive.

Yucca: and you can get them in kind of a, an Amber, reddish light, too, and that's really nice because that doesn't spoil people's dark vision as much as like a bright white or blue light might.

Mark: Right. I actually saw a park ranger giving a campfire talk using one of those.

Yucca: Mm.

Mark: seemed like she was new or something, and, you know, didn't quite have the whole wrap down yet necessarily. She

Yucca: memorized the entire thing.

Mark: Right. She did a great job, but she had to refer to notes and didn't actually use a binder. She used a clipboard, but, you know, same kind of deal.

Yeah, and, and she used that amber color. So that people could look up at the stars because part of her part of what she referenced was was stars.

Yucca: Right. It was a nighttime activity that you were doing. You weren't out in, you know, the middle of the day, noon, the baking sun. Not in

Mark: right. No, we were around a fire and the fire, of course, made some light, but the, but not. I mean, it's going to, that's, that's right. It's going to cast a shadow towards your face, so that's not going to do any good. And it's flickering to begin with, which just makes it very unreliable for reading. So that's a, you know, a little, a little tip that, you know, will actually do you a lot of good if you're doing public speaking in a, in a dark,

Yucca: would really encourage people not to use your phones as your light when you're in a ritual setting because just the presence of a phone or a tablet or something like that can really pull people out of the present moment. And the, there's, we, we have a pretty big issue in our society where, with the what is it called?

Fubbing? Where people, when their phone is out? In social situations, and somebody's looking at the phone, and then the person who's interacting with them is getting the social signal of, I'm not interested in what you're saying because I keep looking at the phone and so there's a, a lot of people have a emotional, often unconscious, but emotional response to the other person's got their phone out, they're not interested.

Mark: right.

Yucca: So when we're dealing with symbology and metaphor that, that can be something that's very triggering for people, is to have that phone out.

Mark: Great point. I'm really glad you brought that up. And that's another reason why you don't want to have your notes on your phone or on a tablet. I know it's convenient. I know it means that you can just type everything up without printing anything out, any of that sort of stuff. But removing, removing most forms of digital technology from the ritual circle, It helps, and I'm not entirely sure why it helps, but it does.

There's something about that technology that is just so riveting for people, it draws their attention so heavily, it becomes much more difficult to be present, and that, of course, is core to what we work to do in a ritual space.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: Um, I, I'm reminded, I've just started, I've started game mastering a game for the first time in 37 years.

Yucca: Oh, wonderful.

Mark: had our we're playing Shadow Dark. And we started week before last, I'm gonna run another session this week. And one of the things that I, I, I told them, this is gonna be the most painful thing that you're gonna have to do all evening. I made them stack all their phones on the table. If you touch them, you take damage.

Yucca: oh, that's brilliant.

Mark: You, you, you

Yucca: But yeah, it hurts. It can be really uncomfortable to be separated from it.

Mark: Sure, because whenever people are, are distracted or bored or uncomfortable, their go to is to bury themselves in their phones. And it's, you know, we, we had a very lively, good social interaction throughout the game because people were engaged with one another rather than with their phones. So, you know, waiting for their turn.

So, yeah, that was a great thing.

Yucca: Mm hmm. You know, I think that there's a lot of parallels between game mastering and leading a ritual.

Mark: I

Yucca: So many overlaps between those skills, because on both, you're, you're, it's, both things are collective storytelling, and as the ritual leader, or as the game master, you're guiding that experience, but you're not controlling that experience.

Mark: Yeah, that's absolutely true. And, and that has occurred to me before as well that tabletop fantasy role playing games or, or any genre of tabletop games are, they're a group ritual. They, they are a thing that we do, we get together, they have certain kinds of cultural conventions, like rolling dice and, you know, waiting for your turn and all that kind of stuff.

And they are consensual behaviors to create a group experience, which is what a ritual is, right?

Yucca: Right.

Mark: Yeah. The goal isn't necessarily personal transformation, it's entertainment.

Yucca: Yeah. Although sometimes, there's, you can have some pretty emotionally powerful experiences.

Mark: yes, absolutely. Yeah, I've had players weeping, I've had players falling off their chairs laughing. There's, there's, there's, there's a lot there.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So, that's,

Yucca: Yeah, let's go to our next one,

Mark: Yeah, that's public speaking. And the good news about public speaking is that the more you do of it, it will become easier. It won't necessarily become easy, but it will become easier. And that's true of all of these skill sets that we're talking about today. The next one that I want to talk about is singing.

Yucca: which shares a lot with much of what we've just been talking about with the speaking, but has, has some additional Elements added onto it.

Mark: Right. And it does different things. It taps different parts of the brain, and it's much more accessible to the emotional self than, than linear language. There's something about intoning and making harmony and the kind of poetry that tends to be associated with with the songs that you sing in a ritual state, in a ritual setting,

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: all of which, It's just transformative.

It moves you emotionally, and that is, of course, a very important part of what we work to do. Yeah,

Yucca: And depending on what the song is, it can still be vocal without being verbal. There's many rituals that I've been to that have just had Just had sounds, like, just vowels with the, with the tune and that, that's a nice thing for those of us who aren't really wordsy people or who find lyrics to be difficult to, to catch on to.

Some people are really fast with that, right? You put it, my, my youngest, you put anything in a song and he's got it. He's got the lyrics to it. He's got the words. And like, how are you even singing? You know, we'll listen to songs in languages he doesn't speak, and he's singing along with it, right? So some people's brains work that way, and other people, I can, I can get the melody, but what are the words to that?

I don't know. So it's a nice opportunity sometimes to have the songs that are just sounds that people can just join in with if they're comfortable with it or not, right?

Mark: right. And that raises two really interesting things for me. The first of which is that I like for it to be a convention in the rituals that I do that if someone just can't get the lyrics or doesn't like the lyrics or whatever it is, they can just ah along, you know, they can just sing the vowel ah and still, still get the melody out there, right?

So that they're participating, so that they have a role, and that's a perfectly acceptable role. The other Is that there's this wonderful practice called circle singing. I don't know if you've heard of this.

Yucca: Keep going, because it could mean several different things.

Mark: it's a directed, like, like a choral director kind of program where The choral director will sing one line and will teach a group of the participants that line, and they'll sing it over and over and over again, and then the choral director sings another part for another three people that interlocks with that first melody, so what you end up with is this, and you can have, you know, three, four, even five parts if you're really good at this what you end up with is this very intricate, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun.

Sort of tapestry of sound the musician Bobby McFerrin does this a lot. He used to do a New Year's Eve singing in the New Year's circle song event at the Glide Cathedral in San Francisco every year. And it's just, it's a cool way for people that aren't going to do lyrics and may only need to You know, seeing a very simple, repeated line to still be fully engaged in participating in making something that's really cool.

Yucca: yeah. Just make sure that there's a group of people for each line, that you don't have one person trying to remember and carry that so that when they do so that they can Use the other person as help for when they forget the line or get a little bit confused because they're hearing the other song and, you know, so don't try, don't put one person on the spot for it who's not, you know, the professional singer.

Mark: right. You can also do this with round. There are a lot of, of musical rounds that, you know, you teach one line to one group of people and another line to another group of people or you teach the whole thing to everybody and then you start them off set. So one person sing, you know, one group sings the first line, and then the second group starts singing the first line again as the first group continues to do the second line, and you just go around like that.

And rounds can be very beautiful and really trance inducing to sing.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So singing, it's, and I know there are a lot of people out there who are like, I'm tone deaf, I can't sing I can't carry a tune. That is true for some people. It is true for some people. And what you may want to do instead is to learn how to use your voice rhythmically.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: So, instead of having to carry tones, you can just bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, kind of along with whatever the, the rhythm of the musical piece is, so that you still have a way to plug in.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: But the other thing is that a lot of people who think that they're tone deaf just haven't tried. They haven't, they haven't practiced. I, I wouldn't,

Yucca: And not try, but

Mark: try isn't the right word.

Yucca: built the skill over that have that it has it doesn't necessarily come natural

Mark: Right.

Yucca: to build that skill is something that takes time and takes exposure just like we were talking about with the public speaking

Mark: Yes. That's, that's, that's what I meant. I didn't like the word try either, so thank you.

Yucca: but yeah it may be something that just takes the exposure and time and and really and it's going to take different amounts of time for different people right and we're all coming at it from different emotional experiences

Mark: Right, right. Yeah and this actually leads us to our third skill set, which can be something that you can replace singing with. This is rhythm and drumming or percussion of various kinds. Because there are people out there that have a wonderful sense of rhythm and are terrific in a percussive sense and just particularly good at following a tune.

And that's okay. That's perfectly alright. Um, the, the evocative nature of rhythm and drumming and what it does in our bodies cannot be overstated. know, a good complex drumming riff almost forces us to move. I'm a very heady person, and I grew up over medicated for ADHD, so I twitched all the time. I had lots of tics. So, you know, my body kind of betrayed me a lot, and I've always had kind of an ambivalent relationship with it because of that. The, but still, when I'm in a ritual circle and there's good drumming going on, I want to move, you know, I, I, I want to go.

Yucca: yeah, that's, I share that experience. I'm also very, very much in my head a lot of the time, but it feels like it just pulls my awareness down and into my body and kind of spreads it out to a more body awareness and just brings me down to that connection and I feel much more connected with the ground and the rhythm and the, it's just very powerful.

Mark: Yes, very much so, and I've, I have a lot of conjectures about why that might be, most of them having to do with a mother's heartbeat.

Yucca: yeah, because we all started out hearing. Hearing it,

Mark: yeah,

Yucca: her pulse was there.

Mark: right, all the time, and it got faster and it got slower and,

Yucca: and you got the, some of the, not all of them, but some of the hormones crossing the placenta into you, so you're sharing some of those feelings with her as you're associating what her heart is doing.

Mark: right.

Yucca: You're also getting to hear all the gurgles of her digesting and all of that stuff too.

Mark: Right. That's true.

Yucca: But that heart, that ever present heart,

Mark: Yes. Yes. And the sort of the, the softening sound of the lungs, breathing in, breathing out. There's probably a little bit of a stretching sound with the diaphragm

Yucca: You probably feel that, too, as you're taking up more space.

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: And then you probably kicked her in the diaphragm a few times and she went, Right, no

Mark: out maybe, maybe not to do that again.

Yucca: what your experience later on in life, we all started That way with that very primal experience of being before our minds and brains had really developed the way they are now before, at least I think, I mean, we're human beings, but, you know, even before that, but before we really did. come into being an aware person in the way that we are

Mark: sure.

Yucca: individuals on the outside, that's, you know, I like thinking about all of that, about thinking about that transition between going from just being a part of her to being our own people, and then, yeah,

Mark: And the whole sort of unboxing experience of, you know, turning the lights on in various parts of your brain and, you know, all that kind of stuff. It's really fascinating.

Yucca: yeah and just the, I think the development of how we, so this is something, we often talk about you know, growing a baby, right? And as the mothers, we are, sort of, except it's actually the baby that's growing themselves. Their body is telling themselves what to do. We're supplying all, we're supplying the home for that, all of the supplies, but from the moment that, that cell, is following its own instructions and becoming its own person.

And it's just amazing the different, you know, what we do know of it and the different steps of, like, when certain things develop. Like, when they start being able to sense light, right? About halfway through, you can shine a light on your belly and they'll start kicking because they can see the light.

But a week before, they couldn't see the light. They didn't respond to it because they Physically couldn't see it, and now they can, and I, it's just a, I think it's an amazing process, and we, we've just barely begun to, to scratch the surface of understanding what's, what's happening. And we all went through it.

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: Don't consciously remember it, but I think it affects us later on, which

Mark: Oh, I agree.

Yucca: the rhythm,

Mark: Yeah. I absolutely agree.

Yucca: it's speculation on our part that our connection to rhythm is connected to that heart, but it seems like, this seems like a logical path to take.

Mark: Yeah. And I mean, many babies when they're very young will be responsive to rhythmic music.

Yucca: Absolutely.

Mark: know, it's like if there's, if there's a strong, steady beat in something, they will move to it.

Yucca: Yep.

Mark: So that's all to say that it's coded very deeply in us to be responsive to that. You know, to the pulsing of rhythm and the ability to create that, even if it's just a steady beat, like a heartbeat kind of beat. It doesn't have to be Zakir Hussain playing the tablas. I mean, if, if you're, if you have a good sense of rhythm and you're interested in putting in the time that it takes to develop, you know, those wonderful Middle Eastern or African or Indian or

Yucca: Or any, yeah, there's

Mark: any culture, you know, Amazing repertoires than, you know, do that because we need more of that in the world.

But just the ability, you know, I have a good rhythm sense, but I'm, I have ADHD and it's very hard for me to do things that I'm not good at for a long period of time until I become good at them. So I just have a frame drum, a simple, round. Frame drum. And I use that for creating sort of a drone y rhythm, heartbeat sound in rituals.

And it makes a big difference.

Yucca: mm hmm,

Mark: It's a really big difference. So I really encourage all of you that are developing your, your ritual tool set, you know, to get shakers or claves, you know, the wooden things that hit against one another or Or a drum and just start, play around. It's fun. It's fun to do.

Yucca: And earlier we were talking about, you know, some of the caution around phones and technology and things like that, but I do think that there can be a place for the recorded music as well especially when it comes to the drumming and keeping a beat and things like that. When you have a group of people.

And you have multiple instruments. I mean, to me, that's golden, right? You have the whole group doing it. But if you're in a solo situation, or, you know, your hands are busy doing lots of other things, or whatever it is, you know, there's a lot of great things recordings of, of drumming and rhythm and things like that.

Mark: Yeah. And there's been a resurgence or, or a surg I guess, which is sort of the first thing of of groups that do very sort of ritually trancey kind of music groups like Dead Can Dance and Wardruna and ung and you know, some groups like that, that really, you know, they're really exploring that. That way that rhythm can really influence us at a physical level and that stuff can be great ritual music, can be really useful.

There's actually a page on my blog that is musical suggestions for ritual, and there's a long list of different possible things that you can choose from for, with different kinds of flavors and styles.

Yucca: Mm hmm. Yeah. My suggestion would be, though, listen through to what, to what it is before you use it in your ritual. Because sometimes there can be a little bit of a surprise in there that was like, Ooh, that was not, that was not what I was going

Mark: That wasn't what I was looking

Yucca: this ritual. Yeah.

Mark: Yeah. That's a good point. Yeah.

Yucca: Yeah. Now that, I think. moves really nicely into our final one, which is movement itself. I have a hard time hearing a rhythm and not moving to it.

Mark: Huh.

Yucca: Because it's just, as we were talking about, it's just so powerful. There's, I mean, they're so connected. The Venn diagram of, of rhythm and movement to me are, they're not quite a circle, but they're pretty close.

Mark: They're pretty close. Yeah. And I, I find rhythm to be such an invitation to movement and because I'm so heady most of the time, my body is really thirsty for that kind of activity. So it's, there's a very, there's a liberating quality. To, you know, moving, like moving in a ritual circle and dancing and, and, you know, interacting with a fire and interacting with other people and just all that.

That sense of freedom. It feels like flying in a way. It's, it's, it's a very strong, very free, very, very filled with yourself kind of feeling like you're expressing yourself in a really full way.

Yucca: and a couple of things to keep in mind if you are the one designing or leading the ritual with a group of people to have options for different levels of mobility. So some people may need to have a chair or something to be sitting in, and may not necessarily be able to do a big spiral dance around the fire or something like that.

And so having natural options for them. To be able to participate is really important. Go ahead.

Mark: Yes. And what I was going to say is that when you blend These ritual skills, you can give people opportunities to do things that, that are within their abilities, right, that are consistent with their aptitudes, what they're interested in doing and what they can do. So, you know, you can have some people who are sitting and drumming and other people who are up and dancing and singing, you know, or You know, some combination thereof.

I remember I was at a Fire Circle ritual. God, it's gotta be seven years ago now. And there was all, you know, we were, we were in this really high point in the ritual and dancing and, you know, the drums are thundering along, you know, very intricate, super talented drummers. And then suddenly they stopped and everybody slowed down but kept moving. While someone did a spoken word piece, and it was beautiful, it was just this, this, this rapt moment, you know, when you could almost still hear the echoes of the drums because it had been so loud and so fervent and so intense and then suddenly downshift and it all went into this other place,

Yucca: someone suddenly starts whispering and everyone has to lean in to listen to what is that whisper? What are they saying?

Mark: Exactly.

Yucca: wow. Wow.

Mark: Which is why I like the, the center portion of a ritual after invocations and creation of a safe container to be somewhat improvisational, you know, that there's room for different people to contribute different things if there's time and if that's the kind of ritual that people want to do.

But I've had great experiences with that sort of thing. So movement and yes, people can be very self conscious. I, you know, as I described, I had a difficult relationship with my body and I didn't start dancing until I was in my late twenties. And a low light condition helps.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: You know, that sense that you're not being watched by other people really helps.

Yucca: And a timing in the ritual I think can make a really big difference for people because it is something that is a little bit, can be a little bit uncomfortable that. Most people are not comfortable jumping straight into dancing, right? So, it might be something that needs a little bit of warm up to get to the place where people feel like they can can do that, right?

So maybe you, you work towards it with some of the spoken and then moving into the singing and then into the dancing. And just, just kind of know your audience, right? If you're working with a circle that you see every You know, every

Mark: Few weeks or

Yucca: then you're going to have a, it's going to be a very different relationship than this is the once a year summer solstice celebration that you're doing at the Pagan Pride Festival.

Mark: Right, right. Yeah, that's a really good point. You know, obviously, making tailorings and adjustments for for whoever it is that you're going to be working with in a ritual is really key and there is a way to work with people of every level of ability, every level of ability. Of uniqueness, in terms of their aptitudes, their capacities there's, there's stuff that can be done that can help people to come into a ritual space.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: So, it's, it's, but it, having these four tools in your quiver there's a mixed metaphor, having, having these four arrows on your tool belt,

Yucca: Yes.

Mark: It's a good way to start because then you have the capacity to pull out whatever seems to be the right thing for that group of people at that particular moment.

Yucca: Mm hmm. Yeah. And these are things that you can incorporate into your solo practice, and that's where a lot of the practice that we've been talking about. We'll start,

Mark: Mm

Yucca: right, becoming comfortable with the singing or the dancing I'm saying those ones in particular because those ones are ones that I think are really hard for our culture.

We have a very, very sedentary culture. We're very much expected to stay still and seated and especially in social situations. We find, we're very uncomfortable with movement overall.

Mark: We're also uncomfortable with sound, to some degree. I mean, this varies from culture to culture, but, I mean, British people will tell you how loud Americans are, but having lived in Spain, Americans aren't that loud.

Yucca: No, depending on which part of Spain though, right? Even

Mark: Well, yes.

Yucca: in Basque country, their opinion of the Andalusians, you know, is wildly different,

Mark: Oh yes,

Yucca: But yeah, so it depends on, on what cultural context but speaking very, very broadly of, of you know, North American, so American and Canadian, we tend to be compared to say, somebody from the Mediterranean, we tend to be pretty, we tend reserved and I'll, you know, we don't talk with our bodies as much and we don't get up and dance and, you know, that sort of thing is very difficult for us.

Mark: right,

Yucca: And so it might take some time getting used to doing that on your own and then practicing in a group and the more times you do it, you know, the, the The more practice you have, the more skill that you're going to build up in that. And it's okay if it takes some time, but it's worth it, I think, right?

Because I think that those rituals can be really powerful and just very enriching,

Mark: yeah, yeah, that's definitely been my experience and I don't claim by any means to have fully mastered any of these things even the ones that I'm naturally good at and so it's a work in progress and that's always great because it's not about getting there, it's not about arriving, it's about the process of evolving over time, which is what we're about.

Yucca: right?

Mark: For as long as we get, we can evolve.

Yucca: Yeah, it's kind of like an evening walk. You don't take the evening walk to get to a place. You take it for the enjoyment of going out and, you know, the birds are singing and changing their tune and the air feels cool and, you know, all of that experience. It's about that.

Mark: Right. Exactly. So this has been a cool conversation, Yucca. Thank you so much.

Yucca: Yeah. Well, and I look forward to, in just a few short months, doing some rituals with you and the rest of the folks coming to the Sun Tree Retreat. So that's coming up.

Mark: We're actually releasing the program for Suntree Retreat this week.

Yucca: Mm

Mark: there's, you'll if, you know, you're in the community in various ways, you'll see various promotions to, to make sure that people can download that and take a look at all the Rituals and workshops and, and things we're going to be doing.

So, and shout out to Michael O'Halloran, Michael O'Halloran of our community who's done a lot of work on that program.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So,

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: thanks everybody. We really appreciate your listening to the podcast and welcome your, your input and your questions as always. We'll see you next week.

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Season 5 - Episode 4

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Season 5 - Episode 3

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Yucca: Welcome back to The Wonder Science Based Paganism. I'm your host Yucca,

Mark: And I'm Mark.

Yucca: and we are back in another year. To talk about that February holiday and the Wheel of the Year,

Mark: Yeah because this is the first holiday after a spate of activity that is reflected in mainstream holidays like Halloween and Christmas and Hanukkah and those sorts of things. And this one, you know, this one we fly solo as pagans, right?

Yucca: right? I mean, there is an associated Catholic celebration at the time, but, you know, that's that's not the whole mainstream culture,

Mark: right, it hasn't been secularized the way so many other, you know, holidays have been, that have been turned into sort of generic practices that nearly everybody does. Yeah and here in the Northern Hemisphere, there is noticeably more light now. I was noticing yesterday there was still light in the sky at quarter of six.

Yucca: Oh.

Mark: that was pretty cool, because, you know, at the solstice, the sun goes down at about 425,

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: so there was, that's, that's a big change, and it's, it's still wet and cold here because this tends to be the coldest time of the year, really,

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: But, you At least the days aren't so incredibly short and those long, long, long, long nights that we get in the deep of winter.

Yucca: Yeah, well, it's so different in different places, what's going on, right? We've talked about this before, but you know, for some people, for me, this is the most bitter time of the year. January, the beginning of February it's actually quite funny, last night, my kids really wanted to do a campfire. And We've been talking about it all week and we had finally rusted out our campfire bowl.

So we have a, because we have to be very, even in the winter like this, we have to be really careful about fire safety. So what we have is we have this Like a, a ring of stones with gravel, and then we have one of those fire bowls that's lifted up that you can put a lid on. But we had finally rusted out the bottom of the one that we had had for years, so we had to get a new one and wait for it to come.

And, you know, they wanted to do the, the, the first fire and the new bowl and all of that. And it was a full work day for me, so I get out of work and we go outside. And it starts snowing.

Mark: Ha ha ha

Yucca: And so we're out there trying to get this fire to start in the snow, and the way we ended up finally doing it was putting a hat of foil on top of the fire to get it to go.

So because once the fire started, as the snow would come close to it, it would heat up and melt and evaporate and would be fine. But when you're trying to start a wet fire, it was, it was quite, quite a an event to do so. But I was thinking about how, for us, this is the, we will quickly move into spring in a few months, but this is the coldest, most bitter, you know, we had over the past few weeks, we had single digits in Fahrenheit.

So, you know, we're, and for those who do Celsius, we're talking about, you know, negative 15 degrees Celsius, and those sorts of temperatures, the ground is frozen. But for other people, This is a holiday in which they're celebrating, oh look, the little flowers are starting to peek through the snow, and spring is here, and everything is brightening up, and I'm like, it's cold.

That's what it is here. It's cold. So, and of course, folks who are in, you know, Florida, it's a completely different experience for them, or Southern California, or Anywhere even closer to the equator is just radically different.

Mark: One of our community members was talking about how right around now is when it's most tolerable in Florida because it gets so hot and muggy in the summertime and so this, which, you know, would generally be the coldest time of the year, is actually quite pleasant,

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: That's the time when you go outside, so it really depends on where you are.

Where I am, it's been raining long enough that the hills have all greened up, and so the, and the first wildflowers are coming up. Of course, because of climate change, we've been watching this happen progressively earlier. You know, with the years and Narcissus and daffodils are up. They're they're not fully blooming yet, but they are up.

And it's and they're wildflowers like milkmaids and paintbrush and a couple of other of the early ones.

Yucca: Our daffodils won't be till April or May.

Mark: yeah, yeah, exactly. So, um, so yeah, I mean, this, this brings to mind, you know, how, how in, in atheopaganism we talk about crafting your own wheel of the year, right?

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: Because there is, unlike in a situation like Wicca, where you're kind of celebrating the climate of the

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: in the 1940s. Because all of that's changed as well.

This is more where you craft something that is that reflects what you see around you. And so it's more about connecting with the cycles of nature that are happening where you are. I really like the name that was created by a member of our community for this holiday which is brightening, because that's a little more universal.

Yes it may be freezing, but the days are longer. So, there is at least that.

Yucca: Yes. Yeah. I think that this holiday really lends itself To that crafting your own wheel of the year, much more than some of the other ones like solstice or hollows might because there isn't the same tie in to mainstream secular culture, where there isn't anything, I mean the closest thing I guess, Valentine's Day?

Right? But that really doesn't, that's, that's a few weeks later, that feels really different, I don't know, maybe some people do connect those two things, for me they've been, they've Never had anything to do with each other. That's a totally separate holiday. But there's just nothing else, really, this time of year to, to draw on.

So it really is, draw from what's going on in your environment. And, you know, maybe the Wicca influence, which works again for some people who live in a similar climate, but my climate is Very, very different

Mark: Right.

Yucca: that part of the world, so,

Mark: And mine is too, because I'm in a, in a Mediterranean, a quasi Mediterranean climate, more reflective of what like the South, you know, Southern Italy or something like that would be like,

Yucca: mm hmm, mm

Mark: because of the coastal influence here in Northern California. Yeah, so One of the things that I find about this sort of create your own adventure approach to the Wheel of the Year is that I can take elements that I like from the, the kind of traditional pagan Wiccan model of like the Irish Brigid holiday, You know, at the beginning of February you know, I can adopt some, some metaphorical ideas around that.

Like, you know, as we've talked about so many times, one of the things that I do in my Wheel of the Year is to map the course of a human life over the cycle of the Wheel of the Year. And so this holiday is infancy and it becomes associated with with dairy, with milk products. And with sort of nurturing and, and, you know, planning for the future, not that, not that dreaming, imagining, visionary kind of thing that you have at the at the solstice in the deep dark of night, but more like, um, this is like, you know, the dawn waking up early in the morning and going, okay, here's what my day is going to be like.

I've got, I've got tools to sharpen and I've got lists to make and I've got seeds to buy and all that kind of stuff.

Yucca: So much more concrete planning, can't get your, you can't really get any of those tools actually in the ground yet.

Mark: Nope.

Yucca: But you can think about, do you have the right ones? What are you going to need?

Mark: Right. Right.

Yucca: And of course, we're using the metaphor of, you know, planting and all of that, which some you might be doing, but for a lot of people, it's really metaphor about what's going on in the rest of our lives.

Mark: yes. And your thoughts about what your aspirations are for this coming cycle,

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: Those, those ideas that we talked about at the beginning of the month, at the beginning of January you know, those, those themes For the new year well now you're starting to move towards concretizing those, right?

And so you pull your tools together and maybe your tools need some maintenance, so you take care of that. And You know, you know you want to plant a garden and the ground is solid, but you can still peruse the seed catalogs and order your stuff and start seedlings indoors if you want to for things that take a long time to grow, like onions and so forth.

Yucca: Mm

Mark: Um, so, and I've been hearing that from, from gardeners in the community and in our mixers and stuff, we've been talking about, you know, people being very excited about their seed catalogs. Um, so, yeah, I, I think it's just, it, and then there's that other aspect of just celebrating the infants and small children in the, in the community, you know, doing, you know, doing stuff that's very nurturing and very kind.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: to, to them and to that part of ourselves.

Yucca: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. It's beautiful.

Mark: Yeah, it can be I do have a little bit of dissonance around some of the things that I, that I still maintain from when we used to celebrate. I was celebrating with the broader pagan community around this holiday for example, I have a little anvil and sledge that I love the ringing, the repetitive motion and the ringing of the hammer on the sledge and associate it with this time of year.

We used to do rituals because, you know, Brigid was a goddess of the forge among many other things, poetry and, you know, a lot of stuff. But we would. Take a length of chain and have one open link. And at the proper time in the ritual, each person by turn would go to the anvil and pound that link shut, creating a loop of chain that would be sort of a symbol of the magic that they were doing for this year, and they could take that home with them.

We usually had ribbons threaded through them as well, so they were colorful and pretty. And I still like doing something with that anvil, even though I'm not quite sure what it means metaphorically.

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: Um, I just like it, and I associate it with this time of year, so I keep it.

Yucca: And things like that might change over time, right? So what does that metaphor mean to you? You know, maybe when you do it, or how you do it, can adapt depending on what, where you are in your life, in terms of what life stage you're in, but also where you are in the world, because people, some people stay in the same part of the world their whole lives, and other people move from very, very different climates and change where they are, and so life changes a lot, and all of those symbols and those things change when you go from You know, Miami to Buffalo, or wherever you're talking about.

Mark: Presuming your body survives the shock. Yeah,

Yucca: move during the summer.

Mark: yeah, exactly. I was just thinking, yeah, if you, if you move from Miami to Buffalo in January, you're really asking for trouble.

Yucca: But people do it, right? And so when that does, you know, what does that mean to you? And things will shift and you're still trying to figure out you carry with you what you had from before. And you don't necessarily have to just throw that all out because you're suddenly in a different climate. It's going to take time to adjust.

Mark: Absolutely. Of course it will.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: and

Yucca: Mm

Mark: this is a good time to kind of celebrate that transition, too. You know, this is one of those light at the end of the tunnel sabbaths, where it's like, yes, it's cold, yes, the days are still really short, but they're not as short as they were, and it is going to warm up.

You know, by, by the time of the next holiday, the, the spring equinox, it will be noticeably warmer than it is now. So, and that's pretty universal, I think. So It's a, it's an opportunity to sort of contemplate persistence and the repeating of cycles, you know, because one of the things about the winter solstice, of course is that idea of making it through the longest night, you know, huddling together and, and, you know, persisting. Well, this is the point at which you kind of start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. And, and so you can celebrate that persistence as well and be kind to yourself as, as a result. Um, you know, a lot of us, we were just talking about this before we started recording, a lot of us have been going through a lot this January. been, it's been very, it's been hard, it's certainly been hard for me, and I know it's been a lot harder for other people in our community.

And The idea of a holiday where we, where we sort of look around and say, Hey, we, you know, it looks like we're going to make it. We, it was, it was touch there for a while, but we, we think we're going to make it and, and, you know, persist through another cycle. I think there's a value in that too.

Yeah.

Yucca: And another perspective on that is This is the time, this is the time that we were preparing for, for all of that other stuff, right? At least in my climate, for us, when we're in the solstice season, we've only really just gone into winter. For many people, it's mid winter, but for us, no, we really, you know, we jumped really quickly from fall into winter.

We still have A full stock of, of wood, right? We've got all our fire, we haven't been going through it yet, you know, we still have all of our stores of food, you know, both physical and, and metaphorical. And this is when things aren't quite producing yet. This is when the animals are about to calf. But they haven't quite yet, right?

And just knowing that this is the, so this is a time for us when we focus on the things that we depend on. That we are very much part of. You know, we're very bovine based, so we're thinking about the dairy, and the meat from the cows, and the fur, and all of those things that, that we depend on, that are part of the system, of, that without, we couldn't be, right?

We need those things. And so recognizing our connection to those, and how important that is, and that, once again, another year. We've been carried through, right? And we can, and we're going to do it again, but there is a place of, of kind of vulnerability and, and surrender to that this time of year. Which, there's something kind of somewhat reassuring about that.

I know you wouldn't put the words vulnerable and dependency with reassuring together, but there is sort of, they just actually really do go together nicely.

Mark: Yeah. I, I, yeah, I, I really resonate with what you're saying. Yeah, because January, February. Up until the cows and sheep started to give milk are, those are the fasting times. I mean, all, all the stuff that was perishable that you got to gorge on at the solstice, that's all gone. And now what you've got is, you know, root vegetables that are You know, covered with eyes and stuff and stuff like that.

All the goodies have been eaten now and now it's just a matter of really kind of toughing it out until nature starts to produce some food in your area again. It's not a surprise that eggs are associated with the spring equinox because, you know, birds are laying then and you could eat them.

Yucca: Yeah. The light starts to come back and, I mean, if you keep chickens, that, yeah, depending, your hen might produce a little, lay a little bit during the winter. And unless you're putting artificial lights in there, she's not going to. She's gonna wait till the spring comes back. Or she'll do a few here and there, but really you just don't get, and then all of a sudden there's enough light and it's like, you know, then you hear them making their calls.

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: Egg announcement! Everybody know! So, and same thing with the, with the, the wild birds as well. So, oh, and I love the colors. Look forward to that with spring, the flashy colors that they have.

Mark: all the mating plumage and stuff. It's so cool. Yeah and that actually reminds me, this is, this is the time when I do my spring fast. My birthday is January 3rd and I take the, and so from the day after my birthday until the spring equinox, I give up something. and it's not a penance thing, it's more of a what is it like to live without

Yucca: hmm. Mm

Mark: Um, because I think that's That has valuable lessons in it.

And I've done various things in various years, but I usually do alcohol, and that's what I'm doing this year. So, it's just, I mean, it's, it's a healthy thing, for one thing, it's good for your liver to stop drinking for a while. And more than that It's kind of a reminder. It resets any habits you might have had.

If, if it's like, okay, work is over, it's six o'clock, work is over, time for a beer.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: That sort of pattern that kind of gets locked in where it's like, some days, maybe I don't really need a beer, but I still crack one, right? So it interrupts that pattern and gives you a chance to reset and then be more conscientious about whether or not you want that beer.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: So that's a

Yucca: is the thing that works for you, but, you know, for other people, it might be something completely different,

Mark: Oh, sure. Yeah I did sugar one year. God, that was hard. Um, uh,

Yucca: I've quit a lot of things in my life, and I have to say sugar is by far the hardest.

Mark: yeah, yeah. Oh, man.

Yucca: yeah. You know, and some people might do some things like some, some actual, Like, fasting, as well. There's a lot of tradition, many different religions from all over the world have incorporated that, and there's a lot of really powerful potential with that,

Mark: Yes.

Yucca: you know, done in a mindful, safe way, of course,

Mark: Yes. Yeah. Mind, mind your health. Stay hydrated. You know, you don't have to be fanatical about it. But,

Yucca: just do your research on what you're doing beforehand. There's a lot of resources but it doesn't have to be, I know there's a lot of focus these days about it as like a weight loss technique or something like that but it can also be just Really wonderful for the mental clarity and the reminder that you get to choose these things and practicing that I choose right now, this is what I'm doing I'm not having that beer, or no, I'm not eating until noon every day, or whatever it is or if you decide to do a five day or whatever, you know, there's just Yeah,

Mark: yeah, I mean, I think it's empowering to be able to make those kinds of decisions. And and there are, let me just say right now, the odds are very good, if you're listening to this, that you don't need to lose weight. There are some people who, you know, may actually have health impediments and, and losing weight might be beneficial for that.

But the overall obsession with losing weight is a pernicious lie. And you're fine how you are. So fasting is not dieting. It's not recommending that you, that you deprive yourself in order to get smaller. That's not the point. The point is to understand that you do have choices, as you say, Yucca. And that you are in the driver's seat when it comes to things like what you put into your body.

Yucca: yeah.

Mark: So why don't we talk a little bit about how we observe this season. If you don't want to listen to this part, you can listen to last year's, or the year before, or the year before, or the year before. We just counted, this'll be our fifth. Oh no, it's fourth.

Yucca: So it's our fifth year, but we started right after so I think we were, I was looking back and we started right at the beginning of March. So I think we had just, we recorded, we had this wonderful idea when we started the podcast that we would get together once or twice a month and record multiple podcasts and then go about our business.

But that didn't end up working out. I think part of it is that it was just so nice to get together weekly

Mark: Yeah,

Yucca: and just be like,

Mark: enjoy it.

Yucca: let's just get together and talk and upload, you know, record it a day or two ahead of time and then upload it. But I think that we had tried to record. A few episodes before we launched, so that's why we were thinking that maybe it had been really, literally the week of, so, but yeah, five years.

Mark: yeah, man,

Yucca: eventful, very, very eventful years,

Mark: very eventful years. I'm, time for a tangent, tangent warning. There are a couple of eventful things that I want people to know about that are happening in the atheopagan community. The first one is, if you go to the Atheopagan Society website, Which is TheAPSociety. org. There's a banner right there at the top you can click on to register for the Sun Tree Retreat.

Yucca: Really coming up soon.

Mark: it's, it's, it's on Labor Day weekend, it's at the end of the summer, so it's not so far away. The, we're working on the program now. Our colleague Michael is putting a lot of work in on that and people have submitted presentations and workshops and rituals that they want to do that we're going to fold into that program.

But just be aware, registration is open, please go, you know, if you can't pay the whole amount now, put down a deposit just so that we know that you're coming and we can reserve a space for you. So that's one announcement and the other one is that at the last At the Atheopagan Society Council meeting, we agreed that we are going to start a scouting program for families and children.

Yucca: Mm

Mark: Um, this will be through the Spiral Scouts program, which is a pagan based scouting program, but it has a lot of the same kinds of badges for outdoor activities and camping, and Crafts and disciplines and all that kind of stuff we will be able to create our own badges, like we could create a critical thinking badge,

Yucca: hmm, mm hmm, mm

Mark: um, and families will be able to do these activities together and then we'll get together by Zoom so families can interact and kids can interact with one another as well, or if you live close enough to other People, you can be involved and we're going to open this to people that are not atheopagans so that people can do activities with, with their friends nearby. So that's really exciting and there's a survey open right now that we'll put in the show notes. To to gain information about people's interest in participation, how many kids they have that they would like to be involved, all that good kind of stuff, but it's exciting. I'm, I'm really thrilled that we're doing this and shout out to Robin our colleague on formerly on the Atheopagan Society Council, but who's really active in the community, who has done the heavy lifting on researching this and figuring out how it could work, so.

Yucca: yeah.

Mark: you. So those are my two tangents.

Yucca: Those are good tangents.

Mark: yeah. Exciting.

Yucca: are very excited about both, especially the badges.

Mark: Yeah, yeah. We get badges? Well, you have to do stuff to earn them,

Yucca: Well, that, that is, well, that makes it more special. There actually really is something about, you know, that, that, the effort and the, the earning it part. Like, yeah, I did it. Mm.

Mark: Yeah, it's interesting to me that Spiral Scouts designed itself where they don't have rank.

Yucca: Mm

Mark: don't elevate in rank the way that, like, the Boy Scouts do, where you're a Tenderfoot and then you're something else and something else and then eventually you're an Eagle Scout. There's no rank in Spiral Scouts.

There are categories of age groups. I believe we're gonna start and this is still under discussion, but I believe we're gonna start the Sun Tree Circle, which is what the atheopagan scouting program will be called. I believe we're gonna start that at six years old, because it's pretty hard to gain attention, you know, to have younger than six be able to pay attention on Zoom.

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: But we're,

Yucca: I would imagine that there would be an exception for the, you know, the five year old who really is able to do that, right? That it's more about what is the The expectations of the individual's abilities more so than what's the calendar

Mark: Right. Right. Absolutely.

Yucca: if you're, you know, five year old and eight months is, you know, they're not left out because of, because they're not quite there yet in

Mark: Right. And it's really the parent's call, you know, you know your kids better than anybody else. So it's a matter of you deciding, do you think they've got the capacity to focus, to be able to do these kinds of things? And if they do, well, bring them along. So, As I was saying, there are no ranks in Spiral Scouts.

Everybody is equal. It's very egalitarian, which we really like in atheopaganism. But you can earn these badges and do activities together so that you all earn a badge at once. Then you can put that on a sash. Or they also have this cool, like, cowl thing.

Yucca: mm

Mark: it's called a crepuscular or something.

I don't remember what it's called. But it's, it's like a, it's like a hood with a sort of a layer of cloth that hang, that's cut in an oval that hangs kind of over, down over your chest. And you can put badges on that too.

Yucca: okay,

Mark: So it's, it's just a matter of, you know, which uniform piece you choose to, to do it with.

Um, I mean, honestly, I've looked over this stuff and a lot of them are like, well, I want to do that, it sounds really fun.

Yucca: hmm,

Mark: So,

Yucca: right.

Mark: what do we do for, for this Sabbath? Oh, what do we call it? We didn't talk about what we call it.

Yucca: All right

Mark: Go ahead.

Yucca: so, second winter, Nosquilváir for us those are usually, I mean, Bridget's Day or Imblic when speaking to people in the broader pagan community, usually second winter.

Mark: Mm hmm. I have called this holiday river rain my personal wheel of the year because it really is the holiday of water. This is when all the water in the world is falling from the sky at least in so called normal years because of course we've had drought in the west a lot. In the last 15 years or so because climate is changing.

But this year it seems to be pretty good. We've had quite a lot of rain and last year of course was record rain and snow. It was, it was tremendous. So the creeks are all babbling and the hills are green and we get these big tides at the ocean and it's just It's just the time of water, and so I do a lot of celebrating of, of water in, at River Rain.

But I also like that term brightening because of its universality. In, in my books, I'm using brightening, and, and then dimming in August which is when we're coming off the summer solstice and it, the days are starting to get noticeably shorter.

Yucca: Right. Which is another one of those that I think really lends itself to being really customized and specialized to your environment. Because again, it's one that doesn't have that strong pre existing secular association.

Mark: right? Right. Yeah, and climatically it can be so different for people. I mean, where I am you can't see this because we're recording over Zoom, but my background today is the Golden Gate Bridge. In San Francisco, and San Francisco, of course, is very famous for being completely socked in with fog all summer long.

And I'm 60 miles north of that along the coast, and we are very, very frequently socked in with fog in the summertime. So, you know, the idea of the blazing sun, you know, of llamas, and it's like, well, where is it?

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So it's just, it's different for everybody and you really have to, once again, choose your own adventure. So are there particular ritual things that you do, Yucca, at this time of year?

Yucca: Well, we do take all the furs that we have and brush them out and care for them that way because if you're, you know, sleeping up against it or being up against the furs throughout the year, they start to kind of mat and tangle and so it's just a time to take care of the things that we have.

Mark: Mm hmm.

Yucca: so that's one.

And for the last few years, we've done painting of pine cones, which has been really lovely. Yeah. So where we are, we have two different kinds of pine cones. We have the, the big ones that you would picture when you think of a pine cone from the Ponderosa pines. And those are, you know, those are big, like the size of your fist.

And then we have little Pinyon pines, and they make little pine cones that are about golf ball sized, that look like little flowers when they open up. And so we'll go around and collect those and we're starting to make some of the, we'll focus on this a little bit more as we get closer to the equinox, but we'll make little bird feeders with them Or, you know, you dip it in the whatever your fat is, the lard or whatever, and coat it with the seeds.

But when you paint the pine cones, it actually takes a much longer time than you would think, because you have to do each of the little nubs, right? And then you string them together and you get these just really beautiful looking decorations that you can hang about. And it doesn't feel Christmassy.

Maybe it's because we're not doing like red and green we're doing more like whites and blues and, and things like that. Of course, sometimes the kids want to do different, you know, every single bit has to be a different color so they've got their rainbow ones or

Mark: Huh. Nice.

Yucca: those are some of the more craft things that we do.

Mm

Mark: Cool. Very cool. I have, on my focus, my altar, I have a chalice that I, that is my ritual chalice. I use it for various things, pouring libations. All that kind of stuff. It's, it's blue and white with sort of a grapevine design around the outside. And it sits on my focus, and it's always full of rainwater. Because water is life, right? You know, gotta have it there. But since last year, it has also had a coin in the bottom.

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: Because I got this idea about, you know, water and hopes and wishes and all that kind of stuff to do a wishing well for ritual for this time of year. And so I was we, the group that were doing it, we were, you know, pitching special coins into a, a cauldron.

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: Full of water, special water, a little bit of water from Glastonbury Tor, and from Bath, and then rainwater, that kind of stuff. And so I took my coin out and I put it in the bottom of that chalice and it's been there ever since. So that's, that's another kind of ritual thing that I like to do at this time of year is create the wishing well.

Yucca: Do you fill it up throughout the year? Or are you so, okay. I

Mark: just

Yucca: be shocked if you were going to be humid enough that that wouldn't evaporate

Mark: No, no, no, no. It, it evaporates all the time. And every once in a while I have to clean, you know, scrub it to take, all of the salts accumulated from evaporation off of the chalice. But it's pretty, and it's, it's there, and I use special coins, I've got a it's a French five franc coin from before the Euros, and it's, so it's, it's silver or nickel or something around the, the out part, and then the inner part is bronze or copper or, you know, something with more gold in

Yucca: colors. Wow, nice. Oh,

Mark: I have two of these that have an amazing backstory that I won't go into, but I have Algerian coins, are octagonal, and have this amazing Arabic script all over the front of them and they just, to me they look like Dungeons and Dragons coins. You know, they look like exotic loot from some ancient time that you would find in a chest somewhere. So, I use one of those two coins when I do this wishing well ritual.

Yucca: that sounds fun.

Mark: Yeah. it is.

Yucca: Do you get together with your circle for this holiday? Or more the big four.

Mark: Used to, but we don't anymore. We engage with one another more than we used to because we do a Zoom call every Friday evening.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: So we see one another and check in and stuff on a weekly basis. But as we've gotten older, the distance travel just becomes harder and harder. And so we get together at Hallows and at Yule and and that's, and then usually one other time.

Maybe around May Day and, but the, the Live Oak Circle, our Northern California Atheopagan Affinity Group, is getting together more frequently, and we're going to do one of these rituals next Sunday, no, not next Sunday, the Sunday after, the 11th of February, so that'll be fun.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: this, folks.

Yucca: Yeah. And they're closer, easier to get to.

Mark: Well, it's still a 60 mile drive for me. And it's a little further than that for the folks from Sacramento, but then we've got people from San Jose who are in the south of the South Bay, so the East Bay is a good convening point, and it's only every six or seven weeks, so it's It's not, it's not too bad, and I drive an electric car, so you can feel okay about it.

Yucca: Nice and quiet, right?

Mark: Yes, it, it, it sings. My car sings. It goes, oh, so great.

Yucca: Mine goes so so so so so so so so. I go over dirt washboard.

Mark: yeah, yeah, I

Yucca: I think even electric car would go so so so so

Mark: I, I think so, and probably worse,

Yucca: I would not be very happy.

Mark: because they're very heavy.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: batteries are super heavy, so. Even though they have a lot of get up and go, that's just because the torque on an electric motor is so much higher than on an internal combustion engine.

Yucca: Mm. Mm

Mark: Um, yeah, it's a funny thing, I, I mean, I don't really care much about fast cars, but I do get irritated by rude drivers, and, and they seem disproportionately to be drivers of BMWs and Mercedes and Teslas.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: So, what I like to do is to, when the light goes green, I like to leap across the intersection far faster than your incredibly expensive car, sir. Just to kind of make the point that, you know, my car's quite a bit cheaper, but it'll go.

Yucca: Mm. Very mature, but

Mark: It's satisfying and completely immature. Absolutely immature. Um, you know, there you have it. None of us is perfect. So this has been great, Yucca. Thank you so much. This has been a great conversation. I wish you the best of the season.

Yucca: Likewise. And to all of you, thank you. So, here's to another year!

Mark: another year. Here we go. Off we go. All right, everybody. We'll, we'll see you next week.

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Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com

Season 5 - Episode 2

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Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com

Season 5 - Episode 1

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Mark: Welcome back to The Wonder, Science Based Paganism. I'm your host, Mark,

Yucca: And I'm Yucca.

Mark: and today we are talking about what happens after the frenzy of the holiday season. I know for a lot of people it's kind of a relief because it's very stressful and anxiety provoking, but for others the holidays really are kind of a haven in the midst of winter, and when they end there's sort of a letdown of No more parties, no more decoration, no more booze and sugar, you know, all that kind of stuff.

And it's hard because it's the coldest, darkest time of the year.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: So, we're going to talk about that today.

Yucca: Yeah. As you were saying that, I was thinking of that feeling that you get when your body, when you've had a bunch of adrenaline in your body, and then it fades, and all of a sudden you're like, oh,

Mark: Yeah. Welcome to, welcome to cortisol.

Yucca: yeah, now my arms are heavy, now what do I do? Right.

Mark: Yeah. I Really resonate with that right now because my work has been extremely busy. I wasn't able to take time, um, in the last two weeks of December. So, really been sprinting and there is that sort of sense now here in, you know, we're recording this on December 30th. On the Saturday, and I, so I get these three days, and I'm in this mode of what do I do?

What do I do? What do I do? Because I've been so doing for so long, right?

Yucca: Yeah. So I guess this is really a good opportunity to talk about the Well, transitions in general, but especially transition out of the holidays, and also the in between time. We'll come back to this in a minute, but the in between holidays, because at least those of us who follow the Wheel of the Year, we have a lot more holidays than most people do, but there's still these big chunks of time that we're in between, and what do we do during that in between?

Bye. Period. I think it's a really potent, powerful time period, but in a very different way than holidays are.

Mark: Yes, I agree. And then that leads us into, well, okay, well, when you're not celebrating, because you can't I mean, well, at

Yucca: day is a celebration in some ways, but

Mark: one level, we can be and hopefully are celebrating all the time because there's a lot to celebrate. But in the times that are between the peaks of that, how do we, how do we live as pagans every day?

Yucca: Right.

Mark: How do we, how do we enact that in our behavior? How do we choose it in our focus? And are what we pay attention to, um, so we'll be talking about that too.

Yucca: Yeah. Yeah, I'm really happy that this is coming out on the first of the year. Seems like a good welcome to 2024 kind of thing.

Mark: It does. 2024. Can you believe it?

Yucca: It no.

Mark: No. No.

Yucca: time, it feels like a sci fi Year. Does not feel like a real,

Mark: That's

Yucca: we're actually here.

Mark: Yeah. 2024 by Arthur C. Clarke.

Yucca: starting with the transitioning out we still have our solstice celebration decorations up, but in the next few days, those are gonna start coming down, and it's gonna be, we still have a lot of wintry things out.

So. Because at just the time of year we just like having our wintry things, because that's what's going on, but it's not going to be that solstice, right? It's not that, or Christmas, or whatever it is that it that folks are doing, it's not going to be that anymore. And so there's always kind of a, like a bitter sweetness to taking those things down.

Mm

Mark: It leaves a void in your home and in your sense of the specialness of the time. My Partner Nemea really gets a lot of psychological benefit out of the Yule tree, the solstice tree. And so we will still keep it up for another couple of weeks. Which means that we always miss the window for the

Yucca: Pick up.

Mark: company coming to pick it up.

Which means I have to chop it into little pieces and fit it into a yard waste bin. But and I keep the trunk for next year's Yule Log, so I have to do some chopping anyway. But You know, this is a moment where the hoopla is fading, and then you're left with, well, we're back to school, we're back to work, and it's gray and cold,

Yucca: And this particular year, it's fast since New Year's is happening on a Monday. Everybody's back on a Tuesday. If it was in the middle of the week, then usually things wouldn't start until the next week. But it's like, boom, here we go.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, one of the, one of the jokes that I've always made because my birthday is January 3rd is that my birthday is always the day you go back to work. It's, you know, it's always, it's like, okay, the party's over and now it's time to celebrate me. Right. And it's like, well, we're sick of parties and we're sick of sweets and we're sick of booze.

And we're, it's like, we don't want to get together in gatherings. We've been doing that for three weeks.

Yucca: And I'm guessing as a kid, even though you're not a December birthday, you still probably got the let's just, this is your, this is your birthday present and your Christmas present all wrapped up to

Mark: You know, honestly, I don't remember that happening. Um, yeah, I don't know. I don't know.

Yucca: And I know a lot of December babies who complain about that.

Mark: yeah. Well, I mean, one of the things that's frustrating about it, of course, is that it would be nice to have a holiday some other time through the year because I'm kind of sick of parties and booze and sweets and presents and all that kind of stuff.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: you know, and I actually have had half birthday parties a couple of times.

On July 3rd. Yeah, so it's like, okay, I'm 46 and a half now. Time to have a party.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: so, anyway, let's talk a little bit about that, that transition, that, that kind of coming down off the peak. Because that's a real thing. I mean, it's a neurochemical thing. It's not just, it's not just something you can necessarily talk yourself out of because there is a change in modality from go, go, go, gotta be festive, gotta be festive, to okay, I have to be able to focus for work now.

I have to, you know, I have to take the kids to school all those kinds of sort of more mundane things that get you rooted back into the groove of your, your routine life.

Yucca: Mm hmm. Yeah. I think there's potential in when you, because those things are all things that are things you really actually have to do. There's a physical component to those things. And there's an opportunity to take a moment just to be aware of what you're doing as you're doing that. And there's a moment right there for that intention of recognizing, okay, I'm taking down the tree.

Right? Or, I'm getting back in the car, first, first day back in the car in the whole year. Just gonna take a few seconds to close my eyes and think about what this means and be conscious of the transition.

Mark: Mm hmm. And because it's a Because it's a shift from the out of routine nature of the previous few weeks, it gives you an opportunity to look at your established routine and decide whether that's really what you like. I mean, there are things you don't have a choice about, you do have to take the kids to school, you do have to do grocery shopping and all that kind of stuff, but maybe there are other things in your life that are habitual that you don't necessarily want to continue, or things that you want to add,

Yucca: Right? And that's, we talk a lot about how COVID has shaped and changed the world. I think that's one of the places where it really did so many people. It was like an extended period of out of the norm, and several months, years, rockiness of going back to the routine, but getting to go, is this the routine that I want?

And for a lot of people, the very, very loud no,

Mark: Yeah,

Yucca: And not that we're necessarily able to make all the changes that we would like to, but it gave us the opportunity to be aware that it could be different.

Mark: well, and the biggest example of that, I think, is that in order to conduct business at all, many businesses had to go to remote

Yucca: Mm

Mark: And when they went to remote work, workers found they liked it. They didn't like the expense and the time loss and the stress of a commute. They didn't, they, they'd much rather work at home if not full time than certainly part time.

And now employers are sort of strong arming many workers to get them back into the office, and the workers are balking. You know. There are tech workers that have moved out of California to small towns in the Midwest, and they're like, I'm not coming to the office, folks. I'm just, I'm not doing it. I mean, I'll, I'll fly in a couple of times a year for some kind of key thing that needs to happen.

But, you know, on a daily basis, everything I do is over the wire anyway. So, leave me alone. Let me do my job.

Yucca: I have to say, as someone who's pretty rural, to get into town is about an hour for us. So I love it. It makes there's so many things. I have a doctor's appointment coming up this week that I don't, that I don't need. It's just a consultation, right? They don't need to actually take any vitals. So I'm not going to drive anywhere.

They're not going to drive anywhere. We're just going to hop on the computer for a minute. Boom.

Mark: Yeah, telemedicine is a big deal, and especially for people living in rural areas. The advent of telemedicine is a huge step up in the quality of their care. So, yeah, it's a good thing.

Yucca: And education,

Mark: Mm hmm.

Yucca: There's so much stuff, you know, I provide it that way, my kids get it, where we can be rural and have access to people all over the world. So, anyways, that's our tangent from returning to normal life.

Mark: tangent number one for this episode. Yeah, I mean, we get to reconsider what kind of life do we want to have within the constraints of the things we don't have a choice about. And that is, honestly, That's, that's the definition of freedom, really, you know.

Freedom isn't absolute, I can do whatever I want. Freedom is, there are things that are out of my control that are constraints that I'm going to have to meet like having to eat, stuff like that. And then there are other things that I have choices about, and that's where you have liberty. That's where you get to make decisions.

Yucca: Well, and if we go with that, you have choices on how you do the required things. Right? So, just using the, you have to eat, well, okay, but I get to choose what, and when, and, you know, all those sorts of things

Mark: Mm hmm.

Yucca: does a, that element is a choice, right? And we can do that with everything in our lives,

Mark: Yes. Although

Yucca: well, there's, again, there's certain things we do not have control over as individuals, right?

Mark: what I was going to say is that when you're in a family situation and you have kids that you're making decisions for, that's another constraint because it's like, you might not want to eat until nine o'clock at night, but if their bedtime is seven, then you need to make sure that they're fed.

They're just things you don't have a choice about, right?

Yucca: But how do you respond

Mark: yes.

Yucca: to the fact that you have these people who are dependent and they have needs? How do you, how do you then respond, right? While still meeting those needs? You get to, as a parent, you don't have to do it a certain way because grandma did it that way.

Mark: Oh,

Yucca: You get to, you get to, you know, and there's lots of things grandma did that was awesome and other things grandma did that, oh my goodness, let's, let's not even talk about them, but you get to look at that and say, how does this work for my life?

And how does this work for theirs? And get to make those choices,

Mark: it's a good time for reflection, the beginning of the year. We talked about that last week some. Just to be really clear, you know, this is my life, it's my artwork, and I'm gonna do what I can within the constraints of what I've got. You know, if I've got a 2x4 canvas, I can't paint a 6x8 painting. That's the nature of the thing.

But you still have an awful lot of choices about what you put on that canvas. Um, so, so yeah that's, that's a place to start is feeling some agency. I think that one of the things about the post holiday letdown can often be feeling like you're sort of getting back into the harness and having less choices and, you know, less opportunity to just be happy and celebrate and stuff.

And that isn't entirely true. It's just that you have to do it within the constraints of what your life demands of you on a daily basis. So, let's talk a little bit about that. Dark time that we're coming into. I mean, it's not so dark. The light is, well, it is dark, but the light

Yucca: depends on where you, yeah, it depends on your environment. I mean, I can certainly notice that the days are getting longer, but there's, there Still really, really short right now.

Mark: Yes. And where I am, it's,

Yucca: we're going into the coldest time of the year. Even though it's not going to be the darkest, it's the coldest, most bitter, windiest, you know, it really is going to be true winter.

Mark: hmm, hmm. Yeah. Here I'm very pleased to report from California that we're getting a lot of rain.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: But that means that it's overcast and gray and we get tule fog in the morning on the mornings when it gets down around freezing. And it's It's, it's rarely bitter because when it does freeze, it's usually because it's clear.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: And so the heat is radiated away from the earth and not been reflected back by clouds. But the, the, the time still feels cold and you know, you, you kind of have to bundle up and, and the days are still very, very short.

Yucca: Mm hmm. And the shadow's long. That's the other thing that I always think about this time of year. Even when the sun is at its highest point in the sky, The shadows are just still long.

Mark: they are. Yeah.

Yucca: Yeah. So, and we're going to talk more about this time of year, especially in a few weeks we'll talk slog, right?

Mark: Slug.

Yucca: But you also have the stretches of time period between holidays in general, right?

And some, some holidays get more attention than others. sOme of them kind of, and this depends on each person individually but some of them just sort of get, you just sort of glide over them more easily than

Mark: Mm hmm. Mm

Yucca: I mean, I guess that for most, most people there's a few really big ones that we can pretty consistent throughout the whole community.

The winter solstice, hollows. Those are usually pretty big ones. On the other side of the year, what would you think? May?

Mark: Yeah,

Yucca: and maybe the equinox? But the other ones kinda Those are ones that sort of fall between the cracks sometimes.

Mark: Well, the overculture, the mainstream culture, doesn't have corollary holidays at those times. And so we don't get, we don't get the help of there being a day to take off or a set of themes like the Easter bunny and chocolate eggs or,

Yucca: Although May, we don't really get that either, but I think there's just such the still the powerful image of the maple and flowers

Mark: right,

Yucca: That's, that's still kind of hanging on there.

Mark: Yeah, um, and another, another tradition that's really embraced in the pagan community is Morris dancing, the season for which starts on May Day where they dance up the sun and then it ends on the autumnal equinox when they dance down the sun. And in some cases, I mean, I've seen people that, I've seen reports of Morris teams that are now like dancing down the sun on the winter solstice, which I think is also very cool, but,

dancing around wearing bells in the snow takes a particular kind of character, I think, not one that I have.

Yucca: Right. And again, depends on your climate, right? A lot of that happening in, you know, southern Britain, they don't, yeah, they might get some snow, but it doesn't stick around the way you might have snow in, say, Wisconsin. Right. Yeah. It's very different places.

Mark: So we settle into our lives again and start doing the things. And I guess this is what brings us to This idea of being a pagan every day,

Yucca: Mm hmm. Mm

Mark: right? Even when you're not, you know, putting on your, your fancy rags and, you know, going out to a, a celebration on at the beginning of February or at the spring equinox or whatever it is,

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: you know, there's, there's a way of being aware of what's going on around us in the natural world and a way of looking for the beauty and the opportunities to celebrate and to be happy that.

thAt characterizes a pagan life, I think, and it's always a work in progress, but I've certainly found that, especially since my pagan practice became atheopaganism, explicitly, um, I just, I have more happiness now, because, because I'm, I'm making it, I'm choosing it. And of course we have so much grim, dire, dystopian talk in our mainstream culture. I think it's really beneficial to teach yourself, you know, to get wowed by flowers and the shapes of clouds and,

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: you know, the, the color of the sunset and, You know, that, that new picture from from the James Webb Telescope and, you know, all those. Just cool, cool things. The conjunction of Jupiter and the Moon, you know, pretty fantastic.

Yucca: Yeah, and that isn't something that is a switch you can flip. It's not where you can just say, I am going to be a more joyful, happy, grateful person. It's something that you practice and become by doing. And that's where the daily practice really comes in.

Mark: Yeah, it's a muscle. You have to, you have to exercise it, and it will become stronger over time.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: And a daily practice for me is really important, and I don't have a super elaborate daily practice, but it's still something that I go back to every day. And it just reminds me, okay, I am, I'm on a pagan path, I'm revealing the natural world, I'm connected with all this, and this is the lens that I turn on the world.

This is, this is how I understand things. And that helps me.

Yucca: Yeah. And what that practice is can and will look different for every person and for different points throughout our lives.

Mark: Yes.

Yucca: I'm guessing that your daily practice is different than it was 10 years ago, than it was 20 years ago, probably even different than it was 5. There's probably some core elements, but there's things that change.

Throughout whatever's happening in your life, what are the things you need? And, you know, maybe there are things that really do work. There are certain things that work and we come back to. And then things that become more important at different points.

Mark: And what's lovely about neopaganism is that you are not prescribed rituals, you can design rituals that fit with yourself and your current needs and your own creative aesthetic and what the, the freedom in that. And the, the precision with which a practice can address your personal needs is really amazing.

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: is. And you can try lots of different stuff until you find something that goes, Ooh, that's really good. I want to do that every day.

Yucca: And there is not shame at all in trying out research. Something that you didn't completely invent, right? If you find something that somebody says, Hey, this is a way to do it, you do this, this, and this, and you try that out, and you do that, and kind of dedicate yourself to being consistent with it for a several week process, or however long you decide is what works for you there's value in that.

You don't, because one of the things in neopaganism is sometimes it can be a little Overwhelming for people. It kind of just seems like this free for, oh, whatever works for you, whatever works for you. Sometimes people are like, yeah, but I don't know what works for me. I need a starting point, something.

Yeah. And that's not, that's not necessarily a bad thing. That's just where somebody is at that moment. And, and then they get to know themselves better as they go through this process. And that's something that we can come back to, right? Yeah.

Mark: Mm hmm.

Yucca: adding new things in, and you don't have to know from the get go exactly what's going to be the right fit for you.

Mark: No.

Yucca: You change over time.

Mark: And, and. At least in the naturalistic pagan pathways that we talk about here, um, you can do it any way you want that works for you, that's fine, but you can also be inspired by other sources in other traditions, which doesn't mean stealing them,

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: but it means being inspired by them because there are a lot of things that are so called ritual technologies.

Yucca: Mm

Mark: That are very powerful. And, I mean, lighting candles, right? I mean, people light candles all over the world for a lot of different reasons in sacred contexts. So you're not stealing anything from anyone by lighting a candle or burning incense or, you know, that kind of stuff. But it can still be, you know, very evocative and powerful for you.

You've talked about, um, the Simmerpot at your house, Yucca. And that's, I mean, that's a ritual practice, right? It's something that you do in order to create scents in the home that reflect your seasonal aesthetic and, you know, and that's another reminder of, oh, oh, it's spring,

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: you know, oh, the, the, the smell changed.

Mama changed the smell. So, we're in a different time now.

Yucca: And they're old enough now that sometimes they get to be involved in the choice.

Mark: Oh,

Yucca: they're real little, it just happens. But as they get a little bit older, it's, hey! What do you think? Which one today? What do you mean both? Okay, let's try both. That's almost always the answer. I don't know if that'll go, but sure, let's try it.

So yeah.

Mark: In yeah. Terry PR in the, the BBC production of the Terry Pratchett Novel Hog Father, which is the only holiday movie that I have to watch every year.

Yucca: We read the Hogfather every year.

Mark: Do you? Yeah, yeah. There's this wonderful line by one of the, the wizards at the the University of Uns, the unseen University of on Mor Pork, where he says, let's just take everything and mix it up and see what happens.

And that's, that sounds very much like a five year old choosing what sense to put in a pot.

Yucca: Yes.

Mark: Don't wanna, you don't wanna miss out on anything, right?

Yucca: Right. And so, you know, I try to be good first. Knowing that the everything in might be an option, you know, I limit it down to two or three options to begin with, but they still, it's still gonna be all of them. And if you ask multiple kids at the same time, they, out of principle, will choose the opposite of the other ones.

Mark: Ah, okay. Individuation. It's a thing. Huh.

Yucca: it was, I wish I had like a, you know, a save button in real life so I could go back and check what would happen if you did. Ask them independently, right? Like in games where you can be like, what if I chose the other dialogue? What would have happened? I wish we could do that in real life. So,

Mark: daily practices. They can be a lot of different things. I mean, a daily practice can be going for a walk in your neighborhood.

Yucca: Mm

Mark: You know, for a half an hour every day and just looking at what's happening in the gardens or in the shop windows, or, you know, if you're in a big, dense, urbanized city you know, just what's going on with traffic right now you know, what, what are the clouds doing are there, are there wildlife around, are there birds that are, that are around that you don't necessarily see at other times of the year that, That function of paying attention.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: And particularly paying attention to look for reasons to be happy is a learned skill, like, like Yucca was saying, and it sure improves your life.

Yucca: Right,

Mark: You know, one of the things that, that I have a really hard time with the Abrahamic religions about is that they don't seem to put much focus on being happy.

Yucca: right. At least not the mainstream ones. I think we could say that they're definitely bran you, you could make that argument for Sufism or Quakers or, you know, there's branches that do bring that in, um, but not as a, that's not really the theme on the, on the big scale.

Mark: no well, anyway,

Yucca: That's a, another conversation about the whys behind that and

Mark: Yeah, and it's not our subject.

Yucca: the,

Mark: You, you can find another podcast to learn about, you know, what they're going for and what, what their goals are.

Yucca: Context for why it developed that way? Which is fascinating, but I personally don't know enough to actually really comment on that. I can say my guesses on, well, I listened to that, you know, that one podcast, and they said this and that, and that made sense to me, but that's not actually my field.

So.

Mark: Yep, very helpful when you know what you don't know. Which is, of course, one of the, the banes of the internet is that certain people are authorities on everything. You know, the Dunning Kruger, uh, syndrome, uh,

Yucca: ways, right? The less you know, the more you think you do, and the more you know, the less you think you do.

Mark: the less you think you do and the less certain you are about any of your conclusions.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: Which is why evidence is a good thing. But, just for us, I mean,

Yucca: And this whole process that we've been sorting out over, over hundreds of years to try and get closer in and spiral closer and closer into truth. It's pretty great.

Mark: it is.

Yucca: I'm a big

Mark: It is. And it spins out lots of things that are almost certainly true. There, there are things that are nailed down pretty well in terms of the way the universe works, and the way particular organisms operate, and, and that kind of thing. Now, at any given moment, there is an opportunity for some Contrary evidence to come along that shows that we don't completely understand them yet.

But the fact that you're in New Mexico and I'm in California and we're talking now

Yucca: Feels face to face.

Mark: yes, and we can broadcast this for people all over the world to listen to is a reflection of the fact that we've gotten pretty good at predictable stuff in many ways.

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: Yeah,

Yucca: And in other places, we've, we've got a long way to go, but. We've got a process to, a process to be able to approach it with.

Mark: Yeah, to get there.

Yucca: so, and when we talk about a daily practice, that's a process too. It may not necessarily be the scientific method, but you can actually bring a lot of that into your own life and that can be really helpful.

Right, just some of those, the, Your observation and testing and all of that, but having the process is really the first step

Mark: Yeah. And when you think about it, a lot of what people call a grimoire or a book of shadows, you know, those are great romantic names

Yucca: for your lab book, for your field book,

Mark: Exactly. That's, that's, that's exactly what it is. It's like, okay, I did this this time. It felt like this. This is what I would change.

This is what I would keep. Onward we go.

Yucca: right? And sometimes they even have very specific rules that you're supposed to follow, like writing in pen and, you know, all the things and dating it. Yeah, some, depending on what lab you're in, there's some. The rules can be pretty intense for how you do your notebook.

Mark: Really?

Yucca: Well, because they, well, again, depending on what the lab is, but you can later use that as evidence for patent disputes and all of that kind of stuff.

Mark: I see. Yeah, that makes sense. You don't want that stuff written in pencil.

Yucca: Yeah, so there's rules and now there's a lot of them have gone digital. But there's very specific rules about how you do it and even. So, one place that I worked, I had to have the supervisor initial when I crossed something out. They had to initial that it was like a second, a witness, basically, that you were crossing out in the notebook.

So,

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: Yeah,

Mark: Yeah, like with a contract. If you cross something out you have to initial it.

Yucca: yeah. But, the, when you're doing your Book of Shadow or something like that, you can come up with your own fun rules that you can do for whatever practical reason, but also Just because it makes it feel kind of special and, and, you know.

Mark: Yeah. Have a special pen. There's a member of the Atheopagan Society Council who is a fanatic about fountain pens.

Yucca: Ooh.

Mark: And she has all these amazing fountain pens and ink, including Ultraviolet, sensitive, invisible ink.

Yucca: Ooh.

Mark: Isn't that cool?

Yucca: like

Mark: You have to shine a UV flashlight on it in order to read it, but the pages look completely blank otherwise.

I mean, and there's, you know, there's all these wonderful inks like oxblood ink and, you know, all this stuff, which isn't actually made, isn't actually made from oxblood, it's just that color.

Yucca: Oh, okay. It's gonna say the DM in me immediately thinks of using that pen for a secret message that you have to give the players and they can't decipher it until you give them the right the right prop or something.

Mark: Yeah, yeah like a wand that glows UV,

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Something like that. That would be really cool.

Yucca: You just come up with some fantasy sounding name for it instead of UV, though.

Mark: Right.

Yucca: Yes.

Mark: Well, we used to have ultravision and infravision in Dungeons Dragons. That got turned into darkvision, which is a catch all. Covers You know, so instead of seeing a heat imprint, um, or, you know, seeing at far distance because the ultraviolet is more penetrating you just have this one magical thing that just lets you see stuff that's further away.

Yucca: Yeah, you just explain it in different ways, but it makes the The rolling work, the stats work easier.

Mark: It does. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm not going to talk about Shadow Dark. I really am not. We were talking before the thing, I got a new role playing game that I participated in the Kickstarter for, and it's, it looks really wonderful, and it's very simple. Very simple, modern mechanics, but a real old school kind of feel.

So, that's all I'm going to say about Shadow Dark.

Yucca: All right, um, well maybe that's one of those activities to do in the long stretches between holidays.

Mark: Yes. If it's going to be dark, you might as well be in a dungeon.

Yucca: right, yep, well this was great. Any other thoughts for the, for the new year, for our different topics today, of kind of the letdown from the holidays between. Holidays and daily practice.

Mark: I, I guess the one thing that I would reinforce is to experiment, you know, really ask, ask uncomfortable questions about the routines in your life that don't serve you, and experiment with different ways to make that feel better, um, and that's, that And a daily practice, to me, really helps. The daily practice should not feel like a burden. Remember, the practice is for you, you're not for the practice. It's, it's not like, you know, it's not like

Yucca: There's not some god that you're trying to please.

Mark: right, or some religious institution. So this is all about you identifying. What helps you to live what feels like an optimized life. Because you know what? When people are happy, they spread it around. They, when people are happy, they empower other people. They

Yucca: Just feel good to be around.

Mark: yes, they feel good to be around.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: And that's something we can all aspire to, I think. So yeah, this has been great, Yucca. Thank you so much for the conversation and Happy New Year!

Yucca: Happy New Year, everyone!

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Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com

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Introduction and Welcome

Yucca: Welcome back to The Wonder Science Based Paganism. I'm your host, Jekka.

Mark: And I'm Mark.

Reflecting on the End of the Year

Yucca: And today we are talking about the end of the year and the beginning of a new year. So once again, here we are at the end of a year,

Mark: Yeah, so it's a good time for reflecting on what the, what this round of the cycle has been, and then looking forward into the next year we were saying before we started to record, we're still in that, that kind of held breath in the middle of, of the winter solstice season, at least in the, in the northern hemisphere, where Everything seems to kind of stop for a moment, even though there's this frenzy of activity in your personal life, most, many people are not working.

There's just a kind of suspension of ordinariness, and there's this moment of what can be a really reflective still time, as well as a very festive time,

Yucca: right? This episode should actually come out Christmas morning. So, early Christmas morning,

Mark: always a tranquil and reflective time.

Yucca: Yes, very relaxed, there's nothing going on.

Discussing the Timing of the New Year

Yucca: Before we get into all of that, let's talk about the timing of the New Year. Okay. Because we're talking about the calendar switching New Year, which many people count as the New Year. For me, that's usually what I go with. That's the turning of the calendar.

But for some folks, it's actually at Hallow, some people it's the Solstice, some people change at the Equinox, right? When's New Year's for you?

Mark: I have two tracks for that, and they're offset by about ten days.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: For me, the beginning of the sacred cycle of the year is at the winter solstice. But then there's the calendar year, which, you know, as we say, when you're dating something, what number do you put at the end of the of, of the date that you're writing, that changes on January 1st, and so January 1st is also a hinge point, a moment when there's a transition, and that gives us the opportunity to do what we're doing today, which is look back, kind of review what that's all been like for the past cycle, and then imagine and dream forward into the new cycle.

Yucca: Mm hmm. For me it's very fuzzy because since I don't have, typically I'm not working on the 31st or the 1st. The exact moment there isn't really a switch over, it's just this sort of fuzzy time period where it's like, oh yeah, it's the new year. I think, kinda, now I gotta get used to writing this other date, but it hasn't really happened yet.

it Really takes about until February to get used to it being a different year.

Mark: Mm.

Reflections on the Past Year

Yucca: So, and some years just don't feel like they happened, especially in the last few years because of how things were so different with COVID, where some years just, like, feel like they're missing.

Mark: Yeah, 2020, I mean, when it happened, 2020 felt like the longest year ever.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: And then 2021 was like a continuation of the longest year ever, it was just more of the same. anD when the various Restrictions were relaxed, it almost felt like, it almost felt like that hadn't happened at all.

Impact of COVID-19 on the Perception of Time

Mark: Like, it was just this sort of separate time when we were all indoors and staying away from everyone but it was outside of history somehow.

Yucca: It was almost like we went from 19 to 22.

Mark: Mm hmm.

Yucca: Like, those, those years, I mean, they're there, but they're not in some ways. It's very, very odd. And this year So much has happened. It's actually quite difficult to keep track of what happened this year and what wasn't this year. Just thinking about what happened within this calendar year.

It's, it's been a very full year.

Mark: it really has. I mean, everything from floods and earthquakes and volcano eruptions to, you know, political happenings here and there and wars and humanitarian crises, you know, and of course that's what the news feeds us, which is all the bad news,

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: BuT I think it's fair to say that this is a very uncertain time for a lot of people.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Changes in the Work Environment

Mark: I think about You know, in the, in the business world, in the economy, there's this huge movement of companies that are sort of hanging on by their fingernails to their old model and wanting to go back to 2019, and insisting that their workers come back to the office, and the workers are saying, actually, no, thank you,

Yucca: Mm

Mark: uh, this works much better for me in my life, and I'm not going.

And it's, it's a very interesting standoff,

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: And it's one that I think the, the labor force, the working force is winning. I, I don't think that this idea about you have to be sitting in a chair in a cubicle in order to do your job is, is gonna succeed over the long term.

Yucca: Right. At least within certain sectors. There are certain ones that are in person.

Mark: Oh, service industries, for sure. Yeah, I mean, those people have to be there and doing their thing. I'm thinking specifically of people that were in an office. Yeah, people who were in an office and then were able to leave, which of course is a tremendous privilege.

Challenges of Remote Work

Mark: I now work fully remotely, and although there are things that are hard about it, like, for example, the fact that you could not register an organization to receive federal funding through, like, a cost sharing agreement or something like that, or a grant with the federal government if you don't have a physical address. Because the Patriot Act regulations consider that dodgy. So I, in order to prove that we really exist, I'm going to have to change the address on our bank account of my employer to my personal address, print out the, the, the bank statement that shows that address, and then change it back to the P. O. box that we have.

Because we're a fully remote company and we don't have an office. So, it's just silly.

Yucca: Wow. And you're not gonna, you don't have any zoning problems that are gonna come from that?

Mark: No,

Yucca: Okay. Yeah. Because there's certain areas where you gotta watch out for that, that you're not allowed to have particular businesses

Mark: a

Yucca: areas and, you know.

Mark: I'm sure that that's true, but considering that it's going to last for less than 24 hours I don't really think it's a problem. The primary issue is, I think, they want to know where they can go to find a human being who is working for this company. And has some responsibility if they need to come after us for some reason.

And I, there wouldn't be any reason they would need to come after us. I mean, we're a nonprofit organization. We can't even get in trouble with them for taxes.

Yucca: Mm hmm. Yeah. But, but they can't go to a P. O. box. So.

Mark: right. That's right. So we have to, I'm going to paint a target on my door and, and invite them to come find me.

Reflection on Personal and Global Events

Yucca: So, this year, though, there's things that have been happening on a big scale,

Mark: yes,

Yucca: and our personal lives, of course, are interwoven with that, right? But at the same time, a lot of what happens in our own lives really doesn't have a lot to do with the outside workings of, you know, what's happening with floods and hurricanes and wars and, you know, life just goes on.

for listening. for regular folk.

Looking Back and Looking Forward

Yucca: And so each of us, you know, us, you and me, Mark, and everyone listening, we've all had our own years, our own lives that have happened, and I, we were talking a lot about this last week, about the, about solstice being this wonderful time for reflection. I think that's a, we can continue that in, and, and think about the whole year.

And what has that meant to us, and what are some of the lessons that we have learned? Because we have learned lessons, right? And what are those? Mm

Mark: of those lessons are things that have crossed our minds consciously, right? Like, okay, this is a situation that doesn't work for me, this is a situation that does work for me this is an activity that really feeds me and helps me to feel energized and happy. thIs is something that is a total waste of time that I've been doing for my entire life, and I'm gonna stop, you know, those kinds of things.

But then there's also the sort of the subconscious part, the, uh, the reflection on what can be called shadow work, you know, where you look at All right, there were certainly challenges this year. I mean, I don't think I know of anyone who didn't have a challenge this year. Did I ride those out, and what did I learn from them, and what did they tell me about myself,

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: right?

What do they tell me about who I am? Because I think that one of the things that people are really struggling with right now is that we've been through a bunch of hardship with the pandemic and the Trump years and just a lot of really,

Yucca: with the economy,

Mark: yes, all that stuff. And you know, people, people still feel kind of beat up in many ways and very uncertain.

And so, kind of digging down to find out, well, how do I live with that uncertainty? Am I doing okay? Am I, am I kind of walking, wounded, depressed right now? Not, not in a, in a So much a debilitating sense is just kind of a muffling sense, where you don't feel things as much as you used to, and the kinds of things that you enjoy doing, maybe you don't enjoy doing them quite so much.

The Importance of Self-Reflection

Mark: I think it's a good time for sort of a diagnostic take on, on how our mental health is going, and what in life is really serving us, and what in life is not.

Yucca: Right?

Setting Goals and Intentions for the New Year

Yucca: Yeah, and thinking about that, the choice and intention that we have in that, right? What do we want? What is serving us? And what, what do we want? How do we want to be in this life? Is that something that I choose or you choose to continue to do? Because it is When it comes to how we're responding, it ultimately is a choice, right?

It's not a choice whether, to us as individuals, whether who's in office or what wars are happening, right? But, but how am I, how am I going to respond is something that I have some influence over, and this is just a good time to think about that. Yeah.

Mark: Yes. How am I going to show up to reality?

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: And a perfectly legitimate approach to that, by the way, is a nice dash of escapism. You know, play your Dungeons and Dragons and watch your Netflix. I mean, checking out for a little while is something that can actually help support you at times when things seem a little overwhelming or unbearable.

I mean, you probably want to curate those experiences so you're not watching super depressing movies. Maybe that's not the road you want to follow.

Yucca: Unless that does it for you, right? My, my partner will look at things that are like, will get on Reddit and, you know, see the, the terrible relationships and the like, am I the asshole threads and go, wow, my life's not that bad.

Mark: life is good, yeah!

Yucca: that to be very, like, helpful. Now, if I look at that stuff, I just get it.

so worked up and it makes it worse for me, but for some people that really does help. So it, so, you know, know yourself on that. Does that help? Does that not help? You know, what are you consuming? And is that, is that leading you in the way that you want to be developing yourself right now or not?

Mark: absolutely. Yeah, that's well said. So, I think there's an opportunity, I mean, one thing that I do on New Year's Eve is I have a dark mirror. Which is a piece of, a circular piece of heavily tinted glass, which I then painted black on the back and put in a frame. Actually first I put a piece of cardboard in the frame and then the glass over the top of that so that there would be some, some backing so that it would be less likely to break the mirror, um, but then I also drew various sigils and arcane symbols and stuff on the cardboard before I put the glass on top of it, so they're, they're down in there somewhere.

Yucca: So there's these layers. Okay.

Mark: You can't see them at all through the glass, but they're there. And what I like to do is to sort of, you know, light a candle and contemplate my face in this dark mirror on New Year's Eve. I've only done it for a couple of years, but it's a cool thing. You can see this shadowy outline of your face.

And if you just keep gazing into it, it all sort of dissolves into geometric shapes. And you just Then you find your mind wandering to particular places and things and ideas and thoughts and, and it's a It's an opportunity to check in with the subconscious, to sort of dip in a little bit and find out, well, what's going on down there? So, that's something you could do, I mean, by candlelight, you could do that with a regular mirror.

Yucca: And then you get that lovely flickering with that.

Mark: right, yeah. So, something to think about, or some other form of, you know, so called divination, like reading Tarot, or whatever those are. I like the ones, for this kind of work, I like the ones where you work essentially with random imagery and then see what your mind makes out of it, right?

Like serumancy, dripping candle wax into water,

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: and it creates shapes as it, you know, cools. And you can see different animals and symbols and all that kind of stuff.

Yucca: Yeah?

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: Mm hmm. I like the imagery of that. Mm hmm. Mm

Mark: So that's looking back. That's, that's the work of reflection, which I think every person who really wants to be happy and wise has to do some of that. You know, you got to look at yourself. You got to look at the world. And there's, uh, you know, there's, there's a level of simply coming to terms and saying, okay, that's real.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: another level of going. And I'm grateful for all this other stuff that's going on, right? So, you know, the world is a very complex mixture. It's not like thumbs up, thumbs down, and the same is true of ourselves as individuals. And just coming to grips with all of that and having a level of acceptance and gratitude is very helpful, I think.

thAt goes back to that thing about the three big lessons that I talk about. The big Okay, the big thank you and the big wow,

Yucca: Right, so there's the reflection component there's the looking back and there's also the looking forward. Now I think the looking back, you've got to be able to do that, I think that really does need to come first, or part of it, to be able to look forward to What is it that you want, right?

Mark: yeah,

Yucca: And as we talked about last time, we're kind of in this dreaming period.

We may not really be planting those seeds yet, but we are deciding what are those seeds that we might want to plant. What do we need to do to prepare?

Mark: right.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: And that goes into the ritual things that people do at the New Year around resolutions and all that kind of stuff, right? Because I mean, A New Year's resolution is rooted in an imagined self that has changed. It's like, okay, I picture myself and I do not drink six cups of coffee a day.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: And that's great. You know, it's great to have a vision for where you want to go as a person, whether it's something minor or something major. Personally, I don't do New Year's resolutions, and the reason that I don't do them is that the popular framing of them is kind of like the little drummer boy game, where it's like once you lose, it's over.

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: And if you're really trying to do something hard to change yourself, you have to give yourself some slack. If you're trying to get sober, and you do that for a week and then you have a drink, you don't quit trying to get sober, you just start over, right?

Yucca: Right, you get back up, dust yourself off, and keep going. Yeah.

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: So I think that one of the things that sometimes we are very good at or don't have a lot of practice in is that, that getting back up part and planning in how, what could go wrong and how am I going to respond when it does go wrong.

Mark: Good point.

Yucca: And I think that If you are incorporating that into your planning, whatever it is, whether you're planning your financial future, or the process of quitting smoking or drinking, or all of those, any of those things, you are, you're being more realistic, first of all, about the world that we live in, because mistakes do happen.

You're, you're building in resilience to being able to better achieve whatever that is. So I think that's a really important step that we forget to do.

Mark: Yes. And the self compassion step in there as well. Not excuse making, but recognizing that we're all fallible and that any kind of real personal transformation that's the kind of thing that a New Year's resolution might be made about is not easy, right? It's just not easy. And, um, it is remarkable the degree to which our behaviors as humans are.

The Power of Habit and Routine

Mark: Habitual.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: You know, we have routines for our day, we have routines for making our coffee, we have routines for, you know, what we do about lunch, we have just lots and lots of routines, routines, you know, when we're getting ready to go to bed.

Yucca: And there's a very, very practical reason for all of that. So that all of that isn't taking up our space for the other stuff that we need to be doing. For all the other stuff we need to be thinking about. We're not, every time we make our coffee, we aren't going through those steps. We're not giving it the mental energy.

Mark: Right. Okay,

Yucca: something else.

Mark: water.

Yucca: Yes, oh wait, when I move my hand, yeah, that's all, that's all just ingrained so that we can do other things and pay attention to the things that might matter more. Now there's today probably not a tiger about to getcha, but we needed the space to be able to be aware for a possible tiger to get to.

Now we're thinking about the interaction that we're going to have with our colleague or whatever we're going to tell to our uncle when they say that super offensive thing. But, yeah.

Mark: Yeah. And so, because, because so much of what we do is this sort of pre programmed pathway of habit. It can be very hard to reprogram that stuff, because once you start the process, the rest of the steps are automatic. You do this, and then all of those other things just naturally follow. And to be able to be self aware enough in any given moment to say, wait, I'm not going to go any further with this.

I'm going to do something else. That is an effort, and it, it requires some real focus, and if you're not able to do it all the time, it requires some real compassion with yourself, so that instead of feeling like a failure or, you know, a moral degenerate, you just feel like someone who is trying to do something hard and is learning how to do it.

Yucca: Yeah. And another component is that, that doing those hard things is a skill, um, and sometimes we try to jump to, to a bigger task than we might be ready for, than a bigger change, right? Sometimes we might need to make some smaller changes, get good at practicing. That change before we go to something even bigger.

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: And that's just going to depend on whatever it is that you're working on. Mm. Mm

Mark: So, having said all that, I'm not a big fan of New Year's resolutions because, as I said, the idea is that it's like a piece of glass. It's like, if it's broken, then it's no longer of any use. And, So, to me, that's just, it's a very, well, frankly, a very Protestant way of looking at things. It's got a lot of judgment folded into it, and it just doesn't really work for me.

Setting Themes Instead of Resolutions

Mark: So what I like to do is to set themes for the new year that are kind of areas that I'm going to pay attention to and work to foster in my life.

Yucca: Mm

Mark: So, like, last year, My theme this year, actually, my themes were prosperity and security, um, because I hadn't had a job for a year and eight months at that point.

I needed to get a job.

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: you know, and I did get a job and now I'm working in it and it's lively.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: It's if, you know, Folks that are listening to the podcast that have been on the Facebook or Discord communities know that I am about to be appointed as the Interim Executive Director of the environmental organization that I work for, and there are crises that we are dealing with that are very challenging, and they're going to land in my lap when the previous Executive Director leaves, which was already planned before the crises happened.

So, it's not his fault, but still it's, it's a very lively time, and I'm not getting time off at the holidays that I expected to get because I've got to work through the end of the year when he goes. So, but I got a job, and it's a good job working for The protection of wilderness and, and wild places and biodiversity hotspots.

So that's, that's pretty cool work to be doing.

Yucca: Yeah, so you like to set themes instead of resolutions. And is that something that you do, um, at the same time as your dark mirror ritual? Or is that a separate thing for you?

Mark: That's kind of a separate thing. And it doesn't necessarily have to happen like on New Year's Day. Usually I, I do it in the first week of the year, something like that. Just as things are starting to get rolling again, the, the normality is reasserting itself after the strange, still frenzied window of the holidays.

Yucca: Mm

Mark: Um, so yeah, that's, that's generally when I do it, and I'm still not clear about what my themes will be for the coming year. Um, but I've started thinking about it. Right?

Yucca: hmm. Mm

Mark: Uh, I, I do have the, the advantage of not having, I mean, I'm going to my Ritual Circles Yule Gathering today, which is sort of my big social Christmas y, Yule y thing.

Um, but, I have no plans on Christmas Day itself, so You know, at least that I get off, uh, and I don't know, I'm, I'm gonna try to pry out some more time next week if I possibly can, but it really just depends on what's going on.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: How about you? What are your New Year's practices?

Yucca: It's not particularly formal. I, I do like the resolutions it, as long as it has the what we were built, we were talking about built into it where it isn't like a, oh well, I messed it up and can't try again. But I'm, I'm more of a fan of making choices and resolutions. When I, when it comes up, right?

So I think that this is a really important time of year to be doing reflection, but I try and do that throughout the year. aNd I'm a little hesitant about the doing anything where I say, oh, I'll wait till Start it on Monday, or start at the beginning of the month, or start at the beginning of the year, because that stuff actually means you don't really want to do it, right?

You're not going to do it. If you're really going to do it, start now. Not tonight, not tomorrow, not Monday, now. So I'm kind of in that camp of just like, if I'm going to do it, yeah, I'm a kind of cold turkey person, right? Or pull the band aid off, where just, I'm just going to do it. But know that sometimes I will slip up.

And then I have to be, and I can't do the whole, oh, well, I guess, you know, I slipped up, I'll, you know, I'll just do it again and start better tomorrow. Nope, you just gotta be on it. And that's just my particular personality that I've

Mark: Huh.

Yucca: Some people are very different with that. But I do like the idea of there being a time where people are reflecting on what they want and actively deciding to make a change.

Whether that ends up working out or not is a different thing, but I think that it's really important to have that. So I value that that's something that our culture does. I think we could work on the skills around that.

Mark: Yeah, that, that's, that's a good point, too. The, yes, there are skills required to have that kind of discipline and, and self compassion. You know, the other thing I wanted to put a word in for is We tend to think of New Year's resolutions as always being something that's like, you know, taking your medicine.

It's some, you know, I'm going to abstain from something or I'm going to

Yucca: Well, the classic one is I'm going to go to the gym every

Mark: Yes.

Yucca: the going to the gym is the classic one, right? Yeah. Or losing that 20 pounds.

Mark: Yes. Whereas It's also possible to have resolutions that are about good things that you want to add into your life, right? You know, you, you, you could certainly say to yourself, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna carve out Sunday afternoons and I'm gonna go for a hike every Sunday afternoon.

That's what I'm gonna do.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: And that's good for you. I mean, that, that, that would be a pleasurable experience that you'd be doing for yourself. You know, something that's additive to your life, you know, it could be I'm going to start having date nights and I'm going to have more sex in my life. It could be I'm going to make sure that I get to that restaurant that I love so much once a month. You know, any of those things.

Yucca: And let's, let's take one of those as an example. Let's say it's the going for a hike on Sundays, right?

Planning for Success in the New Year

Yucca: If that is the thing that you're thinking about, well, you can go, okay, well, What can I do right now to help set that up to be more likely for me to be able to do that? And for me, that would be, I'm going to put it in my calendar right now.

It's pretty easy to do that. I have a digital cal I like, I have a physical and a digital, but my digital is my main one, then I copy it onto my physical and go, okay, I'm going to see that on my calendar every day.

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: And then I'm going to think about, okay, well, what am I going to do If the weather is XYZ, right?

Okay, I'm going to set it up right now that I have the equipment that I need to be able to do it. So if it's raining, I'm not going to go, oh, I guess I can't go out because I don't have a raincoat. I just got myself a raincoat, so I can go out, right? I've looked up places that I can go. So when you're in this, like, I'm, when you're in the moment of deciding that that's what you're going to do, you've got energy around it.

Think about how you can set yourself up to succeed in that.

Mark: Yeah, I mean, in the hiking example, I think one thing that you can do immediately is go get yourself a pair of hiking boots.

Yucca: Yeah, right? Get yourself the hiking boots and figure out some of the places. Maybe find a group, if that's what you want to do. Maybe you don't want to go with a group, but is there a group that That is doing it, that you could, that you could join with and then have the positive peer pressure component to it, right?

And we always say peer pressure is like this bad thing, but sometimes it's really helpful, right? Like, we've said it before, if this podcast was just one of us trying to do it, Wouldn't have worked, right? Because each week I know, oh, Mark's gonna be there waiting for me. Okay, I'm gonna do it. Whereas if it was just me by myself, we would have gotten a few episodes in 2020 and that'd be it. Right?

Mark: Well, yeah, there is something about being accountable to other people. And creating whatever it is that you're trying to do to build some accountability expectation on the part of other people. I know meetup. com tends to have lots of hiking groups and, you know, people that like to do various outdoor things, so that's a resource that you can look for.

Yucca: Right. And of course, whatever your goal is, I just grabbed that one because that was an easy one to talk about, right? But, but the point of it is to think about what's going to help me succeed, what might get in the way, how can I respond when that does happen? Because it, there will be a day that the weather is off.

There will be a day that you're feeling sick. There will be, those things will happen. So, what are you going to do when they do? Mm

Mark: right. And the good news is that as you start doing the thing and enjoying it, since we're talking about things that are additive, that are, that are, you know, that are pleasurable in your life, Um, it will feel weirder and weirder not to do it, because we are creatures of routine, right? And you can get that routine making pattern on your side if you just build up some consistency.

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: So starting at least with a social group, and I find that a social group is good for hiking. I mean, I like solo hiking a lot, but One thing that a social group is good for is that interactions with other people will tend to distract you from whether your body is hurting or not.

Yucca: Yes.

Mark: know, if you're having a conversation on the trail and your legs are starting to hurt, you'll, you'll tend to tamp that down to continue the conversation on the trail.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: So, you know, while you're building strength.

Yucca: Right. All right, well, Mark, are there other things that you can think about for this turning of the year?

Mark: You know, not really. My birthday is two days after New Year's Day, and so the two of them often, you know, they kind of get mushed together. And So the reflection piece tends to be, for me, it tends to be not just the last year, but also, like, life,

Yucca: Right.

Mark: What have I done? What am I doing? Where am I going?

You know, all those kinds of big questions. So I do like to consider those as well, but I think that's really more of a birthday thing. You could do that at any time of the year,

Yucca: Right,

Mark: but a birthday is a good opportunity for it.

Yucca: yeah, I think all of what we've been talking about is great for birthday whatever time of year your birthday is,

Mark: Yeah. Even the resolutions, it's like a gift to yourself, right? You're gonna improve something.

Yucca: new year, it's not the calendar's new year, but you're starting again,

Mark: Right. Absolutely. Yeah. And yep, and mine actually falls on a Wednesday, like the day I was born this year.

Yucca: Oh, I was also born on a Wednesday.

Mark: Where are you? We're full of woe!

Yucca: Yes. I've always liked Wednesday because when I was little, I learned to spell it as Wed nest day. And so every time I write the word, I say Wed nest day in my mind, even decades later. So I've just always enjoyed that day.

Mark: That's great.

Yucca: So, just the little things to make. Make things fun and enjoyable,

Mark: Sure. Yeah.

Closing Thoughts and Farewell

Yucca: Well, we will see everyone again.

I think our next episode will be the first. So we won't see all of you until the 2024. Yes. Wow. That sounds like a sci fi date. That doesn't sound real.

Mark: God, it's, it's, well, you know, there's so,

Yucca: Shouldn't it be like some Book series, or like, sci fi action should be named 20, 24.

Mark: You know, there are times when my partner Nemea and I, we look at some of the technological things that are happening and we just say we're living in the future. You know, we remember what it was like in the 70s when a Texas Instruments TI 30 hand calculator was both expensive and rare and, and incredibly powerful, right? And now, you know, now we're doing custom gene based healthcare for people.

Yucca: Yeah,

Mark: It's like, it's amazing.

Yucca: it's a cool time to be alive, right? That's something we should say, it's been, for all the challenges that are world is facing and that we're facing and the crises and all of that. It's also really, there's a lot of cool stuff

Mark: there is,

Yucca: and just the things we get to learn and the tools we have to study with and, and the opportunities that just didn't exist before.

Mark: Right? Right.

Yucca: Yeah, there's a, there's a lot, there's a lot to be really grateful for.

Mark: Absolutely, and there's, of course, a lot of improvement that needs to happen on many fronts, and that's our responsibility as people who want a better world, um, but I mean, I've known some activists who have fallen into this terrible hole of everything is awful and they're just cynical about everything because it doesn't meet their perfect dream. I don't remember who said it, but something like inside cynic is a frustrated optimist. aNd, uh, no, a frustrated idealist. That was it, a frustrated idealist. And I really work hard not to have that happen, because I think it's such a narrow view of the world. The world is amazing. Life is an amazing ride.

And yes, there are terrible things in it, and that's just how it is. The big okay.

Yucca: Yep,

Mark: Yeah. Well, Yucca, thank you so much. I wish you a Merry Christmas, um,

Yucca: and a happy new

Mark: a Happy New Year. Yes whatever your celebrations are over the course of the next week I hope that you enjoy them and spend them loved and warm and cozy.

Yucca: and we'll see y'all next year.

View Details

2020: https://thewonderpodcast.podbean.com/e/the-winter-solstice/

2021: https://thewonderpodcast.podbean.com/e/winter-solsticeyule/

2022: https://thewonderpodcast.podbean.com/e/winter-solsticeyulemidwinter-2022/

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com

TRANSCRIPT:----more----

Introduction and Welcome

Mark: Welcome back to The Wonder of Science-Based Paganism. I'm your host, Mark,

Yucca: And I'm Yucca.

Mark: and it's that time again.

Discussion on Winter Solstice

Mark: We're going to talk about the winter solstice and all the different things we call it, and what the themes of the season are, and how we celebrate it, and all that good kind of stuff. So happy solstice to everyone.

Yucca: That's right. Happy solstice. it's, we're here already.

Mark: End of 2023 already. Hard to believe.

Yucca: Yeah. So, and the

Reflection on the Show's Journey

Mark: Does that mean we're going into season five?

Yucca: we're going into season five. That's right.

Mark: Whoa.

Yucca: Yeah. On the one hand, it feels like forever. It feels like it's been a decade. On the other hand, I can't believe it.

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: start doing this last year?

Mark: Yeah. Something like. Yeah.

Understanding the Solstice and its Significance

Yucca: Yeah, well, let's talk about the solstice, and we'll link to some of our previous episodes of the solstice as well, because since this will be, we're going into Season 5, right?

We've done this particular one, you know, several years before, and that's one of the lovely things about the Wheel of the Year, ? It keeps turning, and we keep coming back to it,

Mark: Right.

Yucca: again, and again, and again, but every year it's a little different.

Mark: Mm hmm. It's a spiral rather than a circle.

Yucca: Yeah, it's like those, you can look up animations of the solar system, but from the perspective, instead of having the sun stationary, having the sun moving through the galaxy, because it is moving just depends on what you're using as your frame of reference, but the planets all going along for the ride as well we're Orbiting the sun and moving with the sun as it goes through the galaxy.

This reminds me of that spiral that we do.

Mark: Huh. Huh.

Exploring the Themes of the Holiday

Yucca: So, but let's start with themes. So, Mark, what do you call this holiday?

Mark: Well, that is a bit of a moving target. For many, many years I've called it Yule. I called it Yule in my book.

Yucca: hmm.

The Transition from Yule to Midwinter

Mark: But I'm moving off that into midwinter.

Yucca: Mm

The Cultural Significance of Yule

Mark: Um, for a couple of reasons, one of which is that Yule is still a cultural reference. It's a, it's a Scandinavian word that references a winter solstice y kind of holiday that happened around this time of year in those cultures.

And I've been very careful not to be drawing from any cultures in my practice.

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: midwinter, you know, it's the corollary to midsummer. At the summer solstice, and so that just seems like it feels pretty appropriate to me.

Yucca: Nice. Okay.

Mark: How about you?

The Personal Connection to Solstice

Yucca: uSually solstice, just the winter solstice or solstice sometimes first winter. I don't use midwinter because it's not midwinter for us.

Mark: Mm hmm.

Yucca: The, it certainly isn't the start of winter the way it's shown on like the calendar in terms of the astronomical seasons, but it's been winter for a month at this point, ?

But we will not be into midwinter until, midwinter is more, you know, January, you know, end of January for us where we'll really be in the middle of winter. So, yeah, usually solstice, I've never really connected with the name Yule. I think it's pretty. It's on cards that people send. But it, just I've never had that connection with it.

The Separation of Solstice and Christmas

Yucca: I don't know, it, it, also you'll me, it still has more of a Christmas association. Like, it's still very Christmas. And even though Christmas is happening around the same time, for me, the solstice and Christmas are two very separate things.

Mark: Yeah, I guess in my case, because I've really just, I've abandoned Christmas. So I have a lot of people around me, of course, who are celebrating it at work and so forth.

The Celebration of Solstice

Mark: But I, I just adopted solstice celebration and that's what I do now. So I have a tree for that rather than for Christmas, for example. We were just putting lights on it and discovering that the new lights, there aren't quite enough of them. So now we desperately have to find some more and get them delivered immediately. So that'll be fun. They're, they're LEDs. that have a phone app where you can adjust the lights and the patterns and Nemea really, really is excited about this.

Yucca: Okay, nice.

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: Lovely.

Mark: yeah. Yeah. I haven't seen it at night yet, but it'll be pretty, I'm sure. So, yeah, I'm moving away from Yule. Yule seemed like kind of a harmless name to use. When I was writing my book, as opposed to, like, the Celtic names and stuff like that, that feels appropriative to me, and not really relevant to who I am and where I live and all that kind of stuff.

Yucca: But in retrospect, it's seeming a little appropriate to you right now. Well,

Mark: believe you can appropriate from a dead culture. So I'm not so worried about appropriating Scandinavian stuff from a Norse Worshipping tradition that didn't exist for a thousand years or so after Christianization. But,

Yucca: still a lot, depending on where, like in Iceland, and there's still there's still some that is around today,

Mark: oh, absolutely.

Yucca: not necessarily in the same maybe strength that it was or, or prominence, but there's still aspects of that around.

Mark: Well, and there's a resurgence.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: I mean, I think that if we had looked at things in 1950, we probably would have seen a few folk practices, but not really anything that was as organized as, you know, a religious practice, for example. But I, I don't know enough about it to say for certain one way or another.

In any case it's safer to simply abandon that name and move with one that's more more generic and English.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: But, you know, when I first came into paganism, everybody called it Yule, and that was okay, and

Yucca: That was just what you were around, yeah?

Mark: Yeah, um, so whatever you call the winter solstice, and you may call it midsummer if you live in Argentina or, or Brazil, um, whatever you call it we're here to talk about celebrating it, and why don't we talk some about some of the themes that come up at this time of year.

There's so much with it. Iconography to this season, you know, with the trees and the Santa Claus and the reindeer and the on and on and on and on.

Yucca: You know, I wish that everybody could see the backgrounds that we both came in with today, because there's a huge difference. So, Mark, you've got this scene with this, the pie. I don't know what trees those are back there, but you're Your conifers with the snow on it, and this little night scene, and this little house and it's these dark, you know, blues and grays.

And then my background, and this was not planned, is the sun. And it's an up close of the bright bright sun with all the convection cells and

Mark: and prominences bursting off the limb.

Yucca: of it.

The Symbolism of Light and Dark

Yucca: Yeah and I think that that reflects a big theme for this time of year is the the relationship between the light and the dark and the sun and the night and all of that.

Mark: Ooh, nice, nice segue. That was great. Yeah. Yes the whole question of how we relate to darkness. is very much up at this time of year, because there sure is a lot of it in the Northern Hemisphere. And boy, the days are short now, and they're going to get even shorter.

Yucca: At my latitude, we get about 14 and a half, almost 15 hours of night at solstice.

Mark: wow. Yeah,

Yucca: north it's even more extreme.

Mark: I think we get close to 16 hours. No,

Yucca: No, you can't know not that much, but yeah.

Mark: Yeah, 16 and a half hours. 15 and a half hours. Okay, third time's the

Yucca: hmm. Mm hmm. Mm

The Importance of Rest and Reflection

Mark: yeah, so, waking up in the dark, finishing work in the dark I, I feel a lot of empathy for people who have commutes during that time, because of course I've done that for many years of work at home, so that's a, that's a relief.

And the whole piece about how we fear the dark, and Metaphorically how we fear the darkness in ourselves, the, the, the not so nice stuff. The, uh, the sub, the, the submerged stuff that we've pushed down. tHis is a time of year that's often associated with dreaming and with ghosts and. I see that as useful fodder for contemplation, um, you know, trying to get more of a handle on, well, what am I pushing down?

What am I ignoring? What am I afraid of in myself that I'm, that I'm repressing? And maybe it's stuff that needs repressing, that's okay but I'd still like to be aware of it. And, you know, be making conscious choices around all of that. So that's, that's a part of how I come to this season when it relates to light and dark.

How about you, Yucca?

Yucca: Yeah, I mean, the dark of this going in is a big theme for me. The peaceful, restful night in which you have the deep self reflection and there's a stillness. about it this time. Although, yes, we have so much happening in the holidays like we were talking about last week, but this solstice for me is a really, really contemplative, quiet, inward experience in a lot of ways.

And it really is, I mean, I just keep wanting to say going back to this going in, I really, Picture, like, going deep into a cave, down deep into the earth, slash, me, to really kind of understand and reflect and see what, what quiet seeds you have waiting, sleeping there, and, you know, what will become. It's not, things haven't woken up yet.

It's what is going to be waking up. What have we been planting? What's there? And there's something much more vulnerable, much more visceral in the dark, away from the light.

Mark: Mm hmm. Yeah, I think that's very well said. That whole, that kind of journeying piece about Going down into the dark which is so often a theme of, of guided meditations and solo journeying, inward work. It's a good time for doing that stuff.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: the, the body's circadian rhythms are really oriented towards sleep and it's it's a good time for dreaming. For, and I, I, when I think of, when I think about this in the, the context of the life cycle, and the context of a human life, it's a time for dreaming new stuff,

Yucca: hmm. Mm

Mark: uh, you know, dreaming new life, dreaming new ideas just starting to get those first glimmerings of what might And that's it. The what you plant next year and work to achieve.

Yucca: Yeah,

Mark: soon to get firm on those plans. It's all just

Yucca: you can't be doing anything with the soil yet. It's, it's, whether there actually is snow or not, it's sleeping under that snow right now.

Mark: right, right. Yeah, so it's, it's not a time. I mean, one of the things that I do appreciate about this holiday in the overculture, and there aren't very many things that I appreciate, but one of them is that for a week or so The world seems to hold its breath, at least for Christmas Eve and Christmas, those two days when commerce mostly finally stops, and people are at home with their families, and there's just, there's a silence in the world that I really appreciate, and that seems to persist to some degree through to New Year's.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: Most people are not going to work and I would imagine that

Yucca: School's out for,

Mark: School is out,

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: all that sort of stuff. So, there's that, that withdrawal into the darkness that I really appreciate.

The Connection to the Forests

Yucca: Mm hmm. The other theme, uh, for me is the forests. So I see the, the Wheel of the Year, the different stations at it, or seasons, often celebrating different Types of ecosystems or components that are really connected to how we experience the world as humans and who we're connected with. And this half of the year is the forests. there's a, there's association with the, the forest there, particularly the the pine. Yeah whereas on the other side, we've got the grasslands, ? In the summer and the autumn, there's the grasslands, but now it's, it's the forests and the forest creatures and the and we'll get more into, you know, some of the, the bovines and ungulates and things later, but there's something very Very, for me, kind of ancient and primal about that, too, that kind of pulls back to, you know, different, some of my different roots in terms of my ancestry and that kind of connection with the forest.

Mark: Sure.

The Celebration of the Sun and Stars

Yucca: And for a lot of people, it's also a celebration of the sun and of stars, ? And our sun as a star as well.

Mark: Huh, yeah, yeah. I like that historically, the forest was a scary place to go into, for one reason, because it was dark, right? So, you know, you built your little island of civilization in your farmstead or whatever it was, but out beyond those fences, there was more uncertainty. And so going into the woods, you never knew what you were going to encounter, and there's more of that mystery, that going into the darkness.

Yucca: But it's also necessary.

Mark: Well, yes,

Yucca: also where the, that's where you would go to hunt, ? That's where you'd go to gather your medicine. That's where you'd go for that. There's, you can't just stay out of it, ? You've got to go back in and be part of that whole system.

Mark: which is very much like human psychology.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: You, there are layers and layers and layers of things. There are things that you may think you're over and you may not be over them. There are things that have been profound enough in your life that you may never be over them. You have to revisit them over and over again.

You know, I have quite a number of things like that.

So I really like, at this time of year, to kind of take a step back, reflect, imagine, do all that sort of soft path under the surface kind of work,

Yucca: Mm

Mark: um, it just seems like an appropriate time when it's so dark and it's cozy inside and feels relatively safe to contend with some of that stuff.

Yucca: Yeah.

The Coziness of the Season

Yucca: I really like the coziness of just really getting into the coziness of this time of year. We, I use a diffuser with different oils in the house, and I don't buy into, like, the, you know, magical properties of, you know, this particular oil does this or that. I'm like, I like the smell of it. So I use it in the house, and I change those out throughout the season.

And right now, you know, we're doing a lot of those very kind of Spicy, yummy cedars and cinnamons and all of that, just very cozy stuff this time of year with the big blankets and the cuddling with the kitty cat and all that, the warm drink and all that stuff.

Mark: Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, I, I really like to lean into that stuff, too. It's I mean, I suppose it really should be thematic for the next and a half months, something like that,

Yucca: Oh, we'll, we'll,

Mark: time.

Yucca: yep, we'll lean into that a lot. Yeah, and we'll, when we talk about the next holiday, we'll get into that more too. But, um, yeah.

Mark: that, we'll talk about slog.

Yucca: Slog, yes. So, and I think we said we were going to at some point come back to doing a darkness episode, probably sometime in January or something like that when we're really in the, um, kind of the thick of it.

Mark: The deep cold, yeah.

Yucca: yeah. Now there's some parts of the holiday too that you were talking about, like doing a tree or things like that. What's that like for you?

Mark: Oh boy, I have so many observances at this time of year, so many traditions that I do, other than just redecorating my focus. We do do a tree, we have collected a set of ornaments over the years that are very thematic, a lot of, a lot of wildlife some antique. Glass ornaments from the 40s, 50s, and 60s that, you know, remind me of childhood.

Some of the few happy memories that I have of childhood are evoked by the scent of that tree and by, you know, these old ornaments. And don't really buy presents for one another because we have too much stuff as it is. But what we do is put Cozy, appealing, charming things under the tree to sort of celebrate our abundance and so forth.

We just got a bunch of internet, we went to, there's a store called Cost Plus here, I don't know if it exists elsewhere.

Yucca: Yeah, we've got that here.

Mark: it's a, it's an import store and so we got German cookies and English figgy pudding and a bunch of different things like that for the holiday and have those sitting under the tree right now.

The Tradition of the Yule Log Ritual

Mark: We do a Yule log ritual on the solstice night where we decorate, actually what I do is I take the lower half of the trunk of last year's Yule tree, which I sawed off and kept, and of course now it's dry. So what I do is I use some kind of natural fiber twine, like sisal or hemp or something like that, to tie that to a larger log, because, you know, Christmas tree trunks generally are

Yucca: Not very thick, yeah.

Mark: in diameter at max.

And then we decorate that with holly and pyracantha berries and fresh boughs from the, from this year's Yule tree. And then, and we put candles on it. And then we tuck little notes into, under the twine and in amongst the branches and stuff that are wishes for the coming year. And when that's all done and we've done our Booga booga ritual stuff over it.

We take it out and we burn it in our fire pit outside. And that's just, It's a cool thing to do.

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: My ritual circle does a ritual every year where we turn off all the lights in the house of my circle brother and sister. We go outside, you know, we get cold we have a little cauldron with some fire burning in it in the middle of us so we have a little bit of illumination.

But we sing songs and really get ourselves into the whole mood and then each of us takes a taper. Lights it from the fire in the cauldron, and we go into the house again, and light every candle in the house, all throughout the

Yucca: Oh, nice.

Mark: bringing the light back. And that's a ritual that I really enjoy as well.

Yucca: hmm. Mm

Mark: How about celebrations at your house?

Yucca: hmm. Well, we don't have a tree. They, we've got a, at their grandmother's, a Christmas tree. When we lived in the city, I did take I would take branches. Instead of taking the whole tree, I'd take branches and bring them into the house. And part of that was just I, just, I'm not a city person.

It was hard for me to be in the city. So I just wanted any, like, I just craved that. The connection with the land that, and we weren't like smack in the middle of the city, we actually kind of on the, you know, a nicer part of town that did have a few trees and a yard and, you know, that sort of thing. But, um, so I would bring stuff in, but now, you know, we're, we're out. You know, out in the country and it doesn't, I don't miss it all in the same way because we're in, we're surrounded by it all the time, so I'm not, you know, feeling that thirst to bring stuff in as much but we do have, we do have some lights we have some like little solar LED Christmas lights that I think are meant to go out on your fence or something like that, but I just have the solar panel sitting in the window.

And it does it well enough, and you know, it's a dark time of year, so it doesn't charge a lot, but it'll just go on as soon as the light sets in. Natural light fades and it runs for a few hours and we've gone to sleep at that point. So in terms of sort of the more traditional stuff, we do that. And again, for us, the Christmas and solstice are two different times. It's all related. And we've talked about how, you know, the, the history of, you know, why Christmas is on the day it is and the weird calendar switching stuff that happened and all of that. But when it's solstices and equinoxes, I like to set an alarm for the actual moment, ? Because that is an astronomical moment that happens, not just the day.

And so this year, I think it's gonna be 827 p. m. our time. So I've got an alarm set so that when it does happen, the alarm can go off and we can go whoo and put our hands in the air. It's much better than when it happens at like 2 or 3 in the morning, because I do wake the kids up for that. We go whoo and then they go back to sleep.

But this time I think it's nice that it's going to be during the day. night when we're still awake, but it's, it's been dark for a few hours at that point, so that'll be lovely.

Mark: That sounds great.

The Celebration of Solstice in Different Cultures

Mark: A friend of mine is doing a party that he used to do before COVID. This is the first time since the arrival of COVID, which of course isn't over, but

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: we're doing parties again. So, he's doing a winter solstice vigil, which is an all night party that goes until dawn, and then you greet. Sun at the, they climb up to the top of the hill in San Francisco and greet the, greet the sun. I'm going to go, but I am not going to stay all night because the next morning I have to be in

Yucca: isn't it? Solstice is a Wednesday night

Mark: I thought it was Thursday.

Yucca: I think it's the 21st this year for North America. It'll be the 22nd for Europe. But anyways, it's a

Mark: Yeah, the 21st is the Thursday.

Yucca: Oh, it is a Thursday? It's not Wednesday? Okay. I just had to Okay, great.

Mark: That's good because I took Thursday and Friday off, and if it was on Wednesday , I would feel kind of silly. So.

Yucca: Oh yeah, so it is the 21st. I said the day's wrong in my head. All right, so you'll have to,

Mark: that next morning I have a part in a Unitarian Universalist solstice service, and so I'm not going to stay up all night, greet the sun, then jump in my car, drive 60 miles, and do that. That that sounds like dangerous to me.

Yucca: I don't know about you, but I can't do the whole stay up all night thing. I have not been able to do that in years. People do it for New Years. I'm like, nope, not doing it. I'll

Mark: but I don't choose to very often.

Yucca: If I need to be up at midnight, I'll go to sleep at 6 and I'll wake myself up at 11 30, but I'm not gonna. Stay up till midnight or one, yeah.

Mark: huh.

Yucca: Getting

Mark: you're a mom, so sleep is really at a premium,

Yucca: I like my sleep, yeah. But even before I was a mom, I do not do the staying up. I am not a good person to be around when I'm not rested. Thinking about all that self reflection, we do this type of year. Yeah, I've learned that. Like, nope. Need my sleep. So, but I think for people who that works for, I think that's lovely.

I certainly remember being younger and feeling that, like, that kind of altered state of having stayed up all night.

Mark: Yeah. More emotionally vulnerable and yeah well, this is a separate topic, but the fire circle rituals that I've been to many of, they go from typically eleven at night until dawn.

Yucca: mm hmm,

Mark: And there's the same kind of feeling, and you do them three nights in a row,

Yucca: mm

Mark: and catch some sleep during the day, but of course you don't get a full eight hours, so you are really sleep deprived by the last night, and everybody's just really tender and open, and it's, it's beautiful to be around a ton of people who are like that, but what you don't want to do is operate heavy machinery after having that experience.

It's not, not safe.

Yucca: Right. Heavy machinery, including cars. Just a

Mark: That's, that's what I was meaning

Yucca: Oh, yeah.

Mark: yeah, cars. And I am 60 miles from San Francisco, and I don't want to have to drive on, you know, being awake 24 hours,

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: back up to Santa Rosa. So, yeah, so I'm going to go to the party for a while, and then I'm going to come back, uh, and it'll be great to see some friends down there, but it'll also be great to catch some solid Zs, uh, on the morning before I have to do this other thing. We're we're having a, we're recording this on the 16th? Is

Yucca: Yeah, it's Saturday the

Mark: Yeah, Saturday the 16th, and tomorrow the Northern California Atheopagan Affinity Group is getting together for a Yule celebration.

Yucca: Oh, yay.

Mark: Yeah I'm driving down there and we're having a fire pit and sharing delicious, you know, cozy making food.

There's a good chance it may rain. So I'm bringing stuff from mulled wine and we can sit inside and listen to the rain and drink mulled wine and

Yucca: Lovely. You know,

Mark: So are there other things that you do at this time of year?

The Evolution of Family Traditions

Yucca: it's still kind of evolving just as the, my kiddos are getting to an age where they can be part of creating those traditions, we'll see what happens over the next few years, right? So.

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: Yeah,

Mark: Yeah. I mean, and it's wonderful to let yourself kind of be led by their interests in this as well.

Yucca: yeah,

Mark: you'll develop traditions that are just your families and that's very cool.

Yucca: right, yeah. And who knows, maybe, maybe that'll go, they'll, they'll remember that and do that with their families, or something different, or just it's one of the lovely things about what we were talking about in the beginning about it, just that spiraling back around to it. You know, each year there's something familiar but different, and over time that might change to something very different, but still have some of those same roots.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's this sort of balancing act that happens in, in modern paganism, where on the one hand, it's very DIY, and you can create your own rituals, and those can all be unique. On the other hand, there's something to be said about tradition, about having these things that you do every year at a particular time of year.

Just to acknowledge that it's that time of year and to create a particular feeling that you associate with that kind of, that time of year. I really enjoy both. There have been times, well, like, for example, my ritual circle, Dark Sun, does the same Hallows ritual every year.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: and I've talked about that before during those episodes.

And there have been times when I've had, like, cool ideas for a hallows ritual, and I would have loved to do it with them, but nope, we're doing the traditional thing. So, I think there's both sides to that. The the to be creative and the desire to create tradition.

Yucca: Yeah. Here we are.

Conclusion and Farewell

Mark: Here we are, once again, at the darkest time of year in the Northern Hemisphere, and the brightest in the Southern Hemisphere, so if you're enjoying summer, uh, have a wonderful time, you know, go swimming eat some ice cream, do all those things that one does in the summertime. For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, we wish you a meaningful and joyous and warm and cozy solstice celebration and time of year.

And we will be back next week.

Yucca: Yep. See you next week.

----more----

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https://atheopaganism.org/2014/11/23/atheopagan-advent-calendar-a-fun-project-for-the-holidays/

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Confronting Our Demons episode: https://thewonderpodcast.podbean.com/e/confronting-our-demons-1629088082/

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com

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We're taking a couple of weeks off, but here is an episode on Ancestors from THE WONDER's archives. See you soon!

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com

S3E36 TRANSCRIPT:

Yucca: Welcome back to the Wonder Science Based Paganism. I'm one of your hosts, Yucca

Mark: I’m the other one, Mark.

Yucca: and today we are talking about ancestors. So it's an appropriate time of year for that, I think any time of year, but as we approach what some people call Halloween Hollow sa. This is something that's on a lot of people's minds.

Mark: Right, Right. This is the time of year when we think about those who are departed, who are no longer with us. And as well as contemplating our own mortalities we talked about last week.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: And it's a good time to sort of sit with who are our ancestors? Who do we, you know, who do we feel connected to in the way of ancestry?

And then of course to have observances at this time of year. Vary from culture to culture, but it's very frequent that at this time of year people are doing some sort of the des MUTOs or some other kind of acknowledgement of relatives who have passed on or, or other ancestral recognitions. So the next thing for us to think about really is what do we mean when we talk about an ancestor, right? I mean, it's kind of a fuzzy word. Maybe we should start by exploring how ancestor. Observance veneration recognition fits into paganism as a whole. And maybe where some of that comes from. I mean, one of the theories that I find pretty credible, honestly as a non theist Pagan one of the questions we have to ask ourselves is, where did these ideas of Gods come from,

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: Because they're all over the place. and one of the prevailing theories for where the Gods came from is that they were originally stories about ancestors. They were stories about heroic activities or other other personality traits of particular figures from history that were actually real people, right. And then their stories got more and more embellished over time until, you know, the guy who did a great job on the Mastodon hunt ends up throwing lightning bolts from the sky. You know, that's kind of the way, it's the way human storytelling works.

Yucca: Yeah. And I think that it's, it's easy for us to forget how long we've been around for.

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: On the one hand it's very short in, in kind of the grand scheme of things, but how many generations of humans there's been, And then of course we'll get into this later, but the, you know, before we were even humans, so how many, you know, 20, 30, just for that transformation, The Mastodon hunt to, you know, lightning bolts, but there's, we're talking hundreds, thousands of generations of people telling stories.

Mark: Right, and it's not like they only tell them once a generation, This is one of the reasons why culture and technology. Evolves so much more quickly than biology does, right? Because those are informational and information can, can morph really quickly.

Yucca: Did you ever play the the game telephone?

Mark: Oh yeah.

Yucca: Right. That's a really fun one to do, and you, that's, you watch that happen every day, with in real time, real life. But it's just such a great, even with a small group of people for anyone who's not familiar, you have one person tells somebody, whisper. This is great with a group of kids, whisper something to the next person and then they whisper it to the person next to them, next to them, and then at the end, the last person says it out loud.

And you see how much it changed from the first person to the last person.

Mark: Right, and this is when they're trying to get it. Right. Everybody is trying to transfer the information correctly, and even with a small group, a small little circle of people, what comes out at the end can be really hilariously different than what was originally said to the first person.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: You know,

Yucca: what you're, with, what you're talking about, when we do it on lifetimes with stories that have emotional meanings to people, you know, It's going to change based on the teller, but what's happening in the lives of these people at the time, the stage of their life. I mean, so much changes over just a lifetime.

But then over cultures, as those cultures evolve and change,

Mark: Sure, Sure. Yeah. I mean, when you think about it, it's like maybe the guy with the Mastodon who turned into the hurler of lightning bolts from the sky. Maybe that particular figures story doesn't have anything. It doesn't have anything particular to do with getting through times that are hard and adversity and that kind of thing.

But when there are times of adversity, you can bet somebody will make up a story about that figure that has to do with how they survived hard times because people need that story then, and we create the stories we need in order to get through the times we.

Yucca: Right. Or not even, you know, just completely make it up, but slightly shift a little bit of the interpretation of the previous version of the story and not even know that they're doing it

Mark: Sure. Yeah, exactly. And, and there's nothing there's nothing devious about it. It's, it's not like anybody, you know, ever probably intended to deceive anybody. But these stories evolve. They evolve to become the stories we need. Right? And that, that's the nature of human storytelling. You know, we can see that in the kinds of movies that get produced.

We can see it in the kinds of books that are popular. They are, they are the stories that are needed at that particular time.

Yucca: Yeah. So I like that idea a lot. I think it's probably not the only part to it, but I think it's a, an interesting component, right.

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: I think that there's also a that this, the honoring of, of ancestors and even as far as ancestor worship is something very common throughout the world. There's lots of different groups that do it, and I think some of that comes from simply a place of originally of, of gratitude and recognition of how much we have received from.

Whoever ancestors are, which we should talk about in a moment, but that, you know that we come from them and they worked hard, and without their hard work, we wouldn't be here.

Mark: Right,

Yucca: Literally, very, very literally would not be here,

Mark: Sure. So that gratitude in that veneration is deserved.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: There are also darker aspects to it, For example, Plugging people into a system of ancestor veneration is a pretty good way to keep them obedient to their family.

Yucca: It is.

Mark: It's a way, it's a way for their, their particular clan group or familial structure, whatever it is, to have a lot of influence over their lives.

And what ends up happening in cultures that have very strong traditions of ancestor veneration is of course, that the elderly hold tremendous amounts of.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: they're on their wage boards becoming ancestors.

Yucca: Mm-hmm. or are depending on how you are looking at an ancestor. Right. They're not, they're not gone yet, but they are those who came before. Right. You know, I don't know if you, I'm guessing you probably were told many times as a kid, respect your elders. Right. That's something pretty common in our, our culture.

Mark: I don't know that I was encouraged to respect anybody rather than my father when I was a kid. But I'm, I'm an

Yucca: you didn't, didn't have any, you know, folks who lived on the same street as you, who got mad when you. You know, doing something loud or talking back to a teacher or something like that. And we're told to respect, We're told to respect your elders.

Mark: Oh, I imagine. I probably was, I just can't think of an example right now.

Yucca: We just didn't take it serious. They just forgot it.

Mark: Well, yeah, it's, for whatever reason, I'm just not, I'm not remembering an instance of that right now.

Yucca: Maybe it's a regional thing as well.

Mark: Could be. Yeah, it could be. But when I was a kid you still called adults, Mr. And Miss and Mrs. And that's how you were introduced to them.

Yucca: Well, that's still a regional thing though.

Mark: is it?

Yucca: Yeah, that's, I think that has to do with what part of the, at least, at least within the United States, what part of the country you're in.

Mark: So ancestors very important part of the practice of many Pagan traditions particularly at this time of year. But we should talk more about what we think of when we individually, what you and I think of when we think of ancestors and what our orientation to those is. You wanna start?

Yucca: Yeah, I mean this is, this is a. Interesting area cuz we can go in a couple of different directions with it. One is you know, my line of the people who made me right. So we can start with, Okay. My parents, their parents, their parents on and on back. And I tend to think of my ancestors as being anyone who was in that line.

There's only. Who's alive out of that? So my father's alive my mother and all four grandparents, et cetera. You know, they're not but I kind of still think of my father as being, you know, one of my ancestors. I wouldn't, I wouldn't say necessarily he's one of my ancestors, right? One of the ancestors but I also think about that going beyond. The humans

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: if we go far enough back then my grandmothers weren't human,

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: We go back and we were, some were still apes, some other kind of ape. Before that we weren't apes and keep going, you know, we were little furry creatures curring around when the asteroid hit and keep going back and back and fish.

Mark: fish.

Yucca: And all the way back to what gets called Luca, right? The last universal common ancestor. But actually that's the last universal. That doesn't mean that that was the start, right? And I, I just really love thinking about how there is an unbroken chain of life. You know, there's all of these arguments going on about when life starts and all of that and, but life hasn't stopped.

I mean, it will eventually. Right. We talked about that. Right? Like it's gonna stop in me, but the, but, but the cells that are me were made out of the cell. Out of a cell that was in my mother. That and her cells were made and her mother made in another and just keep, It's just so amazing to think about.

It's just kept going and going and it's not had my consciousness in it,

Mark: Right.

Yucca: but it's been there.

Mark: It's like a relay race lighting torches, right? You know, you run a certain distance with this torch and then you light the torch of the next runner, and that runner keeps going until they get to the next runner. So asking the question, when is, when did the fire start? Becomes a really thorny issue, right?

It's like, well, my fire started in 1962, but the fire started a long, long, long, long way before that.

Yucca: But did it start in 62? Like that's, you know, because what is the, you that started, I mean, you were born in 62, right? But what is the you part of that? Like, are you, you know, was you the, the egg that was in your grandmother? Right. The egg that you, that ended up becoming you. Your mother was born with that.

Mark: That's right.

Yucca: Right. You know, so going back with that, but, but that was her right? Or was it you? You know, all of that. But that's where I love that, how blurry it becomes where the identities just a blur. And I know some people are gonna have very strong feelings about the answer to that. About, no, you are this moment or that moment, or you know, and in

Mark: mostly out of a desire to control people and take away women's autonomy. Let us

Yucca: yeah, let's be that, That's definitely one of the, the major factors right now. But, but for me, setting all of that whole very important side of it aside for a moment, there's this blurry line of this, this continuation of. Life and beings who, who have come to this moment. That's me. But it's also, I, I get very inspired and kind of delighted thinking about, oh, well I'm part of that though.

I'm a, I'm gonna be an, I'm gonna be one of the ancestors, right? Life continues and. We know long after I'm gone, there's presumably, right, We never know what, what the future actually holds, but presumably there's gonna be thousands of people, millions that I'm an ancestor to, and that's kind of inspiring.

Mark: Yeah. Of course that isn't true of me because I'm not having children.

Yucca: Well, that. On a genetic level. But on a cultural level, that's another thing to explore with the idea of ancestor, right?

Mark: Right.

Yucca: ancestors, not necessarily dna.

Mark: right. And that's, that's something that is very true of my practice when I, when I think about, you know, venerating. People or features of the past. I, for one thing, I go directly to what you talk about in the way of thinking about, you know, very early evolution and you know, the tetrapods that flopped up onto land and, you know, all those kind of wonderful steps that life has made on its way and venerating all of that, but also about, Figures from history that I find admirable and worthy of emulation.

And I may not be in any way related to them on a genetic level, but I still feel like culturally they've influenced me. And so they qualify as ancestors and I certainly hope to be. Seen that way. You know, with the development of atheopagan and that kind of thing, I mean, it, it it doesn't need to circulate around my name at all, but if, if the ideas are worthy and people find them useful and they perpetuate, then to me that's something that's really valuable and I would feel like I was an ancestor of.

Yucca: Yeah. Mmm. and the idea of ancestors. Some of us know the actual names of people going back for many generations, and some of us don't. But, but the, the concept of ancestor doesn't necessarily have to have a name attached, Right? Yeah.

Mark: Right. Yeah. I mean, on my father's side, I actually know. the way back to almost the 16th century because I descend from people who are on the Mayflower and those people have been heavily researched. There's a lot of information about them. But as it happens, the particular people that I'm descended from, Were the daughter of two people who died almost instantly upon reaching the the Americas and an indentured servant

So they were sort of not particularly impressive people. And as I've studied the history of the people who descend from them, there's just been this tremendous. Uninteresting nature of my family for 12 generations in the Americas.

Yucca: But you. We, we often focus on, in history on like these, what we call great people, right? The great men of history, but most people simply are people and the amazing, beautiful moments in our lives. Those, those don't get written down and have stories told about them, but they're still, that's what we get.

Those are the things that really, that I think really matter, right? Not necessarily that they were some great businessmen or you know, they led a war or you know, anything like that.

Mark: no, I, I, I don't disagree at all, although I do find it a little appalling that nobody in my family bothered to go west.

Yucca: Hmm. But do you know that? Well, nobody in your direct line,

Mark: Nobody in. Well,

Yucca: it branches off

Mark: of course it does. Yeah. And there's a, there's a giant volume called the Greens of Plymouth Colony that, that actually goes as far as my grandfather as a baby.

Yucca: Oh,

Mark: in, it was published in 1913, and my grandfather is in the book as a.

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: And so it has these, all these lines, all these lineages of, of the, the various greens and boswick and all the people who, you know, got involved with them. And it's just really remarkable to me. These people showed up in New England and just kinda stayed my, my grandparents made it as far as New Jersey.

And then in retirement moved to Colorado and that's where my father was raised. And then he came to California. But all of that happened just in the last generation.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: And it surprises me, not that I think that, you know, manifest destiny and colonialism and settling and all that kind of stuff was good cuz I don't, But were a lot of people that were taking advantage of those opportunities at that time, and none of them seemed to find it. They, they either didn't have the courage or they just didn't, They were happy where they were.

Yucca: It. It seems to me like it might be tricky. I've impressed at how much you've been able to do because you do have a more common last name. So there, I would imagine that there are multiple different groups of that. All the greens in the states aren't one big family. Right. They're actually lots and lots of different families because that's a, you know last names that are colors seem like a pretty common kind of name to go to.

Mark: right. I'm very fortunate that this book was published in 1913. This, this gene who was a part of the family. He researched all the birth records and the marriage records and the death records and the, I mean, he just did this exhaustive work that must have taken him decades and then published this book, and it was available as a, as a free PDF download.

The whole thing was scanned as a part of what is it? Google. Google Library? Is that what it's. There's a, there's a huge free archive of books that Google has that are like,

Yucca: That are in the public

Mark: that are in the public domain. This book probably didn't have more than a hundred copies printed cuz it was a privately published thing.

But

Yucca: somebody scanned it and put it up.

Mark: and there it is. And I have the pdf so I've been able to piece together a lot of things from that there.

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: But it stops abruptly because there's not very much known about the first William Green. Who first who first came, He was not on the Mayflower, but he came like four years later or something like that, and then married into the Mayflower families.

Yucca: Oh, cuz it the because of the changing of the names,

Mark: Right,

Yucca: Right? Okay. Yeah. The paternal line. Hmm.

Mark: so, well, anyway, there's your tension for the day, the, the bland vanilla history of Mark Green's ancestry. The but so why don't we talk a little bit about how we fold this stuff into our observances.

Yucca: Hmm. Now I, before we do, I do wanna add one other angle that we can come at Ancestry from. So we've been talking about the, the, you know, who came before. Whether that's a, like a cultural or genetic ancestor. But I think that this is a place where we can also add in the idea of what other life came before that made ours possible that isn't, you know, genetic line.

That isn't something that we inherited from, but all of the life. Makes life now possible, right? When

Mark: All the, the food that

Yucca: the food Yeah. Every, you know, the, how many millions upon millions of living things that we have consumed, regardless of whatever your dietary choices are, we all. Other living things, right?

Nobody lives on salt alone. So , that's how many lives those were. And for those lives to be the lives that had to come, that supported them. That supported them. And when, when we look around at Earth, and, and we'll talk more about this when we talk about the decomposition, but when we look out, we're used to seeing soil, right?

Mark: Right.

Yucca: Soil is kind of a new thing. This planet is a big rock. So soil is a mixture of, yeah, it's got rock in there, but it was made by living things and it's the bodies of living things. And from that other living things came up. And just knowing that, that the moment in life that we are in this moment of being part of Earth is.

Because of, and now we're talking about the trillions upon trillions of life that each had their little moment before us to create the system that we are now part of and continuing on.

Mark: Right? Yeah. And all of that to think about. It's really kind of all inspiring. As you say, we'll talk about this when we talk about decomposition in a couple of weeks, but the, the miraculous thing that life does is it takes dead stuff and turns it alive. It assembles it into things that are alive.

It's alive itself and it takes dead stuff and it assembles it into stuff that's alive. And that sounds pretty simple, but when you think about it, we are still not able to do that. We,

Yucca: well we do

Mark: we're working on it.

Yucca: we can't do it outside of the context that already is happening. Right? Because we certainly as living creatures, That's what we do. That's what we're doing when we're eating and breathing and

Mark: I meant like in a laboratory, we, you know, we, we can't artificially create organisms. We can tinker with organisms, we can do all kinds of genetic modifications now.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: But it still has to have that initial operating. Quality of life.

Yucca: Yeah, which is just pretty amazing.

Mark: It is.

Yucca: And even the tinkering that we're doing is just kind of borrowing other life that does it anyways to do it

Mark: Right, right. Yeah. It's, it's not like we're starting with jars of, of raw, pure chemicals and assembling. Maybe someday we'll be able to do that. Maybe someday we will be able to,

Yucca: Figure that out and

Mark: to assemble DNA chains from nothing. You know, just, just from plain peptides. You assemble the peptides and then you, you know, put the nucleotides with the peptides and, you know, put them all together into the proper ladder and create something. But considering how much can go wrong in genetic design, probably the thing we'll be doing more than anything else is just copying copying life that already exists rather than actually making something new.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So, let's talk about rituals, cuz we like to talk about ritual. This is, this time of year is a great time for it. I see you have a little pumpkin back there in the back of your room, so

Yucca: I do, I love penins. They, I love 'em so much. Yeah. On a tangent note, we have a trampoline and we're going to try to grow. Pumpkins underneath the trampoline in this coming year, and the kids are really excited about that.

Mark: that's cool. So keeps the sun from beating on the.

Yucca: yeah. And we can, we can fence it in

Mark: Oh yeah. Keep all the

Yucca: the Yes, because we, we'd like to you know, we want to grow to share with them as well, but they, you have to cover it up to give it long enough so that the, the Sprout can actually.

Do anything. If you don't cover it up here, you know the moment those first little baby leaves poke out, then you, you come back and they're gone. So,

Mark: We actually have something like that here, just on my back patio. We had a whole patch of basil and the rats love the basil, so they come and they eat all of it. We see rats out there. And Amaya gets really annoyed even though she had pet rats for years and loves the rats. But But that's outside.

It's not inside. There's nothing we can do about trying to control the rat population of the greater Sonoma County area.

Yucca: Hmm. Well, we, I thought, Okay, I will plant some stuff in the yard and we have to water everything. Like planting is a big commitment. And I went, Well, what am I gonna plant that the squirrels and chipmunks and all of that aren't going to eat? So, okay, I'll plant something that has a real strong smell like min.

Mint is often used to keep rodents away. So we plant it, we grew 'em inside and we transplant them outside. And then like an hour later we look outside the window and they have ripped the mint up and are eating the roots and throwing away the leaves. So, Well, Okay.

Mark: Barbara

Yucca: we'll, we'll have to cover it.

Mark: Barbara King solver writes a wonderful story about how. She and her family moved to somewhere in the southwest. I think it may have been, it may have been in New Mexico, actually. And she was putting in a garden and she had this idea that, well, okay, I'm I'll, I'll over plant everything so that there's some for the wild critters that are gonna get it, but I'll get some too.

And of course all of it went.

Yucca: Right

Mark: Because they don't make that deal.

Yucca: They don't, No. I mean, I still plant like that. What is the old, There's a whole lovely little rhyme about, it's like one for the rabbit, one for the house, one for the something, one for the mouse, or, you know, So you're supposed to plant four or five times. But yeah, you, they'll, there's just so little That is that lovely herbacious, fresh green.

They just want it.

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: So if you're gonna plant outside, you cover it. You have to put your little pins on it. So we still love them though. They're wonderful. We love their little drama, but that is not a ritual. So let's return to

Mark: let's, Yes. Okay. This has been your tension

Yucca: Yes. It's been your tangent for our episode. Yep.

Mark: So. I actually have an, it may be sort of a surprise because I am not particularly invested in my personal recent lineage ancestors, but I have an underworld focus. That's a part of my, my, my focus. My alter is a bookcase, and the bottom two shelves are full of supplies, you know, lots of fancy jars and incense.

Toro cards and stuff like that. The and above that is a shelf that is the underworld, and there are pictures of people that I've known who have died and cave paintings from France, you know, the old Paleolithic Cave paintings and bones, and a very high quality cast of a human skull. And my human femur.

And other sort of deaf imagery, you know, stuff, skulls and bones and all that kind of stuff. And then above that I, there's a, a double high shelf. I took out one of the shelves to make kind of an open area where, which is the upper world, which is the world and the cosmos and all the beautiful, amazing, cool stuff.

Yucca: That's where like the seasonal things will go and the, Yeah.

Mark: the seasonal things go. The little section for evolution and the section for science and the section for music and creativity and all that kind of stuff. So I have this underworldy space that I celebrate all year round. And I have, I have, there's a thing on there that belonged to my grandfather and. Something, some fossils that sort of speak to deep time ancestry. And I find particularly at this time of year that lighting the candle on there and acknowledging the Sacred Dead is really an important, meaningful thing to me. I, I find it more impactful this year than. Around the rest of the time of year.

Yucca: Mm, It's beautiful.

Mark: So how about you? How about the kinds of things that you do with ancestry in your observances?

Yucca: Hmm. Well, like a lot of things, we really try and integrate it into our whole lives, right? The, the holidays are, are special and extra to, for an extra focus to help us kind of remember about it. But you know, with the naming of the children, they, they have names that. That are, you know, tied back to old, you know, I have an old family name and we gave an old family, you know, old family name to the kids.

Their last names are actually a, a mixture, like a port man toe of our last names because we didn't wanna do. We didn't want to continue what felt like a weird kind of tradition of like the wife and children belonging to the husband kind of thing. Right.

Mark: And Hyphenation just doesn't work for more than one generation.

Yucca: it doesn't, and it, it just ends up with the same problem that you're still having to choose from one family or the other, Which do you pass on? Right. So we just, and we just mixed it together and it's a lovely name and it completely sounds like. You know, and like a name from the, the kind of heritage that we come from, or the ones that we look cuz we're extremely mixed mixed background.

But, but there are certain sides that we kind of identify more with. But like a lot of families, we have you know, photos up of the, the recent family members that we have photos. So there's in the kitchen we. My let's see. So my mother, grandmother, and great grandmother. So a line of, of all of them together.

So we've got that, that kind of thing. But this time of year is also the time where we're thinking about ancestry and, and we make a point of kind of changing what sorts of documentaries we're watching. We like to put documentaries on in the evenings. Not every night, but that's the sort of thing that, you know, maybe three nights out of the week there'll be a documentary that we all watch together.

And so we'll watch things about, you know, early humans or neanderthals or evolution and that kind of stuff. This time of year. addition to all of the wonderful halloweeny looking things,

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: But we'll talk, we'll get more into that. So, but really it's a, just a normal remembrance of them.

Mark: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Yeah. That's great. So I, I know that for for. A lot of people, they don't have a sort of standing recognition of their ancestors. And so this time of year becomes a time when they'll set up a focus with pictures of ancestors and, you know, offerings.

Yucca: of theirs.

Mark: Things that belong to them. Offerings of things like flowers.

Depending on their tradition, sometimes alcohol sugar, you know, candies and cookies, things like that.

Yucca: Buy them a pack of cigarettes, you know that if they were smokers kind of thing. Yeah.

Mark: Well, yeah, and that kind of gets into a whole other tradition around offerings of tobacco, which is a whole other,

Yucca: That too. Yeah, that's a

Mark: that, that that's a huge thing. So, be interesting to hear from our listeners about how they are acknowledging ancestry and what kinds of things they're putting into their seasonal celebrations this year.

I mean, obviously we're still, you know, on the long tail end of a very serious global pandemic and a lot of people have gone Over the course of the last two years or so. And so there's been a lot of loss. There's been a lot of grief, and this is the time of year when we, we tend to kind of face up to that and, and recognize recognize our mortality as we talked about last week.

So, drop us a line. We're at the Wonder Podcast Qs. The Wonder Podcast cues at gmail.com and send us your questions, send us updates on, you know, send us a picture of your, your ancestor altar. We'd love to see it.

Yucca: That's always fun. Yeah. So, and we really do love preparing from you, so thank.

Mark: Yeah. We're, we're so grateful for our listeners. There's still this part of me that's very, very skeptical that every time I look at these, the download figures, I'm like, Geez, are people actually listening to this thing But it appears that a lot of you are, and I could not be more pleased. I'm, I'm so glad that this is something that you choose to have in your life because your time, as we talked about last week, is the most precious thing you have and that you choose to spend some of it with us is really a great gift.

Yucca: Yeah. We're just so grateful for all of you. Oh, thank you,

Mark: So we'll be talking about Halls or Halloween or Saan whatever you want to all Saint Steve whatever you want to call it next week, and talking about rituals for that and all that sort of wonderful spooky celebration stuff.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: And we look forward to talking with you again then.

Yucca: All right.

Mark: Have a great week.

Yucca: Bye everyone.

View Details

Dreaming Spiders: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2204754119

Do Bubble Bees Play: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347222002366

Death packet workbook: download from https://atheopaganism.org/2018/10/07/a-gift-from-the-dying/

View Details

We are unable to record this week,so we repeat an episode from last year around this time. Enjoy, and see you next week!

View Details

Revolutionary Witchcraft- Sarah Lyons

Rest is Resistance by Tricia Hersey

Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit

Emergence Magazine podcast

https://www.ejnet.org/ej/principles.pdf

S4E32 TRANSCRIPT:----more----

Yucca: Welcome back to the Wonder Science Paganism.

I'm your host, Yucca.

Mark: and I'm Mark.

Yucca: And today we are honored to have another guest. So Lauren, who is a new member of the Atheopagan Society Council. So, welcome, Lauren.

Lauren: Thanks. I'm so glad to be here.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: We're really excited to have you, so thank you for taking the time to come on the show.

Lauren: Yeah, no, my pleasure. Thanks for inviting me. I'm so tickled to be here.

Yucca: Yeah. So, Lauren, will you tell us a little bit about you and your, I guess, so we were saying atheopagan origin story?

Lauren: Sure. And you know, I think like a lot of these stories, it's a little long, so forgive me if I get kind of long-winded here, but I hope that, you

Yucca: so much fun. We love to listen to it, so.

Lauren: I'm glad. Yeah, I'm sort of hopeful that some of what I talk about could just help someone else. So I figured I would lay it all out there. So yeah, I'm I'm from New York, I'm from New York City, and I grew up in a, I would say, fairly Catholic family.

We went to Mass regularly outside of just like Christmas and Easter. I was an altar girl I had my first communion, sort of like the whole, all the steps that you do as a child in the Catholic Church. And I really loved it, like I loved being an altar girl, I loved, being part of rituals and ceremonies and made me feel important and special, and I really loved the community that we had in the church as a kid.

But as I got a little bit older when I was sort of like in early adolescence, my mom came out as a lesbian. And, as you can imagine, this was like the early 2000s being part of the LGBTQ plus community, and the Catholic Church didn't really mix, so, we left that community. And at the same time, again, early 2000s, there was a lot of just like witch stuff happening in pop culture, like the Harry Potter books were like exploding, all this stuff was going on.

And I expressed an interest in that. And an adult in my life was like, Oh, hey, you like it. Thank you. Witchy things, like let me bring you to this New Age bookstore. So, I went to this New Age bookstore and I bought a couple of books on Wicca, and it was just like a complete revelation for me. I was so enamored with, with Wicca, with Learning about this whole religious practice that was, it, it felt magical and empowering and, you know, feminist and accepting and all of these things, and I was just still a really deeply faithful person like, you Completely believed in God, and I remember reading a passage in one of the books that I got that was like, you can imagine God as a diamond, and in Christianity, you're just looking at one facet of the diamond, and this was a way to like, look at all of these other facets, and I just loved that.

So throughout my, my whole teenage era, I had this like fairly serious solitary practice. I never tried to build any sort of real life community. I think the stigma was just like too high for me to ever even try, but I would like read stuff online and, and I would do ritual by myself. When I was in my, I guess, around 20 years old late teens to, to 20, sort of two things happened that kind of pushed me to a different place.

So, unfortunately I had this tragic experience where my best friend from childhood passed away. And that triggered like a classic crisis of faith where it's, you know, why does God let bad things happen to good people? And I couldn't find a satisfying answer to that question. And I also met the person who would become my, my life partner and now spouse.

who just moved at that time from the UK to the U. S. and I think sort of found himself in this place of like, wow, like, everything is really Christian here in this way that I feel really uncomfortable with. And he was sort of one of the first, like, loud atheists that I'd ever encountered. So for the rest of sort of my early 20s, I just I was in this process of deconstructing, and I remember being about 25, and I, I totered around like those same books I bought from that New Age shop, like to all these different apartments, all these different moments in my life, and I recycled them because I couldn't reconcile the idea of hanging on to that stuff with just not believing in God anymore.

And I cried, like it was a really painful moment, but it just sort of felt like this is what I have to do to be. to not have that cognitive dissonance in my mind. So that's where like this other big thread of, I guess, my origin story picks up, which is like the environmental activism piece. So I've, I've always been involved in social justice movements of various kinds, like basically from childhood.

I'd always done environmental and sustainability work through like high school and college. And then I was living in New York City when Hurricane Sandy hit in 2012. And for people who aren't particular, aren't familiar with that particular climate disaster, it was really devastating. So after that, I, I was trying to figure out how to make climate action my job and how to like make a, a career fighting for a livable planet.

So, eventually, it took me a couple years, but that led me to law school, and I decided to try to become an environmental lawyer. I started law school in the fall of 2016 in Washington, D. C. And people listening from the U. S. probably remember that we had a liberal election that year, and Donald Trump was elected basically right as I started law school.

So... I spent those three years that I was in law school just like completely burning the candle at both ends, 110 percent in on like all of the things. So during the day I was like interning at environmental law organizations and taking classes. And evenings and weekends I was like, if you can think of a way to take like civic action, like I did it.

I attended protests. I organized at least one. I called Congress. I worked in Congress. Like, I just did all of those things. It was a really crazy three years, but I think a lot of us who were in law school, in particular at that time in DC, felt like we had this huge responsibility being physically there to, like, do everything we could both on the democracy front and on the climate front.

So, I was, I was glad to be there and glad to do it. So after I graduated, I spent a year working for a judge in New York. We were trying to come back to New York and we were able to do that. It's this thing called clerking, where you spend a year working for a judge. And when you're clerking, you're not allowed to do any political activity at all.

And You could do a whole separate podcast about why that's like unfair and a little bit silly, but it is what it is. So it was this strange sort of pause in my life where I couldn't do all of the things that I had been doing, you know, basically for the previous decade. And then in the spring of my clerkship year, COVID happened.

So it was like a doubling down where it felt like You know, I think maybe in some ways, particularly where we were, right in the heart of it for many months, everything was falling apart and I felt like I could do nothing about it. And that was really hard. I was, I think, tired and scared and I remember saying to my partner, like, I, I need to pull on something that is not myself.

And I don't know if that makes sense outside of my own head, but... It was this moment where I think I was really longing to like turn to prayer like I would have when I was a person of faith and I just like couldn't do that. So it just tugged me back towards paganism and thinking like, is there, is there any way that I could work this back into my life in a way that feels authentic? The other thing that was sort of happening that year too was we had just gotten married and we were thinking seriously about starting a family. And that raises all sorts of questions too about like, well, how, how are we going to raise this kid? And we're two people who don't believe in God, but we want community around our kid and thinking hard about those questions and the sort of life that we wanted to build in that way.

So I just started poking around on the internet and I think, you know, many Googles in, I found the sass Reddit page and On some, some post, I saw a comment that mentioned atheopaganism, and I like, found the community from there. So, I guess I've only really been in the community, I think it's been like, less than a year, but I've just been, you know, it was such a wonderful moment when I found it, because it's like, oh my gosh, not only are there other people who like, believe how I believe, but...

They've like built a community and a whole thing and just the more I read the more excited I got. So, I've just been really thrilled to be here even though, you know, it took me a long time to find it. I'm really glad that I'm here now. Yeah, so that's my origin story.

Yucca: That's

wonderful,

Mark: that is, that's a great story, wow. Myself, I got bitten by a radioactive spider, but that's, we'll, we'll talk about that another time.

Yucca: For those who aren't familiar, Stas.

Lauren: Oh yeah, I think it's something called, it's something like skeptical atheist and science seeking witches. So it's folks who are into sort of, Rituals and practices to help them develop themselves, but they don't believe in what I would call like Harry Potter style magic. It's sort of the magic of working with your own psyche.

So that, that really resonated with me. And I think there's a fair amount of crossover, like folks who are in that community and folks who are in this one. Yeah.

Mark: yeah, yeah.

Yucca: And what were some of the things that when you found the atheopagan community that really stood out to you, that you were like, Oh, this is, this part is what I'm connecting with.

Lauren: Yeah. You know, I think just sort of the basic framework that we are all folks who are here because we think the earth is sacred. Yeah. And we want to find ways to celebrate that and celebrate life and community and, and just a rejection of things that aren't verifiably real in a way that didn't feel, I guess, demeaning or, or like there was any ridicule.

And that mattered a lot to me because like some of the most important people in my life are people of like deep faith and I've, I've never been super comfortable with the sort of like, let's all just like make fun of. Christian sort of tact. And I didn't feel like I saw that here a lot. And I was also really struck, like, when I joined the Facebook group, there are those three screening questions that basically, I think, are designed to, like, weed out folks who, you know, are not ready to say, Black Lives Matter, or to, you know, be willing to live their values.

So the fact that those were right up front, I think, immediately put me at ease. Yeah, it's, you know, probably not obvious to listeners, but I'm a Black and Latina person, and I think, you know, the pagan world, as I've encountered it, it's like a fairly white space, so there's a little bit of guarding that I have coming into any sort of Pagan community.

So there were signals right off the bat that like, this was a place where it was going to feel comfortable. And I think once I kind of got past the screening questions, all of that, that held true.

Mark: I'm, I'm really delighted to hear you say that, because it's a really important priority for us. You know, we're, we just had our quarterly meeting of the Atheopagan Society Council, so you had your first meeting there, and we're working on our strategic plan, and our number one goal of the three goals we've identified for our upcoming couple of years is a focus on belonging, equity.

Diversity, inclusion, justice. The, the activism element of atheopaganism is something that that's really important to me, the idea that we're not just doing this to be the best people we can, but also to make the best world we can. You know, to redress wrongs and to live in sustainable harmony as best we can with, with the ecosystem the biosphere.

Lauren: yeah.

Mark: I'm really excited, you know, to hear you articulate, you know, all that political passion, because I have a ton of it myself, and it's, it's just, it's just so important at this time.

Yucca: Hm.

Lauren: Yeah, I think so too. And I think something that has been so wonderful for me coming into this community I think I didn't know it, but I was really looking for some way to both soothe my own eco anxiety and, and climate anxiety, and, and sort of elevate the work that I do, like during the day and sort of the organizing I still do in the evenings, as something sacred and something that, you know, wasn't just an intellectual exercise.

Mark: Yeah.

Lauren: I was always... During like the Trump D. C. era of my life, when I would go to actions that were led by, you know, like progressive Christian groups or, or sometimes indigenous folks, and they would bring that element of a spiritual connection, I think there was Like a longing on my part that I felt those things too, but I had no, I felt like I couldn't lay claim to those feelings in any way, and being part of the atheopagan community I think is a way to sort of, like, say loud and proud, the earth is sacred, and we all believe that, and we're here for that, and Thank you.

Thank you. And you can do that without appropriating anyone's culture or sort of claiming things that aren't yours to claim, but by, I think, acknowledging what's, what belongs to all of us as human beings it's a framework to access that, and I really appreciate that about this community.

Yucca: Hm.

Mark: Ah, yeah, it's wonderful to hear you say that. I just kind of like to sit with it for a while, it's the because we're living in quite a time, you know? It's gotten very late on, on a number of fronts, and and it's been far too long on other fronts, and it's just, A lot of things are coming to a boil now at the same time, and so being active participants in that is just so essential.

I've been really encouraged to see how much interest there is in, in the community, in, you know, standing up for those principles, standing up for for, for inclusion and for environmentalism and for feminism and for the LGBTQ community and the BIPOC community and, you know, really saying, you know, drawing a line in the sand and saying, this is where we stand.

Lauren: yeah, it's really great and really special. And I think one thing that I would love to bring to the community as in part of my role, I guess, on the council is just helping people. Find their voice if they're having trouble doing that, or otherwise facilitate or provide opportunities to act on our principles.

I don't know, I don't know if I said this at any point, but, you know, in my day job now I am an environmental attorney. I bring, thank you, it's, it's pretty awesome, I'm not gonna lie. I do a lot of legal work to try to protect communities facing environmental racism or to try to protect ecosystems and I think that As an attorney, part of my job is to make sure that people who aren't attorneys know that the attorneys can't do everything, right?

And not that I'm accusing anyone in the community of having those sentiments, but sometimes I, I worry a little bit, but it's like, ah, someone will just sue and it'll be fine. Like, no, it won't.

And there are a million ways that everybody has to stand up for, for things they care about and places they care about.

And those places aren't just like the Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls or whatever. They're like that polluted block down your street or, you know, the water coming out of your tap. I mean, there is, there is something to protect and fight for wherever you live. You know, I don't exactly know yet how I can be that sort of resource in the community, but that's, that's my intention, I guess, just starting out now.

Yucca: And you've also been active in the affinity groups, right?

Lauren: Yeah, so, I noticed that we had these things called affinity groups when I first joined, and that there wasn't a BIPOC group, so I, I guess I started that.

You know, I think that in predominantly white spaces, often, At least, you know, speaking purely for myself, there's this sort of impulse to be like, Alright, where are the people of color?

How do I find them? You know, because it's, it's sort of a, it's another layer of like, signal that like, this is an okay place to be if there are already other people there who look like you. So, I didn't really know how to do that without an affinity group, so I just made one. And it's been really great.

It's, it's a, it's a great community of folks. We're reading a book together now, which is, is fun. And we're hoping to do sort of a book club type meeting soon. I will say like, you know, speaking particularly as a Black person, I think that atheopaganism has this particular appeal as like an explicitly modern creation.

And. think, you know, again, speaking from a distance, I've never been in a community like this before, but I see a lot of hints of sort of pagans meticulously recreating their own genealogy to, like, figure out what gods they should worship or what practices they should have or whatever trying to reconstruct these, like, ancient practices.

And if you're a Black person in America, odds are that's not even an option for you, right? There's only so far back you can go. So I think that there's a, there's a little psychic relief that I found and like, oh, well, I don't even have to worry about my ability to know, you know, exactly what corner of what place my ancestors came from to like use these tools.

I can just focus on the now and focus on the land that I'm on. And I'll say too, now I'm just sort of riffing, but

Mark: hmm.

Lauren: you know, I would really love to just serve as an example that, That this space isn't just for, like, crunchy white people, and I think that that is a stereotype of paganism that

I've encountered in the Black community, personally, that, like, you know, it's, it's just a stereotype that's out there.

Like, we have just as much need and, and right to access these practices as anyone else. So, I think there's maybe some unlearning that I had to do and, and some unlearning that lots of us have to do to be Anything we want to be and not just what society says we should be or should stay away from. So, I like to, I would like to think that I can help just make explicit that this is a path that is open to everyone no matter what your origin, no matter what your skin color.

Mark: Absolutely. And I was so grateful when you created the BIPOC Affinity Group, because I really wanted there to be one. Obviously I couldn't have anything to do with the creation of that. And other people in the community were just too busy they, they, you know, they weren't going to make the lift in order to make that happen, but it was so important that it be there.

I will say a thing about what you were riffing on, which is that when I first created atheopaganism, it was just for myself. As, you know, an American who doesn't have any, like, family legacy of English or Irish or Scottish things, just kind of a person plunked here on Turtle Island with a relationship with land, but no inheritance of culture other than capitalism, and so I, you know, I crafted it with the idea that it would be modern and informed by modern values.

But there are people in the community for whom, you know, like Indigenous people, for example, you know, for whom drawing back on those cultural threads is really important. And so, it's not... It's not that you can't do that, it's that you don't have to. You can still have a powerful practice that's very meaningful to you, starting from modernity and your own life and your own experience.

Lauren: Yeah,

Mark: yeah.

Lauren: yeah, I completely 1000 percent agree. And I should say, like, the, you know, some of the folks in the BIPOC group are like reading a book about hoodoo, which is a magical practice developed by people who came to America through enslavement. And, yeah, I definitely see value in looking back and drawing on, on traditions and, you know, white, white American culture in the last 400 years, that's a culture too.

And there's, there's stuff to draw from everywhere. I think that, sorry, I'm losing my train of thought here. No, there, there's something to draw from. And, and there, in every culture, right, there are magical traditions in your, in your family tree, right? And often for people of color, I think they're a little bit overlooked.

One great little fact that I read in trying to educate myself more about these traditions in the African American community was that when folks were escaping slavery on the Underground Railroad, they would carry magical totems with them to give them bravery. And I just love the idea that You know, sure, there, maybe there's no quote unquote real magic there, but the bravery is real and the political action it led to is real, so, yeah, I absolutely don't mean to say, like, working, looking backwards isn't, isn't good or isn't worth it or anything, but I, I really appreciate the, the emphasis on modernity and, and that you can make this what you want, whether or not you have access to looking back in your own ancestry.

Mark: Mm hmm.

Yucca: And we've been using the term BIPOC, I think that might be a little bit new for some people. Some people are familiar with it, but can you define that for our listeners who haven't come across this term before, or have only seen it written?

Lauren: Absolutely. Thanks for that flag. Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, BIPOC. That's what that stands for. And I should say too, you know, our community, the BIPOC group is, is small, it's still developing, as it should, and I think that we aren't necessarily committed to using that term forever.

There are Interesting debates happening within various cultural groups in, you know, I can only speak about, I think, the U. S., but within the U. S. about what umbrella term we should use to refer to ourselves and, and those things are in flux. So that name isn't chiseled in stone, but it's a handy shorthand, I think, for racialized groups in the United States to, to come together in this moment for the purposes of this community.

Yeah.

Mark: Yeah, that's great. Thank you. You know, I, I was just in DC a few weeks ago on a lobby trip. And I had the good fortune of getting a reservation to go to the National Museum of African American Culture and History. I've I mean, honestly, I think every American should be marched through there the, it was profound and infuriating and tragic and inspiring and just an extraordinary experience and I really recommend it to anyone who doesn't feel that they have a grounding in, in what that experience is, at least to the degree that I can get my mind around it as not being that kind of person

Lauren: got the chance to go before we left DC and it's, it's an amazing museum. Hard recommend. Yeah.

Mark: So, you're now on the Atheopagan Society Council and you've talked a little about, you know, some of your, some of the roles that you kind of see yourself as playing within the community. Where, where do you see us going? What I mean, we're, we're relatively recent. We I, I published the essay that became the book in 2009 which is now starting to be some years ago but time is slow that way

Yucca: council's been around four years at this point.

Mark: right, right, the, we only just got our non profit Thank you. You know, status a couple of years ago and but that was an important step to say this is more than about individuals that are working within this community now. We want to create a container and a vehicle for these ideas, you know, to be sustained into the future.

So, you've, I know you've been to one meeting, but do you have

Yucca: a member of the community for quite a while now as well,

Lauren: Yeah, yeah, a year ish or so. Yeah. Man, I, I guess my hopes are really simple, that it just keeps growing, and it stays inclusive, and that it We become a place where folks from all walks of life feel comfortable. I should say I'm also part of the parents affinity group. I have

a young child and we've been talking about some really cool stuff, like maybe a scouting program.

And... I think that there are so many people who are in a similar boat to me, where like they're, they're parenting, they didn't necessarily grow up with a pagan, much less an atheopagan, orientation towards things, and they're trying to figure out how to raise kids with these values, so I hope that that space in particular continues to grow.

I think I've, I've heard you, Mark, maybe on another episode talk about a book of rituals that you're coming out with. I think it would be wonderful if... We start seeing folks sharing examples of how they celebrate the seasons and, and life transitions, and I know that like some of that is out there already, but I think for, for lots of people, including myself, there's both.

There's like a path paving there that can be really helpful to see examples of how you actually like do atheopaganism. And. And also a sense of community when you know, you know, of course, like, you know, a ritual for me here in New York City probably wouldn't relate with the land and in the same way that it would for either of you in different parts of the world, but it's nice to think about some commonality, because I think You know,

Mark: mm hmm,

Lauren: when you're in Catholic Mass and you know that this Mass is really similar to a Mass happening hundreds of miles away, that, that builds that sense, so, finding common threads if we can, I think, would be a nice way to keep the community cohesive, even as it continues to grow and, and spread and, and morph based on the geography of, of the particular atheopagan or atheopagan family.

Yeah.

Mark: Yeah, now that you mention it the idea comes to mind, I mean, my book is coming out in April, and it's much more of a how to book than the first Atheopaganism book, which was, the first half of which is theory, really and then the second is about the principles and, you know, doing rituals and the holidays and all that kind of stuff.

But maybe another project would be editing a crowdsourced ritual book.

Yucca: like an anthology,

Mark: Yeah, so, you

Yucca: out to the community and getting

Mark: yeah,

Yucca: not everybody, but whoever wants to share their insights and sharing that, that could be really, that could be amazing, I

Mark: That could be really good. Yeah, I mean, the other thought that I had that I floated a while ago, and it just seems that nobody has the spoons for it, is a parenting book that I would edit. But I can't write because I'm not a parent.

Yucca: Well, I am really interested in that one. It just needs to, gotta get the timing to work on that if other people are interested as well.

Mark: I really

Yucca: I can't do the whole book, but I think that there's some sections that I'd be able to do.

Mark: great, yeah, and I mean, I, I think the, one of the things that we are presented with now as an opportunity is the whole question about families and kids and how we engage families and, you know, basically build Culture within family units, right? Which I just think is so exciting. And I know John Cleveland Host, who's currently the chair of the Atheopagan Society, I mean, his, he kind of stumbled into all of this because of wanting to have culture for his children.

So, yeah, it's that really presents a, a great opportunity, I think.

Yucca: And we're getting folks now with different ages. I mean, his kids, his oldest are probably going to be off to college soon, right? And a lot of, I know there's a lot of us with real little ones, but there's a good range of... of ages as well.

Mark: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah oh, I'm just, I, I can see the book sitting on a shelf right now, and it's not, it's not very thin either. There's a, there's a lot in it.

Yucca: Well, and even just within the, the umbrella of paganism in general, there aren't a lot of parent books. I mean, there's Circle Round, there's, Lauren, can you think of any others that

Lauren: I mean, when I was pregnant, I looked and I have Circle Round sitting on my bookshelf.

Mark: too.

Lauren: I think there's I'm, I'm blanking on the title, but there was another book with sort of like things for, you know, stories for kids. Of course, I think there's all sorts of. of material for kids to engage with the seasons, but in terms of actual parenting tips or, or guides, no, family practices, no, no.

I don't think there's, if there's stuff out there that I haven't found it, so I would be really grateful for some sort of anthology coming out of the community.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Gotta happen.

Yucca: And then, of course, I don't think there's anything specifically from an atheist point of view. Right, there's plenty of like you were saying, the seasonal kind of secular stuff that's like, yes, it's fall and the leaves are changing,

but not really something that is, that's coming at it from that angle.

Mark: right.

Lauren: Yeah. And I know that Like I know some folks who are involved in like Unitarian Universalist congregations, and I think they might have some curriculums and things for kids, but, so there, and I think the Humanist Society, I don't know, they might have some stuff. So there's probably like things out there that we could draw from, but nothing that weaves together all of the pieces that make the atheopagan community special.

So I think it would be neat if we could make a contribution like that.

Yucca: And I like books, I like to have a book in my, like I appreciate podcasts and blogs and all of that, but there's something very different in terms of the experience of turning a page and sitting on the You know, sitting cuddled under the blankets with the kitty cat next to you as you, like, turn the pages and sip your warm drink.

It's just a very different experience. Yeah,

Mark: Yeah,

Lauren: yeah. And I will say I think Mark mentioned the John Cleland Host and Pagan Families episode, and Arwen, I think you were on that one too, right?

Yucca: it was,

Lauren: I bookmarked it and listened to it several times because, like, oh, there's so much in here! Yeah, I think that there's, there's endless wisdom that folks who have been parenting in the atheopagan community could pass on to folks like me who are just starting out and it would be wonderful to have it as a book that you could cuddle up with for sure.

Yucca: How old's your little one, by the way?

Lauren: He's one and a half.

Yucca: and a half. Oh,

Mark: tiny.

Yucca: That is a

Lauren: little.

Yucca: so fun, though, right? Everything is opening up now.

Lauren: yeah, tons and tons of fun. Yeah, we're, we've been really happy as parents and Yeah, I just hope that we're able to raise him with a sense of community and I think we have that in lots of ways, but I would love for him to feel a connection to this community if that feels right to him and to you.

To give him the good parts of being raised with religion that I received without any of the baggage would be, would be great if we can figure out how to do that.

Mark: One of the things that I'm really excited about when I think about atheopagan parenting is giving kids the skills to do rituals themselves so that they can work with their psychology. We don't really give kids very many tools in terms of emotional regulation and, you know, kind of changing your mental state, your emotional frame, all that kind of stuff.

We just, we don't see that modeled. And, you know, I just... I'm really excited at the prospect of a 12 year old who decides, okay, I'm going to light a candle, and I'm going to contemplate that candle, and it's going to calm me down, and I'm going to be okay about what Marianne said at school, you know, that kind of thing.

So,

Lauren: Yeah, like you, you know, as your brain is developing in those teenage years, that's when you need those tools the most in some ways and I think that's why I was so drawn to it as a teenage girl myself and You know, I have read a fair few, I guess, gentle parenting type books that, that, talk about introducing things like breathing techniques to your kids.

So I am hopeful that some of that stuff that we might call rituals and other people might call, you know, just mindfulness practices,

Mark: mm hmm.

Lauren: are making their way into parenting culture with folks who are becoming parents now. There's, there's so much more that could be explored and could be articulated for kids and I would love that for my own child for sure.

Mark: Yeah, because the world of ritual, it feels so good, and it can be so... Enlightening with a lowercase e in terms of understanding yourself, seeing what your proclivities are and what your core beliefs are, and kind of understanding what your lens is on the world, and maybe seeing some of the limitations of that, and being able to better understand how other people see the world.

There's just so much in it, and, you know, I've been a pagan since 1987. And Yucca, of course, you know, you were raised pagan and I still feel like I'm only kind of nibbling at the edges of all of the things that it can do for me.

Yucca: Yeah

Mark: and the richness that it brings to my life. Yeah, I think so too,

Yucca: we're really, you know, sorting through that.

Mark: yeah.

Lauren: Yeah,

Mark: That was one thing, you know, when I thought about, okay, you know, how we're going to merge atheism with paganism, how is that going to work it occurred to me that the big piece that comes with the paganism is 50 or 60 years of experience accumulated in how to do effective rituals.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: Because the atheist side didn't have that.

We, we have lots of folks that come into our community and they're like how do I get started? What do I do first? I, I, I get it with all the values and the worldview, but how do I do this practice?

Yucca: Yeah.

Lauren: yeah.

Yucca: One of the things that I really value about that from the parent perspective is that one of the things that we're doing for our kids is helping them to develop skills. And then when they grow up, they're going to go in the direction that they went, right? How many people do most of our community were raised in different religions than their parents, right?

And that's okay, right? People make different choices. But I want my kids to have whatever religion they end up being. Whether they stay in the pagan community or not, I want them to have those tools to be able to calm themselves down, to look at themselves, all those things that you were just talking about, Mark, and have the, those ritual skills, even if, you know, I would, doesn't fit me, but if they decide they want to become theists and they believe in a god, then, then great, they have these skills that they can use within that context that's going to help them live a happier, more fulfilled life.

Lauren: Yeah,

Yucca: it's really beautiful that we're trying to do that as, as, you know, atheopagan parents.

Lauren: I think that's beautiful, too. And, you know, while we're on this topic and we're talking a little bit about practice, it just occurs to me to name that I, I really found the, the tools that I had available to me through my practice to be so helpful in getting through like pregnancy and the newborn stage and, and birth.

And I had a really tough childbirth experience and it took me a long time to sort of bounce back from it. I found the newborn stage really hard and like, man, if there's ever a time when, like, you've got to lean into your, your meditative or your, your safe place exercises, it's like those first couple weeks postpartum, right?

It's just, it's really tough stuff. And If there, if there's anyone who's out there who's, who's pregnant and thinking about making space for this in their life, like I, I could not give enough of a thumb. Obviously, you know, postpartum, also do all the things that you need to do for your mental health, the therapy, or whatever other support systems you need, but I think that this is,

Yucca: too,

Lauren: and the physical stuff, absolutely, like this is, you know, I'm, I'm not trying to say anything that discounts, like, Traditional Western medicine or, or psychotherapy or anything like that, but just having another set of tools, I think, really helped me in early parenthood and the sort of the transition between pregnancy and birth and parenting.

I'll also say that I think You know, for folks who are trying to figure out ritual practices and maybe are also parents of young kids, like, it doesn't have to be an hour. It doesn't have to be like, I don't have an hour. It's a lot of my practices are just extremely short. You know,

Yucca: 45 seconds with the bathroom door locked?

Lauren: Exactly, you know, or picking up a, I do a lot of sort of like, I guess I'd call them like totems, you know, I have particular little objects that help put me in a particular mindset, you know, it could just be as simple as picking up that particular ring and putting it on your finger, you know, and, and that's enough to shift your mindset.

So I think talking about ritual in an abstract way can be a little bit intimidating, but it can be as simple, as simple or as elaborate as you want it to be.

Mark: Yeah, I find that the things that I have on my focus are all, they're things that have stories associated with them in my mind. So they have an associative meaning, right? It's not just a seashell. It's a seashell that I found when I was 11 on the Costa del Sol in Spain. You know, it's, it's got a, that was stirred up by a huge storm that Brought all these shells up onto the beach.

So, the charging of items... Which obviously isn't really a physical process. It's a psychological process. It's building a strong association between a thing and a state of mind, right? That's a very, very powerful practice and it's one that anybody can do and it's, and it's a way to do a quickie ritual, right?

Yeah, you pick up the ring, you put it on, okay, now I've got my bravery ring.

Lauren: Yeah, exactly. And I guess it occurs to me, I don't know if totem is like a word I'm accidentally appropriating from some group, maybe I should say talisman, but yeah, the idea of having an object that just has that story. I think that can be really powerful and it's really short and simple but isn't enough to sometimes turn your day around or give you that extra boost and I think a lot of my practice has been, you know, especially sort of before I had a kid.

It was all stuff to just, like, make me work harder or make me braver in, in political action, and I'm trying to have a more open mind these days about what I can use it for, that it, it isn't just a thing I should use to help me churn out another couple pages on a legal brief. It's like something that I can use to just, like, expand myself or, or heal myself or just have fun or, or whatever it is it, I think I'm trying to broaden my mind and, and encourage other people to have a broad mind about what it can do for you.

Mark: yeah, one of the pieces that we That we often, it doesn't get talked about in the pagan community very much is how pleasurable ritual can be. It just feels good. And that, in and of itself, is a perfectly fine outcome. That's a great outcome, right? You know, you're in a bad mood, so you go and you do a thing, and then you're not in a bad mood.

Well, that's wonderful!

Yucca: Or you're not even in a bad mood to start with.

Mark: No, you're just

Yucca: You're just, yeah, it

Mark: messing around with candles and incense and cool objects, and it just feels really cool, and you feel sort of wizard y, and it's all fun.

Lauren: Yeah, it's inherently fun, often.

Yeah.

Mark: It's play. It's a form of play.

Lauren: Yeah.

Mark: Well, Lauren...

Yucca: there resources that you, you'd mentioned that you had some resources and things you wanted to share with the

Lauren: Yeah I do, I have a couple of things. So the first takes like a little bit of explanation, but I don't know if listeners are familiar with the concept of environmental justice or environmental racism, but Environmental racism is the disproportionate impact of environmental hazards on people of color.

It's a term used at least in the U. S. and I think also internationally. And environmental justice is the idea that basically in short you're going to stop poisoning people, period, all people.

Yucca: Sounds like a great idea.

Lauren: it does, doesn't it? Nice and simple. And that definition is from a website called ejnet. org. And there... On that website, and I can share the link for the show notes, there's a list of principles of environmental justice that I find really inspiring, and it was written by a group of people of color, environmentalists, environmental activists in 1991 at a convening.

And the very first principle of the, I think it's, yeah, 17.

Yucca: And is that environmental justice action? Is that what

Lauren: This is ejnet. org is the website, ejnet, yeah, I can, I can send a link, but, the first principle in that document reads, environmental justice affirms the sacredness of Mother Earth, ecological unity, and the interdependence of all species, and the right to be free from ecological destruction. So I just think it's really, really special that In my mind, part of what atheopaganism is doing is affirming that sacredness of Mother Earth and opening up a path for all people to do that, that really aligns with this foundational document of environmental justice.

So I just think that's cool.

Yucca: Hmm.

Lauren: Yeah,

Mark: up a little bit.

Lauren: it's really

beautiful.

Mark: it is. It's

Lauren: yeah, it is. And I encourage everybody to, yeah, check out those principles and, and to get involved in environmental justice wherever you are. Yeah, just a couple of books that I feel like have sort of helped me in this intersection between action, political action, and pagan stuff.

There's a great book called Revolutionary Witchcraft by Sarah Lyons.

Mark: Yeah,

Lauren: A short book. I can't remember if there's theism in there, so sorry if there is, but it's really great. It's short. Everyone should read it. There's another great book called Rest is Resistance by Tricia Hershey that I just read, and it was one of those real aha books.

It just talks about... Ways to honor yourself, honor your body, and kind of break free of what she calls grind culture. So this idea that you have to be productive all the time, that's a product of like capitalism and colonialism, and it's something that I really struggle to resist. So I thought that that was great.

Two more things. There's this book called Hope in the Dark Solnit, I think is how you say it. Really short book that just sort of emphasizes Don't give up hope that we can make the world a better place. The world is really complicated and Things can and do get better even when they seem really bleak.

And then the last resource I'll share is this wonderful podcast from Emergence Magazine, and I think that's actually the name of the podcast. And it has episodes on all different topics that explore the connections between culture, spirituality, and ecology. And they've had like Robin Wall Kilmer on all sorts of, of authors exploring this intersection.

And again, some of it might be sort of more like a little bit more woo than some of the folks who listen to this podcast like, but there's a lot of really great stuff there. Listening to each episode is just like a gift, so I recommend that as well and I can, I can share like links and, and all of those, those names and authors in case people want to look them up.

And then the last thing I would just say if you'll indulge me in this like quote this quote I really love I'm not a teacher, only a fellow traveler of whom you asked away. I pointed ahead, ahead of myself as well as you, so please, like, I offer everything I've said with humility. I'm working all of this out myself, and I'm really happy to be working it out with other folks in this community.

Mark: that's really beautiful. Thank you. You know, fun fact. The first pagan ritual I ever went to, when I was invited by a friend back in 1987, was to a coven which included Rebecca Solnit's brother.

Lauren: Wow. Small world.

Mark: Yep, very small world.

Lauren: Well, I guess that's another example of these connections between the activist world and the pagan world run, run deeper and are everywhere.

Mark: Yep, they are. Well, Lauren,

Yucca: so much. They're saying the same thing, but no, really, this is so exciting to have you here with us and part of the community and just everything you're saying is just, just yes. So wonderful. So thank you so much.

Mark: and thank you for your work.

Yucca: Yeah,

Mark: You know, those of us that are in the environmental field can feel really beat up a lot of the time, and the organizations we work for, even the big ones, are under resourced relative to the industries that they're up against. and the headwinds politically that they're up against.

And so, thank you for all the effort it took to get the credentials that you needed to be able to do the work you're doing and for the work that you're doing in the world. Thank you.

Lauren: That's very kind and it's, it's my pleasure to do it and I'm really grateful for the opportunity to just come on here and, and riff on all these things and You know, thank, thank you both for creating this community that's been such a source of, and for everyone really who's involved, who, who are co creating this community that's been such a wonderful space.

It's, you know, after a hard day of doing hard stuff and thinking about pollution on long timelines, it's such a wonderful treat to just like listen to an episode of this podcast or check out the Facebook group. It's been a tremendous source of, of solace for me, and I hope that it is for everyone. for other activists who might find their way into this space.

So yeah, really, really grateful all around.

Mark: Well, thank you so much. And with that, I think that's a good place for us to stop. Gratitude is always a good place to land on. So, thanks once again. Thanks to all our listeners. And we'll be back next week with another episode of The Wonder of Science Based Paganism.

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Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com.

S4E31 TRANSCRIPT:

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Mark: Welcome back to The Wonder, Science Based Paganism. I'm your host, Mark,

Yucca: And I'm Yucca.

Mark: and today we are fortunate to have with us Susan, who is a new member of the Atheopagan Society Council, and we're interviewing the new members of the Council over the next... A couple of months or so the ones that, that want to be interviewed, just to get to know them and find out what their thinking is about all this stuff we're doing.

So welcome, Susan.

Susan: thanks for having me on.

Yucca: And some of you who watch the YouTube channel may recognize Susan from there, who's been, who's part of the media team, and has been making excellent videos.

Mark: Yes, yes. Susan is the glue on of the media team. She holds us all together.

Yucca: which is not always easy appreciated with all of the emails that have been chasing us down to make all our schedules work, and yep,

Susan: I try to balance it so that everybody doesn't think I'm super annoying, but helpful, not annoying.

Mark: So far, so good. So, Susan why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and what brought you to atheopaganism and, you know, all that good kind of stuff.

Susan: Yeah. Well, the short answer like it seems a lot of people is COVID brought me to atheopaganism. I, and I do have a short video, I think it's the first one that I did on the YouTube channel if anybody wants to check that out of my, my non theist upbringing and, and this kind of channel, so I'll, I'll make it a short version, but I live in the Midwest, in Ohio, and I've lived here my whole life, and I was raised without religion, but also not specifically atheist either.

It was just sort of, we didn't talk about it. I didn't know the difference between a Republican and a Democrat until I was in high school because it was just, you know, I was left to my own devices. And I appreciate that for, for some things. There's definitely parts of me where I'm like, well, it'd be nice to have a little bit more direction.

And I, we're kind of taking that track with our, with our daughter. I am, I'm married and I have six, soon to be seven year old, and kind of navigating that that space. My husband was raised Catholic, so we're kind of marrying together. He, he likes to call it ethnically Catholic, because he doesn't believe any of the stuff there, but so yeah, we, I, from a, Medium age started dabbling in stuff about the time when I was, you know, I'm an 80s baby.

So by the time I was in high school, it was late 90s. And all of the witchy stuff started showing up all over the Barnes and Nobles. I'm like, Ooh, what is this? And especially the tarot card section with lots of stuff to touch and play with. So I I explored that area and the pagan, which at that time, at least, you know, Wicca was the super dominant thing in, at least that was publicly available.

And so I dabbled in that for a while, and I kind of got It's like, this is fun, but I also don't really believe in this whole, you know, people try to rationalize it with, oh, it's the energy, and you're affecting the energy, and I was like, yeah, yeah, that, that makes sense, sure, and I, you know, doing the little, the little lie to yourself thing for a while.

And then I kind of walked away from it for a while and just didn't, didn't bother with my, my spiritual life for a while until I got married. And we wanted to have a community for our child to grow up in so we joined a UU congregation, Unitarian Universalist, and they have, in our particular one, a fairly decent showing of pagan folks.

And so I kind of picked that back up and we had a little bit of a range from full capital W witch to people who I think, you know, if I talked to them long enough about atheopaganism, that would be more up their alley but didn't, you know, know the words for it at that time. So it kind of came through there and then COVID hit and, you know, that community was sort of, sort of gone.

But I was on the board and I was doing all of these committees and doing all the, I was doing all the work of being in a community, but not getting the community out of it. It was also right after we had merged. So my, my group went from 40 to 60 members to 200 and some people. And I didn't know all these people I was doing the work for and it just kind of, I kind of drifted away and was I was focusing more on what is it that I do believe in, since I had spent so much time just defining what I didn't believe in, and I found, kind of simultaneously, Druidry, which is something I'm, I'm pretty involved in, is my personal path, but also atheopaganism, and actually found I found out about atheopaganism through a blog whose, I can't remember what the blog was about but there was sort of an about me page and the person was describing, yeah, I don't really, you know, believe in the metaphysical part of this, but I still think it's really helpful check out atheopaganism, I'm like, yes, thank you, I will, and signed right up on the spot and I remember I read the, the principles And I don't know what bits of the, of the pages, but I remember running to my husband and being like, oh my gosh, I found them.

I found my people. They're here, they exist. , I found it. I didn't know this was the words I needed, but I needed the word these words, you know, there's the validation of other people

Yucca: was that during lockdown or was that a little bit afterwards?

Susan: That was, I think, during lockdown 'cause I remember. We had still the the Earth centered group at my UU congregation was trying to do monthly Zoom get togethers, and I remember one of them, I was just, like, very excited to share with people that I had found both atheopaganism and the Druid organizations that I had joined at the same time, so.

Mark: Well, that's very cool. I, I always love hearing these stories 'cause people, you know, people come to us through all different kinds of ways and and there is very commonly that I found them. They, they exist. I'm not the only one I am feeling which. I actually share, even though, you know, I, I wrote the essay in the book and stuff, because when other people started showing up, I, similarly, I was like, oh, I'm not the only one, there's more of us.

This is great. So, very exciting. Well, it's great to have you with us, Susan. Thank you so much. So, You've just joined the Atheopagan Society Council and and you've been helping with the media team for a while. You're a very organized, get it done kind of person, which is really great.

Susan: Thanks.

Mark: so, I don't know, what are your thoughts about this community and where we're going and, you know, what things would you like to see happen?

You know, like new programs or any of that kind of stuff, if you've thought about it.

Susan: I think my main thing that I want to see is that I hope you're going anywhere soon, but, you know, I want to make, I want to show up so that down the road we don't trickle and fade away when, you know, you, Mark, or, you know, the, the original set of people doing the council you know, are gone or, or, you know, have to be pulled away for whatever reason.

I just don't want it to, to fade and be the thing that, that used to be really great for a while and then just nobody could keep up for it, keep up with it. And so that's something I'm interested in is, and I don't know what that looks like. I don't know what infrastructure we, you know, are going to end up with to make that be something that really sticks and stays and has standing.

I imagine it'll be Getting a lot of volunteers and getting a lot of structure in place for volunteers so that people, you know, we don't avoid burnout. And that's I know, that's one of the things that we're talking about at the council meeting coming up. But that's, that's kind of my priority. But I am excited about the idea of getting more, not necessarily content, but getting more things in place for people to do in person, even if it's not with other people, but just more of an idea I was in a sorority in college and it was a One of the things that I thought was fun about that is that there were certain things that you did and you're, you know, it's, you know, a secret and secret rituals that everybody does, but you knew that even though you went to a different school than this person that you maybe met down the street and they went to school.

different school, but they were still part of the same sorority as you. You knew they had the same ritual as you,

Mark: hmm.

Susan: and I love that we have so much open endedness of, you know, build your own adventure within atheopaganism. I think it might be fun to get something in place that is something we can all share, or those who are interested can all share, and like, I don't know if that looks like a standard ritual format or something, which is what some other organizations do, like some of the druid organizations, I mean, what they have.

Here's our official format, and I don't know that that's something that we would really want, but something that has that feel to it, that essence of, hey, here's how you can feel a part of this, On your own, but still together kind of a feel. I think more of those kinds of things would be. And I think that would help a lot of people who seem to be clamoring for structure, you know, there's definitely the people in the community who are like, I am totally happy to do this by myself and come up with my own thing.

And that's great. But then there seemed to be a lot of people who want a little more hand holding with their practice too.

Mark: Mm hmm.

Susan: So that's kind of,

Yucca: of the insights that you have that I've really appreciated is that you're a fellow parent with, with a kiddo in the same age range and it's been nice to have someone to bounce off some of that, you know, how do we make that feeling available for, for kids who are growing up in this community?

Because that's something that, for me, growing up as a pagan kid, there wasn't really anything for us. It was like, it was all the grown up stuff, and we were just sort of, you know, put it at a third wheel, right? And I think that it'd be nice for our community to have something a little bit more, more community for the kids as well.

And I know that not everybody has kids in the community, but that's something that... There definitely are, there's quite a few of us, so,

Mark: hmm. Sure.

Susan: yeah.

Yucca: something that you've brought that I've really valued, Susan.

Mark: Yeah, I mean, I don't have kids, but I, I absolutely support that. I think that having activities for families that that work for the adults as well as for the kids is something that I really would like to see us have more of.

Yucca: Mm

Susan: Especially for parents who maybe only one of them is into it. My husband is very supportive and so,

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Susan: I, I know that I'm lucky in getting the amount of participation that I do, and there's plenty of people who are parents who it's very one sided and, you know, they may not get the, the family feel, like we can, I at least can say this is what we're doing as a family, but if you don't even have that, it can, it could be really nice to have.

That feeling with other people,

Mark: Mm-hmm. Yeah. We're gonna be talking about some ideas for that at the upcoming council meeting on Wednesday.

Yucca: And those are quarterly meetings.

Mark: yes,

Yucca: We do them after each solstice and equinox.

Mark: yeah. So I'm, I'm pretty excited about some of those ideas. Some of them could be a lot of work to implement. But once they kind of got up and rolling, I think there would be so much excitement about... The activities themselves that that there would be a lot of, that that momentum would create the excitement that would create the volunteerism to keep it going, if you know what I mean. So, let's see first of all, I guess, do you have questions for us?

Susan: man I feel like I'm trying, I'm trying to think of questions you haven't already answered on the podcast before or things that

Mark: Oh, don't worry about that. Don't worry about that. You're, you're, it's okay if it's been asked before, that's, that's perfectly all right.

Susan: No, I just mean, I'm like, I feel like I'm like, no, they said they answered that question for me before because I've, I've tried to keep up on it. I don't know that I've listened to every episode, but,

Yucca: we certainly do have folks who've done every single episode, but we have a lot of people who kind of come in for a few episodes, and then out, and then people who just find the podcast, and lots of different listening styles, or people who've listened for every year. But how many years are we at now?

Mark: We're in season four,

Yucca: Yeah,

Mark: so. Yeah, I mean, that's, that's closing in on 200 episodes, I think. So it's, it's a, a chunk of work and time if you really wanna listen to all of them, which is why we, we do an episode for every Sabbath every year. We don't just say, go and listen to last year's, you know, Mayday episode.

Instead, we do a new one every year because we've got people that are new to the podcast and you know, the stuff may be new for them. Uhhuh

Yucca: Well, and it's a

Susan: And hopefully there's something changing.

Yucca: I'm curious to go back and listen and be like, did I even say remotely the same thing? Probably. But,

Mark: you know, Susan, you were talking about a shared ritual. And what immediately popped into my head is the pouring of a libation, which is a very old, I mean, the Greeks used to pour libations, you know, in honor of their gods and stuff. And I wonder if we might have something like that, that would be kind of a shared atheopagan ritual that everybody would do to do that kind of offering to the earth.

That might be kind of neat to put some, put some ritual trappings around and turn into something that we all share. Thank you.

Susan: Yeah. And maybe I'm thinking do it on a, have it as a day that's not necessarily one of the spokes of the wheel, if you will. So it's, we're not interrupting anybody's already scheduled programming for this thing, like an extra, maybe it's on Earth Day or something, you know, like a,

Yucca: Pi

Mark: Huh.

Susan: people won't already have their own set

Mark: Huh. Yeah. Yeah. I'll think about it. I love the idea. Yeah. The equivalent of an atheopagan secret handshake. Uh

Yucca: Hmm.

Susan: Another thing I've been thinking about that I would be, I would love to do, at least for myself someday, is there's been a lot of chatter in the community lately about atheopagan saints, and I'm, I recently picked up from my friend who's in one of my druid groups, a Celtic Catholic set of prayer books, and it's kind of like a daily prayer thing, and I know that, I don't know a whole lot about Catholicism, but I know there's like a saint for every day, and I think it would just be fun to have a, like a solid atheopagan devotional kind of a thing, right, with Like, oh, today is, and I was, I started collecting things, so there's a day in February, I don't remember which day, it, of course, because everything, you know, gets mushed around with, over time and history, but I want to start celebrating Fornicalia in February, and for the Thank you.

ancient god Fornax, who was in charge of baking bread in ovens. And it's like a day that you clean your oven and bake bread in it. So I'm like, Ooh, this might actually motivate me to do the thing that I don't want to do if I make it into a holiday and say, this is the thing that we're doing.

Yucca: Very practical, right?

Mark: you said Fornicalia, I went in an entirely

Susan: Yeah, that sounds fun. It's less fun than you think. But bread

Yucca: that day is in February, isn't it? The 14th? Isn't that day already in February? The 14th?

Susan: Fornacalea is like the Like the 28th or something. I'll look it up and put it in

Mark: think you may be thinking of Lupercalia.

Susan: I'm going to find it. But yeah, it's, I have it as the 17th in my calendar, but you know,

Mark: The day to clean your oven and bake bread in it. I love it.

Susan: Yeah. Now I just need another one, you know, six months hence, so that I clean it more than once a year, but that's optimistic

Yucca: Could there be, could there be one for air filters, too?

Susan: yeah, right. That can be our shared ritual is clean your filter

Mark: is replacing your, your air filters. Yeah. I love that. I, I love, I love the idea of I mean, I have so many regular observances that I do just for myself, and I never, you know, I'm, I'm very careful, I don't, I don't want to prescribe them for anybody else, you know, it's like, this definitely is a choose your own adventure kind of thing. Thank you.

Religious path. It's like build what works for you, but it would be nice to be able to offer to people, you know, here's this compilation of, I don't know, five days every month or something that are special days that are the birthday of some significant, you know, scientist or innovator or creator in history and little bit of history about him and something that you can do, pour out that libation. You know, in honor of, oh, I'm spacing on the name. I just shared on Facebook to my friend group a a biography of this woman who actually figured out that the universe was mostly made of hydrogen. And I don't remember her name, but she's responsible for us understanding what the universe is made of.

And she didn't even get any credit for it. Her somebody else published the results. You know, pretty typical for women scientists in the, in the

Susan: hmm.

Yucca: Yeah, yeah, I don't know, I don't know who that is, right? Which, itch is a problem that we don't know that.

Mark: yes, yes, well, I'm going to look it up right now. So this,

Susan: yeah, people really liked the 13 different atheopagan principles applied to the moon cycles, and that's great. It's, it's an offering, not a prescription, and, and people are just like, oh yes, thank you, give me, give me ideas.

Yucca: yeah, maybe, I mean, when you were talking about those things, like a daily Right? Like a book that you read about, your little paragraph. I know a lot of different religions do that, and things that are totally secular, too. Like just a daily something. You know, I certainly use those in my practice that are just, they're really nice, right?

It's just like this little thing, and it's like, oh, okay, cool. Just kind of think about this for the day,

Mark: little

Susan: Mm hmm.

Yucca: right? And you take it or you don't take it, but it's kind of nice to have, to see how it just fits into whatever your experience is. And even if you use the same book more than one year in a row, like, by the time you get back around to May 14th or whatever it is, like, you've had the whole experience of a year and you're gonna see it in a different way, it's gonna fit into your life in a different way.

Mark: mm hmm, Cecilia Payne,

Yucca: Pain, okay.

Mark: Cecilia Payne. Since her death in 1979, the woman who discovered what the universe is made of has not so much as received a memorial plaque. Really amazing.

Susan: Well, that's an idea for if we for, for listeners, one of the things we're thinking about maybe doing is the scout program. If we have that, we can have that as the capstone project for somebody

Yucca: Yeah.

Susan: her a plaque.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah, that would be great. Some kind of a memorial. The person who figured out what the universe is made of probably deserves some kind of recognition.

Yucca: Do podcast.

Susan: Yeah, I don't know if it's a good idea.

Yucca: And I know we have, there's not, like things aren't set in stone, but what, when you say scout, like, what are you talking about?

Susan: yeah, well at least it was sort of talked in the community about this. I think it would be fun for adults too, but like, it's hard to, as a parent for me at least my husband was an Eagle Scout in the Boy Scout program, but I know, and I know that they have made some reforms and some steps in the right direction, but for me it's still not enough to feel comfortable enrolling my daughter in it and I have reservations about Girl Scouts for different reasons.

Capitalism, and genderification, and just different things that I'm just not, there are certainly troops that I'm sure do a wonderful job, and there are certainly troops that don't but

Yucca: A lot to navigate though. Mm-hmm.

Susan: It's, yeah, it's a hard thing to navigate and I don't want to start it and have it come crashing down on her.

So, and I think we sort of chatted in the community about this being a common thing and I had posted a few things a few months ago asking people about spiral scouts, which is a more pagan oriented group. And so now the, the scuttlebutt is, you know, maybe we can be an atheopagan chapter of that. Maybe we can create our own thing, like what is and what would be a nice thing.

But a lot of parents have commented on it and said, Oh, yes, please sign me up. Dude, let's do this.

Mark: hmm.

Susan: We can't necessarily do things in person, not for logistical reasons. I'm very fortunate that I have A handful of atheopagans right near me. It's really great. I think I'm the only one with, with kids that I'm aware of, but it's not the case for a lot of folks.

Mark: Yeah, I mean, we are, we're spread pretty thinly. So, our, most of our opportunity for face to face stuff comes through mediation like this, like Zoom. But that said if there Thanks If Spiral Scouts can be done in a way where there's like, kind of a learning chapter set of activities that get sent to a family, either as a PDF or in a physical package or, you know, however that works, and then, you know, all the different families that are doing it can do that and then come together over Zoom and kind of share their experience and show off their cool thing that they made and all that, I think that would be a really wonderful thing both for kids and for parents.

It'd, you know, be a real, you know, wonderful thing to share with, with your kids, I would think.

Yucca: I know my kids are definitely excited about the idea of badges , because they see that in, in the media of, there's so many different things where it's like, where it has that setup, like, oh, the comic, you know, the, like lumber Janes for instance, and there's like badges in that and the oh, what's it called?

The, there's a Netflix show.

Susan: Hilda?

Yucca: Hilda, yes, with this, with the I'm forgetting the name of their scouts, but they had, it was named after a bird, right? And so they see that and they're always like, I want badges for that, right? So I'm sure they would be very enthusiastic about anything badge related.

Mark: I really like that the Spiral Scouts has kept the badges but gotten rid of ranks.

Yucca: Mm.

Mark: So there's, there's no hierarchy of, you know, in the Boy Scouts you start out as a tender foot and then you work your way up through all these levels until you're an Eagle Scout, right? And, you know, some of the stuff in there is very useful and wonderful stuff to do.

I mean, you have to do a community project in order to become an Eagle Scout, and those are, you know, it builds a sense of responsibility to the broader community, which is great. But the rank thing, I mean, I was big into Cub Scouts. My, my Cub Scout shirt looked like a a Latin American dictator from the 1950s.

I had so many pins and badges and medals and it was ridiculous. The thing must have weighed five pounds. And I was really into that. But when I got to Boy Scouts, suddenly it was like paramilitary training and I just didn't want any part of it. It was, you know, it's like lining up for inspection of your uniform and stuff like that.

It was, Hmm. Not, not my idea of a good time. So, no ranks in in Spiral Scouts. Just skill attainments.

Susan: That's what I think my little one would be interested in too is just the gamification of learning life skills.

Mark: Mm hmm.

Susan: That's what I would love badges too. I would love a an adult 13 principles and four pillars set of badges and you do, I don't know what it is, like you do a small project for each one and you get a badge or, I don't know, honor system.

Mark: we should absolutely do that. Just, just create a, a checklist of things that you do for each of the, the principals and then, you know, we'll have badges made and or, you know, or people could download the the... The software for the patch sewing machines, and then they could go, go to a local producer and have the patches made for them bunch of different ways we could do that.

Well, I really have my mind spinning around all this now. It's going to be terribly disappointing if we decide we can't do it. But

Yucca: Well, there's also, we can always, you know, spiral back around to ideas too, because we have to, we have to look at what, you know, what can we currently do, and what are the priorities of the community at the time, and see how things go. So, so Susan, if you were talking about the future, right, what would be your fantasy for 50 years from now?

What would you hope to see? What would atheopaganism be in, you know, 50 years? It's, it's not us on the council anymore, right? Definitely other

Mark: And I'm dead.

Yucca: Maybe, hey, you might hang in there. Maybe,

Mark: 50 years from now, I would

Yucca: maybe medical technology will change.

Mark: eleven.

Yucca: Oh, that's a great Bilbo, right? Okay.

Susan: As my, my daughter says, when you're 100, you're compost.

Yucca: so what would you hope? Just, just fantasy, right? What would, what would we look like?

Susan: I mean, I would love to see us be at the scale of, like, UU, where maybe, you know, there's not necessarily Church building on every corner kind of a thing like you get with, you know, your Baptist churches and your Catholic churches and all that kind of stuff, but I would love to have expanded enough that we have so much in person opportunity, and maybe it's not, you know, a congregation where everybody comes together on Sundays or that kind of thing, because I don't, I don't know that that's a right fit, but just to have, I don't know, your local atheopagan community center place that everybody comes together for their monthly meeting or whatever it is, but just more, just more.

I think I would just love to connect with more people, because I think there's so many, there's definitely people, at least in my life, who are happy just being atheists, and that's fine for them and that's great, they can enjoy that, but I think that there are a lot of people who I know who could benefit from something like this, and anybody that I've talked to for more than two minutes Where I've been had a chance to answer their questions about it because you just say the words and they're like, that doesn't make any sense.

Why would you do that if you're an atheist? Right? Then they're like, Oh, okay. Yeah, I can see that. I understand. I understand why you would want to do that. And I think maybe a lot of people who are trapped. who feel trapped by atheism or who feel trapped by more traditional religious practices would find peace and joy with us.

And I think, I don't know, I'm sure everybody feels this way about their own religious path, but I feel like if there were more of us, then the world would be a nicer place. But

Mark: Yeah, I like to think so. We're we're, we're, we're about people being happy and the world being a better place. It's kind of hard to go wrong with those as your touchstones. It's God, it's, you know, we're doing this strategic plan in the Atheopagan Society, which by the way we created so that atheopaganism would have a container that could persist past me or anybody else, any other individual.

You know, that's, that's why the society exists. And my book, I'm, I'm willing the rights to my book to the society. So, you know, that will always be available to atheopagans in the future. But I was saying, we're doing this strategic plan for like the next two or three years because it's hard to imagine much beyond that.

So thinking about

Yucca: So I said fantasy. Yeah.

Mark: yeah, 50 is like mind blowing. I can't even, can't even get my mind around that.

Yucca: I have a 20, Mark.

Mark: 20, 20 years. What would happen? Well, for one thing, we would have enough of us that there would be opportunities for regional gatherings in a lot of places, you know, maybe two, three regional gatherings in Europe maybe one in Australia and so more opportunities for people to meet in person and You know, because that's really the gold standard of relating, right?

I mean, it's wonderful that we have these tools to be able to communicate across distance, but there's nothing like being able to actually just sit down next to someone and have a conversation. I'm hoping for a lot more of that. Speaking of which, we have the Suntree Retreat coming up again in 2024, and we will soon start taking deposits to reserve space.

Yucca: That is less than a year away.

Mark: it looks like, yes, it's less than a year away. It's about 11 months away. And so we're working on what the content of all that's going to be. So that's locked in place. And now it's just a matter of, you know, figuring out the pricing on everything, and looks like the admission prices for, for the event and all the meals combined will be about 250. And then lodging. And lodging is as cheap as, and it can be more if you have a space in a cabin.

Yucca: Mark, we're losing you into the robot.

Mark: People should be able to do this event. How's that? Can you hear me now?

Yucca: We can hear you now. You're frozen. Yes, now we can hear you. If you'll start again with people should be able to.

Mark: Okay. Go to this event for less than 400 plus transportation.

Yucca: Okay.

Than 400 plus transportation.

Mark: yes. Yeah, that, that's, I'm sure that that's going to be possible. In fact, it'll be... It's possible to go even less if you tent camp, so it's a good, good time to go tent camping. Tent camping only costs like 20 bucks for lodging for the whole three days. So, you know, if you set up your own tent or we can accommodate I think one RV

Yucca: And that should be late summer, early fall weather wise, so that's a good time of year for it.

Mark: Yes, yes, and, and unlikely to be, to have any rain. We actually got really lucky in May of 2022 because it snowed at La Forêt the week after we were there.

Yucca: Wasn't it snowing several hours after we finally left?

Mark: I don't know

Yucca: I know I was, as I was coming, I thought there was snow and then certainly as I was coming down, headed south down by the Rockies, it was raining, which was blessed because it was, we'd been having those horrible fires in New Mexico at the time and it was just raining the whole way

Mark: Mm hmm.

Yucca: But I think that they were getting more rain than I was getting as I was driving down, or I was driving up, but down south. It's confusing. I think.

Susan: yeah,

Mark: Well, we have the big the big hall, Ponderosa. If it does, that isn't a problem, but the weather should be beautiful. I, I looked up the, the average weather in Colorado Springs that first weekend in September. I think the high average is 75 degrees or something. It's just perfect. So,

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: should be really great.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: we're already talking about what all the content of things is going to be, and we'll put out a call for presentations and workshops in a couple of months, and before we know it, we'll be in Colorado Springs.

It'll be, you know, with, with, with the gang.

Yucca: Ball's rolling. Yep.

Mark: Yeah,

Susan: excited. I've already planned for it. So

Yucca: Will the kiddo be coming?

Mark: That's great.

Susan: I think it's going to be all three of

Mark: Yeah, is your hood

Susan: they're not going to do all of the things, but

Mark: There are beautiful places to go right around there. Garden of the Gods and Rocky Mountain National Park. Just gorgeous, gorgeous places to go. So if they like hiking in the outdoors there are lots of opportunities for them to enjoy that as well.

Susan: yeah, and we might do, we might do tent

Mark: Yucca, were you saying something?

Yucca: oh, I was gonna say my, will at that time be five, almost six and eight year old will be joining me. Last time it could only be the, the older, but the, the youngest is, is excited for that rite of passage to get to go to, they call it the Ponderosa Pine, so, cause of the lodge,

Mark: Huh. Nice. It's so great having her there. That was just wonderful.

Yucca: Well, she'll be excited about the idea of more kiddos. I think there were other parents who had, who were there last time who were like, Oh, I should have brought mine. Right? But they didn't know that it was gonna, there were gonna be activities. So we'll have more activities for little people next time. So we'll have a little gang of them running around.

Mark: Huh. Yeah, I think for some of the parents, because it was a first time event and they didn't know what to expect and, you know, pagan events can be pretty raucous sometimes, they kind of wanted

Yucca: Yeah, we lost you again, Mark. You said they kind of wanted.

Mark: to do, you know, reconnaissance first, go in and check out what this was going to be like. Can you hear me now?

Yucca: Yes. We can hear you. Okay. So you were saying some parents, sometimes they can be a little ruckus y. Ruck that wasn't the word.

Mark: Well, yeah, I mean, you know, pagan festivals can be, you know, kind of uproarious and sexy and, and, you know, lots of, you know, carousing, and I think some parents were kind of leery of that and wondered what the tone of this was going to be like, and, you know, after having been there and discovered that we were able to have a good time without things sliding over into inappropriate conversation.

Boundaryless mess that that it's a fine place for their kids to come, and I, I really encourage parents to come. Tickets will be actually, I think we said that Attendance was free for those 10 years old and younger, and tickets are discounted for those 16 and younger, or under 16. So, yeah other than having to get a bed for them if they're, if you're not tent camping kids should be very affordable to bring,

Yucca: Was there anything else that you'd like to talk about or share, Susan? Anything you think that people should know about you?

Mark: anything you'd like to say to the community.

Yucca: Yeah. Mm

Susan: I guess I'd like to say, tell us what you want to see, because You know, I think you both have mentioned this before about the podcast, but it's true of the YouTube channel too, is there's only so much creativity, the same, and there's so much overlap with both of you being on the the YouTube media team as well, like, there's only so much creativity we all have, so please tell us what it is you want to know about, what you want to hear about, what kind of content You, you want to see so we can get that out there you know, I, I generated when we first, when first I first got involved with the YouTube channel, I generated this big old list of, oh, here's a bunch of ideas and now I don't know if any of them are in the comments.

Not resonating with me, or at least I'm like, oh, I'm not the right person to talk about that particular topic, but I'm like, what am I, I'm supposed to write a video. I don't know what I want to talk about. I guess that's, this is why maybe some of the days, even though I'm the glue on, my things are a little bit late later than they're supposed to get to, to the right people.

But yeah, let's, let us know what you want to hear about. I'm, I'm happy to I'm Write stuff or record stuff or be in front of people and but I don't know what it is people want to hear about so Tell us

Mark: Yeah, yeah, I really echo that, because after four years of producing these, new topics can be challenging.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: It's, when we think of one, it's like, oh, oh, a new topic! We can do that! It's very exciting. It's a little easier in October, because we've got Ancestors and Death and Dying and Decomposition and Hallows and all those things.

But for much of the rest of the year, we're... We could really use input on, you know, what kinds of things you'd like to hear about.

Yucca: Especially like in July, like, hmm, what do we talk about?

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: Because this time of year, yeah, October, and then we're going into solstice coming up, and yeah,

Mark: Mm hmm.

Yucca: busy next few months.

Mark: Well, Susan, thank you so much for joining us today. It is wonderful to have you on board and to have you be a part of the community. And

Yucca: Thanks for all the cool ideas today, too.

Susan: Thanks.

Yucca: think about.

Mark: Absolutely.

Susan: I'm good at ideas for fun things and not so much the follow through, so.

Yucca: Oh, that's not true! You make the follow through possible!

Mark: Even if that were true, it's still a really important role. You know, being, being a creative person who comes up with cool ideas, that's really important. So, we need cool ideas.

Susan: I'm hoping that, you know, eventually we're going to hit a critical mass of people in the community that somebody, you throw out an idea and somebody's going to grab it and just run, who, you know, has the skill set and. I hope. I guess that's another thing I want to tell people is if you feel like you want to contribute something, please do.

Like, I just showed up one day and was like, hey, I can help with things and now I'm on the media team and now I'm on the council. So don't be scared.

Mark: Absolutely.

Yucca: Well, thank you so much, Susan.

Susan: Thanks for having me.

Mark: Yeah. Thanks so much. We'll see you next week, folks.

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Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com.

An Atheopagan Declaration of Policy Values (2022):

https://theapsocietyorg.files.wordpress.com/2022/03/an-atheopagan-declaration-of-policy-values-2022.final_.pdf

S4E30 TRANSCRIPT:

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 about religion and politics.

Mark: Yes, but don't turn it off.

Yucca: Yes, we were saying, what should we call this? What should we call this? But no, this is, this is important. This is what we're going to talk about. And there's a lot to say here. But today it was inspired because, Mark, you just got back from a trip, which you got to do some pretty cool politicking.

Mark: Yes I went to Washington, D. C. as a part of a fly in delegation by the Conservation Alliance, and I'll tell some of those stories later advocating for protections for public lands, including the designation of some new national monuments. So, I, as I said, I'll, I'll talk about that stuff later but yeah, just got back from a lobby trip,

Yucca: Yeah. So one of the things that... It is very common to hear in pagan circles, and I think probably not just pagan circles, but a lot of new age things and kind of, mini counterculture sorts of groups, is, you know, don't bring politics. into this, right? Don't, don't bring politics into my religion. Don't, you know, we, we aren't going to talk about that.

We're not going to be this is separate, right? Let's be, let's be off in our realm or our magical experience and leave that other stuff out.

Mark: right? And there is so much to be said about that. I mean, it has a nexus with toxic positivity. This idea that, you know, we should only talk about happy, shiny stuff, and that, you know, we're going to have this nice, warm, glowy, serotonin oxytocin experience by doing our, our spirituality, and we're just not going to engage with anything that doesn't stimulate that.

It has to do with the toxicity that we see in the societies around us where the mainstream religions are engaging with public policy and they're doing it for really destructive and antisocial reasons. And so that becomes sort of the poster child for why you wouldn't want you to have politics in your spiritual space.

But a lot of it, in my opinion, is simply... We don't want to think about any of those issues because they might bring us down.

Yucca: hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah. But, and there's just so much to say because there's, it's going to depend on every different kind of situation but I think that if we think about the values that We often claim to have that we value the earth, that we think the earth is sacred. You know, we may have different interpretations on, you know, whether divinity is involved with that or not, but hey, we're agreeing, we think that the earth is important, we're agreeing about believing that love and freedom and all of these things are important, then I think that...

If we really believe that, then we have a responsibility to those things.

Mark: Yes, yes, we it's because they won't happen by themselves. You know, there are interests which are destructive interests and are not filled with love and are not about advancing liberty and are not about supporting the biosphere in a manner which is consistent with biodiversity and with the sustaining of humanity.

And they're out there advocating for their stuff every day. And if we absent ourselves from the process because we think that it is too negative or too gross or too demoralizing, then we are leaving the field to those who would do us harm. And it's just not, there is no logic to it that makes sense to me, other than at the most sort of Self indulgent, I just want to feel good for me kind of place, where it makes sense to say, I'm not going to vote, I'm not going to advocate for what I care about, I'm not going to be interested in any kind of activism.

I mean, everybody's circumstances

Yucca: become informed about it,

Mark: right.

Yucca: right?

Mark: Everybody's circumstances are different, and not everybody can be a big activist, right? You know, if you're, you know, you're raising kids, or, and you're, you know, scraping by, and, you know, there's a lot of different, I mean, poverty is a social control strategy.

Yucca: Yeah,

Mark: So, it is, it is one way that people who have the common good at heart are kept limited in the amount of power that they have. So let's, let's not mince words about that. But even with the limitations that we have, I have always felt that it was my responsibility to do what I can to try to advance the values that matter to me.

And I'm pleased to say that the community that's grown up around atheopaganism is very much the same way. We're gonna, we're gonna put a Link in the show notes to the Atheopagan Declaration of Policy Values, which came out last year and was developed by the community with tons of community input and editing and all that kind of stuff.

Yucca: There was a lot of back and forth and lots and lots of people participating and, you know, wording things just for, it was quite inspiring, actually. Mm hmm,

Mark: the level, level of collaboration with the minimal amount of argument was very inspiring to me. And so now we have this document, and it can be downloaded from the Atheopagan Society website. So we're going to put the link in the, in the show notes so you can download that. But that's an example of the community speaking out on issues that really matter to us, and saying, this is where we stand.

This is what our activism is going to be built around. This is, you know, we... We embrace LGBTQ people. We do. And it's not just, it's not just You know, so called virtue signaling, we genuinely do, we want those folks, we want people of color, we want indigenous people in our community, you know, we want them to be safe, we want them to be seen, we want them to be heard as, as an example.

And similarly, along the environmental axis, along the axis of personal liberty and autonomy, bodily autonomy, all of those you know, the importance of critical thinking and science all of those pieces are a part of what our movement is about. And so, when we talk with the public, That is, that is core to what we express.

Yes, we're here for happiness. We're here for people to feel good. We're all for that. But as one of the atheopagan principles says, you know, responsibility, social responsibility is one of our principles.

Yucca: right.

Mark: It is an obligation that we have.

Yucca: And so those values, they're not just about talking about them, they're about, those are what inform the choices that we're making.

Mark: Mm hmm.

Yucca: Right? And being able to reflect on what those are, right? is really important. Have conversations about that, because we're not, there's going to be nuance, right? We're not always going to see eye to eye on things, and being able to, as individuals, talk about that with each other, and as a community, be able to, to talk about that and, and, you know, have that conversation is really important.

Mark: Absolutely. Absolutely. And we learn from one another, right? I mean, that's a really important piece because As strongly as I feel on a value level about supporting people of color in the LBGTQI plus community I'm not one of either of those groups. And so I have to listen a lot in order to understand, well, what is an appropriate statement to make in support, right? How do I show up as an ally and as and as an advocate? Or a supporter for their advocacy, you know. So, you know, it's not as simple as just having a laundry list of policy positions.

And it has to also recognize that we live in a world of subtle differences. Right? Subtle gradations of change throughout the whole natural world, and that includes humanity. So, I get really kind of bent sideways when I hear the lesser of two evils, or I'm not going to vote for that person because of this one little position, when the alternative is so much worse on every position. The best analogy that I've heard is that voting isn't dating, it's selecting, it's selecting the best possible option off of the available menu. And the available menu only includes people that actually have a chance of getting elected. It's not just some fringe outlier who tells you what you want to hear.

Yucca: mhm,

Mark: that can actually get into a position to make change in a positive direction.

Yucca: mhm, mhm, mhm.

Mark: So, we had a bunch of stuff on the outline for this podcast. What else have you got?

Yucca: Well, certainly the, the issue of privilege is definitely

Mark: Oh, yeah

Yucca: and this is something that I think comes up where people will be unaware of the place of privilege that they may be coming from to be able to say, I don't want to deal with this. I don't want this coming into, you know, my religion or my, anything about that, because that, that isn't the position that most people are going to be in that situation, right?

Yeah. Mm

Mark: Yeah the, I think the clearest way to express that is that if you have the luxury of saying, Oh, I don't want to vote that just encourages them, or I'm not going to consider any of those issues because I just want to be on my, you know, spiritual path of lightness and joy thing. Is that people that are marginalized and endangered by the way our society operates, they don't have the luxury to do that.

If you look at voting rates, for example, African American women vote astronomically in high proportions in the United States. And the reason for that is that the interests of the community that they are in are, are, are stark. The, you know, the threats that certain people like a Donald Trump and the people that he brings with him present to that community are so real.

They're not, they're not theoretical. It's not just something where, where as a white person, you look at it and go, Oh, gee, that's too bad. This is life and death for them. And they turn out to vote. They're organized. They're knowledgeable. You know, these are people who are, are leveraging the power that they have absolutely as much as they can.

And when I hear people say, you know, oh, well, I'm not going to vote because blah, blah, blah. What I, what I really hear is, I am so cushioned from the impacts of the policies that get made by people that I don't... Agree with in theory that I can just skate on this and ride on, on the, the, the privilege that I enjoy in the society in order to avoid having to deal with something that I might find icky.

Yucca: yeah, I'm being served by the system, fundamentally. Yeah.

Mark: So, you know, I'll give an example. It's like, an argument can be made that the certain proportion of people who in, in key states who supported Bernie Sanders, And then refused to vote for Hillary Clinton may have given us Donald Trump. It's not that they had to agree with everything that Hillary Clinton said because they didn't, I didn't. But the appointees that she was going to make, the appointees to the Supreme Court, the appointees to the, the cabinet positions, the appointees to federal judgeships.

All of those things were going to be head and shoulders above any of the things that Trump ended up doing. And it's painful to say, but those people needed to look at the big picture and go and vote for Hillary Clinton. And they didn't. And it's that, it's that, that sense of privilege, that sense of it not mattering that much that I really think needs to be interrogated on the left. And I am on the left, right, but I'm on the left that seeks to achieve progress because I'm a progressive, and progress happens in incremental steps most of the time. Progress isn't a home run. Progress is a base hit, and electing Hillary Clinton would have been a base hit on the way towards achieving better policies.

And instead, we have what we have. So, you know, and I realize that there are going to be people that are going to be fuming when they hear me say this but seriously, look at the playing board, and look at what we got, and You know, think about, well, what does this mean for the next election? Where, where should I be putting my support?

Yucca: Hmm, yeah definitely was not expecting that, I was not prepared for that direction of the conversation. That's something that I would have to really think a lot on. I understand some of the sentiment behind it, but I would want to look more at some of the numbers. And some of the assumptions about who is entitled to what vote, and whether those, I think that there's a lot to that situation, and I don't feel comfortable, I mean, you certainly have the opinion that you want, but necessarily agreeing and and um humming without really looking at that particular situation.

I think that there's a lot that was going on there. But I've certainly heard that argument a lot, and one of the things that I have been uncomfortable with is, and I'm not saying that you're saying this, but this is something that I have heard often, is the sense of entitlement of those people's votes.

That, you know, somehow this party was entitled to people's votes. What about... So, you know, do the numbers actually work out of how many Democrats voted Republican in that situation versus how many Independents voted one direction or the other? I think that there's a lot to really look into there.

Mark: Sure, sure. And I have looked into it some.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: I should be clear, I'm not saying that Hillary Clinton deserved anybody's vote, or was entitled to everybody's, to anybody's vote. I'm saying she deserved them from a strategic standpoint.

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: That when you look at the playing field, And what was the right next move, that that was the right next move.

And in certain states like Wisconsin there were, there were enough votes that dropped off. That the argument can be made, but, but let's,

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: let's make the whole thing abstract, okay? Rather than talking about that, that election in specific, let's talk about elections generally. When you have a situation where somebody who you agree with 50 percent is running against somebody who is agreeing with you 10%, And then there's somebody out there who agrees with you 100%, but they have no ability to be elected.

And it's clear

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: You know, I need to go for the 50 percent because, again, I'm a progressive. So I want to see things advance, even if they're going to go a lot slower than I want them to go.

Yucca: Right, well I think in some of that case it's going to depend on what are the particular changes that, and what are the things that you are placing at highest priority, right? And if one of the things that you're placing at high priority is trying to do something about the monopoly, then that the two parties have, I can see the logic of making a different choice there.

But I think that the point, I think the point where we probably agree is that when you're voting, it's something to be very strategic about. It's to look at what is the situation where you are and what are the possible outcomes and thinking about You know, what are the values that you are, that you are fighting for in that case, right?

What are they, right?

Mark: and the key takeaway that I would, that I would leave this particular rabbit hole with is that not to vote is to vote. If you don't vote, you are

Yucca: is voting, yeah.

Mark: It is voting. So it is you know, you, you don't get away with your hands clean just because you don't vote, right? You, you bear a responsibility for election outcomes just like everybody else does.

And that's a really important thing for people in democracies to understand. And I'll talk a little bit later on about democracy and the degree to which we have it and all that good kind of stuff.

Yucca: And

This is just one area, right? This is an area that we happen to be talking about because this is an area where, where this is something that there's some strong opinions on, and this is an area where people do have influence, but of course there's a lot of other things. As well, in terms of you know, commercial choices and lifestyle choices and all of that kind of stuff that we can but one thing I really want to highlight, and you touched on this a little bit before, but I think it really deserves its own section of the podcast as well, is that being able to spend large amounts of time on these issues is a form of privilege itself too, right?

And this is not something that everyone has. And you don't have to be guilty and beat yourself up and you're not a bad pagan because you've got to do a 9 to 5 plus your two side jobs to even be able to Barely make rent, right? That's not, so we're not sitting here saying, oh, shame on, you're failing because you're not fighting oil rigs in the, you know, gulf and how come you're out there?

Like, that's not what we're saying at all. And I think that it's really, really important to think about and balance in our lives the self care component. And, that sometimes, yes, it's, sometimes it is okay to just have your celebration and to not necessarily be talking about, you know, let's raise money for this, this particular candidate at this time, or something like that, but know that it does, that this stuff does have a place in the community, it is important, but it isn't, The, you don't have to be doing it all the time, if that's not what your, what your mental health needs.

Mark: No, no, definitely not. And it's important for those of us that have the privilege to be able to engage the system in that way, either from the outside or the inside, that we recognize that privilege and use it. Right? You know, those of us that have the bandwidth, those of us who have You know, the thick enough skin and that have the energy and sometimes the money even just to travel, to go somewhere.

I mean, the trip that I just took, I didn't pay for because otherwise I wouldn't have gone, right? But but it's, it's, that kind of privilege is very visible. It's like, The D. C. is a very, very African American town. It's a very Black town. Lots and lots of Black folks, and, until you get into the Congressional buildings, and there it whitens up considerably

Yucca: Mm

Mark: with the lobbyists and the, you know, the constituents that are going not, not universally, of course but noticeably, and it is incumbent upon those of us who have been there.

The privilege to be able to engage, to do what we can to improve justice, and to speak for the things that we care about so that they can advance.

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: So, I could talk about my trip.

Yucca: Yeah. Yeah, you were just talking about D. C., so,

Mark: Okay, well. So, I got sent on a fly in with the Conservation Alliance, which is a consortium of businesses which was originally founded by REI, the North Face Peak Design, and Patagonia.

And they came together to create a unified voice for speaking up for the outdoors, for for wild lands and outdoor recreation. That was a long time ago, and now they have 270 businesses from a variety of different sectors, and what they do every couple of years is they gather a bunch of the leaders of those businesses along with, and they make grants, right?

They pool their money and they make grants to organizations that are doing organizing and advocacy for the issues that they care about, and the organization I work for, Cal Wild, is one of those.

Yucca: mm hmm. So that's how you were able to go on this trip?

Mark: Yes, CalWild was invited to send a representative, and I was selected to go, and so I went. This is not the first time that I've been to Washington to lobby, but the last time was in the 90s. So it's been a while. And everything has changed, of course. I mean, technology has changed everything, and 9 11 has changed all the security.

So, it's, it's just a completely different experience. So, so I went and I was going to speak on to, as a grantee, to speak as a content expert about the positions that we're trying to advance. My organization right now is working very hard. for the creation of three new national monuments in California.

My organization is limited to California, so that's why, you know, that. But we're also advocating for some policy changes at the administration level, which would affect the whole of the United States. And I should say, you know, we're talking a lot about kind of American politics in this podcast, but if you have a representative democracy of any kind, the things that we're talking about are really applicable to you too.

Yucca: Right. Yeah, we're just talking about our experience with our

Mark: the stuff we know about. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, the idea here is not to get everybody all plugged into American politics. It's to use that as an example of what citizen participation or resident participation looks like and why it's important. I go on this trip and I go to Washington and I meet with the team and we have a training briefing and all that kind of thing, and my take, we, on the first day, I had two meetings with administration offices with the Department of the Interior and the Council on Environmental Quality of the White House now when we're meeting with staff, we're not meeting with the people that are in charge in those agencies, we probably would have met with the Secretary of the Interior, but it's Climate Week in North Northern New York, so she was away at Climate Week,

Yucca: Mm

Mark: Um, so, and there was something going on with the Department of Environmental Quality such that we had the staffer that we had. But these are sharp, smart, influential people that we're talking to, and the sense that I got, and then the second day we had meetings with California delegation members both to the Senate and to the House of Representatives, including my congressman which I had a very interesting experience with talking to my congressman's office in Washington, so I'll get to that in a minute.

Yucca: hmm. Mm

Mark: The main takeaway that I got from, especially from meeting with the administration, was that they want to do what we want them to do. Their, their hearts are in the right place. And they are delighted that we are coming to Washington and talking to people, and organizing on the ground in local communities, because they need the political cover to be able to do what we want them to do.

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: And in that

Yucca: like that's charging them up, right? They want to do it, but they need to be charged with the power of the people.

Mark: yes,

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Exactly so. And... It gives them something to point to when opponents say, we don't want that,

Yucca: Mm

Mark: right, they can, you know, they can point to the organizing that my organization is doing and say, well, the people in the community who live right next door want it, you know, the elected officials of the county where the expansion of the National Monument is proposed, they want it.

So, You know, those are their representatives and they elected them to office to make those decisions, so why shouldn't we do this? So it's really important to be doing that kind of community organizing and talking to other people about the things that you care about in a, you know, in a focused way. So that was really gratifying to me because, of course, American democracy has taken a beating over the last 20 years, but it's still functioning.

Thank you. The elections are kind of messed up, and we could certainly do without gerrymandering and and all the dark money, and I could go on, but as well as the occasional insurrection, which I really, really think we could do without. I walked

Yucca: that's not an, let's have that be a singular thing, please.

Mark: yes. I walked several times, because the house office buildings and the senatorial office buildings are on opposite sides of the capitol. I walked back and forth in front of where the insurrection took place a bunch of times. And there it is, you know, large is life. And, you know, there are the windows they broke, that's how they got in, you know, there's where they hung their banners, you know, all that. So, that said it was encouraging to see that at least under this administration, There was a commitment to listening to constituents and to hearing, you know, they were very appreciative of the businesses that were represented there, you know, in, you know, speaking up on behalf of protecting public lands so that their ecological values last forever, their recreational opportunities there, all that kind of stuff.

Yucca: Actually, is that something you can, I know that we're talking kind of more process here, but for a moment, you were, talking about trying to get more national monuments. Why are those important?

Mark: Oh, good. Very, very good question. My organization focuses on conservation of wild lands on public lands. And a lot of

Yucca: you keep going, can you define conservation? Because that is a term that has a lot of different baggage attached to it. So what do you mean when you say conservation?

Mark: man protection of the land so that it will not be developed in certain ways. And management of the land for the resource, for the benefit of the resources that are there, of the ecological resources, cultural resources in some cases historical resources, and recreational opportunities for people to go camping or hiking or whatever that might be.

So, one... One misapprehension that many Americans have is the idea that public land is protected land. And it is not. Most public land in the United States is owned by the Bureau of Land Management or by the U. S. Forest Service. And those have been managed primarily for extractive purposes like logging and mining and

Yucca: Oil is big

Mark: and oil exploration.

Yucca: yeah.

Mark: Yeah, very big. So we're advocating for chunks. of undeveloped land to be protected in perpetuity and managed for the benefit of those values.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: That's what a national monument does. Or a National Wilderness Area, which is declared by Congress. We're not asking for a National Wilderness Area in the areas we're focusing on because Congress is broken, and there's no way to get anything through it. the President can use the National Antiquities Act to declare a national monument. He can do that on his own.

Yucca: So, by taking , these areas, you're setting aside, you're allowing ecosystems to stay intact, right? So that you can have the populations of these animals and plants or whatever. Particular kind of species you're looking at, they have a place to be, they can continue to play the roles that they would play in a hopefully healthy system and to help manage for that,

Mark: Right, and that helps us to accomplish a couple of important things, one of which is, you know, we have a biodiversity crash problem, you know, the, the biodiversity of the earth is the, which is the number of different species and the number of individuals of those species are both on a steep decline.

Having habitat is necessary in order for, you know, organization, organisms to live. And but not only that, this is a very interesting one. One of the things that we're advocating for is the expansion of Joshua Tree National Park.

Yucca: hmm. Mm hmm.

Mark: And the reason for that is that because of climate change, Joshua trees are migrating out of Joshua Tree National Park.

Yucca: Interesting.

Mark: Over time, they're moving north because it's too hot

Yucca: Because it's warm. Yeah. Okay.

Mark: Yeah. So, it... Protecting these areas also enables the natural systems of the earth to do what they do in terms of adaptation, right? So, there's a place for the Joshua trees to go as the southernmost of them die because of excessive heat, and conditions become better for them outside of the park to the north.

So that's just one example.

Yucca: And may I add that we of course want to protect these for simply the innate value of that being , has any right, as much right to be there as we do. But they also, the functioning system performs ecosystem functions, which is like cleaning the water and the air that we all breathe. So it's, it's not just that, oh, we like there being lots of animals and plants and fungi.

It's that there needs to be. these plants and fungi and animals for life as we understand it to continue to function,

Mark: right, exactly. And that requires, because everything is so fragmented now, it requires some level of active management in order to protect from invasions by invasive species, for example, which will wipe out all the biodiversity.

Yucca: right? Or in my area of the world where we're missing keystone species, so we're missing whole ecological roles, there used to be these animals that aren't there anymore, and if you just take your hands off and you don't touch it, you fence that area off, that area will starve, quite literally, right? If you don't, if humans don't try, because it's kind of like the voting.

No management is management.

Mark: yes.

Yucca: Right? It is a choice that we're making as well. And so we have to really be thoughtful about and understand the systems that we're dealing with.

Mark: right. And there is so much science. I'm not saying we know everything, because we don't. There's an awful lot that we don't know, but there is a tremendous body of science about how to manage lands in order to improve biodiversity at this point.

Yucca: And we're getting better at it.

Mark: One of the things that we who work in the conservation sector, in the environmental sector, actually need to fight against within our own ranks is the group of people who still advocate for putting a fence around things and leaving it alone.

Yucca: That's why I asked you a little bit about how you are using the term, because where I am, the term has been kind of changing a little bit, where we have kind of two different camps, which are the restorationists and the conservationists. And the conservationists are the people who, who are, you know, an anti gras, who are like, don't touch anything.

Don't just fence it off. Don't know people know nothing. And then you've got the people who are going, well, let's look at the way the whole system works and maybe we do need to, you know, one, let's not keep kick the people off. 'cause you know, It's been here for 20, 000 years. But also, like, what, you know, what about the animals?

What do we do for the, you know? So that's why I was kind of asking a little bit about that terminology there.

Mark: here's a great example in California. There were devastating wildfires. that ran through Sequoia National Park. And in Sequoia National Park are the giant sequoia trees, these, you know, huge, vast, amazing, amazing

Yucca: Amazing.

Mark: awe inspiring. Well, because humans had been suppressing fire in those forests for a hundred years, when that wildfire ripped through, it burned much, much hotter than it ever would have otherwise, and killed a lot of those trees.

Now, there's a big debate. The Park Service wants to replant seedlings of giant sequoias. in the burned area. And there are environmental organizations, self styled, that are saying, no, you can't do that. You just have to let nature take its course because that's the right thing. But we have been suppressing fire for a hundred years.

We have been doing the most invasive, destructive thing that can be done to that ecosystem for a hundred years, and now you say we're supposed to leave it alone? That's ridiculous. You know, reseeding giant sequoias in that area is absolutely the right thing to do in order to keep the species from going extinct.

And, I, I don't know, I mean, obviously this is what I believe.

Yucca: I'm smiling as you're saying that because I used to work in stand management in the Jemez, and we had very, very similar, like, I can hear the two sides right now and it's, People get, have very, it's very emotional, right, and one of the things that happens, I think, is that people have very strong emotional connections without having some of the background to understand what is happening.

And that goes back to what we were talking about before with some of our responsibility, I think, is that we have a responsibility to become informed about these Issues and learn about them

and and be able to, if you're going to be involved in making choices about how these If this land is going to be managed, you need to understand the ecosystems that you're dealing with. Because our system, our ponderosa pine systems are very similar in terms of the fire ecology. You know, people become very, people are very concerned about thinning and controlled burns and things like that, and I think that they're coming from a good place.

Their hearts in a good place in it, but are very, very misinformed about what the results of their actions will be if we do that.

Mark: And there are two big pieces there that I think really are takeaways from all of this. The first one is that they are coming from a good place, but it's a romantic place. And we need to recognize in ourselves when we are romanticizing something rather than basing our decisions on facts.

Yucca: Mm

Mark: The second is...

We have seen a terrible onslaught on the appreciation for expertise over the course of the last 40 years or so. And we need to respect the people who have letters after their names and understand deeply how things work. We need to listen to them. And they don't all agree with one another, that's fine.

But in generally, in most cases, there is a scientific consensus. To some degree about what is the right course for these sorts of decisions. And we need to be listening to people that have devoted their lives to understanding these questions, rather than just thinking that because we like trees or we like nature, that we are in a position to make those kinds of decisions.

Yucca: hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah.

Mark: I'm speaking to you and you're in the process of getting letters after your name.

Yucca: I have plenty of letters. I'm getting some more letters, but yes. Yeah. . Well, I had cut you off when you, in your story, to ask you to explain a little bit about the monuments, of why that was such an important issue for you to go across the entire continent. to talk about.

Mark: That was a really important question. And as you mentioned this, yeah, it's true. I mean, there are a few reasons that I would put myself into an airplane at this point because of the impact on the atmosphere, but this is one that feels like on balance.

Yucca: Potentially for your lungs, too.

Mark: yes, yes, that's true boy, although I came back here and oh my god, the smoke, we're, we're really, we're really buried in, in wildfire smoke right now.

So, Going to, and, and, you don't have to go to D. C. in order to advocate for things you care about. First of all, a lot of decisions are local, and you can go and talk with local officials, or organize a contingent to go and talk with local officials. But also, your congressional representative has an office in your area.

You can go and talk with them and let them know what you feel about things.

Yucca: Well, and state level as well,

Mark: state level, absolutely.

Yucca: right? And it, you know, it's going to depend a lot on your state. The experience in a smaller, population smaller state it may be A lot easier, like in my state in New Mexico, going down to the roundhouses is super easy you just walk in and there's everybody and you just go up and talk to them.

I would imagine in a more populated state, it's a little bit trickier, but it's still possible, right?

Mark: The culture contrast between, you know, California, of course, is the most populous state, almost 40 million people and the culture in Sac, yes, between Sacramento, our state capital, and D. C. is really stark. When you go to lobby in Sacramento, If you're a Democrat, you almost never wear a tie. I mean, registered lobbyists will probably wear a tie.

But if you just go as a constituent or as an advocate for, you know, one of our groovy left enviro positions, You can wear an open shirt and a sport coat, a pair of slacks, I mean, and, you know, you don't have to hide your tattoos and your piercings and all that kind of stuff, it's great. You go to Washington, it's a suit for a man.

You wear a suit, you wear a tie. I left my earring in, but that was my one sort of concession. And and you're right, it's very organized and very regimented in Sacramento, just because of the sheer volume of people that are, that are traipsing through there.

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: But I, I really, I want to come back to this idea that elected officials are there in a democracy to represent you, and they may not know what you think,

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: so go tell them.

You know, get informed on an issue and, you know, go tell them what you think, what you, what you would like them to do. It's more powerful when you've organized more people to be a part of that voice. And that's why the Conservation Alliance exists. And that's

Yucca: many other organizations too,

Mark: yes, yes. That's why that's why community organizers exist.

To gather the voices of... Individuals into a collective voice that's able to make change happen and that's true in any representative democracy, so it's, it's well worth, you know, you know, sticking a hand in, and the people you're talking to are just people. They don't bite. At worst, they will frown.

That's, that's

Yucca: wrinkle their brow at you.

Mark: Yeah, that's, that's about the worst of it. I didn't have any Republican visits this time, so, we were very welcomed and just very encouraged, and I think there are going to be some declarations coming up here in the next few months that will make us very happy. So it's bringing all this back around politics is How we as a collective society make decisions about what's important, what's not, and what's going to happen. And if you care about your world, and as atheopagans and naturalistic pagans, I believe our listeners do care about their world and about their fellow humans then it's incumbent on us to say so, and do things that make things better.

Yucca: I keep having the image of Mary and Pippin sitting on Treebeard's shoulder and shouting, but you're part of this world too!

Mark: Yeah, yeah, there's, because there are things in this world that are worth fighting for. Right?

Yucca: Yep. Well, we could certainly go on for a long time, but I think this is a little bit of a longer episode, so we should probably finish up here. And we are going into October, and we have some fun, and some spooky, and some great episodes coming up. And Stinky, and all of those great things that we love to celebrate, and recognize, and all of those things, and this great Time of year.

And happy autumn, everybody.

Mark: Happy autumn! Yeah,

Yucca: So, thanks, Mark.

Mark: yeah, thank you so much, Yucca. It's a pleasure talking with you, and I'm still obviously really kind of jazzed about this trip, so thanks for welcoming a conversation about that into the podcast.

Yucca: See y'all next week.

Mark: All right, take care.

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Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com.

S4E29 TRANSCRIPT:----more----

Mark: Welcome back to The Wonder, Science Based Paganism. I'm your host, Mark,

Yucca: and I'm Yucca.

Mark: and once again, it is time for us to talk about the autumnal equinox, one of the eight stations of the wheel of the year of holidays.

Yucca: That's right. It just keeps turning and turning. So here we are.

Mark: Here we are once again, you know, looking at The, the the calendrical arrival of autumn anyway. I mean, I I'm pretty clear that I'm into autumn here where I am already, and I think you are too, Yucca but,

Yucca: though, because the beginning of autumn and the end of autumn are very, very different seasons here.

Mark: yeah. I mean, autumn and spring are the transitional seasons, and they things change pretty radically during the, during their extent. Yeah, so, well, we can talk about kind of what tells us that autumn is coming, but we can also talk about the holiday, and what it means to us, what we call it, how we celebrate and kind of its positioning within the wheel of the year and how that relates to the things around it, and all that kind of stuff.

Yucca: Sounds good. Well, let's start with names.

Mark: Okay.

Yucca: So, for me, the equinox, and of course it's one of the equinoxes, but it's pretty clear which equinox we're talking about during this time of year. And it's also first fall or first autumn,

Mark: Mmhmm.

Yucca: because here I look at the seasons like there's either eight seasons or there's two seasons.

Mark: Mmhmm.

Yucca: So there's the Because the traditional temperate four seasons, really as we were just saying, early or first fall and second fall are two very different seasons

Mark: Mmhmm. Mmhmm.

Yucca: But then there's also really, there's just the hot time of year and there's the cold time of year. And this is the transition between the hot into the cold. This is one of those, those gateway or door holidays. For me it feels like we're going from one season to the next and so it's a very busy season.

Very busy holiday, very busy season here.

Mark: Sure. Yeah, you've got to get everything prepped and everything buttoned down for, for a cold winter.

Yucca: That's

Mark: Yeah I call this holiday Harvest. And of course it's not the only harvest holiday, but this, this is the time when kind of the cultural imagery of cornucopias and all that kind of stuff really, you know, starts to pop up in all the media and all of the winter vegetables are producing abundantly out of people's gardens and the earlier vegetables are pretty much petering out at this point.

The, the grape crush. The grape harvest and crush is happening right at the point of the equinox, it starts usually in August but it extends, what happens is the whites get harvested first, and then the reds, and then there are what are called botrytis vines, which have the botrytis fungus growing on the berries.

And they create so they, they sort of shrivel and they get very, very sweet and concentrated in flavor. And those are used to make dessert wines and ports and things like that. So there's this, you know, there are several phases to the grape harvest and crush. And it's just... It's a lovely time. The leaves are changing in the vineyards and and in some of the trees around here, and there's a feeling of industriousness

Yucca: hmm. Mm

Mark: uh, you know, people have gone back to school, they've gone back to work, all that summertime playing is pretty much over now so there's just, it's just a, as you say, it's a very busy time, but it's also a very lovely time and so I call it harvest.

Yucca: Yeah. And neither of us are in areas where we have lots of broadleaf trees that are churning, but I have a few here and it's just so lovely. to see the, to see them changing and watch that, that very traditional fall look start to, to start to happen. And there's a, there's a smell to it too. There's this very lovely crisp smell that comes with the changing of the leaves.

So, do you smell the Like, when the crush is happening, is there a, you smell that in the air,

Mark: If you, if you drive around the country roads, it smells like rotting grape juice everywhere. It's,

Yucca: you like?

Mark: I do. It's a, it's a it's a sort of quasi wine smell. It's not quite there, but it's working on it kind of smell. And you know, and there are truckloads. So grapes going by and, you know, farm equipment all on the roads and all that kind of stuff.

We do have a lot of broadleaf oaks here. We have a lot of valley oaks and California coastal oaks and black oaks.

Yucca: Do they change during the autumn? We have a, we only have a few oaks here, we have these little scrub oaks, and they hold on their leaves, really, they, they really hold on to them for a long time, and then it's just, they turn brown, and then they're... They, they don't even drop them really till the spring, till they're growing new ones.

We don't, and we just don't really have any other oaks at all. So I

Mark: Huh.

Yucca: do all oaks do that, or is that's a very special

Mark: No, I mean, there, there, there are what are called live oaks. There's California live oaks here, too, and the live oaks, they don't drop their leaves at all and and they're kind of unpleasant to be around because the edges of their leaves are prickly.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So, you know, you end up walking on them and it hurts.

We had one in the last place that I lived, we had one outside of our yard that leaned over into our yard and dumped huge numbers of those sharp pointy leaves into our yard every year.

Yucca: If they don't want to be eaten,

Mark: no.

Yucca: that, yep,

Mark: And they have adapted ways to prevent that from happening.

Yucca: yeah.

Mark: So, but yes, the, the oaks do change, except for the live oaks, they do change and they do drop their leaves.

But they don't turn red and yellow, they just turn kind of a rust color. And that then eats in from the outside of the leaf into the, into the center of the leaf and then it drops. And I particularly love the look of the oak trees in the late autumn and winter.

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: Because they're so crabbed and Halloween y and, you know, wonderful in the shape that they have.

And, you know, there's just such a stark sort of gothic quality to those trees when they've dropped their leaves.

Yucca: Mm

Mark: Um, So yeah, harvest. And thematically, that really is kind of the centerpiece of how I think of this time. It's, it's a good time for feasting with friends and relations. Sometimes I think of this as pagan Thanksgiving. And, of course, Canadian Thanksgiving is right around this time. They have it figured out much better than, you know, late November. I don't know who's, I don't know who's doing harvest celebrating in New England in late November. That, that just seems a bit off to me.

Yucca: Well, I suppose you have all of your harvest in at that point, right? You're not in the process of harvest, you've gotten everything ready,

Mark: historically that first event almost certainly didn't happen in November. It just got declared as a holiday by Abraham Lincoln some, you know, century later. Or quite a bit more than that actually. Fourscore and seven years ago plus. The, so I think about this not only as a time for, you know, coming together with loved ones and feasting, but also to reflect on what the last cycle has been like and what the fruits of that have been, of the cycle of the last year, what I've invested my energy in, and my creativity, and, you know, what I've had hopes for, all those, all those dreams and aspirations and plans, you know, that happened around the February Sabbath and And the, the spring equinox, you know, those got implemented, and there was a lot of work involved, and all this energy got invested, and all that kind of stuff, and then now is the time when it's like, well, how did that work out?

What, what actually emerged? Oftentimes it turns out that what emerges as a harvest from your year is not what you planned to, to have happen. And that... That's a very useful exercise, I think, that this holiday really lends itself to a lot of gratitude and appreciation for living, which I think is true of all of the holidays, but this one particularly, I think, is really a life is good kind of holiday but it's also a time to think about what didn't work out, you know, what, what crops did you plant that did not come up you invested OK, And why?

What lessons did you learn? Because maybe it's just that that sort of thing is not really the sort of thing for you,

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: or maybe it's that it was just a bad time for it and you can take another crack at it later. But, you know, Part of learning is assessing how things have performed.

Yucca: Mm

Mark: And it's interesting that we, we have a society, the economy of which is built around all these performance metrics all the time and annual performance reviews and, you know, all that kind of stuff for, for people who work.

Yeah. But we don't do that very much in our personal lives very often,

Yucca: hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah. Are you still there?

Mark: and I think it's, it's helpful to reflect, not in a self critical way, but in just a, you know, sort of transparent and open minded way to take a look at, well, what was I trying to accomplish this year? What were the strategies that succeeded?

What were the strategies that failed? What has, what is the result? What is before me now? And what does that tell me about The next cycle, what, what I would consider doing next.

Yucca: Yeah, I think that's really important, and having, I think that's something that we should be doing throughout our life, but that it's very useful to have a time that is dedicated to thinking about that in particular, right? And that's one of the really lovely things about the Wheel of the Year.

And, you know, next month we'll be talking about the death stuff and all of that, and then, you know, getting into the dark part of the year with the real deep self reflection and it's just lovely to have, to have it sort of built into life that, oh yes, this is when I come to this time and do the reflection upon what did I harvest, right?

Maybe literally and in terms of a metaphorically.

Mark: Yes. Yeah, I agree. I mean, that's one of the things that I find very beautiful about the pagan practice of the Wheel of the Year is that it, it programs for us the kind of good human habits of thinking about certain things at certain times of the year and remembering to be grateful and, you know, all, you know, Remembering to to pay attention and you know, to be frank in our, our assessment of ourselves and, you know, looking at, at who we are and how we behave all that kind of stuff.

I, I just, well, I wouldn't be doing this practice if it wasn't very, you know, moving and meaningful to me but it really is and that's one of the main reasons that it is.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: And another thing that I do that I should mention because I always. But in a plug for it is that, and I've spoken about this many times on the podcast before, that I think of the Wheel of the Year as metaphorically embodying the arc of a human life. So with birth you know, with, so, sort of, conception at at the winter solstice, and then, you know, birth at the February Sabbath. And then, kind of toddler childhood at the spring equinox, and young adulthood at May Day, and then kind of full adulthood, and then middle age, and now this comes around to the time of the elderly. This is the time when, because that's the time of life when you look back and you realize, you know, what did I, what did I achieve? What's, what, what is the harvest that I... What is the crop that I grew in, in my life, right? It doesn't mean that your life is over, that you can't do anything else, but it's a time when most of your years are behind you and you can kind of assess.

You know, hmm, I did that. That was cool. I'm glad I, I'm glad I did those things. And it's also a time to really be appreciative of the accumulated experience of people that are elderly, which we don't do much in our mainstream culture. We don't value old people very much. And I really would like to change that.

I, I really, I, I think that elderhood is something that should be honored. Rather than viewed as something to avoid through all kinds of surgical and

Yucca: and whatnots, yes.

Mark: and exercise regimes and diets and, you know, all that kind of stuff that people do desperately to try to prevent themselves from being old. So, yeah, that's another, another piece that I think of here. I think of you know, toasting the old people in the community when you're having your harvest feast.

Yucca: hmm. In fact, I mean, I think it was created mostly as a marketing thing, but wasn't it just Grandparents Day? Actually

Mark: I don't know.

Yucca: I think it was, yeah I think that's in mid September.

Mark: Hmm.

Yucca: I love, I, I really love the way that you structure your Wheel of the Year and the different stages of life. And I really appreciate seeing, sometimes in the Facebook group or in other groups, people will share their different approaches to the Wheel of the Year.

And I also assign different meanings. to the different seasons, but I have a slightly different approach. So when I'm looking at the seasons, I look at different components of the ecosystem, or large ecosystems, like the grasslands or the forests. And for this time of year, It is a recognition of the decomposers and the microbes the fungi and the bacteria, because this is the time where, this is the only time of year that you're going to be able to walk around in the forest and see mushrooms, first of all, because it's just too, too hot and dry during the rest of the time of the year.

We have lots of types of fungi, but in terms of seeing, like, there's your bright red mushroom, don't touch that one, right, like, that's only going to happen. This time of year and really up in the mountains but this is also when for temperate climates, the, the fungi are just getting going, right?

They're really doing their work. We forget that the mycelium, it's all down below the debris, the leaves that have fallen and the old plants that have died down, and they're down there. This is their feast, right? They're getting ready to start decomposing, and they'll be working all through the autumn and the winter into the spring breaking that down, and returning it into a form that then life uses again.

And the bacteria, and it, it leads quite nicely into, the next season for us is about, is the ancestors. Everything that came before, and of course we start first. We go far enough back and our grandmothers were microbes, right, and so it kind of is this nice lead into that. So we, we really like to be thinking about that sort of on an intellectual level.

And recognizing that, you know, we're making some of our pile, you know, compost piles and things like that. Of course, we do that throughout the year, but this is when it's going to be sitting and doing that.

Mark: Mm hmm. Mm

Yucca: And then, as I was saying at the beginning, that we sort of see there being two, either eight seasons or two seasons.

And this is the, this is the beginning. of the cold time of year. But not quite. The days are still hot, but the nights have a chill in them, right? The wind, we're closing the windows at night and we can kind of, it feels that chilly in the morning, and you might have to, you know, in the morning you've got to, for the first half of the day, maybe have a sweatshirt on, and then you take it off by the end of the day, and you're like, oh, it's so hot.

But there's just so much that It's clear now winter is coming and you've got to get ready for winter, and it's lovely to watch. Where I'm sitting right now, I'm looking out, and I'm seeing we have jays and squirrels, and they're doing their, that industrious feeling you were talking about.

They're out there right now, getting... Plump, and we've got our, we have a little bear family that lives nearby, and you can see they're trying to get all plump as well, and and so that's what we're doing, too, is going, okay, well, the cold's not here, but what do I need to have ready when the cold does come, because there's just certain things you can do at one time of the year and others you can't, right?

So there's some flashing that I need to put on some of my windows. That's not going to stick once it gets cold. That has got to happen before the cold comes. It's time for us to change the angle on our solar panels and to open up the, the shade cloth on the greenhouse to let the heat in. And so it's just a time of making lists.

And making sure, okay, before the winter comes, does everyone have hats? Do we all have hats? Because it's a, it's a hassle to need a hat and not have it. What about boots? Because when the mud comes, we're gonna want those boots, right? And it's, there's, there's a, it's one of the two big prep times of the year, right?

There's the spring prep and there's the fall prep. And I like to do like a big, lots of people like to do spring cleaning. I like to do a fall cleaning before we're gonna be inside for... Months and months. And so that's sort of the other side of the harvest, right? Like there was this whole year that happened, but now there's the whole half that's going to happen.

And how am I going to prepare for that? Not in the the growing way. It's not the starting new projects kind of way that is in the spring, but it's the being ready for and prepared, sure that everything is, is buttoned up and finished up and that there's no, you know, we haven't missed any loose ends or anything like that.

Mark: mm hmm, and if you have outdoor projects, you gotta get those finished

Yucca: Absolutely, yep.

Mark: before, because you can't bring them indoors, and you gotta get it done before it starts to rain and then snow,

Yucca: Right. And I mean, and there's some that, there'll be a few projects that are much more pleasant to do when it's cold. But there's things that have to get done to have that prepped to be ready to do it. So there's just a very, it's a thoughtful time of year. It's another one of those pause and think,

Mark: mm hmm,

Yucca: be prepared times.

And, and for us, these are our specifics of the way that, that Our climate is, but each climate is going to be a little bit different and so for some people, maybe this is, right now, that's not when it's happening, because that's not when the seasons are quite changing. For some people, the seasons are changing earlier, or later, or, you know, what you're going to be doing if you're getting ready for a winter in Wisconsin is very different than a, you know, a winter in Southern California.

Mark: yes, because they hardly have winter in Southern California, oh no, it's freezing, it's 70 degrees,

Yucca: Well, but that's the thing, like there's, that each climate is going to be different, and it's not, it's not less valuable to be in one climate versus the other. What's happening in your climate, some of those themes may be still happening, but what that holiday means to you in Southern California may be somewhat different.

different because that, it might be a little bit more appropriate to have that sort of prep time happening at a different time of year. Or maybe it's not quite as intense, right? For me, it's really an intense time period, we've got these few weeks, and it's gotta happen in these few weeks. For somebody in a climate that doesn't have quite as huge swings as mine does, Maybe it's something that you spread out more throughout the year, and you think about a little bit each you know, maybe each full moon or something like that instead of, boom, it's, it's fall, right?

Mark: Yeah. Yeah, that, that, that completely makes sense to me, and I even think about how... In a very, you know, very temperate climate like Southern California, you know, if you're, if you're in the coastal area, for example, it may even be like an opportunity to do things that most of us associate with the summertime, because like the beaches aren't going to be nearly as crowded as they were in July and August, right?

So, as the weather cools off, you might be able to get a little bit more privacy and, you know, time to yourself and stuff at a beach.

Yucca: Mm hmm, yeah.

Mark: Yeah, so, as always, we are really interested to hear what how you're celebrating the holidays, our readers. You can reach us, or, sorry, listeners, what am I saying? You can reach us at thewonderpodcastqs at gmail. com, and we always appreciate getting your emails. We are not going to have a show next week.

Because I am going to be flying to Washington, D. C. to lobby for wilderness protections so that's kind of exciting. And I've decided that I'm going to wear a Sun Tree button on the underside of my lapel, where they can't see it, but I will still be wearing it on my lapel in the Capitol when I'm going to meet with congressmen and senators.

Yucca: that's wonderful. So you'll still, it still has the meaning for you, you know it's there.

Mark: That's right. Yeah, yeah, but the problem is, if I wore it the other way, then it would always be stirring up conversations about what does that mean, and it would derail from the conversation we want to have, which is about new national monuments, BLM's new public lands rule, things like that.

Yucca: right. So it's one of those things to be thoughtful about is when do you... So, what are you trying to accomplish, and what do you need to do in each of those cases to accomplish that? So, very fitting for the time of year we've been talking

Mark: Absolutely. And actually, as I mention it oh, never mind, the public comment period is closed.

Yucca: Wow.

Mark: There's a Many people don't know this, the largest holder of land in the United States is the Bureau, it's the the BLM, the Bureau of Land Management. And it does not list in its priorities for land management conservation.

It, it lists things like mining, and oil and gas extraction, and timber, and grazing, and all that kind of stuff, but It does not list conservation values at all. So there is a proposal that has been launched by the Biden administration to change that, to add conservation into the mission statement of the BLM so that they will make decisions not only for extractive purposes, but also for the purposes of the ecosystem.

Yucca: hmm. Mm hmm. That's

Mark: And that's one of the things we're going to be advocating for. You know, it sounds like a bureaucratic thing, but it's really not.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: You know, these agencies are legally bound by their mission statements and and they will make decisions and allocate resources accordingly. So, it's it's an important thing.

The, as I said, the public comment period has closed. The public comments were overwhelmingly in favor of the rule.

Yucca: That's

Mark: They got something like 300, 000 comments, and they were, you know, they ran like 90 10 in favor of the rule.

Yucca: That's great.

Mark: Yeah, so

Yucca: I know my state, I have to look at the numbers again, but my state, BLM is, owns most of my state. Forest Service has a lot of it too.

Mark: Huh, Forest Service is the second largest landholder in

Yucca: it's more, yeah, it's, it's, the federal government owns most of New Mexico.

Mark: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

I, I got to meet your senator, by the way, Kurt Heinrich at an event a couple of weeks ago. Martin Heinrich, I'm sorry and wonderful guy very, very thoughtful, very strategic around climate change and You know, we had a good conversation about public lands management and just good.

Yeah, great leader.

Yucca: Yeah, well I hope you have a fun I guess fun, a very productive and enjoyable time talking with all, all those DC folks.

Mark: I'm gonna get to meet a bunch of atheopagans from the D. C. area. I'm arriving on the 17th and on the afternoon of the 17th. If you're listening to this and you're in the D. C. area, I am saying, staying at the Yotel on on Capitol Hill, and you are welcome to come. I'm going to set myself up in the hotel bar at around two o'clock, and people are just going to drop by and we're going to visit.

So, I'm really looking forward to meeting some of our East Coast folks that I haven't met before.

Yucca: Great, well give them hugs for me, if they're hug folks. Yeah.

Mark: Yeah, I'll ask first, of course, because I know you would. I would too, but...

Yucca: Yep. Well, wonderful.

Mark: All right, so

Yucca: you

Mark: you in a couple of weeks. Thank you everybody so much.

Yucca: Have a wonderful equinox, harvest, whatever you call it. So,

Mark: I hope your harvest has been bountiful.

Yucca: take care folks.

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Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com.

S4E28 TRANSCRIPT:----more----

Yucca: Welcome back to The Wonder Science Based Paganism. I'm your host, Yucca.

Mark: And I'm Mark.

Yucca: And today, we're talking about the senses, the other senses in our practices. So, the ones like smell and taste and touch that sometimes we can forget about.

Mark: Right. Yeah, I mean, humans are very visually oriented and they're very sound oriented. That, that tends to be the senses that we lead with, those of us who have those senses. And so, Our orientation towards what we do in ritual, what we do in our practices, all that kind of thing, will often kind of lean into those senses because that's what we're used to leading with.

But the other senses are also very compelling Very compelling, and can be powerful instruments in changing our consciousness and influencing the effectiveness of our ritual practices. So, today we're talking about that.

Yucca: That's right. And before we go much further, we should say that Yes, there are other senses. We're talking about the classical senses, which I think are useful because they are senses that, one, we have a specific organ, which is dedicated to that sense, and it's also about our interaction with the outside world, where we do have other senses like proprioception or things like that, but that's it.

Those are a little bit less obvious. Now, not that they aren't important and that you couldn't bring awareness of that into your practice, but for now, we're just going to be talking about those three in the more classical sense.

Mark: Yes. Yeah, I think That's plenty.

Yucca: Yeah,

Mark: We could, I mean, we could certainly dive into other things, but I think, you know, that'll, that'll certainly take up our time.

Yucca: which is a fun rabbit hole if you're looking for a research rabbit hole to go down is how do we define senses and all of that stuff is delightful.

Mark: Sure. Okay.

Yucca: Now, let's start with, with smell, right? I think that's a good place to start.

Mark: Smell is a particularly powerful emotionally evocative sense. Our olfactory receptors are hooked pretty deep in our brains. You know, when you think back to, I mean really back to our earliest ancestors, the single celled organisms, they were able to detect the chemical nature of what surrounded them and move away from what was harmful, move towards what might be food.

That is, in essence, smell. That, so that, that sense has been coded into us from the very beginning, and in fact we've lost a lot. Of what we used to have in the way of smell in, in the way of, of the olfactory scents but it's still very powerful for us and it's very influential over our mood.

Yucca: It is, and it's one of those that is often hanging out in the background that we're really not conscious of, sometimes if there is a strong, potent smell, but we often start to tune smells out, even though they're there, they're there. And we don't think about them consciously, but they are influencing our mood and our, how we feel about things, and I'm guessing that most people listening, that if you have a sense of smell, that at some point in your life, you've encountered a smell.

And all of a sudden you're just, memory wise, just back at some previous scene in your life, right? The smell of walking into a coffee shop or the, you know, cigars and you're sitting on your grandpa's lap again or something like that,

Mark: Mm hmm. Yes, exactly. And the, the challenge in some cases with really cultivating that sense and its ability to influence our mood is that we have some social rules around acknowledging smell. There are a lot of smells that we're like supposed to pretend are not there

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: because it's embarrassing for people or, you know, whatever it is, or you're not supposed to be critical of how somebody's house smells, that kind of thing.

Yucca: And humans are not supposed to have any smell whatsoever. We're supposed to... Be completely smellless. Yeah,

Mark: unless it's some goop that you apply to yourself, which has no relation to what a human actually smells like.

Yucca: Something that vaguely smells like a flower from the other side of the world, but maybe not, because you've never actually smelled what this flower really smells like. But they say on the bottle that that's what it is.

Mark: right. There you go.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: I have a natural deodorant that I use once in a while when I'm going to be wearing a bunch of layers. And It's it's scented with ylang ylang. I have no idea what ylang ylang actually smells like. There it is, ylang ylang. So,

Yucca: enjoy looking at the bit. The names of, like, when you go through the aisle at the store, and, like, how they will name products, because sometimes it's just the name of a flower or something like that, and other times they just, they just give them these really weird names, like, it's like Spicy Night Out or something, and you're like, wow.

Yes.

Mark: fresh garden scent.

Yucca: Yes. Fresh garden. Okay. Compost? I have yet to see that one. That would be a good one.

Mark: that would be a good one. Yeah, compost musk.

Yucca: Yes. Yeah. Anyways. You were saying that they're, first of all, acknowledging That the, that these things exist that they're a part of our world. Mm hmm. Mm

Mark: so, and, you know, I'm not, I'm not recommending that people suddenly start violating all the social rules around, around scent and smell. I'm just saying that it's helpful to be aware of that so that you can suspend those rules when you're engaging with your practice so that you can really let yourself kind of drift away on the associative memories and that the scents bring up for you.

Yucca: That you can be aware of them and make choices once you're aware of that, those norms, then you can decide. A lot of them are there for perfectly good reasons, right? Like you're saying, we're not saying necessarily just throw them all out the window, but you have a choice once you're aware of it, that awareness is the first step.

Mark: In terms of practice, I not infrequently use incenses and sometimes I don't burn them. Sometimes I just kind of sit them out because they're, they smell good without burning. I'm particularly fond of the resinous incenses, like frankincense and myrrh and dragon's blood. Those, they smell super sacred to me.

As soon as that hits my nose, they're just like, wow, here I am in the temple.

Yucca: hmm. Frankincense is one that I use in my house on a regular basis. Yeah.

Mark: Yeah. So your kids may come to associate that with home.

Yucca: They may, yeah. We use a lot of, of... Synths in the house, and I change it throughout the year so there's some that that's just like the frankincense, that often feels more like of a fall kind of wintry one to me but I still use it throughout the year simply because I love it, but we have a little diffuser that I'll put the oils in And then in the winter, we heat with a wood stove.

And since we're such a dry climate, I'll often have a little humidifier on top of the stove. So I've got a little iron kettle that is just for making sure that the house isn't so dry that you get nosebleeds from it, because really, we are in such a dry climate. So I'll usually put some drops of different oils into that.

And throughout the year, the It is a conscious choice, but there's just certain smells that just... They just feel like they fit the season better.

Mark: Huh.

Yucca: And I was, I was mentioning to Mark before we started recording that here, it's really feeling like autumn is coming a bit early this year. Like it's the end of summer, but most years this would still be the end of summer.

Right now it feels like the beginning of fall. So I noticed the, the choices that I am making in the morning when I'm putting some little oils in, they're more, they got a little bit more spicy of a. You know, I put some clove in the other day and some things like that and it just, it just changes the feel and the mood of the, the house.

Mark: It does.

Yucca: think the kids really will grow up with that, right?

Mark: for sure. Yeah, there's something about kind of curating your olfactory experience that is, I mean, Here we are. We've got these senses, right? And we can either be just sort of buffeted by the winds of whatever comes along in a literal sense or we can we can make choices about what we choose to surround ourselves with in the way of, of olfactory cues.

And what I find is that the, the incenses that I use are so specific, each one is so specific in its felt sense. I mean, I wanted to say vibe. I mean, we know what that means, right? That sort of felt emotional sense that comes up when you smell a particular thing. That I'm afraid I have a lot of them and I kind of hoard them. I mean, I haven't bought incenses in years, but I have them all in sealed tubes and jars and boxes and things like that. Actually, this brings up a little story that came up recently. We were having the Thursday night atheopagan Zoom mixer. And I got to telling a story about this one particular incense that I just love which I said was called Five Grandfathers, and it was made by a metaphysical shop in San Francisco called The Sword and the Rose.

And a person who was on the call typed it in and the shop still exists.

Yucca: Oh,

Mark: And, and they, they make, they craft all their own incenses and they do it in the, you know, in a ritual way and all this kind of stuff. They have oils and all that kind of stuff as well. I think it's the swordandtherose. net, I think is their shop.

But it turned out it was six grandfathers, not five. I had just misremembered and the label fell off years ago. But now that I know that I can get more of it I burned some the other day. And it is this incredibly earthy, evocative really unusual it has a couple of kinds of pine bark in it and tobacco and some really unusual things that you don't usually find in incenses and it, it just seems super earthy to me and, and very evocative.

The story that the man at the shop told me was that his image of it is of the six grandfathers sitting in a kiva. And I can just see that image so well when I, when I burn this incense, it's so cool.

Yucca: Oh, that's one I can, I'm just imagining what that smell might be right now.

Mark: Huh.

Yucca: We don't have a word for it. Picture, we can't, I can't picture it, right? We don't have a, we don't have a word to say that, right?

Mark: Right.

Yucca: Because when it's a, Visual scene, I can picture it in my mind, but I can't, we need another word for smelling it.

Mark: I wonder if it's possible to learn to imagine scent.

Yucca: oh, I, I certainly can,

Mark: Can you?

Yucca: absolutely, yeah.

Mark: Okay. I, I can't imagine it.

Yucca: to, okay, yeah. Well, different people have different relationships to what they can imagine and what they can't.

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: I know my father doesn't see things in his mind,

Mark: Huh.

Yucca: right? We've talked about it, but he doesn't. He doesn't dream in pictures, he doesn't see things but feel has a very strong physical awareness of how spaces feel, right?

I haven't asked him about whether he can smell things, but I can smell and taste things the sensation of a touch of something, right? Like I can imagine petting a big fluffy dog right now, and it's a very strong sensation, right? And I can, I can smell the smell of the dog's breath, right? Dogs have that very distinctive, they're stinky, but it's like you still kind of like it anyways.

You're like, oh, you're such a sweetie, right? Like that happy dog breath.

Mark: Huh.

Yucca: Like, that's just very visceral, and we just, I think our language lacks words to really talk about those sorts of experiences in the same way we can talk about visual things.

Mark: Yes, yeah, I, I really think that's true because what smell evokes in us is a felt sense, sort of an atmosphere or a, you know, what some people call an energy or a vibe, right?

Yucca: It's a body awareness, but it's not body in the sense of, I don't, it's not something I'm experiencing with my hands it's not something I'm experiencing with my eyes, but there's a, there's something much more primal about the experience.

Mark: yes. And I, and I agree with you that we don't have good language to describe those kinds of sensations. Like, like the feeling of shame, for example, when you're suddenly embarrassed by something. There is a very definite felt sense in my chest when that happens. And it's a physical sensation.

It's not just an emotion. It's a physical sensation in my body, but we don't have words for those kinds of things.

Yucca: Yeah,

Mark: Yeah. So scent very powerful very useful in rituals for creating a sacred space. You know, and it, and a little goes a long way. I mean, I've, I've been to rituals where there were great fuming braziers of incense and it kind of smoked me out and, you know, had to leave early.

Yucca: It can be such a challenge because that's one where people experience it so differently, right? What is a small, a strong smell to you may not be to somebody else. And what emotional state people are in is going to influence how much they can perceive it or not. We'll talk more about this with taste as well, but taste and smell are very connected.

When we're a lot around really loud noises and vibrations that can change how we perceive it, right? When, and I'd have to go back and find the original sources on this, but my understanding is that when we are in airplanes, with all of the noise and the vibrations, we don't actually taste as well as we do when we're in a calmer setting.

Mark: That's interesting.

Yucca: that

Mark: That explains airplane food.

Yucca: right, that if you eat that same food on the ground when the engines are off, you will have a very different experience of it than when, I don't know how loud it is in an airplane, but it's...

Mark: It's

Yucca: loud. It's loud, right?

Mark: Yeah. And it's kind of amazing that the brain is able to, in many ways, kind of filter that out. It resets your baseline, so you're able to have conversations with people and so forth, despite the fact that there's this very loud noise going on.

Yucca: I find I get exhausted. I can sleep very easily on airplanes because it is just so except if I have to sit by the window and then I can't not look out the window the whole time. I do not have the money nor do I want to spend the fossil fuels to do this, but I would be the person that If those weren't an issue, we'd just buy tickets just to sit and look out the

Mark: And look at the, look at the landscape, look at the clouds. It's, it's amazing. Yeah, I'm, I'm taking a red eye to Washington, D. C. in a couple of weeks and I'm, I don't sleep well on planes, so I'm really not looking forward to it.

Yucca: Well, maybe you'll have to listen to some good podcast or something like

Mark: Yeah, yeah. You know of any?

Yucca: So some, you're talking about using scents intentionally in ritual,

Mark: Right,

Yucca: So, so one thing that we can do with scents, and this applies to any of the other senses as well, is we can purposefully associate them with things

Mark: Mm hmm.

Yucca: and be our own little Pavlov's dogs. Where if we want to invoke a sense of comfort or something like that, we can, when we get into that state, bring out the thing that has that smell.

Right? Like, I'm thinking, for instance, of like a lavender pillow. Have you seen those little bags that people stuff lavender with? Well, that's something that you, if you wanted to use that scent, you get into that space, you smell the scent, you think about the scent and you experience the feeling that you have, and you intentionally do that several times and just reinforce that so that your body That's just a clue that you use just to do that.

Mark: I have an example from the annual hallows ritual that my, my ritual circle, Dark Sun, does and I introduced this, but I use it every year, but sometimes. I got a little vial of cedar oil, and the reason I got cedar was because for some reason cedar reminds me of coffins.

Yucca: Mm

Mark: seems like cedar would be a good material to make a coffin out of.

So there's this sort of funereal solemn quality, I think, to the scent of cedar oil. And we've used it to anoint foreheads and things like that so that that scent is kind of around during the ritual and it's powerful. It's very powerful. I don't use it for anything else.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: It sits on my ancestor and underworld altar for the rest of the year.

I'm looking at it right now.

Yucca: Cedar's one that I tend to use around this time of year,

Mark: Is it?

Yucca: right? It is one that I associate with a late summer, early fall. Kind of, and then as we get into the winter, I'll definitely switch more into some of the piney, sappy kind of smells.

Mark: yeah, for sure, Yeah, and maybe this is a good place to transition into taste. Because taste and smell, as you say, are, are very deeply related with one another. I can imagine tastes.

Yucca: Interesting.

Mark: So, and considering that taste is other than the, you know, the, what, six, seven types of taste buds that we have, all the rest of it is olfactory.

So, maybe I'm just, I need to practice imagining smells.

Yucca: Well, what if you start with a really strong one, like walking into a coffee shop that roasts its own beans?

Mark: I just, I just imagined a smell, ammonia.

Yucca: ammonia, oh, that's a, yep.

Mark: Dead.

Yucca: say that and I've got, right

Mark: there it is.

Yucca: I can even feel the part of, of my nose where it is,

Mark: Where it burns.

Yucca: it burns, yeah oh yeah,

Mark: Okay. So I can't imagine since I'm just not very practiced at it. Okay. That's good to know. So taste. I have used taste in rituals where in order as kind of a part of induction into the ritual state, into trance, that very present flow state that That is, you know, what we seek to create in ritual space.

I've used cues like a single dark chocolate chip,

Yucca: hmm,

Mark: for example, you know, you put the chocolate chip on the tongue of each participant because there's, there's a way that that flavor, it kind of floods your sensorium with this. Deliciousness, and it's kind of a full body experience. It pulls you into, into being in, in, in your body rather than thinking about other abstract things.

Yucca: right? Reminds me of communion when you say that, right? Like, I think that's probably some of what's going on with that, that, little sip of wine, right?

Mark: I've used sips of wine as well. Now, under COVID, it's not so convenient because you're not going to have a single chalice.

Yucca: That you can, yeah.

Mark: just kind of wipe the lip and, and move on. But it could still be done. You could have a tray of, you know, little, little cups of wine and,

Yucca: Well, that's, you know, depending on, different churches have done different things, but ones that I have visited, I've seen they have, like, basically the little shot glasses, that there's just a little sip for each person, right? And then they have, like, the little wafer In fact, I visited one once in which the wafers came pre packaged and they're a little, like, plastic, like, thinking of, like, it would be, it sort of looked like the thing that Like, the flight attendant would give you on the plane, like, one of those little cookies.

Of course, that's somewhat wasteful, but it's, it was, I found it quite charming, right? It was like, oh, okay, that's a good solution. This was even pre COVID, like, okay, yeah, so, but that's something that humans, I bring up communion because it's, we've been perfecting this ritual thing for, you

Mark: Yes. Yes. There, there is nothing in a traditional Catholic mass service that isn't carefully calculated to create a particular mood, a particular set of emotions, a particular worldview. I mean, it's all very carefully curated. And. And, I mean, I, I find, you know, cathedral architecture and Gregorian chant and, you know, ritual music and the simple incense that they use and, I mean, all that stuff is just really amazing as a kind of sensory experience.

I, I don't care for the theology,

Yucca: I don't like, I don't particularly care for the theology or the message, but I, I I really do enjoy mass.

Mark: mm hmm,

Yucca: That, you know, that's something my, our father taught us when we were little, like, how to, you know, he was raised Catholic and obviously did not raise us Catholic, but taught us how to go through the movements and everything so that we could experience it.

And I just loved the whole ritual of all of it, and the, you know, the kneeling as you go in, and the water, and the pre like, all of this stuff is just, it's so effective,

Mark: It is super effective and that's why I reference some of those things in the Atheopagan Ritual Primer and in my book, my first book, the Atheopaganism book, because Because we've been doing these ritual things, you know, for tens of thousands of years, and we've learned a lot, and it's not, you know, these, these techniques, you know, we're not inventing them now.

They've, they've been used for a very long time. We're repurposing many of them to create modern pagan rituals.

Yucca: And they were repurposed before us, too. That's the, you know, they came from other sources as well.

Mark: So taste it is traditional in many pagan denominations, I guess I'd call them, or paths that cakes and ale is a a segment of the ritual that takes place after the main working of the ritual. In the structure that I've proposed which is arrival invocation of qualities. Deep working or deep play or working, gratitude and then benediction the cakes and ale or sharing a ritual meal piece happens during the gratitude phase because we're grateful to eat and it makes our bodies happy to food into them.

So that, that's another thing where. You know, you pass bread or cookies or, in some cases, meat depending on who's doing it and what time of year and all that kind of stuff.

Yucca: hmm. Yeah.

Outside of a formal ritual, something that I like to do when I go in my own land, when I'm just hanging out and being like, hey! Friendry. But when I go somewhere that, like on an adventure with the kids a couple months back we went into the Carlsbad Caverns and things like that, is to actually taste the air.

Now, that's again mixing in with the smell as well, but there is a very, places have really distinctive tastes, and you can take a deep breath in, kind of, it makes me imagine like the wine tasters and it's kind of the same way that you might taste the wine in your mouth and like move it around and all of that.

You can do that with the air and taste it. the back of your, on your tongue, in the back of your throat. And every place is very different,

Mark: Hmm.

Yucca: right? It's a little, it's subtle, right? Because it's not the same as like putting a chocolate chip on your tongue. But, but the taste of a city and different cities have different tastes, right?

And I'm not talking about putting things literally in your mouth other than the air. In some places that might be perfectly safe. If you're in the middle of a forest and you want to taste a pine needle, that's probably fine. Other places you might not want to pick up a rock and taste it because it's got diesel on it or something like that.

But experiencing the environments that we're in on a, consciously choosing to experience them on a level that isn't just site, I think, can really help us. Actually, I did a video on the YouTube channel about that a couple weeks back.

Mark: Go check that out.

Yucca: but yeah, that's there. So, I think that that really helps to connect with the places where we are and slow down a bit,

Mark: Mm hmm.

Yucca: right?

Because the more that we're experiencing things, the more new and novel things, the slower the time becomes. Your awareness of that. So a lot of this talk about how, when we were little, it seemed like our childhoods took up so much more time in our lives, and now the older we get, just the faster and faster time goes.

But I've found that this is something I've been working very consciously on, is trying to slow that down. and going, I can't actually signif like, I don't really get to choose how many years I actually get to be alive for. I can, you know, make certain choices that will help me to live longer, but, you know, I could be in a car accident tomorrow.

But what I can do is I can experience the moments that I have more deeply, and doing things like pausing and tasting the air, or really smelling the environment. around you, I have found really helps to get back a little bit of that stretched out time the way it felt when I was a child.

Mark: Huh. Huh. Yeah, I can really see that. And that brings us to touch, which is kind of an entirely different thing. And I, I think the reason it's a different thing is that when we breathe in a scent or we taste something, we do not yet consider it to be a part of ourselves. It's something that's in the process of becoming part of ourselves by being breathed in or by being ingested, but it's not us yet.

Whereas touch is very intimate. Because it's engaging with our skin, which is us. Does that make sense?

Yucca: Does, I mean, when we, when we're smelling something, or we're tasting something, it's, it literally is going into our bodies.

Mark: I know, but we don't think of it that

Yucca: yeah like, with smell, it's almost like a lock and key thing happening,

Mark: Huh.

Yucca: but yeah, there's something different with the touch that,

like, I think it's, it's tapping into something a little bit more Like a different kind of instinctual reaction because the touch is, well, first of all, there's a lot of different touch, but some of it is there so that we know, like, get away, don't get eaten so going back to when we were way, way pre pre mammal ancestors, we were just these tiny little worm things we bump into something, oop, don't get eaten by that, go somewhere else Yeah

Mark: Yeah, so,

Yucca: I think I see what you're saying with that, like there's a

Mark: well, there's a question of safety. The immediacy of touch raises the question of safety. You know, am I, am I safe being in contact with this, whatever it is? We, there are ways that things that you breathe or things that you ingest can harm you. They're more the exception than the rule. We, you know, we eat every day, we breathe all the time.

We kind of assume that what we're doing in those regards is, is gonna be okay for us.

Yucca: right, and the, I mean, taste is there partly to let us know, oh, spit that out, that's poisonous, don't eat that but then we spit it out and it's, it's out, it's gone yeah, but yeah, the safety, and safety in both ways like, are we not safe, and are we safe? Because again, going back to that mammal side, when we're, when we're born, we're we clinging to our parents, right?

We hold on to the other animals because we're a social, we're a social animal. And we're held by and we don't wanna be put down. We'll, we'll make that pretty clear.

Mark: When people have a traumatic experience, Very frequently, what's done by emergency personnel is to put a blanket around them. And it's not because they're cold. It's because the blanket provides a feeling of safety. The, the, the tactile experience of having the back of your neck covered and, you know, all of that is, it And I've actually done this in ritual circles where if somebody was having a really hard time, they were, you know, going through an experience because the ritual had brought things up for them.

I've, I've actually brought people a blanket and put it around them for, for that purpose. And it makes a lot of difference. So these,

Yucca: a weighted blanket that is just amazing for that.

Mark: Yeah, my partner Nemea has a weighted blanket too and she loves it.

Yucca: Another one, this is a little bit more, more extreme than a blanket, but it's a squishbox. If you ever feel like you really, really just, you just really need to climb into a hole you can make a box that is big enough for you to get in, so maybe, you could also do this with a bathtub if you happen to have it, and just fill it with blankets or, you know, pillows and things like that, and you just get in it between all of those things.

That stuff, and you just feel squooshed and safe and surrounded. Because sometimes when you feel like, I want to be in a hole, being in the hole is the best thing that you can do for that feeling. So, probably you don't actually have a literal hole, so you can just make one, right?

Mark: Well, and, and I've seen memes, I mean both of us are neurodivergent, obviously in different ways because everybody's different but I've seen memes from particularly people on the spectrum where that sort of being crushed feeling is very comforting. It's like it keeps you from flying apart. In some way.

And so, you know, just kind of a bear hug from a trusted person can give a similar sort of, you know, squash me until I'm safe sort of feeling.

Yucca: yeah. Oh, I just love that name, Bear Hug, too. It just makes me think of, that was something that I remember as being a little kid, is I would ask for the bear hug, I want the bear hug, and they go, rrrrr, give the growl, and the big hug, and with the, you know, the big arms of the parents. So, yeah, those things, those never, you know.

Talking about how short, it's amazing how short our childhoods are, but how that never leaves us, right? Even though a lot of times we don't, we don't remember most of our lives, right? We cannot remember most of our childhoods, let alone our adult lives, and yet it influences us so much.

Mark: Yes, yeah, so many of the associative memories we were talking about was sent and so forth. So many associative memories that pop into your mind at a random time are from your childhood. They're just, that's, that's when all this baseline stuff was being laid down and we go back to it over and over again.

So, so yeah, touch. And I have used. Textured things in ritual like fur or even things like steel wool or like a pet brush, you know, that wire, the, the, the sharp wire pet brush, you know, those kinds of things, you know, if you very gently brush it along the skin or if they brush their fingers along it all of those are, are, Ways of once again, you know, pulling someone into being in their body and being in immediacy and presence rather than the past and the future. Yes.

Yucca: yeah. Temperature as well. Temperature's a big one. And you can go either direction with that. And there's some simple things that you can use, like, like those little heat pads, those hand warmers.

Mark: Mm hmm.

Yucca: But there's also the ones, you can get the little cold packs, that they're about the same size, they're for if, you know, somebody hurt their ankle or something like that, but, which by the way, I carry those whenever hiking because if somebody is getting overheated, you can open up one of those packs and have them put it underneath their armpit, or between their legs, and that really helps to start to cool them down faster.

Same thing in this. In the winter, do that with the, with the heat pack.

Mark: Huh.

Yucca: But that's something that you could do in a ritual space as well.

Mark: Yes. Yes. All of this stuff. I mean, you know who really specializes in this stuff, who's really, really good at it is the BDSM community.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: of this is called sensation play.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: And, I mean, they have, they've got feathers, and they've got horse whips, and they've got everything in between. They've got thuddy things, and they've got stingy things, and they've got gentle things, and they've got cold things, and they've got hot things, and, you know, this is all, you know, something that they really narrow in on, you know, dialing in exactly what works for people in, in all those circumstances and People that are on the receiving end of that are also exploring, okay, that works for me.

Okay, that doesn't, you know, this evokes a particular emotion in me. So it's all, it's very interesting stuff.

Yucca: Makes a lot of sense. Yeah.

Mark: yeah,

Yucca: And I mean, so that could be a really good resource, and it doesn't necessarily have to be a sexual experience.

Mark: right.

Yucca: So that may be the focus in that particular community, but the knowledge could be applied to, to any sort of sensation that you're, that you're intentionally invoking.

Mark: Exactly. Exactly. So, yeah, because there are multiple axes of That, that community explores. There are things around power, there are things around shame, there are things around physical sensation. There, as I say, there are these multiple axes that people will explore with one another. And that's all great, but what we're talking about right now is the sensation piece, the touch piece.

And yeah, so, I mean, Welcoming a blindfolded person into the ritual circle with a soft caress of a feather on the side of their face. You know, you, you just, particularly if, if they're blindfolded so that they're not depending on visual cues for everything. There's a way that that can really make the body's senses come alive.

And then you have powerful experiences of these other sensations that are provided.

So,

Yucca: the blindfold, sometimes just closing your eyes or having a blindfold is enough to get you to shift to thinking about and paying it to paying attention to the other senses, because they're there. But it's whether we're really engaging with them or not. And then learning to use them, like just a couple minutes ago, with the imagining it when you said, Oh, yeah, I can imagine. I just have to practice it. I think that applies to all these other things, right? We, most of us can physically smell. It's just, do we practice noticing that and refining that? Most of us do have a sense of touch. So how much attention are we paying to it? How much are we not?

Mark: Huh. Yeah. And so, I guess, kind of moving towards a summation of all this, this, you know, the senses are kind of a playground. And they, they are very influential over what our psychological state is. And we, as practitioners of paths that we add. Deliberately work to affect our psychological state in ways that benefit us and that enable us to have, you know, experiences.

Really, you know, need to look at that. We, we need to be aware of all the different ways that, that our senses can be helpful for us. Particularly those that we don't tend to pay as much attention to, like, like scent and, and taste and touch.

Yucca: Right?

Mark: Well, this has been super interesting again. Thank you for, for a great conversation. Yeah, this was a good idea. I'm, I'm glad we did this.

Yucca: Yeah. Thank you. And thanks everyone for hanging out with us and listening. And we really appreciate you being here with us.

Mark: We sure do.

Yucca: We'll see you next week.

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Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com.

S4E27 TRANSCRIPT:

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Mark: Welcome back to The Wonder, Science Based Paganism. I'm your host, Mark,

Yucca: And I'm Yucca.

Mark: and today we're talking about truth and reality.

Yucca: Yes. So, there's a lot to talk about here.

Mark: There is, there is, and that's, that's why we chose this topic, right? Because a lot of the places where we come into friction with other parts of the pagan community, and certainly friction with other religious perspectives other than atheism, is in the question of what is real and what is true, right?

Yucca: hmm. Mm

Mark: And I think what I want to start out with... The problem is that we have terrible language for this stuff.

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: Very imprecise language that uses one word to describe a lot of different things.

Yucca: Right. I want to start also with with a little story from something my father used to say when I was little. And I don't know where he got it from, but when he would tell a story, and I would ask him, I'd say, Dad, is this a true story? He would say, Yes. The events didn't happen. But this is a true story.

Mark: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah, like fables,

Yucca: The

Mark: Fables that illustrate moral principles. The moral principles may be something that we want to subscribe to, but that doesn't mean that the story about the chicken that was afraid that guy

Yucca: sky was falling, or that nobody would help her make bread, or... Oh, there's a lot of chicken ones.

Mark: are there?

Yucca: Yeah, right?

Mark: You would know more than me.

Yucca: But, so, when we say that word true, It can mean so many different things, right? Sometimes we mean it as, is it correct as in, you know, a mathematical problem, right? Is 2 plus 2 equals 5? Is that true or not, right? But we can also mean, is it true in that more, does it have importance, does it have meaning?

So,

Mark: or even in very broad philosophical senses, like, is it true that supply side trickle down economics benefits everyone in the society? And some people will say yes, that's true. I think the evidence is that it does not, but ultimately it comes down to what you believe and what your, what the underpinnings of that belief are, what your philosophies are, right? So when I see Truth. I used to just mean the objectively factual, the verifiable, right?

Yucca: right, so sort of like a positivist approach to truth, right? So what is real can be verified empirically, and the best approach to find it is the scientific method. Right? That would be our positivism, yeah.

Mark: that is true of phenomena in the objective universe outside of our skins. The earth is round ish, it's not flat. Doesn't matter what you believe about it, it's still round ish and not flat, right? We have overwhelming evidence that this is the case. And so, it's not 100% sure, because nothing in science is ever 100% sure, but there's so much evidence that it's not considered an open question at this point.

It's considered settled science. It's a fact, right? But when you get to truths like... Justice and morality and good. There are truths in there too, but they're much more rooted in the philosophy and belief system of the person that's expressing them in the culture that they grew up in

Yucca: Mhm.

Mark: than it is about something that can be measured and factually checked. against other alternatives, right?

Yucca: Right. And while we're giving things labels that would be more of a constructivist philosophical approach, right? That those beliefs are constructed from the society that you're part of and your experience and your species and that all of those things are building on each other to create reality or to create truth.

Mark: Right, right. Your, your familial ideological context, all of those, all of those things accrete to form something that more or less hangs together as a, as a philosophical belief system, right? So, that I think is a part of the reason why it becomes very difficult to talk about what is true. Because as you say, the story, the events, May not have happened, but the story can still be true, and that's why myth is so important to us.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: You know, we are the storytelling apes, as we've said before, and telling stories, even science tells stories, science, you

Yucca: Oh, absolutely. That's what it's about. There's very strict rules about how you tell that story, but that's what we're doing. Yeah.

Mark: it tells, you know, chronological procedural steps, events that take place, where, you know, something becomes something else, or something comes into being and, and so it's important for us to recognize, I think, The value that storytelling has for us in the abstract,

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: because just because something is not objectively factual doesn't mean that it can't be emotionally moving morally instructive eye opening in perspective,

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: You know, broadening your, your understanding of the human condition and the life that we live. So, all of those things are, are true, right? And none of them is, you know, can be subjected to a grass, a gas chromatograph.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: You can't, you, you can't measure those kinds of things.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: So, I actually made a little Venn diagram using the wrong tool for making Venn diagrams. I used Microsoft Word earlier today. And I've got four circles. I've got objectively verifiable facts. I've got believed truth, cultural truth, and then what overlaps all three of those is personal reality.

Yucca: How are you distinguishing between the believed and cultural?

Mark: Well, here's a good example. The cultural truth of the United States is Christian.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: It is, you know, that, that is, You know, the cultural truth is what I would call the over culture,

Yucca: Mm

Mark: whereas the individual's personal reality might vary from that, the believed truth. You know, so we don't subscribe to many of the values or or even cosmological beliefs of the cultural truth.

But we do. And so we have our own believed truth.

Yucca: Okay,

Mark: That make sense?

Yucca: does, yeah. So just getting a sense of how you're using those words.

Mark: Yeah. And this, once again is where language is just really not very useful. I mean, having to use all these qualifiers for words, words like truth and real and fact and things like that is, it's frustrating. And because I have spoken a couple of other languages, I know that it's not entirely capturing what I'm trying to say.

Yucca: right.

Mark: We don't have quite the right words in our language to capture what I want to say.

Yucca: So I don't know if any language, some might have words that are, that are better fit, but, but language is just something that we're trying to to, to communicate these ideas, but the ideas are, language isn't enough. Right? And so I think that it's helpful for us to try to articulate it anyways, because that forces us to clarify our thinking around it, right?

We can't just throw a word on it and say that's, that's what it is, right? We have to really think about what are we trying to actually say. And that's tricky, because we're trying to think about, we're trying to think about our own process of thinking.

Mark: Yes.

Yucca: more challenging than it sounds like on the surface and then put down, and think about other people's approach to it, and of course we are just these limited, limited beings, right?

We don't experience everything, we only get to be around for, exist for a very short period of time, and most of the time that we're existing for, we're not even conscious for.

Mark: Right. And our brains constantly edit, massage, invent fill in the blanks. of our perceptual array filter our perceptions in order to create an inner model of the universe that we can interact with, right? And so we can determine that things are true when there's very little evidence that relates to them.

Even, even people conclude that things are objectively true, like ghosts and... Spirits and gods and stuff like that with very little evidence, but they will conclude that it's true because they have experiences that are filtered through their own filtration process that will make what appears to be evidence for them.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: And while I tend to be very, very skeptical about those kinds of processes and skeptical, you know, when I have an experience that strikes me as violating the laws of physics, and I have had a few,

Yucca: Mm

Mark: um, My immediate question is, okay, you know, what went wrong with my sensorium? You know, how am I, how did I misperceive this and misinterpret what it meant?

Others may not do that.

Yucca: Mm

Mark: And one thing that I also wanted to talk about today is the way that we relativistically value certain kinds of truth relative to other kinds of truth, which is a cultural thing, and I think that, particularly in the West, with with our domination of of science and technology and, you know, the, the kind of linear thinking.

What's the word I'm looking for? When you take things apart. Reductionist. That's what I'm looking for. The, we, we tend to,

Yucca: reductionism.

Mark: yes,

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: We tend to place that which can be verified up on kind of a pedestal. As being somehow more important than the other flavors of truth, the other varieties of, of truth

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: that we experience in our lives.

And what's weird about that is that in an actual human life, that's not how it works at all. I mean, yes, when you're young, it's useful to be able to determine, you know, what a fire is so you don't burn yourself with it. But as we get older, the questions that we ask ourselves are, what does this feel like?

Yucca: Mm

Mark: You know, does this feel like the right thing to do? Is this, is this moral? Is this just? Is this kind? Those kinds of questions, and those are things that there is no meter to measure.

Yucca: Mm hmm. Mm. Mm

Mark: So I think, for example, about, like, take the Lord of the Rings, right? This is a semi sacred text to many people you know, there, there are lots of folks out there who read it every year and are, you know, deeply steeped in the whole lore of,

Yucca: My family read it every single year.

Mark: Huh. Huh, you know, just immersed in the beauty of and the drama of Tolkien's imaginary world. Now, Middle earth doesn't really, I hate to break this to you, but Middle earth really doesn't exist to our knowledge in any material sense.

Yucca: Right. It was, you know, loosely based off of Europe, but not in the sense that of an actual book. You can't go and say, oh, you know, Mount Doom is Vesuvius or something, like it doesn't actually line up.

Mark: Right.

Yucca: It was meant more to be spirit, right, than in physical body.

Mark: Right. Right. Right. But it can be profoundly impactful on us emotionally and even in terms of our thinking about Ethical questions, moral questions, you know, what would Galadriel do? So I think that the discounting of the mythological, the, you know, the fictional, but still containing kernels of, of meaningful human knowledge, narratives that we have, And certainly the the the culturally developed principles like fairness and justice and so forth.

I mean, these are very important. And what, even though you can't measure them, they're, it's still very important. And I think that we, especially as atheists, we can get accused of over, overemphasizing

the, the material positivist verifiably, Extant stuff

Yucca: Right.

Mark: relative to the rest.

Yucca: I think there has to be a balance, too, though. Because so many times we have seen people's that reality that approach being valued over some of what's objectively happening, right? We think in ecology, right, there was a cultural belief about predators being bad. And we went and got rid of the predators.

That did not help the ecosystem, though. Objectively, the predators had to be there. Same thing with the grazers, right? We take the grazers out, we take the predators out, the system falls apart. No matter how much you believe about, oh, the poor little deer, Right? Like, the system still falls apart if you take the predators out.

Mark: Absolutely.

Yucca: so I think that it's a tricky balance when looking at and trying to, to figure out how to make choices how to balance what knowledge we're looking at, what, how are we approaching the, the cultural versus some of the objective, and not saying that one is better than the other, but that there are places for each of those.

Mark: Yeah, that, that's exactly where I'm going with this, because what I'm, what I'm expressing is that I think that we need to elevate the value of the mythic, but that's not an excuse for scientific illiteracy.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: You know, we having a good story about the nature of reality is not the same thing as having good knowledge about the nature of reality.

And, unfortunately, there are an awful lot of people out there who simply choose, okay, I'm gonna go with this story, I'm gonna go with this story about, you know, this resurrection and original sin and virgin births and all that kind of stuff, or I'm gonna go with a story about Odin, or I'm gonna go with a story about, you know, anyway, name, name your divinity of choice, right?

Yucca: Well, and I and I would like to say that I don't think it's just within believing in deities or things like that. But people will also do things, stories that don't really line up with current scientific understanding, but is they like their version of, and I see this with a lot of like the really a great aggressive atheists who like they get this idea of like, this is what science says.

And it's like, yeah, that's That's like an 18th century understanding, like, science has progressed, you know, significantly since then, but you're going with this one story and you're deciding that that's what it is and not deviating. Like, that's not, that's not how science works.

Mark: And similarly, many critics of science will point back to scientific thought and statements from a hundred, a hundred and fifty years ago and say, well, science is just racist. It's a colonialist, racist ideology, and that's all that it is, so you can discount it.

Yucca: Yeah. Which is, no, it, the people who were doing science Existed within a cultural context and sometimes abused the tools to their own end yeah. And that's happening today too, right? But our responsibility as informed citizens and as scientists is to not let that happen

Mark: Mm hmm.

Yucca: we see it, hmm.

Mark: Absolutely. And so, as I am so fond of saying, the solution to bad science is more and better science. It's, it's not to throw that whole system out and say, okay, let's just go with the story we made up. That being said, and understanding that You know, deliberately choosing to believe in a world that is populated by invisible beings and has, you know, invisible forces that you can manipulate in order to affect the course of events and stuff like that.

I mean, I can understand why that's attractive in some ways. It's very um, romantic. That's exactly the word. But it doesn't really reflect what we understand. And. My paganism, my spirituality, is deeply rooted in the idea that I want to be here.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: I love the stories, I love the movies, I love the, you know, all that stuff, but I want to be connected with the reality of what this life experience is as best I can and to celebrate and be wowed by that.

Mm

Yucca: Right. And that's something that we've talked about a lot on the podcast, and we should do another Wow and Wonder episode, right, where we share some of that stuff, but that, that our reality is unbelievable. It is amazing. It's whatever scale you look at, it, I mean, just wow.

Mark: Mm hmm.

Yucca: Right? And you can just go down and down into the single drop of water, and all of the complex, incredible interactions and creatures that exist in that single drop of water, all the way up to the scale of the observable universe.

It's just, there's so much, and we could spend every moment of our waking life discovering more and more, and still not even begin to scratch the surface. And it's just... It's incredible. Everything that, every day when I learn a new thing, it's just amazing. It's just, wow, wow, wow. This is, so personally, I don't feel like I need the invisible beings. Like, and if they're, if they're there, that's cool. Like, could, I'd love to discover them. But in the meantime, like, I'm, I'm pretty happy with tardigrades. It's pretty amazing, right?

Mark: they sure are. Yeah, I feel, unsurprisingly, I feel the same way. The... If there are, if there is a supernatural dimension to reality,

Yucca: Mm

Mark: or a dimension in which the kinds of things that theists and believers in magic subscribe to, whether or not it's natural, you know, maybe there are other physical laws that apply in that context or something.

There's little enough evidence for it that I can ignore it. I, I will cheerfully pay attention to the stuff for which there is abundant evidence.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: You know, I don't, I don't have time in this life to go sifting through all of that, much less deal with stuff that may or may not be there. So, I mean, it's, it's a, it's a very sort of pragmatic decision to make as well as a, as a philosophical one, right?

It's just like, well, you know, I wouldn't want to spend a whole lot of time on something that turned out not to be there. So I'm, I'm. I'm just going to look at this gigantic pile of amazing

Yucca: hmm. So, pragmatic critical realism? Is that where we're getting into?

Mark: something like... Yeah, something like. But I do want to say that I think, I mean, part of the problem that we have, I think, with religiosity at least certainly in the United States, is that people are subscribing to religion and then, and then turning off any curiosity and, and deliberately resisting any curiosity from a scientific standpoint.

You know, how does this work? What makes this that, that way? And they just, they've got this. There's a magical wand that they wave at it that said the gods did it, or God did it, and what that enables them to do then is to fill their, their world perspective with stuff that clashes vehemently with the evidence that we have, like people that are climate change deniers and, you know, flat earth folks and, you know, those kinds of things.

Yucca: The second one is the one that always just makes, like, I can understand the first one about the climate change one, right? But the flat earth one, like, like, you, you can see it,

Mark: Only if you believe that we've ever launched anything from earth.

Yucca: but, like, you can see the horizon.

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: Like, that's the, that's the one that I'm like, well, but you can literally see it with your own, like, the climate stuff, you've got to like, you've got to trust that the data that's being collected is, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? But, but you can use your own eyes to verify that the Earth is not flat, that it's not spherical, right?

And that's the one that I've just... It gets me. I'm just like, it's just, y'all, this is not,

Mark: I,

Yucca: that you're saying that you don't want to trust all of these, like, crazy, that we're all in on some huge conspiracy to, like, trick you and make Photoshop documents and stuff, but, like, you can do the trick with a laser and, like, shine it over distance, you can see through the horizon when you're at the sea, like, you can go up in an airplane, like, you know, it's, you can see it.

Mark: yeah. I think that what Flat Earthism is about fundamentally is just a rejection of science as a whole.

Yucca: Yeah, and getting attention.

Mark: yes. Yes. The whole idea of expertise, right? Like, I'm not going to believe those people. I'm going to do my own research, and my own research involves, you know, digging two pages deep on Google as opposed to spending years studying meticulously the, the, the data and the analysis that's been applied by people who are very knowledgeable in these subjects

Yucca: For thousands of years, by the way,

Mark: For thousands of years, yes.

I mean, not, not just in the context of Western laboratories and stuff, but I mean, indigenous people know how all the plants work because they did trial and error and experimented and figured it out,

Yucca: yeah,

Mark: you know, it's, the, the idea that the scientific method is something that doesn't belong to all people just doesn't hold up very well in my,

Yucca: no, the scientific method is a, is based on human, the way that humans instinctually, all humans think, right? It is, it is grown out of that and there are, there's a specific Western tradition, right? But that is one tradition. Out of the thousands, right, that led to, that just gave names, right, like, okay, we've got some Greek names that we're using, but it's not like, you know, here in the Americas, we weren't using those same methods, right?

Mark: right, right. And, mm hmm. Now, now we get into the trouble about, well, what do we mean by science? Do we mean the scientific method? Do we mean the accumulated body of knowledge that has, that has been accreted by the scientific method? Or do we mean institutions that that are scientific? And the institutions certainly have been, they, they've had their problems.

Yucca: absolutely,

Mark: they, they've been informed by cultural biases and,

Yucca: And they still are,

Mark: And they still are. And in some cases, they've been influenced by where their funding comes from

Yucca: yes,

Mark: which is another problem. And, you know, I think it's important for all of us to acknowledge that and to apply critical thinking and skepticism to what we see.

But critical thinking and skepticism doesn't mean I reject the opinion of all experts,

Yucca: yeah, yeah,

Mark: or I'm going to find experts who confirm what I already wanted to believe. What it means is Having knowledge about how methodology works, understanding what actually, being able to parse out whether a conclusion that's drawn in a paper or a statement actually has any meaning.

Coherence with the,

The findings?

Yucca: you would be really surprised at how often they don't.

Mark: I wouldn't.

Yucca: Well you get,

Mark: But, but I think many would. Yeah,

Yucca: many, and there's certain fields that it's more of an issue in than others, but you read the conclusion, then you look at the data and you go, that's not no

If you were my student, I'd fail you. How did you get published?

Mark: you didn't, you didn't prove that. And then usually there's a sort of clickbaity headline in the title of the paper or certainly the press release that is sent out about the paper that then further distorts the conclusion that was drawn by the paper.

Yucca: So yeah, , the science journalism is an area with some real challenges. Right now and there's so much that goes out there. It's just like, that's just not, it's, they're just falsehoods. This is not what was said in that paper, first of all and, you know, just, so I, I, I understand where some of the frustration with the science as the institution is coming from.

But then it just gets, and I think that the way that social media is structured right now doesn't help it because it will, people kind of get wrapped up in this, these groups that are forming identities around objecting to science or othering some particular group or some, you know, kind of extreme position or You know, things that are just not supported by the science or are being represented as science, which really aren't scientific, get incorporated into the mainstream.

And people go along with these beliefs about, oh, this is what the science says, and it's not.

Mark: Right.

Yucca: me a single paper. Nope, you

Mark: Well, and, and you, you, you complicate and extrapolate that when you have leaders who are hucksters, who, who articulate these falsehoods, like from the pulpit,

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: and encourage everybody to disbelieve in anthropogenic climate change, encourage people to, you know, not to believe science, not to believe in evolution, these kinds of things.

Yucca: And then you have got folks using a lot of that for whatever their particular platform is. When it's not, you know, where they're making certain claims or exaggerations that isn't really supported by the science.

Mark: Well, one thing that, one thing that I have thought about recently is that we really need to make a distinction between skepticism, which is a process of inquiry, and cynicism, which is just the desire to tear everything down that isn't consistent with what you wanted to believe in the first place.

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: And there's an awful lot of people out there including in the atheist community, many of them, who call themselves skeptics, and what they really are is just cynics. You know, they're, they're not even trying to have an open minded inquiry into what's likely to be true, so much as they are just trying to tear down everything that, that they don't like.

In our lives. In our, you know, in our entertainments, in our in our politics, in our in our religious rituals, we, we do something that we often call suspension of disbelief. But I think what it is more is suspension of skepticism. We choose to turn off that analytical lens that says, like, have you ever sat next to somebody in a movie and they're like, no, the, that light angle isn't right, this was done with CGI.

You know, they're, they're constantly, like, breaking the, the spell. Of the movie? Very frustrating.

Yucca: My partner won't watch sci fi with me for that reason.

Mark: oh,

Yucca: I have to keep my mouth shut. I'm like, nope! Gravity doesn't work like that! Stop it!

Mark: I, I mean,

Yucca: not to do it in a movie theater, though.

Mark: okay, well, good, good. Then we can still be friends.

Yucca: My lip, but...

Mark: all right. So, suspen suspension of skepticism. I do that when I do my, my atheopagan rituals. I certainly do that, you know. In that moment, I, Who am I? You know, I'm a wizard. I'm a, I'm a manipulator of grand forces in the world, you know, who's making, you know, who's expressing wonder and awe and gratitude for this amazing life and putting out that I hope that these things will happen in the world.

And that doesn't have to be undercut by all the little niggling voices that might try to cynically suck all the juice out of that moment, right? You know, I don't go to the Grand Canyon and think, well, it's only a hole in the ground.

Yucca: Huh. Mm

Mark: That doesn't, it doesn't feed me in any substantive way. And so I think that the, the excessive elevation of the technological and the scientific in certain circles anyway I mean, it may not be quite as bad as the elevation of uninformed religiosity, but it's still.

Generally, you know, reason, rationality science are, generally in our society, they're viewed by important people, by the, the people that are, that are in the newspaper and are telling us the news and all that kind of stuff as being important. the mythic, and the mythic is not given that as much.

Yucca: Right. I think there's irony in that, though, that I think that there's overall very poor scientific literacy within our culture,

Mark: Yes,

Yucca: right, and so we do elevate that, you know, the science and the rationality, but that I think that we do so in a way that puts it more in that, like,

Mark: mythic?

Yucca: in the mythic box, right,

Mark: Yeah, because we don't understand how it works.

Yucca: Yeah, so we just like, you know, switched what the particular thing is that we're being told to believe.

And said, oh, it's because it's science, right? But without really understanding, without understanding science in any of the three ways that we just used the term, right?

Mark: yes. And certainly there is little effort to foster scientific literacy in the United States, certainly. I think that's less true in some other places. And so we're kind of forced to treat science as this magical black box that answers questions for us and that technologies fall out of that we then get to use and buy and enjoy.

Yucca: fonts and colors associated with it, and yes, and you know, beep boops and sounds like that, right?

Mark: Huh. Yeah, absolutely. And we insist on that, right? We, there's a particular kind of look and feel to a computer that will sell a computer, and there's a look and feel that will not sell a computer, and the people that make computers know very well what the difference is.

Yucca: Right? And if you are... If you're a college kid going into one of those fields, you are expected to look and behave a certain way and,

Mark: Right,

Yucca: Not another way, right? And that gets taught to us from when we're itty bitty.

Mark: Yeah. Yep. Well, and, and this is part of the challenge, because we have accumulated enough knowledge now that no one can Encompass all of it.

Yucca: Mm

Mark: It's just not possible within a lifetime in one human brain. So you kind of have to specialize, especially if you're really going to go into a subject, you have to specialize.

But for a general scientific literacy, it's... It's a work of many years. It's a work of a lifetime, honestly. I mean, you, because there's always new stuff being discovered. So, you know, I'm always reading sciencedailyandnature. com and scientificamerican. com just to kind of keep up with the very tiny crust on the surface of all the stuff that's being done out there.

Yucca: Hmm. This is actually the subject that, assuming that they approve it, that I'm doing my dissertation in for my doctorate in STEM education is... Scientific literacy, public literacy, yeah.

Mark: cool.

Yucca: So there's not as much research in the area as you would think there would be.

Mark: Huh.

Yucca: When I started looking into it, I was like, oh, this is, this is gonna be a saturated field.

But it's not. There's very little.

Mark: Well, new paths to scientific literacy would certainly be welcome. I mean, I know that you're a very strong critic of the traditional American education system. I am too. But the question is, how then do people absorb

Yucca: Right. And I'm definitely looking at it from the...

Mark: Ah.

Yucca: So, because we do most of our learning as adults,

Mark: Mm hmm.

Yucca: right? Certainly, most kids in this country go through a school system, and there's a lot of people working on that, and, you know, we could do a whole episode on that. critiques that I have of the system of school itself and how we've confused that with education and, you know, what the purpose of it is, but as a, as a scientist, I learned a few things in school, right?

I learned some, how to do some processes and things like that, but the vast majority of what I know happened just because I was interested in the topic and just continued to learn it. And I think that most people learn. That way as well.

Mark: Yes. Yeah, that's certainly true for me. I mean, you know, it's all been about deep dives into stuff that I, that I'm curious about. I mean, one of the atheopagan principles is curiosity, understanding that there's always more to be learned, right? And learning is a wonderful process. It's a pleasurable process. It's not only that it informs you more, but yeah. It's, it's joyful.

Yucca: yeah.

Mark: And joyful things are things we're in favor of. So,

Yucca: Right.

Mark: go out and learn something today.

Yucca: Well, learning is something that we continue to do no matter what. We are humans and that's part of what we do, but we can be intentional about it or unintentional about it, right? So

Mark: Yeah. So, talking about truth and reality

Yucca: you did, before we started recording, you did, we were talking a little bit about quantum mechanics and you said you wanted to touch on the idea that measurement

Mark: oh yes, yes, this is,

Yucca: how we, I don't know how to tie this in

Mark: You can hear the exasperation in my voice as, you know, when this comes up because there are so many people. There are people in the pagan community, people in the New Age community, people in in, you know, various other kind of religious communities for whom quantum mechanics, which they usually call quantum physics, is a

Yucca: in for magic?

Mark: Yes, yes, it's a, you know, you, you wave your hands vaguely in a gesture at this, and what you mean is we don't understand it and therefore it is the cause of the thing I want to believe in. And one of the, one of the experiments and findings in quantum mechanics that is most misinterpreted is the idea that an observation affects The, the, the decoherence of a superposition particle, particle, wavicle phenomenon,

Yucca: Mm

Mark: um, and that's not what observation means in physics.

What an observation means in physics is a measurement, and a measurement necessarily requires an interaction, and that's what causes decoherence. That's what causes A quantum body to be affected is interaction with its environment. So it's not that your consciousness is changing anything in the quantum world.

We have no evidence ever that that is true. It's that in the act of trying to figure out what one of those particles is doing, you have to interact with it. Soon as you interact with it, it decoheres.

Yucca: right.

Mark: then, you can take a measurement, but You're not measuring the thing that you originally were reaching towards with your measuring stick, you're measuring what it became after the interaction.

Yucca: So let me give a kind of an analogy on a larger scale. So I want to know, I want to see where something is, right? Well, in order for me to see it, Light has to bounce off of it, and that has to go into my eye. So it had to interact, that photon had to interact with it in order for me to be able to see it, right?

So that's on a bigger scale, but that's going to apply on our small scale as well.

Mark: Exactly, exactly. And unfortunately, there was quite a lot of gobbledygook published about quantum mechanics early in its history, which has sort of, Mucked up the waters and created a lot more of this sense of, wow, quantum mechanics is very weird and mysterious. Well, it is weird and mysterious, but it's not nearly as weird and mysterious as a lot of people seem to think it is.

We've, you know, we've learned a good bit about it. The big mystery, of course, is where's the theory of everything? How do you get classical physics, you know, relativistic physics, to, to work with quantum mechanics because they clash?

Yucca: right.

Mark: So, that's the big mystery. There's a lot of very smart people working on it, and maybe someday we'll know the answer to that.

Yucca: It's delightful because each of those different approaches are very very good at explaining specific Phenomena, but completely fall apart when trying to explain other ones, so we know they're both wrong,

Mark: Yeah,

Yucca: right? And that's delightful, that's really fun to think

Mark: We know that both of those systems are flawed, and to the degree that we understand them at all, we understand that they don't mesh. Very well, they contradict one another.

Yucca: But they are still useful,

Mark: Oh yeah,

Yucca: right? And this happens in physics all over the place, you know, we're going to calculate the path of the baseball that I throw, and I'm not, like, I'm not including all of the different Little pieces of information. I'm not going to get it exactly, but I'm going to get it close enough to what I need for it to be useful, and I'm just going to use, do what I need for it to be useful, right?

Mark: So

Yucca: I was going to say,

Mark: oh go ahead,

Yucca: what you were saying with the, you know, a lot of the gobbledygook that's been published about it, there's also a lot of things That, that I come across, especially when teaching, where there's a lot of confusion between what are some really cool ideas, like when people talk about like multiverses or things like that, that, like those are very interesting ideas, but they're not science.

Right? And there's a, you know, and do we know whether string theory is correct, or things like, you know, or a few months ago, you know, the, speaking about the bad reporting, saying that, you know, oh, scientists created a black hole, and it could, like, no, they didn't. There was a computer program that they ran with, conditions that were slightly different than our universe, in which they were able to simulate and show that a black hole would...

form under these conditions. Right, like, so, there's a lot of stuff out there that is science fiction that may one day become science, right? But it's not science until it's falsifiable, right? Can't falsify, but it's not science right now, and it gets treated like it is, right? And it's and it, it can be so, so confusing.

Mark: yeah, exactly, and when you have a population of people who, to begin with, aren't very scientifically literate, but are looking for an answer. Kind of mysterious forces that might serve as an explanation for things that they choose to believe in. Well, quantum mechanics is a pretty good candidate because it has a little weirdness about it.

And it's, it's at a scale that's invisible to us with the naked eye, so we don't actually have to deal with it at all. We can just sort of use it as this placeholder for the magic thing that I wish existed.

Yucca: And there are a few things that, when you hear about, they kind of do sound a little... Magick y, you know, quantum tunneling sounds pretty magick y to me, right, when you think about it, or you're like, okay, yeah entanglement, that sounds pretty

Mark: yeah, Bell's theorem you know, the, the simultaneous snapping into identical spin of particles that are separated by parsecs, right? So, yes, I mean, there are things that are, that are mysterious and weird, and they, they point in the direction of new learning that we need to do,

Yucca: yeah.

Mark: If the data's good, because it's possible that our instruments are not perfect, too,

Yucca: Or that we're, that we're missing something, that we're really, we're interpreting something in the wrong way,

Mark: Ah

Yucca: is always possible. So, something that I think a lot about is are you familiar with the idea of the ether? It's luminiferous aether. Okay, so we used to think, it was quite common to think that there had to be some sort of substance that light was traveling through, because all the other waves that we knew of went through something, right?

Sound goes through the air, ocean waves go through the water, so what's light going through? So there was this assumption that there was this something permeating. And I'm trying to remember the names of the two gentlemen who set this up, I'm going to look this up real quick so that I get the name of it right.

So, okay. The Michelson Morley experiment. Right? So, it was trying to measure the relative motion of the Earth in the aether. And they did it over and over again, and they kept not finding the aether, because we don't think it exists today. Right? And they said, okay, maybe we need to make it bigger and bigger and bigger, maybe, you know, it's just too small.

That experiment is... The setup for it is almost identical to how LIGO works, which is the gravitational wave observatory. So, if we had somehow been able to make it large enough, that it would have been able to pick up gravitational waves, we would have interpreted the gravitational waves at the time as being evidence for the

Mark: Or the ether.

Yucca: So, who knows, today, what we've found that we're interpreting as being evidence for one thing, which is, is something completely different. And we're just, we're going off in some direction, and we're totally wrong about it. You know, science is a self correcting process, so at some point, hopefully, we'll circle back around and correct it, but I personally suspect that most of what we think we know we're wrong about, but we don't really have a way of knowing that yet, so. But that particular example just delights me that, you know, if we had been able to make it four kilometers long, we would have detected gravitational waves instead of ether,

Mark: Huh.

Yucca: so.

Mark: On a completely unrelated note ether is a very useful trope in steampunk

Yucca: It

Mark: design and fiction and all that kind of stuff. My partner and I did a an etheric explorer's ball party,

Yucca: Ooh,

Mark: party that was so much fun. This must be 10, 12 years ago now, but oh, God, what a good time.

Yucca: I think I've seen some photos of you in your outfit

Mark: Oh yes, Commander Basterton,

Yucca: Yes, oh, that's a great name.

Mark: conquered Mars for the Empire.

Yucca: Mmm,

Mark: Yeah, Raleigh Houghton Basterton whose men call him Really Rotten Basterton.

Yucca: that's great.

Mark: Yeah, pretty fun. I have, I still have some of the business cards. You know, Commander of Her Majesty's Imperial Ship Improbable.

Yucca: Mmm, that's a good one. Yeah, well there's a lot of, there's a lot of good material for sci fi out of all this stuff.

Mark: Yeah, yeah. And once again, that's the mythic. I mean, one of the things that's great about speculative fiction generally, science fiction and fantasy, is that it, it speculates, right? It it reaches out into the future or into alternate realities that. Put human or human like figures into different contexts and and then conjectures about well, what would it be like?

What, what would happen? What, you know, what, where would we go? And those are wonderful rides to take and they're often very illuminating. When you, when you take those rides and you learn something more about humanity itself by seeing it reflected in that kind of a mirror.

Yucca: mm hmm, mm hmm.

Mark: So I guess, you know, because we've been talking for a while now I guess to sum up, I both feel that we need a lot more emphasis on the verifiably, factually, objectively true in the way of increasing scientific literacy and curiosity, but we also need to elevate the mythic and the emotional and the passionate, you know, there's so much discounting of, I mean, you know, arguably the rudest thing you can say to someone is you're just being emotional, right?

Yeah, I'm being emotional, I'm angry!

Yucca: yes, which is so interesting when we, because it's one of the things that And of course, other animals, turning out, seem to share most of the, the closer they are to us, the more things they seem to share with us but that's one of the things that we pride ourselves about, oh, that's being so human, right?

And then, oh, look at you, shame on you for being so human

Mark: yeah,

Yucca: but I, I think that we, that it would really benefit us to focus more on thinking about thinking.

Mark: yes.

Yucca: Whether that, whichever type of thinking or the purpose, but just being more conscious of, what our beliefs are, why we have those, and, you know, learning to reflect upon those.

Mark: Well, yes I mean, Socrates, right? Know thyself. Self inquiry is, for one thing, it's an amazing journey. Because each of us really is unique and you will discover unique and amazing things about yourself, right? And since we don't come with an operating manual, it can be very helpful to know what your predilections are, what your prejudices are, what your confirmation biases are and to work

Yucca: that you want to change them, You've got to know what they are to be able to make those, to direct the change of them. They may change over time, they probably will, but if you want to influence where they go, you need to be aware of them.

Mark: need to know what they are. Yeah, it's, it's the full denial of inquiry that I think is the... Really the pernicious problem that we contend with, and it's not just among, say, fundamentalist, you know, evangelical Christians. It's, it's among some in the pagan community as well, you know, who know what they know and are not asking questions anymore.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: I'm, I don't know, I can't stop asking questions. I'm just too curious.

Yucca: Yep. Well, this is fun. I think this is a topic we should circle back around to in the future. And I think it'll, it, it's related to so many things we talk about, but it's important to think about, you know, what is, what do we mean when we say real and true and reality and, and what's all that stuff?

Mark: Yeah. Because it's, it's at the core of everything, right? I mean, we act based on what we believe is real. You know, what we believe is likely to be the, the truth of the outcome that we project. We, we get ourselves scrambled and confused most when we do something and we get a completely random response that we can't provide.

Doesn't fit our projection of what we thought was going to happen,

Yucca: Right,

Mark: So knowing what we believe and knowing why we came to believe it becomes very important.

Yucca: right. And if we want to change it,

Mark: Yes.

Yucca: how do we, knowing that it's there so that we can, we can choose and have that, that agency in our own lives, and not just be, you know, being blown along. The path. All

Mark: It's a, it's a choose your own adventure, either that or you can just be washed around.

Yucca: Just trademarked, by

Mark: Is it?

Yucca: the way. They yeah, the company goes after people for using that. So it has to be choose your own story, or write your own adventure. So.

Mark: Oh, man. Let's not get started

Yucca: All right. Well, Mark, this was fun.

Mark: that's a whole other topic. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Alright, well, it's great spending time with you as always, folks. It's great spending time with you, Yucca. And we'll see you next week. Yeah.

View Details

Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com.

Inner Critic episode: https://thewonderpodcast.podbean.com/e/the-inner-critic-1612153312/

The Jewel ritual: https://atheopaganism.org/2015/03/05/the-jewel-a-solitary-ritual/

S4E26 TRANSCRIPT:

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Yucca: Welcome back to The Wonder: Science Based Paganism. I'm your host, Yucca,

Mark: And I'm Mark.

Yucca: and today we are talking about psychological freedom. So, to do your practice, to feel, to be vulnerable, all of that good stuff.

Mark: Yeah, because this is so often a challenge for folks who are first coming into naturalistic pagan or atheopagan practice, especially if they're deconstructing from other religions that are much more about conformity and obedience.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: There's that feeling of being watched. There's this sense of shame about either doing it wrong or that you're doing it all at all.

There's

Yucca: Just that judgment, all of that. That icky judgment all over the place.

Mark: it's just a real minefield, and so we wanted to talk about it and make some suggestions and just normalize that this happens, right? This is, yeah, this, this is a real thing. There's nothing wrong with you if you're feeling it. And maybe there's some things we can suggest that might make it a little better.

Yucca: Right. Because this is something that comes up a lot in different words but a thing that people deal with, right?

Mark: hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Especially when they're first entering the practice, there are a lot of people who are like, Well, I don't do rituals, but I go for walks in nature. And that's fine. That's perfectly fine. If your experience of a ritual is going out for a walk in nature and having that kind of communion, there's nothing wrong with that, and you don't have to do anything else if you don't want to.

But there is something about investing a place in a moment. in deliberate psychological manipulation of yourself in order to get freer and happier and wiser.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: And that really is what our, our path is about. And there are so many voices in our society and especially in the mainstream religions that discourage you from being freer and happier and wiser.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: That we We want to help facilitate movement in that direction.

Yucca: Right. So there's a lot of different things that could be contributing to this. One of the things may be the critic voice. And we've, it was quite a few years ago but I think one of our best episodes where we talked about the critic voice, and I'll put the link to that in the show notes if anybody hasn't listened to it before but that critic, that, that voice has a, a function, right?

It, it came about trying to protect you and there, there may be some of that happening when you are When it's, okay, so, when you get a wound, let's say you get a cut it, when you need to clean that cut out, you need to do it, because otherwise you're gonna have dirt and sticks and whatever it is inside that wound, but it hurts, and so you have this instinctual response of pulling your arm away, not putting your arm under the water and washing it out, and sometimes that critic is Is the, that instinct to pull the arm away and not let that happen, protect, stop it, don't let it happen.

So I think that's going on to a certain extent, and then also, we aren't, we don't really learn in our culture how to really check in with ourselves and be really honest with ourselves, especially when it is the vulnerable. Right? We're taught to just kind of look the other way and, you know, man up or, you know, whatever the particular phrase is for whatever your gender or culture is, but it's, it's like, we are encouraged to be soft and be okay with the parts of us that are soft.

Mark: Right, that's absolutely true. Particularly for men, but, but, it's true for everybody.

Yucca: Right. That's why I use the man up expression,

Mark: Right.

Yucca: Which, you know, it happens with women as well, but it, but it seems like the pressure is, looking from the outside, it seems like the pressure on, on men and, and young boys especially is much, much stronger

Mark: Yeah, the vice that is applied to those that identify as men is so compressing that the only emotions permissible are anger and the only response that's available is violence. It's just really, really challenging to step out of that and say, no, actually, my feelings are really hurt.

Yucca: And I am a whole human who has all of these feelings. All of these things are human and I, I get to be and have all of these things too.

Mark: right. And it's ironic to me because there are many who point to ancient cultures like in the Norse Eddas or in Greek mythology, and there are men who weep in these stories. Right? Who, who are, you know, devastated by events that happen in the stories, and they weep, and somehow that just kind of gets ignored in the modern drawing forth of these,

Yucca: Right. Well, I think it ties back around to something that you mentioned at the beginning about the more controlling religions.

Mark: Yes,

Yucca: are, the religions are part of a larger framework for, of culture and that we, we're, We have a lot of cultures right now that are really on there being a group that controls another group.

Mark: yes, yes. The, the largest and most powerful religions in the world, and this is not just Christianity, it is Christianity, but it's also Islam, and it's also Buddhism, and it's also Hinduism, is Orient, are oriented around obedience,

Yucca: Right.

Mark: around supplication to what we believe is a mythical, supernatural presence,

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: and And self flagellation in so many ways, you know, I'm unworthy, I'm a sinner, all those things.

And emerging from that, which is, let me just say right now, a tremendously courageous act.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: We see people coming into our, our community who, I mean, we have people that were pastors. They come into our community that were not only, you know, following that, that path, but had all eyes of a congregation on them to encourage them to toe the line.

And they said, this is wrong. I'm gone. I'm leaving.

Yucca: Wow.

Mark: And that is extraordinary. It is just extraordinarily courageous. But it carries a lot of baggage with it. Just because you say, I'm not going to do this anymore, doesn't mean that its frameworks and its mental habits don't come with you. And so,

Yucca: got a lifetime of habits and unconscious beliefs. Mm

Mark: exactly, exactly. And so, we've been talking in the Facebook community recently about, for example, that sense of embarrassment at being observed while doing your atheopagan practice. And so, You know, even having someone in the house or just kind of, you know, it's like a soap bubble when it's new, right?

It's just so fragile and precious and you don't want it destroyed by critical eyes and the critical voice in your head. And that is absolutely a legitimate experience and feeling, and I want to start there.

Yucca: Absolutely.

Mark: you're, there's nothing wrong with you for feeling those feelings. It absolutely makes sense,

Yucca: they're there. They're, they came about for a reason. Yeah.

Mark: especially if you are accustomed to being in a religious community where everybody watches everybody else to make sure they're conforming,

Yucca: Right? Mm-hmm.

Mark: which is not ours. That's, that's just not what we're doing. It's radical, and it's different than the mainstream, but it's what we're about, and if that's what you want, then we welcome you and encourage you to, to find your path. Find, find what's meaningful for you. I can guarantee that there is no focus in the world, no alter in the world. I use the word focus that looks like mine and that there is no spiritual practice of athe paganism that looks like mine. And that's great because

Yucca: Even though you've literally published books on it.

Mark: yes, absolutely, because I want it to work for the people that choose to embrace it.

I don't want them to do it like me. I want them to do it like them.

Yucca: Right. So starting with the acknowledgement that that, that, that feeling, that soap bubble feeling is, is valid, right? Mm-hmm.

Mark: Absolutely real. And so the question is then, well, what do we do with that? Right? And Especially when you're in the context of having had a lot of pain, pain of separation, pain of castigation by former community members who call you an apostate or a heretic or whatever it is, an infidel, whatever they label you. It's really easy to feel like I just, I can't do this either. I just. I just have to wander away and just have this kind of very gray, unexceptional life, because when I try to be me... It just sets off all these alarm bells that are really, really hard. And I think this is certainly true of our marginalized community members.

They understand what that is like. You know, our queer members, they understand how hard it is to stand up against the mainstream culture and say, Sorry, this is who I am. I'm going to be me, and you're going to deal with it. And that's how it's going to be.

Yucca: Well, and especially when you're figuring out who me is, right? When you, when you got the sense of, I know that's not me, but I also still am figuring out what me is. Is and trying to have that, the, the space to do that and giving yourself the grace for that in the face of this very oppressive trying to, what's the word?

Force conform, conforming on you.

Mark: Yeah

Yucca: yeah. It's a, it's a challenge, right?

Mark: Yeah, and our impulse as humans is to move away from discomfort,

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: and that's... Natural and normal, I mean, you know, as mammals, our thing is generally move away from the pain, as animals generally move away from the pain, move toward the pleasure, right? But that said,

Yucca: 600 million years later because of it.

Mark: exactly, it worked really well, but humans are complex, and we have choices that go beyond the simple animal choices that are built into us, right?

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: and so what that means is that at first, you may have to simply say to yourself, this is going to be uncomfortable. This is, this is not going to be completely, completely okay with me because it's going to churn up all this sentiment that's been laid down at the bottom of my self.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: that's gonna bring up experiences and pain and memories and all that kind of stuff, and you just have to kind of sit with it.

And my recommendation for the first thing to do to address that is ritual activity around self esteem. There's a ritual called the Jewel that I've referred to before that's on the Atheopaganism blog, and it'll be in my forthcoming book. The, and we'll, we'll put a link to it in the show notes. And what it's about fundamentally is looking yourself in the mirror and realizing this is a good person, this is a person of value, who's unique, an absolutely unique snowflake of the universe.

There's never been one like you, there will never be one like you, and that's terrific. Everything about that is wonderful. And so, living in the fullness of that, walking through the world with your shoulders back, understanding that you belong here, that's, that's the mindset that we're hoping to get to.

Took me a long, long time to get to it, and sometime I'll tell the story about all the things that were necessary for that to happen because I came out of a very abusive, very difficult childhood. But having gotten there, having gotten to the point where there's a core self esteem of just knowing that I am a person of value, no matter what happens around me, no matter what somebody says to me, it changes everything. makes you able to make choices that are in your own best interest.

Yucca: Mm hmm. Hm. Mm. Mm hmm. Yeah. And working on that, doing one ritual about that, don't expect yourself to just switch some, flip some switch, right? This is a continual process, this is, this is a lifelong thing but the process itself is worth it.

Mark: Yeah. We live in a very instant culture. We want immediate gratification for things. You know, I'm hungry, give me the fast food. I'm bored, give me the entertainment. And so it's easy to just sort of assume that There must be some kind of a magical activity or pill or something that can make everything okay. that's not the world. The world is sometimes things are work.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: And if you can just stay steady and love yourself enough to know that you're worth it, and gather community around yourself that you can see yourself reflected in their eyes and know how valuable you are. Then the change can come.

Yucca: So, first, doing some work on the self esteem and that, just that recognition that you know what you're doing is, you've got a right to be doing it, right? This is, it's, you get to do the things that are going to help you. To feel better and work towards your goals and visions and, and that's, that's okay, right?

Mark: yes. And, I mean, I don't know how you feel about this, Yucca, but I go pretty far with my understanding of what that kind of thing means. I want people to be safe, I want them to make sound decisions for themselves, but sometimes, in order to get where they're going, it involves drug experiences, or periods of promiscuity, or something.

Something, right? Sometimes you have to just kind of break the boundaries of your self definition

Yucca: Mm

Mark: so that you can become the butterfly that you're in the process of becoming,

Yucca: hmm. Mm hmm. I think

Mark: I'm not recommending either of those things. I'm not saying you should go, you should go right out and find some drugs.

That's not what I'm saying, but what I'm saying is the moral constraints. Of the mainstream culture that lives around us, they're not built for your happiness.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: They're not built for anything other than your obedience.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: don't have to do that.

Yucca: I think for each person, it's going to be a really, really, really individualized path, right? And so for some people, maybe some of like what you were talking about with some sort of substance that might be really helpful, but it may also for someone else, simply the act of, of stepping out of that obedience is a, is just a radical, Act,

Mark: Mm hmm.

Yucca: So I think it's really going to depend on, on each person, but in both of those cases I think it's really important to look at what you need in this situation to make it safe for you, right? So yes, breaking through something on that real emotional level, but also remembering that you are a human being, you are a squishy little breakable animal on the physical side with pretty complex tangled up messy emotions on the inside.

And that you've got to take care of yourself and not damage yourself in that process.

Mark: And that's, that's why I said safety is paramount. And it's, it's tricky, it's paradoxical, because sometimes being a little unsafe is kind of the thing that you need in order to break out of the boundaries of your solid little life. But, but not,

Yucca: your limits, right?

Mark: right, right,

Yucca: That's just to go on a slight tangent with that as a parent, with kids, letting them make Take risks, right? Because they have to learn to be able to do that. They have to learn what the, you know, if they're gonna climb that tree, or they're gonna do that thing, right?

They, they need to be able to figure out where their body's limits are, where they're, all of that. And if you don't take those risks, and you don't get a little bit hurt, then it really stunts you in the process, but at the same time, your job is to make sure they don't die, right? And so, I mean, I think sometimes it's helpful to think about ourselves in the same way that we might want to, we need to parent ourselves sometimes, and that, and recognize that, yeah, we've got to take those risks but we also need to recognize that, okay, if you're going to climb the tree, don't climb it over the sharp, Rocks and the cliff.

Like, choose a different tree, okay? Practice off a different tree than the one that's gonna, like, be a 50 foot drop.

Mark: I think that's really well put yeah, because as I say, it's this. Walking a knife edge between pushing your boundaries, being a little transgressive, and also keeping yourself safe. And that can be really challenging for people, but, I mean, we're talking about edge cases now, but in some cases it's just...

Lighting incense when somebody else is in the house, you know, or playing your ritual music loud enough that your roommate will know that you're doing something witchy in there. And, and getting to the point where it doesn't matter to you anymore, where you're like, yeah, this is something I do. I own this.

It's good for me, and I'm proud of it, and you're welcome to your opinion, but it doesn't have a lot of traction with me.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: Unless you think it's great. I'll let it in if you think it's great.

Yucca: Yeah I really, I really appreciate that. And there was something in there that you said about, you know, we're talking about edge cases. I want to circle back and say that another thing that we tend to do in our culture is to downplay our own experiences and say, oh, you know, I don't have it that bad.

Right? I've, you know, oh, I'm not worthy of this sympathy because, you know, there are, you know, there are children in Africa or whatever, right? And no, what you are going through is what you are going through. You don't have control over other people's experiences, just yours. Right? And whatever you're going through, it's valid.

Mark: It counts.

Yucca: counts. You count. Those experiences count. There's not a, there's not a trauma that's too little or a trauma that's too big. It's, it's you. And you got this.

Mark: Yeah. And, and people that have repeated to you that you don't really have anything to cry about, those were not your friends. They, they were not your allies, they were not, they were not telling you what you really needed to hear. Because,

Yucca: Well, they, they may have been someone who loved you, but was, was deeply wounded themselves as well. Right? That in most cases, people probably weren't trying to hurt you in that, but that, That they also didn't know. That was what had happened to them, and that was how they were dealing with the trauma.

Right.

Mark: Right. And it bears saying, you know, to zoom out to the 30, 000 foot level and look down, this whole thing about being, being yourself as an individual, it's been evolving steadily since the 18th century, but it really only took off about 50 years ago.

Yucca: Mm

Mark: And so our generational wounds that we inherit. from the behavior of our parents and our grandparents and all that.

They're very real.

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: You know, those, certainly, parents and grandparents of my generation were not taught to grow.

Yucca: Mm

Mark: They were not taught to to have kindness with themselves. And so, to the degree that you have suffering around this kind of issue, it's not your fault. You know, this, a lot of this stuff just rolls downhill, and it's slowly, slowly eroding out because we're getting better.

Yucca: hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Mark: And that's the good news, right? We're getting better. All of us, collectively, we're getting better. And what atheopaganism is about, in part, is getting better.

Yucca: Right. I love it. I'm glad that we're doing this.

Mark: yeah, I need to... Me too. It I feel so much freer in this community, even to stumble and fall down than I have in any other context in my life. And, you know, sometimes I, I'm wrong and I get, I get called out for being wrong, and that's great. There's nothing wrong with it. It's... It's fine. But most of the time, what I hear from this community, and what I see other people hearing in this community, and what I keep saying in this community to other people is, You're great.

You rock. I want you to be, you just keep doing you, because you are cool. And, I mean, that's how I feel about you, Yucca.

Yucca: Likewise, Mark.

Mark: It shouldn't be so damn hard to learn to be happy. But it is, and this is the work before us. Right? So, so let's get to it, you know? Let's... Let's take those walks in nature, and do those rituals, and listen to the music that makes us dance, and do the things that make us happy, and kiss the ones that we love, and

Yucca: And live.

Mark: be those great people in the world, you know? I mean, all of us have met somebody that just shone like a beacon, you know? They just had that glow about them. And if you're truly at peace with yourself, and you truly want the best for others around you, That'll be you,

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: you know. As quiet a person as you may be, or as loud a person as you may be.

It'll still be you.

Yucca: Yeah. And the process of becoming that person is wonderful as well.

Mark: stories, oh my god. Yeah, all the, all the adventures, all the, all the internal transformations, the revelations. I remember once... I must have been 25, something like that, and I had terrible self esteem and a critic's voice that was louder than anything else in my head. It was, I mean, I was just chronically depressed and self destructive and, I mean, I cut myself and I stepped out into traffic suddenly and I smoked cigarettes and I just did all these things. And I suddenly had this brain revelation one day that, If I was really a bad person, it wouldn't matter to me that I'm a bad person.

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: I wouldn't care.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: fact that I was so worked up about whether or not I'm a bad person meant that I wasn't one.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: And everything changed.

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: It didn't solve everything, but a big piece of weight fell off of me just in that moment because I'd come to understand the insanity of self hatred.

Yucca: Wow.

Mark: Well, listen folks,

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: We really care about you, Yucca and I do. We want you to be happy. we want this path to, or whatever path you choose, You know, whether this is just a way station that you're on your way towards moving into something else, that's great too. But we want you not to be cruel to yourself and to be proud of who you are and bring that out into the world because we need so much more of that,

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: so much more of that in the world. And we'll see you next week.

Yucca: Take care everyone.

View Details

Yucca is out this week, so we repeat an episode from last year around this time. Enjoy, and see you next week!

View Details

Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com.

S4E25 TRANSCRIPT:

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Mark: Welcome back to The Wonder, Science Based Paganism. I'm your host, Mark,

Yucca: and I'm Yucca.

Mark: and today we are celebrating Atheopagan Day, which is the anniversary of when our community first started.

Yucca: Online community.

Mark: yes the the founding of our Facebook group, which is where most of our engages online was on August 5th,

1. So as we're recording this, it's the 11th anniversary of the founding of that community. And so we're going to talk a little bit about the history and how things have changed, what we're doing now and what we're looking towards in the future.

Yucca: that's right, and it's been a lot,

Mark: Yeah, it really has. It's it's, it's been, and it's been such a beautiful ride. I mean, obviously there have been setbacks and frustrations and all the rest of that, but. Mostly, it's just been so heartening to see and feel this community come together in all the wonderful ways that it is.

Yucca: Yeah, and it's 11 years is really hard to believe. That's, that's a lot. So,

Mark: I was saying before we started recording, in neopagan years, that's even more. It's like dog years or

Yucca: yeah,

Mark: Because the culture evolves really quickly you know, in, in the time that I've been involved in, in Neopagan Circles which started in 1987, we've had at least three distinct phases Thank you.

of development within the community in terms of changes in perspective and paradigm just really transformational things that have happened from the sort of loosey goosey still, you know, not very clueful about things like consent late 60s all the way up to today.

Yucca: Right

Mark: pretty, pretty cool. 11 years, a lot can change.

Yucca: yeah. And I think a lot, really, in the last four years, five years, at least, that I've been witnessing it seems like there's been such a shift in a lot of, not just within kind of our smaller subset of the pagan community, but the larger pagan community, and also a little bit of the, the general cultural attitude towards something like paganism. There's definitely been a big shift since, you know, since I was a kid, you know, thinking back on, it's just, it's a normal, in a lot of ways, it's a very normal thing now. I know there's a lot, definitely areas of the country that that's not the case, but on kind of a big scale, it's, it really has the, Level of acceptance has grown.

Mark: Yeah, and I think there are, I mean, there are certainly entities and figures that that are not us, that we, that contributed heavily to that. I mean, like the Lady Liberty League, for example, which pressed The U. S. military to recognize Wicca as one of the symbols you could put on a gravestone in a military cemetery.

Getting them to recognize any pagan religion was really like pulling teeth, and they pushed on it for about 20 years before they finally got it.

Yucca: Yeah, right,

Mark: And more representation in mainstream media, all that kind of stuff has really helped.

Yucca: yeah. So I think it's fascinating to see, or to really reflect on, the changes within our community and how those are influenced from outside sources and, you know, the influence that we've had as well and all of that is, I mean, somebody should do their somebody should do their dissertation on that. I think that would make a fascinating one.

Mark: yeah, me too, me too. Yeah, there's just, there's so much to say about it, but why don't we go back to the beginning,

Yucca: Right.

Mark: And start there, and just kind of, you know, work our way forward. So, atheopaganism started out as an idea that I had for myself.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: I had had, I'd been involved with the local pagan community for a very long time, had some really off putting experiences in the late 90s, early 2000s that reinforced to me how much capital B belief had become important

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: in the pagan culture, and which had not been true when I first joined.

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: And as an atheist pagan, I was feeling really oppressed by this and then it got to the point where I was offended by it because there were a couple of circumstances that I saw where the will of the gods was used as an excuse for some really horrible behavior.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: And I left.

Yucca: Mm

Mark: But within six months, I mean, I was depressed.

I, I missed my rituals, and I missed my altar, and I missed my friends, and, you know, I missed celebrating the seasons, all that kind of stuff. So I started thinking, well, what is a religion really, and what do they do for us, and how can I get that stuff without having to subscribe to a bunch of supernaturalism?

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: And I started working on an essay, and this was in 2005. And the essay was done in 2009, and that was what eventually became my book that came out in 2019,

Yucca: Mm

Mark: about, first of all, about kind of my journey through this and the science You know, the neuroscience and the confirmation bias, the various fallacies, apophenia, and, you know, all those phenomena that tend to make us fooled by our senses.

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: And then the second part of the book was laying out, okay, well, taking as a given that the value that, for me, is going to be about revering the Earth. How can I practice a pagan practice around the wheel of the year that doesn't involve anything supernatural or culturally appropriated?

Yucca: hmm. Mm hmm. Mm

Mark: And so I wrote all that up, and it was a 40 page essay, and and I was ready to happily go trotting forward, you know, using my little model for myself.

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: But I had conversations with friends,

Yucca: So the essay had been just more of a way of you to, to clarify your thoughts, right? And work through those ideas and you just, just the writing of it was how you worked through these ideas.

Mark: That's right. I mean, I'm a writer and that is the way that it's like having an internal narrative, you know, as I explored these ideas on paper or in bits

Yucca: as you explored in

Mark: in, in, in writing new ideas would occur to me, new connections would occur to me. And so that's just the modality that I use in, in kind of framing my, my thinking about things.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: And so, as I said, I was ready to go trotting forward with my, my little practice that was for me, but when I had conversations, and so I re engaged the local pagan community. Understanding that I was going to be myself, and not to be rude about it, you know, if I go to somebody else's ritual and they're invoking gods, I'm not going to say anything about it.

Yucca: Sure. Yeah.

Mark: But the rituals that I conduct, that I invite people to, were going to be, you know, godless, non supernaturalist kinds of rituals.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: And in the course of these conversations, I started having people say, well, don't tell anybody, but actually, that's really kind of what I believe, too.

Yucca: Yeah,

Mark: and you really ought to put this essay up on the internet and, you know, have, get some comments on it, have, get some discussion started around it.

And in 2009, I did that. I put it up on Scribd.

Yucca: Remember that.

Mark: remember that? It still exists. But there was a time when Scribd was a place that you went for papers and documents and

Yucca: Yep. It was the place for a while. Yeah. Okay.

Mark: And started getting some feedback and stuff. You know, having more of these conversations where people were confiding in me that, you know, a non theist or non literal theist way of orienting to paganism was, was theirs.

And this particularly skewed towards people who were scientists, who were educators, who were engineers. You know, a lot of folks that had that grounding in the scientific method and critical thinking, they were the ones that were not subscribing to supernaturalist myths so much, interestingly enough. So, what happened was there, there ended up being enough of these people that I started realizing, you know, there's, this thing has legs.

It's not just for me. It's resonating for other people, and they should have access to it too. And I need to stop here and say, I had a major research failing during the time when I was researching all the stuff for this essay, because I am not the first Nons, supernaturalist, pagan. There are other people that were doing that and that were on the internet, and I just didn't find them.

Yucca: mm

Mark: So I kind of reinvented the wheel. And that's an interesting thing about non Theus paganism is that it seems like that happens quite a bit. People sort of come to this conclusion on their own.

Yucca: That was the family, that was what I was raised with, right? But it had never, there was no like, there was no word or identity to distinguish, that was just what we were,

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: And it had never occurred to me to, to search that up, something like that, until a little bit later on, which we haven't quite gotten to that the story yet, but, but encountering.

That the belief part where, you know, later on I'd be publishing things you know, making YouTube videos or things and having people just, just furious with me that like, how dare you call yourself a pagan if you don't believe in

Mark: yeah.

Yucca: the gods, literally, and just being completely perplexed because that was not the paganism that I had grown up with. Right, I was just like, what are you talking about? I have no, like, what?

Mark: right? Yeah.

Yucca: Wait, you're, you're taking this literal? Are you sure? Okay. Right, that was where I was coming from with that because I hadn't, you know, I, I mean, I'm interrupting you a little bit with this, but you talked about like the three different phases or like the epochs that you've seen.

And I think that one of them was this influx of a lot of new people into paganism, bringing with them. These expectations from some of the more mainstream religions in which faith is a major component. I think that Christian faith idea was brought in.

Mark: Absolutely. Absolutely. And that came in the late 90s, up until around 2000, and that really, really changed how paganism was practiced and conceptualized within the community, at least as I experienced it. Mm hmm.

Yucca: And I, and the atheopaganism was... I mean, it was still happening on the internet a lot, and when the group was founded, that was still culture of paganism as a whole, like on the big scale, there's lots of people being really into the literal belief, but I think we're moving out of that to a certain extent. But that's, there's still areas that believe that, there's still...

Like, traditions in that way, but that the larger community overall is less worried about that.

Mark: Yeah, I think so, and I certainly hope so. I mean, one of the things about paganism is that it tends to be very inclusive and tolerant and pluralistic. And so there are lots of different kinds of practices and perspectives that fall under the pagan umbrella,

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: And I think that increasingly, especially over the last four or five years, The idea of non theist paganism has become yet another one of those identities that's just accepted as being part of the bigger

Yucca: know.

Mark: Yeah,

Yucca: I mean, there's still people who get very, very upset about it and want to do their gatekeeping, but it, it I definitely saw a shift in the last few years that I was that the Pagan Perspective channel was running. Like, in the first few years, it would, I would get a lot of...

of real, like, really upset commenters about it, and then in the later years, more people being like, Oh yeah, that's, I do that too. Yeah, yeah, me too, me too.

Mark: huh. Yeah. Yeah, I really think that's so, and, I mean, of the core questions, I mean, maybe we can do an episode at some point about validity and the nature of realness, because this is often the argument that's made, well, it's not real paganism, or it's not a real religion. And to me, those are meaningless questions.

Yucca: It just comes down to how you're defining it, like, you're just gonna choose to make it real the way that you, like, Your way of pagan is the real way, right? I remember having disagreements with people going, well, if we go back to, you know, Rome, and this is where, you know, the history of the word pagan, well, the people who were the, the pagans, they believed in, in multiple gods, and, but my argument would be, okay, but why are you making that?

Your criteria. Why aren't you making the criteria that they lived in the countryside and spoke, like, Latin? Like, how about, why is that the criteria? I mean, because we've had so many different criteria for what makes somebody a pagan over the years, like, you're just selecting that one specific thing to say that that's what makes somebody pagan.

Why isn't something else also valid?

Mark: right.

Yucca: Well, I mean, the answer is because then they don't get to gatekeep it and feel special,

Mark: right,

Yucca: you know.

Mark: right. And particularly this goes to the The sense on people's part that old traditions are somehow more valuable or more valid or more real, right?

Yucca: hmm,

Mark: And that's just a principle that I reject. I think humans have been evolving culture and ideas and technology and skills for our entire existence.

And there are things that we can gain from modernity that we don't find in ancient cultures that are of value. Thank you.

Yucca: right. Yeah, that

Mark: So,

Yucca: Value isn't inherent in whether it is old or new or whichever, right? Is it relevant to, to us now? Right?

Mark: which is one of the reasons why I reject the Bronze Age, you know, Christianity models is that I don't think they fit very well in a modern society,

Yucca: yeah.

Mark: And the more people try to shoehorn modern society into it, the more oppressed we get, so, you know. So, anyway. This was starting to be a thing. It had legs.

And it seemed like the next natural thing would be to find a convening place where people could come and be together and discuss this stuff. Facebook was the natural choice at that time.

Yucca: Right. That was the main, there weren't as many of the other platforms as there are now. Right, that was basically the social media platform for being able to have conversation. Other than perhaps Reddit, maybe, but Reddit has its own kind of interesting culture.

Mark: it does. It does. And the thing about Facebook was that you could create a closed group, a private group, so that you could have some control over what kinds of folks came in, so you knew that they were actually people who shared your values and were there for a legitimate exploration of, you know, what this practice is, what this philosophy is, all that stuff.

Yucca: So you weren't getting trolls as much, or

Mark: No,

Yucca: coming in from different religions that wanted to prove a point, or something like that.

Mark: in the 11 years since the Facebook group was founded, we have had precisely two people who have slipped in and started proselytizing Christianity, and they have been quietly removed, and that's been it.

Yucca: Okay, I've never noticed them.

Mark: Yeah, they didn't last long because we have moderators and the moderators, you know, our philosophy is to use a light hand and to be encouraging and guiding rather than oppressive.

But nonetheless, when somebody comes in and starts proselytizing, that is a hard no in our rules. And off you go.

Yucca: Also, just to chuckle it, I've always thought the strategy of let me quote from a book that you don't believe in at you to try to convince you.

Mark: As evidence. Yeah.

Yucca: Like, okay, cool.

Mark: It's so circular and they don't see it. They just don't see it. Well, no, no, this is God's word. No, it's not.

Yucca: But if I don't accept your premise of there being a god to begin with, and that this is his word, like, why would that hold any weight for me?

Mark: That's right. That's right. So, so, August 5th, 2012, the the Facebook group is created, and I invited a handful of people that I thought would be philosophically aligned out of my friends within the pagan community, and then we started to get knocks on the door of people who wanted to join. And we had application questions that we could review, you know, we asked them why they wanted to be a part of the community, we stipulated what our value set was and said, do you affirm these values, you know, we're pro feminist, pro environment, anti racism, anti fascist, pro environment, you know, those kinds of things that we've listed.

And, you know, we make them sign, yes, I, I will affirm these values. I think that's probably kept a lot of right wing trolls out of our group because they aren't willing to sign on to that.

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: We, it's not infrequent that we get applicants who will answer the first and third question, but not, not the one about values, and they don't get admitted.

Yucca: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Mark: That's just how it goes.

Yucca: I have to admit, I don't remember filling any of that out when I joined, but I clearly had to have. I think I joined in, like, maybe 16, 20 16 or sometime around there, and I just don't remember. I'm sure I did. I just have no memory of it, like being a, like, I must have just been like, oh, of course, of course.

Yes, yes. Because I don't remember it being a thing.

Mark: Facebook questions, I think they only allowed one Facebook question for a long time, one admission question, and it's expanded to three now, so there may only have been one. But I'll,

Yucca: through it and went like, of course. Great. I'm so excited. This is, this group exists, so

Mark: And I knew who you were, so I admitted you right away.

Yucca: yeah.

Mark: So that, you know, that helped. So, the group began to grow, and it became 100 people, and it became 200 people, and it became 500 people, and it became 1, 000 people, and now it's close to 5, 000 people who are interested in this path, and we have very high participation.

In a given month, usually 2, 500 to 3, 000 of those members will do something in the way of reacting or commenting or posting. And of course you've got your lurkers, but it's very common for somebody to jump in and say, Hey, I've been a lurker for three years, but, you know, now I have a thing to say. And it's just a lovely environment.

It's safe. People support one another. There's kindness. There's very thoughtful discussion. People post really interesting stuff. It's just, it's worked out really well, and now, of course, we've spun off into having a Discord server as well while growing the movement in a bunch of ways, like this podcast.

Yucca: Right

which we started talking about together at the end of 2019. We didn't, we didn't get it going

Mark: we waited, we waited for the pandemic and then got started.

Yucca: We had like a few, we had a few episodes and then it was Two or three or something, but it was, it was

Mark: It wasn't many, yeah, it happened really fast.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: And, ironically, the pandemic actually forced us to do some good things in the community. We started doing Zoom mixers, first once a week, and now twice a week, and there are other gatherings as well.

Yucca: That's when a lot of growth of people coming into the community happened, too, because people were searching online for that connection, because they didn't have the in person things. And then, wow, here was this community, and that's, so much happened during the pandemic.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, the population really mushroomed. And, of course at the same time, at that point, I had been working on atheopagan stuff from the beginnings of the... of the essay. And then in 2019, late 2019, my book was published, which was an expanded version of the essay with more

Yucca: is when our... Friendship had kind of started, because we'd met before, but do you remember I helped you with the formatting on that?

Mark: I do,

Yucca: Because I took it out of, they weren't accepting whatever format it was that you had, so you had it in Word and I put it in InDesign and reformatted

Mark: yeah,

Yucca: it and exported it.

Mark: right, yeah, which I

Yucca: why we got the connection to then when we started talking about doing a podcast, it was like, oh yeah, yeah, this is a good connection, let's try this.

Mark: Yeah, yeah. So the book happened, Then the podcast happened, and by that time it had been almost 15 years of working on this in one way or another for me.

Yucca: Mm hmm,

Mark: And I was looking at this community that was now thousands of people, and thinking, well, okay, clearly this is something that has some real resonance, and it needs to not be about me.

It needs to be... You know, a self governing, self evolving thing,

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: and so we created the Atheopagan Society, the non profit organization of which both Yucca and I are council members and

Yucca: of 2020 was our first meeting,

Mark: yes, early July of 2020, and You know, that was approving bylaws and articles of incorporation and blah blah blah.

There's a lot of technical stuff that has to be done to create a group like that. But we got recognized by the federal government as a religious organization. Donations are tax deductible.

Yucca: Mm hmm. We did all that stuff of so much paperwork and figuring out bank accounts and

Mark: Yeah, getting a bank account open turned out to be really kind of a nightmare.

Yucca: ridiculous amount of like weird information that they needed.

Mark: I think it's Patriot Act stuff.

I think they're concerned about non profits fostering terrorism.

Yucca: And therefore they needed your social and income and

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: All kinds of, you know,

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: yeah, it was intense.

Mark: just weird. But we did it. We got it done. And the council started doing stuff. There, you know, there were various initiatives. The the library initiative online that Robin did, for example, to create a library of resources for Ethiopia Pagans that they can download and, and look at, and or, you know, lists.

Yucca: package as well,

Mark: all the, all the clerical and guidance as

Yucca: great.

Mark: And the system for ordaining. clerics online because we believe that everybody should have the right to conduct marriages and so forth. And so we had an automated system on the website for people to be ordained, which is currently broken because MailChimp changed its system.

But if you want to be ordained, you can use the contact form on the Atheopagan Society website, which is VAPSociety. org. Send a, send a message through the contact system, and I will get back to you and get you ordained.

Yucca: Yeah, and eventually we're going to have that back up and running as an automated system, but there's just a lot of things that are getting juggled at the moment.

Mark: there are. There

Yucca: There's a, yeah and just also want to clarify the, this is all volunteer, right? You know, people are, are doing this out of a sense of a desire to, So, we're really trying to, really help in whatever ways we can, and and we'll talk about this in a little bit.

I mean, the, the getting everything set up for being able to have more volunteers is one of our major focuses.

Mark: Mm hmm.

Yucca: But just trying to figure out what, what each person's strengths are and how we can best. How we can help the community and how we can best serve the community has been a big focus of what we've been trying to do over the past few years, so.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah because it's all about, you know, supporting the people that are within the umbrella of this, this community in being as fulfilled as they can be, as happy as they can be, as self actualized as they can be, as effective as they can be, which is what atheopaganism is really about. It's about being happy, being effective in your life.

You know, we don't believe in an afterlife or any of that. Nobody's keeping score. It's, it's all about just joy and joy and service, right? And so, you know, with that spirit, there's a real joyfulness in the work as well. I mean, when we work together, there's a sort of, oh, we're doing a great thing here

Yucca: Yeah, I mean every single, so the council meetings are quarterly, and every single time it's just like, wow, it, y'all are amazing, this is awesome. Thank you so much. Oh, I'm so lucky to know such cool people. I can't believe we're doing this like every, you know. Time after time after time and it's just, it never gets old, it's just amazing each time.

Mark: Yeah. And when we held the Suntree retreat, the in person retreat in 2022, and there were 50 of us there, that was the same experience. It was like, wow, every one of these people is super cool. I would like to be friends with every one of them.

Yucca: yeah, my oldest who came with me to that was like, why isn't it a week long? Why isn't it two weeks long? Can we just live here? I'm like, aw.

Mark: So, things have evolved over that 11 years. I've written another book that's coming out next year. I've written in my will that the rights to my atheopaganism book are going to go to the Atheopagan Society, so that it will always have access to that material for future people that want to practice atheopaganism so there'll never be any argument about, you know, who has the rights to any of this stuff You know, we've just, we've done a lot of, we, we launched the the YouTube,

Yucca: So we've got the media team working on this, yeah.

Mark: right?

Yucca: And I want to say the, the story, so you've told your, your thread of the story,

Mark: Yes.

Yucca: But this is a, this is a community of thousands of people now, and we each have our own thread of this story that's weaving together, right? And together we're making this larger thing.

And I really value that, the, the wisdom in going, okay, let's make sure that this isn't just about one particular personality. This is All of ours, right? And again, that's one of the things that the council's trying to figure out how to do is how do we make this something that is sustained, that keeps going, that lives past just any of individuals of us?

Mark: hmm. Yes, yes. And, and it's very egalitarian,

Yucca: yeah,

Mark: where we, we're not going to have, you know, different degrees or levels or priesthood or any of that kind of stuff. When people choose to be ordained and become what's called an atheopagan cleric, that's a service role. That means I've committed to provide particular kinds of service in my community.

It doesn't mean I'm a muckety muck now and I get to tell other people what to do. We don't have that,

Yucca: right. And same thing with the council, right? Again, the council is just, it really is a service position, just because somebody's on the council and someone else isn't on the council, the person on the council, they're... They're not more important than anyone else, they're just in a position of that volunteer.

Mark: right? We don't. Right. So, you know, we've built so much over this time. Oh, and I want to mention, because we have two wonderful volunteers that are doing it, Instagram as well. We've you know, that are part of the media team. We've got a couple of folks that are doing wonderful Instagram stuff as well.

And someone created an atheopaganism Reddit, subreddit,

Yucca: Oh, nice.

Mark: the blue a person who I didn't know. And that was kind of miraculous to stumble across.

Yucca: That's great.

Mark: Yeah, sort of propagating itself out into the world.

Yucca: And we don't have an official TikTok, but there are some folks from the community who are on on TikTok, and you can find, you know, you can search through the hashtag of Atheopagan, you'll come up with, you know, Robin's channel, and a couple of other folks who have that conversation.

Mark: We do have an account,

Yucca: we, yes,

Mark: but we never post anything.

Yucca: and if that's somebody's passion, hey, talk to us on the media team, we'd love, you know, each of the different platforms kind of have their own system and culture and all of that. So yes, thank you for pointing out, we really, we have one, we just don't, aren't doing it on a regular basis at this point

Mark: So,

Yucca: we have to do is figure out that we are, in fact, human, and have a limited amount of time and space and spoons as they say, and where do we use them.

Mark: right. Yeah. And that's actually a perfect opportunity for me to thank you, Yucca, for your three years of service as the chair of the Atheopagan Society Council. You did a tremendous amount of work and modeled a tone and a can do kind of, attitude and a level headedness that I think just really served us so well.

And I totally understand that it was time for you to step down and John has stepped up and that's all great. A, a,

Yucca: honor, so thank you. Yeah, it's really, and I, and I look forward to continue to serve in different ways in the coming years, so.

Mark: Yeah, yeah. So, all these things have happened, all these incredible things over the last 11 years, and now we look to the future.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: The Atheopagan Society is creating its first strategic plan,

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: And a strategic plan is basically just narrowing our focus down to a few goals. That we're going to pursue over, that we're going to seek to accomplish over the next couple of years.

And that's where we're going to invest our time and our energy and our money in order to accomplish those things. Our money, vast.

Yucca: yes, our vast resources.

Mark: yes, I think we have 5, 000 right now. I think that's something like

Yucca: don't think we quite have, that's what we did last time, but I think we've, we've had quite a few expenses

Mark: that's true. You're right. Yeah, we have had expenses. So yeah, it's probably more like 4, 500. But it's enough because we, you know, we operate. We operate with volunteers.

Yucca: yeah, and donations. And so

Mark: Yes,

Yucca: who donate on a regular basis and that, that makes doing those things possible, right? So we really, really value that.

Mark: Because we do have regular expenses. We have to pay for things like Zoom and MailChimp and, you know, all that

Yucca: Hosting for, you know, all of that. Yeah.

Mark: for the blog. Yeah. So, the strategic plan is going to be finalized at our Autumnal Equinox meeting coming up. After September 21st, I think it's October 5th, I think is the next meeting.

Yucca: We'd have to look at, yeah, it's somewhere around

Mark: yeah, somewhere around there.

Yucca: Do you want to mention the three? We're finalizing it, but we've got the idea of what our goals are.

Mark: we've, we've narrowed the goals down to three things. And they are, first of all, Diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. We want to make sure that we're doing everything we can to make our spaces feel safe and inclusive and welcoming to everyone. As long as they share our values. If they're Nazis, we don't want them to feel welcome.

We want them to go somewhere else. But... You know, certainly for people in marginalized communities, we want to make sure that we're really uplifting those voices and making sure that people feel safe and welcome in those spaces.

Yucca: And just being really really conscious about that. And really clear about that, yeah.

Mark: So that's the first. And the second is what is the second?

Yucca: Well, the steady engagement and growth, yeah.

Mark: right. The fostering of engagement between Ethiopia Pagans. So more more in the way of online opportunities like the conference, the vi virtual conference that we held this past spring in person opportunities like the the sun retreat that we're gonna do another one of in 2024.

Yucca: which is a little less than a year away. 'cause it's in September this year. Right.

Mark: Yes. So it's a little more than a year. It's a little more

Yucca: Just a, you know.

Mark: Yeah. But

Yucca: On another full moon, I believe. Didn't we end up getting another full

Mark: We did. So we're going to start working on that, you know, right after Labor Day. The, the issue there is really, and also I didn't mention this, but we have a program of affinity groups now.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: some of which are geographically based, so they can get together in person. Because they, they all come from a particular region. Some of them are interest based, like there's an LGBTQ group, there's a BIPOC group, there's a gardening group, there's a crafting group, things like that, right? So creating opportunities and providing resources to help like Affinity Groups to get together in person, build interpersonal relationships, because, you know, community is a big thing that religion is about. And as wonderful as online community is, in person is better. And we, we'd like for people to have opportunities for that if they want them.

Yucca: Right. Yeah, so for both, right? And there being a steady component and we'll talk about this in the next goal as well, but we don't want to kind of explode and spread too quickly and then collapse. Right? So we're really working on how to do this in a way that is sustainable.

Mark: Yes. And that's the third big area, which is creating infrastructure and support for volunteers, so that we don't have burnout. We're always, you know, drawing in new leadership and new voices and new participation, so that nobody has to sit in the same position for 10 years and get real tired of it. And, I mean, that's just good for us in all kinds of ways, because You know, having a variety of different perspectives, it just helps our approach to be that much more nuanced, that much more considerate.

It's just good for us, all the way around.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So those are the three big areas, and you'll notice that none of them involves some big, huge growth initiative. We have never been a proselytizing spiritual community, and we're not. My philosophy around this is I would like people to be aware of this as an opportunity that they can take if they want to.

I would never tell them you should be an atheopagan.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: I would never say that to any.

Yucca: Yeah. Because it's, I think it's a wonderful option, but it's not the only thing out there. Lots of things work for lots of different people and I'm just grateful that we've got a community of incredible people who really love and care for each other and work together and can, you know, share these values and use a similar framework.

And yet, as we've talked about in so many other podcasts are also so very different in so many delightful ways.

Mark: Right, and we encourage that diversity, right? Like, you know, there isn't this mandated wheel of the year where, you know, the symbols are all the same and the rituals are all the same. No, you create for yourself what's meaningful for you and relates to what nature is doing at a given time of year where you are.

So there's, there's a tremendous amount of freedom. Within atheopaganism, it's meant to be facilitative and supportive and kind of informing rather than directive.

Yucca: hmm. Yeah.

Mark: So that's where we're going. That's, that's the idea there.

Yucca: And it's a fun process.

Mark: it is. It is. And fun people to do it with. So that's, that's all to the good as well. I mean, having not had any comprehension of Arriving here 11 years ago, I have no idea where we might be 10, 11 years from now. It's just, it's hard to, hard to imagine what that could be like.

Yucca: Oh, we'll be an ancient group in neo pagan years at that

Mark: that's, oh, that's true.

Yeah, we'll be almost Bronze Age.

Yucca: Yes. I guess then we'll be, then we'll be legitimate, right? Because

Mark: Right, well, yeah, we'll, we'll be Silicon Age, and by that time it'll all be, you know, molecular computing or or quantum computing, and then we can look back nostalgically at our silicon chips and and yes, we'll, we'll be the old established Version.

Yucca: That's quite funny to think of.

Mark: It is. It is.

Yucca: but yeah. . Alright.

Mark: So, yeah I'd like to thank everyone that has played a part in or participated in or joined, you know, for however long, because some people have decided that it wasn't for them and gone off to do something else. All those people who have played a role in where we've arrived and what we've been able to achieve in serving people, in, in really working to help people be happier and help the world be a better place.

Yucca: Yeah. Thank you.

Mark: Yeah, so thank you to all you listeners, that counts.

Yucca: Absolutely. We are so grateful that you are all here and Yeah.

Mark: Yeah, it's

Yucca: Spending this time with us.

Mark: yeah, it's a real honor and we know that Of all the things that people can donate to a movement or a cause, time is the most precious. You know, the number of people that will contribute to an organization, for example, is always much higher than the number that will volunteer for the organization.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: So, you know, when you give us 30, 40 minutes a week out of your day that's a very meaningful thing and we, we recognize it and we appreciate it.

Yucca: right.

Mark: So, with that, here's to the next 11 years!

Yucca: And we'll see you next week.

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We aren't able to record a new episode this week, so here is a great interview we did with Michael H. of the Atheopagan Society Council. See you next week!

S3E41 TRANSCRIPT:

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

Yucca: and I'm Yucca.

Mark: and today we have a really exciting episode. We have an interview with a member of the Atheopagan Society Council, Michael, who is joining us today, and is gonna tell us about his journey and what this community means to him and his vision for the future and all kinds of cool stuff.

So welcome.

Michael: Well, thank you very much for having me.

Mark: I'm delighted to have you here,

Yucca: Thanks for coming on.

Michael: Yeah, no, I'm excited.

Yucca: Yeah. So why don't we start with so who are you? Right? What's, what's your journey been to get here?

Michael: Gosh. Well, I kind of have to start at the very beginning. So my name's Michael and you know, I've, I start, sometimes I go by Mícheál, which is my Irish, the Irish version of my name. And that's something I've been using more as I've been involved in the Pagan community. My parents are both Irish and.

They moved to the United States in their early eighties cuz my dad got a green card working over there

Mark: Hmm.

Michael: and I was born in America. And then they decided they want to move back to Ireland then in 1991. So already I had this kind of dissected identity. Was I American or was I Irish? I never really lost my American accent.

When I, when I moved to Ireland my sister who was born in Ireland, she actually has a slight American accent just from living with me. So she never people always ask her, are you, are you American? And she's like, I've never lived there. So it's funny that it's kind of stuck with her, but I moved to Ireland and I suddenly was kind of got this culture shock at the age of five and moving to this new country.

And my mother has a very large family, so she has like, two, two brothers and seven sisters, and then I've got like 30 cousins. So , it was a big, a big change from AmeriCorps. It was just the three of us. Moving back to Ireland and. It was a very, you know, Ireland, you know, is, would've been considered a very Catholic country, and it's been kind of secularizing since the nineties up until now.

But back then it was still quite Catholic. Like homosexuality was only decriminalized in 1992 and divorce was only made legal in 1995. So, I guess the first kind of sense of, of what I meant to be Irish back then was, You know, you learned Irish in school, you learned to speak Irish in school, and this was very it wasn't taught very well, I would say, and I think most Irish people would agree with that.

It's kind of taught like almost like Latin or something as a dead language rather than as a living language. So you're spending time learning all this grammar. And you don't kind of develop that love of it that I think you should. I did go to like Irish summer camp in the Gaeltacht . The Gaeltacht is the Irish speaking area of Ireland, and I kind of became aware of my Irishness, you know, just through being part of all this and also. I would've introduced myself as American when I was little but people didn't really like that. It was kind of a, like a weird thing to do. So my mom eventually told me, maybe you should just stop paying that. And so throughout my I, you know, as I mentioned, it was a very Catholic country.

And when I was in the Gaeltacht in Irish summer camp one of the kids said they were atheist. And I was like, what does that mean? I'm like, I don't believe in God. And I was, and in my head I was like, I didn't know you could do that, I didn't know that was an option. . So I kind of thought about it for a while.

I became, we started studying the Reformation in school when I was about 14. And then I learned that Catholics believed in transubstantiation and nobody had really mentioned that before. They didn't really teach the catechism very well, I guess. I'd done my communion and my confirmation, but nobody ever mentioned that.

We literally believed that the, the body and blood, you know, was that the bread and water? Oh, sorry. The bread and wine actually became literally, And the body. And I thought that was a very strange thing, that that was a literal thing. It wasn't just symbolic. And then we also studied Calvinism and all that stuff. And I was like, then I started to read the Bible and I was like, then it fun, it finally just dawned on me that I didn't believe any of this, and it was kind of liberating.

But it was kind of a way of being d. In a very homogenous society too. You could be a bit of a rebel. So I think I was one of those annoying teenagers who was always questioning everybody and having, trying to have debates with everybody about religion and they didn't enjoy that . And so I went through school and I just remember hating studying the Irish language until eventually when I left school.

On the last day, I actually took all my. My Irish textbooks and burnt them and I feel I . Yeah. I mean I feel so much guilt and regret about that and I think about that how important it's to me now and that, that was a real shame that, but I didn't, partially I didn't put the work in, but also I just think the structure.

Was not there. I mean so many Irish people come out of outta school not really know, knowing how to speak the language, you know, and I think it is an effective col colonization as well, where, you know, you consider English is a useful language and learning French or Spanish, that's a useful thing, but there's no use for Irish in people's minds, which is a, and I find that a real shame and I. could go back and change that. In university I studied anthropology and history because I was very interested in religion. All throughout my teenage years, I was obsessed with learning about world religions, you know, there was a world religion class in, in secondary school. I didn't get into it, but I begged the teacher to allow me to.

Into it because I was so interested in the topic. And he was like, fine, fine. And he kind of thought he'd humor me in one class one day and he was like, well, Michael, maybe you could talk about satanism. That's the topic for today. And I was like, well, let's start with Al Crowley. And he was like, okay, maybe he actually knows what he is talking about So, I went, I. I went to the university sorry, national University of Ireland, Minuth Campus. And it's funny because that used to be known as so it's actually, it's two campuses. They're St. Patrick's college, which is like a, a seminary for priests. And there's the I, which is like the secular version, and they're both, but they both share the same compass. So it's funny, it used to be the, the biggest seminary in Europe. They call it the priest factory cuz they pumped out so many priests that sent, sent them all over the world. And it's when you go out and you walk down the corridors, you see all the graduating classes. So you go back to 1950 and you see a graduating class of like a hundred priests.

And every year as you're going down the corridor, it gets smaller and smaller and smaller. Until I think the year I graduated, there was like two people graduating as priests. Yeah. So that was, that was a, I decided to study history and anthropology at n Y Minuth and one of the books that I read. Was kind of a gateway into thinking about land and language, which are two things that are really important to me in my, when I think about Paganism.

It's a book called wisdom Sits in Places by Keith Bato, bass by Keith Bassell, and. I'm just gonna read a little bit here from the book because he was an anthropologist working with the Apache, the Western Apache, to try and remap the land using the Native Apache words rather than the, the English words. So trying to make a native map and working with Apache people to find all the true, the true names of all these. so this is the quote, but already on only our second day in the country together a problem had problem had come up for the third time in as many tries. I have mispronounced the Apache name of the boggy swale before us. And Charles, who is weary of repeating it, has a guarded look in his eyes after watching the name for a fourth.

I acknowledged defeat and attempted to apologize for my flawed linguistic performance. I'm sorry, Charles. I can't get it. I'll work on it later. It's in the machine. It doesn't matter. It matters. Charles says softly to me in English, and then turning to speak to Morley. He addresses him in Western Apache, is what he said.

What he's doing isn't right. It's not good. He seems to be in a. Why is he in a hurry? It's disrespectful. Our ancestors made this name. They made it just as it is. They made it for a reason. They spoke it first a long time ago. He's repeating the speech of our ancestors. He doesn't know that. Tell him he's repeating the speech of our ancestors. And I'm gonna just there's another section here, a little, a few pages. But then unexpectedly in one of those courteous turnabouts that Apache people employ to assuage embarrassment in salvage damaged feelings, Charles himself comes to the rescue with a quick corroborative grin. He announces he is missing several teeth and that my problem with the place name may be attributable to his lack of dental equipment. Sometimes he says he is hard to underst. His nephew, Jason, recently told him that, and he knows he tends to speak softly. Maybe the combination of too few teeth and two little volume accounts for my failing. Short morally, on the other hand, is not so encumbered though shy. Two, a tooth or two. He retains the good ones for talking and because he's not afraid to speak up, except as everyone knows in the presence of gar women no one has trouble hearing what he. Maybe if Morley repeated the place name again slowly and with ample force, I would get it right. It's worth a try, cousin. And then he, I'm just gonna skip forward a bit and he successfully pronounces the name, which translates as water Lies with mud in an open container. Relieved and pleased. I pronounce the name slowly.

Then I, then a bit more rapidly and again, as it might be spoken. In normal conversation, Charles listens and nods his head in. . Yes. He says in Apache, that is how our ancestors made it a long time ago, just as it is to name this place. Mm-hmm. So this became important to me when thinking about the Irish language because something similar happened in Ireland in the you know, we have all our native Irish place. But in the 1820s the British Army's Ordinance survey came and decided they were gonna make these names pro pronounceable to English ears. And so they kind of tore up the native pronunciation and kind of push an English pronunciation on top. So you have these very strange English Anglo size versions of Irish Place names

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Michael: Soin in is is probably better known in English as dingle, but doesn't really have anything to do with the Irish.

And there are plenty of, there are so many examples of this and I think when you're trying to learn about a landscape in your relation to a ship, to a landscape, it is important to know the native place. It's something that I think about a lot and I try to learn. One of my favorite writers is named Tim Robinson, and he's well he died in 2020.

But I had the opportunity to meet him in 2009 and he was an English cartographer. But he moved to the west of Ireland, to the Iron Islands and also to Kamara. So he kind of moved between those two places. He lived there for more than 30 years, and what he actually did was he went out and mapped the landscape and talked to local people, and he was able to find some of the place names that had been lost over the years that weren't on the official maps, and he was able to help recreate a Gaelic map of those areas. I think that's a really kind of religious or spiritual activity to go out onto the land and walk it. And to name it and to name it correctly. And I think that's what I think my pagan path is in a way. It's to go and walk the land and learn it, what to call it. Cause I think language is the most important tool we have as pagans.

Mark: Hmm.

Michael: So those are, that's kind of when I started to think about this stuff. I've always been interested in folk. It was actually funny. There was, it started with a video game one of the legend of Zelda video games called Major's Mask

Mark: Hmm.

Yucca: Yep.

Michael: in, in the game, they actually have like a mask festival and they dis they discuss the the history of the festival.

Anna was just like, wow, I didn't, I ended up making masks with my sister and we kind of pretended to. A little mask festival of our own

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Michael: that you're, you're familiar with that? Yucca?

Yucca: Yes. Yeah, I played a lot of it.

Michael: Yeah. So, but I guess I really started to think about folklore when when I watched the Wickerman as um, as a teenager. I was probably at 16 when I watched it, and it kind of opened my eyes completely. And we've talked a lot about this in the group. And I. It's watched as a horror movie in a way, but

I think I really got into the, the paganism idea of, of paganism as a teenager because of watching the Wickman and just the symbolism and the pageantry. And I also just like the idea. These island people turning on the state in the form of, of the policeman.

So that's kind of been something I've that I've really enjoyed over the years, watching that every every May as part of my, my, my annual ritual so, you know, after university, I, I moved to South Korea to teach English, and, but at the same time I was quite into Buddhism. I had been practicing some Zen Buddhism from about the age of 18, and, but not like, more as just a practice rather than believing in any of it.

Not believing in reincarnation or anything like that. I just found the ritual of it very beautiful. And I ended up going and doing a temple stay in a, in a place at, at a temple. Up in the mountains and it was very beautiful and really amazing. You know, something you'd see in a movie because the monk, the head monk actually brought us out into a bamboo grove and we sat there meditating just with all surrounded by bamboo.

And it was waving in the wind and it felt like a correction, tiger Hidden dragon or something like that. And one of the powerful events that happened on that trip. Doing the Buddhist meal ceremony where we ate in in the style of a Buddhist monk. And the idea is that you do not leave any food behind.

After you're, after you're finished eating, you've, you eat all the food, and then when you wash the bowls and they kind of put the communal water back into the, the, the waste bowl, there should be no no bit of food, nothing. It should just be clean water. That comes out of, after everybody finishes washing all their bowls.

So we followed all the steps to do that and, you know, some people really, really weren't into it. They didn't wanna do the work of, of being extremely thorough. And there were a few rice pieces of rice in the water at the end and the head monk said to us oh, that will now get, you're, you're gonna cause pain to the hungry to ghost.

Because the hungry goats ghosts have holes in their throats, and when we pour the water outside for the hungry ghosts, the rice particles are gonna get stuck in their throats. And a lot of people were like, what? What are you talking about

Mark: Hmm.

Michael: But I thought that was beautiful because it doesn't, not, you don't have to. It's a story that has a purpose, and that's why, you know, It made me think about the superstitions that we have. And I don't know if I like superstition like these, calling it that. Cause I think a lot of these things have purpose and you have to look for the purpose behind them. And the purpose of that story of the honky go story, maybe for him it is about not causing harm to these, these spirits, but it's also about not wasting food. And I think it, it has more power and more meaning. And you remember. More thoroughly when you have a story like that to back up this, this practice. So I think it kind of made me rethink a lot about the kind of folkloric things that I, in my, in the Irish tradition and that, you know, I think about things like fairy forts, which are, you know, the, these are the archeological sites that you find around Ireland.

Like, I think there's like 60,000 left around the country. These, these circular. Homesteads that made a stone or, or saw, or saw that you find all over the country and people don't disturb them because they're afraid they'll get fair, bad luck. The, if you, if you disturb the, the fair fort the ferry's gonna come after you , or if you could, or if you cut down a tree, a lone tree.

Lone trees that grow in the middle of fields that don't have a, a woodland beside them, just singular trees. These are known as fairy trees and it's bad luck to cut them down. But I feel like these folk beliefs help preserve the past as well, because, you know, farmers who don't have this belief, they don't have any problem tearing down fray, forts and that kind of thing.

They just see it as a, something in the way of them farming, especially in the kind of age of industrial agriculture. Yeah. So it just made, that was when I started to think about how important it is to keep folk belief alive. And I've really, and I really started to study Irish folk belief after that point. And I lived in South Korea as I mentioned. I met my wife there, she's from Iowa and she was also teaching in, in South Korea, and we moved to Vietnam after that. And we lived there for a couple of years, and I might come back to that later. But fast forwarding, we moved to Iowa then in 2013, and I'm teaching a course in Irish.

At a local community college, but I always start with this poem by Shama Heini Boland. And I just wanted to read two extracts from it. So the first stands out is we have no prairies to slice a big sun at evening everywhere. The eye concedes to encroaching. And then moving downwards. Our pioneers keep striking inwards and downwards. Every layer they strip, they, every layer they strip seems camped on before. So I, I started with that initially, kind of trying to, as, it was almost like a gateway for my students to kind of look at. Look at Iowa with its historic prairies, which don't really exist anymore. It's all farmland. There's very little prairie land left. I think maybe 2% of the state is prairie. But that idea, that idea of our pioneers strike downwards, and I've been thinking about that a lot as well, that that's kind of a, a colonial look at the land because this land, the American land has is just as camped. As Ireland, and I've been kind of experiencing that more and more. I have a friend who's an archeologist here and just hearing them talk about the kinds of fines that they have. You know, we lived in a town where there was a Native American fishing weir was a couple of hundred years old. It you could kind of see the remains, but it mostly washed away by the time we had.

But I did see an old postcard of it from the seventies, and you could see it very clearly. And so just make, and then we always it's become a ritual every every autumn, we go up to northeast Iowa to these, to these effigy mounds, which are some Native American mounds up there on a bluff, just overlooking the miss.

Mark: Hmm.

Michael: And that's really amazing to look at that and experience and experience that. And you know, I'd love to go back, unfortunately, Shamus, he died more than 10 years ago now, but I'd love to go back and ask him if he would consider rewriting that line, you know, because this land is just as a count on

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Michael: and I'm trying to, trying to make sense of that and what it means. As an Irish person living in America,

Yucca: Mm.

Michael: Cuz we, Irish people are victims of col colonialism,

Mark: Hmm.

Michael: Irish people, when they moved to America, they just became white as well and had the same colonial attitudes as everybody. And I'm trying to kind of, but you know, there's, there's, there's kind of stories of reciprocation as well. Where during the famine, the Irish famine the, I think, I believe it was the Chota Nation sent Emin relief to the AR to Ireland. Even though they didn't have much themselves, they still saw this. People in need across the water and they sent money to help. And, you know, there's that connection between the Chta nation and the Irish has continued to this day. But I am just trying to figure out what it means to be an Irish person and a pagan living in this country.

And that's kind of where I, where I am right now. But to get back to how I got into Ethiopia, paganism I mentioned earlier that I was really into the Wickerman and I found this group called Folk folk Horror Revival on Facebook. And somebody one day mentioned that there was this group called Atheopagan. And so I decided to join and I found a lot of like-minded people.

And I've been kind of involved in the community for, for, I think that was maybe 2018.

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Michael: And I've been involved in the community since then and maybe on a bigger, I've been much more involved since Covid started and we started doing our Saturday mixers. And I think I've made maybe 90% of those

Mark: something

Michael: and we've, yeah, and we've been doing that for the last three years and it's just been. It's a really amazing, it's one of the highlights of my week to spend time with with other people in that, in that hour and 45 minutes that we spend every Saturday.

Mark: Mm.

Michael: Mm-hmm.

Mark: Yeah, I, I really agree with you. That's, I, it's a highlight of my week as well. Such warm, thoughtful people and so diverse and living in so many different places. It's yeah, it's just a really good thing to do on a Saturday morning for me. And. We'll probably get into this more a little bit later, but the idea of creating human connection and community building I know is really important to you and it's really important to me too.

I think there have been other sort of naturalistic, pagan traditions that have been created by people, but they just kind of plunked them on the internet and let them sit. And to me it's. That would be fine if I were just gonna do this by myself. But when other people started saying, I like this, I want to do this too.

To me that meant, well then we should all do it together. Right? Let's, let's build a community and support one another in doing this. And so the Saturday mixers, when we, when Covid started, I think. I mean, to be honest, COVID did some great things for the Ethiopia, pagan community.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: yeah. Kind of accidentally, but that's, that's

Yucca: Well that's the silver linings, right? That's one of the things we, you know, life goes on. We have to find the, the, the benefits and the good things, even in the challenging times.

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Michael: yeah.

I think. I'm just thinking back to when we started. So it's kind of, we have maybe six or seven regulars who come to every meeting maybe. And then we have other people who join now and then, but I'm just trying to think back to the first meeting. I think we, that's when the idea of doing virtual ritual began as well in that first meeting.

And we were trying to figure out how to do.

Yucca: Was that was the first meeting before Covid or was it as a response to Covid?

Mark: You know, honestly, I don't remember. I think it must have been in response to Covid because everybody was shut in and, you know, everybody was kind of starving for human contact.

Michael: I think the first one may have been March or April. 2020,

Yucca: Okay, so right there at the.

Michael: Yeah, right at the beginning. Yeah. And I think, I remember in the first meeting we were talking about ritual ideas and I think the first suggestion I came up with was like I'd love to somebody do like a, describe what an atheopagan temple might look.

Mark: Oh yeah.

Michael: Yeah. And I left, and I think you were recording the meetings at that time, but we don't record 'em anymore, just so people can feel free to be themselves and not have a recorded recording of themselves out there, . But I know that, I think James who you interviewed recently he, he was listening to that one, I believe, and he came the next week and actually had prepared a guided meditation.

Of what a pagan temple would be like to him. And it was a walk through nature. I think that was the first, our first online ritual together.

Mark: Yeah, I remember that now. Yeah, and it's been, it's really been a journey trying to figure out how, how can you do these ritual things over a, a video conferencing platform. In a way that makes everybody feel like they're participating and engaged. Right. So that there's a, a transformation of consciousness.

But I think we've done pretty well, to be honest. I mean, some of the rituals that we've done have been really quite moving.

Michael: Yeah. And I think the ritual framework that you've worked at translates very well to. A Zoom conference as well. I dunno if maybe, if he wants to describe that, what the usual atheopagan ritual would look like.

Mark: Sure. We've, we've talked about this before. The, the, the ritual structure that I proposed in my book is basically a, a five step process where the first is arrival, which is sort of, Transitioning into the ritual state of mind from the ordinary state of mind, and then the invocation of qualities that are a part that we'd like to be a part of the ritual with us, which is sort of the equivalent in Wicca or other pagan traditions of invoking spirits or gods or what have you, ancestors, what have you.

And then the main working of the ritual, which varies depending on what the purpose of the ritual is. But it can be, well, we've done lots of different kinds of things. We've braided ribbons and then tied, not tied magical knots in them. We've made siles, we've we've done just lots of different kinds of things.

And then gratitude expressions of gratitude. The things that we're grateful for. And then finally, benediction, which is sort of the closing of the ritual at a declaration that we're moving back into ordinary time.

Yucca: So how does that look in, in a meeting, like a Zoom meeting In a digital format?

Mark: Michael, you want to take that one or should I?

Michael: So you know, you have maybe, I think usually when we have a ritual more people attend that and so we might have 12 people there and

often

Yucca: cameras on.

Michael: Camera's on. Well, it's optional. Yeah. If you don't feel comfortable having your camera on, that's completely fine and you don't even have to speak.

We do encourage people just to you know, leave a message in the chat so you can just listen in. You can engage as much or as little as you want. And you, you, so. We have all the people on in the conference, and maybe we'll try and get some more of the senses involved as well. So sometimes we'll like candles and everybody will have a candle in front of them.

I do know for for some of our sound rituals. Mark, you've used two cameras where you, you aim one camera at maybe a focus, like what's one of the examples of that that you.

Mark: Well we did that both at Sown and at Yu. So both the Halls ritual and the Yule ritual where I would create a focus or alter setup with thematic and symbolic things relating to the season. and then I would point, I would log into Zoom with my phone and point my phone at that. And then, and then I'd log in separately on my laptop for myself as a person, and then I could spotlight the focus so that it's kind of the centerpiece of what everybody experiences on their screen and sets the atmosphere.

Michael: Yeah. So just a virtual focus that everybody can, everybody can virtually gather around.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Michael: Yeah. And I think we've also used a Pinterest board in the past as well for people. I think it was at Sound again, we had that Pinterest board where people could put up notes about. Their ancestors or loved ones that they were That's correct, isn't it?

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Or pictures of people that had passed recently or.

Yucca: mm.

Michael: yeah. So yeah, there's a lot of digital space that you can use for this ritual. We also try not to involve too many props as well. Because we wanna make it as easy as possible for people of all abilities. And just if you don't have the space for something, for a large proper if you don't wanna make a lot of noise, you know, we're not gonna have you using chimes or things like that.

So we try and make it as easy as possible. Sometimes we do invite you to bring some food to eat as well, because, you know, a lot of these are feasting rituals. So we maybe, if you feel comfortable bringing some refreshments, you might want to do. And just have a friendly meal with people online. For example, we're actually gonna start doing I'm gonna be leading full Moon meals every month on the, on the, so the first one's gonna be December 7th.

And I'll post, post about that on Discord, and I think Mark will post about that in the Facebook group. Yeah. And so the idea is everybody just comes. Joins the Zoom meeting and everybody should have their meal. Whether you're, whether that's lunch or if you're in a different time zone, maybe there'll be dinner or maybe it's just a snack.

And then we'll spend a minute just thinking about the providence of the food and then we'll eat us and maybe people can talk about the food that they're eating and what it means to. And I'm hoping to make that a monthly event that we meet every full moon to share a meal together

Mark: That

sounds. I, I, I really I have pagan guilt over how little I pay attention to the full moon. I'm, I'm always, I'm always aware of what phase the moon is in, but I, I don't do a lot in the way of observances of the phases of the moon. And so, I'm excited to have this added in to something that I can attend.

Michael: Mm-hmm. . But yeah, as you can see from that format, it's very simple. And again, you, if, if people listening would like to attend as well, there's no obligation to keep your. Your camera on, there's no obligation to speak. You just, you can just listen in and just feel part of the, part of the community that way.

Yucca: Mm-hmm. So in the mixers sometimes ritual, are there discussions or what else do the mixers.

Michael: Usually the mixer is kind of a freeform thing.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Michael: Maybe we'll have a topic sometimes, but usually people just come and do a check in and talk about how they're, how they're getting on that week and if there's anything they wanna discuss, we just open it up to that. Depending on the size of the turn, we may require some kind of etiquette stuff.

So if there are a lot of people and we don't want people to. Shut it down or have spoken over. So we'll ask people to raise their hands if they wanna speak. That's, that really is only when there's a lot of people and, and often I, I know I'm somebody who likes to talk, so it's a, I think raising hands also gives people who are less confident, or, I'm sorry, not less confident, just not at, don't feel like interrupting.

It gives them an opportu. To to have their say as well

and be called on mm-hmm.

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: Mm.

Mark: I think it's really good that we've implemented that. It, it's, it helps.

Michael: Mm-hmm. I think one of the really cool rituals we had recently was for like the ATO Harvest, so that was when was that? That was in September or October. In September, yeah. Yeah. So. We were trying, I mean, usually it's, you could do some kind of harvest related and I think we've done that in the past.

But I have a book called Celebrating Irish Festivals by Ruth Marshall. And this is my go-to book for, for, for ritual ideas. And this is, and I like to. Kind of some of the traditional holidays and maybe just steal from them. . So Michael Mass is is the holiday around that time in Ireland? It's a Christian holiday, but it's also it's

a

Yucca: were older.

Michael: yeah, yeah,

Yucca: Christians took for the older

Michael: yeah, yeah, yeah. you know, it's about St. And he's known for slaying a dragon as just as St. George was known for slaying a dragon. But I thought, well, let's turn this on this head and let's celebrate our inner dragons. Let's bring our dragons to life. So it was the whole ritual was about dragons. And we actually drew Dragons, drew our inner dragons and shared them.

Talked about what they. And kind of we were feeding our inner dragon so that they could warm us throughout the coming winter.

Yucca: Hmm.

Michael: Mm-hmm.

Mark: as well as watching the home. Star Runner Strong Door, the Ator video,

Michael: Oh yeah,

Mark: which you, you have to do if you've got dragons as a theme. It's just too funny to avoid.

Michael: That's an old flash cartoon from the early two thousands. That was pretty popular.

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Michael: Yeah. Track toward the ator. Google it, and in fact, I did a, I did the hot chip challenge as part of that ritual as

Mark: That's right. Yeah.

Michael: where I ate a very, very hot tortilla chip on camera. And. It was it was painful, but I'm sure, I don't know if it entertained other people, but it was, it was fun

Mark: Oh yeah. It was fun.

Michael: So, yeah, they're like, I mean, these rituals aren't all, they're, they're fun and they're kind of silly and goofy and but I mean, I thought at the same time they're very meaningful because people really opened up in that one

Mark: Yeah.

Michael: and shared some really profe profound truth. That was one of my favorites actually, and I hope we do another, another dragon invoking ritual in the future.

Mark: Maybe in the spring

Michael: yeah.

Mark: you do it at, at both of the equinoxes.

Michael: Mm-hmm.

Mark: so you've joined the Atheopagan Society Council, which is great. Thank you so much for your, your volunteering and your effort. What do you think about the future? How do you, how do you see where this community is going and what would you like to see?

What's, what's your perspective on that?

Michael: Yeah, so just before I discovered the Pagan Facebook group I had attended A local cups meeting. So that's the covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans. And so it was just a taro reading workshop and, you know, I was, I, I like kind of using these kind of rituals just for their beauty and, but not, for not, not seeing anything supernatural in them. I was, it was amazing to, to find a group that was interested in these kind of things too, but without the they weren't incredulous. So I guess what I'm hoping for is that as we, as we kind of find more people who are, are, are aligned with us, maybe we can have more in. Experiences. That was one of the great, the great highlights of, of last year was attending the Century retreat and meeting all, all these amazing people in real life and being able to spend time together in real life.

And I hope that as we kind of, as the word gets out about this group, more and more of us can meet in person or as we are able to,

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Michael: That's what I really hope for the future that you're finding your, your people that we are, we are being able to get these local groups together and then spend time on these important days of the year.

And I believe the Chicago Afu Pagan group was able to do that not too long ago. And I know Mark, your local group meets quite regularly as well.

Mark: We, we meet for the, for the eight holidays, for the eight Sabbath. So yeah, we're gonna get together on the 18th of December and burn a fire in the fire pit and do a, a ritual and enjoy food and drink with one another. And yeah, it's a, it's a really good feeling that that feeling of getting together is just You can't replace it with online connection, but online connection is still really good.

So that's why, that's why we continue to do the mixers every Saturday. And Glen Gordon has also been organizing a mixer on Thursday evenings. Well evenings if you're in the Americas. And. Yeah, there's just, there's, there's a bunch of different opportunities to plug in and it's always great to see somebody new.

Michael: Yeah, I think that would be another hope as well that, you know, if you've been on the fence about coming to a mixer I hope that what we've described today maybe entices you to come along. You know that there's no expectations and you can, you can share, you can just sit in the background and watch, or you can participate.

There's no expectations and it's just a nice way to, to connect with people, so,

Yucca: how would somebody join in? They find the, the link on the Facebook discord.

Michael: that's right. Yeah. So I think, mark, you post it regularly on the Facebook group, and it's also posted on the disc. As well. So, and it's the same time every Saturday, so it's 12:15 PM Central for me, so, and that's like 1115 for you, mark, on the,

Mark: No, it's 1115 for Yucca.

Michael: Oh, okay.

Mark: It's 10 15 for me.

Michael: Okay. Okay.

Yucca: one 15 for Eastern. Then

Michael: one, yeah, that's right.

Yeah.

Yucca: Hmm

Mark: And.

Michael: and it's always the same time, and I think we've, I think we've only missed one week, maybe in the last three years.

Mark: Yeah, I think that's right. I wasn't available and I couldn't find somebody else to host or something like that, but yeah, it's been very consistent. And I see no reason to think it isn't gonna keep being consistent. But yeah, we, you know, we welcome new people. And if you're not in the Americas, that's fine too.

We've got a couple of Dutch people that come in all the time. There's a, an Austrian woman who lives in Helsinki who participates. So

Yucca: E eight nine ish kind of for Europe,

Mark: Yeah.

Michael: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We've even had on the Thursday night mixer, we've even had Australians join occasionally too. So

Yucca: That sounds like that'd be early for them then, right?

Michael: yeah,

Yucca: getting up in the.

Michael: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. But I'd I'd love for some of the listeners to come and join us on one of the mixers and then cuz you know, you bring new ideas. And I we're always looking for new ritual ideas,

Mark: Mm.

Michael: That kind of bring meaning to our lives and to everybody else's.

Mark: Mm-hmm. Yeah, cuz that's, I mean, that's what we're doing, right? We're, we're create, we're, it's a creative process for us. We've got these sort of frameworks like the Wheel of the Year and the, the ritual format that I laid out. Although people can use other ritual formats too. That's fine. But it's, it's an ongoing process of creation and of taking some old traditions and folding them in where they fit but creating new stuff as well.

One of the innovations that we, that we've been doing for the l past year or so is if people want to be done with something, if they want to be finished with something in their. They can write it in the chat and then I take the chat file and I print it on my printer and I take it and I burn it in my cauldron.

So it is actually being burnt physically. But it just takes a little bit of technical processing before that happens.

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: And it's those kinds of innovations that are really useful for online rituals. And boy, if you have new ideas about things we can do for online rituals, I, I would love to hear 'em.

Yucca: So thank you so much for sharing your story and your visions or the future with us. This has been, it's, it's really been beautiful to hear and to get that insight. Thank you, Michael.

Michael: Well, thank you for having me on.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: It's been delightful hearing from you and, and I, I gotta say, I, I feel like our community is very lucky. You've been exploring religion and and folklore and ritual for a long time in a lot of different frameworks and I feel really fortunate that you've landed with us cuz I like you so.

Michael: Okay. Well thanks very much. I like you too,

Mark: Okay folks, that'll be all for this week. And as always, we'll have another episode for you next week on the Wonder Science Based Paganism. Have a great week.

Yucca: Thanks everybody.

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Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com.

S4E24 TRANSCRIPT:----more----

Yucca: Welcome back to The Wonder, Science Based Paganism. I'm one of your hosts, Yucca

Mark: and then the other one, Mark.

Yucca: And today we are talking about that, that August holiday. We are here already. And I think we should start with, with what we call it, right?

Mark: Right, because this is one of those where there are multiple names out there with varying degrees of pronunciability, depending on what your linguistic background is. And part of understanding what it is, is understanding how we talk about it. So what do you call it, Yakko?

Yucca: So usually for me, it's second summer or when speaking with other people, I might use Lamas. That's because it's the one that's easiest for me to spell and I am spelling challenged. So that's usually what it will be. Sometimes the whole season right now is monsoon for us. So it's the monsoons. So yeah. But, you know, I recognize the other names as well. Unasa and things like that.

Mark: Sure. I've always had kind of a hard time naming this holiday and because as I've mentioned before, I prefer not to use the Celtic names because that's not really

Yucca: It's not your background.

Mark: anything that I resonate to. And I, you know, the Catholic holiday llamas, I'm not all that interested in Catholicism either.

Yucca: It always

Mark: but you know what? Oh, llamas.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Yes, the Peruvian holiday. So, So, there was a member of the Atheopagan Facebook group several years ago who suggested that she is using and I don't remember her name or I would credit her that she is using the terms brightening and dimming for the cross quarters at the beginning of February and the beginning of August.

And I like that a lot because it's universal. I've always celebrated that February holiday as river rain, which makes a lot of sense where I live, but not. Pretty much everywhere else. So, so I've, I've adopted those terms and I find them useful. You know, the days are noticeably shorter now. The, you know, we've, we've stepped off from the peak at the summer solstice.

Still plenty hot, still plenty of light, but there's definitely been a step down from that really blazing peak. And so Dimming, Dimming is a name that works well for me.

Yucca: You know, I think one of the challenges with names may be that the, what's happening in each person's climate is, is really very different. And it's not as drastic of a difference in terms of it's not a change of season. We're in the middle of a large season. It's not like in the autumn or the spring, really, when.

There's this switch going on, but what summer is for me and what summer is for you is very different, right, and what summer is going to be for somebody somewhere else, and whether it's still summer or, or we're approaching getting into autumn, because for me, it's not, right, this is not, you know, you talk about it dimming, and I do notice that the days are getting shorter, but this really is Thanks.

This is the peak of summer for us.

Mark: Huh.

Yucca: It's not, there's no, this is the point where there is, it is the hottest time of the year. It is the most summery of summer. The, the summer solstice, it's like spring Barely ended and it is just jumped into summer for us. And so a lot of the types of things that people would associate with the summer solstice are more appropriate for us here, like sunflowers and things like that, that like the sunflowers are barely opening right now for us.

Whereas I know for other people, they've been going for months. Right?

Mark: Right.

Yucca: And I think that that's

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: You know, kind of across a lot of different places where it's just, there just isn't really a unified, what is this time of year? What is this holiday for many

Mark: Right. Well, and it's not just this holiday. I mean, when it comes to summer, the hottest time of the year where I live is September.

Yucca: Mm

Mark: And the reason for that is that the sun has weakened enough that that fog system that I've talked about before no longer works. And so we're under the full sun rather than under a nice blanket of cooling fog.

So we get days in the hundreds in September, and that is entirely uncooperative with any pagan calendar I've ever seen. It just, just doesn't work, right? You know, Oh, yes, the harvest and the, you know, the, the, the leaves and all that great stuff. Well, yes, we're having a harvest, but Not so much the leaves and stuff, cuz it's still blazing hot and it's going to be for a while.

It's gonna stay really warm into November.

Yucca: Mm

Mark: So, so that's one reason why I find this word di dimming appealing because it doesn't refer to what's happening climatically, it just refers to what's happening with the sun, which is more of a universal thing for people in the northern hemisphere.

Yucca: Right. Where it's, where if you're at the same latitude, same things happening, sun wise.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah.

Yucca: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. So. What are some, let's talk about some of the themes, maybe some of the classical themes, and then how, how we approach those within our own climates.

Mark: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Sure. Well, to start with, In traditional paganism, and of course, we always have to issue the caveat that traditional neo paganism was put together 60 years ago or something. It's really not, you know, not something that goes way back, but it draws on folk traditions, which do go way back. And so this is traditionally the first harvest festival, the first of three, and this is associated with the grain harvest.

So, the harvesting of barley and wheat and rye and it's associated with bread and with beer making and all of those things that we do with grain that around here, they actually get two harvests of of grain those that grow fodder for cattle. They're actually able to, you know, they get another growth of it that they can harvest before it starts to rain.

But I like all those old associations. I like to bake a loaf of bread this time of year. It's the only time I ever do.

Yucca: Mm

Mark: and, you know, drink beer, which that's not the only time I ever do. And and just sort of enjoy, you know, reflecting on the season and thinking about what it must have been like for people in You know, the pre medieval medieval period, the classical period, you know, finally some real food is coming out of the ground.

You know, the, the, the, the core food stuff that we eat, which is

Yucca: stuff that lasts, right? That's the stuff that you store for the, you know, it's very different with the food that you're harvesting in the moment to eat. But that is what you're going to be able to store for a long period of time and know that, oh, we've got something. Right? When, when winter comes, I have something.

Yeah.

Mark: Yes. Yeah. So I enjoy all those associations. And then I have a bunch of other associations that I layer on top of that. But how about you? Are there other sort of the classical associations that you can think of that go with this as well?

Yucca: The classical, I mean, there's, you know, there's some of the, like, the, the burning the straw man kind of stuff that happens. But a lot of what I, what I see kind of in the pegasphere the pagan sphere, would be would, a lot of that kind of bread. Association kind of stuff which definitely is not how I celebrate it.

We, you know, we don't eat bread. We don't eat that kind of stuff. But it is the grass component is really important for us. That's a big, big theme. It's really honoring the ranges. I'm a range ecologist in particular. And we, we assign different associations throughout the year with different types of ecosystems.

And so this is the other side from, even though it's not quite across but it's the other side from the winter solstice. For us where that's the forests and this is the grasslands. And this is when the grasslands are here. The grass is really at its at its fullest at its peak because it's monsoons.

So for me, this this holiday is a lot about the monsoons.

Mark: Uhhuh. for sure. Yeah. I mean that's a, in the southwestern deserts, that's probably the most influential climatic thing that happens all year round. It's the monsoon rains.

Yucca: the monsoons and the snowpack, right? It's the moist, and those are, and that's when it's happening, right? We're hap it's happening, the snowpack is gonna be in that win in that winter kind of, really January, right? We're not really getting that much in December, it's not until January, so January and August.

Although the monsoons will last for a few months, August really is the heart of it,

Mark: Mm

Yucca: we're lucky. Depends on the year.

Mark: Right.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: The what was I going to say? Oh, but there are other meanings that I have kind of layered on to this time as well. This was the time when the ancient Greek Olympics would take place right around this time. And so, you know, naked men cavorting with javelins and pole vaulting and racing and all that kind of stuff.

Yucca: Sounds great.

Mark: so I tend to associate this time of year with skill and and I kind of, as our listeners, our regular listeners know, the other thing that I do is I tend to map the Sabbaths of the wheel of the year onto the arc of a human life. And that means that this point in the wheel of the year is for the middle aged.

And I see the middle aged as people that are at the height of their intellectual and skill powers. They, you know, they are your senior engineers. They are your you know, your experienced inventors that have been through enough trial and error to know what's likely to work and what isn't. And so I associate technology.

With this time of year as well, because one thing that note that I noticed was a glaring absence in the traditional pagan wheel of the year is any place for technology, because it's all kind of rooting this ye olde England the kind

Yucca: of nostalgic for the past and yeah

Mark: Right. Yeah. But believe me, at this time of year, if you didn't have a mill, you were you were not having a great time as a having a grain harvest.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: That technology is very valuable.

Yucca: Well and and for today a

Mark: to assume.

Yucca: pretty pretty big fan of fans right now

Mark: Yes.

Yucca: Yep.

Mark: Yeah, you bet. So, you know, technology, invention, skill, middle age all of those sort of I don't know. Summary and later in life kinds of things.

Yucca: Mm hmm

Mark: Not really elderly, but just,

Yucca: mature.

Mark: when I think of elderhood, I yeah, mature. When I think of elderhood, I think of people who have either retired or are near retirement or at least near the age when people used to be able to retire back when that was a thing we could do.

Yucca: I have heard

Mark: that, that I, yes, yes, I have heard the lore of the people that say that. The thing one can do but I associate that phase in life with the harvest festival at the Autumnal Equinox, which I associate with the elderly. And then of course, Hallows is death and decomposition.

Yucca: Yeah. Mm

Mark: So, so, you know, kind of a list of different sorts of themes to associate with, but I like having A different station in life for each of the Sabbaths because it gives an opportunity to celebrate people in my community that are of a particular age group

Yucca: hmm

Mark: and, you know, just to appreciate them for being in our community and what they bring and what they've been through, or what they're going to bring forth and, you know, the potential that they offer.

And I just, I think that's a good thing for community building. So it's a, it's a thing I like to do.

Yucca: And I really like your inclusion of the, the technology in there. I think that that's an important important thing to recognize, right? That it's, and it's kind of having a place to honor it because it isn't it's A bad thing, right? It's not like there's this competition between, like, natural and technology.

Like, it's, no, no, this is all mixed in here together and, and, you know, like any tool, it's really just depends on what we're doing with those tools and what are, what's our intention behind the tools. But the tool itself, it's not necessarily, you know, a bad thing.

Mark: right. Now, it doesn't reflect well that pretty much every technological innovation throughout history has been initially applied towards warfare. That, that's kind of a grim factoid.

Yucca: Yeah, now I've heard that many times. I'm not I have to admit that I feel a little skeptical about that. I, but I don't have enough background to be able to point to something and say, ah, here's an example. But, I mean, it's something that I definitely hear is repeated, and there's certainly plenty of examples of it, but I don't know how, how fair of a representation that really is or isn't.

Mm hmm.

Mark: well, when you have a military dominated society and most societies throughout recorded history have been military dominated, then it's inevitable that what technologies arise are going to be applied to military applications.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: Like refrigeration, for example, refrigeration was initially used to transport food around for soldiers and then it got propagated out into various private applications.

Yucca: Well, I can think of rockets, right? Or fire

Mark: circuit, right, right. The integrated circuit was initially used in ICBMs and things like then fighter jets and things like that. But now we're talking over computers that use the integrated circuit. So there are many applications for technologies. And a part of a part of my, my rap about technology and.

Capitalism and human society is that part of the problem that we've had is that the idea of science as this dispassionate value free proposition has allowed us to do research into areas that are very destructive. I mean, you know, doing research about how you can get more of an explosive yield out of a fusion reaction is pretty destructive.

And if we had a society that was more informed by compassionate and humanitarian values. we would be less likely to invest money in that kind of research, I think.

Yucca: hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Mark: But there's a tangent.

Yucca: Well, we have to have at least

Mark: anyway, yes, we do. That's true. Anyway, technology, it does lots of good stuff for us. Keeps me alive. I wouldn't, I'm, I'm sure I wouldn't be here if not for the technology that goes into my pharmaceuticals. So I'm happy about technology.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: So, those are themes. How about rituals? What are, what are things you like to do to celebrate the grasslands and and those and the rains, the monsoons? Yeah.

Yucca: Well, when the rains come, we go out in them. Because going out in the rain is a very different thing depending on where the rain is. Right, it may not be something that you would want to do if you live in Connecticut and rain is a very different thing there than it is here. But when the storms come it's just we get so little moisture that it's just amazing that we go out barefoot and we watch the, we watch the water just moving across the land. Of course, there's very practical reasons as well, because I want to see where the water is moving to and, you know, how can I slow that down and redirect it and make sure it's not getting into the foundations of my house and all of that stuff. But but it also, we The kids have some clear umbrellas, right?

We go out and look at the rain through the clear umbrellas and get wet and muddy like those cartoons where the kid is just completely covered except for their little blinking eyeballs, right? Like, we, we make sure to do that. And Just spending time outside a lot. The other thing that comes up is that this is the, the proceeds are coming up so it's right after, so the per, they usually peak around like the 12th or so.

But they're already getting going for like about a week or, and so before and after. So we spend a lot of time outside with that and just Just being out, but being out in the evening times because right now it is really hot in the middle of the day and the sun is very intense because we're so high up that,

Mark: Mm hmm. Mm

Yucca: you know, there's just, there's no cloud cover.

And when the rains do come, the clouds come in the afternoons, early evening, and then they're gone, right? It's not like it's cloudy all day. You'll get the, you'll get that Few hours, and then it's clear again, clear again. All right.

Mark: Then you get a great sunset

Yucca: Yes, and this time of year, the

Mark: the remnants of the clouds.

Yucca: Yeah, the sunsets. I mean, we have beautiful sunsets throughout the year, but there's something about the summer and the autumn.

And then just the whole sky is just pink and golden and and the light on the, the trees that we have here are mostly. Pinyon and juniper. So they have the needles that the every single needle will catch the light and it looks like little spears of fire and it's, it's just, it's just hanging out a lot.

Just being with, with the land and and we got lots of animals this time of year. I was telling Mark some stories about our adventures with, with some very large mammals in and You know, that's what we're, that's what we're doing, so,

Mark: That's great. I love that blood warm rain of the monsoons. When we get rain here, it's always cold. But that, that tropical rain is just so amazing. It's lovely to go out and get soaked in it.

Yucca: And it's different, right, depending on which, which desert you're in because we say the desert southwest, but there's like five different deserts here, right, and what elevation you're at, where, you know, it's the, the, the rains that we have up here, I'm just I'm not quite on the Colorado Plateau but I'm right now, I'm at this crossroad between like several different major geologic regions, but it's so different than if you go down into the Chihuahuan.

Right, the rain, even though they're getting the same weather patterns coming through, but the rain is just it smells different. It feels different. It's just so different each place. And then, of course, this is when the grasses come alive. Right, they're waiting, they're sleeping throughout the whole year and then they.

Wake up and here we have, we're on a migratory path. The elk will come through as they're going between these two main mountain ranges that we have. And this is when, you know, we're moving around the, my whole neighborhood. Neighborhood I put that that's again relative for different people. This is a very large area that we have, but you know, we're moving our our herds of animals around and it's just it's just a very alive.

That's that's I think if I had to give this name, this holiday name. I say, maybe I'd call it alive,

Mark: hmm.

Yucca: right? Or awake, alive, awake, something like that. Yeah.

Mark: I like that. Nice. So, well, I guess I'll talk a little bit about ways that I celebrate. I mean, I've already talked about making bread and drinking beer and,

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: you know, that kind of thing. I do like to get together with friends at this time of year and, you know, kind of center grain stuffs in the meal. So, our Northern California Atheopagan Affinity group is going to get together on the 6th of August and celebrate, and we'll be doing that with bread and empanadas, actually, which will also be really nice. So, it's still a summer holiday and to me that means gatherings. And you know, the opportunity to have a highly constrained, safe fire,

Yucca: Mm

Mark: because unsafe fires are unpopular in California now. They they, that's a, that's a good way for you to get sideways of your neighbors is to have too big and uncontained a fire.

But we'll, you know, we'll, we'll build a little fire in a fire pit and that'll be nice to be around and we'll hang out into the evening and talk about life and enjoy bread and beer and empanadas and snacks and early vegetables and all that good kind of stuff. And it'll just be a good way to celebrate the season.

Yucca: Mm.

Mark: yeah, I really find that the the, the summer Sabbaths really lend themselves so much more to just kind of general social gatherings than they do to more. formal rituals. I, I tend to do more formal rituals in the fall, the winter, and the spring. But after the Maypole at at May Day or Beltane everything relaxes a great deal.

Yucca: Yeah. Mm

Mark: Uh, and it, it, it turns into barbecues at the beach and stuff like that as my way of celebrating the holiday because it's a great time to be out, right, to be out. In the world and experiencing it.

Yucca: Yeah Because the other half of the year is much more indoor focused, right? And for me, it's often there's a, it's a much more turned inwards. experience where the,

Mark: Mm hmm.

Yucca: the warm half of the year is a much more turned out experience, just in terms of where the focus is. It's about, you know, what's going on outside with everything else, with the whole, you know, and then outside of the home and then in the home.

Mark: Right. Right. Even even to the extent of other people, whereas in the wintertime, I tend to be more inward and less social. And that's one of the reasons why the winter solstice is important,

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: it's this sort midwinter.

Now we're going to have a big gathering and we're, you know, we're all going to like look at each other's eyes and realize that we're still alive and, you know, pack in the calories because, you know, who knows what we're going to have to eat come the end of January and that sort of celebration. I appreciate that over the years I have come to feel, to feel the seasons in my body.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: In a way and not just from the standpoint of how much light there is, but sort of a calling towards a particular kind of celebration at a particular time of year.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So this has been a good conversation. This is our 4th. Podcast episode about this particular holiday. So it's

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: the calendar. It's like that. It just goes around and around and around. So, forgive us if a lot of it was repetition, but, you know, it's the same holiday. We're not inventing a new one.

So,

Yucca: about traditions.

Mark: of course,

Yucca: them again and again.

Mark: right, right. And. Of course, we're always interested to hear what kind of things you're doing. You can contact us at the wonder podcast queues at gmail. com or the wonder podcast QS at gmail. com. And we love to hear from you. We always really appreciate that. Anything else, Yucca?

Yucca: I think that's it. So thanks, Mark. Thank you, everyone.

Mark: Yeah. Thank you Yucca and we'll see you next week.

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Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com.

S4E23 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 talking about individual practice with shared values in paganism.

Yucca: Yes. And it, we kind of danced around coming up with this topic because we started with the idea of talking about correspondence, which is something very, very common in many different pagan traditions. And immediately, Coming to, to the place of going, well, in Atheopaganism, there isn't really a shared, there's, we don't have a book, right, that says this color means this and this direction means that.

It's kind of, it's kind of up to every person and that's a, a really common theme with how we do our ritual, how we practice, how the wheel of the year looks, all of those sorts of things. And yet, We still are a community that still practices with each other and relates and shares values. So that's where we were coming from with this topic.

Mark: right, right. And I mean, a lot of us are solitary. A lot of us, you know, work on our own. And as you say, you know, we really encourage people to do this kind of DIY religion thing, right? Where you create the practices that work best for you. You create a wheel of the year cycle that reflects the natural world where you are and the climate where you are, you know, you create a focus that looks like.

The way you want it to and has the symbols on it that you find meaningful. You do rituals. I mean, you may use the format that I put out in my book or not, but you create rituals that are meaningful and symbolic in the matters, in the, the ways that, that are important to you. It's not like. You know, some of the mainstream religions where you the the rituals are predefined.

They're in a book. They're a thing that you're supposed to do. In some cases, you're not even allowed to do them. There's a priest class that has to do them for you. It's just it's not like that at all.

So, I was thinking about what kinds of topics we could do and so sometimes I will look to more mainstream pagan which is always an ironic term. Mainstream pagan books, right? And most of those books tends to be filled with magical correspondences like this herb means this particular thing.

This, this gemstone or mineral is good for this particular magical practice. This you know, these things are associated with these zodiacal signs, you know.

Yucca: directions,

Mark: The four directions, all of that kind of stuff. And we don't have any of that because it really is. What does it mean to you? Right? So, in my new book that's coming out, for example, I suggest some colors and symbols that you can use for Celebrations of the Wheel of the Year holidays, but they're entirely optional.

And, and so I say, if the winter solstice is all about blue and white for you, then decorating blue and white, it doesn't have to be red and green. Like everybody else does do what works for you.

Yucca: Thinking about the directions because for some people the directions are really important I would imagine that if I live where you do, Mark, I might associate the West with water, but for somebody who lives in New York, they're not gonna, West is not the water, right? East is the water.

Mark: That's right. If you live on the western shore of Lake Superior, then east is the water. There's no question about

Yucca: Yeah.

And, you know, for a lot of, if you're in Tucson, snow might not be something that you really associate with winter solstice.

Mark: no

probably not. Yeah. Unless you, you know, go up into the mountains to go skiing or something, but

Yucca: Right. Yeah. I mean, you go into the north, northern Arizona, that's a different matter, but, you know, not down in the low desert. So,

Mark: So all of this is to say that that led us into the conversation about, well, Ours is a highly individualistic practice, and that's by design, because it's not meant to be dogmatic. It's meant to be facilitative of your own spiritual experience and your own discovery journey, right? Of who you are and what, what is meaningful to you and how you relate to the world around you.

Yucca: right.

Mark: But that said, oh, go ahead.

Yucca: but that isn't going to be informed by things. Right? The, the red and green for solstice many people have grown up around that being the color scheme, and that's what they associated with, or the particular family that you come from had associations or whatever your cultural background, regional background, right?

Just because it's, Individual doesn't mean you have to remake everything. If something works for you from the background that you're coming from, great,

Mark: Mm hmm.

Yucca: Certain colors, certain smells, foods, all of those things, you know, we're, we're shaped by that. And that's not a bad thing, right? As long as we're conscious about that.

Mark: right. You can start with a blank sheet of paper and just invent it all for yourself, but you don't have to. And most of us don't, you know, we draw things that come from our life experience of, you know, growing up with particular sorts of practices at a particular time of year, all that sort of thing.

And that's all great. Right? Because it's meaningful and it resonates for us and it's, it's, it, it works for us emotionally. But then the flip side of all this is that we are in a community. It's mostly an online community, but increasingly we have people getting together in person as

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: And so if all of our practices are super diverse and individualized, then what is it that glues us together as a community?

Yucca: Right.

Mark: Right? And so what we were talking about is the shared values.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: In atheopaganism, we have the four sacred pillars and the 13 principles. And in order to get into our online communities, you have to endorse the principles. We ask people as, as they, they enter our, as they apply to get into our Facebook group, for example.

You know, this is a feminist, anti racist, anti ableist know, pro science. anti fascist space. You endorse those values.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: if we don't get an answer or if we get the wrong answer, which we never do then you don't get in because we want to share community with people that fundamentally have a respect for the individual and a respect for the earth and and a respect for critical thinking and, and science.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: That's what we're about.

Yucca: to be clear, we're not going out into other communities and saying you've got to do it our way, but we're saying that this shared space that we've created here, these are the values that we have. And these are, this is what we expect here that that we share together. And then from there I mean, it's, it's amazing to see what people do share with each other and to see what what things people have in common and different approaches that people take.

And it's just, it's lovely,

Mark: And the beautiful focuses, the, the altars that they make you know, that are always so unique so specific to that person and, and what their aesthetic is and what their values are all of that. And so, to me, it's this real dance around The celebration and empowerment of the individual, as well as gathering together in community in a shared, a shared ethical and value system,

Yucca: Mm hmm. Mm

Mark: so that when we come together we know, hey, you know we're, we're safe with each other here, we're, we're all, we all care about the same stuff.

And, you know, we're, We know we're going to be respected. We know we're going to be appreciated for what we bring. We know that there's room for us, you know, whatever, you know, our, our diverse individual nature might be. All of that is just so important. And so that, that is the, the, the knife edge that we seek to walk.

Right. Right.

Yucca: well, there's been a, there's a really important key in all of this and that's the communication part. And that's something that we work really hard on both the online and in person community is to, to try to explain and be Open and try to understand when people are explaining the things. I remember when at Sun Tree for the shared ritual, there was explanation, right?

There wasn't any, at least there was very little, or if it was there, it was so familiar to me that I didn't notice it. That the expectations were spoken out loud. There wasn't this hidden script that everybody was following that is more common in more established religions, right? If you go to Catholic mass, nobody's telling you what to do.

Everybody is doing it and has been doing it that way for hundreds of years, right? But when creating new things and working with lots of different kinds of people with different kinds of practices, communicating between each other is really key so that we, we know it, we're on the same page. We're not working with different expectations,

Mark: Right. And, and the collaboration that goes into the creation of a shared ritual becomes a really important part of the process. I mean, there are times when you'll have like a ritual leader and they will either create a ritual themselves or they'll work with a subset of all the people that are going to celebrate it.

If you've got a ritual of 100 people, you cannot have a collaboration of 100

Yucca: you know?

Mark: to design a ritual. It would just be a big mess. But there's a consent piece where everybody agrees. Okay. You know, these, these are the folks that we have decided are going to do this thing for us. And we're going to go along with the, the practice that.

they've designed for us to go through for this ritual. And of course, there's always the opt out possibility. If something comes, I mean, I can't imagine what it would be, but if there's some part of a ritual that someone is uncomfortable with, they don't have to participate.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: they, and they can say, I'm not comfortable.

I'm, I'm stepping out.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: So, yeah, I mean, when I was writing my new book one of the things that I thought about a lot was this correspondences piece because, you know, the proliferation of Wicca books and, and pagan books generally, often so much of the content of those books is about This color means this thing and, you know, burn a candle of this color with this sigil on it in order to accomplish this effect.

It's all very prescriptive.

Yucca: A lot of the short form media that gets shared to like the Instagrams and TikToks and things like that, a lot of them are really focused on that as well,

Mark: Huh.

Yucca: which makes sense because it's a, it's a little bite size something, right? Like it, it kind of lends itself to that, but then that's successful and then more people do it and then more people and then that's kind of awesome.

All there is.

Mark: Right. So, and, and I don't want to be prescriptive in that way. I don't want to tell people, well, for one thing, because in my worldview, such associations are arbitrary, you know, we, we do ritual in order to affect ourselves psychologically. And if you see red as a color of peace and calm. Then buy gum, use red as a color of peace and calm.

It's not up to me. It's up to you,

Yucca: Right. Yeah.

Mark: So the challenge, you know, part of the challenge in putting the book together was like, well, okay, what's the content of this book going to be? Because this is all about sort of a how to, whereas the first book was much more of a theory kind of book,

Yucca: Right.

Mark: more of a why and where's the science behind it and that stuff. The second book is much more about how to create rituals and examples and outlines and stuff like that.

Yucca: Right. Which is, it can be really helpful, right? Especially when somebody's coming into something like ritual with no prior experience going, what, so this is great. You're all saying, do it your own way, whatever works for you, but I have no idea what works for me. Right? Sometimes people just want, give me something to, to work with and then I can modify it.

But like, something, anything,

Mark: Exactly. And that's why I wrote the book that I did. The, because that's what I was hearing a lot, especially from folks coming from the atheist side into the community.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: Because one of the things that's really great about the neopagan community is that now it has more than 50 years of cumulative.

accumulation of lore and knowledge and wisdom and psychological insight into what works ritually.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: And there's a, there's just a huge body of accumulated knowledge there that doesn't exist in the atheist community at all. The atheist community has a big, huge accumulated body of lore around skepticism and critical thinking and being less wrong and evidentiary standards and all that kind of stuff.

And all of that is very good when it comes to figuring out what's most likely to be true. It's not necessarily all that useful when impactful.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: So that's one reason why atheopaganism is a marriage of those things, so that you can do both of those things and do them well.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: And so that's, that's what the new book is, is basically intended for, is to give people some, some benefit of that. Experience that's been accumulated over all that time that I've managed to learn in my 35 years in the, in the community.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: So, I was thinking, maybe we could round this out with some like unusual examples of associations that we have like personal associations that might not be the ones that would be necessarily expected by people, but that we have on our own?

Yucca: I'm gonna have to think about that. Do you have any off the top of your head?

Mark: Well, I kind of do. The, the, the first one is, in creating my wheel of the year the February holiday, which is often in the sort of Wiccan framework associated with snow, and in some cases with little sprouts of green coming up through the snow, or all that kind of stuff. In my area, that's not what it is at all.

What it is is torrential cold rain. Just a lot of rain and, you know, refilling all the agricultural ponds and getting all the creeks thundering and the river filling up and all that. So, I named the Holiday River Rain.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: And to me, it is the festival of water. And so I associate it with all of those kind of flowy, emotional sort of qualities psychologically, as well as with its more traditional association with infancy and new beginnings, you know, planning for the future sort of envisioning what, what can come later on through the, the harvesting process.

So that, that's one that comes to mind for me immediately. Have you, have you found one?

Yucca: Well, I suppose maybe the bug association I have with summer solstice. I one that I mean, there's a logic to it there for me, right? Because that's, that's when they're out. That's when all the bees are out. That's dance. That's the you know, that's when they, you see the wing dance coming out.

And but I think a lot of times folks kind of, many people are very uncomfortable. With insects and arthropods and that sort of thing. So I think that gets left out of a lot of practices or views of nature. Unless it's a honeybee or a butterfly. People and a dragonfly. People like those three, right?

But most other ones, they're like, oh, I don't know how I feel about that weird, like, cricket thing or that.

Mark: Jerusalem crickets or tarantula hawks.

Yucca: those are what I was thinking. Yeah. Tarantula hawks are our state insect actually.

Mark: Huh.

Yucca: beautiful,

Mark: are wonderful. Yeah.

Yucca: but the wasps are very different in their reproductive, their life cycle than ours.

It's a little uncomfortable for people to think about sometimes. So I think maybe that might be one association. For us,

Mark: Mhm.

Yucca: I mean, for me, it's, it's, I'm just so,

the experience of my climate is, it's, it's a very distinctive climate. It's one that I'm very in, kind of, and I only really remember that when I travel, right? When I travel and go somewhere else, I'm like, oh, right. Other people are having a totally different experience than I am here in my little, you know, desert mesa.

Like, it's a very, you know, so sometimes it's kind of, it's, it's hard to think about, well, what is everybody else's association? Because I don't spend a lot of time with that, right? I don't spend a lot of time with what the, well, the directions hmm.

Mark: Right. And I don't actually use directions in my practice at all. And not entirely sure why that is because certainly I'm relating to the landscape. It's just, I don't know, the directions just don't seem to do a lot for me so I don't, I don't do them but, but a lot of people do. And. I think part of it is the association with the classical Greek elements, which is a very old system, but it is a pseudoscientific system. I mean, they, they believed it at the time, but it's, it's no longer valid. We know that there are a lot more elements than that and fire is a reaction. It's not an element.

Yucca: Yeah.

I mean, it was a useful concept though, right? When I, I I start the, I do a chemistry class and we always start with, okay, well, let's talk about what elements are and how this, you know, this concept and where's it come from. And it's a, you know, it's a, it has some pretty good logic to

Mark: Mm hmm.

Yucca: Our understanding is, has definitely shifted.

Over time, though, in terms of what, what are those building blocks?

Mark: Right. Right. And, and all the metaphorical associations with the directions like, you know, air with intellect and communication and ideation and breath and all those things. I mean, it's a, it's a pretty nifty system it all fits together very well, you know, with, with the different You know, phases of matter

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: other than the exotic ones, you know,

Yucca: The observable states.

Mark: yeah, the, there you go.

The, the observable states of matter.

Yucca: When I was younger, I did do a lot more with that because I had had a lot of of interaction with reclaiming folk. And they do a lot of the, of the elements and direction work. And so that was a lot of the group rituals that I had done had been Within the context of reclaiming tradition. So, but as I changed over time, I, I really moved away from that.

And I still still do a circle sometimes, but I, and we'll sometimes still turn in the different directions just as a way of, of creating the circle, but they don't have for. a really strong meaning to me because they are so different depending on where you are. Other than sunrise and sunset, right?

Though, you know, the, the sun coming up in the east, but even then, the sun doesn't come up in the same direction. We say it comes up in the east, but it actually...

Mark: northeast or the southeast.

Yucca: wildly across my sky, right? It's not the same direction. So it's kind of that, in the same way that the seasons, you know, aren't this clear cut, like lines between the seasons, the directions for me aren't these really clear directions either.

It's kind of that. that direction.

Mark: Right. Right.

Yucca: And the Pueblo folk here use the directions in the same way, different associations, but that was also something I grew up around, was that it's very common, that same, you know, calling in the directions and different aspects and spirits for that.

Mark: I have a theory around this, which is that cultures which live in landscapes where you can see long distances. tend to focus on directions like that. If you, I mean, if you live in a jungle, then there's, it's undifferentiated. It's, it's going to be very hard to say, okay, well, this to the north is, you know, associated with X, Y, and Z, because you're surrounded by a wall of vegetation that is exactly identical in every direction you look. But I think you know, especially in the American Midwest and the arid West, you know, we have these.

huge, expansive vistas.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: And so being able to encompass the landscape with an invocation, I think is, is really important, is really compelling.

Yucca: Hmm. I can see that. Yeah.

Mark: So, it's just a theory, but it seems to kind of make sense to me anyway.

Yucca: I wonder too, if when you're next to very When you're on the edge of very different environments, right, being on the coast and then having, you know, your mountains inland and your coast one way, you know, that might also inspire that a little bit, that there is just something very different about these different directions.

Mark: Right. Where I am near the coast, there's definitely that gigantic ocean, you know, out to the west, and then there's sort of, two buckets of, land stuff. There's Redwoods,

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: which is, you know, the, the primordial forest, the, you know, amazing cathedral like forest. And then there's the Oak Chaparral, the Oak grasslands and Chaparral.

And that was, which is just very characteristically California. Landscape. And I've never really figured out how, I mean, I guess getting away from directions and just simply naming those things would probably be a way of invoking the landscape,

Yucca: hmm.

Mark: and, and the local, the local land and water.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: yeah, I need to think about this more the more I'm talking about it as, as we're conversing, I'm having new ideas.

Yucca: There's also a scale aspect too of when, when you're invoking, what are you invoking and why? Right, how intimate is it? Because thinking about that, or it's very similar where I am, is we have these very, very different spaces that are all kind of close to each other, next to each other. I go up into the Rockies with the Ponderosas, and it's very different than being down here in the I live right on these scarps, this beautiful juniper pignon, and then we go down into the, so I, I'm right at the crossroads between.

These vastly different geographic regions. But I, I would only really think about invoking all of that in very specific types of rituals. Most of mine would be very much smaller, much more intimate of just being present with the tree that I'm sitting next to.

Mark: Huh.

Yucca: Right. Oh, I don't always feel the need to bring it.

I'm not to that grandness of let's let me bring in the whole Rio Grande rift, right? Like that isn't what I'm that's not what I'm doing most of the time.

Mark: I guess when I do that, it's because I'm sort of inviting. I'm inviting the landscape to witness what I'm doing

Yucca: Mm

Mark: a way. I'm saying hey, if I could have your attention for a moment, I'm over here doing a thing. And of course, it's all metaphorical in my mind. So I'm not actually asking for any kind of a being out there to focus its attention on me.

But for my own sake, I want to feel like what I'm doing is integrated into the systems of the land and water where I live.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: And so I'm sort of calling attention to it and saying, Hey, I'm going to do a thing. So, check it out. And I hope this all works with whatever you've got going on.

Yucca: Yeah, let's see that. Hmm. I think it might, for me, it might be something where big, bigger moments of the year, mark, when I'm marking a, you know, the change of a year, a solstice or something like that. But if it's a, I'm going to do some self care and work through a traumatic memory, you know, that might not, I might not bring that whole level in.

Mark: Huh. Huh.

Yucca: I might not want that witnessing,

Mark: Right. Right. Yeah. I guess along those lines, and this is a way that we may be very individual from one another, there's something about the patience and the capacity for, for just absorbing whatever events have taken place that I associate with land. There's something about deep time and geology and it just lays down layers of memory.

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: But it, it incorporates them in, into itself rather than, rather than suffering through them, if that makes any sense. I mean, I'm, it's sort of poetic, but,

Yucca: Mm hmm.

Mark: but when you, when you start thinking about all this stuff, you get poetic really fast. That's, you know, kind of what it's about is metaphor and, and imagery and all that.

Yucca: I wish in this moment that this was video, not audio because Mark, your background right now, do you want to describe what your Zoom background is for everybody?

Mark: Oh sure, it's a, it's a shot of the Grand Canyon at summertime, at at sunset.

Yucca: Right?

Mark: with the Alpenglow, the beautiful red Alpenglow along one scarp and the Colorado River down below on the, on the other side, down in blues and, and purples. And that's just that, that particular geological feature of the Grand Canyon is just very, very beloved to me and I've had amazing experiences there, almost died there. And I just, I go back to images of the Grand Canyon over and over again. The Southwest generally is just so beautiful.

Yucca: Yeah, and you can see in that picture the layers, layer upon layer and layer, and then just the horizon beyond with it, you know, the little mesas in the background, the glow of the light. So it was just as you were talking about that, that relationship with the land, I was looking at that picture and going, Oh, just like that, just like those layers in the rock carved away over the years and years.

So.

Mark: Yeah. And I mean, to, to extend the metaphor when those layers are, are carved out or are brought back to light rather than being tragedies or, or crimes or transgressions, instead they're beautiful.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: Because if there's anything that I've learned through my own life, it's that. The suffering that I've done has helped to make me beautiful

Yucca: Yeah. Indeed.

Mark: and I think that's true of everyone.

Yucca: Indeed.

Well,

Mark: Well, we've gone a long, yeah, me too. This has been a, just a delightful conversation. We've come a long way from correspondences, but that's, that's all to the good.

Yucca: I think so. Yeah. And before we know it, we're going to be at our next holiday episode.

Mark: Yes.

Yucca: So, yep.

Mark: Another one that nobody knows what the name is.

Yucca: are we going to call it? Yes, that August thing. So, well, thank you so much, Mark.

Mark: Oh, thank you, Yucca. It's always a pleasure.

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S4E22 TRANSCRIPT:----more----

Yucca: Welcome back to the Wonder Science Based Paganism. I'm one of your hosts, Yucca.

Mark: And I'm Mark.

Yucca: And today we thought that we'd come back to some of the practical, we've been talking a lot about philosophical ideas and things like that, and we thought, let's do something that is really more kind of hands-on. And it's been a long time since we've talked about creating sacred space.

Mark: Right. And that. It's kind of the precursor to everything that we do in a ritual context, right? Is to set the table emotionally and psychologically for us to do the work of a ritual. So we thought that we'd come back to that and talk about it some more. Because it's kind of an elusive concept until you experience it and then you know what it feels like and it's easier to do the things that are needed in order to experience it again.

Yucca: Right. Yeah, it is, it is really all about your experience of it and your experience of it's probably gonna be pretty different than somebody else's. I mean, there are some things that are fairly universal to us as a species but a lot of the associations, the things you're gonna be working with will be very personal.

Mark: Right. When, when we talk about some of the things that are universal to us as a species, some of the things that contribute to that feeling of a sacred space are low light conditions, which tend to lead us to want to speak in hushed whispers which is probably a remnant of our desire not to be eaten in the dark,

Yucca: Yes.

Mark: Flickering light like candlelight or firelight.

Light.

Yucca: Go on. I was gonna say rhythmic noises or the white rushing noises of water or things like that.

Mark: yes, like the surf or waterfall or any of those kinds of things. The sense, particularly kind of rich the sense of incense or burning herbs can be associated with those kinds of things. So it's very sensory and historically, I mean, many of these techniques have been developed, cultivated, and really refined by, for example, the Roman Catholic Church and the, the Eastern Orthodox churches.

They, they really know what they're doing. That architecture that leads your eyes to gaze way up and statuary where you're, you feel very small in relation to it. And the low light conditions and the incense and the, the Gregorian chanting going on that's got those beautiful rhythmic, trance inducing kind of qualities to it.

All that stuff. And then Protestantism threw all that out. And I don't feel much when I go into a Protestant or say a a, a Mormon church, but I'm sure that people who follow those traditions do.

Yucca: There's certainly been some experiences that I've had as a guest in some Protestant churches that, that felt like, like, yeah, wow. They're, they're, they're getting this ritual thing. Especially one that I think of as a, a Christmas Eve, one that I. Went to several years where they turned the lights down and everyone had a candle and was holding the candle up together and singing.

I think it was like silent night that everyone was singing together and some of those real kind of iconic ones. So I, it's, it's not as common with the Protestant groups as we see with the Catholics, but, and I don't have. Any experience with Eastern Orthodox. A lot of experience with Catholics, so, but, but that's still done, right?

I think it's something that humans want to do. Whatever our particular background is, we, I think we seek that kind of experience out.

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: to a certain extent we do that with sporting events as well. I'm not a big sports person, but it, you know, when I watch other people involved in that and the rituals behind that, I go, oh wow.

I recognize what you're doing. This is familiar.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah, that's very true. Yeah. What, what I think of this as being like, is the creation of an emotional framework,

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: That makes it possible for transformation to happen, right? Because ritual is a transformative process. we go into this trans state when the conditions are right, and then we do something that either feels like. You know, recognizing the seasons and connecting with nature or healing some wound that we've suffered previously, or aspiring towards, you know, confidence and competence as we pursue some goal. All of those are the kinds of things that that ritual can do for us. And of course in the case of theism, there's just that worship thing, right?

You know, just getting into that state and then feeling very worshipful towards your, your God or gods. Which we don't do, but my guess is that the feeling is very, very similar to what I feel about the cosmos and the earth. The same kind of humble. Awe-inspired reverence,

Yucca: Yeah, that would be my, my guess as well. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about how to create this space.

Mark: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. There are a lot of different pieces. That can go into this. I mean, we just threw out a whole bunch. There's actually a document, it, it's in my book as well the Ethiopia Paganism book that describes many of the different attributes that can go into the creation of sacred space and a ritual. The, but the primary ones to me in terms of. Moving into that state are a sense of safety and privacy.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: You're not gonna have people come barging in who aren't a part of the process. You're not gonna be mocked. Or attacked or any, any of that kind of thing. You, you, you feel a solidity in your place which enables you to open yourself up and become emotionally vulnerable.

Yucca: which means that depending on your living situation where you're creating this space may be very different. Right. If you live by yourself in a three bedroom apartment, maybe you have a whole room that you dedicate to this or you live with a whole bunch of other people. You live in a family situation or a dorm situation, and maybe it's something that you do privately in the bathroom.

Because that's the only place that you can have a little bit of time and space to yourself. And so how permanent or not the, your setup for the space is gonna be, is gonna depend on that kind of situation,

Mark: Right, right. And places in nature are also very good for this. You just have to make sure that they're secluded enough that you're not gonna have people stumbling across you while you're doing your thing.

Yucca: And that you're safe with the other inhabitants of whatever that place is that you're in, right? That you've checked around. There's, there's no snakes hanging out that are right under the rock there, or you know, this isn't bear territory or something like that.

Mark: Right. Yeah. So I mean the beach or the woods or the desert or You know, a, a mountaintop, all of those are wonderful places to do a ritual. And we do that, it helps us to do a symbolic declaration of the space, the most common one in Pagan. Spaces is the, the casting of the circle, right? Where, you know, there's actual movement.

You go around the outside of the circle some cases with a knife or a sword, or a crystal or a feather or something,

Yucca: Right. Sometimes you literally sprinkle people like to sprinkle like sands or salts or things like that as well.

Mark: Right to create the psychological impression of a barrier

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: that protects your privacy and safety. Yeah. So those are, those are things that you can do to, to, to help to create that circumstance. I've, I've had experiences, well, I had one experience of this ritual group. This was when I first got involved with Paganism.

It was probably like the second or third time I ever went to a ritual. And they, they were, they were way out in the country, but they actually tried to do a ritual on land that wasn't theirs. And I didn't realize this until later. And everybody was looking over their shoulders all the time and, There was no sacred space.

There was no ritual state. There were, it was terrible because there was not that sense of safety and privacy.

Yucca: So they were concerned that the, it was private land and that the. That somebody was gonna come and, and ask him, what, what are you doing here?

Mark: Yeah. Hoo them away or, you know, shoot at them. Who knows? But so, so don't do that. You know, use public land or,

Yucca: Just out of curiosity, was it like a really, like special spot in terms of like

Mark: it was a, it was

Yucca: like what.

Mark: of a, a rise of a, of a grass covered hill that commanded a, an incredible view. For 360 degrees you could see for miles in, in all directions.

Yucca: is curious, what would in, what would get somebody, what would inspire somebody to risk that

Mark: Yeah, I'm, and, and, and how did the person that organized this discover it in the first place? I don't know. But yeah, it was a weird, it was a, a weird experience and it taught me a lesson that you can't do these things if you don't feel safe.

Yucca: Right. Yeah. And so I think that reminds us when we are organizing Ritual to be really mindful about that kind of thing and the different needs of the participants in the ritual, right, because you're talking about feeling safe in terms of, you know, not knowing if you're gonna get kicked off or not, but there's also other forms of safety.

There's the emotional safety that plays that, that is just as important when it comes to our experiences and how, how effective our rituals going to be to how do we actually feel about this. So if I don't, if I'm trying to do a ritual about self-healing or something like that, and I think I'm gonna get mocked, Or I'm worried about being judged by the person next to me, it's probably not gonna be as effective.

I'm probably not gonna be able to get into that space.

Mark: Right. Or if you're non-binary and all the invocations are gender essentialist,

Yucca: Right.

Mark: right? I mean, there are a variety of kinds of inclusion that we need. There's multiple axes of inclusion that need to be addressed as well as the kind of physical safety and emotional safety in relation to what's outside the circle.

There's also what's inside. And we, and we wanna make sure that that is also facilitating of people feeling at ease and, and able to open themselves.

Yucca: Right now in, in most cases though, it's probably gonna be just you on your own right? Or in a small group. But I think that we can, you can still kind of take that idea and think about it with yourself and how you might be feeling once you're in that space.

Mark: Right, right. And there are techniques that you can use to bring yourself into a state of radical presence. So you're not thinking about, you're not worried about the future, you're not thinking about things that are going on elsewhere. You're not, you know, Obsessing about something in the past. You're just very, very present in doing what's right before you. And we were talking before we started to record. The use of the senses

Yucca: Right.

Mark: can be very helpful in that.

Yucca: Yeah. So using that as a framework, thinking about the classical senses of, alright, so what, what am I seeing? What am I hearing? What am I smelling? What am I feeling? Perhaps maybe not in every case, but what am I tasting? If there's something involved with that, if you're drinking something or, or if there's a component that you're bringing in.

And that's a really nice framework to use for setting up the space, either if it's a permanent space that you're setting up. Or if it's going to be a, a temporary moment, right? And just taking a moment to take those into account and then be a little bit more aware of them. That really just helps bring us to being really present in our, in our bodies while we're doing the ritual.

Mark: Right, right. So let's say you're going to do a solo ritual and you go out in the woods and you find a place that's. Isolated enough that other people are not gonna be coming out there and you find a stump and you put a cloth over it and you build a focus, an altar, right, with symbols of the things that you want to do in this ritual. And it's aesthetically pleasing to you. You're looking at it, it's in the woods, which are beautiful. So there's this whole kind of drinking in with the eyes component. And you can hear the wind in the trees. Maybe you're near water so you can hear some of that babbling brook sound as well. There's the smell of the, the warm pine needles or oak oak leaves or whatever they are.

You can augment that by lighting, maybe some frankincense and that sweet kind of temple incense scent. Begins to transport you into a more intentional, kind of focused space. I've, one of the things that I've used in group rituals is either a single sip of wine or a single semi-sweet chocolate chip for a taste in vocation.

Sometimes in group rituals, they, they do what's called a purging, which is sprinkling with water, sometimes scented water. And what you usually do is you use a sprig of some kind of herb like rosemary to flick the water onto,

Yucca: it in flick, dip flick. Yeah.

Mark: right. And that sensory feeling on the skin. As well as the scent that comes from it also gives you that feeling of immediacy and being in your body and being right there present in the moment.

Yucca: Right. And if you have the opportunity to taking your shoes off there and just feeling the forest floor between your toes or. Or leaning up against the tree and feeling the bark and the texture of that and just noticing the wind on your skin. And maybe, you know, tasting, we were talking about tasting with food, but you can taste the air too. Be careful about tasting plants that you don't know.

Mark: Yeah. Don't do

Yucca: Don't. But maybe if it was like a pine needle or something like that, that you're pretty confident about, you could get that intense taste there. But yeah, don't, don't go eating or putting random plants in your mouth. They're, the vast majority of them will not make you feel good.

So,

Mark: Right. So that is, those, those sorts of techniques are the things that we use to create what we call sacred space. It's a very It's a very pleasurable state to be in. I find it to be very reverent and anticipatory in a way. Like, you know, there's a, there's a sense that something wonderful is about to happen. It just lends a richness to ritual practices that that I just really treasure.

So, I would invite you to experiment with different ways of inducing that sense of sacred space. Personally I like to live in a context that's very much not, not kind of the full on implementation, but. My room is decorated in a way that, you know, when I light candles, it's this very kind of, sort of place.

And and I, I just enjoy that. It, it helps me to feel more of a richness in my life. You may feel the same, you may want to do something similar or you may have a little box that's your portable focus kit. You take that to wherever you create sacred space and do your work there, and both of those are perfectly great,

Yucca: Right, and you don't need objects either. You can do all of it just with your, just with yourself, right? The, the tools are nice, but they're just that, they're just tools, right?

Mark: And you have tools built into your body. You you have breath. Yes. Right. I have seen and experienced creation of sacred space just with a deep inhale and then blowing it out like a bubble. Just, and then there you are inside that, that bubble space safe and protected and, and and cared for protected.

Yeah, I said that. So, you know, be aware of that. You don't have to have a lot of stuff. This, these techniques are really about working with our psychology and our bodies are able to do that on their own.

Yucca: Right. Well, I think this is a good place for us to wrap up for today. But we do have a couple of announcements. So your book is ready for pre-order, right?

Mark: It is my book round. We Dance Creating Meaning through Seasonal Rituals, which will be released next April, is now available for pre-order on the Luellen website. We'll put a link in the show notes. And I'm really excited about it. And apparently they are too. They say they really love the book.

So I'm I'm psyched. It's kind of an outlier when you look at the the Luellen page. It's full of all kinds of supernaturalist stuff. But they're publishing mine too, and I'm delighted. I'm, I'm just so excited to be working with them and, and having this book come out. So that's one thing.

Yucca: And we had a. Ethiopia, pagan Society Council meeting recently. And there will be a, what did you call it? A changing of the guard.

Mark: Yes.

Yucca: So I have been the chair for three years at this point. And I'm gonna be passing that on at this point. Still be on the council, but gonna step back from that chair position.

So,

Mark: Right. And John Cleland host has graciously agreed and been elected to take over that chair position. He was the vice chair, for those first three years. So he's taken that over. Michael O'Hara is our our vice chair now,

Yucca: Who's been on the podcast several times,

Mark: yes, he has. And Rachel, w and c went, are the other two officers?

The the sec, the treasurer and the secretary, respectively. And then there's several other others of us like me who are members of the council but are not officers.

Yucca: Right,

But stay busy doing lots and lots of stuff. We have a lot of projects. There's lots of volunteering in different capacities and all of that, so,

Mark: it's so exciting and every time somebody new comes on board as a volunteer, I just, I'm reminded all over again. Wow. What a great group of people. These are just so, they're so fun to hang out with and they're interesting and the conversations are great. And they're just so kind of

Yucca: Just discreet people

Mark: good-hearted people.

Yeah.

Yucca: and we always talk ourselves into more work. Every time we get together, here's a new idea that we, we've gotta do.

Mark: That's true.

Yucca: Yep.

Mark: Well, since I am working now, I'm having to put some boundaries around that from what I've been doing before. But so far everything seems to be working out okay. I'm doing a rework right now on the Ethiopia and hymnal. Which is downloadable from the blog site. I'm adding a bunch of sheet music in and a bunch of new chants and songs.

Yucca: Oh, and the audio book.

Mark: Oh, right.

Yucca: I think that that would probably be of interest to our listeners.

Mark: I, in the last weeks before I started my new job. I realized that I wasn't going to have a big block of available open time anytime soon once I started the job. So I took a back burner project off the back burner, which was the recording of an audiobook of my first book, op, paganism and Earth Honoring Path Rooted in Science, and I recorded the audiobook and it is now purchasable from everywhere you get audiobooks except audible.

Because Amazon,

Yucca: Alright

Well gimme a link and I'll put that in the show notes for people for your preferred location.

Mark: I should let you know the main reason that I didn't go with Audible as well is that they have extremely restrictive licensing requirements that give them exclusive right to distribute the audio book for something like three years or something.

Yucca: Seven.

Mark: is it seven? Could be.

Yucca: yeah. Unless they've changed it recently.

Mark: Well, I wouldn't imagine them changing it to improve it, so, yeah. Anyway, it's,

Yucca: That might have been if you created it through the, their platform where you can hire a voice artist

Mark: Oh, right, acx.

Yucca: that might be what I'm thinking of, but,

Mark: Yeah. But in any case, I wanted, I. Chirp and Libro FM and you know, all those different outlets to be able to sell the book. So now you can go to any of those kinds of places and find it online.

Yucca: Well, that's great.

Mark: Yeah, it was, it was a fun project to do. I had to lock myself in my room for several days and read the thing into a microphone, but now it's there.

Yucca: Yep. Well, and that'd be great to have it in your voice too. I always really appreciate when the audio books are read by the author because you really get the, the meaning a little bit more just in the way that they say the sentences.

Mark: I, I agree. And in this case, the whole story about how I came to Ethiopia, paganism is all in the first person,

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: so it really wouldn't make any sense to have an some other narrator. It really kind of had to be mean. So anyway, it's in the can, it's up on the web, it's all, it's available now. So if you have a commute and want to read the book but don't have time or while you're working, whatever that's an a resource that's now available to you.

Yucca: Yep. All right. Well, thank you, mark.

Mark: Thank you Yucca. Always wonderful to talk with you and we'll see you next week.

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S4E21 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 excited to have Rune Hjarnø with us who is a thinker and podcaster and pagan animist Norse Animist coming to us from Scandinavia. So welcome Ro

Rune: Thank you very much. Super happy to be here.

Mark: Rune was suggested to us by one of our listeners who had been listening Toro's work and said that we could have a very interesting conversation. So we are here to have a very interesting conversation.

Rune: Totally.

Yucca: Yeah. Thank you for coming on. I'm really excited. So.

Rune: thanks for having me. It's gonna be super interesting.

Yucca: Yeah, do you wanna go ahead and start by just, you know, letting our listeners know a little bit about who you are and what your background and interests are?

Rune: Yeah, let me, let me try yeah. My name is Rune I'm a Danish anthropologist of religion. And I, what I'm trying to do on my general platform, which is called Nordic Animism is that I'm trying to use indigenous knowledge scholarship and new animist thinking to look at our own cultural heritage as Euro ascendants because there's this weird assumption in our time that These are ways of thinking about our own culture that are only available if you belong to an indigenous colonized groups.

And that assumption is there seemingly in popular culture and in scholarship and, and in all kinds of ways, in spite of the fact that what a lot of indigenous peoples are actually doing is that they're encouraging us as majority populations to start thinking like this about ourselves. But it's a difficult, for a number of reasons to do with cultural politics.

It's a diff difficult step to take. So a lot of, not a lot of people are doing it. It's spite of the fact that indigenous knowledge is becoming a big thing. Anyway, so yeah. So that's basically what I'm doing. And I also feel that when I'm doing that I'm, I'm being brought through dealing with a lot of these problems of cultural politics because when you.

When you look at, for instance, our culture as euron and people, and also the ways that our traditional culture has been sometimes co-opted then you are necessarily faced with issues such as well, racism, whiteness, the construction of whiteness, the rejection of animism actually as a part of construction of whiteness and these sort of things.

So, and therefore it becomes a very, I think a very intersect intersectional work that is basically becomes a form of, of decolonizing. So yeah, and I'm then trying to do this to sort of bring this into popular spaces because one thing is that, you know, I can sit online and I can go blah, blah, blah in my highbrow, you know, academic language and nobody's gonna understand the stand a bloody thing, but what what actually.

Or to come out of something like this is popular culture stuff that can be communicated to real people. Stuff that that can also attract actually real people. So, I've launched symbolism of totemic kinship with the world around us. I've written a book about the, the turning of the seasons and I've, yeah.

Different, different projects like that. And then I'm continuously communicating on my channel. Yeah. Did that kind of sum it up or did I speak too lo too long?

Yucca: No, that's great. And I have to say, I'm so excited to hear you talking about indigenous European cultures because so often the ideas that, that there isn't. And that that's the, that European is the opposite of indigenous, rather than seeing that there's indigenous all over the world, not just from specific groups.

And I think that that's really valuable that you're bringing this to light.

Rune: Thanks and I, I'll just add one little. Have it at there. And that is that when I'm talking about traditional European culture, I actually don't use the word indigenous. And the reason is that when we talk about indigenous peoples, we mostly talk, or we are generally talking about people who have been exposed to colonialism.

That means that if you are in Wyoming and there's a group of Shoshone living there, you know, then when they can then the word indigenous, that to them, that's also a legal category. That it, it means access to fishing rights and land rights and hunting and access to funding, to first language teaching and all these kind of things that we don't need as majority populations.

So what, so what I'm basically. This is just, I'm, I'm just saying this as, because this is an important little addition that, that is important to not actually when we talk about indigenous knowledge I mean, and I give you at some level you could call it indigenous knowledge, traditional knowledge, and in majority traditional knowledge and indigenous knowledge are basically the same kinds of knowledge, but the word indigenous is just a little bit touchy.

And it's touchy for the indigenous people. So it's important to sort of, move around it a little bit. But like, I, I, I definitely get you a sentiment. We need to be able to speak about our our own heritage in exactly the same, or with those categories that, you know, authors like Robin Kimara and these kind of people are using to understand their culture.

Mark: Yes. Yes. I, I think the, the first thing that strikes me as, as you speak is that we are definitely on the same page from a value standpoint. You know, we're, we're very, very adamant about the need for decolonization and the the importance of indigenous and traditional understandings of the nature of the world of development, of reciprocity in our ecological relationships, all of those kinds of values.

So, I, I think maybe that's a good place to start from. Our work has been in building community around a science rooted. Understanding of the nature of the world, but a transformation of the value system that informs the way society operates. And it sounds like at least the transformation part of it is very similar ru to what you, you are focusing on.

Rune: Totally. And I think I would probably also say the science routing. I'm, I'm not a natural scientist. I'm, I'm, More of a historical religion, anthropologist type. But but I don't perceive and this may be where we differ, I'm not sure, but I don't perceive necessarily a contradiction between, for instance religious languages or animist mythologies, a way of understanding the world and a scientific way of understanding the world.

If you look at how an animist mythology, for instance, is typically structured, then you'd find that there are, it's. It's not one package, it's not one worldview that some people kind of buy into. And then to kind of adopt that whole thing as if they're in installing a new operative system on a computer.

It's more like a, a, a jumbled up toolbox with a lot of kind of stuff lying in it. And, and then you can use it in different ways and it's kind of combined in different ways for different purposes. And some of these different tools can be contradictory and they can be radically contradict, contradictory.

So the same, for instance, animist way of talking about, say, deities can be contradictory from one ritual situation to the next. And this also count, this counts on many levels in religious practices. So if you have a scien, a scientific perception of the world, then in a sense that's also just one toolbox.

So if you move out of the, the, the monolithic. Ways of understanding the world that have characterized Abrahamic traditions particularly Christianity where, you know, there's ki there's kind of one worldview and you have to buy into that if, if you, when, when, and I think that would be a pagan step to move out of that.

And then science just is just this incredibly beautiful, powerful, deep knowledge system, which in itself is like a web of, of, of roots that, that come from all kinds of different places in the world and kind of come together in, in Occidental science. And then, then that, that does not necessarily need to be in any conflict with creating tali talismans and seagulls and stuff like that, for instance.

Yucca: Absolutely. Yeah.

Mark: and we do all that stuff.

Rune: Yeah.

Mark: yeah. And I mean, we understand it as influencing ourselves at a psychological level and transforming our perspective on the world. We've been talking about animism and throwing the word around a lot, and I think it might be valuable for us to visit what we mean by that.

I just wrote a blog post this week about naturalistic animism, and I think that one of the things about the, the traditional western colonizers view of animism is that it is a supernatural idea that there, that a rock has a soul in it. And I think that's a very dualistic, very Christian informed way of understanding animism.

I see animism as being about what are, what is my relationship with the rock? Do I relate to the rock as a person or do I relate to the rock as an inanimate thing that I can exploit? And that's, that's kind of my take on, on a naturalistic approach to animism. What, what do you think animism is and how does it

Rune: I agree and with some of what you say, but not all of it. I think the relationship is absolutely foundational to animism and in a sense, I think that the relating with the rock is more foundational than if there is any sort of faith or belief in whatever figure that lives inside the rock. Like, be and, and that's because the relationship is important.

So if you, if you look at how, for instance, new animist theory and, and also the philosophers who are doing panist thinking and all these things. When, when you look at these ways of thinking, then being becomes predicated on relating, I, I relate where, where Decart, the kind of quintessential modernist thinker would say, I think therefore I am.

So the world is enclosed in the human thinking space. The, the animist position would, would be, I relate or we relate, therefore we are, and that means that, so that, but, but if, if I should tie that to what you say with supernatural, then in a sense it's, it's extremely sort of, mundane. Like we are we are in a relation right now and we're trying to understand each other and we are sitting in different continents and, you know, we, we have different positions and it's interesting and blah, blah, blah, that defined, but there's also an exchange of value between us.

You have a podcast, I'm coming on your podcast. Perhaps some of my followers would go over there and the other way around. And so there's an exchange going on in that, in the relation that we are in right now, our subjectivities are defined in that, in this encounter that we are in now, our subjectivities are defined by that, right?

So the con the current perception of a lot of anthropological scholarship would be that, that this relation is inhabited by subjectivity. So subjectivity is not only inside our minds or inside our brains, it's actually in our relation. Now, that means that when the inu eat are relating with the C, which is an all life defining factor in Inuit life, then their relation with the sea is inhabited by subjectivity.

That sub subjectivity, that inhabits, that relating, that is the, the, the sea mother sna, the inwar, they would call it the inwar, the relational subjectivity of the sea. So, and whether that should be called supernatural or not, I'm not really sure, but like. I'm not, actually, I'm not really sure about the word supernatural, if it's because it, it, I think it has a heavy, heavy baggage somehow.

But an Inuit shaman can actually interact with Sedna, the sea mother, and thereby engage that subjectivity that inhabits the the relation between a group of Inuit and the sea. And that's the same with a stone or with, if, if you have a farmstead in Northern Europe 200 years ago, the stone could be kind of a relational hub for the way that the people in that farm state relates to their land.

So it becomes inhabited by, I'm not sure what the word would be in English, but these sort of g like or elf like beings that would typically work as a patron spirit protecting specific farm. Or ensuring basically the positive and mutually giving reciprocal relating between that group of people and the agrarian life sustenance that they are living with and living from.

Yucca: So that that spirit would be the relationship itself. Am I understanding correctly?

Rune: Yeah. Or the subjective, the the subject, the subjective relationship. Yeah.

So, and this is sometimes called the individual. So we are individuals from a moderna's perspective that there's an inside us with. But if you take away the, the, the in

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Rune: then we are evi right now because we are producing relating with each other from

Yucca: delightful word.

Rune: Yeah, it's a lovely word,

isn't it?

Yucca: that.

Rune: And.

Mark: Yeah.

Rune: And then what many animists would would say, or animist thinkers would say that that that divi is a central purpose of religion, basically. And that it individuates a relation. So if you have a Santa Priestess who's being possessed by the storm, gods ysa and she's dancing around, then that human being is dividing ysa in a number of ways.

One of them is portraying Younga. People see younga in front of their eyes dancing. Another part of the dividuation is that she's initiated, she's crowned as a San Priestess, so, so there's deep mystical individuations that are connected with that and that whole thing. But it's basically about producing.

Relating and, and ch challenging that subjective relating into the world.

Mark: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Rune: that make sense? Am I,

Mark: it. It, oh, it absolutely does. Yeah. It, it, it absolutely makes sense. And that this, this focus on, on the relationship, as I said, I think is very core to the at least to my idea of animism. And so the, the question about the reality of the, the gnome elf figure doesn't really even enter into it.

It's, it's not, you know, because this is all subjectivity. It objectivity is not, is is not a part of that model. It's all about what do you see? What do you think about it, and how do you feel in relation to it?

Rune: Yeah. Something like that. I would say that the reality or the what, what, you know, post-Christian, it's called the belief in the el that that is it's secondary to the relation. Like if, if you, if you say you have a shamanic perception and you could and you, you bring yourself into a trance and you speak to the elf and you ask the elf so what would you prefer the most?

Would you prefer that I cultivate an abstract transcend belief in your transcendent existence? Or would you prefer a ball of porridge? The, the elf is gonna prefer the ball of porridge because that is act that is an actual exchange of of material. And the what, what you could almost call the revelation of that relationship is.

That is core, I think, to producing an animist way of being in the world. So that's not only you giving the ball of porridge to the stone that is perhaps inhabited by a stone ina or an elf or what we can call it. But it's also then perceiving the gift being given back from the world now that then you are in a reciprocal relationship with the world around us.

Mark: Yeah, and, and it's that, you know, a as you say, as with Robin Wall Kemmerer and you know, writers like that, it's that reciprocity that is so important the. And, and the hardest, I think for us, as, you know, modern Westerners to get our minds around because we are taught as Christianity teaches that the world is essentially inanimate and it's a pile of resources here for us to mine.

And that is the diametric opposite of what we're talking about here.

Rune: Exactly.

Mark: you know, the, the idea that, that we can't just dig a hole in the ground and take minerals out and then leave the hole is completely foreign to the way capitalism works.

Rune: exactly. Exactly. And. If you look at how traditional knowledge and tales and traditional knowledge and folklore and the like they actually express and analyze the rupture of these relationships in euros and populations. So, and you see this in a, like, in a wide kind of array of tales, like the most monumental in northern Europe is the Ragner rock, which is the, basically the collapse of the relational cosmos in this kind of e eco cosmos, social complete crashing.

Now, some of the scholars who have been working on the Ragnar Rock, they say that this. Myth may have occurred or may have, may have been inspired by the experience of climate change in Northern Europe in the, the mid sixth century. And often when people are relating mythology to natural history events, you should always be a little bit cautious because sometimes it's just like weird, oh shit.

But but this exact example the, the emergence of this myth and this event, they're actually historically very close to each other. It's a couple of hundred years, and the event was cataclysmic. It ba in Scandinavia populations collapsed. And there would've been complete social breakdown.

So it was a very, very violent event. And what happened was basically that it was a global cooling that lasted I think four or five years and. In Northern Europe, that global, global cooling just meant that summer didn't come for a, a, a, a short period for, for a couple of years. And if you're living in an agrarian subsistence, agrarian community, then that just means that everybody's gonna die.

And which is what you see that happened in some areas of Scandinavia. So, so anyway, so, so, when you look at the Ragnarok myth, what you see is that it's, it's very much a myth about loss of connectivity. So the main spark of the myth is a, a divine FRA side. There's God brothers who are killing each other.

And then what happens is that the relations between the guards, kind of the forces of order and social coherence and the yna, the giants, the. Forces of nature who are related in all these problematic and crazy and fertile ways, and Nordic mythology, that relation crashes completely. And then they start behaving like Christian angels and demons and basically going into like the state of cosmic total war.

So that's perhaps the most iconic tale of losing animist kinship. But you find them by all the way down to today. You see that fairy tales and different stories are sort of this struggling, but also people's experiences. Some farmer, you know, walking up a home from his fields and then he meets a little, meet a little group of elves and they're leaving.

So he asked them, why are you leaving? And he, they say, there's too much noise here and too many church bells, so we are moving to Norway. Something like that, you know? And and that is of course a traditional knowledge perspective of basically ruptured relation because this relational subjectivity, which are these Ls that are, that is sub subjectivity, inhabiting human being, human relating with the land, that when that is torn, then that can be experienced as the elves packing, packing their bags and,

Mark: Or, or as the magic going away,

Rune: Yeah.

Mark: which is another, you know, repeated trope in many, many stories about how there used to be magic. You know, we, we used to have, you know, this relationship, right? And now it's drained away, it's gone. And many of those stories are actually specific about Christianity driving the magic away,

Rune: Yes. Yes. There, there there's a tension. There's a tension. Like I, I'm not, I'm, I'm generally, I'm, I'm, I'm trying to not, you know, go into this sort of

Christianity bashing and all those

Mark: Uhhuh.

Rune: but but there is a tension. The, there's a tension between and sometimes it's, it is pretty intense, like, churches in the landscape in Northern Europe, the, if they're big stones lying in the landscape, then typically people, local people would say it was trolls who were throwing the stones at the churches and all when they were building the churches.

So there's almost like a conflict between the, the churches and the, and the landscape itself.

Mark: Hmm. Hmm.

Yucca: So one of the expressions that I've heard you use a few times is new animism. So how does new animism differ from our understanding of some of the traditional forms? Or what does that mean when you're speaking about new animism?

Rune: animism that is a little bit of. It's a scholarship position more than it's a kind of a religious position out in the world. May, but things are also related. But when, when I say new animism, it's because anim, like animism was invented by actually the guy who invented anthropology and cultural scholarship.

A guy called Edward Burnett Tyler, who was this sort of Victorian British armchair scholar. And he. Invented cultural evolutionism in which people are first living in these barbers, state of superstition, where they are animist, infantile animists. And, and, and, and that was, that was, that was what he thought of animism.

And then you then he kind of developed how humans would develop on gradually improving stages until they became almost like, Victorian, England English

people of his own time. Exactly, exactly. That, that was a paradigm for, for the end of history. So, so, so that was, and, and at that point, the idea of animism was just that everything is sort of animate.

However up through the 20th century there was the, the, the most progressive anthropologists were the American School of Anthropology, who were at a very early point starting to be permissive to other other cultures, cultural realities and saying, okay, so there are different cultural realities and perhaps they're equally good.

And there was a guy named, oh shit, I forgot his name right now. Oh damn. Really important guy whose name I should be able to remember at any given point of time who went and, and learned from the the Jiwei Irving, hallow Hallowell was his name.

Yucca: Okay.

Rune: So he went and and started learning the philosophy of jiwei indigenous Americans in, in the Great Lake areas.

I think he went into Canada a little bit. And he, I think he was the first who was kind of saying, well, he was looking, he was looking at their, their language and saying that they have different grammatical categories and some of these categories indicate animated personal beings. And some of them are like what we talk about.

If I talk about this book, then the word book is in, in English is, is just an it, you know. And he noticed that what was called animate and inanimate by the Ojibwe was different. So Stones, for instance, and thunder and number of different things were adamant to the Ojibwe. And he started developing this language where he was like, okay, so these are people, they have a different philosophy about what, where, where there's personhood and where there isn't.

So from that came. New animist thinking, which is kind of relieved from or dealing with the this bigoted evolutionist heritage of seeing animist as a animism, as as something inferior. And today, the, this has then become the whole position where where the, the, the understanding of what animism is and how it works is, is then updated.

For instance, animism is incredibly complex. It's not infantile at all, and it's certainly not primitive. It's many societies that have animist knowledge systems in them. not something necessarily that children practice, it's something that elders practice. It's something that it takes lifespans to, to understand that at, at a, at a very high level.

So, so, so yeah. So that's sort of what's in, in new animism.

Yucca: Mm. Thank you.

Mark: Thank you for explaining that. Yeah, that's good. So, you mentioned before we started recording that that you sort of take issue with the atheism of our movement or that you have questions about it or whatever that is. So I thought that I would raise that topic and we could discuss it.

Rune: I've been sort of thinking about it, kind of atheism. Atheism. No, I, it, it ki I think my, sort of, my, my question. Kind of springs from the whole idea of decolonizing if we have what is called the modern epistemology, like the, the epistemology is the perception, how we perceive the world. Then the modern fundamental to the modern epistemology would be a seclusion between human subjectivity and personhood.

An agency which is inside our skulls, and then the, the dead outside. And I can't help seeing an and i atheism as perhaps related to that and that therefore co like actual actually practicing a a decolonizing would be. To say, okay. But subjectivity and agency is not only inside humans goals, it's also, it is something that inhabits the world in a, in a wider in a wider sense.

It's something that inhabits our interactions and perceptions in a much wider sense. And yeah, I just had, I just had tr part of my, my problem was to that I have, I have tr, I have trouble reconciling that with, with an, with an atheist position.

Mark: Hmm.

Yucca: I can certainly say that for my part, my perception of the outside world, I. Is, I don't think that that necessarily reflects my idea that there's this dead outside world, the living me, but rather seeing self as part of this larger system. I'm coming from the perspective of, of an ecologist looking at, you know, my body is an ecosystem that is an open system and things are coming in and going out.

I don't see the need to have a, a, a deity or a God or a conscious spirit that needs to be there for me to be part of a, of a living vibrant world.

Rune: Makes a lot of sense.

Mark: Yeah, that's well said. I, I feel very much the same. Yeah, because yeah, that hard line between the, the inner living world and the outer dead world is definitely not something that I embrace at all. To me it's all living. Right. But because, but just because it's living doesn't necessarily mean that it's conscious or that it's animated by something that one could actually at some point identify and measure.

You were talking about toolkits before and I think that it's, it's y part of what we do as Ethiopia, pagans, and, and naturalistic pagans is we understand that in the context of the symbolic world, we suspend whatever disbelief we might have in, in the, the literal reality of supernatural phenomena in order to have a symbolic, metaphorical, psychological, emotional, impactful experience. And that is what brings me into deep relation with the rest of the world. Did that make

Rune: Cool. Yes, it does. However, when you are focusing on psychology, then psychology is a space that is characterized by being. Inside human human minds and, and what I would, I don't know fear or my, I think my, my question would then be, if it's psychology, I, you then actually extending that perception of, of personhood to the world, or, I does.

Because like when you speak to a lot of, say, scholars today, often psychologies would, or psychology would be a language where, for instance, mythology can be given a space. But that actually maintains the, the the the enclosure. Try to compare this with. With I had this debate with, with a friend of mine who also he was criticizing the literalist idea of mythology.

So he was saying, he was talking about, I, I believe Irish mythology, and he was saying, but who, who, who would believe such an grotesque idea as if Ireland were literally plowed with the, the fertility guard dog does penis in a right. And yeah, innocent. But what if you, if we think about relation, if we take relationships as our, our fundamental way of thinking about these things then, and we understand if we understand the plow that the farmer is using when he's plowing his land as imminent with. Dha. See then, then when, when it's imminence, if we understand the the materiality of the plow as n n not as culturally imbued with, but in the materiality, DDA is there right then, then we have actually, then we have crossed out of the modern paradigm and into a this enchanted perception of the world. And I think we, like, I think that is the step, the, that, that's where it becomes real in a sense. And, and there, there, there's a number of co contemporary philosophers and, and, and thinkers who make that, that, that enchanting possible. Bruno Laur the sometimes they call it the ontological turn thinking or the Cambridge School, and they're so difficult to read that it's almost, it's almost impossible to understand what they're saying, but which, which is part of a I think it's, I think it's part of a safeguarding strategy because if you wanna say that ELs and g nos are real, then it's, it's, it's then, you know, scholars are gonna, you know, it's much, much better to say, well, relational ontologies are possible on the basis of you know, concatenated hops of individual re networks or something like that.

You know, then people get, get busy nodding and looking like they are trying to look like they look clever, right? But but the idea of imminence that, for instance that that objects act chairs, Invite us to sit on them balls do hold strawberries, they act. And the, the example with plow and DDA would, in that sense be a, a imminent in that sense.

Damn, it's, it's difficult for me to to, to get to these things. But does, does it make sense my,

Mark: It, it, it

Rune: questioning.

Mark: it, it does make sense. I do see it somewhat differently, and some of that is because my understanding of the way humans relate with the world is that we create a model of the world in our minds. And we re and we relate to that. We, we perceive, we receive perceptual input, we filter that and massage it, and in some way invent it to some degree.

And then, you know, so, all right, I receive all this input and I filter it and I decide what it is. And okay, there it is. There's, there's the bowl, right? And so I can relate in a, in an I vow sort of way with the bowl whether or not the bowl actually has any sort of supernatural el or metaphorical, symbolic, literal nature.

Rune: Yeah,

Mark: And it's, it's about what's on me to enchant the world. And us as a culture to develop the habits of enchanting the world. So that's, that's how I look at it. And I, I, I mean, I think the way that you look at it is, is perfectly legitimate and useful. It's just, I don't look at it quite the same way.

Rune: but I think, I think, I think what you say there makes a lot of sense. Like, and it's important to, to, I might also be hashing it out in a little bit extreme. Terms here, because of course, humans do create models of the world, and we are imaginary beings that we have this capacity of, for instance, imagining stuff that doesn't exist already.

And then by this insane capacity of projection, we are able to, to create stuff in the world that, that no other creature is, is capable of. And, and that capacity is in a sense, I think related to also the story of Dhada and all this. However, when you are then talking about the bowl and you're talking about.

What its literal external nature is then what you're doing, I think, is that you are actually, you're reaching across the divide and you're talking about it in this, what can't would call the ding, the, the, you're talking about it in itself as, as completely detached from human perception. And and I I would say that that is probably so difficult to talk about that, that we almost can't.

So perhaps there only is a cultural reality available, and then enchantment becomes then it kind of becomes a, a question of do we want a boring, interesting a boring uninteresting reality? Or, or do we want a reality where, you know, We have sex on rock car rings and dance around meadows and wear their elves and trolls and, and stuff like that is enchantment.

It becomes more of, of a kind of enchantment or no enchantment than a, a question about that. There isn't exterior truth that defies in. Gentlemen, oh man, I feel I'm have trouble speaking in state terms here.

Mark: No, you're, you're absolutely making sense. The place where I think we may differ is that, I find the world as revealed by science to be utterly enchanting. It is miraculous the nature of the universe. It is so inspiring and wonder and humility and awe and inspiring that I feel that without that, even without populating it, with those kinds of figures, I can still just be in this kind of open-hearted wondering, loving relationship with the nature, with the world itself in a way that demands that I have reciprocal relationships with things rather than rather than object, defy relationships with things.

And so, you know, that may just be the path by which I got here. Which was through a lot of science. But yeah, I mean that's, that's the world that I inhabit is just, you know, that this world is just knocked down, drag out amazing. And I still want to dance around stones and have sex on beaches and all that kind of stuff.

Rune: No, man. Thanks for that. That, yeah, that's, it's, it's, it's beautiful. And I totally, I totally follow what you're saying. I think, I think science is, is an incredibly beautiful and powerful way of looking at the world. And, and it has. And part of, I think part of what I'm, what fascinates me with science is that it, it has a trickster nature.

Science, that thing about always questioning things. That thing about always being critical and being inherently critical of power, for instance. And also being playful proper science. Like a lot of contemporary scholarship, you know, a lot of contemporary cultural, cultural and social scholarship.

It isn't playful for shit. It's just boring ass. They should, they should, yeah. They should do something else, like pick strawberries or something. But but but, but scholarship when it's real science, when it's real, it has a playful or in it. And and that's something that, that that yeah. But I then what I also think is that if we talk about atheism then I would say that if we look at research, history, history, It's probably a very fairly brief bleep in the history of science that science have understood itself as particularly atheist.

And today with, for instance, new animus scholarship and these things, it's kind of, we're kind of, we're kind of moving theves back into the beauty of the scientific perception, so,

Mark: Well that's, that's interesting. I mean, one of the reasons that. I mean, science is young for one thing, science other, other than just sort of the standard trial and error that leads to discovery, which all people have always done

the

Yucca: in our instinctual way of understanding the world. Right. But

Mark: but formalized, the scientific method is only a few hundred years old and during most of that time, there has been a domination by Christianity mostly in the West, such that you couldn't actually say that you were an atheist, whether you, you whether your work pointed in that direction or not. So I think that, you know, the liberty, I mean, to be honest, it wasn't really until Richard Dawkins and the, you know, the four horsemen who I have many problems with, let me.

Say to start with many problems. But it wasn't until they started standing up and saying, yes, we're atheists at the end of the 20th century, that it really became sort of more acceptable for a part of the population to start to express that. So it's new. It is. It's, it's a new thing. But when you look like at ancient Greece, there were people that were questioning whether the gods existed in any meaningful sense.

Yucca: And I

Rune: you, and you.

Yucca: oh, I was just gonna say that I think that the, the common perception of what atheism is, is dominated by that very recent, very vocal and kind of, very negative kind of, no, no, no take on the world instead of a, a yes. Embracing take on the world.

Mark: Yes.

Rune: I wanna add one specific perspective to the to the understanding of history of religions in relation to this. And that is that if you look at the history of religions of Europe, then you have what you call like, normative knowledge forms. And and then what you also have is a.

Considerable space of rejected ways of knowing all kinds of ideas that have been there through history, and they gone in all. And, and that's what's sometimes called esotericism. So Esotericism is this label that basically sort of gives an umbrella term for all the weird shit that's been happening for the last 2000 years outside of the normative knowledge hierarchy.

So all the Astrologies and the Kabbalah and the spiritists and the, the philosophers and all that stuff, that, all that stuff is, is esotericism. And when you look at European history, a lot of a a lot of is, people are always like when we talk about intellectuals, that there will always be this sort of at least a kind of a consciousness that.

Esoteric, non-normative ways of knowing are there, but sometimes also direct practice. I think that Darwin was an esoteric I think that a lot of the and I don't remember, I think he was Alchemist or something like that, and practicing some

Yucca: Newton certainly was.

Rune: Newton new. Sorry. Yes, you are. You are, you are right there.

That was the important name I was looking for. No Darvin yeah, that was a different story with him. But I think that that part of the, like if you look at the last 150 years is that, that I think in the eight late 19th century, you started having positivism. If I remember correctly. And that's sort of where you get the very strong split between or where science starts to see itself as in some sort of opposition to other ways of of thinking.

And yeah, like, the there, there was an old Icelandic professor at the University of Coing in and my old professor remembered him from his student years. And he had, had, he had had this this Christmas lecture about gnomes and that was early 20th century. And as these sort of learned, super white scholars were sitting there and they were listening to him and he was talking about gnomes, at some point, they, it, it dawned on them that, That he he believed in grunes and he told about how he had met them when he was a, he was a child and these kind of things.

And so that was sort of the, a, a clash between an early 20th century scholar from ICE Iceland, which is a bit of a particular story in these things. It's a little bit of kind of a insular bobble in in some respects. And in Copenhagen they were like, but, but about, about this Icelandic professor talking about G norms.

But yeah.

Yucca: Well, one of the things before we started recording that you had mentioned was that I'm trying to figure out how quite how to word this but you're very interested in to today and some of the political implications of some of the work that you're doing. Is that something you wanna speak to a little bit?

Rune: Yeah, it's, I mean, when, when I started working on Nordic animism, I well, I knew all the time that it was important and that it's something that you can, like, you can never, you turn your face away from it, you have to look it straight in the eye, just all the time. I just, the word these words, Nordic Norse, Viking stuff, you know, all that kind of stuff, it just has a load of having been co-opted by all kinds of, Horrid political movements and, but it's actually deeper than not just that, like, it's not just hillbillys who are, you know, driving around in pickup trucks with guns and calling themselves some militia and waving Thor hammers and these kind of things.

It, it's, it's, it's on, I think it's on deeper layers of our self image and, and self perception as people racialized as white and and yeah, and, and I, I, I feel that I'm getting new realizations of this more or less all the time. No, not all the time, but, but often reckon with a certain regularity that that when you are thinking with Euro traditionalism, then.

Then it's just there. For instance, I, I think that today I think that that whiteness is almost like shaved, like a ball just talking about balls. It is almost as if whiteness is shaped a little bit like a ball. So if you wanna move out of it, then you come close to the borders and then it intensifies and scares you back in.

So if you wanna if you wanna basic, yeah. Basically move out of the, the whiteness complex, then you're gonna have to start looking to Euro traditionalism. And as soon as you come in contact with that, you, you will start seeing ruins and. May Pires and stuff that has been co-opted by Nazis or other nasty people.

So, so that, and that is sort of a, an inherent paradox, which is a condition for working with these things if you're a white person. And realizing that that paradox, realizing the nature of it and, and starting to cope with it, is an important feature. So that's one rea fairly reason realization.

I also encounter policing actually where most non-white peoples would be like, well, decolonizing white people. What's not to like and what took you guys so long? Then scholars, white scholars, they, they often have this sort of they, they, they don't like that whole idea. And and, and then they often frame it as, oh, there's an inherent potential for nationalism in what you're doing.

Or something like that, you know? And which there might be, there might be, and I'm fucking dealing with that all the time. And, and in the dealing with it, That's when the stuff becomes very applicable actually for, for thinking about how to be a respectful, kind, contemporary human. So today there are actually I'm familiar with two, perhaps perhaps even three, like systematic programs that use Nordic animism thinking for Deradicalizing right.

Extremists in, in prison systems and, and these kind of things. So, so, so, so you see that, I think that when you're moving close to some stuff that feels dangerous and feel problematic, then you're also finding the solu, you're finding solutions on that path.

Mark: Hmm. Hmm. It, it's, it's interesting as, as I listen to you, because what you say makes absolute sense to me in the context of Europe. In the United States, it's a little different because here we are in this completely colonized place, and many of us, like, you know, I've, I've had my d n A study done. I'm English, English, English, English, English.

Nobody ever stepped out of their lane. And actually, you know, even married an Italian for God's sake. And, but my people have been here for 400 years. I have no ancestral or familial memory of any kind of tradition from England. And so my approach has been I need to create this anew. I need to, I n I need to start from values.

Values like inclusiveness and kindness and you know, those compassion, those kinds of values reverence for the earth. And then from there, build a practice which can draw on some of the symbols and and, you know, folkloric practices like maypoles and things like that, but is fundamentally about not stealing from the indigenous people of this place. And instead creating my own understanding of a sacred landscape that I inhabit, that I can share with other people that derive from the same kind of lineage that I do. And with everybody else who wants it. I mean, you know anybody who wants it, but I understand that people who have been marginalized, they probably want to reach back to their ancestry, right.

And pull that forward. I really don't, I, I don't feel a kinship with England. So it, it, it's just, I, I'm just struck by the difference. I don't have any firm fast conclusions about it. I just, it, it is a d a different experience.

Rune: No, I think, I think what you're doing is probably very important and, and give like, like I. I'm kind of operating in this field where, where as an old world, I sometimes feel a little bit like a target for sort of old world nostalgia and these kind of things. I'm probably wearing a kilt and speaking all Gaelic all the time and all these things.

But but what I actually think is that, that over there in Turtle Island, the cultural situation is such an intense mix of and, and it's as if the, the problems of our age are intensified on your side of the pond. The fact of, of living on genocided land in a highly cre and cre realiz culture.

With the, the, the descendants of, of victims of colonization in your living space, probably every single day. Maybe not for all of you, but for many of you probably, right? And also immersed in, I I I perceive Americans as very immersed in ideological structures that are that are sort of connected with the problem.

Now, that means, I think that means that, that the, the real answers in a sense are, are, are, are gonna probably come from, from America and, and, and stuff like what you are doing when you're thinking like this, mark. I think it's beautiful and, and it's, and I think it has an aspect of. Playfulness in it to say, Hey, I've been listening a little bit to your, your, your podcast and how you are thinking with different things, and you also like playing with seagulls and, and, and have been working on wheels of season like me and these sort, sort of things.

And I think that playfulness will be an important voice in producing the answers that will bring us to a to a a decolonial future. I also think that one question that I meet a lot and which you also touch a little bit here is the question of cultural exchange. And I think that the ways that people have been talking about cultural exchange in American spaces in the last couple of years have a, have a problematic aspects.

When we are not allowed to or when, if, if all cultural exchange is universally cri criticized at as cultural appropriation for instance, that is an essentially nationalist idea, which I've tried to criticize it which is difficult because you also have minorities. Who have been sitting there and their traditional culture has been completely overrun with like swarms, like locusts of white hippies.

And they've been giving statements like, please stay away from our traditional spirituality. And of course, when that is the case, then that makes things fairly easy. You stay away. That's the respectful thing to do. But but there's also stories that, that I'm hearing a lot and I'm hearing 'em sort of in direct personal ways and that I'm not seeing so much in public space.

And that is stories about mors who are perhaps in very, they're perhaps white Americans or Canadians, and they're in very deep and respectful rela learning relationships with, for instance, indigenous elders. Now, if that's the case, then that transfer of knowledge, if there is a teacher present, Then that knowledge is legitimate.

Because if you wanna challenge that knowledge, then you're challenging the legitimacy of the teacher. And that is a, is, is a that can very easily be a colonizing practice. If you say, no, no, no, that Arapahoe elder there, he doesn't have the legitimacy to teach a white kid how to give tobacco to a stone because that's cultural appropriation or something like that.

Then you're actually challenging the, the, the author, the ownership of the Arapaho elder. See what I'm saying?

Mark: Yes,

Rune: So, so, and, and I, I think, yeah. So anyway, I just wanted to mention that because you mentioned appropriation now. I think it's, it's important that, that the, the way that we are thinking about cultural exchange is, is is relieved from. What I think is, is a bit too unambiguous condemnation in, in the appropriation discourses.

Mark: I, I really agree. It's, it's nuanced and Americans are not good at nuance. We, we just, we really are not, we're very, very black and white thinkers, most of us. And you know, a lot of good and bad, and usually we are good and somebody else is bad, and it's, it's an unhelpful way to approach the world. But certainly, I mean, if I were welcomed into a space where an indigenous person wanted to teach me some aspect of their culture, I would feel given permission absolutely entitled to incorporate that into my practice.

I wouldn't feel entitled to teach it but I would feel entitled to incorporate it into my practice. That hasn't happened to me yet. So,

Rune: But if you, if you, if you were part of that practice for 25 years and and then the person said, now you are a teacher.

Mark: well then, yeah,

Rune: You see?

Yucca: But we run into the tricky problem of the outside perception and other people trying to gate keep that. And, and it's just such a very, it's a very raw, it's like when you, when you've been wounded and it hasn't healed yet. And there's just so many feelings and the nuance and it's, it's really, it's something that we, you know, we are just grappling with all the time.

And I think that there's in certain directions that, you know, the pendulum swung really far in some ways, but it's not just one pendulum, right? There's so many pendulums going in every single direction at once, and you're just trying to sort through all of this generational trauma and guilt, and it's just a really heavy topic.

Rune: No, thanks for that. Thanks for that. You okay. That was, that was really well said. And, and I sometimes also feel a little bit like an elephant in a porcelain shop when I'm, I'm, I'm talking to Americans about these things because I'm sitting on this side of the pond. And when you're interacting with Americans specifically, you, you get the feeling that, that, because these things are so intense, then you're talking to people where every single individual is on an MA level in, you know, critical race studies.

Be because it, because, because it's so intense. Or, and that also means that, you know, I need to be a little bit careful when I'm kind of throwing out my state. Ah, come on. You guys need to calm down a little bit on the, on the, on the critical,

Yucca: it's good to have an outside perspective too, though, right? It's very valuable to hear that. And just hear w you know, what it looks like from the outside because we don't see ourselves from the outside. We just see ourselves in the midst of it going, oh, my ancestors murdered and raped my other ancestors.

And you know, I don't know what you are feeling. And you're feeling and everybody's angry at each other. And you know, sometimes it's good just to have that outside perspective going, Hey, this is what I see from the outside, you know,

Mark: and particularly in the United States, we have been so adamant about denying our responsibility for the Gen, the American genocide, the enslavement of Africans. We're still denying those things, and to the degree that in right wing states, they're banning teaching about them. And what that means is that because we won't acknowledge the wound, we can't heal it, and.

And so the, the subject becomes very, because it's an open wound, it's very sensitive, you prod at it at all. And immediately people have these really vehement reactions.

Rune: Yeah.

Mark: And my hope is that as we go forward, I mean, this younger generation seems to have more comprehension about these issues. My hope is that as we go forward into the next generation, we'll start to come to grips with some of that horrible history.

But it's very difficult to come to some kind of reconciliation with people who have been horribly colonized and abused when you won't even admit that you did it.

Rune: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I think also like with these sort of processes, I think the, the kind of cultural spaces that we are inhabiting today, primarily the internet cultural spaces I think they're probably also doing some unfortunate things to us, like, A tendency such as narcissism on social media platforms, speaking as a person who has a social media platform.

Mark: me too.

Yucca: that's all of us here, right? Yeah.

Rune: it's like, it, it's,

Yucca: double-edged. Yeah.

Rune: it's a very dominating feature about how how people are reacting and or how people are, are interacting. And, and, and like I feel that, that, I almost feel that if we have the, the modernist subject here, the modernist idea of the subject that I spoke about before where, where humanity is inside a case, and if you, if you move into a if you move back in time where people would meet a group of elves that are moving away, that's because.

Their subjectivity is not as encased as ours today. It's a little bit more fluffy like that then it is as what has it is as if what happens today is that these, these shells, they become hotter. They become like crystal, they become brittle. And it's as if I, if they touch each other, then it just goes. And, and then we have these, the, these so it's almost as it's almost as a kind of an in intensification of the, the modern subjectivity.

And I don't know what's gonna happen, but I hope that what's gonna happen is that it's gonna open somehow again and hopefully in a way where it doesn't explode and then everybody just go mad. Which actually sometimes I feel that's what you're seeing. I, I've, sometimes I feel there's quite a lot of madness going around, like rather crazy reaction patterns.

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Rune: And unfortunately not only on the right wing, I mean, of course the right winging is like supreme when it comes to madness. Like, I mean now here in 2023, it feels as if, if it's such a long time ago that Donald Trump was the president in the us. But when I think about how, how was even, I'm not living over there.

I'm living here, and it just feels like, oh fuck, you don't know if there's gonna be a civil war in America and what's that's gonna do to the world. Like the, eh, it was such a madness dominated situation, such a madness dominated situation, and it just felt like. It just felt like, it really felt like madness had had just taken up this gigantic space in the world that, that it, it, it didn't use to have and like, yeah.

Anyway, you, you probably

Yucca: Absolutely. Yeah.

Rune: agree even. Yeah.

Mark: Yeah.

Rune: And I thought it was something I wanted to say about this whole thing with yeah. But, but I also think that like, with these strong reaction patterns and these intensifying subjective borders Then I also think it, that it's important to be a little bit like, okay, so now I'm just gonna say it, you know, all cultural exchange is not cultural appropriation.

And sometimes when people shout cultural appropriation, it's actually not legitimate.

Yucca: Yeah,

Rune: they, there are many cases where, where it's super legitimate, but there are also cases where people are shouting it, where it's not legitimate. And there are legitimate cases of cultural exchange even within, between white and indigenous groups.

You.

Mark: Sure. And, and there are, there are over claims. I mean, I read a rant by an indigenous man who argued that no one should be allowed to use feathers in any kind of religious or ritual context except for indigenous Americans. People have been using feathers and seashells and pine cones and

other

Yucca: we were humans.

Mark: since, since before we were humans.

That is a birthright of every homo sapiens. And I mean, I, I mean, I understand the person's outrage about cultural appropriation, but that's just a little much.

Rune: yeah. It becomes, it it like I spoke on my channel to this Irish, amazing Irish guy called Monan. Magan who and he was telling about how his ancestors was a Phyla, a a poets an Irish poet. And that, that he was the last person to legitimately carry a feathered cloak, a specific cloak with made with crimson feathers that were part of their tradition, their and and I later I heard Monon there, he spoke with an.

Aboriginal Australian author that I'm quite fascinated by, Tyson, young Porter. I really recommend his book, sand Talk. And Tyson, he was telling him, Hey man, you should go to you should go to New Zealand because the Maori, they have actually feather cloaks. They make feather cloaks. And that is a specific it's a specific sign of, of specific status among the Maori.

So if you want to. Recover this ancient Irish symbol of a specific cultural status as a, as a poet, a speaker of which, which is also cosmologically super important in, in moron's tradition there. Then he might be able to learn some of that from or he might be able to learn something about it or rebuild it with inspiration from the Maori.

Now I think that something like that would be an that, like if something like that would become possible, that would be very, very good. Very, if people are ha have wounds that are too deep for it to be possible, then of course, you know, Respecting people's feelings is it's a condition of building positive relations, which is the whole thing is about.

Mark: Right?

Rune: So, but but if stuff like that could be possible, that would be, I think, very beautiful to reach that point.

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: And so, can we talk about your book for a moment? Because it seemed your book is something that you have Done digging into the literature in many different languages and, and brought forward some some traditions to that people might be really interested in.

Rune: Yeah, I don't know if I've been digging in literature in many different languages,

Yucca: well,

Rune: I, but like, I'm a

Yucca: least two and it's in English, so we got three languages

Rune: yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, I'm, I'm a, I'm a Skiddish movie and so, so, so I read read Danish and Swedish, and, and that's, that, that's an advantage of course, because a lot of the re and I'm a scholar, you know, I'm a nerd already, so, so that means that reading these kind of old, weird folklore compilations is, is available to me, but it is, or more available to me than for perhaps to you.

Right. So, so what I did with this calendar book here, which is called, it's called the Nordic Animist Year, was that yeah, I was in, there was a couple of different Cal Calend traditions that I was interested in communicating. One of them was the ROIC calendar, where every day, around the year used to have two runes attached to it.

And these runes, like from a, from one perspective, they just place the day in, in relation to a week. So if there's one specific room and in a given year, then it means it's a Tuesday and next year, perhaps it, that same room would be a Monday. But then you can look at your room staff and you can see if, if it's a Monday tomorrow, right?

And the other then marks. There is a line of ruin that where one of the ruins marks the new moon. So you know when the lunar month begins and those two. The weeks they're fixed on our year. So that means that it represents a solar and the lunar moons then represents the lunar cycle. So that was a beautiful, beautiful example of an animist tradition that nobody, it seemed to me that nobody really sort of was so aware.

Yeah, yeah. You know, you could meet scholars who knew that it was there and a couple of nerds here and there, but it wasn't really communicated into, into public space that that system even existed. So, so I took that system and then I sort of worked through also a number, a bit of scholarship on on all the different holidays around the year because the The the traditional animist year used to be actually rather dense with all kinds of traditions.

And and so, so I was, I was also kind of inspired again by indigenous scholarship where these people are often, they at least in North America and also in Australia they sometimes work with calendars as a way of getting back or maintaining or getting back into, into connection with traditional ways of knowing.

And that partic I think it's just a very strong intuition and like you've done it yourself. Mark and I, you know, you can see on your podcast that you were talking a lot about sewing and Belton and, and, and all these different holidays. So, so I basically, yeah, did, did this, this little book as a, as a.

Kind of a cursory introduction to the the entire year in the, in the Nordic in Nordic area.

Mark: Hmm.

Yucca: Wonderful.

Mark: Well, we'll definitely put a link to where people can buy it in the show notes for the, for the podcast. I wanna read it myself. It sounds, sounds

great. Yeah.

Yucca: And so where else can people find you?

Rune: Oh my God. Yeah. I'm on, I'm on, I'm on all those social media platforms that I can't be bothered to mention. But, but, but particularly, particularly look for my, for Nordic animism on my YouTube, because my YouTube channel that's kind of the, the backbone, but then I'm also on, you know, Facebook and Instagram and even on TikTok and

Yucca: well, we'll include the links in that then in the show notes for everybody. Yeah, and thank you so much. This was really amazing. You gave us so much to think about. I'm gonna be thinking about this for a long time, so really, really value you coming on and spending this time with us. Thank you.

Rune: Thank you very much. It was so nice to meet you guys. And and, and have a chat here.

Mark: Yeah. Really enjoyed it. Thank you so much. I.

Rune: You're welcome.

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Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com.

S4E20 TRANSCRIPT:----more----

Mark: Welcome back to the Wonders Science-Based Paganism. I'm your host, mark, and I'm Yucca. And today we're talking about the summer solstice, the longest point in the year in the Northern Hemisphere. The longest day, the shortest night, and we're gonna talk about what that is, what we call it, what some of the metaphorical themes are that go along with it, and some ideas for rituals to do for the, for the summer solstice.

Yucca: Right. And it's another one of those that has a lot of names but at least being one of the solstice, we have a name that. That is pretty common that we could refer to it by, and most people know what we're talking about, right? Yeah.

Mark: Yeah. For many, many years, this was referred to in the English speaking world as mid-summer.

Mm-hmm. So that's where you get a mid-summer night's dream, all that kind of stuff. And that's what I prefer to call it because I don't like using the, the foreign language names since I've not.

Yucca: They aren't your languages.

Mark: Yeah. And I'm not drawing cultural elements from those cultures, so why should I take their name?

Yucca: Right? Mm-hmm. Right. So you'd like to call it mid-summer. Are there any, is that any other names? Southern

Mark: Hemisphere, in which case I would call it

Yucca: mid-winter, right? Yes. For us it's usually summer solstice sometimes refer to hafmas. Haf is summer in Welsh, and it's actually a name we made up because the moss is like the, like from the other side of the year, and it's the flip of that.

And so it just kind of sounded nice to us. We're like, oh yes, it's the summer, it's the summer muss, right? Mm-hmm. So we call it that or it's our. First summer, it's not midsummer for our climate. Mm-hmm. You know, that some climates It is. I mean, summer has started, I know in the, on the mirror, the calendar here in the United States, it's the official start of summer.

That's right. Yeah. But. Climate, I mean, weather-wise, summer is here already for us. Mm-hmm. It's just not the middle of summer. The middle of summer won't be until August.

Mark: Right. And, and that's true for us too. I wrote a blog post at atheopagan dot org recently about the fog cycle. Because here in, in the coastal zone in Northern California, what happens is it gets blazing hot inland, like in the Sacramento Valley.

Mm-hmm. And the air rises and therefore creates a low pressure zone. Mm-hmm. Because it's expanded. And so it pulls cool moisture laden air in from over the ocean, which precipitates out into fog along the coastal area. Mm. So we get this fog cycle and it's why San Francisco is famous for fog. We get this fog cycle in the summertime and when the fog cycle starts.

It's really kind of the climatic beginning of summer, and that's been going on now for about three weeks. Mm. Okay. And what'll happen is we'll have these gray days never rains, just gray, overcast, and then eventually, It cools down enough that that thermal cycle doesn't work anymore. Mm-hmm. And we'll get a few days of bright sparkling sun, usually some blazing heat at the end of that, and then it starts the cycle

Yucca: again.

Okay. So nice.

Mark: That's, that's how we know that summer has started here. Mm.

Yucca: I like that. Well, for us, we have them monsoons. So in the desert southwest, much of the desert, Southwest has the monsoons, and we've been getting them this year, which is wonderful because we've had quite a few years of, of just not getting, just being in terrible, terrible drought.

Mm-hmm. And it's. When I was a kid, the monsoons started earlier, right? They started back in May and they went all the way through September. But now they really are the end of June, July, August is when they'll come and it's we'll get the afternoon rain heavy, rain intense, and then it's gone. But when the rain is coming in, there is.

There's the smell of the rain. Yeah, and it's the soil. I think that what's happening is there's soil microbes that are, that are releasing the smell. There's all sorts of things, but it's just, there's nothing like the smell of the rain. And I've, I've been in different areas, different deserts have their own.

Smell, but there's something similar between them, right? If you're in the Chihuahua or the Mojave, like they have their own and it's just the most wonderful thing. There's just nothing like it. And right after the rain, there's so much life that just wakes up. We have mosses that go dormant and then it rains and they wake up and they're, this fairy green just pops of fairy green everywhere.

And then a few hours later they're back to the brown. And it just, everything wakes up in a way that that is just very different than the rest of the year. So it's just wonderful. And the insects. And one of the really fun things that we love is that after a rain, a day or so after that is when the winged ants will come out.

Oh, so they send out that generation because they need the soft ground to be able to start the next colony, and it's too hard to to dig any other time. So that's when you'll see just these, the conventions, these parties of the wing dance. And you know, some of the termites do that as well. And it's just, Alive with insects and creatures, and it's just a very magical time of year.

Mark: And there's all then the dramatic lightning storms that come with the rain too.

Yucca: That's right. Yeah. And the clouds, the, the incredible, the thunderheads. Yeah. What is it, CU Cumul. Nimbus, is that what it is? Those ones that just go literally miles into the sky and it's amazing. Yeah, no,

Mark: and what I have enjoyed when I've been in the desert Southwest at this time of year is that typically, The rains will break right before sunset.

Yes. So you get these spectacular sunsets, just unbelievable kind of blazing through the remnants of the clouds. Mm-hmm. Really

Yucca: extraordinary. Yeah. And most the sunsets all year round are beautiful, but as we go deeper into summer, the late summer, early fall is when those sunsets are. I don't know why. I don't know quite what's happening.

That's different, but they're the ones where the whole sky is just red and golden and mm-hmm. It's just, and they seem to, to last a little longer. It's, it's quite amazing. Hmm. So enchantment. Yep. So that's what's happening for us. This is a great time of year. Yeah. And it's not too hot yet. Uhhuh, it'll get a, we don't actually get that hot.

Really. We're, we're fine in terms of heat, but you know, we're, we'll be in hanging out in the eighties, so Uhhuh.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, most of the warm days that we get are low nineties, but, You know, some, sometimes when the fog cycle really breaks hard, we'll have days that are, well, we had a, a day that last

Yucca: year, you had crazy

Mark: 15 last year.

That was for about a week we had temperatures that were up mm-hmm. Over 110 every day. And that was, that was amazing. Yeah. So, mid-summer. Yeah. And and the summer solstice. What are the kinds of things that we think of thematically that go along with this time of year? I mean, we've, we've talked about what's happening in nature.

Mm-hmm. We still, by the way, our birds still have their mating plumage, which is interesting. It seems a little late to me, but they do, I'm seeing that at our

Yucca: feeders. Ours too, as well. Although ours are always, we're a little later. Than you because you warm up so much sooner than we do. Right. So there's still and I, I feed mine meal worms and I see that they're still gobbling up the meal worms as we get later into the summer.

They'll kind of leave that alone. But I put out like a little bowl for them to, to and so I assume that they're always doing that when they've got the eggs or the real young mm-hmm. The young birds in the nest. So that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Our hummingbirds are mostly gone though. Ah, there's a few that will hang out in the summer, but they mostly were just a stop for them on their larger journey.

Mark: See, we have a number of birds that are actually migratory birds, but they don't migrate where we are because it's so benign. They just like

Yucca: it. They're like, they just

Mark: hang, you know, we have, we have hummingbirds in the middle of the winter, and they're just like, well, if we went anywhere else, it'd be worse than here.

Yucca: So they just hang out. Okay. That's great. Why? I mean, yeah. Speaking of the birds The kiddos and I took a trip just last week down to Carlsbad Caverns, and we woke, we woke up really early in the morning to go watch the bats return. So, the. The park is actually open all night. So we got there at like three 30 or four in the morning instead of watching them leave.

And so the bats were all coming home. But then there are cave swallows that found the caverns just a few decades ago. Apparently they weren't there before, so now they've made it their home. And so you switch, the bats go in, and then the swallows come out. Oh. And so they're also migratory, so they'll go down south, farther south.

Because I mean, from my perspective, Carlsbad is already pretty south, but I'm talking about, you know, down into South America for that. And then they'll come back up from like, April to October. And they're just incredible creatures as they're swooping around. And when they fly next to, it's like, sounds like a, like the sky, like a crackle as they like zip past you.

So that was really fun to get to see them in the like hundreds. So hundreds of bats replaced with hundreds of these swallow.

Mark: Wow. That's cool.

Yucca: Yeah. So just a plug for everyone. If you have not been to the caverns, it's, it's unbelievable. They're really unbelievable. You can hike down but they also have an elevator so you can get down.

So if you are in a wheelchair or have any mobility challenges, like that's really, really accessible. So it's a great experience. Yeah. Now in term we, we were back on, we were on themes though, right? So you often see this wheel of the year as the life cycle of a human right?

Mark: I do. And this time would be full adulthood, like mm-hmm.

In your thirties you know, maybe into your mid forties, kind of at the height of your powers. And. That doesn't entirely square with my understanding of this holiday actually. Mm-hmm. Thematically, because to me this is the holiday of leisure. Mm-hmm. In the agricultural cycle. That's kind of what it is.

At least it was in, in European Times and it, and it is where I am locally, all plant. He did

Yucca: all the planting, but it's not time to harvest's been done.

Mark: Stuff is growing. Not time to harvest yet. So really what you do is lie in a hammock and drink beer or mojitos and just kind of relax. So it's a time for going to the beach and other sort of leisure kinds of activities.

And that's what I most associate with this holiday actually is. Not formal rituals so much as just getting outside and having recreational activities that, that are enjoyable and relaxing.

Yucca: Mm. Okay. That's wonderful.

Mark: How about you? What are, what are the things that you associate with the time of year?

Yucca: Yeah, this is the bugs time of year for us. This is the arthropods are insects and Mya pods and and this is really the, the time of year in our climate where they really are at their. Peak in their height and there's just, oh the wild bees are out and the all kinds of creatures are around.

We have, these ones will get a little bit more active later on in the year, but I adore them. We have Carolina Wolf spiders here. Oh. And which are. Wolf spiders, but they are, you know, several inches across. They're, they're big, they're like the sizes of a small little tarantula. And we like to go out on night hikes, and which you have to, of course be.

Careful to not step on any animals, but the, the spiders are very shy creatures, right? They don't want to come up and mess with you, but when you shine your light around their eyes, glisten like little, it's a Micah, and they look back at you and so there's just a, a celebration of them and how important they are for our world,

they are just so critical. And it's also a time that we do do gifts as well. So we do gifts on both solstice and we're about, when we're recording this, we're about a, you know, a little bit more than a week out. Mm-hmm. So we haven't put it up yet, but we have a bee garland that we do in our house where we've made.

Giant bees out of like a cardboard and some of them have clay and we put it around and decorate the house for the summer. And of course lots of sun motifs as well because there's just so much sun right now. And we put that around the house and, you know, hang little, little trinkets and little gifts.

And so the kids will probably get some books and, and things that are often insect related or. Cousin insect, you know, cuz spiders and centipedes and those things aren't insects, but they're close cousins. Right. So. Right. Yeah.

Mark: Well that sounds really fun and wonderfully seasonal. Yeah. The, the sun symbols are obviously a big part of, you know, what I do with my focus, for example, and my altar has lots of sun symbols on it generally, but it gets a lot more sun symbols on it at this time of year.

Yeah. It's really, you know, the rain of the, the sun triumphant at this time of year. This, one of my, one of my least favorite summer solstice traditions is that right around this time of year is when I sunburned my scalp and then realized that it's half season. I need to, I need to not do this. Mm-hmm. You know, it's not February anymore. The sun is not weak. The sun is as about as overhead as it's gonna get, and it's strong. And I need to protect myself from Yes. So that's another thing that happens every year. Mm.

Yucca: I enjoy hats. I have some great huge, broad roomed hats. My, my climate is a hat all the time.

Climate. Hmm. Because even in the winter it's very, very, very high elevation. But it's cold enough that you need to have a knit hat in the cold half of the year. And then it's just so, there's just so much sun that you've just gotta have something to. Or else you can't see to protect your, your face and neck and, and all of that.

Yeah. It's

Mark: not elevation. There's so much uv. You really gotta be careful.

Yucca: Yeah. Well, you know, when you go to the weather page and it'll tell you the, what's the pollen count and the wind, you know, our UV index is almost always 10 all the time. You just don't even look at it. It's 10. Well, So yeah, you can't leave a, the, you know, a tarp won't last a season out there, Uhhuh, the UV just eats it and it turns into those terrible million little pieces of plastic everywhere, so.

Well, are there any rituals that you do either for yourself or with your community around this time of year?

Mark: Well, as I said, most of what I want to do with my community at this time of year is to really just kind of hang and. Enjoy one another's company. But there is one ritual that I do every year, which involves my son broom.

Mm-hmm. And longtime listeners will have heard me talk about this before. I have a handle, which is a piece of Oak Branch that I gathered in a state park. And on that I have bound long grasses to make a shaggy sort of broom. And I add grasses to it every year. In, in some years, I actually fully replace the grasses.

Mm-hmm. I can find enough long grass to cut wherever I am and use that to, to replace the, the, the bristles. And I bind that all up and then I sit it out in the mid-summer sun all day on the day of the solstice. Mm-hmm. And the idea of that is that it's soaking up the, you know, the power of the sun.

Mm-hmm. And so long about February, I can wave that thing around the house when it's really dismal and sort of remind myself of the feeling of the sun and the, the energy and the, the warmth and light and all those things that I'm missing in

Yucca: February. That's great.

Mark: Yeah. It's, it's a nice ritual tool to have.

You know, there have been times when, like, I've been working with people that have been really feeling down you know, having a really hard time in their life right then and kind of waving a lot of sun around them, it seems to make them feel better. Nice,

Yucca: nice. Yeah. And are the grasses still green for you?

No. You have, okay, so you're, you're harvesting. Dry grass then. Yeah, it's

Mark: generally wild oats. Mm-hmm. They grow very tall and so, you know, you can cut 'em off and make a nice long broom. This, this marks. Really mayday kind of marks the demarcation between the gold time of the year and the green time of the year.

Mm-hmm. That's what I was remembering. Yeah. Yeah. Things are, are starting to gold up and we've had a few little sprinklings of rain, so there's some remnants of green. Unusually so this year especially because we had this giant rain year, right. Last winter. But by and large, the hills have gone golden by this time.

Mm-hmm. And so that's the golden time

Yucca: of the year. Yeah. I, I really just en enjoy how flipped our climates are because this is one of the only times of year that the grass is green. It's gold most of the year, but right now we've got this pop of green and it's just so, it's just beautiful how.

Places are so different, right? We're, yeah, we're experiencing, I mean, we're sharing some experiences together because we're going, you know, what's happening astronomically? You know, that's, we're all experiencing that, but what spring is for you and what spring is for me, we're just in these very different worlds, and yet coming together and sharing in an online space and then going back to our.

You know, might as well be different planets sometimes.

Mark: Yeah. Well, and of course, I mean, we, I, I just had our Saturday Zoom mixer that we do every Saturday mm-hmm. This morning. And a woman from Argentina was there. Mm-hmm. And of course she's in an entirely different world. Right. You know, it's like it's cold and it's wet and it's dark and you know, all those.

Yeah. All those things that we associate with December up here are what's happening for her right now, so. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yucca: And that as a country has so many different environments. Yeah.

Mark: Well, yeah, cuz it's so north south and it's got the Andes, which are so high

Yucca: and Right. It's that it's stretched down. It goes, you know, and then you can be in that low, low desert or that high or the, you know, it's, I'm looking at, on the map right now.

Yeah. Or

Mark: Patagonia, which is this arctic kind of environment. Yeah. It's, mm-hmm. It's everything. I'd love to go

Yucca: where there are still folks who speak Welsh. Really? Yes, there is a Welsh community there. And so you can, you'll find people with last names of like Evans and, and things like that. Yeah. So it's, they're the, like the Welsh like cowboys in Patagonia.

It's, it's, it's a, it's, it's a great country. It's an amazing, we live in just a wonderful world, just so many different places and, and little gems and, yeah.

Mark: Yeah. So, yep. Well, that's kind of part of what we're all about, isn't it? We live in a wonderful world. Me too. It's It's just really cool when you pay attention to it.

Yucca: Yeah. I like having the holidays as these touchstones throughout the year. Mm-hmm. Right. Just to kind of come back and think about, you know, what was last year around Solstice and the year before and, and how it's so similar and yet so different this time around. Mm-hmm.

Mark: Well, I think I conjecture that that's why the The, the symbol of the spiral was very attractive to prehistoric people.

You know, the, the creators of the megalithic passage, burials and all that kind of stuff, because time really is like a spring, you know, you come around to the same point again, but you're, you're removed from it by a year. Mm-hmm. So it just kind of iterates around and around and around. Yeah. Always in a different place and yet in the same place at the same time.

Hmm.

So what was I gonna do? I know what I was gonna do. I was gonna close with a poem for the season. Ooh, let me

Yucca: grab Sure.

Mark: This is called Dawn Prayer,

whose warm love flows across the land each day stirring life, the world's magic arms yearning up, turning each green leaf to follow whose generous balm upon the skin is love's touch. Ah, heated fingers, soothing. Whose Roar boils water from ocean to sky, drawing sweet from salt, becoming rain, snow river lake whose fervor beat upon us is deadly and yet contemplating cold stars.

How we miss it? The golden one. Quotidian center of our days Steady companion soer of treasures. Great and small light bringer life. Quickener, dazzling unbearably bright. Hail. Oh, hail the magnificent sun.

Yucca: Thank you.

Mark: Hmm. My pleasure. I'm awfully fond of that star. I I would be really bereft without it.

Yucca: Yes. Do you? And all of us. Yeah. So, well, this was a great talk and thank you.

Mark: Sure. Yeah. Everyone have a wonderful mid-summer and or winter or mid-winter. Mm-hmm. And if you come up with cool ideas for rituals for this time of year, shoot us an email at the wonder podcast cues gmail.com.

Let us know what you're doing. We're always interested to hear from our listeners. So thanks so much for listening.

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Due to the Atheopagan Web Weaving Conference we held this weekend, there is no new episode of THE WONDER this week.

However, since you can now preorder Mark's upcoming book, here is an episode from the archives about it! See you next week.

You can preorder the book at https://llewellyn.com/product.php?ean=9780738775364

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Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com.

S4E19 TRANSCRIPT:----more----

Yucca: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-based Paganism. I'm your host, Yucca,

Mark: and I'm Mark.

Yucca: and today we're gonna talk about wonder. So that's what we're about, right? We're about, this is the wonder. So we're gonna explore the idea of wonder, and then we're also gonna talk about a few things that inspire that in us as well.

Mark: Things that make us go Wow.

Yucca: Yep.

Mark: Yeah. The. The reason that I suggested that the name of the podcast be The Wonder is that I think that that is at root, the spiritual motivation, right? That you know to, yes, there's the desire for meaning, there's the desire for a sense of place in the world and purpose in life and all those kinds of things.

But fundamentally, I think. That sense of just being awestruck by the, the fact that we exist, the fact of the universe and the world existing. I just think that's really a core spiritual sentiment and or, or experience. And so a lot of what I focus. My rituals on and, you know, efforts at creating oth, you know, materials to support other people in creating their rituals is about fostering that sense of wonder and awe.

Yucca: Yes. Yeah. And there's. There's so much of it really, it, it, whatever, wherever your interests lie, there's, there's just so much to explore and and it's one of those sensations that's very hard to describe, but it's really feeding in. Its to experience that.

Mark: Yeah. I mean, the more I learn about the world, you know, in, you know, in microcosm or in macrocosm, the more often I wanna say, wow, that's amazing.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: You know, I, I think about, I mean, there's, there's millions of examples, but talk so toxoplasmosis. Let's, let's start there. Okay. This is a virus that is communica that cats get, and it's also communicable to humans and to other mammals.

Toxoplasmosis controls your brain when it goes into rodents. They get careless, they get bolder and braver and And more fool, hearty. And that works perfectly for cats, right?

Yucca: Yes, it works out right.

Mark: so now cats have toxoplasmosis, right? And cats that have toxoplasmosis are friendlier. They are more apt to be domesticated.

So then they move in with the humans, and the humans by contact with the cat's. Feces can get toxoplasmosis, and one of the things that it makes them really want to do is to feed the cats.

Yucca: Yes.

Mark: So, I mean, literally all of this stuff is scientifically demonstrated. All of this is this little tiny virus, which is, you know, just a little string of genetic information.

And all of this stuff is true and it, you look at this and just go, my God, how is this possible?

Yucca: Mm-hmm. And it's, and it's all over. Right? I know that that's something that is regularly tested for. If you're, if you're pregnant, they test, they go, oh, do you have a cat? Okay, let's test you for that.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah.

Yucca: yeah, and I don't know if there are, what health implications there are for that other than it does have some impact on personality, right.

For people as well. That it makes them more like that they. Their relation to ship to risk is a little, just like with the mice, is a little bit different than it might be if you didn't have the infection.

Mark: Yeah, and it makes them a little bit more agreeable as well, just a little bit more amenable to going along with whatever somebody else suggests which is just a hell of a thing. You know, we, we think we have free will. We think that we are piloting our ourselves through our lives, and here comes this little bug and it actually distorts our decision making process.

Yucca: Well, it challenges the, the idea of who self is. There's a lot of things today that do that, that really have us look at what is me really,

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: Right. What, and especially when we start getting into the realm of, of the microbiome and where do we start drawing the line between my microbiome and my cells?

Which ones are me, which ones aren't? Are we saying we distinguishing between d n a? What about mitochondria? All of that stuff starts to we're starting to find that the lines between all of that are a lot more blurry than we used to think.

Mark: Right e each of us is a, a functioning interpenetrated ecosystem. One emergent property of which is this thing called consciousness. But that is that because it is an emergent property of a body, which is an interpenetrated ecosystem is heavily influenced by what's going on in that ecosystem. And some of that is human, d n a and some of it's not. In fact, more of it is not than is.

Yucca: So let's, let's, before we can, there's a whole bunch of different things we can discuss, but let's come back to the idea of wonder a little bit before going into some of the specifics of things that that feel, that evoke that sense in us. One of the things that we were talking about when we were coming up with what topics we wanted to discuss was the idea that, that some people have that wonder has to also include ignorance that you can only have wonder if you are ignorant about it.

And that's something that I wanna say that I don't agree with.

Mark: Me

Yucca: think that wonder often has a, has humility as part of it. That's certainly for me, is often a sense when I look at the night sky. There's this, I'm just overwhelmed with the awe and the wonder of all of it and the knowledge that I know very, very little about it, but I also know a lot about it.

Right. That's my, that's my field. I know a lot about that little red dot right there that we call Mars. Right. For me only makes it more awe-inspiring because there's even more, the, the knowledge of all of that is part of that awe, but also the recognition that there is a lot that I don't know.

But it doesn't have to be. Awe isn't just what I don't understand. There's awe at what I do understand as well.

Mark: Right. Yeah. When we were talking about this, I was mentioning that a, apparently there's some academic who has written that naturalistic paganism is somehow. Either faulty or not real in some sense. Because the awe that happens when you don't, the awe that comes from mystery is somehow has a cache that the awe that comes from knowledge doesn't.

And I really disagree as you do Yucca. When I'm standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon. I can be awestruck by what a gigantic big hole that is. But the fact that I know that it's billions of years of accumulated layers of sedimentary rock that I'm looking at, that just changes everything.

Understanding that the slow uplift of the Kibab plateau allowed the Colorado River to carve that amazing, magnificent earth temple. Is that really blows my socks off. So, so, you know, in the same way that I'm, you know, filled with wonder by a, a beautiful rainbow, even though I understand how refraction works

Yucca: And then you get to be awed by that

Mark: yes,

Yucca: and then thinking, and then it leads to, wait a second, our eyes perceive those particular colors. Why is that right? And tracing all of that back and we're back to, you know, jellyfish. We'll come back to jellyfish in a while. Yeah.

Mark: Yeah. So, you know, what I find is that scientists who. Truly embrace the scientific mindset. And there are many scientists who don't. There are many scientists who are, they're either ego involved with their findings or they're just very, very narrowly focused and you know, are very invested in being emotionally dispassionate.

But, but the scientists that I know that are truly filled with that, that humble curiosity. Just to, you know, I just want to find out how does this work? Einstein was one, Fineman was one. Hawking was one. Carl Sagan was one. You know, these are people that are, you know, elated at, at what they know about the universe.

Filled to the brim with joy about. About what they know and about what they can observe. Because they're looking with informed eyes, not, not just looking at something and go, wow. Going, wow, that's very cool. And it's mysterious. I don't know what it is.

Yucca: Yeah.

You know, last episode you'd mentioned the pale blue dot.

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: From Sagan. Right. And that's one that often comes up for me thinking about with the awe, just seeing, you know, just that one image you can think of, that particular image. Which by the way, the new Horizons. Which is the craft that went to Pluto and is currently exploring the, the Kuiper Belt is in its second extended mission.

And one of the things that they are currently investigating whether they can do, is seeing if they can turn it around and look back because the camera that they have aboard new Horizons is first of all, far farther out. But it. Much more advanced camera being something that was launched in the two thousands rather than something launched back in the seventies.

And so fingers crossed that we might have another image looking back from even farther at the moment. It's currently studying the ice giants from the other side, which we'd never done before. So, but, but coming back to the, to the original one that. Just looking at that image that it is something big that we're looking at.

Right. But we had, we've used the examples already of thinking about awe in terms of the Grand Canyon or the night sky, but there's also awe in that tiny dot, right? It is huge because we're looking at an entire planet, but we're also just looking at a, what looks like just a moat of dust and that, and awe doesn't have a.

A limit to size. Right. A is not only in the giant, in the huge A is also in the tiny and the quiet, and it just at any angle that you're looking or listening at, there's just that, I mean, I just don't even have the words to say it because it's such an experiential thing.

Mark: Well in the, in the contemplation of scale itself. Right. Even just contemplating the nature of scale, you know, we know so much about the subatomic world now, right? We, we, we know quite a bit about, you know, the realities that are happening down at the quantum level, and here we are. I. You know where microorganisms are.

Incomprehensibly small to us. Our own cells are incomprehensibly small to us. You know, we have dust mites living in our furniture and we have eyelash mites living in our eyelashes,

Yucca: Those delight me. I love those so much.

Mark: me too. I think they're so cool. So, you know, the tiny goes all the way down and the big goes all the way up.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: And that in and of itself is awe inspiring, that the universe is so intricate, so, so amazingly finely, finely defined that it has all those different layers of scale and that it has since the Big Bang. You know, from the very beginning, from the Big Bang, we started out with little, tiny, tiny, tiny proto particles and. Things have been snapping together into increasingly complex emergent phenomena ever since. If we didn't know anything about physics, if we didn't know anything about evolution, if we didn't know anything about cosmology, we couldn't appreciate any of that, and it is awesome.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: It's just awesome.

Yucca: One of my favorite things that I do with my students is I have a four minute video that is of the scale of the universe, and we start at a plunk length and we go all the way up to this, the observable universe. And it's just you're zooming out, right? And you're just going out, you know, each time it's 10 times larger.

And yeah, I start by asking them, okay, everybody, I wanna get a vote. Do you think humans. Are, do you think humans are big or humans are small, right? Are we big? Are we huge or are we tiny? And I get a vote from everybody, right? And mark that down. And then we, we watch this video and it takes about two minutes to get to humans where you can see humans from going from the smallest theoretical size, and it still takes a while to get to the smallest confirmed size, but just watching their faces.

As we're going out and them going, wait, what? What? And then we start getting up into the bigger scales and the bigger scales, and we're getting all the way up to galaxies and super clusters, and then we're up to the observable universe, which probably there's way more universe, but there's a limit to how much we can see.

Right?

Mark: Right.

Yucca: And then asking them next. Okay. Does anyone wanna change their vote? And the quality of their voice is different after watching this video. Right? And you're just seeing them for the first time go, wow, wow. There's nothing like that. And of course, almost all of them change their vote at the end to both, right?

Is yes, we are unbelievably huge. And then, but we are tiny.

Mark: But we're minuscule. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. That's, that's a super great lesson for, for science students.

Yucca: I think for any, I mean, these are specifically for my science students, but I, you know, in any, I think that's a great one. In, in any field, right? Whether somebody's going into science or not. Just a perspective on the world.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And So, you know, one of the things that I've said about atheopagan is that it's the spirituality of the verifiably real.

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: You know, there's, there's, it's possible, theoretically not consistent with any scientific theory, but con contextually it's possible that there are gods, right.

We don't have any evidence that would lead one to conclude that, but you know, we can imagine that that might be true, right?

Yucca: Sure.

Mark: Irrelevant to me

Yucca: Maybe me too. That's the thing I was gonna say, I don't really care if

Mark: if there's so little evidence for it. There is so much here that I am just knocked out by, and it gives me so much of a sense of meaning and joy and, and appreciation that I don't need to extend to stuff that requires me to suspend my disbelief in order to, in order to embrace it.

I just, I don't need to go there.

Yucca: Right. Well, why don't we talk about a few of the things that that recently have given us. That sense of, of wow. And also I wanna put in a, an overlapping feeling as well as that delight, right? I think that delight and wonder aren't necessarily the same, but for me, they often come together,

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: right? So a couple of the ones I wanna talk about are just ones that I just find delightful as well as awe-inspiring. But do you wanna start?

Or,

Mark: why don't you start while I'm figuring out what I'm gonna do

Yucca: sure. Well, we, we've been on the space one for a while. So there's, I have some non-space stuff as well, but there's, I. A, a paper that I read recently, and actually it was by the PI of the mission. We just talked about New horizons. So Alan Stern and he's talking about I wows.

So I Wows are internal water, ocean worlds. So these are planets like, Europa, like Pluto and Celis, it turns out that oceans are really, really common in our solar system and presumably beyond our solar system, right? And so what we are seeing is that we've probably got these worlds that have water, liquid water inside with thick crusts of rock or ice on top. And we've never been able to go down into any of these oceans. There's not yet. I mean, maybe one day. But. There's a lot of conditions in these places that we think would really be good for life. For instance, with Europa, we think that there's probably hydrothermal vents at the bottom of those oceans that there's, you know, that's probably saltwater organic compounds, all the things that we would need for Earthlike life.

And so in this particular paper, which I think is gonna end up being one of those papers that people look back on like Dyson's paper about trying to find extra solar civilizations and things like that. But what he pointed out in this is that these eye wows are much better places for civilizations to evolve.

Than worlds like our own, which are ews, external Water, ocean Worlds, because worlds like Earth we're subject to how cranky our star is being. Right? It depends on how close or how far away from we are from our star. Asteroid impacts, right? That's how to pretty big impact, so to say on the ecology over the years.

So, Civilizations now and again, we don't know if anybody else is out there. We suspect there's, you know, trillions upon trillions of planets. That's a lot of opportunity for there to be civilizations, but that these worlds would be more likely than Ewos to develop civilizations. Now, if that was the case, this is the part that makes me just delighted to think about if there are civilizations, they would be very unlikely to know that stars existed.

Because their world would be under 60 kilometers or hundreds of kilometers of ice. And eventually maybe, maybe they might drill through that and go up to the surface and find out that something's there. But they wouldn't necessarily have the same drive that we've had to go explore the stars because we see them, right?

We see the stars right there. Now. It's harder to get off of our planet than we'd be to get off of one of those planets. Assuming that we're talking about eye wows that are. Smaller planets, right? Like, like Europa is the gravity's much, much lower there.

Mark: but you have to get through those kilometers of ice or rock

Yucca: oh yes. And bring all your water with you. I mean, we gotta bring our air with us too. But if you're from that, you're gonna have to bring your water. You're unlikely to be using the same sort of light. They probably wouldn't see what the part of the electromagnetic spectrum we do. Also, if they're there and they are using radio, which would be very odd for them to have figured out radio if they didn't have.

Other type of using visible light, but that probably wouldn't leak through the ice, so we might not even know they're there. So it just delights me to think that the universe might be, we might be the weird, weird aliens that live on the surface of planets in the harsh light of a star where everybody else out there is, you know, swimming around and, you know, they're the occupy people, right. So that delights me.

Mark: Very cool. We've talked about this before, but if you haven't, go see the movie Europa Report.

Yucca: Yes.

Mark: was, it was made on like a shoestring budget. It was made for like $8,000 or something. Some insanely low amount, and it is a fantastic science

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: really worth seeing.

Yucca: Also before we do, I just wanna make a comment real quick. Some of you might have noticed my usage of the term planet that is consistent in planetary science. We do not use the IAU definition that is never been used, actually used in any science. So referring to. Bodies like Europa, Pluto, ENCE, all of that as planets is consistent with the scientific usage of the term.

So just if anyone caught that, that is that's how we use it in the field. So, yeah.

Mark: Yeah. That it is, that's all inspiring. You know, the idea that these self-contained worlds could be, and of course what that, what that does is it begs the question well, okay, is our universe a bubble of something that's in a matrix of something larger?

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: It's seen seems that that's the way that reality works.

Could the Big Bang have been an extrusion of force space into, you know, further dimensions that have other stuff in them that, that's going on?

Yucca: One of my. Personal favorites is Black Hole Cosmology, which of course is still outside of the actual realm of science because it's not something that's falsifiable at this point. But it's a very popular idea among cosmologists is that inside each black hole is a new universe. So the Big Bang is basically a white hole from the black hole of another universe.

And inside of each of our black holes is another universe that just keeps. You know, creating more and more and more universes. That one makes me really happy.

Mark: Yeah. And there, once again, you see the, the magic of fractals, right? That same repeating pattern happening over and over again with every iteration, slightly different. None of them, none of them identical, but repeating in patterns over and over and over again.

Yucca: Slight difference between each universe, that actually allows for natural selection.

Mark: yes.

Yucca: Because if you have universes which are more likely to make black holes, then they're more likely to pass on their slight differences. But again, we don't know. This is, we're just playing with ideas at this point.

Right. This is, we don't have any evidence to support this, but it's, but they're fun ideas.

Mark: and they're fun ideas that can inspire awe and wonder just through being somewhat scientifically informed. Right. That's all I wonder that you can't access if you're not somewhat scientifically informed because you don't, you don't understand the concepts. So once again, this idea that things need to be capital M mystery in order to be awe-inspiring is just, it's just not right.

I don't understand where that person's coming from at all.

Yucca: Well they do them. We'll be over here talking about Wonder and new research and all that.

Mark: and having joyous and happy lives and building community and making the world a better place.

Yucca: Sounds pretty good. Count me in.

Mark: sounds, sounds okay to me. I'm, you know, that, that's, that's worthy use of my time. So what was I had a couple of examples, but you know, I'm looking out the window right now and I'm just watching tree branches blowing in wind.

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: And understanding that there is a mathematical language that can describe that,

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: one of those leaves has a friction coefficient. And it has a particular springiness of its stem and of the branch that it grows from, and the wind is turbulent and it shears through all those different surfaces and it causes very specific kinds of motions, none of which are ever exactly the same.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: Time, but all of which can be somewhat predicted. You can, you can predict that it's gonna go back and forth in some kind of way. And I mean, in the, in the einsteinian sense. What that means is that chaos mathematics is the language of God, It's not in a, not in a literal deic being kind of sense, but that the, the, the universe has a mathematical language that will describe it,

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: and that I just find stunning. Just stunning

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: and, and, and particularly the constants. Which are just weird. They're all irrational numbers, right? They're, they're strange, but they're there. They're,

Yucca: those numbers. Yeah,

Mark: yeah, they're demonstrably real, you know? So e and pi all, you know, all of those I, which of course is impossible. You know, and all of these can be used to describe actual stuff happening in the universe, and it's just glorious.

Yucca: it is. And we come back to that tree. is gonna come in a slightly different direction,

Mark: Oh, right,

Yucca: that tree is doing some pretty amazing things that until recently we didn't really give credit to plants to be doing. So that tree has roots that goes down into the ground and what it's doing up above. Cuz it's photosynthesizing, right?

It's taking air. And from the air it's taking co2, so carbon dioxide, and it's taking water up from its roots and then it's taking photons, it's taking light coming from our star, and it's making sugars out of that. And oxygen. Now it's not making the atom of oxygen, it's making the molecule, right? Stars make the atom right, but it's sticking them together and make that oxygen that we're breathing and it's gonna use the sugars in its cells.

But one of the things that it does with those sugars that it makes is it makes what we call exudates, basically these sticky liquids that it sends down to its roots and it releases into the soil. And it can make different kinds of exudates depending on what its, let's call them nutritional needs are.

So the, the plant is made outta the same stuff we are. So it's a carbon-based life forms. Of course, it's mostly carbon and oxygen and hydrogen, but it also needs things like calcium and it needs boron and it needs all of these other things. And they're in the ground. These, they're just pieces of the earth.

So the rock, but the plant can't get it from the rock, but who can get it from the rock is microbes. So there are microbes that are really good at getting that, let's say calcium, getting that calcium out of the rock, and then through the food web, getting it into a form that the plant can then take up with its roots.

So if the tree needs calcium, it will release the right exudates to actually breed. And grow the bacteria who can get the nutrients that it needs. So plants figured out farming hundreds of millions of years before we ever existed.

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: And one of the really cool things that just in the last few years we've been finding out about is something called Rizo.

So, The roots of plants. And we're not just talking about some special plants, we're talking about the whole kingdom here. Not only will they grow the particular populations of bacteria that they want, but they will literally take them into their roots and eat them. They abs, they take them in and literally eat bacteria.

They feed on the bacteria, and some of them they will actually. Like partially eat and then spit back out so that they grow again and they actually move them right because that, that root will continue to grow. And so they'll move them several centimeters or even farther before spitting them, half digested back out, they grow again.

And so they're cultivating, they're ranching and farming bacteria. And so it's a just. That would look out your window at that tree. That's what your tree is doing right now. Not just your tree, but the grass, the flowers, the ivy growing up, your wall. They're all doing that and they're interacting on these on levels that we had no idea, and we are just barely beginning to learn about the incredible interactions with them.

Mark: It's pretty awesome.

Yucca: Yep.

Mark: Pretty, pretty awe inspiring. It really is. And yeah, I mean, The kinds of things that we have discovered. Like when I first learned about complexity science, I read this book, I read, there's a book called Complexity by Mitchell Waldrop, and it's a popular science book. It's, it's really, it's about creation of the Santa Fe Institute,

Yucca: Yeah, I actually read that book as a, so I'm from Santa Fe and in high school well the equivalent was high school. Yeah, I did a, I did a program at the institute and we, we literally read that book,

Mark: Uhhuh.

Yucca: so, yeah.

Mark: Well, that was my introduction to complexity science,

Yucca: Oh,

Mark: and I literally would, you know, read four pages and then skip around the room

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: you know this question about, you know, about emergence and about, you know, scale

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: is so central to the entire story of the universe. It's everywhere. It's in everything. And asking those fundamental questions about, well, why, you know, why, why, when you put these disparate elements together, why when you combine two gases, does it create a liquid? What's up with that? The, the, the property of emergence itself is one of those things that just makes me awe-inspired. You know, why?

Why stars?

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: You know, why, why are there these accumulations that, that cause transformation where suddenly you've got this gathering that gravity has been pulling together of dust and gas, and then all of a sudden at this one transformational moment, Kapow, you've got a star.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: It's asking those kinds of cosmological questions that I just find just thrilling.

Yucca: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

And again, in whatever direction Right. It, you know, we've been talking about our particular interests, but I mean, there's just, it's just any, anywhere you look, any direction,

Mark: sure. Zombie ants that are colonized by particular molds. Right.

Yucca: Yeah. The cor decept.

Mark: yeah.

Yucca: And ants, speaking of emergence, that's where a lot of the research has been done is with ants and how the ant colonies work and how they end up with their behavior as super organisms where they're, it's made of lots of little individuals and yet they have personalities. A whole colony has its own personality that grows and changes over time, which studying helps us better understand.

Humans on that way too, because we're each individuals. But if you look at communities and communities on different scales, but also communities on the scale of like countries where the, the countries will have their personalities that they're this made up from just these smaller parts and we're just following these, you know, simple rules that then translates into this emergent behavior and it's.

I mean, it's fascinating and something, again, we're just barely, barely starting to even grasp that that's there,

Mark: Right, right.

Yucca: so,

Mark: Yeah. So look around. You know, there's so much to be just wowed by and, and the, the next step in that process in my experience is gratitude. I am, so, I. Thrilled to be able to be taking this ride and appreciating all this incredible stuff that's happening, to be a part of this universe that's just amazing.

Just amazing. At every level, at every scale, it's doing stuff that's just like, oh my God, how, how, how, how is that happening?

Yucca: Right, and just for the briefest tiniest moment, we get to be a piece of the universe that gets to think about itself. That gets to see itself and experience itself as a conscious being, but it's just a moment. It's a blink of an eye,

Mark: Yeah. What good fortune a

Yucca: right?

Mark: what? Incredible luck. You know, when you consider the odds. The, the astronomical odds against any one of us, you know, particularly having arisen through collision of genetics and, you know, the, the experiences that happen to us through our lives. There, there will, there will never be another one of you.

There has never been one of you, and it's miraculous.

Yucca: Yeah, and every single thing that happened before in every one of your ancestors, it had to happen exactly the way it did for you to even exist. And just, there isn't a word to describe how unlikely our existences.

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: Right. Astronomical is not a big enough word.

Mark: no, it's not.

Yucca: It's just, you know, in my house we've been talking a lot about grandma, grandmother Luca recently.

Right. And how so Luca is the last universal common ancestor and about how life has never stopped between each of us and her.

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: Or it, or whoever they were, right? That we're going back at least 4 billion years of choices. Now there's been, it's split off, right? There's lots of things, places where it stops, right?

But in order for you to exist, it hasn't stopped that whole time,

Mark: Right. Your ancestors all the way back to microbes never died before they could reproduce.

Yucca: Before. Yeah.

Mark: They never did. All the way back. Billions of years,

Yucca: life didn't stop between you and because you didn't, you didn't, you weren't magically just suddenly alive when you weren't before you rewind to the times all the cells that made you, you rewind to that back. They were a single cell inside of your mother. And rewind her cells back and you keep going.

That cell, that life has just been there the whole time. Now it started at some point and think, trying to think about that. Wow.

Mark: trying to figure out exactly how that is. Although there's behavior that we can see in long chain molecules and modeling that we can see through things like the Game of Life, which give us some tantalizing hints about how that all could have worked,

Yucca: Right.

Mark: but we haven't been able to replicate it, and maybe we never will.

It's entirely possible.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: Or maybe we will, and that will raise a whole bunch of new ethical questions for sure.

Yucca: My goodness. Yes.

I am hoping and also not hoping that we get to, speaking of Europa earlier. And just saying you're Oprah. Cause it's the closest of them. There's a whole bunch of other ones that we could go to too, but it's a lot easier to get to Jupiter than it is to get to Saturn or Neptune. Right.

But, you know, I'm hoping, and also not hoping that we get to, in the next couple decades, go down and take a look and see somebody else down there.

Mark: Boy,

Yucca: we do,

Mark: pretty amazing.

Yucca: that's a, that's, that's Pandora's box right there. But, you know, eh, it'd be a incredible,

Mark: Yeah. Well, we have kind of bombarded you with our enthusiastic WOWness about, about the universe.

Yucca: Which any of these topics could be their own podcast and themselves.

Mark: Sure. They, they could be their own podcast series in and of themselves, you know, any of these topics because they're gigantic topics and we're only skipping over the, the, the top high points of them. But, you know, one of the, one of the worst things I think that. Our mainstream culture does is discount the value of appreciating these sorts of things. Oh, well that's just a sunset happens every day.

Yucca: There's a limited number of sunsets that will ever happen.

Mark: that's right. And there's certainly a limited number of sunsets for us.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: We're only gonna get a certain number of them, so it might make more sense for us to go out and go, oh, how beautiful.

Yucca: And you also don't know how many you get.

Mark: Yeah. You don't.

Yucca: Hopefully you get a lot more, hopefully you have thousands and thousands to come, but you might just have the one. Right. And that's another one of those just amazing things about, about being alive, about be about being

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: just existing at all. Yeah.

Mark: Yeah. we could go on forever,

Yucca: Well, we couldn't,

Mark: I think but I, well, we could go on until we died,

Yucca: Yes.

Mark: but I think we should probably stop and maybe save some of that time and energy for other things.

Yucca: Sounds good. Thank you so much. This was a lot of fun.

Mark: It was, it

Yucca: you everyone for being here with us. So.

Mark: We'll see you next week.

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Talismans video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML-sED3fAzY

Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com.

S4E18 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 talking about talismans and touchstones and things that we do during the course of our day to remind ourselves that we are on a naturalistic, pagan, pagan path and to remind ourselves of our practice.

Yucca: Right. And these could be things, we could have objects that help. Remind us but also moments in the day or activities that we're doing that we can use as, as metaphorical touchstones, right?

Mark: Right, right. I mean, we've talked about a daily practice before. Those tend to be. In the beginning and the ending of the day, not in the sort of rush of the middle of the day. So what we're really focusing on, on with this podcast is more about what do we do just to bring back to mind that we're on this path and that these are our values and that kind of stuff, while we're in the midst of all the various business that we have to take care of during the day.

Yucca: Right. So why, actually, why don't we start with one? You were just telling me about that. This was one of Michael's suggestions who we've had on the podcast before he was on the council. And you were saying it was 13 o'clock.

Mark: 13 o'clock.

Yucca: o'clock, yeah. So what's this 13 o'clock thing?

Mark: Which is one o'clock in the afternoon of course. Michael is Irish and apparently there is something that happens at noon every day in Ireland on the public television stations which is called the Angelus, and it used to be a. Catholic thing with, you know, images of the Virgin Mary and all that kind of stuff.

And the idea was that you were supposed to stop and pray or contemplate or just kind of remember, you know, that this is your religious path. Well, it's, it's become much more secularized now. They have images of the Irish countryside and. That kind of stuff instead. But it's still kind of a lovely idea.

And so Michael suggested that because we have 13 principles and there are 13 moon cycles, and we just like that

Yucca: 13. It's just fun. Yeah.

Mark: Yeah, it's, it's a cool prime number. That we celebrate something like that at 13 o'clock every day. And just take a minute. That's all, you know, 60 seconds, that's all that it takes.

What I do, I've put it in my phone as an alarm to remind me when it's

Yucca: buzzes at you at one o'clock,

Mark: Well, I actually get a 10 minute warning so that I can finish up whatever I'm doing right there and have a minute, but at, at, at the stroke of one. What I do is I just grasp my suntry pendant that I always wear, that I got at the Suntry retreat last year, and just imagine that I am floating in space, looking down at the earth.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: Watching it slowly turn underneath me and just recognize, you know, as Carl Sagan said, this is everyone you've ever known. Everything that's ever happened in human history, all that you'll ever

Yucca: king, every baker, every, yeah, every conflict we've ever had. Right. Every.

Mark: event, every birth, every celebration, every cataclysm, all those things are embodied in this little planet floating in space.

And so I just sort of meditate on that for about a minute, and then I let go of my pendant and go about my day. But I find it's a really wonderful addition to my practice and it's nice to have a little intercession in the middle of the day. That's about my spirituality.

Yucca: Hmm. That's great. I love that idea. That's, that's where noom comes from the term originally, isn't it? Weren't there

Mark: I think it, yeah, because it was originally Noce

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Noce, which is one of the. Catholic masses that celebrated through the course of the day.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: I don't know what I, I know the first one is Matins and the last one is Vespers. Leys in the middle.

Yucca: Yeah. So I think that's where the term is coming from, but I don't know enough about it. I just remember hearing that at one point that that's the origin. So it's a but I, I very much like those. I. And Islam has a, a similar structure of throughout the day having the different, the, just a small ritual throughout the day just to remind us.

Right. And I think that there's a lot of, of power in that. Just stop for a moment and kind of have that reset. Right.

Mark: Right. Yeah. Because I mean, it's so easy to get caught up in all the busyness of everything we have to do in order to keep the functions of our lives going. But one minute of time just to. Refocus on the big picture I think is really, for me, it's been very meaningful and has kind of contributed to my happiness.

So, it's something I'm doing and I really appreciate Michael for suggesting it.

Yucca: Yeah, that's fun.

Mark: So what are some other things that we either practices or. You know, carrying of objects or keeping them in a, in a, a bag or a purse or putting them in our car. What, you know, other things that we might do to remind us during the day of our path.

Yucca: Well, there's one that in my family on my adopted side, my stepmother is having a by the door.

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: Which is like a the other versions what might be like a Honda Fatima or it's like a protection against the the evil eye, but it's this beautiful, stylized hand. And the traditional belief behind it was, you know, it's protection from the evil eye.

But that's something that, you know, growing up we would always have by the door and it would be something that We would just touch on the way out of the door,

Mark: Hmm.

Yucca: Not as a belief literally that that's somehow going to protect us. But just as a reminder of, hey, I'm stepping out of the home. I'm going out into the world and just to be more aware.

Right. And just to kind of, you know, shields up, right? So it's almost like the button of like shields up right? Going out, leaving the, the sanctuary of the home. And so having something like that and I actually have the one that, that I grew up with in, in my home now, and it's just by the door and it's.

It's just a nice reminder every time of coming in and out of the home space.

Mark: And does everyone in your household do that?

Yucca: The grownups do, it is too high at the moment for these smaller hands, but as they get older, I think they, they will.

Mark: Ah-huh.

Yucca: the one that we have is, If enthusiastically touched, could come down and break, so

Mark: Oh, okay.

Yucca: get a little bit older. Yeah. It's one that's made from broken pottery.

Mark: Oh

like

Yucca: made from broken.

Yeah. It's a mosaic made from broken pottery from Jerusalem. So it's, it's really beautiful and I would rather it not get crushed, but when they're when they're a little bit calmer, Then maybe they'll get, they'll get to do that particular one.

Mark: Okay.

Yucca: So in the meantime, they're, they've got plenty of other stuff to do.

But that's, that's a type of object that's really nice. And I, although I don't drive a lot anymore in my hanging on my rear view mirror, I have a little bead that when I get into the car, it's just a, I just kind of give it a little boop. And just as a reminder of, Hey, I'm getting into the car, I'm taking on a big responsibility with the life of the passengers, my life, the life of anyone else on the c the road.

And just take a moment to center and ground and then, then be on the way before just rush. You know? Cause a lot of times we're so tempted to get in the car. You've got the keys, you know, you've turned the car on before your seatbelt's even on and just, no, hang on. Slow down. About to drive this, you know, very, very heavy piece of equipment, very, very fast.

So let's take a moment. So those are two that I have on a kind of a very practical level, but they, they really have that special meaning, so,

Mark: I, I like that. I mean this, this sort of illustrates that you can imbue anything really with a particular meaning if you associate a practice with it. So, you know, just a little bead. It doesn't need to be anything fancy. It can just be a little something so that you you know, it, it becomes a part of your pattern as you, you know, you put the keys in, you put the seatbelt on, you, you touch the bead, you start the car, and it's just a part of the routine.

Yucca: Yeah. So what about you? Do you have any other ones that you do?

Mark: You know, what I do is I carry I carry some talismans and I've, there's a, there's a blog post, or it may be a YouTube video actually, because I think I did it while my arm was broken and I couldn't type.

Yucca: Think it is a YouTube video. I think I've a long time. It's been several years, but yeah.

Mark: Yes. That would've been 2017 when my, when

Yucca: I'll see if I can find the link to that and put that in the show notes.

Mark: Great. Yeah, so that's about talismans and the ones that I carry and what they mean to me. And what a talisman is really is just a little. Something a little token of some kind that reminds you of something specific. So, for example, I have an Arrowhead, which was one of the giveaways from.

A, an earth honoring ritual that we did at Pantheon a few years ago. And it reminds me of the broader Pagan community and also of deep time being a, a, you know, a found arrowhead. So that's one. There's another, that's a smooth stone. That I got at a fired circle gathering, and it reminds me of that community and the, the people that I have in my life that really love me.

So I have fi and there's a little mala bead that looks like a skull that is a memento mori. It reminds me that I'm gonna die and that I need to seize the day. So there are five or six of these little things. And as well as the suntry pendant that I wear around my neck. All of those serve to, kind of, to bring deeper meaning to my daily operation.

You know, if I reach in my pocket for my comb while there are those talismans reminding me again that I'm on this path and I'm, I'm doing this, and it's more meaningful than just kind of wandering through life without. A sense of purpose or meaning?

Yucca: So do you have a, is it. Is that part of a ritual in the morning, just to stick those into your pocket or are they already in your jeans and when you put your jeans on in the morning? There they are.

Mark: They're already in my jeans and when I put my jeans on in the morning, there they are. The only time they come out is when I wash my jeans and then they go in another pair of jeans.

Yucca: they're, they're switching pants. Okay.

Mark: Yeah. But like for example, I bring them, you know, when I'm wearing dresses, Slacks to like a job interview. I bring those with me because they, you know, they're the, the emotional underpinning for me, right?

They, they serve to represent all that community support and enthusiasm and history that I have as a basis on which to be confident and put myself forward. So, Yeah. So, and I've been doing this for a very long time, and of course, once in a while you'll lose one. And that's okay. These things happen.

And, you know, I, I do a little ritual to charge each one when I first start carrying it,

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: To give it its meaning. To associate it with that particular meaning. And I find, you know, this is a very old tradition. I mean, Roman soldiers used to carry little, you know, rolled up lead tablets with inscriptions on them of things that they, you know, wanted to happen for them, or ways they wanted to be protected. And we as atheopagan and, and naturalistic pagans, we can do the same thing.

Yucca: Yeah,

some of the ones that you mentioned reminded me of a few things that I have. But they're not objects. They're actually tattoos.

Mark: Ah,

Yucca: So a few years back at this point, we did an episode on CILs and I hadn't, sigils weren't really a big thing for me at that point but I played with it. Afterwards. Well, we, we did it a little bit before and I had kind of experimented with it so that we could prepare for the episode.

And then I ended up deciding one of them after a few months, I went, you know what? This is really working for me, and I decided that I actually was gonna tattoo that on myself. So I did. Now I have on my left hand because I'm right-handed. Well and multiple other reasons as well. Cuz I wear my watch on my right hand.

I wanted to access it on my wrist, but I did some white tattoos, which barely show up because I'm, I'm very very pale skinned. So the white just looks kind of like a scar almost. And so I put some marks on. And so I have one on my wrist. Which is for, for fo remembering where my focus is throughout the day, right.

And to be paying attention to the things that I actually have influence over and I can control and not stressing constantly about the things that I. I do not have control over. Right. I have no control over what this weather is going to do, but I do have control over how I'm going to respond to that.

Right. And another one I have on the back of my hand is a Memento Mori reminder. And throughout the day, I actually touch these on a regular basis. Just to remind, remind myself. It almost feels like pushing a button, like a Oh, right. Okay. Remember, Where's your focus, right? Or hey, this is, this is what you've got, right?

Today is what you've got. You don't have tomorrow promised. And you know, that's okay. Right? What are you doing today to, to really live? Because nothing is guaranteed every day, every new day is a bonus. It's a gift, right? So those are. Those are, those are things that I felt strongly enough that I wasn't going to change my mind about whether or not I had that in 20 years.

If I'm lucky enough to be here in 20 years, I'm still gonna be thinking about being lucky to be here in 20 years and where I'm focusing my energy on. But if there's certain other things that I'm working on in particular, I actually really like to use Henna.

So Hannah's really nice because it, depending on where you put it on your body, right, there's certain areas where it's gonna fade right away.

If you put Hannah on your palm, for instance, it's not gonna last, last for very long. But other parts of your body, it might last, you know, or you're not touching things as much or you don't produce as much oils. But you'll get several days to maybe a week out of time of having that symbol literally on your body or that reminder literally on your body.

So.

Mark: That's a great idea. I, I love that. I don't have any tattoos. I have design for two tattoos that I want to do, one of which is the Sumtry symbol. But I've just never had the free money to invest in having somebody do it. But one day I, I love that idea and I love the idea of You know, of, of recognizing that some of these things are permanent modes that you're, that you want to pursue in, in life.

You always want to be aware of your mortality and its implications that you always want to be able to, you know, focus on what you're able to influence and not stress about the rest. Yeah, so tho those are very tallman. And I think. As, when we look at like tsi, the ice, the so-called iceman, the the,

Yucca: Yeah, they had lots of tattoos in various places.

Mark: right?

And they were very obviously magical symbols of some kind. They, they were not, they were not particularly decorative. But you know, that that man had tattoos, which were clearly meant something.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: We will never know exactly what they meant, but we can conjecture that they were protective or for luck and fortune in hunting or, you know, any of those kinds of things.

And so I, I think the history of tattoos, you know, really kind of feeds into what you described for yours, Yucca. That's really, really great.

Yucca: and I think there's, so I have, I have other ones too that were done by artists. I've got quite a bit on my back and And those were very meaningful and special too. But there's also something about, for the really simple ones, the doing it yourself. There's something very,

Mark: Hmm.

Yucca: there was, it was very nice to do that.

So just the poking stick, the old style, you know, you just have your, you can buy the kits right, and get the right ink. You don't wanna just do any ink. You have to get the right ink to put in your body and you don't wanna be putting in your lead ink or things like that, right? But that in itself can be a ritual.

And actually having an artist do it as well,

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: you can really make that a really special thing.

Mark: Sure. Well, and you've got all the endorphins that are provoked by the pain of the, of the tattooing. That puts you in kind of an altered state. I mean, people talk about how tattoos can be addictive

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: and I, you know, I understand that. But that, that trans state, that state of being altered by the tattooing process is.

Very much a ritual opportunity. It's you know, it's a, a state where you can, being in that trend state, you can apply a layer of meaning beyond simple decoration.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: To the, to the, the symbol that you're putting on yourself. And, and most of the people that I know who have tattoos, they associate meetings with them.

They, they, they're not just decorative, they, they, they're there for a reason.

Yucca: Yeah. That seems to be pretty, I mean, I can't think of anyone who I've asked about their tattoo and they haven't had some elaborate explanation about, you know, oh, this is, you know, the pair of sewing scissors because my mother and grandmother and I used to this and that, and you know, there's often, often stories that go along with it or, You know, things like, you know, this is my this is my five years sober tattoo, or my, you know, that kind of stuff,

Mark: Or the semicolon for people who have survived suicide attempts, for example. Right. Not the end of the story. There's more to the sentence.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: All, you know, there are, there are a lot of different kinds of symbols like that that are very meaningful to people and that I think are some of which are intended to be communicative. You know, they're supposed to tell a story to someone else, and for others it's just you telling the story to yourself when you see them on your body.

Yucca: and that's why for me, I chose white. I wanted them somewhere that I could see all the time, but I didn't want something that was gonna be flashy to someone else. Right. So that's why, I mean, I don't think most people even notice it. Right. But it's about,

Mark: I certainly never did when we met at the Century Retreat last year, I. Yeah, I, I never noticed them.

Yucca: Well I had, when we, then I had the one on my wrist, I didn't have the one on my hand. But again, I don't think it's showing up on the

Mark: I can't see it on the screen through Zoom. No, I can't see it.

Yucca: I think maybe it shows like you can barely see it, but I see it and that's what matters for me.

Mark: course, of course.

Yucca: my more visible, my more like elaborate ones.

I do still have them so that I can cover them if I want, but the, the stigma around them is really faded, right? People don't get worried about that anymore. It used to be a big deal, but now it's a I don't know if the statistic is real, but it's supposed to be like a third of American millennials have a tattoo,

Mark: Hmm.

Yucca: like that.

Wouldn't surprise me at all.

Mark: Me neither. I mean, you see them everywhere and you know, I, in professional office circumstances, I've, you know, worked with a lot of people who, you know, they have sleeves and and all that. So yeah, it's, it's very common to me. I've just never really felt the opportunity. It's, it's not that I'm in any way morally opposed So, yeah, what we're talking about here really is about how do you create symbolic meaning that reverberates through you in the course of your daily operations as opposed to your daily practice, which might be, okay, I do this formal thing in the morning, I do a formal thing in the evening.

That's great. But you know, I, I wanna be reminded of my values on a regular basis, and I want to be reminded of the things that I've learned that help me to be wiser and kinder.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: So, you know, having those kinds of practices I think is a good way to have a touchstone to go back. those principles because, you know, the world can frazzle you,

Yucca: He can't. Yeah.

Mark: you know, really pull you out of any sense of centeredness in yourself.

Yucca: As you were saying that it occurred to me. There's other points throughout the day that aren't things that I use, but that would be opportunities for other people if it's something that they do. If you wear makeup every morning,

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: a great time. Right to c incorporate some something in there. And just the act of getting dressed too, like you talk about having the items that you keep in your jeans, but you know, is there, is there something when you are dotting your clothing that you are reminding yourself about the, the values that you have or so things like that.

Mark: Not ordinarily, but certainly when I'm dressing professionally, like if I'm putting on a suit, I'm putting on a suit of armor. And, you know, I put on a suit to go to war because the kinds of contexts where I need to be dressed that way tend to be ones where I am advocating. Yeah, I'm advocating for something.

I'm, you know, I'm, I'm trying to make a change.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: And either that or I'm defending myself which is, you know, another, another possibility. So. You know, clothing and costume is another whole conversation we could have. And, you know, maybe we will at some point

Yucca: think we should, yes.

Mark: I think we should too. Because decorating ourselves in various ways is highly communicative to the people around us.

And We make choices about what we wanna say. You know, we, it talks about what class we are, it talks about what gender we are. It talks about what what kind of work we do. It, it, it says a lot of stuff. Our education level.

Yucca: views, our, you know, yes. All kinds of things.

Mark: Yeah. So let's, let's put a pin in that and,

Yucca: Yeah, we'll come back to that.

Mark: Yeah, we'll definitely come back to that.

But you know, the whole self adornment thing, you know, beyond the practicalities of being warm enough or cool enough I, I think are, are an interesting vein to explore for people that are working to fold meaning into the operation of their lives.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: So this is, you know, sort of a. Whirlwind examination of all this stuff, but I, I, I think the, the fundamental point that I want to communicate is that you know, if there's a special rock that you like and it reminds you of something like a beautiful day at the beach or something, don't feel weird about carrying that around.

That's, that absolutely makes sense to carry that around.

Yucca: That's very human. We've been doing that a long time.

Mark: Yes. Yes. And we can do it intentionally and it can become a part of our, of our practice.

Yucca: Yeah. Well, this was a fun one. Thank you. A.

Mark: Yeah. Thank you, Yucca, and we'll see you next week.

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Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com.

S4E17 TRANSCRIPT:----more----

Yucca: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-based Paganism. I'm one of your host Yucca,

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

Yucca: and today we are going to be talking about the power of imagination and how we as Pagans can use that in a very conscious way.

Mark: Right. Yeah. Because our brains are so powerful and we are so built for the creation of narratives, of stories that we can harness. That propensity and that talent to be able to take ourselves places and have experiences?

Yucca: Right. We're the storytelling apes. That's who we are, right? Yeah. And that's what we do, right? Wh wherever you're from in the world, that's what humans do. That's something that all cultures have in common, is the storytelling that we do, and, and sometimes it's. Very subtle that we might not even notice it, you know, telling you about my morning.

And other stories might be these long epics to, you know, the Lord of the Rings and this and that, you know, but, but we do it all the time throughout the day,

Mark: Right, the, the connection of events into an arc that starts one place and ends in another place. Science is a storytelling process

Yucca: right.

Mark: in science. Just because it's a story doesn't mean it's not true. I. There are many stories that are factual stories. I mean, we, our hopes of history are that history will be as factual as possible.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: Science is all about developing narratives that explain stuff first. This happens, and then that process happens, and as a result you end up with this.

Yucca: A and with science there's just very specific narrative rules you have to follow. Right. And in other types of stories, there's different kinds of rules that are being followed in, in the creation and the telling of those stories. And we do it, it, it's just the way that we're even understanding the world.

And so, Sometimes our, our imagination can not be in line with someone else's understanding of events or of a more objective perspective on what happened. And that can, either way, whether it's reflects other people's understanding or you're not, we still have an emotional response. To the stories that we're telling.

And that's where I think a lot of the power is in, is what is the response that we have to that story. Because stories they, they invoke a response.

Mark: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And a part of what's very interesting and powerful about our brains is that the same systems that are used to assess real world events and then draw, connect the dots between them to create a narrative, are also used in the imagination. And our brain is actually not very good at differentiating between what is imagined and what is actually experienced.

It's the, those kinds of narratives, they just run right parallel in our minds. And as a result, you can have a memory of how an event went that conflicts sharply with someone else's memory of how that exact same event went. And neither of you are necessarily right or wrong. Because we edit our memories.

We remember different things from different points of view, and our memories are constantly evolving. So if there's a car accident, for example, the two drivers might have very differing stories about who was responsible for what and so forth, and they believed them. Absolutely. And this is why eyewitness testimony is taken with a grain of salt in a court of law because just because you believe something absolutely doesn't make it true.

Yucca: Right. We were saying, Lord, the Rings earlier, it's, it's Gollum with, it was his birthday present. Right. He firmly, he told himself that enough times that he's rewritten his memory to believe that. But yeah, we do that with, you know, Whether you actually had your turn signal on or not. And what was it that, the, what, what was your tone?

What was your intention with that argument that you had with your spouse last night? And sometimes we're rewriting things in a way that is beneficial to us. Right. And sometimes it's not a con, it's not a conscious thing where it's like, oh, yes, I'm gonna talk myself into this. It's just. It just kind of happens, right?

You're just a little bit unclear in the details and your mind just fills in details for you

Mark: right. Fills in the gaps

Yucca: right now. This is,

Mark: what we don't like is a story that has holes in it.

Yucca: yeah.

Mark: Because it makes us uncomfortable. A narration that smoothly explains everything is more comfortable to sit with than one that's got these holes in it where it's like, okay, this happens. And then a while later this is happening and we don't know why, which is kind of what science is all about.

Yucca: Yeah. Well, and a physical, a perception example of this is actually our vision. We have blind spots and you can actually detect it by, if you take your thumb and you take it all the way out to your side to your peripheral vision, and then you slowly move your thumb to the front of your face, you're gonna find that there's a, a blind spot that you have, but we don't notice it because our brain fills it in for us.

Right. Our imagination fills that in, but it's, it's there.

Mark: What I've read is that what we experience is a, is a, an edit of about 15 seconds of sensorium. So the reason that your brain can fill in the stuff that's in the blind spot is because it caught it earlier when your eyes were looking in a different. Place and it just cuts and pastes over the proper location, which is miraculous when you think about it.

It's just, it's extraordinary that this thing is able to happen. Not to mention the fact that we should be seeing upside down, but we're not, cuz our brain turns it over. Our brains are very, very powerful in terms of editing this stuff to make sense to us so that we can create a coherent story about the events of the world.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: All of that is to say that we can create stories that we experience with as much vividness as if we were actually going through them.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: And we do that with books. We do it with movies, and we do it with radio dramas, and we do it with theater. We do it with all kinds of immersive sorts of experiences.

And in the context of Paganism, we can do it in our minds by doing what's called Pathwork or journeying.

Yucca: That's right. Well, and even on a much broader level, that's what a lot of our ritual work is. So we're gonna talk specifically about Pathwork or journeying, but those are, that's. It is more of a subset of ritual and working with the mind and working with imagination. So when we imagine that we are casting this circle, that's us working with our imagination.

Do we know? Do we actually know that? No. That we're not, there's not really this magical force that we're putting out. Yes, but the, there's still so much power in the imagination that it still helps us to feel things.

Mark: It reassures us, for example, that within that circle there is safety. And feeling safe is a prerequisite to being able to be vulnerable. And if you're vulnerable, you can access your emotions better, and then you can more easily kind of manipulate the sort of experience that you want to have coming, you know, out of this, this ritual.

So, you know, when we talk about creating the sacred container, for example, a lot of that, I mean, it's imaginary, right? I mean, hopefully you're not. Doing your ritual in a place where people are gonna come barging through. But but there's no physical impediment to them doing that. If there are, and I have had people come barging through into a circle that I've drawn and it's uncomfortable.

It, it really kind of throws you off. So, when we do this, when we do rituals, usually a ritual has a story. Right. A ritual has a story. Okay. The story is we are now in sacred space. We invoke powers to come to help us, whether that's elements and directions and gods and goddesses, or whether it's qualities that you invoke or whether it's, you know, spirits or.

Ancestors or whatever those things might be. Okay. We bring all those powers to help us, and then we go through a transformational process in which something that started out one way ends up a different way afterwards, you know? And then we thank the powers that have helped us and we express our gratitude, and then we close the ritual.

That's a story,

Yucca: Right.

Mark: yeah.

Yucca: And so for Pathwork or journeying, it's a story that might be a little bit more developed than. In terms of maybe you're imagining yourself going on a physical journey where it's more like depending on for the person, more like playing a movie out in your mind. So why don't we actually, let's, let's step back and talk about what, what this is.

So from your understanding, when somebody says journeying or Pathwork, what do you, what comes to mind for you? Mark?

Mark: Well, I, I think of two general categories. There is the solitary journey. Which doesn't necessarily mean it's a solitary ritual, but one person is going through the process of developing and experiencing the story, while others may be drumming and chanting or something like that. And then that individual, when the journey is over, will kind of report back to the rest of the group about what they've discovered.

And this is a very traditional kind of healer magic person. Kind of tradition, like those that happen in cultures like in the Siberian North, for example, where you go on this, the, the, the shaman, then that's a Tousk word specifically to talk about those cultures uses the, the rhythm of a drum.

And other magical techniques in order to go off into their mind and have an experience. And then when it's over, when they come back, then they will explain to the rest of the people gathered there, what they learned for the tribe, what important information they gathered what actions they recommend, all those kinds of things.

So that's, that's the first bucket, is the kind of the individual journey, earth path.

Yucca: Which could also be solitary, right? You just described a, a kind of a group ritual, but it could be something that somebody does in the privacy of their own home by themselves or some, or, you know, in the forest or wherever they are.

Mark: yes, yes. And then the other category is one where, Once again, it can be solitary, but it can also be a shared group experience where there's a guide and the guide is telling the story and everyone else is hearing it and experiencing it in their mind. So, and we call those guided meditations. And yaka, I know you've created a whole lot of 'em.

You've got a YouTube channel with them and all that kind of stuff.

Yucca: On the nature guided meditations is the podcast I, I updated every couple months now for a while during the pandemic, I was doing it every week. It seemed like that was something folks needed. But now it's kind of when I've got a little extra time here and there, I'll put it, put one out. So,

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: yeah.

Yeah, so a, a guided meditation and in those, there's different structures, but often there's a, it is a. A physical journey that somebody is imagining that they're going through.

Mark: And in these journeys we can meet characters. We can meet people from our lives or from our memories. We can meet people we've never met before. We can meet we can encounter various kinds of challenges, like a wall of fire that you need to get through, or a big river that you need to cross. One of the, one of the prompts that I really enjoy for solo journeying is a giant plant growing up out of the ground, like a giant bean stock, and you climb and climb and climb and climb and climb until you get to this land in the clouds.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: And then the adventure takes place. The experience takes place in this sort of cloud-like, like place, right? Which I call the overworld as opposed to the underworld.

Yucca: I've heard the upper world referred

Mark: Oh, Uhhuh.

Yucca: So yeah, the underworld, the upper world. And then there's the mid, the mid world where we are. And you know, there's a lot of different frameworks to, to think about that with.

Mark: Right. And that's one of the places where your own imagination and creativity really come into play, because you will imagine this in a different way than anybody else, and it works for you. That's great.

Yucca: and in, in either way, whether you're doing a guided journey or you're doing a self-guided one, so let's say you're listening to something that somebody's recorded or they're speaking live to you, and there's a. Two of you listening to the exact same thing, your experiences are going to be different of that, right?

You are going to imagine different things. The details will be different for you and the responses that you have to those those images are going to be different.

Mark: Right.

Yucca: And there's, you know, you can discover a lot about your current state by simply. Noticing what responses come up for you.

Mark: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yucca: And there's, you can really play with how do you, if you're something you're guiding yourself how you.

Influence how you choose to respond. I find that, you know, trying to just be like, no, in real, like stern, like I'm not gonna do this fight. It just makes the idea stronger and stronger. And so learning to kind of go with the flow of it and redirect kind of, it, it makes me think of like a keto, right?

Like instead of trying to block the punch that the person is, is sending it, you just. Take it and, you know, pull 'em right past and move 'em past to you. Right. And you, you can kind of play with that when you are journeying with your own mind. Right. And just be like, okay, well I'm gonna redirect and how do I practice redirecting to go on this in this particular direction?

Mark: and you learn things by choices you make. So if you find yourself looking out at this vast landscape, well, Am I gonna follow the river off into the trees or am I gonna climb the mountain? Or, you know, you, you will learn things about your own inclinations. Like, okay, here's a huge, deep, scary mountain looking.

I'm, I'm gonna climb that. Well, do you always pick the hardest way to do things? Might, might be something,

Yucca: Oops.

Mark: might be something to consider. So if you're paying attention, which of course you really wanna be during this journey You, you can learn a lot about your own proclivities and habits and blind spots and all that kind of stuff just by watching the kinds of choices that you make.

And we'll be talking about ritual later. But one of the things that makes for a really good guided visualization is that key pieces are left vague so that you can fill them in with specifics that are really pertinent to you.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: So you might meet a wise guide figure, right? But you yourself know who that person is.

So you, you will put that specific person in the place of the wise guide figure.

Yucca: Right. And. You can, you can approach this in a lot of different ways. You can go in seeking a particular answer. Or working on a particular issue or problem that you're, that you're facing right now or mulling over. Or you can also go in as simply a, let's explore what's going on in my mind right now.

This is a landscape of my mind or whatever it happens to be. And so the, there isn't really a right way to, to. To be doing this. It's what's gonna, just like everything that we talk about on this podcast really is, you know, you can have different goals and Mark's goals. My goals, your goals, those are gonna be different, right?

And so what do you, this is a tool to, to approach those goals with.

Mark: Yeah. And and it really helps to capture as much as you can about the story. If there are particular things that you notice, like along the side of the path that you're walking along, you, you know, you notice mushrooms, well take note of that. You know, your mind put those there for some reason. You probably want to explore what that reason is.

You don't necessarily have to interact with them at all, or you can choose to, but the fact that they're there probably means something.

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: So, I mean, it can actually be helpful if you're doing like a solo journey, like I'm, I'm talking about it can actually help to sort of narrate your experience as you're having it.

And I've even recorded myself as I'm having this experience so that I can go back over the journey later and remember the pieces that I might not otherwise remember.

Yucca: Wow. So speaking doesn't take you out of the experience

Mark: It doesn't, but I, I'm sure that it does for some people though,

Yucca: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So you'd kind of play with that and see does it, if it takes you out of the experience, then. You know, maybe write it down afterwards. If it doesn't take you out, then recording that sounds like a great approach. Right. And then you can come back and transcribe that later or something like that.

Mm-hmm.

Mark: right.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Yeah. So there's the, the guided meditation approach is one that I think more people in Western Paganism are more familiar with. Because we've been doing that sort of thing for a long time in, in psychological circles. And of course its analogs are things like books and movies and, you know, having a story told to you and having that come to life in your mind is very familiar to us.

But the exploration of the open landscape of the interior, can be really powerful. Very moving can be terrifying. It can be a lot of things. And you, you learn stuff. I mean, you, your, your subconscious knows stuff. You don't, and you, you will learn things if you do this kind of journeying.

Yucca: And this is one of those practices which I really encourage people to be patient with themselves on. If this is the type of thing that you've never done before, it's, it's, maybe it's gonna take some practice, maybe you get into it and you find yourself kind of being pulled out of it. That's okay. It's really, it's a skill, right?

Just because it doesn't come supernatural the first time doesn't mean that it isn't something that could be useful for you given time. Right. It's like, it's like any other thing. I mean, remember the first time that you were learning to drive and how weird and awkward and how much your ankle hurt afterwards, right?

Or whatever the experience is. This is one of those types of things where it, it really just does p take practice. And it becoming skillful at something like this can also help you in other ritual practice as

Mark: Yes. Yes, because. The state that you're in when you're doing that? Inner journeying is definitely a form of trance, and lot of what Pagan ritual is about is going into a trance state so that we can tinker with our subconsciousness and Learn and discover things and grow as people, transform things that have hurt us, things like that.

So, being able to induce yourself into that trans state is a learned skill, as you say, but it's very useful. Once, once you've gotten good at it, it's, it's really a helpful thing to be able to do. And there are things that you can do that will help. You along with that, like there are certain kinds of music, for example, that can be very facilitative for particular kinds of journey.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: So it's a, you know, there, there are some things that you can do to make it easier on yourself.

Yucca: Right. A classic is a, a drumbeat, just a very simple drumbeat. I find the sound of running or rushing water for some people who have a deep connection with the ocean, the waves, those really repetitive but very natural kind of sounds. I mean, I suppose for some people maybe, There, you know, some screeches might work for me.

That doesn't work. Right. It's, it's definitely gotta be a very kind of a primal, natural type of sound there.

Mark: Yeah, but not an alarming

Yucca: Not an alarming. Yeah. Something that is, is very rhythmic. You know, it, I think of it as almost like being back in the womb and hearing your mother's heartbeat. Right or the, or you probably could hear her, you know, the gurgling of her digesting things and all the types of sounds that you'd kind of hear back in that most, most early beginnings of you coming into awareness.

Mark: Right. Yeah, I, I think that's really well said. And, and, and I mean, there is a lot of variety. Like, there's a, there's an electronic music album, a very, very old one by a group called Tangerine Dream, which I mean, they're, they, they existed in the late sixties into the 1970s, and I think there's some configuration of them that exists now, but I know that two of the three people that were a part of it are, are now gone.

They're dead. And there's this

Yucca: it hard to keep making music.

Mark: really? Yeah. Unless, unless you're, unless you're John Cage. And it's just that long silence. Do you know about that?

Yucca: I don't know.

Mark: John Cage has a piece, I think it's called seven and a half minutes, and it's

Yucca: Oh, I do know this. Yes. Yes.

Mark: it's subs absurd.

Yeah, I mean you can see the sheet music right. Rest, rest, rest, rest, rest, rest. The

Yucca: I could play that song

Mark: yeah, me too. So, the. This particular album has a very soaring, rhythmic kind of quality to it. For me. It makes me feel like I'm flying and particularly flying at night, like kind of gliding over the landscape, very low altitude.

So sort of following the contours of hills and valleys with lights below.

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: it's very, very visual to me. And So I, I will use that in journeying sometimes. So a, and you know, we've talked about this before, but that kind of, you know, repetitive, rhythmic, transi kind of electronic music, there's a reason why people dance to that stuff.

It's very trans inducing. You can submerge into your body and have this, you know, full. Non thinky experience moving. And I mean, dance clubs, they do it with low light conditions and, you know, colored lights and all the various things that we say are great for ritual, right?

Yucca: They're good at it. It's, it's literally their job,

Mark: That, that it, that is their job.

And so anyway, there, there are a bunch of different ways that you can facilitate these things. One of the. Tactics that's used in various kinds of religious practices is scent incense, right? Or essential oils, or, you know, or other things like that. I, I know that some people will choose a particular scent for their journeying.

Yucca: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mark: it becomes a trigger. You smell it, and then you're in there, you're, you're on your way.

Yucca: Mm-hmm. Right. And so that scent, the sound people could probably do that with particular, Physical sensations as well. Right. Do you have a the particular comfy sweater or the robe or cloak that you put on and, you know, all of those sorts of things. The, the physical sensations can really pull us into a, into an experience more quickly.

Mark: Right, right. And the complete absence of those things can also pull us into a very altered state very quickly as well. You know, the, the isolation tanks that people submerge in and things like that. Or, you know, noise canceling earphones and a and a blindfold or a, an eye mask, for example. To really reduce your sensorium so that you're inside yourself and your imagination starts to take over and give you imagery.

The brain is strong, it does lots of cool stuff. So experiment, you know, have a, have a good time playing around with it.

Yucca: Right. Yeah.

Mark: So I guess we sort of segued into talking about ritual things that you can do. To do this kind of journeying. The, the thing that I think is really important when you're doing the solitary internal journeying is to have a really, a really firm sense of what it is that you're seeking to find out.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: Because otherwise you'll be shown other stuff, which is also true, but may not be relevant.

Yucca: Hmm

Mark: Uh, at least that's what I find.

And maybe that's just cuz I have a d h d and I'm kind of all over the place. But I, I have found myself going down into cul-de-sacs that were about stuff that was entirely unrelated to what I was trying to do

Yucca: Great.

Mark: in some of these experiences.

Yucca: And I wanna make a clarification that I think our listeners will probably already be clear on. But when we talk about this, the framework that we're coming at it from is not that there's some outside entity giving us these visions. Right. This is, this is ourselves. This is a way that we are communicating with ourselves.

And this is this is our minds coming up with all of this and interpreting these just like, with dreams or this is the same framework that we talk about with practices like tarot or other divination. I mean, this is kind of a, I suppose you could. Kind of put this in the class. In the group of being a form of divination in some

Mark: Yeah. Yeah, in a way, I mean, it's the same sort of psychological temperature taking and trying to sort of get under the hood to find out what's going on in the subconscious mind.

Yucca: Right? And seeking understanding.

Mark: Right, right. But what's cool about the internal landscape that can be explored through this kind of journeying is that unlike the real world, where there aren't these super powerful supernatural beings that you can call on to help you and all that kind of stuff inside your mind.

Yucca: Oh, absolutely.

Mark: there is, and you're, it

Yucca: Right.

Mark: you, you are the all powerful being that can actually make decisions about what's gonna happen in this thing. And so that's a very powerful kind of experience to have.

Yucca: Right, and maybe, maybe you experience that by having characters, right? Maybe you come to the rattlesnake who swallows you or whatever that is going to be for you or the, the wise old, you know that that conversation with your grandmother who. Died many years ago or something like that. It's all you, but, but you get to, but you get to use whatever story and characters and anything that really is gonna speak to you on that real primal, emotional level.

Mark: Right. And that doesn't mean that you have to deliberately, consciously choose those things.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: A lot of that choice is gonna be made for you. And that's good because that means the subconscious is talking.

Yucca: Right, so the subconscious is making that choice for you. You still are the subconscious, but it's not your conscious self. Maybe

Mark: Yeah. It's not your thinking.

Yucca: it's not your thinky logical part going through and saying, Hmm, well what would be the next thing if this was a story that I was writing as a script, right? Just, you just kind of let it happen

Mark: I think I'll put a rattlesnake here.

Yucca: Yes. It's like, oh no, maybe, maybe that rattlesnake just is there. Hmm, maybe. Maybe I've been thinking about those. Maybe that's a powerful symbol in my life right now for someone else, you know, grew up in Alaska, you're probably not gonna think about rattlesnakes all that much, but it's really gonna be really, really personal to you experiencing it as the.

As the journeyer or the practitioner.

Mark: Uhhuh. Yeah. So, talk a little bit about ways that groups can be involved in that solitary journeying. As I mentioned before it can be really helpful, you know, that that simple drumbeat is something that a group can do together.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: And they will get all trad out too. They may take their own journeys. Just sitting there beating a drum repeatedly over and over and over and over again, and feeling the sound welling around them and through their bodies, they may have, you know, experiences to report out as well.

Yucca: Right. So you might all choose to, okay, we're going to together. We're going to intern to a ritual space, and then we're each going to go and have these journeys and maybe report back to each other what you're comfortable sharing or maybe not, right?

Mark: right. Yeah, and, and I, we should say at this point that this kind of activity is a universal human activity.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: Cultures all over the world have specific protocols around it. You know, particular symbols and particular practices that they do, that they've evolved over time in order to be really effective for them.

And we don't wanna steal those. That's cultural appropriation. We're, we're, you know, we don't wanna steal those and we don't need to steal them.

Yucca: right.

Mark: This is something that people have done from time immemorial. And so you can have your own journey and practice in a way that doesn't steal culture from any other, you know, marginalized or oppressed people, and still have every bit as vivid an experience as someone else in another culture.

So, so it it's about learning the skills and about Letting your mind be free in that way to, to go and have those kinds of experiences.

Yucca: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Thank you. I think that's really important to, to add into the conversation. Right.

Mark: Right. Well, we were talking before we recorded and you know, I, I had mentioned that word shaman before, and that's, I. Kind of been glommed onto by social scientists as sort of a generic term for this kind of journeying. And the people who actually use that word, who have that word in Siberia are not happy about it at all.

They don't feel that their practices should be lumped in with everyone else's. And people in other indigenous cultures don't feel that they should be labeled with a Siberian word. So the whole thing just gets really messy. So, We don't call it that. We, we call it journeying and, and path working.

Yucca: Yeah. Yeah, and there's, there's a lot of examples of of places where things like that have happened and it gets tricky because then you're going, well, okay, how do we talk about it and how do we be respectful and, and. You know, there's, there's just so much to really think about and reflect on in these areas, so,

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. So, I, I mean, I guess in, in summation, just really encourage you to check this out. You know, try this if you feel like you aren't very good at this sort of visual imagining thing for one thing, it doesn't have to be visual, it can be words or however your mind works. People's minds work in different kinds of ways.

But start with guided meditations. You know, start, start with someone else helping you with imagery, and then see what comes up in the spaces that they leave for you to create your own things. You know, if a figure gives you a gift, what's the gift? You know, that's an important message from your subconscious.

What is it? You know, is it a container? What's inside it? What does it do? You know? It's funny, when we talk about this stuff, I'm reminded both of us are Dungeons and Dragons players. Although here's a complete tangent, I'm probably moving away from Fifth Edition Dungeons and Dragons because I'm very angry at

Yucca: SRDS shenanigans that

Mark: Yeah, well that, and then this thing that happened recently where they accidentally released a set of magic, the gathering cards to a YouTuber who made a video about them.

Yucca: that. Yes. And they

Mark: And they hired Pinkerton detectives to raid their house

Yucca: can you believe that the Pinkertons are still like, I can't believe they're arou. Yeah. Yeah. They got essentially hitman like, yeah.

Mark: just what, what we, I'm not giving you any more of my money. I'm

Yucca: Yeah. Wizards has made some real bad calls. I mean, they've got some folks there that I really like, but. They also have some executives making some really, really dumb choices.

Mark: absolutely. I mean, I think the creative team is great, but yeah, anyway,

Yucca: but there's plenty of other awesome systems out

Mark: there are, there are, and don't get me started on those cuz then this gets too long.

Yucca: For that.

Mark: Huh. So, but I'm reminded of role playing games, which is this collaborative storytelling enterprise where the imaginations of the participants fill in the blanks of what's gonna happen next, what the characters are going to do.

And there's a rule framework, unlike in journeying,

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: BEC, because that gamifies it, right? That, that creates more tension because you don't know whether events are going to,

Yucca: There's risk. Yeah. You, you roll the die and what happens as a respon? Yeah. You don't, you aren't automatically successful, like in the make believe stories we all played when we were little. Right. I remember getting so frustrated with some of my friends because they'd never let anything bad happen. Right. And you're, you know, when you have the die, that's, that allows you to let bad things happen without it being someone's fault. Now, maybe that isn't necessarily what you want to be doing in your journey but you know, you've got, when it's just you, you've got the freedom to make it just the positive things happening that you want.

Or you can kind of let some of those struggles happen and kind of, and explore what happens with those.

Mark: Or some sort of a mid ground where you find a magic mirror and you look in the mirror and you witness events that are challenging or threatening or dangerous, but they're not immediately threatening to you because you're just watching them in a mirror. You're not actually there. Being threatened by them, right?

So there are, there are lots of techniques that you can use in this imaginable landscape to keep yourself safe while at the same time addressing, you know, really very sensitive issues that you may struggle with or that are up in your life or that are up for your community, whatever it is.

Yucca: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, this was a lot of fun.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. I really enjoyed this one.

Yucca: And you know, we actually

Mark: like I always say that.

Yucca: well it's fun talking with you. We talk about great stuff and we actually did touch on this this topic, but we were looking back through some of the episodes that we've done and we hadn't talked about it since 2020.

Mark: Right.

Yucca: So, yeah.

And you know, I didn't re-listen to the episode before we did this, so I might go back and see, did we say the same things or did we say something different?

Mark: Yeah. I mean, one thing, we've, we've been doing this for more than three years now, and that means that there are more than 150 episodes, and that necessarily means that we're gonna be repeating some topics. I. Just like we do with the holidays when they come around, we always do we always do an event a podcast for each of the Sabbaths of the Wheel of the year.

So that's just something to be You know, it's part of the package, it's part of what we come with. And that way you don't have to go back all the way to episode one and listen to all of them to catch up. Although I know some people do that, which is really kind of amazing to me.

Yucca: Yeah, but it, it kind of, it means that, yeah, there are some of, some of you who have, and some of you've just jumped in more recently or you've been with us for years, but maybe not three years, maybe two years. So, but it's also, it's fun to, to go, to come back around and just see how, how our perspectives have changed and.

You know, because even on, in only three years, on the one hand, that doesn't seem like a long time. And on the other hand, there's so much that's happened in the world and so much that changes about us and you listening. And so I, I, I really appreciate the, we have the opportunity to revisit some of these topics together.

So thank

Mark: too. You're, you're welcome and thank you. All right, so, that's another in the can. And really thank you to all of you for listening. As always. You can reach us at the Wonder podcast cues@gmail.com and always appreciate your, your emails and suggestions and questions and all that good kind of stuff.

Yucca: All right. See you next week everybody.

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Book mentioned: “Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World” by Cal Newport - https://calnewport.com/writing/

https://theAPSociety.org/AWW2023/

Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com.

S4E16 TRANSCRIPT: ----more----

Mark: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-Based -Paganism. I'm your host, mark.

Yucca: and I'm Yucca.

Mark: Today we're going to talk about bringing the natural world that's outside where we live. More into integration with the natural world that's inside where we live. Having more of a sense of connectedness between the two of those and kind of a, an approach to worldview that helps to feed us and help us to be happier.

Yucca: Right, so really talking about cultivating our environment. Environments, both on an external level and on that emotional internal level as well.

Mark: Right.

Yucca: Yeah. So I think this is a really fun one, especially as we're getting more into spring and into this warmer kind of time of the year. But yeah, let's, let's go ahead and get into this idea of kind of, Bringing that in, or as you were saying before, kind of blurring the lines between the outside and inside.

Mark: Sure, and I really agree with you. I think that springtime is a great time to talk about this because. There's so much that's really beautiful that's happening in the world right now in the, in the spring season in the Northern Hemisphere, and a lot of how much we're going to get out of that depends on our mindset,

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: and it depends on what kind of habits we've developed for ourselves.

We were talking before we started recording about how the, the human sensorium is geared to look for problems. Because problems threaten us. Right? And so solving problems becomes a way that you keep yourself from getting eaten,

Yucca: Right. The person who didn't worry about that, Those weird noises that they heard around the campfire got eaten and then didn't have babies. So those people aren't our ancestors. The ones who were anxious and worried are our ancestors, right?

Mark: Exactly. So we're already swimming against the current a little bit when we decide that we want to cultivate a worldview that actually reaches out for what makes us happy, for what brings us awe and wonder and contentment, and a sense of hope and aspiration, all those kinds of things. So we're gonna be talking about all that stuff today.

But to begin with, there's this nature in nature outfit,

Yucca: Right.

Mark: and if you're anything like me and all the pagans, I know you've got rocks and sticks and plants and dried flowers and just all kinds of stuff, seashells and. Fossils and just all kinds of things from the natural world inside your house because those things bring you joy.

Yucca: Mm-hmm. Yes. A lot of those things end up in our pockets and you know, first they end up in the laundry pile and then it all has to come out of the laundry, and then it gets arranged around the house and, and all of that. And I think that's, it's about what are we paying attention to? Right. Because those things are everywhere, the beautiful, I mean, next time you're sitting next to some gravel for a while, right?

Gravel seems like it might be boring, but if you are sitting there because you're waiting for a bus to come or whatever it is, just start looking at each of those individual rocks. And just the way that the light is shining off of each of them and thinking about the history of how that rock formed, how many millions of years ago, and how it's been tumbled and all, what has happened to it.

And I think that the, the collecting of those things is a reflection of the interest that we have in them and the interest that we have in the world around us.

Mark: Right. Right. And that kind of curiosity, which of course is one of the Ethiopia Pagan principles, that kind of interest in the world is part of what engages us with the world, gives us a sense of being connected to the larger whole. Gives us a sense of valuation of. Of all that is right. So, yeah, when you're looking at that gravel, I mean, you'll, you'll see there are stones of different colors and obviously very different derivations all there kind of mixed together in that gravel.

And each one of those has a geological story. You know, it's, it's got a chemical story. You know, the reason that they are particular colors is because they're made up of particular chemicals and. Being curious about those things and. To be, to be completely honest, you don't need to have a deep background in geology or in chemistry in order to appreciate this, to understand that, that in the earth, these rocks were formed.

And then tumbled in the, the process of erosion, usually by water, but sometimes also by air. In order to form those little beads of gravel that you have before you. And when you have that revelation Sometimes what will happen is the, the, the ground will drop out from underneath you metaphorically, and you'll find yourself falling into this sense of amazement about the whole nature of deep time and the fact that we're here and the fact that we're a part of this wondrous, amazing hole that is planet Earth.

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: And you'll probably take the rock with you.

Yucca: Yes. Now if you don't, right, if you are practicing some form of very strict minimalism or anything like that, no judgment,

Mark: That's fine.

Yucca: fine.

Mark: It makes you happy

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: that, you know, we, we as, as we keep saying in naturalistic paganism, in atheopagan, there is no. Cosmic task master that wants you to do things a particular way, there is no Pope who's going to lay down the rules for you. It's about developing a practice and a perspective and a set of personal habits that feed you on a spiritual and emotional level so that you can be a happier and more contented and more effective person, and you can experience more joy out of your life.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: That's the deal.

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: Yeah. It's amazing. It's, it, it's amazing how rarely you hear anybody say anything like that in our society. You know, do what? Just do what feels good.

Yucca: Yep.

Mark: anybody, just do what feels good. Do that, do that some more. Cuz it's, cuz it's good for you.

Yucca: Right,

Mark: But we're here to tell you weekly that, that's, that's. That's what we recommend.

Yucca: right. So what are some of the things that you particularly enjoy in terms of do you, you know, is it dried leaves or sticks, or, you know, is there something that you really enjoy bringing into your home?

Mark: You know, it depends on the season. I live about 30 miles away from the Pacific Ocean, and I don't get out there nearly as much as I would like to because 30 miles is enough to be a little bit of an impediment. I. But and I have to go through all this magnificent redwood country to get there, which kind of sidetracks me sometimes.

But when I do go to the beach, I inevitably come home with a bunch of rocks and maybe a shell or two. And it's because. It's a combination of them being polished very to, to a pretty high gloss for nature. And also that they're often wet and so you can see their colors and their patterns more vividly than when they're dry.

And so I'll end up, you know, bringing those home I Anne, a participant in our Saturday mixer on a regular basis. Had a suggestion this morning that she says she puts them in potted plants. You know, the, okay, I got a cool rock. Now it's going into potted plant. If you're getting them from the ocean, rinse the salt off first.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: That's important because you know, most plants are not very salt tolerant. They don't like it.

Yucca: Right. We actually do that as well for very practical reason as we have a cat in our house. And sometimes he decides that other things will be his litter box, and so we put pine cones and, and rocks and things like that into the potted plants and that prevents him from doing that.

Mark: Oh, wow. I, I have not heard of that problem before, but that

Yucca: Oh, really? That's a, that's a cat. Yeah. I mean, he's pretty good about not doing it now. But when we lived in a smaller apartment, yeah, sometimes he would just decide that that was gonna be his litter box instead. So, but the shells and the wet rocks we actually, so. Two weeks. But the reason we missed the podcast a couple weeks back is that my family, we went out to Florida for my brother's wedding.

And so I took the kids to the beach for the first time in their life and they were, they were delighted. And of course, we came back with several gallon bags of shells because that was, we, I mean, how, how could you not, right? Shells and rocks and little you know, dead. Dried up coral things and, and all of that.

And one of the things that we've done is taken a big vase and put some of the water in it and them in the water, in the, the glass vase. Because there just is something about it being in the water, right.

Mark: They're just much more visible that way. That's wonderful. That's a great idea.

Yucca: Yeah. And of course we have ones that aren't, and you know, they're, they're being sorted by color over and again and all of that. But that, that's just been my favorite thing so far. And actually we took a few little pieces of dried up seaweed that was left on the, and that's in there too. That won't last quite as long as the rocks and shells will.

Mark: Well, that's really great. I am, I mean, I love the desert and I've spent a lot of time in the American desert, but the op, having the opportunity to see a place that's, that has the ocean and is very wet and all that kind of stuff, you know, for your kids, I'm sure was just really magical.

Yucca: I have to share just one thing as we were, we flew there. And so this was also their first airplane trip and we went, we. We stopped in, you know, Dallas on the way to get there and my daughter was looking out the plane and she looked down the, cuz I made sure to get window seats for the kids since, you know, they're gonna be first airplane try ride.

And she's looking down and she goes, mom, the ground is green because, you know, we, the farthest we'd ever been is, is into Colorado with her, which is very similar. Southern Colorado and Northern New Mexico are very similar. So she hadn't really seen anything like that before. And just them seeing that kind of grass, we have plenty of grass here, but it's golden.

Right? And it will pop green for like a month during the, the monsoons, but the rest of the time it's just this golden brown. And so they were just fascinated at seeing. You know, grass on the ground and seeing all those kinds of trees. So yeah, we spent a lot of time and there were so many things we, you know, they wanted to bring back, but I had to inform them and we, unfortunately we can't take this on the airplane.

And, and those big, giant beautiful leaves are not gonna last when we

Mark: Oh yeah, yeah, like the giant monster and the banana trees and you know,

Yucca: Yeah,

Mark: wonderful things.

Yucca: and we have a banana tree plant in our house, but of course it gets to like three feet tall. And the ones that we were looking at, I mean, they were just humongous. The leaves were as big as their bodies and going, you know, we're gonna take some photos, but those aren't gonna come, those can't come home with us.

You know, we could take the cool rocks and the shells, those will last. So that's something to think about in your own environment. You know, you know, we cut things and bring them in sometimes, but some things are gonna stay very well in the home and some things aren't gonna stay very well,

Mark: Right. Yeah. So you were asking about what kinds of things I bring in, and one example was, Rocks from the, from the coast. For whatever reason, we have very few shells on our coast now, and that was not the way that it was when I was a child. There's been a tremendous die off of of

Yucca: acidification maybe?

Mark: probably from a combination of warming and acidification.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: So I don't see that as much as I did when I was a child. But. But the rocks are there and of course the, the, the California coast is very rugged, that's got these sort of cliffs and bluffs and stuff, and it's really just very beautiful to be there. And even on a weekend, I can usually find a cove on the Sonoma coast where I'm entirely by myself,

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: which is amazing.

Makes you feel like the last person on earth.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So yeah, bringing in those things. And you asked about dried leaves as well. I actually go on an excursion to get colored leaves for my focus, my altar.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: In the fall there's a particular breed of a tree called a liquid amber, which I believe on the east coast is called a Sweet Gum.

Yucca: Okay.

Mark: And they, they hold their leaves for much longer than many other trees. They'll hold them sometimes as long as into December

Yucca: Okay.

Mark: they.

Yucca: Is this a broadleaf tree or is it

Mark: It is, it's a broadleaf tree. And they go through these beautiful evolutions of color until they're, they're sort of a maroon red when they're, when they're at the end of the whole cycle.

But you can, you can pick them in various stages of development. And then you have these. Leaves that are sort of green at the root and then yellow fading into orange and then red at the tips of the leaves. Just, just very, very beautiful things. And I like to decorate for the fall for, for harvest and for hellos with those kinds of things.

There's just an awful lot of wonderful nature out there and, and it's, it's hard not to want to bring it all back.

Yucca: So do you have a certain, so you've got your focus, do you have certain places in your house where you gather things or is it just sort of spread out everywhere around the house?

Mark: we, we have a joke that our, you know how people talk about architectural themes,

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: different kinds of architectural styles? Well, In our house, the theme is Welcome to the Museum of Natural History. We have glass cases with all kinds of various interesting things, historical things and natural things.

We have you know, bookshelves and all that kind of stuff. And, and to be fair, every horizontal surface has some cool thing on it. And. If it doesn't look like a cool thing, when you've heard the story about what it really is, you'll know what a cool thing it's,

Yucca: Nice.

Mark: Like here, here's an example. I, I have a piece of obsidian that's about this big, it's kind of, heart

Yucca: about a golf ball to your, your whole, the audience can't see your

Mark: Oh, that, of course. Yes. It's, it's flat, but it's about as big a round as a golf ball, and it's sort of heart shaped and it's heavily worn and eroded. And other than that, it just looks like a piece of obsidian that's been eroded and worn and all that kind of stuff. But what that is is a dinosaur gastro lift.

Yucca: Oh.

Mark: You, you find them in the rib cages of fossil dinosaurs and they're, it's from the gizzard of the dinosaur, right. That collects gravel to help them digest their food.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: So, I mean, it's an amazing thing. My grandfather found it. And I've had it since I was a kid. So even the

Yucca: rock swallowed by a dinosaur to help it digest ground up and digest its food.

Mark: That's right.

Yucca: Wow.

Mark: Yeah. Cool thing to have, eh? So, I mean, it's gotten to the point where I actually wrote an interpretive guide for our house so that people know what all the, the various exhibit things are that sense of wonder. Is something that, and we'll talk about this later on in this episode, that's something that I really cultivate

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: that sense of amazement.

Like, wow, maybe a hundred million years ago, a dinosaur swallowed this rock. And then it did duty for long enough to get all the edges worn off of it into a nice, smooth pebble until the dinosaur died.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: know, just extraordinary thing to think about.

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: So how about you? How about I. I, I didn't really answer your question.

We do have other places where we'll put things like colored leaves in the fall and stuff like that, but it sounds like you do more elaborate kind of household changes over the course of seasons.

Yucca: Yeah. Our house is constantly moving. Right. And, and part of that is simply the, the age range of the people who live in the house. You can't really have something on a. Flat surfaces that are low down do not get left alone for longer than 10 minutes. So there are certainly, you know, we have got bookshelves and things a little bit higher up that are slightly more permanent, but most things are, are changing very constantly.

And there's just.

Mark: kids are getting taller.

Yucca: And the kids are getting, they're always getting taller and they're climbing, right? No, they're pretty good now about not climbing onto things that they shouldn't, but they've, they've learned,

Mark: Hmm.

Yucca: And. That the gravity has helped them learn about that. But, you know, things are, are changing and I purposely change things as well throughout the season.

It's just something that, you know, ev I, I just start to kind of get that itch of I wanna change things around. And, you know, things are coming into the house and things are going back out of the house, and it's a just a, it just seems. To flow quite a bit. Things are always flowing and moving out. There are a few things that do end up staying for, that are more kind of treasures that'll stay for longer.

Like those seashells, right? Those are, some of them will probably make their way outdoors eventually, but those things will probably stay

Mark: Sure.

Yucca: right.

Mark: Yeah. I, I have seashells. I'm, I'm looking at one right now that I picked up on the Costa del Soul in Spain when I was 11, and it's still here with me.

Yucca: Yeah. And so, but then there's certain, like most of the windows are full of the, I really like the glass Vs. With things in them, right? So we've got lots of those things and there's a snake skin in the window that we found a couple weeks ago and a, you know, that kind of stuff. And so it's just a very. I dunno, it just feels to me like the house is cha changes with the season so much.

And that's. Some of that is just the style of how we live, and some of it was very purposely cultivated. You know, it's, and some ways it's easier for us because we are on this kind of homestead out, away from people and live kind of half outside anyways. But when we did live in a city that was, that was kind of a way for me to try and feel more connected because I, I definitely would start to feel very overwhelmed with the city of everything.

So I would try and change the colors. I would bring things in. I don't do this anymore because where we live is so surrounded by creatures and things, but I used to play bird songs, right? I had recordings of water, of water flowing. I'd have recordings of, and birds, and I would just have that going on in the background as just a way to kind of, One to block out the sound of the city, right?

Cause I found that very stressful of there's the car alarm and then the police car going off and the this and the that, and the, you know, all of that. But, but just being able to sort of cultivate that. But now, you know, now the bird is like two feet out my window and, and being plenty loud, so. And then certain places seem to collect certain things.

There's around the bathroom sink, there's just rocks of all kinds, and I think that's because they get brought in and washed off and then, then they start to live there. And so now it just feels like, yes, of course bathroom sinks is where rocks go, right? Yes.

Mark: Sounds reasonable to me.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: I mean, I can't think of anywhere else in the house that's more reasonable for rocks to go set maybe in a potted plant.

Yucca: In a potted plant. Yes. My four year old seems to think the shoes by the door. But you know, it's amazing how often Legos end up in shoes by the door.

Mark: You know, as you talk about all this and and I give my own examples and stuff, the word that comes to mind is curation,

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: and it seems as though. One of the things about being alive is that there's this fire hose of information that's just kind of blasting us all the time. Right. All the different sensory information and the news and the internet and, you know, the, the community events and scuttlebutt and gossip and what's happening with all the different people.

We're connected with all that stuff and it is, so we're kind of being bombarded all the time and. I think a part of the, the life that we, you and I Yucca envision for folks living in naturalistic paganism, and certainly I do for myself, is one where we curate our experience in a way that's empowering and happiness.

Producing rather than stress inducing or depression inducing or anxiety producing.

Yucca: Yes. Yeah, I love that. I, I think that's a wonderful way of putting it. Because really there's, there is so much around us, right? And, but what do we choose to focus on? What do we choose to bring into focus? That's something that we do have. Power and influence O f R. Right.

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: You know, we don't get to, there's a lot of things that we don't get to change in life.

There's most things, the vast, vast majority of things we have absolutely no control over, right? But what we're focusing on, what we find important we do have control over that. And that really changes our experience of what it's like to be us.

Mark: Right. Yeah. We do have control over those things and. It's, it's one of those situations where you have to make the decision to grab the wheel, right? Because otherwise you're basically at the mercy of two things, which is the randomness of whatever information is flying towards you, and that evolutionary pre predilection for looking for problems and the negative.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: So if you choose to be in more control around this, if you choose to be a curator of your experience, then you can get in the habit of smelling the roses along the way when you're walking from the parking lot into your workplace. Stopping to look at what the clouds are doing. Stopping to watch tree branches blowing in wind.

You know, enjoying those rocks and shells and leaves and seed pods and all the cool things that nature makes.

Yucca: Mm-hmm. You know, this reminds me of a book actually that I read a few years back and it was really, really influential and it was, it's called Digital Minimalism. It's by, I believe, Cal Newport. And it isn't what the title sounds like. At first the title sounds like being like anti-tech or like a Luddite or something.

But it's actually about really. Being thoughtful about the role that the screen and digital things play in our lives. And he does this a very beautiful job of one he does spell out. Kind of the, the terrible state some of that is in and how the attention that that's all designed to hold our attention as long as possible.

And it's not really done in a way that is, that's thoughtful about our wellbeing. It's more about the pockets of the people designing these programs. But it, it does a really lovely job of, of. Walking one through to think about what are the things that they, that you really value, and how do you cultivate that?

And how do you create a life in which you can focus on those things? And how do you use tools like the, how do you use digital tools to help you do that? And how do you let go of the ones that aren't helping you to do that? So I just,

Mark: great.

Yucca: Yeah, so I'd really I, I like quite a bit of Cal Newport stuff, so that's digital minimalism if anyone is interested in

Mark: Why don't we put a link to that in the show notes?

Yucca: Yeah, let's do that.

Mark: Yeah, because when you think about it, one of the few things that we really have choice about in our lives is our attention.

Yucca: mm-hmm.

Mark: Right. We, we can make considered thoughtful, informed decisions about where we're going to apply our attention, and that can be on things that. Bring anxiety or bring, or, or help us to, you know, re-experience trauma and we call those triggers.

I heard a wonderful term in the mixer this morning from our community member Summer who said that she heard this term glimmers, which are like the opposite of triggers. They're things that fill us with hope and inspiration and a sense of joy in living.

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: can, we can look for those things. Right? I had this moment yesterday.

I was sitting in a cafe waiting for a friend, and the door to the cafe opens and this little boy trots in. He's on the move. He's, he's, he, he must, he couldn't have been more than four. I don't think he was three

Yucca: Okay. So real little, little

Mark: Yeah. Beautiful little black kid with this gigantic grin on his face. And his mother comes in behind him and closes the door and he was just, and, and then he stands there with his feet planted and his hands kind of out by his side.

He's like, this is a cafe. Wow. And you could just see that he was drinking In this experience of having come into this new space and looking around, you know, what are people doing? What are they doing? This place, what's it all about? And you know, with, with this, this. Just this glow of happiness and I just, I, I couldn't help but smile.

I wanted to watch that kid for a while, you know? So that was a glimmer.

Yucca: Hmm. That's such a delightful idea about a glimmer. Right. Because, and I, I think that there could be a lot of power in just taking a moment to think about what are the things that, that are your glimmers or could be your glimmers, right? Because we can, we can choose to have those associations as well.

That you're taking the time to focus on, okay, what are the things that inspire awe in me and that make me hopeful, or whatever it is? And just taking the, the time to think about those I think is really, is really great. And then finding them throughout the day, right.

Mark: right. And, and figuring out maybe some. Rules of thumb for how to keep yourself in that state to as great a degree as possible. Now, I'm not saying never watch the news. You know, I, we ha I feel like as a responsible person, I have to be engaged with what's happening in my society, and I need to make what effort I can to have things go in, in a way that's consistent with my values, but that there's a difference between that and being obsessed.

With the news and it's just wave after wave of, oh my God, they can't do that if they're, oh my God, they're doing that. You know, this, this terrible, terrible, you know, wave of feelings. So you can curate that. You can narrow it down. You can tell yourself, okay, I'm gonna log on to my favorite news site once a day and I'm gonna read the headlines and I'll read a couple of stories that seem like they're useful.

You know, for me to know, and then I'm gonna move on and I'm gonna do other stuff that feeds me more.

Yucca: Right. Yeah. I think that's really important and to create that balance and that by, by choosing to log off after that time, you're not being. A bad citizen, right? You're not being a, like, you don't have to buy into the, the guilt around it because those moments of joy, like you were talking about the little kid coming in that is as valid as.

Any of the other stuff, right? That is as much valid part of existence and this life in this world and giving it your attention is something that it's one, it's worth the attention in its own, but also it's good for you.

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: are gonna do a better job being a more effective person in the world when you are.

More balanced and, and healthy and happy. If you are miserable, you're not going to do it. You're not gonna be able to do a good a job taking care of the things and helping whatever the situation is that you want to help. Right,

Mark: because despair is disempowering.

Yucca: right.

Mark: Fundamentally, when we despair, we throw up our hands and say, well, that's the way the world is. Nothing I can do about it. And it, it just sucks. But that's life, and that's a terrible message to tell to yourself and to anyone around you. I, you know, I, I frequently go back to the deathbed test, right?

How am I gonna feel about how I chose to operate in my life when I'm dying? And what I hope is that I'm gonna look back at all this and go, wow, what an adventure. There was just such amazing stuff all along the way with that and just such beautiful times and moments, and what a world this is. Rather than, well, I didn't solve world hunger, so I guess I failed.

Right. You know, something like that. Some kind of unreasonable expectation that's informed by a, a situation that's really kind of beyond any one individual's capacity to change.

Yucca: Right.

Now I think that there's also another part, another kind of side of this is when we're looking for the things that are going to bring us joy and the things that make us hopeful and inspire awe and all of that, that there will be times in our life when we don't feel those things. Right. There will be times when we aren't happy about something.

There will be times when you get cut off or in traffic or your spouse says that thing again, or all of those. And that's, those things are part of life and those are things that for the most part, we really don't have control over. Right. And that's okay. But

Mark: Yeah. I mean, if you're in

Yucca: yeah.

Mark: if you're in grief, you should not be expecting yourself to. You know, carefully cherry pick all the, the beautiful things about the world because you are in grief. And the same is the same, I, I have to say, as someone who has lived with major depression since I was a little kid depression does not indicate a failure of what we're talking about in this podcast.

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: Depression is a neurochemical condition. It's something you can't help. It's something that's not your fault. It's not a moral failing. And if you find that your world is really dark and gray and and dismal because of it, don't pile on top of it. All the other messages you're getting from your brain that you should be, you know, Looking for butterflies.

That's, not fair to you and it's not accurate to the situation That is, that's, that's not a realistic statement.

Yucca: Right. It's not a, and it's not a failure on your part.

Mark: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yucca: So there's, there's things in the world that we really, we do not have control over. But. But a lot of the things that we're talking about today are the things that we, that we can influence and focusing on which of those things can we influence And, and those are the, those are the places where I think we have a lot of power is figuring out what, what do we actually have power?

Over, which isn't a lot, but actually when you really get down to it, it is right. I don't have pow power over what you're doing, mark, but I do have some influence over how I'm gonna respond to whatever you're doing is. And that's gonna take time, right? It's not like I can just magically say like, oh, I'm not, you know, I'm gonna respond this way.

Like, no, it doesn't really work that way. It's something that we practice, and that's where I think a lot of the stuff that we talk about on the podcast, like rituals and different kinds of practices can really help because they're a way for us to practice and learn how to change our responses.

Mark: Yes. Yes. That's really well said. I'm, I mean, I know, I know some Pagan people, just a few. A handful who's, Ritual practices have fallen way off after years of, you know, religiously, literally religiously observing all the sabbaths and, you know, having a personal practice and all that kind of stuff. And what's happened is they've gotten to the point where they're able to curate their lives. that there is a sense of celebration and interconnectedness and appreciation going on most of the time. And when it's not, it's for good reasons and they have tools for, for working with that.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: So, you know, when we talk about having a ritual practice, The point of having a ritual practice is not to have a ritual practice.

The point of having a ritual practice is to create moments. Moments when we celebrate, moments when we're joyful, moments, when we're connected, when we see ourselves in the true magnificence of what we are. Right. And. So that, that's why we encourage a ritual practice, right? But, but the point, the point was always the outcome.

The point was the happiness and the improvement of happiness in the world. That's, that's, that's where we're going with all this. So if you don't have much in the way of a ritual practice, And you still find yourself feeling very contented and appreciative, and humble and connected and all those things.

Well, good for you.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: You, you know, if it ain't broke.

Yucca: Right. But you know, there's, the great thing is that there's a lot of different ways to, there's a lot of different ways to live,

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: right? And each of us is gonna have something a little bit different and our goals are gonna be a little bit different and there's gonna be different ways of, of meeting those goals.

And so that some of the things we've been talking about today are, are tricks and. Tools that we can use to cultivate some of that, right? And sometimes that may be really paying attention to that gravel and bringing a little peace home with you. And sometimes it, maybe it's that finding what your glimmers are, and maybe it's having a nightly practice with your focus, right?

Or a circle. At the solstice or something like that. So I l I really appreciate mark, that we get to explore some of these ideas on the podcast and that all you folks are here listening and sending your emails in and being part of that discussion.

Mark: Oh, me too. So much. And it is so gratifying when I see. On the atheopagan Facebook group or the Discord server, or in one of the Zoom gatherings, when people say, you know, oh, I, I discovered this through the podcast, or you know, that podcast episode two weeks ago really resonated with me and it's changed how I do X and y.

I mean, that's what feeds me and keeps me going, right? The idea that you know, it's not like you and I have all the answers. But we can share what perspectives we have

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: and collectively we can all get better.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Which is you, you know, the rising tide, right? Raising all the boats And so, you know, that's, that's really what I find moving and, and motivating about, you know, doing this.

And once again, I am so grateful that you you suggested doing a podcast and we were able to collaborate in this way. I think it's worked out so well.

Yucca: that's, it's been a joy really. So,

Mark: This sounds like we're stopping. We're, we're, we're not we're, we're

Yucca: oh yeah.

Mark: we're just a mutual admiration society.

Yucca: Yeah. But we do have something that we wanna mention another venue format for more of this great stuff,

Mark: Right.

Yucca: that's coming up.

Mark: You, you may, if you're in the atheopagan community in one way or another. You have probably heard by now of the atheopagan Web Weaving Online Conference, which is going to be held by Zoom on June 3rd and fourth. And we just wanna remind you that that's gonna happen. If you, and we'll put a link to the, the.

The webpage where you can go to register and download the program and all that kind of stuff. In the show notes, the the keynote speaker is going to be Jared Anderson, who also goes by the crypto naturalist. He's this beautiful poet of nature and appreciation for the cosmos. Just really lovely stuff.

And I was interested to learn, he's, he's actually got a book coming out, I think in two years which is about his struggle with depression and how that has led him to the natural world which sounds awfully familiar to me.

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: So I'm looking forward to reading it when that comes out. But in the meantime, we get to hear him as our keynote speaker.

And so really encourage you to register for that and to come to that event. It's over those two days, June 3rd and fourth. Lots of interesting workshops and activities, opportunities to socialize. So, go ahead and click that link down below and we hope to see you there.

Yucca: Yep.

Mark: So thank you so much, Yucca. This is, this has just been another lovely conversation. I really appreciate it.

Yucca: likewise, and we'll see you all next week.

View Details

https://atheopaganism.org/2018/04/22/hows-that-maypole-thing-work/

Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com.

S4E15 TRANSCRIPT:----more----

Yucca: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-based Paganism. I'm one of your host Yucca,

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

Yucca: and today we have another holiday episode, so welcome to the next spring holiday for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere.

Mark: Yeah, and of course we're gonna talk about all the different things we might call that holiday. But this, this episode will drop on May day. Which is May 1st and is kind of the traditional day for celebrating this. As always, we view these holidays as more of like, kind of a week window, you know, seven days, give or take.

So if you have to do it on a Sunday or on a Saturday, that's all fine. Don't have to be super, super precise about it.

Yucca: Right. There's no, you know, cosmic being with a clipboard, keeping track of how on time you were. So, yeah. So, yeah, let's talk about names. So Mayday Beltane is another very common name for it.

Mark: Which is a Scottish derivation of what was originally an Irish language word, which is

Yucca: Which is the month of May, I

Mark: Yes. It's the month of May.

Yucca: yeah. So it's the beginning of the celebration of going into, into May what do you call it, mark?

Mark: Well, I call it mayday unless you're talking about in the summer, i in the Southern Hemisphere, in which case calling a day in November, mayday is probably counterintuitive. What I call it then instead is

oh, I think it was summer Tide. I think that was it.

Yucca: Some are tied. Okay, so you live in the Northern Hemisphere, but if you were in the Southern Hemisphere, that's the name that, that sounds like it

Mark: would, that I would use. Yeah. Because obviously it's pretty weird to call something in November, may day.

Yucca: I have.

Mark: And the reason that I do that is that I try to avoid all of the cultural names for. The holidays. And the reason for that is that when crafting atheopagan, I deliberately wanted it not to be rooted in any particular cultural tradition.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: I wanted it to be something that was modern and belongs to everybody who chooses to practice it. And that didn't have any cultural appropriation in it.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: that's,

Yucca: And of

Mark: why I went that way.

Yucca: there are plenty of folks who are atheopagan who do have a really strong tie. To a particular culture and do then apply some of the traditional names from their culture to that. But when you were creating it, you didn't have that tie right. And you wanted to make it so that it was, that it was welcome to everybody, right.

That

Mark: Right, and well, and, and you need to bear in mind that when I was creating it, I was only creating it for myself.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: It, it, the, the whole idea that this was gonna turn into a movement was really a surprise to me. And I don't have a strong feeling of cultural derivation from anywhere. My antecedents came here 400 years ago, and any englishness that they had has long since been lost.

So I just feel like an American settler who doesn't have a claim to being indigenous to this land. But has a primary relationship with this land anyway. So I didn't want to use words like Beltane and SA and those kinds of words because they're derived from other places that I didn't have a, a connection with.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: So I call it mayday. And then there are the, the variations of beta or bina. Are there any other names that you're familiar with?

Yucca: Were you second spring? Yeah, but I haven't, it's not like some of the other holidays that have, you know, 15 different names. Usually I just hear either Mayday or Beltane. Those are the ones that are pretty common. And I'll end up using those. I'm not a particularly verbal person. Right. So I don't really associate the holidays in a strong way with a name.

The, I will use names to communicate with other people, but when I'm thinking about it inside of me, I don't think in words. So it, it isn't, it doesn't have that, which is funny because I talk and I write for a living, but, but inside it's, it, none of it is attached to words. It's attached to feelings and to smells and experiences.

It's a, it's a very different ex interior experience and it's but it's really about, it's, it's spring is what it really is for me. Right. There's different, we split the year up into eight seasons in my family instead of four seasons. It's really more like, well, there's different ways. There's also, we also split it into two seasons, right?

There's summer and winter. There's the, the the hots and the light side of the year, and the cold and the dark side of the year, and then there's the official four seasons of the calendar. But those don't really match with what's happening in our environment. But the eight seem to work a little bit better.

And this is sort of the, the midpoint of the second spring, which really is more like the spring that, that most people would picture for a spring. The spring where you have warm days, but little bits of chili nights and the flowers are coming back and the, there's insects. The hummingbirds have just arrived back.

Right. So it, it feels very spring now for us.

Mark: Great.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Yeah. I, when it comes to, to seasons, I mean there we have something similar here. We have the gold time and the green time from about July through December is the golden time when all of the hills turned gold because all of the grasses have gone to sea, then died off, and then. When the rains come in the winter everything turns emerald green and it stays that way until about June.

Yucca: How beautiful. Mm.

Mark: so there's the golden time and the green time. That's one way of dividing the year. And then there's the dark side, dark half and the light half, which. They're sort of offset from the gold time and the the green time. When it comes to four seasons, I really prefer the way that they count them in Ireland, which is that this holiday is the beginning of summer.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: Rather than being the middle of spring, which is how it's figured in the official calendar of the United States. And the main reason for that is that there's all this wonderful early music about May and, and the beginning of summer because that apparently is how it was calculated back in the 16th century and earlier.

And I just love singing that stuff.

Yucca: And that's what works for that climate too, right? For he here. It really doesn't make sense to say it's the beginning of summer because it's still freezing at night. Right?

Mark: Well, and, and for you, I mean, summer is something that's unimaginable in Ireland. It's, it's so much hotter and so much drier than anyone who's never left Ireland has ever seen.

Yucca: Yes. I mean, we we're not too bad in terms of the heat, but compared to what, what they experience, it's a completely, it might as well be a different planet.

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: Right. Just in terms of how different climates are

Mark: So all of this goes to one of the principles, well, no, I won't say principles cuz we've got official 13 principles, blah, blah, blah. One of the ideas that, one of the concepts that that we have in atheopagan, which is adapting your own wheel of the year. I mean, you're, you're hearing from just me and Yucca and tho those are two of, you know, millions of possible different ways of parsing the year, depending on where you live and what's happening in the natural world.

So in

Yucca: are important to you? Right. Which of those things do you focus on and which things don't matter as much?

Mark: Exactly, exactly. So and so, really encourage listeners, you know, if you're in the process of organizing your practice and kind of figuring out how you want to do what you're doing you know, be thinking about that for yourself. You, you can decide for yourself when you think spring starts and when you think summer starts.

You can decide what to call the holidays.

Yucca: And you can change.

Mark: yes.

Yucca: if you did something, you came up with, you painted this beautiful wheel and you put these labels on it, and now a few years later you're going, mm, that doesn't really match with what I'm experiencing now or what I'm valuing. You can change,

Mark: Yes, that's, that's what post-its are for.

Yucca: Yeah, exactly.

Mark: So, You know, just to put in, put in a word for people doing their d i y spiritual practice, you know, that is something that's really important in, in Ethiopia, paganism and naturalistic paganism generally, you know, we're not doing this to appease any invisible creatures. Were not doing this to be in conformity with some invisible forces.

We're doing this for our own wellbeing and our own happiness and our own celebration and our own wisdom and learning. Right? So that's a thing you can do and really encourage you to, to take that up. What are some other themes that we might talk about for this time of year?

Yucca: Well, this time of year often has, is a celebration of sexuality,

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: The young adult, the sexuality that that kind of beautiful fertility all of that stuff is, is often a theme that people look at for this time of year.

Mark: Right, right. There's that old that old poem. Hooray. Hooray. The 1st of May, outdoor Sex Begins Today. Which of course goes back to the old tradition of going a main because it's finally warm enough that you're not going to freeze to death

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: in the forests of Europe. So this was sort of a loophole practice where.

Young couples could go into the woods ostensibly to be collecting flowers, right? But the reality was that they were being unchaperoned, and so it was giving them some private time to themselves. One. Story that I've heard. I don't know how true it is, but there's a story that children that were born of mayday couplings were named Greenwood or Green,

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: Which I don't know whether it's true or not, but my name is green. It's an interesting story, so I like it.

Yucca: Yeah, I've heard that story as well, actually. Yeah. Maybe that's why there's so many greens in the world.

Mark: Could very well be because we're not all related with one another. By any means. There are all these independent, freestanding branches of greens out there.

Yucca: Mm-hmm. I've always liked color names. Find it very fun, but there's some that you don't see. I, I've never seen purple as a last name for instance, but White, brown, green. Yep. Gray

Mark: violet as a, as a

Yucca: first name. Yeah.

Mark: The flower, I think, rather than the color.

Yucca: mm-hmm. I've known some Indigos as first names as well and some indies, but I'm not sure if those are Henry's.

Or if those are, were Indigos, but yeah.

Mark: Never known a yellow. I've never known anybody who was named yellow, either first or last name,

Yucca: I don't think I have either. Yeah. Hmm.

Mark: and of course you have William of Orange, and you know all those folks.

Yucca: Yeah. But I like color names. I love tree names, flower names.

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: Yeah. Star names as well.

Mark: Yeah. I, I, I like all those natural world names. They, they, they seem, they seem better connected to me somehow. Yeah. So themes, yes. Sexuality is a big one for this time of year. And. It's funny, a member of our community was saying that he was doing Google searches on on Beltane, and he said that all the results that were coming up with were how to celebrate Beltane or mayday without sex.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: this, this sort of overreaction of, you know, and, and I think that some of that is because of the rise of consent culture, that you know, that we want to have comfortable environments where nobody feels pressured to do anything and everything is all, you know, oriented around consent, which of course is what we want.

But that

Yucca: various ages, right?

Mark: right,

Yucca: That might not be something that you'd be comfortable bringing your pre-teen to or your, you know, seven year old or something.

Mark: Right, exactly. You've got families that are, you know, that still wanna celebrate the holiday and, you know, can maybe incorporate other, you know, sort of quasi sexual themes like fertility, right? Like planting vegetables or, you know, whatever it is.

Yucca: Or flowers, right?

Mark: planting flowers,

Yucca: Flowers are the reproductive organs for these other beings. Yeah.

Mark: explaining how flowers work, why, why flowers exist. Because in the natural world right now, at least in the Northern hemisphere, in most places, it's an orgy going on out there. You've got, you know, all of these, these plants waving their sexy parts at one another and bees busily stir, you know, running around all the pollinators, running around.

Yucca: And there's just clouds of pollen. I dunno if this happens where you are, but we'll just see these golden clouds going by of just, and I don't have any allergies, so it doesn't bother me, but I know it makes some people miserable to.

Mark: I'm, I'm in. I'm the same way. I don't have allergies either, but particularly when the Acacia here in February and then when the oak trees start to bloom in May, there are people here who are just miserable.

Yucca: Yeah. For us it's the Junipers. And then Chaisa, which I think in other areas is called Rabbit Bush. It's this beautiful bush that we have with the golden flowers. Those are the ones that are the worst. And there's isn't really any time of year that in the spring, summer or fall in which there isn't some sort of.

Pollen. So it can be kind of a miserable experience for folks who have strong allergies. A lot of people will just be allergic to one particular thing, and then the other ones don't bug them,

Mark: Right. So if you are going out to have outdoor sex, first of all, make sure you have privacy. Secondly, take your antihistamine.

Yucca: And maybe something a like a picnic blanket or something like that.

Mark: Yeah, because there's all kinds of stickers and bugs and All kinds of stuff. Yeah. So, that's one of the major themes of this time of year. And as you mentioned as I reckon the Wheel of the year, one of the aspects is the, the developing arc of a human life. And so this station on the wheel of the year is that of young adulthood.

You know, the, the late teens, early twenties all that sort of passion and juice and fearlessness and cluelessness and and horniness, right? All of those are, you know, things that are right in there with that population of people. And so all of those kind of passionate, creative, colorful, excited kinds of qualities become things that we can fold into our rituals and our celebrations.

Yucca: Yeah, it's a fun time of year.

Mark: It is. Yeah, it is. It's a great time of year. What else, what are some other themes? I know that you have different sort of families of creatures that you recognize. What is the one for this time of year?

Yucca: This is actually the annual plants and the early succession beings. So this really is the, you know, the. Flowers and the grasses and the, you know, things that we think of as weedy species that are coming in when there's been some sort of disturbance that are coming to cover up that bare ground and grow as quick as it can.

The dandelions, all of those sorts of things. And that a lot has to do with what's happening in the environment around me. This is when the annuals are That this is when they're starting to grow. This is also when planting is beginning. Right. So for annual gardens it's still, we really shouldn't be putting our annuals out for another week or two cuz we'll still get a frost or so.

But you know, this is when the leafy greens can be out. This is when you've got the stuff indoors that, you know, should be our tomatoes are, you know, two feet tall waiting to go out, you know, that kind of thing. So that's, that's the, the big theme for us. And then of course, it's also. There's just, you can finally be all the way out, In the, in the earlier spring you could start getting out, but there'd be days where you couldn't work outside. Now, The wind has died down. We can eat lunch at, we can eat our meals outside every day. It's the back, it's the back outside. It's the, so I guess that is kind of the summer's beginning part for us, even though it's not really summer, but it's the, that part of the year that's the outside part of the year has really begun.

Mark: Yeah, and I think that in the historical stuff, that's a lot of what it is. It's like, okay, it's finally okay to go outside again. The weather has eased enough and I mean, you know, you look at Northern Europe and they're definitely still getting freezes at this time of year, but the problem wasn't so much the freezing as it was the snowing or

Yucca: The wetness, you know.

Mark: Yeah.

All that kind of stuff. So, Yeah, I, I think that that whole idea of returning to the outdoors is really kind of bound up in this holiday. We,

Yucca: Oh, and all the baby animals are here.

Mark: right, right.

Yucca: you know, the, the baby animals in terms of the wild ones, but also, you know, the, the calves have been born, the lambs have been born, the little chicks are here. You know, all of that. They're, they're all here.

Mark: piglets and all of them. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's definitely, you know, a time of year when, you know, this whole reproductive thing is really kind of up. So. So that whole creativity, fertility thing becomes something that you can really fold into your practices and rituals. Because the, I mean, there's lots of ways to do that, right?

It doesn't have to only be like physical reproduction. It can be all kinds of creative endeavors that, that bear some kind of fruit, whether it's throwing a pot or painting a canvas, or writing a book, or, you know, Planting a garden, whatever that is. It's still something that feels like a fertile expression.

Yucca: Yeah. I, I really appreciate you bringing that up because, Fertility doesn't just have to be a physical, literally reproducing thing that it's a idea that is, is much broader than that. Now, that's a component of it, although funnily enough, this is not human reproductive or this is not our season, right?

Humans can be born any time of year, but humans tend to be born in the late summer, early fall for whatever climate they're in that just

Mark: sense cuz that's when all the food is available.

Yucca: Right. Well, and backtrack to what was happening during what time of year was it when the baby was conceived, you didn't have much else to be doing at the time.

Mark: That's right.

Yucca: Right. So it makes sense biologically, but it, that's not, it's just very interesting that it, our reproductive cycle isn't matching up with what we see with so much of the rest of nature.

Mark: Right, right. Well, and I mean, that gets you into the whole, you know, the mystery of menstruation versus a heat cycle and. You know, those are so different and why are they different? And you know, there's a lot of unanswered questions evolutionarily about why humans are the particular way they are. But we don't have answers to them.

So we have conjectures, but that's about it.

Yucca: Just pretty interesting ones. Right? And that a lot of that probably has to do with there being so little dimorphism between the sexes

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: compared to other other apes and other primates in general.

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: So it's a fascinating field.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. That was your tension for today. We hope you enjoyed it.

Yucca: Yes. But why don't we talk about some of the. Rituals and practices that we have or ones that we've heard that are quite common, kind of give some inspiration for the folks listening.

Mark: Sure. Well, first and foremost, the most famous one, of course is the maple. And the May pole is a big phallic pole stuck in the ground with ribbons, depending down from the top of it. Usually there's some kind of a crown full of flowers that's put over the top that has the ribbons flowing down. And then there's a dance that you do around the may pole, which weaves the ribbons around on the pole, and it's, it's really fun to do.

It's a very joyous activity and it results in this very beautiful creation. On the, on the pole. I've danced a lot. I made poles in my time and it doesn't get old. It really, it's just, it's, it's like a spiral dance at, at Hallows. It's just one of those things that's really a beautiful old European tradition that is just, it's a Kuiper.

It's, it's one I really like.

Yucca: Yeah. We were laughing before, right before hitting play. Cause it's saying that we haven't done one of those in my family and I was imagining what would happen where I think my oldest would be able to do it, but my youngest would think it would be so funny to run the other way and just tie everybody to the pole.

The way dogs tie, you know, like will run around a pole on the leash and, you know, tie their human up. I'm. Positive that that's what would happen just almost instantly. So we don't do a pole, but we do take colorful ribbons and tie them into a tree that we have, and we see those ribbons blowing in the wind and fluttering around and it's.

It's really very beautiful and it's exciting too to go and tie them and probably some of them are getting snatched by the birds too, to incorporate into their nests, so,

Mark: Yeah. That is very consistent with an old Irish tradition, which is the may bush,

Yucca: mm-hmm.

Mark: In which ribbons are tied into a bush. And there are, there's, there's a wish or something that goes with it. I, I, I don't remember the specific details, but It's a lot of the, the lore there is fairy lore, so it may have something to do with appeasing fairies or something like that, but it's, it's an old tradition that I know some people are still practicing. I. We, my partner Neman, I have done hanging of ribbons in trees before when we haven't had a maple celebration or even when we do, cuz we have these ribbon things that we can hang in trees. Last year, the Northern California Affinity Group for Ethiopia Paganism which calls itself the live oak circle.

We had a, a maple without the pole.

Yucca: Okay.

Mark: we had a, a ring of metal, which was actually from a mason jar. And then we tied our ribbons onto that with a wish for the year. And then holding our ribbons. We danced around in a circle, so it was like, You

Yucca: Oh, cool.

Mark: spokes on a wheel. Yeah, yeah, it was fun.

It was really a fun thing. And I still have the thing with the ribbons on it. It's on my focus right now. And we are meeting tomorrow actually to do a, a real may poll. The couple of members of the, the group got aole and stand for it and all the ribbons and everything. So we'll be doing an actual may pole tomorrow, and I'm excited about that.

Yucca: Now I'm remembering some. Did you have a story about a PVC pipe? As a

Mark: Oh, yes, that was a problem.

Yucca: is that what didn't work out so

Mark: No it, it was the, the maple was constructed of one of those heavy cast iron Umbrella stands, outdoor umbrella stands. So that was the stand for it. And then the pole itself was PVC pipe with a, with a wire assembly crown at the top, which had the, the ribbons coming from it.

And the problem was that, The tension as people were dancing around and weaving it around, the tension was stronger on one side of the pole than on the other. And so the whole pole began to band over and I ended up having to kind of stand there and hold the thing upright. While people were continuing to dance around it in order for it to work properly.

But the next year, the, the same person that had brought that napole had gotten rebar to put inside the pvc. So it didn't do that anymore.

Yucca: Alright.

Mark: But you know, one of the things that's challenging a about a maple is not everybody has a place to store an eight foot or

Yucca: Or, or greater, yeah.

Mark: you know, telephone, pole sized pole.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: And so these, you know, using these heavy bases so that the thing doesn't topple over. And then some kind of a rigid e either wood, if you can get a big enough dowel, like a four inch diameter dowel or five inch diameter dow or even P V C will work, but you've gotta put something really solid inside it so it doesn't bend around.

Yucca: Yeah,

Mark: And it's still fun to dance around.

Yucca: I wonder if, you know those basketball hoops that you fill the base up with water?

Mark: Yeah. That's a great idea.

Yucca: right? You just take the, the hoop off. That might be something. I mean, that's still kind of big to, to store, but it's easier to store that, that you can just leave outside under a tarp or

Mark: Well, yeah. Or you put the basketball hoop back on it and shoot basketball.

Yucca: That too, right?

Mark: yeah, so it, you know, it could be a multi-use kind of thing. Little outdoor exercise and, and then your maple in the spring. That's a great idea.

Yucca: Yeah, because there, I mean, it's gonna depend on where you are, but you know. Yeah.

Mark: And I wrote a blog post a long time ago called What's Up With That May Poll Thing, or something like that. We'll put a link to it in the show notes. It explains everything you need to know about how to do a May poll ceremony and how the dance works and all that kind of stuff. And trust me as someone who is. For whatever reason, whether it's actually a brain development thing or whether it's a psychological thing incapable of learning dance steps, you can still do this one. All you have to do is just walk and raise the ribbon and then lower the ribbon and raise the ribbon and lower the ribbon. It's, it's really easy to do.

Yucca: That's good to hear cuz I am terrible at beats and remembering dance moves and all of that. Okay, well and what about some non maple. Traditions. I know there's giving flowers, baskets of gifts and flowers.

Mark: Even just little posey, little bouquets, leaving them on the doorstep of your neighbors is a thing that that is an, an old tradition gathering dew on May morning and washing

Yucca: rumor of such a thing.

Mark: have you.

Yucca: Yes. Do I hear it's moisture or something in the

Mark: Oh yes. Well, yeah, you, you, you don't have dew where you are. What you have is very thirsty soil that will suck up any molecule moisture.

Yucca: I'm sorry. Continue. Yes.

Mark: but anyway, you know, if you're in a place that does have Morning Dew, then you can gather that and wash your face with it. And it's supposed to re pre preserve beauty and. you from aging or something like that? I'm not sure, but it's supposed to be a nice thing to do.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: And it's traditional for Morris dancers in England to dance the sun up on May morning.

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: I, on Monday, I'm actually going at five 30 in the morning for our local Morris team to watch them dance up the sun.

Yucca: Nice.

Mark: Which is,

Yucca: that may be when many of you are listening right now, mark is maybe dancing up the sun right now.

Mark: that could be, no, I'm not dancing. I'm observing.

Yucca: oh, excuse me.

Mark: I, I, I tried learning how to Morris dance and I was as bad at that as I was at waltzing, so just didn't work. So, Those are all, and, and actually that's a really wonderful thing cuz you've got, you know, people with the horns and they're clacking them together or sticks or swords or whatever it is.

And it all seems very old. Like an old, old tradition. What else?

Yucca: Paper flowers, that's one that we do, right? And we put things in our windows because we have a lot of birds around here. And so we put like kind of sticker things. And so in the winter we have paper snowflakes that the kids make and we will be trading those out for paper flowers. And that's just so that the birds don't.

Fly in because they have a, a, I'm sure this happens everywhere, but they have a really hard time seeing the windows. So we put little things into the windows so that they know, hey, this is not an open door. You can't fly through it and, you know, smack yourself. So, but paper flowers are just a lot of fun.

For that. And all around the house. And that's another great thing to give to neighbors too, is make some cute little paper flowers. And some people do really elaborate, you know, make roses and things like that. We just cut out petals and blue, stick 'em together and, you know, make our pretty, you know, rainbow flower.

And this is our all pink flower and our all blue flower. And how does that flower have polka dots? But it does. So.

Mark: Yeah, so generally speaking, flowers, ribbons, and expressions of love.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: You just, you, you can't go wrong this time of year with those three things, you know,

Yucca: And seeds.

Mark: seeds. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true.

Yucca: So it was just a fun, fun time of year.

Mark: It is. Yeah. Yeah. I really enjoy it. Yeah, so I'm excited actually to have a couple of things to do this year. Last year there really wasn't much to do. The community that I used to do a Beltane ceremony with, well, a whole weekend celebration It's kind of having some problems right now, so I'm, I'm staying away.

What else were we, I think that may be about it.

Yucca: Yeah, I'm sure we'll think of some things as soon as we hit stop,

Mark: Right, of course,

Yucca: yeah.

Mark: as always. But yeah really encourage you to get out of the house and away from the screens at this time of year. You know, go see some nature, go, you know, smell some flowers. There's a lot going on that's really lovely right now. And you know, I, and I hope that you'll have a ample chance to enjoy it because, Like everything, it goes away and then a new cycle has come and there's new stuff to enjoy, but it's not the same.

Yucca: Yeah. Well, thank you everyone for joining us. We hope you have a wonderful mayday Beltane second spring summer tide, whatever you call it, and we'll see you next week.

Mark: Yeah. Thanks so much everybody, and thank you Yucca.

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Hi, everyone! Yucca is unavailable this week, so we're taking a little break. Here is a rebroadcast of our episode interviewing Mandisa Thomas of Black Nonbelievers, in case you missed it!

blacknonbelievers.org

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Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com.

S4E14 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 talk about children's activities for springtime. In most places by now spring has sprung and there are green shoots and leafing trees leafing out and flowers and the sweet smell in the air. And the weather has become, if not mild than milder. And it's, it's just a time for celebrating spring and.

And we often associate childhood with spring.

Yucca: Right. And I wanna say that before we get going, we're gonna be talking about kids, but a lot of these activities can be for kids of all ages, right? Just because we're going to be thinking about children doesn't mean you can't be your. 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, whatever age you are. Right? So if you've got kiddos in your life, that's awesome.

And if you just wanna feel a little bit young at heart, then that's great too. Yeah.

Mark: Yeah, that's a really important point I think, because I mean, at least as I celebrate the Wheel of the Year when there's a focus on children around the time of the spring e Equinox, and then going into young adulthood around mayday. It's, it's not only to celebrate those members of the community that are at those stages in their life, it's also to celebrate those qualities in ourselves, right?

We, you know, we all still have a kid inside us and that playfulness and Astonishment of discovery and kind of wonder and awe that that comes in a childlike view of the world are great things for all of us.

Yucca: Yeah, so this time of year we've. The new life or the waking up of life happening, the popping back in a lot of our holidays have to do with this reemergence of life and newness of things. Is there anything else that, that really speaks kid to you about this time of year?

Mark: The bright colors.

Yucca: Hmm mm-hmm.

Mark: You know, the colors of flowers, the, the mating plumage of birds the, the fruit trees leafing out and flowering and we associate bright colors with this. Both with childhood you know, those kind of primary colors that are used in a lot of children's toys and so forth. But also with this time of year with brightly colored eggs and jelly beans and things like that as well.

So, that's something else that I associate with this time of year is just really super colorful, bright color palette.

Yucca: Right. Yeah, I see that too. And for us also, the getting back outdoors. And our climate, this really is when we can be spending lots of time outdoors again. I mean, we, we do anyways, but it's far more pleasant to do it when it's not literally freezing, right? When you can go out and, oh, you don't have to have the shoes on and you can not worry about bundling up every, you can just go out, right?

You don't. Make it this whole ordeal to get them all wrapped up and to get you and the, you know, you can just go, there's just, there's a, there's a freedom, there's a just sort of, what's the word I'm looking for? Like

Mark: Well, there's, there's an exuberance that goes with that, right? I mean,

you, you feel that soft air on your skin.

Yucca: yeah.

Mark: You know, that wonderful soft spring air on your skin and after being indoors for months,

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: that's a, a very pleasant change of pace.

Yucca: Yeah. Well, why don't we get into some of the things? Yeah.

Mark: okay. That's what I was gonna suggest. Let's do that.

Yucca: All right. Well, we were brainstorming a little bit before and came up with a huge list of stuff to get into and I'm sure that we'll miss some of the things.

Mark: will.

Yucca: but the first thing that really pops into my mind is the spring cleaning. I know you might think of this as more of like a grownup sort of thing.

But I think that at least for us, having the kids fully involved with all of the household activities is really important because they're part of our society too. Right. And if you want them to be able to do their laundry when they're 20, well, They need to start doing their laundry earlier on. They need to be part of that process, not have it be this huge ordeal when suddenly they're on their own and Oh goodness, right?

Like, no, they just, you know, they're part of the household. They're, they're involved in that. And so same thing with any other activity we're doing. And so the spring cleaning it, there's something about spring. I know it's cliche. There's, I think we've recognized it for a long time, that it's, you know, you're opening up the windows, you're letting that fresh air in.

There's that new beginnings happening in the outside world, and so we kind of bring that into the inside world. And I, I think it's really important for the, you know, their agency, their self agency and that, and getting to choose, okay, well, you know, let. Get rid of these things, they don't fit you anymore.

Is there one or two that you wanna save as a keepsake? And if so, where are you gonna fit that? Because there's a limited amount of space right there. Right. And just having them be part of that process and, you know, making it kind of a fun thing, I think is, is really powerful.

Mark: Sure. Yeah. When you've been closed up inside for months, things pile.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: just, just a lot of junk. You know, you, you put something down and forget about it and then two months later it's still there. Well, it's time to move that thing now.

Yucca: With three things on top of it.

Mark: well, yeah.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: And one thing, you know, kids really like doing adult stuff.

They like being involved in things that feel real. Right. So, you know, you'll. You know, kids with like toy razors and, you know, stuff like that cuz they, they want to pretend to be adults

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: and so, you know, hey, why don't you help me clean out the garage is, I mean, you know, to an adult that may sound like I don't want to clean out the garage, but to a kid it's like, Hey, I get to clean out the garage.

Yucca: Yeah, I mean, it depends on how you sell it. Right. And it depends on what else they're doing. If you're saying, why don't you stop playing Minecraft right now and come do something else, you might not get the buy-in, right?

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: you, you gotta kind of think about how to do it and have it be an invitation. And I mean, it's such a tricky balance that, you know, every family figures out what works for them with their values and the particular people that are involved.

But for me, I, I try and be very careful about not making it a requirement. Right. Not making it this sort of, well, if they aren't, you know, if they don't wanna come work with me in the greenhouse, like that's okay. I wouldn't force my partner to do that. Right? So why would I, you know, force my kid to do it?

I don't wanna make it this obligation thing. And so there's a, there's some trust in there, right? That kind of has to be built between the people involved. And, but most of the time I find that it ends up is, you know, if I'm mindful about what space they're in, they often are pretty interested in coming and participating and doing.

You know, their share of it. That's not to say that we don't have things that are their responsibility, right? They certainly have their chores and things like that, but when it's inviting them to come do new things and learn new things and participate with, fully, participate in that, like the adult world of running the households making sure that it isn't this gloomy pressure thing I think is really important.

Mark: Yeah. And I think as you say, there are ways you can sell it. You know, if it's, if it's like, you know, in the morning at breakfast, The next three days are special days. They are spring cleaning days. We're going to, we're going to, you know, get our whole place together here. It's really exciting. So I'm gonna be working in the garage who'd like to help me?

Yucca: Yeah. And ooh. You get to pick out the music when we're in the garage, right? You're working with me in the garage, you're the one who gets to pick the song or you know, that kind of thing. And again, it's just always gonna depend on the particular person, because for some people that's exciting. And for others they're like, I get to pick out the music, so what, like, that doesn't mean anything to me.

Right. But, you know, yeah. But setting aside, it's that time. And. This is one thing that this kind of general parenting thing that we found because I know that a lot of other parents really struggle with the, ourselves included. I'm saying this is something that we as a society have is that struggle with the balance between screen and non-screen time.

That we try and set an expectation of, well, during the morning time, like that just isn't screen time. Nobody's doing screen. And the hardest thing is just if parents aren't doing screen, kids aren't doing screen. It's just not, that's not, when you do screen. Screen is something that happens in the afternoons and sometimes into the evening, but not at night.

Right. Like you just set up the expectation. And just kind of have to stick to it and, and be the, the model for it. And I always find that the hardest part. It's easy for me to like tell them what to do. Be like, you can't be on the screen. It's a lot harder for me to put mine away, but it's absolutely ineffective if I tell them not to do it while I'm sitting here doing it because they're not stupid.

Right. They have humans. Humans have a fierce sense of fairness. yeah. So,

Mark: Yeah, and you know, the, the, the concept of injustice is something that we developed very early.

Yucca: Oh,

Mark: Yeah. You know, if you're doing it and I'm not allowed to do it, there's something wrong.

Yeah. So one thing that, it occurs to me, because we were gonna talk in a moment about decorating the

house for, for the season.

Right. And it occurs to me, you can actually tie this to the spring cleaning piece, where it's like we clean it first and then we decorat.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mark: to get to the fun, crafty decoration part, we gotta clean it first. And so it becomes, you know, a kind of a seamless project where the whole thing, you know, we're decorating, but of course to decorate we've gotta get this stuff out of the way first.

Yucca: Yeah, you, you gotta have a clean wall to do that with. Get rid of those hand prints. We all have those hand prints. You know what hand prints I'm talking about, right? Yeah. There's just so many of them everywhere, so I love that. Yeah. And again, just always making it into that kind of fun thing. The point of it is to, is I think of it as to be joyous, right?

That this is, this is life we get, you know, why is it that we want our houses to be clean well, so that it feels good to be in them, right? So that we're healthy so that we enjoy being in them so we can be productive. But why do we wanna be productive so that we can be happy, right? It all comes back to, you know, what's to.

Just enjoying the life that we have. Right. And, you know, we we're taking care of our loved ones, but again, so that they can be happy because we love them.

Mark: Really well said. Yeah, I, I think it's important to always, you know, root. Root, our actions, our re you know, and our recommendations of actions in exactly that, you know, how is this making your life better or how is this making the world better or both?

Right.

You know, those, those, those are the, you know, to, to my mind, those are the two edicts that we have being alive, you know, live a really full, joyous, amazing life and.

You know, leave something better than it was when you got here. And I mean, that's a very fulfilling kind of life to have. And so, yeah. Exactly. So

Yucca: Yeah, so there's the decorating, the spring decorating. I always think bringing some of what's happening in the outside world, into the inside world. I was just sharing with Mark earlier, our daffodils have just start, so we're recording on the 15th. So where I live, our daffodils just bloomed. And Mark, you were saying they were blue for you.

It was January, right?

Mark: of January. Yeah.

Yucca: Yeah. But a couple cut daffodils, you know, in, in a little. We don't have any fancy vs. So it's mason jar, right? So we have it sitting in a mason jar on the table and bringing in some of the things. We still have a lot of our feathers up and things like And just bringing some of the stuff from outside in.

And of course, my kids love bringing in rocks. We have piles of shiny rocks all over the place. The cat then goes and knocks down cuz they're the perfect size for knocking down. So in the middle of the night,

you're

Mark: You got a whole ecosystem going there.

Yucca: We do, yes. And then you step on them. And it just reminds you that you're alive when you step on rocks, brought in by children, knocked over by cats and all of that. I think the, that gets at just to re to remember also that, that. When it comes to kids, you just kind of gotta go with the flow with them sometimes.

And they're not gonna be perfect at things. They're learning. This is them learning for the first time. And we've had years and years of practice at everything from, you know, how to move our hands to regulating our emotions when we're disappointed and, and they haven't yet. And this is them learning to do that.

And so, It can be tricky to let go of some of the expectations of how it's gonna look and how well to get it done and just say it's okay. It, it's really okay. As long as it functions, as long as, you know, nobody's in danger and gonna get hurt and it's healthy. Right. You're not, it's not dirty to the extent that it's unhealthy or something like that.

It's okay. Right. You know? so, and I think that's good to remember with ourselves. Coming back to the, there being inner children and all of us just to, to give ourselves that Grace A. Little bit sometimes too. So

Mark: Yeah, that's, that's well said. I, I really agree with that.

Yucca: yeah.

Mark: you can bring in flowers from the outside. You can bring in like bows from a lilac bush that's blooming or cherry tree that's blooming. All of those things make for pretty nice sort of tabletop decorations. You can bring in bright, bright spring leaves.

I mean, we tend to think of leaves as being more of an autumn thing. But those bright green spring leaves, you can string 'em on. And hang them up or just use them sort of to carpet the horizontal surfaces in your, your house, whatever,

Yucca: Or a little clear bowl, like if a little glass bowl, put those in them. It, you know. Very beautiful. Yeah. So next, why don't we talk a little bit about crafts. So art, there's art and craft, right? And people are gonna, there, there, there's a vinn diagram there and where they overlap people is gonna depend on each person's preferences, right?

For me, I think about art as something that doesn't necessarily have a purpose other. Just the, the process of making it and the enjoyment of looking at it. Right. Whereas the craft has a, has another purpose behind it. Like a, kind of, the traditional kid craft is weaving the pot holder or something like that.

So you have the process of making it, but then it's also an object that has a, has a, a purpose afterwards. Right.

Mark: Uhhuh Uhhuh.

Yucca: so springtime, there's definitely lots of the sorts of, you know, making the bird feeder or that kind of outdoor sorts of things. What we look for is things that the kids can do that's important to the.

The household where they get to be part of what needs to happen, and that has a real purpose to it. Because again, coming back to they're, they're not, they're smart, right? They know when we're just making something up to give them busy work and they know when it's something that really matters and it's so important for their.

Like they're self-efficacy, right? To, to know that they are contributing and they are able to contribute. So when we can come up with things, tasks for them to do that can be uniquely theirs that are kind of crafty sort of things. I think that's a really nice opportunity. Right. And that's just gonna depend on what's happening in your, what your household is like.

What are you rural, urban, are you. Temperate, tropical. You know, all of those things are gonna vary.

Mark: Right. Although that said, bird feeders are a pretty good choice because there are birds pretty much everywhere

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: of one kind or another, and if you put out food for them, they will eat it.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: They, they, they will show up and they will eat it. We have a very active couple of bird feeders here at our place.

One for hummingbirds and one for PA birds, and yeah, they they sure go through that bird seed. It's amazing.

Yucca: Yeah. Well, and that's one of the, the jobs, which is my kids, they go out and they. They take out the bird seed and they clean the water dishes as well, because we we're in a very dry environment. So having water out is almost more important for our wildlife than. The bird, the seed, right? It's easier to find food than it is to find water.

But we wanna make sure that that's clean so that we're not spreading diseases, right? So they go out and they swap out, depending on the dish. We have a couple that they bring the dish in and we just swap it out every day, right? So it gets washed every day with the dishes and then it goes back out.

And and so that's one that that they know. If they don't do, then the birds. Get their food, the, then the chipmunks don't get their food and the squirrels

don't. Now, I could imagine for a kid who struggles with anxiety, that might not be the, a good fit for them, right? Where if they, that might be anxiety inducing.

But depending on the personality, you know, for mine, that that's something that is an empowering experience for them and just as, as their grownups, we just need to be kind of tuned into how is this? How is this likely to be received with the particular person that we're shepherding and, and helping?

Right.

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: But it's lovely for them to be like, oh, I haven't fed the birds yet. The poor things. They're gonna be so hungry. Right. And it's like all the eight in the mornings like, yeah, it's okay. You could go do it. They'll, they'll appreciate it.

Mark: they're not quite that fragile, but yes, you, you remembered and it's your job and that's great.

Yucca: So, and I think I shared my favorite one. This is not a spring activity, but just for a suggestion of types of activities that we did this year that worked out so lovely. Is our, our house We heat with passive solar and a wood stove. And so we have to light a fire in the cold months of the year.

And so in the fall, the, the kids gathered lots of little sticks and made the little Kindle bundles. And that was their job. And so, When every time we lit a fire, we were lighting it with the bundles that the kids made. Right? So that kind of activity, and that was just so lovely because every day it was something they, they're a little bit too young to actually be starting the fire on their own right.

We're really big on them doing. Doing lots of stuff in the household, but they're still, my, my oldest is only six and a half, so I th you know, wait a few years till she's lighting fires. But she still got to be part of that really important thing. And the littlest, he got to be part of that as well and get to feel like, wow, I contributed, I'm part of the family.

I'm important and. You know, I, I plan to be there as long as I can for them, right? I, I wanna make it to the triple digits if I can, but there will be a time when I'm not there to help them and they have to do it on their own, right? And so I want them to be as, as prepared for that as possible in a way that is as Smooth, right?

As, as could, can be, right? Because people, we'll figure out how to do it. Humans will figure out how to survive. But if it can be as painless a process as possible, I think that's nice.

Mark: I think so too. Yeah.

Yucca: then they can spend that effort on, on something else.

Mark: Mm-hmm. So yeah. So do you want to talk about other kinds of craft activities? I mean, the, the, the classic for this time of year is dying eggs.

Yucca: Absolutely.

Mark: It's a little late in the year this year for doing that. But it's still really cool especially if you use, especially if you use natural dyes. And.

There are techniques you can use to put like leaf prints on the sides of the eggs and stuff, really make them beautiful. And it just then, then you have hard boiled eggs you're going to eat. And just a little more color to your breakfast.

Yucca: Yeah, and you can also if you're using natural dyes, you can boil your eggs, peel them, then dye them. And then you actually, when you eat your eggs, you have colorful eggs. And that usually goes over pretty well with the kids,

Mark: I

Yucca: right? It, it won't go all the way through to get that top, you know, few millimeters or so.

So you get like the little ring and if you slice the eggs in the like discs, that's really nice.

Mark: Okay.

Yucca: oh, and doing deviled eggs and dying it different colors. That's really fun.

Mark: Okay.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: I can't imagine deviled eggs with blue blue yolk mixture.

Yucca: yes. Well, and if you, if you dye the the outside of it a little bit too, and this is, and this might be just a little kid thing, but a lot of kids that I've known really like when you, when you play, when you present the food in a more fun way. Right.

We, we we'll make little like scrambled eggs and I have cookie cutters and so I'll fry them in the pan in the cookie cutters.

So it's the shape of a T-Rex when they eat their eggs. Right? So much more fun. Now you have t-rex eggs, right? So, and you could definitely

Mark: And then,

Yucca: the sort of spring themed things, right?

Mark: then they can, they can tell their friends that they had dinosaur eggs for breakfast.

Yucca: Well, and they did My, my kids are very fond of telling me that chickens are dinosaurs,

Mark: Oh, okay. There you go.

Yucca: yeah.

Mark: They sure act like dinosaurs.

Yucca: Yep. Well, why don't we talk also about the outside stuff, because since spring, you know, this is when we can get back outside. There's all kinds of fun games. There's all the, you know, the classic childhood games.

You're capture the flag. Hide. Yeah, hide and seek. You know, setting up little like scavenger hunts. Oh, speak. As long as we're talking kids. One of the traditions that we have started doing now that, that we're in the losing teeth time period, is we don't do any of the like tooth fairy or Santa Claus or any of that because I'm uncomfortable with.

Lying about it. Right. And I know some peop that's just something that is not comfortable for me. So instead of having a tooth fairy come and give the kids money, we do a scavenger hunt every time they lose a tooth. And then there's something like a little prize at the end. Yeah.

Mark: Nice. Nice. So there's still a ceremonial recognition of this thing that's happened and a fun activity and a little reward. Yeah.

Yucca: For the, my oldest one, they lost their first tooth. They'd been asking for a watch for a while because I wear a watch. And I had been reluctant to give them a watch because the. Pretty rough with their hands and breaking things and all of that. But when they lost their tooth, I got a watch for them and that was their prize.

But each of the steps on the scavenger hunt was going to places where they have done things that they've been growing up and maturing in the family. So they went to the greenhouse where they help water the plants and we went out to the wood pile where they help go get wood and out to the bird feeder.

Where they feed the bird. Right. And going from spot to spot with a little note about like, How you've been contributing and growing up. And then at the end, they got to get their watch. They were mature enough and that they had shown they were mature and old enough to get their watch when they lost their first tooth and all of that.

Mark: Oh, that's love.

Yucca: so so I think that they're with families, it's, there's so much. Possibility. And it's just, it's coming up with ideas like that. It's just you get to play, right. Play with these ideas of what, what is it? And, and bringing in some of the silliness to it or the fun, you know, I tried to write as teeny, teeny tiny as I could with that, right?

Cuz we were, pretend we were playing with the tooth fairy thing. She's very insistent though that that stuff doesn't exist. She's. You know, we don't believe in God's. They're important stories, but we don't believe in them. And the tooth fair is kind of like a God, but not really. Because I don't have any books about her.

And I'm like, okay, well we could give you a book about her. So, but coming back to the, the outside stuff, I think that getting outside, playing outside and something that we don't, it's amazing how much we don't have of this in our modern lives, but just having free unstructured time is just so critical.

important for littles and really important for adults too. Just to be able to be out and just do whatever your curiosity leads you to, or notice that butterfly that's going there, or, you know, enjoy. Taking that stick and seeing how many times you can break it in half, whatever it is that coming up with your adventure games, your make-believe stories about how you can transform into a giant snake or whatever it is.

It's just so, so important for kids. And the spring just feels like perfect for that because we, you cannot do all, you can do that stuff inside, but there's something very different about being outside out of the physical structure. Right. Out of these boxes that we live in, these literal boxes, right?

If you're inside, I'm guessing that there, a few of you might be listening to this on a walk right now, but the vast majority of of people listening, I bet you're inside a box right now. You're inside a metal box, which is your car. You're inside a, a wooden frame box, which is your house, or maybe it's concrete or steel.

But we spend a lot of time in these really defined structures that just feel very, very different than being outside with. Messy lines and flowing forms that are moving because there's a little bit of wind going through them in the clouds and there's just so much more,

I don't even know the words, but you know, it's, it's outside is messy. Right.

Mark: Yeah. There's so much more to experience out there, obviously.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: It's, it's always moving and changing. The sky is always changing. And it's full of those shaggy fractal shapes, right? The repeating patterns that make up the shape of a, of a coniferous tree or a particular kind of shrub or whatever it is, and having those kinds of patterns.

For some reason is very reassuring to people. It's good for our mental health to see those kinds of things and we find them very beautiful which is, it's good for us. The experience of beauty is good for us. So, while you're outside, you might want to have something to drink. So I have a recipe for raspberry lemonade.

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: And so let me give you this, it's pretty, should be pretty simple. You can jot it down, you know, you can stop the podcast, jot things down, and then continue. It is tasty and refreshing childlike beverage for spring.

So, what I'm, what I'm about to, to tell you about serves 12.

Yucca: Ooh.

Okay.

Mark: So you need three quarters of a cup, and I'm not gonna give the metric conversions. I've got 'em, but I'm, I'm not gonna give them three quarters of a cup of fresh or thawed, frozen raspberries, nine cups of water, two cups of freshly squeezed lemon juice, which is about 12 lemons, and then two cups of very fine or powdered.

Which is less than was in the original recipe that I adapted this from. Because I like my, my lemonade kind of tart. I don't like it. Super sweet.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: So you puree the raspberries in a blender and strain them through a siv to take the seeds out into a pitcher, and then you add everything else and whisk it together until the sugar dissolves and pour over ice and. It's very simple, but it's delicious. Really, really good. And if you need an adult version of this, it goes well with vodka.

Yucca: Yeah. And with the sugar you could probably put less in, taste it, and then just keep adding to taste.

Mark: Yes, that's a, that's a good idea because people have different amounts of tolerance for sugar, different amounts of, of taste for sugar, so

Yucca: But it seems like it's such a simple, easy recipe that you can just add in as you need. Yeah.

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: Yep. And it's, it's a delicious, tasty beverage to have on one of those warm spring days.

Yucca: Yep.

Mark: When kids have been running around and running around and running around and running around and they're finally starting to flag, might be time to plunk them down and have something with some electrolytes in it and you know, get some water into

'em.

Yucca: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then before we know it, it'll be the hot time of year, right?

Mark: yep. Yep, indeed. It's not far off for sure.

Yucca: Hmm. Well, is there anything else, mark, that we should touch on in our

Mark: You know, not that I can think of

Yucca: activities?

Mark: other than just to encourage everybody to go out and play, you know, go out and, you know, kick a ball around or, you know, do whatever it is that you like to do outside. That's fun. It's this is a great time of year in the Northern Hemisphere to be out under the sky and just really enjoying the great outdoors.

So, really encourage you to do that in whatever manner works best for you.

Yucca: Yeah. Well, thank you for joining us, everyone.

Mark: Lovely to, to have you with us. As always, thanks so much for supporting the podcast. And just a quick reminder, the conference that we're doing in June ticket sales are still registration is still open and will be until a few days before the conference. The. We'll, we'll put the link to how you get the information and register and all that kind of stuff in the show notes.

Yucca: And I will be doing a kids activity. So there will be an activity for kiddos if they want to come and join us for this, for that. So,

yeah.

Mark: Okay.

Thanks everybody.

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S4E13 TRANSCRIPT:----more----

Yucca: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-based Paganism. I'm one of your host Yucca,

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

Yucca: and today we are talking about Christianity and Paganism worldviews and really kind of exploring that idea.

Mark: Yeah, because when you really drill down into a pagan. Way of understanding the world. It starts to really rub sharply up against the, the models for what's important in the universe and how we should live and all that kind of stuff that are taught to us by the mainstream culture and in the mainstream culture, in the English speaking world that is entirely suffused with Christianity.

Yucca: Right. So much so that I think we're very unaware of the extent. It really takes some deep reflection and. And exploring an investigation of other world frameworks to even be able to recognize what is coming from Christianity and what's influenced by Christianity and how what we're doing is different in some ways.

Mark: Right,

Yucca: Yeah,

Mark: right. It's the water we're swimming in

Yucca: right.

Mark: and so it becomes background to us. We, we don't notice that we're swimming, you know, we don't notice that we're moving through air because air is around us all the time, right? So we don't pay very much attention to air unless it's moving at high speed or carrying water or something like that, or smoke or whatever it, it may be.

Yucca: little bit off. Yeah.

Mark: Right. So it's a. So let, let's dive in and let's, let's talk about what some of those kind of core Christian beliefs are, and not so much beliefs, but frameworks for how to live and what's important and those kinds of things. Moral frameworks.

Yucca: Well, I'm doing a lot of reflecting on this throughout the week because we, we talked about last time, oh, what, what are we gonna talk about next week? And so we had a little bit of time to do some brainstorming and what it, what kept coming back for me is the relationship and role of authority. And I think that this is something that, that in our conversation today, we are stick.

To Christianity, but I think this is something that is shared with other monotheistic religions in general, at least the ones that I've been exposed to. And the approach to there being a God or this deity who is the ultimate authority, who is something of a parent role. But parent in a very authoritative kind of way I think is really central to a lot of the other topics that we're going to get into in terms of why you do good things versus why you do bad things and how do you see what is good and what is bad and what your roles are.

I think it, a lot of it really comes down to that relationship to a.

Mark: Yeah, I really agree with that. That, I mean, we, people talk about. The father. Right. It's, it, it's this patriarchal idea of first of all, male supremacy, which is sown pretty thoroughly throughout

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: Christianity. But beyond that, it's this authority figure who hands down the law and you obey it. And if you don't obey it, then you get punished.

Yucca: Right. And they know best. They know better for you than you do for yourself, and

Mark: Right. Well, in this case, they know everyth.

Yucca: Yes.

Mark: Right?

Yucca: And so don't question it.

Mark: Yeah. Cuz they know everything. They're always right. They're, they're not capable of making a mistake. All of those things are true and that is a very powerful model, but to my mind, not a very realistic one. even if you believe in and, you know, the, the medieval philosophers would get themselves all twisted in knots about this, the theologians you know, can, can God create a stone that is too heavy for him to lift.

You know, these kinds of questions because there are tons of paradoxes in the idea of something that is infinite, infinite knowledge, infinite strength, infinite power infinite presence, you know, omnipresent everywhere around us all the time watching.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: There are just, you know, kind of rational, logical problems with. But it is a very powerful, compelling set of models, particularly if it's embraced by a society that is similarly constructed. So if you've got a society that's built with an authority at the top, like a king,

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: And the king is always right. The king can do whatever he wants. Everybody else is subject to the whims of the king.

Then having a religion where that's the same model works out pretty well for the king. Right, and for those that are close to the king?

Yucca: Well, and for the smaller kings underneath that king, right? You might not be the top king, but you get to be the king in your house. If. You're the guy,

Mark: right. Yes.

Yucca: the oldest son, you know?

Mark: the man as the king of his household, you know, and his home is his castle, right? It, it's not a mistake that the coronation of kings throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance was always done by a religious figure

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: it was basically saying, There is a hierarchy in the world that starts with God, and God is acknowledging that you're at this particular high point in the hierarchy.

Yucca: Right, and this is so deeply ingrained that it has, that, it really takes us a moment to step back and think that it doesn't have to be that way. There doesn't have to be that hierarchy of power, but we take it for granted because it's, even in today's world where, you know there are, there's a king in England, right?

But it's not the same way it used to be. But even today that that structure is still around. It's still in the back of our minds. It's still how we think about society, even though. That's not politically how it's working exactly anymore, but it really is at the same time. It's not one single king, but we're still basing our whole way of relating to each other with who has more power over the other person.

Mark: Sure. Think of a workplace, right? You've got either a sole proprietor who is the king or queen. Or you've got a board of directors who are basically kings or queens and they invest power in a chief executive who is like a regent of some kind and everybody else has, is down below on the authority pyramid and has to obey the directions of what edicts are handed down, or they are punished, they are fired, or they are disciplined, or whatever it is. The same happens even in very benign circumstances. Like, you know, like our education system, we assume that, you know, a kindergarten teacher is a very benign figure, but in the process of going through kindergarten and grade school and all that, children are learning to obey an authority figure that stands in front.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: That's, that's core to what they're learning about how they should relate in the world.

Yucca: Yeah. And that's, that is the system of, that is school. Right. Whether you're, whether it's a private school, whether it's a public or a religious school or whatever, that's, that's the process of school.

Mark: Right. And it's hard to break that even when you want to. When I was teaching undergrad students when I was in graduate school, you know, you, you try, you move the chairs into a circle and you try to make it more about a sharing of experience and expertise rather than an authority thing. But you still have to turn in grades. You know, you still have to take attendance. You know, these, these things are mandated. You don't have any choice about it. So, and if you just arbitrarily decide that you're going to give an a to everyone in the class, you get in trouble.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: they don't, they frown on that, right? Because the entire academic model is constructed around the validity of those as, BS, CS, deans, and f.

Yucca: Right. Well, and even when you purposely choose to, to use a different model, you're still working with, having come from that model to begin with, and you fall back on what you know and what you're comfortable with and when you're working with adult students. They have a whole, they've got their whole life of experience behind them as well.

So you spend a lot of the time working on the system and the process instead of the content for that. yeah, and that's something, you know, as a, in our family we don't use, even though I am a teacher and, you know, working on my doctorate in this and all of that, but we don't use that, the schooling as our framework for education.

Very, very consciously, but we find ourselves slipping back sometimes into that. Well, yeah, but I'm the parent and I said so right And have to go, wait a second. Is that I, is that really what we want? I mean, sometimes I do have to like swoop in and be like, Nope. Can't touch the fire. But, but outside of that, it really takes a lot of dedicated thought and self-awareness to step out of that and, and try to, Different because it's, it's how we were raised, right?

Mark: And we're not encouraged to be different.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: And that is in, in the broadest sense, we are not encouraged to be diverse because a part of what's necessary in order to get everybody marching in the same direction in order to fulfill the desires of some hierarchy, is that they need to submerge their diversity in their conform. And conformity becomes a very important value. And this is true. It's not only true in in Christianized countries by any means. I mean,

Yucca: We're

Mark: conformity is a big

Yucca: it's our experience, right?

Mark: Exactly, but conformity is a big value in much of Asia as well. The, so when we ask ourselves, And, and we'll get to what we're talking about with Paganism in a minute.

But you know, what, what would it mean to be a person with agency rather than a person who's framed in the world as a servant of some higher authority?

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: You know, what, what kinds of choices could we make? What kinds of responsibilities would we have? What sorts of freedoms would we have? think that those are some of the deep questions that becoming a Pagan really asks, being a pagan isn't just about, well, I'm now, I'm doing this groovy stuff with all this, you know, witchy aesthetic or you know, you know, old cultures like, you know, the Norse culture that died out, or the Greek culture that died out kind of, you know, reconstructing that.

It really, it's much deeper than that. It's, it's really more about how can I see the world through eyes that are less informed anyway, by that authoritarian model.

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: So the, the relationship to authority is a big one. The idea of relationships as possessory is another big one.

Yucca: Yes.

Mark: The, you know, the idea that children are possessions of their parents, that spouses are possessions of their spouses and that then ties into the whole bodily shaming. Contempt for the material world with the idea that there's this other sort of spirit world that is higher, more elevated.

And that's not just in Christianity.

Yucca: Yeah. You hear that. Oh, some higher power or lowly and you know, and the things that are, that are earth earthy are the things that are, that are bad. Right. That are given that

Mark: Those are the things that are dirty, right? Because they're associated with dirt, which is a bad thing.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So, and then, then you start pulling on that thread and you get into all the body shame and all of the the sexual shame and the just all the many, many, many ways that self-hatred gets sewn into.

The idea of being unique and individual and fulfilling your desires rather than running away from them

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: suppressing them. All of this stuff is, is the, is the operating system for our, for our culture folks. Even though our culture is rapidly de christianizing, those same paradigms are still very much up and.

Yucca: And even for those of us who were not raised Christian, right, even those of us who were raised pagan or were raised in any other religion, it's still. All around us. It's still, I mean, I loved how you called it the operating system, right? That's what it is,

Mark: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's it's in the ways that we have to. Edit ourselves when we talk about our lives to keep the stuff that's gonna freak out ordinary people out.

Yucca: mm-hmm.

Mark: Right? It's in the, it's in the ways we have to tell our kids, well, it's fine for you to do this at home, but don't do it out there

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: people aren't gonna understand that they're going to disapprove. There are, there are countless little moments in every day when we ask ourselves, how is this gonna fly with the others

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: in a way that is deeply informed with that authoritarian shame-based earth denying kind of modality. Taken to its extreme, which it is in our modern times, that modality leads to the kind of exploitation of the planet that is causing us such existential crises, right?

If, if you denigrate the material to the point that it's nothing but a pile of resources to be mined, which the Bible very clearly spells out, it is according to. Framework how can you hold a pile of resources as sacred instead of, instead of understanding it as a a, a living fabric, an interconnected set of relationships of which we are a part and have both benefits and responsibilities.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: It's just such a different way of looking at the world, and it's not the one that drives our economic system, our political system, or our culture.

Yucca: Right. Now there's definitely places in Paganism because we have to remember Paganism is a, is huge. It's a big umbrella. Right. And there's definitely places where some of the things we've been talking about have been brought in and are. Are shared, right? There are some traditions in which the, the hierarchy and that structure is very important.

And there are other traditions that, that are purposefully breaking away from that and not embracing that kind of framework or trying not to. So certainly when we talk about paganism and we. We as always, cannot speak for every pagan and every form of paganism, but are talking about the our experiences and our particular flavor of Paganism.

Mark: Right, right. Well, and I think that to some degree, that's a generational thing. I think that when. When modern neo paganism really kind of started up again which was in the fifties and sixties, I don't think any many could really imagine a fully non-hierarchical way of organizing anything. You know? And I'm sure that there are some, you know, communes and intentional communities and so forth that we're trying to do something else, but.

By and large, an average person, much less an a retired English civil servant, would probably think, well, this is the way things should be organized. You should have things in tier. And people go from one to another tier and they get higher and higher in status and power.

Yucca: Because that's just how society works, right?

Mark: Yeah. Yeah.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So, but here we are, you know, almost a third of the way through the 21st century, amazingly enough, and we are able to imagine now alternatives for one thing, our ability to have conversations about something other than Christianity in a religious context. O other than Abrahamic religions, generally in a.

Other than in, in that context, has jumped markedly just in the last 20 or 30 years.

Yucca: Mm-hmm. And you're speaking about the, the broader community, not just Paganism in this case,

Mark: Yes, yes. I, I, I think you know, more ideas about how we can relate with one another, relate to the world, relate to the cosmos are being bandied about now than were before. I mean, Bertrand Russell caused an absolute outrage when he published why I Am Not a. Which I believe was in the 1940s, maybe a little earlier than that.

Not sure. That kind of thing just sort of disappears without a ripple these days. There's plenty of people writing stuff like that.

Yucca: Right. Yeah. Just it gets a shrug. Yeah. And

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: what other percentage of the

Mark: Yeah, you and a lot of other people. And so my big question to those folks is, well, what are you then, what are you gonna do? Which is what Athe, paganism was a stab at answering.

You know, I'm not just an atheist and I'm not just an an earth revere. How am I gonna, how am I gonna implement that?

Yucca: Right,

Mark: So,

Yucca: and I, I think it's kind of like accents. Everybody's got something. You just don't notice it when everyone around you has the same as you. You only start to notice it when it's different than what you're hearing.

Mark: right, right. And I mean, these things continue to be a challenge as. Time rolls forward, even though the level of credulity in authority generally seems to be falling, there haven't been very many alternatives presented to that framework. And so people just tend to drop back into it because it's what they know.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: So let's talk a little bit more about what. What aspects of Paganism really fly in the face of that conventional paradigm? I mean, certainly the whole relationship to the body and sexuality are very, very different.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: And that doesn't mean we're in about a f, you know, a free love, free for all. But we're, we're about responsible relationships, however they work for you.

Yucca: Right. Well, and just the idea that pleasure is not bad, right? That just because something's pleasurable doesn't mean that it's a negative thing. I think that's huge because that is a big. Underlying assumption that if it, if it feels good, it must be bad for you somehow. And we don't have that assumption, or we try not to have that assumption.

Mark: Yes. Yes. That, that's better said, I think because the truth is, you know, we, the, the two of us and you know, the, the people in, in the English speaking world who are practicing pagans, You know, we were still raised in our society and we're still gonna be, it's like soaking in tea. Even after you get out of the teacup, you're still kind of tea colored, right?

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: There's, there's just not a lot that you can do about it, and you can spend time over time, you know, washing that off and can become, Stronger, less shame filled more, more about your own agency and decision making, more courageous, all those things. But it takes time and it is a process, and I don't think anybody ever completely gets there.

Yucca: Right, and you're continuously exposed.

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: not like you decide, okay, now I'm, you know, I'm a pagan now and now none of those things are going to continue to influence me. It's just everything in the past that I'm healing from. I was like, well, no, you, you read the newspaper, you talk with your friends, you read a book, you listen to podcasts, you watch like all of these things, those are still influencing you every day.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, especially. It's one thing if you've kind of carved out a little economy for yourself where you work for yourself and you, you don't have to plug into big hierarchical structures very much. That's one thing. But most of us have a job and jobs are organized tend, you know, they tend to be organized hierarchically.

Yucca: Well, and even those of us who are self-employed, we still are dealing with clients and we're still dealing with banks and you know, that whole, that that's all still there. It may not be quite as in your face as, you know, going and clocking in and having your supervisor who was their supervisor and their bo, you know, but it's still around us.

Mark: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm. Yeah. And because it's still around us, I think some people, especially folks who have escaped very authoritarian religious contexts, they often unconsciously drag a lot of this framework along with them into paganism

Yucca: I think that certainly happened with the idea of faith. Faith being such a big deal. Belief, yeah. The, the literal belief and in deity and the, the faith in your, in your faith. Right. With a capital F,

Mark: Yeah. The, the faith in magic, the yeah. All, all of those things and, and the idea of sort of, you know, driving out the heretics. Kind of goes along with that. It's like, well, if you don't believe the way we believe, then you're not one of us.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Whereas you know, to my mind there are few enough pagans as it is.

I mean, I think the estimate is a million and a half in the, in North America, something like that. There's few enough of us as it is that we don't need to be splitting with one another. I'm reminded of the. The scene from Monty Python's Life of Brian, where the Judea and people's front and the people's front of Judea are yelling at one another.

Yucca: Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's one of the things that, that definitely got. Pulled in, and that's something we've talked about before on the podcast

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: of how on some levels, some of that is very new, but it's also been around for a long time as well. So,

Mark: Yeah. But there was definitely a cultural shift that happened with, with the big influx there. There was a big influx into paganism in my experience in the 1990s and A lot of those folks were fleeing patriarchal, authoritarian, kind of punishment oriented religions, various flavors of Christianity, almost exclusively.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: And it was only a few years later that this idea about having to have faith and believe literally in Gods as, as actual beings rather than ideas. All that stuff really came to the fore. And, you know, maybe that wasn't a bad thing. Maybe it was, maybe it was okay. You know, for those of us that don't follow that way to get a little bit more organized and, you know, explore the ideas that underpin our way of looking at the world, you know, which is, you know, part of the result of that. That expectation.

Yucca: Yeah, it's certainly something that I don't remember from my childhood. Now, some of that might be simply because of the particular style of my family and who were the people that we would, that we would spend time with and celebrate with. But it, I didn't start really encountering that until. Late teenage years, early adult years, finding people who literally believed that way, or at least were vocal about the literal belief, were vocal enough to tell me I was wrong.

Be like, you can't be a pagan you. That's not what Pagan is. That's just a philosophy. I'm like, okay, whatever you do, do you.

Mark: Yeah. I've heard that one too. That's just a philosophy or I've heard it's it's secular humanism with LARPing or You know, a lot of really kind of insulting stuff. And before, before that arose, we never even talked about theology. We just got toge, you know, it was a doing thing. We got together and we did our seasonal rituals and we celebrated and had our events and all that kind of stuff.

But

Yucca: I, I do

Mark: have their beliefs.

Yucca: God talk about goddess, but I don't remember like the goddess being. Like, I don't remember the goddess being the way like my Christian friends would talk about God.

Mark: Right.

Yucca: it didn't seem like, like, I mean, this is, this might feel a little bit offensive for somebody from a theistic perspective, but my child understanding was that like God was your like imaginary friend that you could talk to, that you could use as your justification to do whatever you wanted.

It had never, like when I heard people talk about the Goddess, it wasn't really like, Person that was like your imaginary friend that you like prayed to and stuff. It was, I always kind of understood it as more, they were talking about like the force of nature and life itself, and it was very more of like this kind of metaphorical thing.

But again, that might have just been

Mark: and the power of femininity, I mean, the whole sacred feminine piece too. And you know, I know a lot of folks are still doing, you know, that that kind of wicked god and goddess thing, but it seems to me that some of that, when it really arose in the 1980s, it was really kind of a product of its time.

Third wave feminism was just starting to break and. You know, and with it, the, the sort of hiding off from hardcore secular Marxism of some, you know, earlier generations and there was just a lot of exploring going on. And one of the things that women, especially were realizing is we're not in any of these stories

Yucca: Yeah, well, not in the way that, that is very good for us.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah. Your, your

Yucca: We're littlest.

Mark: cautionary tales and you know, object lessons and stuff like that rather than people in charge and heroes and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah. I don't know. I just, it still feels very strange to. When I encounter somebody that is just burning with rage over the fact that I call myself a pagan and I don't believe in literal deity, where is the harm to them? I mean,

Yucca: Well, it'd be, it's an identity issue, I think, right.

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: That they've built their, their identity around this. I am a pagan and this is what it means to be a pagan, and there's this kind of strength in the gatekeeping and there's like, it feels empowering and in like a very, in that, that righteous kind of anger way.

So I understand the, I don't. I don't think it's very constructive in the long run, but I, I can understand where they're coming from with it, but I think it causes a lot of pain in the long run.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah, it seems like it would make a whole lot more sense if we could put all that aside and sit down and have a beer and, you know, enjoy one another in a, in a pagan context. And I've seen that a lot. I mean, I see that at, AT conferences and so forth where you know, we're able. I, when I go to a conference, I don't see the devotional Polytheists huddling in one corner.

You know, while the non theist pagans huddle in another corner and the Wickens are in another corner. That's not how it works. You know, we, we do, we do big rituals together. We socialize, we go to parties. It's a, it's a generally a very amicable kind of environment. And, you know, bringing that, that burning rage into it, I guess is what I really don't understand.

You know, it's a hard enough world out there as it is, and I find pagan spaces to be so much generally, so much kinder and more open and more tolerant. That's what I want to foster.

Yucca: Yeah. I mean, I find myself just being delighted to be around other pagans and, you know, just enjoying that. Wow. You're pretty interesting. This is fun. Oh yeah. That's a nice chant. I like that. That feels good. Yeah.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah, I agree.

Yucca: Hmm. Well, we had, we had talked about this. Doing this topic this week because it's Easter. And that's one of those, Easter is one of the two big Christian holidays. There certainly are lots of other ones, but those are like the big, Christmas and Easter are like the big ones that even the kind of mostly Christian just by name folks will celebrate.

But it is one of those ones that's interesting because it does have a lot of overlap with what many Pagans are doing this time of year with the Equinox. Right. And so it's one of those interesting ones where there's kind of. That Like, Hmm. What is, what's, what part of it is Pagan? What part of it is Christian?

It's always very funny to hear the complaints from some of the real Christian folks about, oh, this is just so pagan like, like it's a bad

It's like, yeah, yeah. Say it is pretty pagan. You're talking about like, Fertility and Yeah. Yeah. And celebrating fertility and you know, and the springtime and all of that, you know.

Ah, terrible. But it is, I do get a

Mark: but that said, but that said, I mean, Easter is celebrated by many, many Christians as a, a celebration of sort of the redemptive quality that Spring has, right? The, the renewal of the world,

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: That comes in the spring, which is lovely. It's. Human sacrifice to, to pay off the debt of sins that we didn't even commit.

Things that, it just baffles me. I, I just,

Yucca: Yes.

Mark: I mean,

Yucca: It was Women's fault,

Mark: I don't know why anybody would buy into it. What was that? I'm

Yucca: It was

Mark: Although it was women's fault, of course. Of course it was.

Yucca: Yeah, I mean the, the, the mythology behind all of it is very interesting and, and tracking and learning about that is, I find that all fascinating, right? And the, how some of those stories are, you know, far older than

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: Judaism itself.

And I was learning about Noah recently actually, about how the story of Noah, there's. The, the great flood and the, the hero saving people from the great, like that's way, way older than Judaism is really interesting. So, and there's a lot of, of those in there.

Mark: Yeah, I mean, I can't say that I put a whole lot of effort into sort of, you know, biblical history study. It's just never been something that's appealed to me very much.

Yucca: It wasn't for me either, but my kids are really interested in mythology right now.

Mark: Uhhuh

Yucca: Right? They're,

Mark: and I'm sure they're curious about these stories that are driving the society they're in.

Yucca: Absolutely. Yeah. And they're very clear. You know, my, my oldest, who you've met several times is, you know, regularly likes to remind me that we don't believe in them. That they're just stories, but they're important stories. That's what she says. They're stories, but they're important stories. And so, you know, they're just Just reading up all the mythology books that we can get right now.

It's very, and it's really interesting cuz they'll notice connections between, well this story we're reading about in the Norris mythology, that's kind of like the story that, sort of like the one in the Egyptian or the Greek mythology and the, that's really interesting to see their, them tying together.

And I wish that we would, could know, we can't really, but know what relationship there is between those stories. Did

Mark: For

Yucca: somebody a version that got passed on word of mouth for, you know, hundreds of years? Or is it just coincidence or, you know, all of that is,

Mark: Well in sailing trade, you know, overland caravans and sailing trade, you know, for as long as there have been people living in communities, they've been trading with one another. And when you know, you don't just trade resources, you trade culture because you know, there you are after a long day. You know, selling your barley for leather hides or whatever it is.

And now you're, you know, sitting around, seated around, abrasion, having a drink with whoever you did the trading with, and you're gonna share stories from your culture and that that means they're on the move.

Yucca: Well, and marriages between different groups. Right. Your mom's from one place, your dad's from another. You grow up with both. You know, you grow up with both stories. Yeah.

Mark: Yeah, so I, I guess to sort of sum up all this, I mean, maybe there was a time when it actually was an improvement in the lot of humanity for this authoritarian, patriarchal kind of model to come into place. I. Necessarily think that's, so, I think it may just have been what happens when suddenly you've got an economic surplus and people are fighting over it and somebody wins which, you know, came with agriculture.

Yucca: Came with end of the ice age.

Mark: Right, right. But if there was a time when that served us well, it's well,

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: serve us well anymore. And so, you know, a part of what I have been about in my paganism has been wanting to increase the agency and the liberation and the justice for people and for the earth throughout the world. I. It's time for us to start unpacking all these assumptions and making other choices about how we organize our societies, about what life is worth living for. Is it worth is, is life really about the accumulation of stuff?

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: I mean, honestly, it's a big question because. There's an awful lot of people out there whose identity is deeply tied up in what kind of car they drive.

Yucca: Right. So it's a, it's an ongoing journey, right?

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: I'm glad that we're doing it. I'm glad that we're thinking about it and, you know, working on it every day and getting to have conversations like this on the podcast.

Mark: Yeah, me too. Because as I said, I do think that it's generational and I think this is a moment, right. And things will continue to evolve from here. I mean, I don't, I don't expect that we've got all the answers or that we've figured everything out, but We're working on part of the big puzzle, and if we can do our our part and kind of figure that bit out, then we will have done our work for the larger whole.

Yucca: Yeah,

most of

Mark: you for a great conversation, Yucca. This was cool.

Yucca: yeah, likewise. That saves a good, good talk and enjoyed it. I've got more to think about than I did coming into the conversation, so that's always fun.

Mark: a great thing about, that's a great thing about inquiry. It always leads to more questions than you had when you started.

Yucca: Yep.

Mark: Wanted to remind people real quick. We are doing an online Zoom conference of the atheopagan community, which is called the atheopagan web Weaving. That's gonna be on June 3rd and fourth, which is a weekend, and you can register for that at the link that we'll put in the show notes.

Yucca: That's

Mark: They're on the atheopagan Society website, which is v ap society.org. So, hope that we'll see you there. And in the meantime, have a great week and we will see you next week.

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theAPSociety.org/AWW2023/

https://www.jarodkanderson.com/

Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com.

S4E12 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 just going to have a short episode in which we announced the exciting thing that's coming up in June, so let's get into it.

Yucca: That's right, which is June is not very far away. So welcome to April, everybody. Here we are. So in two months from now actually, why don't you go ahead, mark. What are, what's happening in two months from now?

Mark: two months from now, we are holding an online conference, which is going to be called the atheopagan Web Weaving 2023, and it's an opportunity for us to gather together over Zoom Potentially hundreds of us because we're, we have the infrastructure to accommodate that. And we'll have workshops and informational SEC sessions and classes that will happen in breakout groups.

We'll have a keynote speaker. We have a special session of the adult salon, which will be a burlesque class that'll be happening by some well trained professional burlesque dancing people. Yeah. So, and there's just, you know, we're gonna do community acknowledgements of various rights of passage.

People who got married or had a baby or got divorced or retired, or. Whatever, you know, whatever those things are. There's just, there's gonna be a lot of really cool stuff at this conference and we'll talk a little bit about some of those offerings today. But the main thing to know is the conference is from zero to $50 to register

Yucca: Right. So no

Mark: can't afford.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: That's right. No, nobody will be turned away for lack of money. We're asking people to shoot for $20 as a registration, and the money is going to be used to compensate the people that are teaching the workshops as well as the keynote speaker. And we're, we're hoping to at least break even on this event.

So that's what your money's going towards is actually producing this conference. You can find out all the information about this at the atheopagan society.org, which no, which is the ap society.org/a w w 2023, which is short for atheopagan web weaving 2023.

Yucca: and we're gonna put the link in the description so you don't have, yeah, you can just go click on it from your whatever app you're using to listen to this. So you can just go ahead and click right there.

Mark: You can download the program there. There's a button that you can click to register on, sign ingenious. The whole thing is very transparent and easy to do. We've got, since we since we launched this morning, we've already got a bunch of registrations. So it's all working and we'd really like for you to come and join.

We're gonna have breakout sessions that are just for socializing, so you can hang out with fellow atheopagan and non theist naturalistic pagans and get to know one another. So we're really excited about this. We've been working on it for a while, and hope that you'll come.

Yucca: Yeah, and, and it's really exciting to have an online gathering because last year we did have an in-person gathering, which was amazing, and we're gonna have one again next year. But that's not something that's sustainable for us to do. Every year on a large scale, right? Maybe local groups might be able to, you know, there might be the California or Col, Colorado or UK or something like that.

Groups that can do it every year, but for bringing people in from all over, and of course we can't all travel. That's not, you know, necessarily a possibility for everybody. So being able to, Gather and connect with each other. Get to see each other's faces, although you don't have to. Right. If you're not Yeah,

Mark: video. If you don't want to, or even your audio, you can just sit and.

Yucca: Right. So we, we really want it to be as welcoming and open for everybody, right? And so that's why one of the reasons that this is so exciting is it's gonna be a chance for us to connect. And of course, you know, we can connect through Discord and Facebook and all of that, but there's something very different about it being an event,

Mark: Yes. And being able to see one another's faces it's, it's, it's not as good as in person and we all know that, but it is still pretty amazing to be able to see people from all over the world who are of like mind in terms of their, their religiosity. Your spirituality and to share ideas and information and get to know one another.

So I am, I'm really pretty pumped about this. And you know, as Yucca says, one of the things that was. Kind of a sad thing about the Suntry retreat that we had last year is that inevitably there are people that just can't afford to buy a plane ticket or to, you know, to go

Yucca: Take off of work or whatever it is. Yeah.

Mark: whatever it is, and this really will enable anybody that can simply get the time on June 3rd and fourth,

Yucca: Mm-hmm. Saturday and Sunday.

Mark: Saturday and Sunday.

Just to log in and, and have this experience with us together.

Yucca: Point, and it's nice that there's, there's some just social time, but there's also workshops. So I find, personally, I like to have a structure when I'm meeting new people. So that we have something that, oh, we're coming and working on this together. Right. That's kind of nice sometimes to have that, that structure to.

To center the social interaction around. But then also there's just the, for people who just wanna just hang out and just talk, that's an option too. And so throughout the day, different times, different options. So if you work in the morning but you don't in the evening, then there's plenty for you to come and, and do in the evening or vice versa.

Or you can do one day but not the other. Or if you wanna spend all day, both days, that's awesome too. There'll be a lot. So,

Mark: Yeah, so what I'd like to do now actually, is to read off some of the program offerings that are in the program for this. In the first workshop slot on Saturday, there are three offerings, sarcastic tau which just is very intriguing just for its title the way of the atheopagan cleric, which is one that I'll be teaching about performing that kind of service in the community, and Stardust communion, connecting with our stellar roots through science, observation, and ritual.

Yucca: Ooh, I think I know who

Mark: Pretty cool, huh?

Yucca: Okay.

Mark: Yeah. And then in workshop, slot two is reclaiming the sacred, how to heal after leaving Abusive Religion. I know that'll have appeal for a bunch of people in our community. There's a, a workshop on imaginal practice, which is about sort of the inner world of creativity.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: and then there's a, a, a sciencey presentation on wastewater treatment and the magical world of microbes because a member of our community is the manager of a wastewater treatment plant.

Yucca: That's

Mark: that's, it is, yeah. I'm so excited about it. Do a community Bardic circle, which is an open mic where people can read poetry, and you don't have to have your camera on if you don't want to. You could just have your microphone on. You, you can read poetry or spoken word

Yucca: camera on and have, and be, have your whole costume. Right. That's an option too. Yep. If you want that, that excuse to, to dress up in that fantastic feather gown and cloaks that you have. Here's your opportunity.

Mark: Yeah. And in fact, you don't even have to do anything else. If you're dressed up that fancy, you can just show us your beautiful duds.

Yucca: That's right.

Mark: Yeah. So we'll have that. We're later in the evening on Saturday, we're having a dance and cocktail party. So, one of, we'll, it'll be in breakout. And we'll have several of them open.

One of them will be streaming dance music for people to enjoy. And the rest of them will be social groups. So you'll be able to move from room to room and visit with people that are, that are there in the breakout rooms. And that's just Saturday, so I'm gonna leave it there. So you can, if you're, if you're interested, you can go and look for the program and see what the rest we're offering.

But it's I am, I'm so grateful to the folks that have been working on this. I, I know that our community members are atheopagan Society Council members. Rona and Michael have both done a lot of work on this, and it's super exciting. And now we get to talk about our keynote speaker,

Yucca: Yes.

Mark: pray. We, we just announced this this morning.

We are really excited about this. The keynote speaker, which will be during the lunch hour on Saturday lunch hour Pacific time is Jared k Anderson, who is also known as the crypto naturalist. He is a poet and a writer and a podcaster. His material gets shared in the atheopagan Facebook group pretty frequently because his, it's just lovely stuff.

At, in one of his pieces, he talks about how we are all part of an explosion and at a certain point, apparently, Adams just get sort of haunted, and that's us,

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: The, the, the arisal of consciousness to be able to to look back at the universe and see ourselves and see what's going on here. It's, it's all there.

It is. It's all kind of mysterious. Adams sometimes get haunted. I love.

Yucca: Mm. That's wonderful.

Mark: yeah. So I'm really looking forward to seeing him and actually he has a sale on his audiobooks right now. He has two books of poetry and they're four bucks a piece on audiobook, so go and look for that. We will put a link to his website in the show notes for today as well, so you can go and learn more about. So, Yucca, do you have other questions or things to offer about the upcoming conference?

Yucca: Hmm. Well, you said it's two days, right? Those are two full days. So

Mark: Sunday. The Sunday is a little shorter. It starts later in the morning and it runs a little bit shorter,

Yucca: So you can do those Saturday evening activities, be rested for the morning. Yeah.

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: And of course Mark did not mention all of the Sunday activities. There's, there's quite a few of those.

Mark: Are, there's more workshops and all kinds of stuff.

Yucca: Right. You know, I'm, I'm not thinking of anything else. Of course. Any of you listening, if you've got questions about it go ahead and, and take a look at the link that we've got there. Anything else you can think of sharing, mark? Yeah.

Mark: There is a, a question button on that page that I, I said the URL to. So if you have a question, just fill out the contact form and we'll, we'll get back to you and answer your question.

Yucca: Yep. And of

Mark: So,

Yucca: the sooner we know who's planning to come, the better it is for the organiz. So if you are planning to come, it is really helpful just to let us know right away or sooner rather than, you know, the day before. So,

Mark: Yeah, that's really important because if currently our Zoom account capacity is a meeting of up to a hundred people now if we have. Of more than a hundred registrants, we will simply buy more capacity from Zoom, but we need to know that they're coming, right? So

Yucca: we would be delight if

Mark: can register, the better.

Absolutely we'd be, you know, over the moon if we had more than a hundred registrants. But we, but we would need some warning on that so we can buy the capacity from Zoom and people don't get bumped out.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: So please register early and often, just like they say about voting.

Yucca: That's right. Well, and hopefully this, we, this will be something that we can do again in the future. I think there'll be a lot for us to learn, and I hope that it, it becomes an ongoing tradition.

Mark: me too. And in the lead up we'll have interviews with a couple of the program presenters who who are going to be doing workshops or offerings at the conference so we can learn more about them. And I think that's pretty much about it, but we should talk about what we're gonna talk about next week as well.

Yucca: Oh yes. Yeah. So we've got some interesting topics coming up. And we are. In a interesting month, right. We're in April, which is a month where there's a lot of kind of mainstream religious holidays that are taking place.

Mark: Yes, yes. It's Earth Month, which is cool. We're, we're all cool with that. But of course Easter is also coming up soon and so it's a, it's a good time and Ramadan is also happening right

Yucca: Passover. Yep.

Mark: Yeah. So it's a good time for us to talk about the contrasts between Pagan values and our perspective on the world and those other kinds of religious path.

Yucca: Right. And I think we'll probably get into a little bit about how some of those other paths have influenced the larger culture within which we live. Right, and even us as pagans, how are we influenced, even though we're not Christian or we're not, whatever those particular religions are, we're still steeped in a culture that has those values and you know, which ones are ones that, you know, we're choosing to examine and step away from and which ones were not, and how do we differ and, and that kind of thing.

So I think that'll, that'll be a really interesting conversation.

Mark: I think so too. The, well, I'll save it all for next week. That's, that's what I'll do

Yucca: Sounds good.

Mark: I've, I'm, I've already, I already have wheels turning, so there you go.

Yucca: Yep. Well, this

Mark: Um, once again, oh, go ahead.

Yucca: Oh, I was just gonna do a wrap up. Sounds like you're doing a wrap up though

Mark: Let's do them on top of one another and see if people can understand us

Yucca: the same time. Okay.

Mark: No, no, no.

Yucca: No, go ahead, mark.

Mark: Well, as always, we really appreciate your listening. Thanks for the emails and comments that we've had recently. We really appreciate it. If we haven't gotten back to you yet, we will. We, we do always respond to our emails except for the ones that pretend to be invoices that we don't actually owe.

So,

Yucca: of those. Yeah.

Mark: yeah, it's a.

Yucca: Apparently our crypto wallet keeps getting hacked or something like that. Right.

Mark: Yeah. And we don't have a crypto wallet, so that's, that's a, a

Yucca: we've had a few Nigerian princes too that wanna give us a lot of money, so, yep. Anyway,

Mark: but we have to, we have to

Yucca: to. Yes. Yeah. Alright.

Mark: Yeah. All right, everybody. See you next week.

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Atheopagan Web Weaving 2023 https://theapsocietyorg.wordpress.com/aww2023/

Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com.

S4E11 TRANSCRIPT:----more----

Yucca: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-based Paganism. I'm one of your hosts, Yucca,

Mark: And I'm Mark.

Yucca: and this week we're going to talk about dreams.

Mark: Ooh.

Yucca: Actually can't believe we haven't talked about dreams yet.

Mark: It is kind of surprising. We were, we were both kind of mystified as to why we haven't done that yet.

Yucca: Yeah, and I'm quite curious because we've never had this conversation. Not only have we not had it on the podcast, but we haven't had it off of recording either. So I don't know what your thoughts, opinions, experiences with dreams are. So I look

Mark: Oh, well, I, I, I hope, I hope they're shocking.

Yucca: Shocking. Okay. Well, I think a good place to start is def definitely with what are dreams.

Right?

Mark: Yeah. And I, as you say, I don't know whether we'll have a similar perspective on this. I tend to think of dreams as kind of like the, the brain running a screensaver, drawing on bits of memory and themes of concern, and. Things that are kind of weighing on your mind, whether it's your conscious mind or your unconscious mind, and then putting together these fantastical sort of stories in a.

In a very, in an almost random sort of way. There's a lot of random generation in, in dreams that you can see. So that's what I think is the brain doing that and contributes to imagination. It solves problems. You know, we have so many examples of people who have discovered things waking up in the middle of the night going, aha, it out.

Right?

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So that's what I think it is. How about you? Yuck.

Yucca: Yeah. Your, your understanding. It really reflects mine as well. It's something that I haven't dug into research on. Right. I don't have a deep understanding of neurobiology. You know, I certainly have read articles here and there and things like that, but it's not something that I've really done a lot of research in.

But, but what you were saying about it being basically our, our brains. Processing stuff, right, our experiences, putting together ideas and there being a randomness to it. But I think there's also sometimes parts of it that aren't quite as random though, because we are trying to figure stuff out.

Mark: Yeah. Oh,

Yucca: we're definitely trying to figure stuff out, piece it together, and there's definitely. There. I mean, there's different kinds of dreams that we can get into. But that sometimes it's just our brain rerunning through the stuff that we're doing during the day. Right. And sometimes it's working on, you know, particularly difficult experiences that we had, you know, running through trauma or things like that is, but I, I think it's a way that, that our.

that our brains are trying to make sense of what's going on. And it seems like there's something in there tied in with the sleep that we don't really understand a lot of the mechanisms for yet. We know that sleep is really important for us. We know that it evolved. Really early on because we see it in lots of other species.

We see it in very, very different species than us. I remember a few months back there was an announcement about a scientist suggesting that they had recorded what appeared to be spiders having r e m sleep, which is. Type of sleep that we have dreams in that of course they're not inside of the, the minds of these creatures, but that looking at the way that they behaved seemed to match with what we thought other creatures did at the same time that they were going through r e m.

And so if it is so widespread, there has to be a really important purpose for it.

Mark: Right, right. Well, there's no. . Well, there's two questions there, right? I mean, the first one is, what's the point of sleep? And we have really not very good answers

Yucca: Yeah, we know what happens when you don't get it though.

Mark: Yes, we, we know that all kinds of things go very, very wrong when you don't sleep. So apparently it's staving that stuff off, but we're not entirely sure why those things go wrong.

So that's still a point of investigation. And then on top of that is this layer of. Well then these dreams happen and, and what's that about? I tend to agree that I think it's the brain. Some of it's just random. Some of it's just sort of, you know, rerunning stuff that it's experienced before or imagined before.

But some of it is the brain chewing on naughty problems that, that just. You know that aren't easily solved and that are bugging us,

Yucca: Right. And we should say before going too much farther, that not all sleep has dreams and not all types of, so there's different stages of sleep and then there's different types of dreams as well. There's these sort of surface level ones and then there's, we were talking about the REM sleep a much.

Deeper, more vivid kind of dreaming, so,

Mark: Right. And RM sleep tends to be more narrative as well. There tends to be a story, whereas in lighter phases of sleep, it can literally just be flashes of different kinds of scenes and events that don't really tie together. And even though the story can be very fantastical there can be a kind of a line that you can draw through it, and then you can try to figure out what's going on there.

And that's, that's part of the age old human attempt at interpreting what dreams mean.

Yucca: Right. So that's a nice segue into the next section, which is, you know, what are they mean to us

Mark: Mm-hmm. yeah. My answer to that is uncharacteristically vague. Cuz I tend to have very, you know, kind of concrete opinions about things, but I think sometimes they can be very meaningful in very concrete kinds of ways. They can be telling us something. Our subconscious wants us to do or thinks is the right thing to do or you know, or expressing a fear or an anxiety or an anger, you know, something that, that relates to something real in our lives.

And then other times, as I said, it's just screensaver and there may not be a lot of content there.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: And part of the trick is differentiating between those categories.

Yucca: Yeah. Well, I think. There's a component to dream interpretation that's very popular. You'll find lots of books about it where it has certain symbols mean certain things. And I don't buy that on a universal level. I don't think that when you see a Blue Falcon. Flying through a cloud that to every single person that is going to mean the same thing because that I think that each person is going to have a different association with those types of symbols.

And I think there might be things that specific cultural groups might have, certain associations with things that would be more likely that, oh, well if you grew up in this particular, Culture and in this particular religion or something like that. There, the symbology might be very different to you than it would be to somebody else.

And so, you know what a snake means to somebody who grew up in a Baptist family. You know, there, there might be some similarities between those people, but not that snakes u mean this, like it's a code that we can translate.

Mark: Yeah, I, I agree with you. I don't think that there is a lexicon of. Of things that can be experienced in a dream that have direct correlations, like a dictionary that, that doesn't, has never made any sense to me. And I think it's one of the places where Freud really went off the rails.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: it just, I mean, there were a lot of ways that Freud really went off the rails, but but that was one of 'em,

Yucca: Yeah. But with all of that, I think that within our own minds that there's a lot, a lot to be discovered there. And as you were saying, the trick, figuring out which is which there's lots of different tools, but a classic one is a dream.

Mark: right.

Yucca: And keeping a dream journal can give you the opportunity to be able to go back through some of the dreams that you are having.

Now for me and my experiences, dreams fade very quickly unless recorded. Once I write a dream down, I norm, I usually remember having that.

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: back through and I reread that journal, I go, oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, of course I remember that. But if I hadn't written it down, it would just be gone. I don't know that every dream is worth writing down.

I certainly, there were times in my life that I wrote everything down, but now someti, if it, it seems particularly important to me, I'll write it down. Or if, or if I notice that I'm having repeating themes and particular dreams, then I'll write that down and reflect on that.

Mark: I don't remember my dreams very much. They have to be pretty vivid for me to remember them. And what that has done among other things, is make a dream journal really difficult for me because I decide, okay, I'm gonna do a dream journal, and then three weeks later when I finally have a dream that I, that's vivid enough to remember I've forgotten all about the fact that I decided to have a dream journal.

So, you know, that's just sort of a. Particular quirk of mine. But I say this because many other people also have a very hard time remembering their dreams or they don't dream in a way that's conscious enough to capture very often. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just kind of the way we're built.

Yucca: Yeah. And it's, if it's, if it's useful to you, right? It's not, once again, you're not a bad pagan if you don't roll over every morning and record down exactly what it was that you, that you dreamt. There's, it could be useful for you and, and maybe not, right?

Mark: Yeah, and one of the things that I try to keep in mind when I'm interpreting dreams is that, Even if the symbols and things that I've captured and I'm trying to interpret were relatively random, that doesn't really matter because a random symbol set can be very provocative of subconscious discovery.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: like a, just like a Toro deck. The cards, the cards are random, but the symbols on the cards will provoke associations for you because of your particular consciousness that will, that can help you to learn things, so,

Yucca: act of you trying to interpret it is what's going to help you actually figure out what's going on.

Mark: exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, it sounds like you have more of an active and available dream life than I do. What, what sorts of things do you do with your dreams in terms of interpretation?

Yucca: Hmm. So there's a, there's another piece we're going to get to later on, which is the lucid component. I. Don't do a lot with the interpretation component unless it's something that, that is really reoccurring. Like, and there's certain kind of classic ones that, that people have of like the falling ones or the this or the that.

When I noticed there's a, there's a couple of them that I have that are in the reoccurring, and when that starts to pop up, it's part of a pattern in my life that I recognize of, Ooh, that's that particular. Area that I really struggle with, that I have a lot of stress around. And when I start getting the dream about it, it means, at least for me, my interpretation has been that I'm not giving it the attention that it needs by the time it creeps into reoccurring dream territory.

I have left it unde with for too long. So that.

Mark: very reasonable.

Yucca: Yeah, . But when it comes to the active dreaming, which we will come to in a little bit, that's something that's, that's really central in my practice and something, a tool that I've used for my whole life. So, but before we get there, what about for you with the interpretation?

I know you said that you don't really remember your dreams that much,

Mark: I, I don't very often, and so really more what I reach for. As I'm waking up and remembering bits and pieces of, of these dreams, what I reached for is what was the feeling associated more than anything else, because that tells me what's likely to be going on underneath the surface of my day-to-day operation.

If there's a feeling of shame or a feeling of fear, Or a feeling of happiness. Although for some reason dreams tend to be more warning and work on stuff that's a problem than they, than they are just sort of celebratory.

Yucca: Do you think that that's a, those are the ones you remember because we are. that there would be an advantage to focusing on the worrisome, dangerous stuff or do you think it is? Yeah.

Mark: it could be. But I think also, What tends to happen is that the, the more joyous dreams that I have tend to be dreams where I'm lucid and I'm making choices. So, you know, and we'll talk about that in a minute. But I do find that I can learn a lot just from kind of the vibe of a, of a dream and maybe some of the more prominent symbols that emerged from that. There have been a few times when I've been killed in dreams

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: and those have always been very powerful. And I've interpreted them as meaning, you know, major dislocations or transformations. Sometimes they've come at times in my life when I was in a major transition and so that kind of made sense.

Yucca: Was there, did you wake immediately from those, or was there dream after being killed? In the dream.

Mark: Both depending. Yeah, there was one where I got killed right at the beginning of the, the dream, and so I had the, there was an earthquake. At San Francisco State University and I was in the Student Union, which is a concrete building, and it cracked and collapsed and killed me and a lot of other people.

And we all had to go into the basement of the student union, which didn't have a basement,

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: to to stay there then, because we were dead and we couldn't go out in the daylight and we couldn't interact with anybody who was alive. We were still, for all purposes alive, we just had to stay down there because we were dead and some.

People were trying to figure out what they could do other than hang out under the student union. And so at night they would go out and explore. And I finally went with one of these exploring groups and we walked to the Pacific Ocean, to the, to a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Big, bright, full moon.

Beautiful. And I dived because we were going to live under the sea since we didn't need to breathe anymore. And then I realized as I was diving that the salt water of the ocean was going to be incredibly caustic to me because I was dead and it was just, it was going to burn me alive. And then I woke up.

Yucca: Oh wow.

Mark: Yeah. So sort of double death dream. That's, that's, that's one that stuck with me. But I woke up before I hit the water.

Yucca: Oh wow. of that? Yeah. Mm-hmm.

only times that I can remember ever dying in my dreams. I've always been shot.

Mark: I've been stabbed, I've been drowned. I've I've a bunch. I, I, now that I think about it, I don't think I have been shot.

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: Hmm.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: But on the other hand, you're in New Mexico, which is one of the most heavily armed states in the country.

Yucca: Yeah. I mean, yes, like, but the, unless you're in like the urban areas, the, there isn't actually the, like statistically the gun violence is not

Mark: oh no. I'm not saying the gun violence

Yucca: yeah. I mean, yeah, I mean, we're all, everybody, you know, I grew up around guns. I, yeah. But no, it's never, it's always been . I think it was more influenced actually by seeing TV with like,

Mark: Oh

Yucca: like movie type of, yeah.

It would be real interesting to look into where that is. But that, I mean, that's certainly, yeah, something I grew up around and it's not. It's kind of a, it's a, it's a normal part of life in the, the rural areas. So, but I've never had any, like the roof collapsing on me or, you know,

Mark: Well, I'm an earthquake country, of course. So that's, that's something we think about. You know, whenever the, whenever the earth shakes, we think about the roof coming down on us.

Yucca: Right. Well, and I guess that makes sense that different people are going to. . You know, I've also never had dreams about a boating accident, not something we do a lot of out here. I don't

Mark: Ah-huh.

Yucca: of, you know, boating experience,

Mark: open water.

Yucca: But somebody who grew up on the coast and, you know, went sailing every weekend during their childhood, maybe they'd have a different experience with that.

Mark: right.

Yucca: so plenty of flying dreams though.

Mark: Me too. A lot of flying dreams. Yeah. Lucid Flying Dreams are my favorite.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: Cuz then you can go where you want to go. Right. It's really fun.

Yucca: Yeah. Well, let's talk about this lucid.

Mark: Why don't you define that for folks first? I.

Yucca: sure. So a lucid dream is when you are aware that you are dreaming and you're still dreaming.

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: Then there's different levels. You can be lucid but not be. Consciously influencing what's happening, but you can also be lucid and be influencing what's happening. So a lot of times when people say lucid, they mean you can control your dreams, but technically it is just being lucid, being aware of that dream.

So there's different levels to that.

Mark: Yeah, the, the awareness is necessary. You have to be aware that you're dreaming in order to be lucid dreaming. The degree of agency that you have may vary.

Yucca: Right. So, and this is something that people can just naturally do. It's also something that, that you can learn and train yourself to do. and that's, and people have different levels of comfort with that and techniques for trying to stay in the dream when you realize that you're dreaming, because a lot of people struggle with, once they realize they are dreaming, they wake themselves up.

Mark: up. Yeah.

Yucca: So for me, I, I've always been a lucid dream. And that's just something that's been part of my life my whole life. But when I was about nine or 10 years old, I started to. Purposefully cultivate it and use it as a tool. And that was something that, you know, I talked, I had interest in and was talking about that with my father and he got me books and things like that.

So a lot of what I know about for other, for learning how to lose the dream just comes from having read those books. But I never taught myself to lose the dream. It was just something I always. Did. Which I actually think, I don't know if, if it was something that I always did or if it was taught, because I do remember being very little and having nightmares, and the response that my parents would give me would be about how to change it, right?

If I was being chased by the monster, they'd say, okay, we'll go back to. And then you tell the monster that this is your dream, not the monster's dream. And imagine something funny happening instead, right? Like the monster's chasing you, but all of a sudden now you're jumping on the big balls and now you're giggling and laughing together.

They were always very specific about, Hey, when you change a dream, don't, don't change it into something hurt, harmful. Right. Don't imagine, you know, the monster getting hurt or blowing up or something like that may get something that is, that is funny or twisted or like in a, in a positive way. Because the implication, they never said this straight out, but the implication was that the monster was me.

Mark: Right.

Yucca: All of that was just me. Whatever I'm doing in my mind is, is affecting me. So don't make it into like a hurting yourself. Make it into a transformational experience. So I remember doing that, my parents doing that, and I do that with my kids. which is easy because we live in a one bedroom , so anytime they're having a nightmare, I know, I know what they are.

And so it's something that, that I think is just really helpful to, to never have the belief in the first place that you can't control your dreams so that you can't influence your dreams because you can't. Right. We're, we're taught that we can't. And the media around it and all of that, it's like, oh no, you, you don't, you don't influence, you don't have control over it, but you do.

Right. But do you always want to, is a very, very different pick is a different question. So for me, the dreams that I'm, most of my dreams, I choose to not be con, to be lucid in because I don't feel as rested from. So I will choose, it will, I'll be going to sleep and I'll decide, am I gonna be lucid or not?

I'll realize I'm dreaming and go, okay, so let go. I, I literally tell myself, let go and just let the dream happen and let go of that. The lu lucidity. Lucidness

Mark: Lucidity. Yeah.

Yucca: Yeah. But when I do lucid, I, I do a lot of work when I need to. In that dream state is a, is a really powerful state to go into. I will work through problems that I'm having, I'll do actual ritual in that state and I actually do a lot of work in that state too.

So I do a lot of so I'm. Trying to take a whole bunch of information and construct a lecture of how do I take these complex ideas and put them together anytime I need something that's creative but builds it. So I'll go to, so I, I teach a bunch of classes and I need to build a class. I'll go to sleep and then work on the actual outline and structure in the dream state, and then wake up and I'll write it down immediately and I've got the structure. but if I do that too much, I don't rest . So it, it's a, it's a, you know, you're not, I don't know what's going on on a physical level there, but I do not feel as rested when I, losed dream is when I just let myself dream.

Mark: Yeah, I don't either. It lucid dreaming feels like effort.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: To me some of which is some, some amount of effort to maintain the dream

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: And some of which is just to, you know, I'm, I have to pay attention, I have to make decisions, I have to do all that kind of stuff. So yes, my experience as well is that a lucid dream is not as restful.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: I also. Do lucid dreaming? It's relatively rare because I'm usually just not aware of my dreams. But not, I mean, not infrequently with the dreams that are really impactful for me. I will realize, you know, I'm trying to read something and it's gibberish and oh, I'm dreaming,

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: or Something happens that's impossible.

Well, you know, being a naturalistic pagan when something that's physically impossible happens, I go, eh, I think I'm dreaming.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: And. I, I, I have a lot of fun in lucid dreaming. I don't really use it for ritual work or even for, I mean, I suppose I should, given that it's kind of down there in the subconscious, but mostly I just use it to have The one thing that I do do that is kind of self-referential is I like to go and look in the mirror

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: and I can't really describe what I've seen. , but it hasn't been my face. It's been, you know, deeper layers of who I am. So that's a very powerful exercise. If you find yourself in a dream and you wake up, go in the bathroom and look in the mirror.

Yucca: or pull out the hand mirror that you happen to have in your pocket because it's your dream.

Mark: Yeah. Pockets in me, in dreams are like pockets in cartoons. You can pull anything out of.

Yucca: They're bigger on the inside. Yeah.

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: Well, and the, the looking at a mirror, this, that's one where when people are trying to develop the, to be able to wake up in their dream, that's a classic one is to check whether you're dreaming or not look at a mirror. Another one is to look at writing.

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: Look away, look back at the writing.

Has it changed? And. We tend to do in our dreams, the things that we do when we're awake. So if you have a habit in your, like waking life where you always push your, the glasses up on your nose or you have a habit where you look at your phone or your watch, or you do you think something throughout the day those are things that you'll tend to repeat in the dream.

And so one of the things that people can do to try and learn to lose a dream is to ask yourself throughout the day, am I dreaming? And check if you're dreaming, but you have to actually do the things so that you repeat that in your dream. Because if it's not actually a habit, you won't actually do it in your dream.

But yeah, you check and you go, okay. I look at my watch and right now I look at my watch and there's actually the time on it. I look back and it's the same time, so I go, yeah, I'm, I'm awake. Right?

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: But then once you're in the dream state, you mentioned this, this maintaining yourself in the dream is the next challenge, right?

Is to not wake up immediately. For me, it feels like when I start to wake up, it feels like I'm almost being pulled backwards through like a gel. The image that I think of is if you've ever watched Stargate, There was a movie for it and there was a delightfully campy TV show for a while. Whenever they go through this, the Stargate is going through this, like this jelly plasma thing.

I always feel like I'm getting pulled back through that and I feel like I can't breathe when I'm traveling through that, but if I can just pull myself back. I just like step back into it that I stay in the dream state. But if I let myself go back all the way through, the moment I get through that jelly, I'm awake. But I can go, okay, I'm gonna go right back to the same spot in that dream. That dream's still there as long as I don't fully get up, right? If I have to get up and go do something in the house you know, the cat broke something on the table or the. I go up to go use the restroom like that, then I'm, then I've left the dream.

But if I haven't gone that far from it, I can go right back to the same spot.

Mark: Right? Right. Well, that's cool. My feeling about being pulled out of the dream is much, it's much more vertical than it is horizontal.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: I feel like going deeper into the dream is literally sinking going lower. Whereas I feel like it's, it's like scuba diving in that it's about buoy.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: and your natural buoyancy is to go back up and come out of the dream.

And so the challenge becomes to make the motions or do whatever the effort is to stay down.

Yucca: Interesting.

Mark: So that's, that's more of how I experience it. Scuba diving is very dreamlike anyway. Just being down there or, or, or skin diving, snorkeling, same kind of thing. Being down there with all those fish and stuff in that very slow moving language environment because of the density of the water is very dreamlike to.

Yucca: and your body being able to move in ways that you couldn't on dry land.

Mark: Right. And it's a full body

Yucca: twist around and move and, yeah.

Mark: and it's a full body sensation. So, which is, you know, we tend, we tend to just sort of experience with our hands and faces and, you know, not, not have the rest of our bodies engaged so much. Yeah. So that's. That's a cool thing that I enjoy doing. The but, and, and this, this struggle to stay down happens when I realize that I'm dreaming.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: That's the, that's the crisis point where it arises. And then I either win or lose, you know, I either stay down or I don.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: But if I do, then I feel I have a lot of freedom to just explore and to do thing, to fly and to jump off high buildings cuz I'm afraid of heights and stuff like that. So I have a, a catalog of many impossible experiences that I've had that are as vivid in my memory as my actual memory.

Yucca: Right. Well, those are actual memories. But they aren't memories of things that you physically did. They're memories of things that, that your brain still thinks you did.

Mark: Yes.

Yucca: Yeah. It's, and it's amazing how the, how powerful the feelings. Can be, I mean, probably most of you have experienced, have you ever had a fight with someone in your dream and then woken up and you're still mad at them and you know that they didn't really say the thing, but you still feel it.

You're still so mad at them. And it's like they, they would've never done that thing, whatever it was ever. Right? But, but you still experienced that. I think that's just so fascinating with, with dreams and, and I hope we. To learn more about why our brains do that.

Mark: Yeah, that, I mean, that's the big question to me, the, I mean, the fact is we do it. There's a lot of descriptive literature about what it is, and. kind of patterns of how it works. But the big question of, but why, what exactly are we accomplishing by doing this? Even though I know in my own personal life that I do accomplish things in dreaming you know, I, I have experiences and I learn things.

Yucca: And, you know, as you're saying that, it, it, it makes me think about other places in our lives where we have tools that we use, like meditation, like ritual. These are things that we're, we have some insight into with science. But largely we really don't understand them, but we can still, even though we, we don't yet understand them on that level, we can still figure out how to use them because they still exist.

And that's, that's where the art part, that's where the craft part comes in. These are tools that we're using,

Mark: I think of it as,

Yucca: why. Yeah,

Mark: oh, I'm sorry to

Yucca: go. No, please.

Mark: Well, I think of it as rather like the domestication of fire. We didn't understand what fire really was for. Hundreds of thousands of years, but we were still using it. We were making it, and we were transmitting it, and we were using it to cook our food and to illuminate our dwellings and to, you know, create heat in the wintertime and all kinds of stuff.

And you know, I mean, I've heard it said that the most sim, the most mysterious and complex thing that humanity has ever discovered is the human brain. You know, there are the, the range of possible manifestations of behavior that come out of human brains is just astounding, and we don't understand very much about it at all because it's very hard to observe it while it's.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: And to translate the experience of it working, which is consciousness into some kind of objective data about what that process is. So, yeah, I mean, I would, I, I believe we will learn more about that. I don't know that it'll ever be completely done and dusted, but

Yucca: I don't think science works that way, frankly.

Mark: No.

Yucca: that the more we know, the more questions we have, and that is beautiful. That is just amazing.

Mark: About simple things like how fireworks, you know, we, we, we can get pretty good answers that don't leave. A lot of questions left.

Yucca: To on a certain scale. Right, right. We can go. Okay, so we're talking about the splitting of molecules and the recombination of, but let's start talking about, okay, those, but why were those molecules bonded to each other in the first place?

Mark: Right.

Yucca: What are they made of?

Mark: is a molecule and, and what's that made of? And then what are those made of? And then what are those

Yucca: Right. And why? Okay, so why so it's doing this because of this particular force.

Why does that force exist? Is that force connected to something else? You know, there's all, it just keeps going and going and maybe, maybe there's a simple answer to all of it, but I think we're a ways away from finding that if it

Mark: Well cer certainly all the quantum stuff, there's plenty of questions left, plenty of vast. Vast acreage of unknowns. But as you say, within a given scale context, you can understand how something works, and I doubt that we will understand why the human brain works even at its own scale, much, much less at deeper levels.

But even at its own scale, there's. When you have trillions of informational connections working at incredibly fast speeds, I just think it's gonna be impossible to ever chase those things down.

Yucca: Yeah, well, and each one being, as far as we know, very different The way that the, which connections my brain makes versus your brain.

Mark: Well, right. I'm, and I'm just talking about one brain. I'm not talking about brains in general. I'm just talking about one brain.

Yucca: but we have, there are things that we have learned, right? Like learning about the different, you know, kinds of connections and neurotransmitters and the, you know, which particular elements do we use in order, you know, all that stuff.

Mark: Sure,

Yucca: so much progress.

Mark: tend to be associated with particular senses or particular processes?

Yucca: Oh, but then they go and change on us because that's what we find. That's amazing. When, and not in all the cases, but there's many cases where we found when someone's had brain damage in one area and then another part of the brain starts to perform the function that usually would've been in that part of the brain and wow.

Mark: I read a, a fascinating article by a woman, God, where was this? The Atlantic, I think. And she literally has half of a brain.

Yucca: Hmm. Okay.

Mark: it was discovered in adulthood when she had an m r I, that one in,

Yucca: born this

Mark: she was born this way and she's of perfectly normal intelligence. She, you know, she has an absolutely ordinary life,

Yucca: Okay.

Mark: but half of her brain never developed.

Yucca: What's filling in the physical space where the other half would be. Okay.

Mark: Yeah. To reverse spinal fluid.

Yucca: Yeah. Wow.

Mark: Pretty awesome,

Yucca: pretty popular now.

Mark: Yeah,

Yucca: a lot of

Mark: lots of studies and, and all that kind of stuff,

Yucca: yeah. How interesting. Hmm.

Mark: and I mean, that's fully coordinating both sides of her body. That's, you know, doing everything that a brain does and it's just doing it with half as much.

Yucca: Wow. Have they checked in with siblings to see if they, that

Mark: don't, I don't remember honestly, it, it was a while back, but it was a pretty wild article. I should try to find it.

Yucca: Yeah, that's, that's interesting. This stuff is fun,

Mark: It is, it is. And one of the places where we encounter the mysteries about the brain is in dreaming.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: Because dreaming is a mysterious process. Why am I being shown these images? Why am I finding my, yeah, why am I finding myself immersed in, you know, these particular situations and these particular, you know, colors and objects and characters and plot lines, and, you know, what, what is all that?

Yucca: Why are those two people actually one person, I don't know how this happens for you, but sometimes characters in my dream are not really, they're rarely one person. There's several different people at once.

Mark: I don't have that at all.

Yucca: no, you'll have a, there'll be someone, okay. For me, they're, they will be several different people and sometimes they'll think about, so why was it that so-and-so was also so-and-so?

Like what overlap am I seeing there? Or did it not really matter for the dream, who the other person

Mark: are, these are recognizable people from your life or they are characters that were created in the dream,

Yucca: Well, people from my life, but also movie characters and think characters. Either a, a human, there's somebody, whether that's somebody is a real person or not. Right. Like there could, there, for instance, is making up there could be Santa, right? Like there's, you know, never met Santa. There's, as far as I know, no real Santa, but Santa can show up in my dream and Santa can also be my second grade teacher at the same time in my. But that's just, you know, why, right? That's one of those interesting things to think about. What's there's, there's gotta be some connection there, or maybe not, but me trying to figure out what that connection is might reveal to me something about my feelings about my second grade teacher, you know? Or why am I thinking about, why am I thinking about her right now?

You know, how many decades later?

Mark: right.

Yucca: So,

Mark: Yeah, it's really fascinating stuff, and I'm sure that our listeners have a very broad range of different kinds of experiences as well. You know, if you want to email us at the wonder podcast cues gmail.com or comment on this

Yucca: you're listening to it online?

Mark: listening to it on

Yucca: yeah.

Mark: You can go ahead and comment there.

You know, what was your most vivid dreaming experience? What's been your most amazing experience? In the dreaming realm because it really is a pretty remarkable thing that we do. We spend a lot of our time asleep and,

Yucca: It's glorious.

Love it.

Mark: we don't spend as much, I don't spend as much time asleep as I wish I did,

Yucca: and that's one that I, that I have looked into the research on, which is very distressing about the sleep deprivation especially in the United States. Very worrisome with, with teenagers in terms of what's happening with their sleep deprivation. It's

Mark: my local school districts here just made a ruling that they were not going to start classes until I think, eight 30 in the morning, maybe nine,

Yucca: Oh good.

Mark: classes had been starting at seven 30 and it's just, that's not good for a developing marine.

Yucca: it isn't. Well, and, and then this is one area where there's research as well into chronotypes. And it, this seems to be pretty universal across cultures that the, that teenagers. Will naturally stay up later and wake up later. That seems to be, that's not just coming from our, like our cultural stereotypes that seems to be across cultures.

And getting less sleep than we need has a negative impact on so many different levels for us, and it increases risk of all kinds of things. So I, I think it's ridiculous to. To be making teenagers get up and be being sleep deprived because of that. And I know we can go, oh, we're supposed to be teaching them, you know, responsibility and all of that, and it's like, hmm.

Not at the cost of their physical and emotional wellbeing and their ability to learn, because you're not gonna learn as well when you're sleep deprived.

Mark: Right.

Yucca: And what, what are we teaching them that them fitting into? These particular hours that we've for some reason chosen that probably have more to do with like the hours of operation of factories.

We care more about that than their wellbeing. I don't know. That's, there's my soapbox. Sorry, I'll

Mark: Well, I don't dis, I don't disagree with any of it. It, it certainly,

Yucca: frankly, eight 30 is still

Mark: I'm just glad that at least. I'm just glad that some of the more progressive districts are starting to pay attention to this research and to think about, and parents complain because parents want the childcare, right?

They, they want to get out of the house in time to get to work. And I mean, you know, just the whole system is interconnected. Levels of dysfunction.

Yucca: Yeah, that's a whole nother area.

Mark: It is, and it's not a particularly cheery area, so let's move on.

Yucca: We should. Yes. Now actually there was a very cheery, exciting thing that you wanted to announce.

Mark: Yes. We've talked about this before, but tickets for the atheopagan Web Weaving online Conference, which will be June 4th of this year. The tickets will go on sale next Saturday. April 1st. Tickets are from 10 to $50. There are scholarship tickets for nothing to spend anything. Nobody's turned away for lack of funds.

We're encouraging giving at least 20 so that we can cover the expenses of the conference, but you can get information about it at. AP society.org/a WW 2023 and we'll put that in the,

Yucca: And the show

Mark: in the podcast

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: And you can download the program there and look offerings of workshops and activities and all that kind of stuff, it's gonna be a really great opportunity. To see other people that are following these paths and exchange information and learn stuff. So I really hope you'll take a look and consider coming.

Yucca: and both of us are doing workshops, so.

Mark: That's right. I'm doing one on the clerical path. And you're doing one for kids, right?

Yucca: I am, yeah. I'm gonna do a kids circle, so, yep.

Mark: great. Yeah. Exciting.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: yeah that's two months away, but tickets will go on sale next week and you can look at the program it's downloadable in either PDF or format.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: You can look at those,

Yucca: And it does always help us to get people to know ahead of time how many people to be expecting.

Mark: That's right. If, if all the registration comes in at the last minute, it could be complicated for us. Our current Zoom account, this will be done over Zoom. Our current Zoom account allows a hundred attendees. If we have 98 attendees three days before the event and then another 300 people register in those last couple of days, we're gonna have to call Zoom up at work capacity and you know, all that kind of stuff.

So,

Yucca: So we'd of course love to have

Mark: ask you to get your tickets early.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Yes. Yeah, for sure. We would be, You know, arrange for more, more seats with Zoom. But it would be a lot better if we could do that a week in advance rather than two days in advance. So get your tickets early.

Yucca: Yeah, and we'll see you there. And as always, thanks for hanging out with us on today's episode, and we'll see you next week.

Mark: Have a great one.

View Details

The Re-Enchantment of Life: https://thewonderpodcast.podbean.com/e/re-enchantment-of-life/

The Inner Critic: https://thewonderpodcast.podbean.com/e/the-inner-critic-1612153312/

Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com.

S4E10 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 talk about paganism and imagination.

Yucca: right? And this is a, this is a really important and key topic in a lot of different ways and it gets approached From many different directions in, again, different ways, but we don't always, we don't always talk about what it it really is, and that that's what we're doing.

Mark: Yeah. And particularly in kind of mainstream pagan circles, we. Because what is imagined and what is more likely to be true based on evidence often gets all jumbled together. We, we don't actually acknowledge that we're working with the imagination

Yucca: And there's a negative connotation to it too. Like, oh, you're just imagining

Mark: right.

Yucca: right? Like if you suggest that, that, that's almost, that's an insult, right? Oh, that's just your imagination.

Mark: right? Yeah. We say it's just your imagination, right? But when you think about it, why just imagination is amazing. Imagination is arguably the thing that makes humans different than any other creatures that we're aware of. Our, our ability to. Envision the abstract

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: to to have ideation that that innovates, you know, that comes up with novel stories, novel inventions, novel concepts, novel philosophies, all of those things.

That's all imaginations.

Yucca: Right, and even though things might be imagination, they can still be very, very meaningful to us. , think about your favorite movie or book that you knew that those characters didn't exist. Those things never happened, and yet it's really meaningful and impactful to you, and it had a, as a, a very real response in your body and your mind.

Mark: Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, there have been a couple of times in my life when I have actually fallen in love with a movie character.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: And it's been painful for, you know, two, three days until it wears off. Because I really wanted to know that person. I wanted to see that person, and they don't exist. So, and, and you know, this was when I was younger mostly, but now that I'm old and cynical, it doesn't happen so much.

, but You know, that's the same physiological response that happens in response to a real person.

Yucca: right.

Mark: And that, I think, goes to this question of why we can confuse the imaginary with the real because our, our minds are not very good at distinguishing. Between what's imaginary and what's real. We, we react in exactly the same ways our brains fire in exactly the same ways in response to stories or ideas that they do in response to real world events.

Yucca: Right. And we rewrite memories,

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: And each person's interpretation of the same event can be very different,

Mark: and it will get more different over time as they reinforce their take over and over again. Every time they recall that memory, they rewrite it and it get e evolves a little bit.

Yucca: It's telephone, but that, did you ever play that game as a kid? Right. You one person whispers and then it whispers to the next person and next person and see how it changes by the time it gets to the last person. And sometimes they're close, and sometimes, well, sometimes one of the kids will purposely put something fake in there, but sometimes it transforms, right?

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: And our, our minds do that. Our imagination does that.

Mark: They certainly do. Yeah. So, one of the things that we do, especially as adults to try to distinguish these things is that we, we identify the times when we are doing what's called suspension of disbelief,

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: right? So we go into a movie, we suspend our disbelief for a couple of hours, and we submerge ourselves into the story that's happening on the.

And our awareness leaves the fact that we're sitting in a cushion chair in a dark room, looking at a screen and listening to soundtrack it, immerses in the events of the movie as if they're happening to us and. Then when the movie's over, then we stop suspending our disbelief and we leave. And our experience of the movie, in terms of its quality is often a function of how deeply we were affected by that suspension of disbelief.

Right? And this is something that is really an issue for those of us who are atheopagan or other non feist pagans. Naturalistic pagans, right? Because for folks that are entering our community from the atheistic side, all this imaginary stuff can be very uncomfortable.

Yucca: right.

Mark: You know, the we're looking for evidence, right?

We're, we're looking for proof that whatever it is that we're talking about actually exists or it's not worth talking about is the, the culture.

Yucca: assumption.

Mark: Many, many atheistic circles, and I'm here to say, first of all, it is worth talking about because it's core to the nature of humanity that we are these imagining creatures and there's a lot of value that we can have out of our.

Experiences and, and in our lives by cultivating imagination and using it appropriately to have experiences like in rituals.

Yucca: Right. so there's, it really is something that we can very consciously use, right? And it could be in a ritual, but it can also be there's, we, you know, we did an episode a few years back about bringing the magic into everyday.

Mark: Yeah. Enchanting the world.

Yucca: exactly. There we go. We'll, I'll put a link to that in the show notes.

Because that's definitely one of the ways that we can use imagination that really serves us right. When we're careful, when we're not careful. Sometimes our imagination can be harmful to us. Right? We imagine something that, you know, that that person is mad at us and they, they were just tired. Right? Or we imagine.

That the shadow, you know, when we're little, that those shadows are actually monsters that are gonna come and get us. But then we can also use it for okay, ritual. We can use it to bring a little bit of enchantment to our life. We can really enrich ourselves.

Mark: Yes. Yes. And so for those of us that are naturalistic pagans, a lot of what we're doing is walking this careful line. Where we're not falling over the edge into worlds of imagination and fantasy and thinking that they're real. And I know that there are gonna be people that are gonna be mad at me about saying that, but you know, the evidence at least would suggest that God's an instrumental magic and ghosts and spirits and stuff like that aren't

Yucca: realm of ferry or.

Mark: Yeah. That they aren't really. They're wonderful stories. And they're tremendous flights of imagination that we can work with, we can do cool things with. But they don't exist in the same sense that rock exists. And so here we are as naturalistic pagans, carefully walking that edge where we say, all right, we value evidence.

Right. We value what's provable. That said, we are the storytelling ape homos, right? Some wonderful anthropologist, I don't remember the name. Called us The Storytelling Ape

Yucca: I like that better than Sapien sap.

Mark: yeah, me too.

Yucca: Oh

Mark: Yeah, we're super wise, wise, twice.

Yucca: Yes. We're wise, wise, we're so wise. Really believe us. Seriously.

Mark: Judging by our works, maybe not so much. But we are definitely storytelling creatures and it is essential to the culture making of every society that we tell stories and that we have narratives that inform our values and our worldviews. So

Yucca: Well, and we even do that in science, right? That's how we understand. That's and it's just what, where are we getting the information for the story? But we're still telling it all the same and we're still putting in We're still putting in metaphor and poetry and things to help us understand and try and imagine what happened 13.8 billion years ago or something like that.

Mark: Right. Right. And we use. We often have used the cultural narratives that dominate our societies, especially in the past. You know, the Newtonian physics, for example. The kind of clockwork universe of everything, you know, working in, you know, neatly meshing little systems that all follow these laws. And a lot of that was true and useful.

But it turns out it was a little more complicated than.

Yucca: And we do that today when we talk about how our brains are wired, right? We talk about them as, and we talk about long-term short-term memory. You know, we talk about things as if they're computers now. So, and we're just taking those that. Narrative and, and applying it in a way that is useful. But as you're saying, it may not be completely accurate, but it serves the purpose.

And we do that with you wanna describe the motion of a ball through the air? Well, you're never gonna be able to actually perfectly describe it, but you can get close enough and that still serves a purpose,

Mark: right. A model is a story. Ultimately, a model is a, a narration of. Activity over time, which is what a story is. And so, you know, we, when, when we're talking about what we believe to be true, we use stories that are supported by evidence. But when we're talking about expressing our inner realities, our inner self, our personalities, When we're talking about developing culture or artistic expression, or working with our psychology to transform ourselves in some way, whether it's to transform our emotions or to heal our wounds, or to, you know, do any of those powerful things, the world of imagination and storytelling becomes this powerful.

Built-in system that is encoded into the way our human organisms are constructed that we can use to powerful effect.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: And that's what we believe as naturalistic pagans right now. It's a little bit different in the mainstream pagan community where all that stuff may be tossed together and you have people that believe that they're elves.

There's a lot of wishful think. In the mainstream pagan community, people who believe in things because they really want them to be true, which isn't a criterion that naturalistic pagans use for determining what we believe to be true.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: and I mean, there's pros and cons to that. I mean, there's, there can certainly be a lot of wonder and magic and enchantment and.

You know, fascination about believing in, you know, that kind of fantasy stuff. But I've also seen people really get on the wrong side of it with a lot of fear and paranoia about, you know, hexes and psychic attacks and stuff like that, that they need to do wards against. And, you know, it creates anxiety at the least.

And I've seen that actually cross over into real paranoia. You know, kind of textbook paranoia, including the the delusions of grandeur of thinking that somebody, that you're so important that somebody's gonna go to the trouble to try to hex you . But you know, if that's the world people wanna live in and that's, that's the way they decide that they want to navigate their life, then great.

More power to. It's just not the way we do it.

Yucca: Sounds exhausting to me. Person.

Mark: Yeah, so much. So much uncertainty. So much. Always, you know, there, there could always be something mysterious out there that's about to get ya. I, I wouldn't wanna live that way myself. So talking about imagination and we, we implement imagination in our rituals. Many of our rituals are, are keyed to stories, right? Like a healing ritual. Okay? This thing happened to me. I'm wounded by it. Or it embedded something in me. Right. You know, faith healers do that whole thing about removing things from the body.

Or traditional indigenous practitioners sometimes will remove darts or other sort of spirit things from the body in order to take the harm away from the patient. Right.

Yucca: Right. We can I share real quick an example of one that we did last night? We so we have a wood stove and we still chilly enough that we're using it. And so we took the log that was gonna go in and spat on it. So there was a particular emotion that we were trying to like release, and so we spat on it.

So it was something physically, visually coming from our body, and then we wrote on the wood what it was and put it into the fire. So that we could transform that into the heat that was going to support the family and take care of us during the winter. Right. And that was our story of we're taking this thing out of our body, putting it in and using it and transforming it into something else,

Mark: Sure, and and I would imagine that that felt great that it worked,

Yucca: At least for my part, I feel pretty good about it. ? Yeah.

Mark: Whereas if you are like, you know, an atheist coming brand new into our community, you might look at that and go, wow, that's super weird.

Yucca: Oh yeah. Go spit on some firewood. What are you doing

Mark: What are you doing? But the answer is what you're doing is you're working with your consciousness, you know, and.

You know, our consciousness works very well with metaphors and similes. It works very well with the concept of correspondences where, okay, I am going to establish a connection between myself and this piece of firewood by expelling something from myself that is inherent, that is of my body onto this firewood, which means that now we're connected, right?

And I'm gonna write a purpose, a goal, an outcome on the firewood. We're gonna put it in the fire to undergo a transformational process, which will radiate energy that I can feel, and that's going to cause a transformation in my psychology. That is actually a pretty logical story. It doesn't have evidential support in the way.

You know, the story of general Relativity has evidential support, but it has a coherence which can totally work with our, with, with the human mind. That makes a lot of sense to me.

Yucca: Yeah, you just accept your certain premises and then it all logically makes sense from.

Mark: mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. , and that's what we, oh, go ahead.

Yucca: what we do. Like when we watch a movie you were talking about earlier, we sit down to watch that movie. We go, okay, this is a movie in which there are dragons and magic, and there's the like, and we accept that there are dragons and therefore if there are dragons, oh well it would make sense that people would ride on their backs or whatever happens, right?

We just, it all makes sense based on those starting assumptions. But we're gonna make up some, we're gonna. In that case, I decided to imagine that there was a connection between me and that wood. Right. And I, there was a conscious choice to imagine that, but it still worked to imagine it. It still had the impact.

Right. Even though, okay. Yeah. Literal there. I'm not literally putting an emotion. An emotion isn't a thing that you can put on a piece of wood.

Mark: No, an emotion is, but an emotion is a psychological process. And psychological processes are real. They aren't real the way rocks are real, but they're real within the, the ongoing network of activity that's happening in our brains. Right.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: And. You know, this may be a whole other episode about what do we mean when we talk about what's real, right?

Because the imagined has a reality to it. It's just not, it, it's a, it's a belief reality rather than a factual reality that's there, there's a difference there. You know what I say to folks that are new to the podcast or new to our communities who are coming from atheistic scientific backgrounds you know, rational evidence-based perspectives on the world.

This is, this is the tricky, well, there are two things. There's, there are two, there are two tricky parts to get your mind around. The first one. That the use of these imagination tools can have real world impacts for yourself and your life. The second is getting comfortable with using them, because typically what happens is there's a critic voice in your head, which begins to yammer about how stupid it all is, and it really undermines.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Your your confidence in using these tools at first, but that voice can be worked with. We, we did an episode a while back on the critic voice that I really encourage people to go listen to.

Yucca: We'll link that in the notes as well.

Mark: Great, great. And over time and with experience, you will find that that voice fades and you become. Much more confident as a practitioner, as a magician, as a, whatever you want to call it.

As someone who uses these psychological tools to benefit themselves and to benefit others.

Yucca: Yeah. Frankly, I think that's pretty inspiring. I think that's a pretty kind of hopeful way of approaching.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I mean, as when I, when I stepped away from the Pagan community, after I had some really bad experiences it wasn't very long before I started realizing how impoverished my life had become because it lost all that inspiring stuff. It all of that, all of those practices, all of those rituals, all of those.

School witchy things, all of those psychological helps to myself had been removed and they, and they'd not only been removed from me, but they'd been removed from people that I used to do stuff with as well. So, it was good to realize that, that none of that was necessary. It was just a matter of kind of figuring out what your terms are.

Yucca: When you say none of that, you're referring to the

Mark: to the departure.

Yucca: okay.

Mark: Yeah, the, none of, none of that. Leaving it all behind was necessary. I had, I had thrown the baby out with the bathwater and what I needed to do was to go and recover the baby and, you know, dry off the bathwater,

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So, do we want to give some more examples of kind of differences between the, the imaginal and the

Yucca: Yeah. Well, I think, I mean when we talk about ritual, that's what we're doing. We're imagining,

Mark: mm-hmm.

Yucca: right? But what about, are there some places outside of ritual that you think that is helpful in.

Mark: I think there are lots of little techniques that people use that are kind of like mini rituals. You know, they may not go through a set of formal steps, but certainly affirmations, you know, those just, just simple messaging to yourself in encouraging ways. You know, whether it's before, like I have a job interview next week, I have two job interviews next week, in fact, and, you know, I will kind of psych myself up you know, before those meetings.

You know, I'm competent. I know what I'm doing, I'm likable, I'm happy. I'm you know, those things that will make me appealing as a job prospect. As a job candidate. I think there are lots of things that people do that are small that give them benefit. In my initial essay, I write about athletes with Lucky Jerseys or.

Yucca: TED bands or whatever.

Mark: Shoes or you know, a lucky way to tie their shoe laces or, you know, whatever those things are. And you can look at that, you know, from a strictly dry scientific standpoint and say, well that doesn't make any sense. You know, the way you tie your shoes is gonna make you run any faster. But studies, numerous studies have shown, actually it. Because it increases your level of confidence in your capacity

Yucca: Right.

Mark: and confidence is such a huge arbiter of success or failure.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: when you're talking about fractions of a second in speed, making the difference between somebody qualifying for the Olympics or not, every little bit matters.

Yucca: Yeah. Every fraction of a second. Cause that adds up. Mm.

Mark: So, yeah, I, I think there's lots of things that people do and they don't even really realize. Many of them don't even really realize that what they're doing is a, a use of imagination in order to give themselves a boost.

Yucca: Hmm. There's another one that I thought of while you were talking about that, and that's daydreaming. That's something that I think most of us do.

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: Some more to other than others, but that, that we're imagining, we're telling stories in our head, and I know for me that the, what narratives I'm telling when I'm daydreaming have a big impact on how I feel throughout the day. Right. If I do a day, if I'm daydreaming and I'm, you know, kind of doing it, something that's like an argument or a conflict or daydreaming about, you know, how am I gonna handle some disaster or something, I don't. Feel the same as when I'm daydreaming about something that feels a little bit more empowering or in which I'm behaving in my daydream in a, in a the way that I want to be.

And so there is a lot of influence we have in directing those daydreams to influence what it just feels like to be us as we're going through our day.

Mark: For sure. That's a great example. And actually, regular dreams, while sleeping can be very similar. I mean, how many times do we wake up feeling sad or anxious or happy or, you know, just depending on what the,

Yucca: What the dream

Mark: what the dream was. Yeah.

Yucca: That's a topic we should do soon. I don't think we've ever done a

Mark: When I'm dreaming. No, we haven't. We

Yucca: really do that.

Mark: We should. Yeah. Yeah, let's, let's write that down somewhere.

Yucca: Yeah. I think I could just cut you off there. What were you saying?

Mark: oh, I, I don't know. Nothing important. The,

I think that this topic right here, About differentiating between the imaginal and the literal and being able to walk the line that incorporates both so that your feet are on the ground in a realistic manner, and you're not spinning off into fantasies about stuff that may not exist, but at the same time plunging ourselves into the imaginal within.

Within a container that we choose to make changes and improve the quality of our lives. This is really the central operating principle of naturalistic paganism more, more than anything else, I think. Even reverence for the earth. I mean, reverence for the Earth is what makes us pagan as opposed to say Buddhist, you know, working with our psychology.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: But what differentiates us from mainstream paganism is this, I would say,

Yucca: Yeah. I see. It's a lot to think about

Mark: It is, it is. I, I was talking about this before we started recording. I wrote a blog post about cursing in hexes this last month, which you can find at atheopagan dot org.

Yucca: Mm-hmm. , we talked a little bit about it last episode too.

Mark: We did. Yeah. I, I think that's what inspired me to write the blog post. But this, this whole question of the imaginary versus the literal and factual comes up again and again and again. And it's definitely the friction point between, you know, literal theists and naturalists. And I think that some of that may have to do with some degree of misunderstanding about what the naturalistic position really is.

It's not that we're discounting all of those experiences. Those experiences are really valuable. It's just that we're not, we're not populating our cosmology with these. Figures that appear to arise from the imagination.

Yucca: Right. We're, we're framing our understanding of it in a very different way.

Mark: Yes.

Yucca: Yep.

Mark: So I encourage our listeners to kind of kick this around in your own heads and, you know, where, where does imagination play a role in your practice, in your. Kind of day-to-day operations. And where, where does a more evidence-based approach figure? The, because I think coming to be comfortable with this idea of kind of code switching between, between, you know, the world of imagination and fantasy and storytelling and.

Metaphor and symbol and myth, all of that incredibly rich, multiple worlds of amazing stuff, and yet remaining tethered to the ground in a, in a factual and evidentiary based way.

It. That's really kind of the core of the art in the naturalistic world, I think.

Yucca: Yeah. Well this has been a really interesting one. Thanks, mark.

Mark: Yeah. Thank you, Yucca. I think it's interesting too, and the, the more I think about it, the more interesting it gets . I, I love talking about this kind of thing, so thank you.

Yucca: Yeah, and we really appreciate all of you being here with us, and look forward to seeing you next week.

Mark: Yeah. Remember, you can always reach us at The Wonder Podcast Qs or the Wonder Podcast queues short for questions@gmail.com.

Yucca: Okay, see you next

Mark: you next week.

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Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com.

S4E9 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 it's time to talk about the Equinox.

Mark: Yes, we have arrived.

Yucca: Yep. So I think a good place to start is of course, well, what is this Equinox thing

Mark: right? Yeah, well, the, the, the, the Latin roots of the word of course mean equal night which implies what it is, which is that at the equator anyway.

Mm-hmm. , the days and the nights are equal, equal in length. They're both 12 hours long. Now, as you get further up in the latitudes, that changes a little bit, but by and large, the days are roughly the same length as the nights. Right at this point in the year. Yeah.

Yucca: And for both of us, we're in the Northern Hemisphere.

Mm-hmm. . So this is going into the spring for us. And on the calendars, the Equinox marks the first day of spring. . However, that's gonna really depend on your climate as to whether it's actually spring or not, right? So for you, it is, right? It's been

Mark: spring. It's been spring for a while. All the fruit trees are blooming.

The early wildflowers are up. The hills are all green. The creeks are all roaring with water because we've. Big banner, year for rain here in California, thankfully. Mm-hmm. . So yes, spring has been here for a while, and the February holiday, which has many names that I call River Rain really was a rain holiday this year.

So that was the beginning of our spring, right? This is the height of spring for us. But for you,

Yucca: It's, it's the time of year where it can't quite make up its mind, whether it's spring or winter, it feels like spring. Some of the time the, the bird songs have come, the spring bird songs are here, and that's what makes it really feel like spring, but, We won't have in terms of plant growth and things like that, that won't, we're still a ways out for that.

We won't be getting flowers. A few of. There aren't many deciduous trees here. A few of them you can start to see just the tiniest hints of maybe they're starting to wake up, make some little mm-hmm. thinking about moving in that direction. But it, it won't be past until past Beltane that we stop freezing every night.

Mm-hmm. it won't be till mid May. Really? Yeah. But it, it's feeling like spring is gonna be, . It's like we're almost there. There's more light. There's the birds starting to sing. The, the males are getting their colors back. Mm-hmm. , right? The ones that stay here in the winter of the, the songbirds that get very muted and dull in the winter.

which I think is a, just a way of protecting themselves. Sure. They don't, they're not needing to be mating, so it's better to blend in and be a little bit less visible to those coyotes and

Mark: fox. You don't wanna be dancing around wearing red feathers on top of snow. That's a bad strategy. Yeah. .

Yucca: So, but it, it definitely is starting to.

like spring is coming, but it's not quite there. Mm-hmm. . So

Mark: do you have the smell of spring yet?

Yucca: You know, spring doesn't have a really distinctive smell to me. Ah. Like it, there definitely are smells that are springy, but it's not like, you know, here we have like a very monsoon smell and there's a definitely a smell for winter, but, I don't think so. Not really.

Mark: Well here we have a lot of flowering trees and the chairing blossoms and the apple blossoms and things like that.

, they have a smell. Mm-hmm. and there's, so there's a particular distinctive and also a lot of people plant ornamentals like jasmine and things like that around here. So they're these really perfumey beautiful kind of spring. I

Yucca: love the smell of jasmine.

Mark: Yeah. It's So we have. You know, when you start to catch that perfume on the air, you realize, okay, you know, the, the year has started.

We are, we're definitely in the active cycle now of, of things going again. So why don't we talk a little bit about what the Equinox means to us, what we call it, what we associate with it? Mm-hmm. .

Yucca: Well, I usually use. Spring Equinox or first spring. And for us it's a time where there's, there's those themes of beginning and, and you know, new planting, although a lot of the planting won't come till later.

But some of the things will, will start planting, you know, if, if you want any tomatoes, they actually had to have been plant a couple weeks ago, frankly, to get them to really be ready. But this is a time that we. Often celebrate the birds because the birds are coming back. This is when the chickens, they lay some in the winter, but really it's not until the light starts to come back that they start laying again as much.

And it's a really a celebration of those of the birds and egg layers and, and things like that. Hmm.

Mark: Yeah. Nice. For me, it's it's about new beginnings and starting to move again. , you know, the, the earlier holidays in the year have been very much about sort of dreaming and planning and imagining, but now is when we start to actually take action.

Mm-hmm. , I mean, it's pouring down rain where I am right now, but you know, generally you, you, you can go outside now and have a pretty good chance of not getting rained on. And The, the soil is all wet, so it's easy to dig and, you know, for gardens and agriculture and things like that, it's just a time to get going.

But I also associate this time with the, the passage of the year from the dark half of the year into the light half of the year. Mm-hmm. . And so this transition point becomes the moment of balance. The point of balance, and one thing that I do on the equinoxes is think about the balances in my life.

not necessarily to make any changes in them, but just to kind of check in and see what I think about them. Mm-hmm. , how's my work life balance? How's my relationship, personal time, balance, you know, those sorts of things. And if I discover that there's something I'm unsatisfied with, then I take action to make something different.

Mm-hmm. .

Yucca: Yeah. That's beautiful. I think that's a really important thing that. for all times of the year, right. To be thinking about balance. Mm-hmm. . But I think it's helpful to have a specific time in which each that is dedicated to that, that's really about focusing on that. And I think that's the case with many of the things that we celebrate throughout the Wheel of the year.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I mean, that's one of the things that really attracted me to Paganism when I first got into it, is, okay, there's a moment for. Morning and grief. There's a moment, you know, for contemplating our mortality. There's a, a moment for celebrating sexuality. There's a moment for contemp as I celebrate it for celebrating children and celebrating older people and, you know, for celebrating decomposition and, you know, all the creatures that do that for us.

To me, , that's just such a reality based kind of a spiritual practice, right? Having that time in the year and Paganism isn't, isn't alone in that. I mean, one of the things that Paganism doesn't have the Judaism has, for example, is a Day of atonement. Mm-hmm. , where, you know, basically you're gonna try to square the accounts with everybody who you feel like you may have wronged.

And I can see a value in that. It hasn't really plugged into my wheel of the year, but I can see a value in it. Mm-hmm. . So, you know, I mean, I associate this time of year with a lot of the sort of traditional seasonal symbols like flowers and birds and eggs, colored eggs. Mm-hmm. , you know, those sorts of things.

But the deep meanings of it are, Moving into action, new beginnings, new hope, really, because, you know, there's that, that aspiration quality to starting a new cycle, right? You know, may maybe the crop will be really, really rich and we'll just have a great time next winter, right? And so I like doing those things like dying eggs and, you know, all.

kind of stuff. Mm-hmm. . I do associate this time of year as the children's holiday. Mm-hmm. , not little kids. Infants and toddlers are more like the February holiday sort of thing, but grade school kids. , you know, up to age 10, 11, something like that. Right.

Yucca: Like, like children before, not teenagers yet, right?

Not toddlers. There's really that, that time period that we think of as childhood.

Mark: Yes, yes. And so I think of this time as the time to celebrate those members of the community and also a time to let down our. Dignity and stiffness and play like a child, right? Play childlike games dance and sing , stuff like that.

It's good for you,

Yucca: I think it is. Yep. I like that. You have a moment in the year that is to connect with that and to focus on that. .

Mark: I won't claim that I'm super good at it because, you know, I tend to live in my head and my childhood was pretty unhappy, so I never really learned how to be a kid very well, but I'm trying to catch up.

Yucca: Hmm. . Yeah. We have, well, my life has little kids in it, so every day. Mm-hmm. every day is little kids day. Right. But we'll see as, as they grow. If that's something that we start to incorporate into this time of the year. Mm-hmm. . But for now, shoots and ladders is a weekly, is a weekly experience. Right. , and Candy Land more often.

Uhhuh, . So

Mark: yeah. Yeah. Those are actually the games that I own for playing at this time of year. Yep. And you. It's been a few years now because of Covid and other things, but when I've held gatherings around these themes and to play these games with adults, you would be amazed at how cutthroat adults can get at shoots and ladders.

I mean, Candyland is fully randomized, so. There's, there's no strategy involved, but shoots and ladders. Boy, . .

Yucca: Yeah. Hmm.

Mark: So, Yucca, what kinds of ritual things do you do at this time of year?

Yucca: Yeah, so for the holidays, . So I have a mixture of what do I do as my individual self and what do I do as the, my part is the family, right?

Mm-hmm. , because a lot of my role there is, you know, guiding these young people and their experience and taking care of them on that. So I, I make a point for the holidays to take some time for myself to. Reflection and, and that sort of thing. And kind of just a, a private ritual. But I don't have any, it, it's anything that's really settled in for me of this is what I do every year the way I do for mm-hmm.

like hollows or something like that. But this is a, just a very busy time of year for. When we're doing a lot of, of beginnings things like getting the seeds in the ground or swapping out the positions for, so we're on solar panels, so we have to go up and change the position of the panels and roll out the shade protection and you, you know, take down all of these different things.

We just make a point of being very mindful in doing those things, even though it's a busy time of year. Mm-hmm. , it's a, Hey, this is what we're doing and this is why we're doing it, and. taking moments to notice mm-hmm. , even in the busyness of it. And that's, that's a big part of what we're doing. And I think that that's something that we're always doing all year round, but it feels different now because it's a different time of the year and there's, there's an excitement element to it.

Mm-hmm. , which is something that I just notice about this time of year because there's so much that has been being planned. and now we can actually start doing a lot of those things. Or at least we're close to being able to do a lot of those things. Right.

Mark: The warm weather is coming. It's obvious that it's on its way.

Yeah. So you can start to anticipate things you can do in the summer. Right.

Yucca: Stuff like that. And there's things that I can go outside and do with just a sweater on. In some of the warm day because we really, we'll go back and forth in this time of year between, we'll have days that are in the thirties and then we'll have days in the fifties.

Mm-hmm. . Right. And so if we're in the fifties after a long winter, it's like, oh yeah, this is, this is summer. Mm-hmm. , you know, it's take all, everything off. But it just is so much easier to, to work outside, even if. Even if it's still a little bit chilly, it's. Feels very different than in the dead of winter.

So back in February, February and in January just absolutely bitter for us. Sure, sure. Just so, so bitter and now it's like, okay, no, I can, I can do stuff and you know, I can, the ground isn't totally solid. Yeah,

Mark: it's so hard. It's always hard and the sun isn't so weak. Yeah. I mean, to me that's the big thing about December, January is it's like the sun is so long and even when you're sitting in it in full sun, it's just this, this very mild sort of beat on your skin.

Whereas where you are in New Mexico in the summertime, it's like a hammer on your head. Step outside in August, it's like, boom, you've been hit by something.

Yucca: We get our, our temperatures are still quite mild because we're so high. I'm at 7,000 feet Uhhuh . But the UV is intense. Yeah, right. The sun is really, really intense because there's, you know, that's seven, that's 7,000 feet of atmosphere that's not there protecting you.

Right. So it's very, yeah. We can be out in the middle of the day where in the summer, You know, just don't be out in the middle of the day, even if it's only 85 or 90 degrees. Just don't be, be inside, wait until the morning or evening.

Mark: Yeah. You're, you're below what I call the siesta line . Yeah. Which extends all the way around the world actually, of, you know, when you get to a certain point of that intensity of the sun, it's like, no, from two o'clock to about six o'clock, we're just gonna take a break.

Yeah. We'll come back at it later on.

Yucca: Exactly. And so, you know, there's just that excitement of going into that time of year mm-hmm. , because in the winter it's really flipped. Right? We wanna do the most that we can in that time, um mm-hmm. , so it's almost like, it, it always feels like this little puzzle piece that fits together, the winter and the summer.

And this is, this is the beginning of the. of the light time of the year, of the bright time of the year. Mm-hmm. . So,

Mark: you know, it hadn't occurred to me before, but another thing that would, as you talk about that, a natural theme that comes up for this time of year for both of the Equinox is this integration.

Mm-hmm. , you know, the putting together of pieces in your life which is different from balance. You know, balance, you tend to have things that are relatively separate qualities. They have boundaries between them and you sort of adjust how much energy you're putting into one or another. Whereas integration, I mean, that can be all right.

I'm trying to bring my. internal field of study, more into conversations with my friends. Mm-hmm. , or I want to bring these two social circles together and see how they mesh. Or I want to

Yucca: practice a daily life. Yes.

Mark: Right? Yes. Yeah. So I, that just occurred to me, and I don't know, . I think there's something in that.

I'll have to think about it more.

Yucca: Yeah. So what about you for this time of year? Do you have particular rituals or practices that you like to do?

Mark: Well, other than, you know, the childlike games, I do like to dye eggs. Mm-hmm. , I just, that's a really, really old tradition that extends across continental Europe.

I don't think it ever got to. The British Isles or Ireland? I don't think you

Yucca: know, I don't know one way or the other, I just kind of always assumed it did. But I've never looked into that.

Mark: Maybe , but I know, I mean, the, the folks in Ukraine, you know, the, the, they have the funky eggs. Mm-hmm. that they do with that lost wax process are just magnificent.

I have a goose egg from Ukraine that's decorated that way and it's just beautiful. Mm-hmm. . But you know, this is the time when a lot of birds are laying eggs. And so, that was the first high concentration. protein source for people after a long winter for many centuries. So eggs were a pretty exciting prospect.

Yucca: Yeah. Oh, eggs are, eggs are wonderful. They're, they're one of my favorites. Mm-hmm. , I really like eggs. Yeah. Yeah.

Mark: The, so I, I like to dye eggs. Mm-hmm. , and. . I don't know. I've done different things in different years. What I would prefer to do, my idealized celebration is to get together with friends who have children mm-hmm.

you know, of, of those ages and just kind of build the day around them, play around them, make raspberry lemonade and other sort of non-alcoholic stuff for us to drink and. and just celebrate the season in that childlike, playful manner. Mm-hmm. , I've been able to pull that off a couple of times, but now in post covid, not recently.

Right.

Yucca: Well, as you were mentioning the eggs, it, I thought to bring up the Easter connection. Oh, mm-hmm. . So for us, I. I don't really think about the Equinox and Easter together. Like some of the other holidays are a little bit more closely tied, like, solstice and Christmas. Mm-hmm. right. Or Hollows and Halloween, but Easter.

So we don't usually dye eggs for the Equinox, but the kids will go to their grandmother's for Easter and then their other grandmother for Passover. So those, like, they happen at a similar time of the year, but because those are Looney Solar, , they move around. Mm-hmm. . Right? So it's not like it's right on the same day or right next, you know, the day next to it or something like that.

Right. And then we don't use the name O or what are some of the other, there's some other ones that are very similar sounding.

Mark: Well, there's one that's Ester, which was the Greek goddess of the dawn. Right. And all of. as far as I can tell, all of that stuff about o leading to Easter and all this.

As far as I can tell, it's modern and apocryphal. Mm-hmm. , I don't think any of it is really rooted in actual history. Mm-hmm. , but it doesn't really matter to me because not having kids I can get away with simply not paying attention to Easter at all. Yeah, it's just, I mean, usually I don't even remember that it's Easter weekend.

I'm just not aware of it in the

Yucca: least. Well, and honestly, I don't either. they just go with their dad to their grandmas and then they come back sugared up. And I do, actually, I mentioned this on the round table that will be published soon as. So on the YouTube channel, oh, we did a round table.

Yeah. Yeah. Just a tip for any parents out there, one of the things that we have started doing is to cut back on the just enormous amount of candy that is associated with that holiday. We're putting Legos inside of some of the Easter eggs so that they still get some candy so that they don't feel left out, but they're also not getting.

You know, a year's worth of candy in one day. And then they still get the cool thing as they get the Legos that they can put together and then that lasts them longer anyway. Still have the Legos for years. Whereas the candy, they'll just eat and feel sick. Right. Right. So that's just a little, the little tip for that.

Yeah,

Mark: it's a good idea. But that, you mean, you mean inside the plastic?

Yucca: Inside the plastic eggs, yeah. Yeah. So they'll, they'll die a few and, and paint them hard boiled eggs. Mm-hmm. , but. Then they'll also find some plastic eggs that, you know, we've saved the same little plastic eggs for every year.

They've had the same, the same little plastic eggs that have survived since their dad was a kid in the eighties. You know, so

Mark: Well. That's good. They're not in the landfill. That's, yeah, that's

Yucca: important. I mean, they, they will be eventually one day. That's what happens to, of course, plastic. But yeah. Yeah.

So there's, it's one of those holidays that is close enough to one of the the secular or Christian holidays. Christian holidays, yeah. Whereas other ones that we talk about sometimes, you know, there's not, like in August, there's not really a holiday that. ties in very well.

Mark: Not when the, the, the Catholics observe llamas.

Mm-hmm. . And that's a, that's a thing if you're an actively practicing Catholic. But

Yucca: well, depends on how, how, how actively practicing. Yeah. I suppose that's, it's different like levels of being a, of how involved you are with those holidays as a Catholic. Yeah. Yeah, because I come from, my community is very Catholic and that's, , that's not one of the ones.

Yeah. I mean, I'm sure that they say something about it at Mass, but you know, that's not really what happens in the community. So.

Mark: Yeah. I mean, I can't imagine there being a whole lot of hoop law at the beginning of August in New Mexico anyway, because it's.

Yucca: Well, we, we are in monsoons at that point.

Oh, that's true. Right. But that's not like the start of monsoons. It's a, again, it's a, my part is because New Mexico is huge, one has to remember That's true. There's, it's, if you're up in the high desert where I am versus the low desert, and then whether you, which, you know, side of the state you're on is very, very different.

Mm-hmm. . But it, it's, and I guess maybe it's just what you're used to, like, I don't think it's a very big deal. I guess if someone came to visit from one of the coasts, they might feel like it's particularly hot.

Mark: Well it depends. I mean, last summer we had a week where the daily temperature averaged something like 97 degrees.

Mm-hmm. and that included a couple of days that were over 110.

Yucca: Yeah. I can't remember a single time that my regions. Temperature down south. Neither can we, like that's a, a few times a year we, we go over a hundred, but that's it. Oh, I see. And it will be in, it will be in August. But again, it's just because we're so high up.

Right, right. I mean, we're higher, we're significantly higher than Denver, so. Mm-hmm. .

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So. In any case talking, we'll, we'll talk about the August before we know it. Yes, before we know it, we will be talking about the dimming holiday or summers waning or lusa or whatever you want to call it.

But for now it's the Spring Equinox coming right up. And we hope that you have gotten useful ideas out of our conversation here about this. . It is a very meaningful time and I've been to some very beautiful gatherings that have happened for this holiday in the past. It snowed one year.

Mm-hmm. , you know, it has often rained . This is in the mountains of Mendocino County, north of where I am. But we've always had a really joyous get together. . And I hope that our listeners do too, whether it's solitary or something that you do with your family and friends.

Yucca: Yep. And thanks for taking the time to join us here today.

And. , we really appreciate, appreciate all of you. We

Mark: do check out that round table on the u the YouTube channel. We're now posting stuff to the YouTube channel every week, and there's new stuff happening also last week. , I mentioned that it would've been great if we were able to have more presence on Instagram.

And two very wonderful, very qualified people immediately emailed me and said, Hey, I would like to do that. Yeah. So,

Yucca: It's Fanta it was amazing.

Mark: It, it was, we are so psyched about this ,

Yucca: And within hours of each other, It was like, right? Oh yeah.

Mark: It was boom. It was instantaneous. Yeah. So thank you to Tazi and Zoe for your your volunteering to do that and check out the atheopagan Instagram account.

We're we're posting stuff again. Yep.

Yucca: All right. So thanks everybody. Thank you,

Mark: mark. Thank you Yucca. We'll see you next week.

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Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com.

S4E8 TRANSCRIPT:----more----

Mark: Welcome back to the Wonders Science-Based Paganism. I'm your host, mark,

Yucca: And I'm Yucca,

Mark: and today we're talking about being a solitary practitioner of atheopagan or non theist naturalistic paganism.

Yucca: right. And. I think a, a really good place to start here is to start with, well, what does it mean to be solitary?

Mark: Right, because that's kind of a moving target, right? I mean, back in 1985, there were practitioners who literally only got information from books and. Had no connection with anybody else who was practicing. They were just kind of out there on their own. And there are still people that are out there on their own, but at least they have the o option of the internet to connect with people of like mind.

I like, oh, go ahead.

Yucca: of in, in many pagan groups, especially Wiccan groups the coven had a really important role and that now, you know, I wasn't around to remember this, but my understanding was that that was kind of the default assumption that people would be part of a coven or a group, and

Mark: Yeah, that's, that's how I remember it, was that there was an assumption that you would gather a, a group. who would be a ritual circle of some kind, whether it was organized as a wicked coven with, you know, the high priestess and high priest, and this sort of teaching model, which is very common in sort of tradition, traditional British witchcraft, garden witchcraft and Wicca generally, or it was a more egalitarian model where the circle or the coven was. Equal group of people who weren't there to be teaching people who would then calve off to create their own circles. They were just there to do rituals with one another. That's the kind of thing that I've been involved with for 32 years with the Dark Sun's Circle. We are just deeply connected family now who do rituals together and.

you know, we have no intention of hiding off people or teaching them to be priests or any of that kind of stuff. It's just, it's a different model. But I think that the point is that there's kind of a spectrum, right? You've got people that are really super alone and they're the only people they know that do this kind of practice at all.

And then you've got people on the other end who are fully engaged in social. Ritualizing and they don't do stuff on their own. They only do things with groups of people because that's what works for them.

Yucca: Right. And there's another element now that's very different than in the. Eighties or the nineties is that we've got this internet thing where, and media is very, very different now. I mean, there's things like this, like podcasts and there's social media groups and Reddit and Facebook and Discord and YouTube channels and all of that stuff that that just didn't exist.

and that really changes the ways that people can interact. And I think that changes the way that we, we look at these terms solitary and I guess on the, what would be the other side of the spectrum?

Mark: Communitarian communal, community oriented, something with a calm in it.

Yucca: Yeah but, but I think I really value what you've been saying about it being a spectrum because it, it's not just like a, you know, you're on your own or you're in a group, that it's, there's a whole range of how people can interact and how they see their practices and, and that's changing over time as what's going on in the world changes too.

Right. A lot of people Were doing a lot on their own during the shutdowns. Right.

Mark: Right,

Yucca: and yet many people were doing more with others. That's when we saw a lot of growth in the atheopagan community was during the time where people were searching for that connection and it, we figured out how to do stuff online that we would've never considered before.

Mark: right. Yeah, exactly. The other thing that the internet has done is it has caused an explosion of. Ways to do things. What I remember from the late eighties and early nineties was, well, there's a way to do things. You draw a circle and then you call the quarters and elements, and then you call the gods and then you do a working, and then you unravel all the things that you just did.

And you know, that kind of wicked structure was the structure.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: And. There was not very much, there was a lot less understanding of the nature of ritual and the, the subtle skills associated with ritual. Generally. I mean, when you look at early neo paganism, you're looking mostly at kind of white, middle class college educated people at that time and.

They had no idea of how to conduct rituals. They were just figuring it out and using the map that was presented to them with 40 years of additional ritual experience. Now we are well on into pe. There being people, a lot of people that have a lot of experience with creating ritual states and altering their state of consciousness through ritual activity and So there are a lot of different ways to do it. And now that we have the internet that can disperse that information, people are informed by a wide range of different things. It's not just Scott Cunningham's, you know, solo practitioner's Guide to Wicca.

Yucca: Yeah. And, and a much broader range of people involved as.

Mark: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I remember, Well, this has something to do with the community that I was in, which is part of the reason why I left it. But there were debates about, you know, whether gay people belonged in in these gender polarized rituals. Right?

Yucca: Where it was like every other, like male, female, male female and like the structure of the circle

Mark: Yeah, stuff like, stuff like that.

And, and it was like, I mean there was just this, this severe lack of consciousness about a lot of stuff. And as there has been better thinking about that, at least in the circles that I move in Obviously, you know, people have felt a lot more welcomed, right? Gay people feel more welcomed, neuro divergent people, disabled people people of color.

One hopes, and it's not that that is a solved problem by any means,

Yucca: Right? We

Mark: a long way to go, but at least in the circles that I'm moving in, in the Pagan community, there is. To move in a better direction. And that was not really true when I first engaged with there, there. And it wasn't that that people were bigots necessarily, they just were clueless.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: They didn't think about this stuff.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: So anyway, going back to solitary practitioner nurse what we have now is the situation. Simply with access to the books that are out there. And let's be honest, the number of books has exploded since, you know, since the publication of D of drawing down the moon and the spiral dance, which happened on the same day, Halloween of 1979. The number of available books on ritual and paganism has probably grown 10,000 fold at least.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: And what that means, and then there's the internet, right? So the, the, the faucet for information is the fire hopes. It's, it's endless. You will never collect all the information there is. These topics. So you have to pick and choose and you pick and choose what works for you and what appeals to your values and your sensibilities. And so the solitary practitioner of today, I think, is much better equipped in some ways to build their practice and and, and get a lot of different choices. Rather than just, oh, well, Scott says I should do this, so I'll do it.

Yucca: right? Yeah. So I, I mean, I find that very encouraging. I think that's, yeah, I think that's lovely and I think that there's more opportunity as well to to connect with community when it, where it works for you, and then step back into. Your own solitary practice and your own day-to-day daily practice.

Mark: Sure, sure. Because there, I mean there are some people who are very, very introverted and they may not want to engage with a group at all, or they may wanna go to a Hallows event at Halloween, the height of the witchy time, and that's kind of their hit of. Communal experience for the year. Right? Or maybe they go to a, a built-in mayday thing and a Hall saan thing,

Yucca: or participate in online discussions.

Mark: right?

Yucca: Maybe they're not doing ritual with other people, but they're discussing these ideas and you know, sharing the cool images that they have of their garden with the morning dew on it or something like that.

Mark: Yeah. Or their focus, their alter or you know, some piece of art that they created that's thematically along the lines of of what their practice is about. Yeah, all of those things are very true and I mean, obviously that's why we have the Ethiopia, pagan, Facebook, and Discord so that people have opportunities for those kinds of discussions and that kind of engagement. and the, the Zoom mixers that we have as well, so people can come together, see one another's faces and be in a space.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: And just because you do some of that doesn't mean you're not still basically a solitary If you, if you aren't meeting with a group of people that you do rituals with on a somewhat regular basis, even if it's only every two, three months, you're still basically in a solitary practice.

And so that's what we're talking about today. What's, what's useful for that kind of practice? What kind of approaches are helpful? What are some things to keep in mind?

Yucca: Right. So let's talk about, let's, we've got a lot of different directions to come at this, so let's talk about some of the possible topics. So I think a good one to start with is the daily practice. And that's one that we definitely have talked a lot about here on the podcast. But it's always worth coming back to

Mark: Yeah, because being a pagan, other than the fact that nobody can really define what that is, other than that it means, you know, that we self-identify as pagans. But being a Pagan is a, it's a state of being. It's not a. You know, it's not like you, you pay for your membership card once a year and now you're a pagan, like belonging to the aaa. It's about what we do. And so having a daily practice or a weekly practice or a monthly lunar cycle practice, something that's

Yucca: regular practice of some kind. Mm-hmm.

Mark: practice. Where you are acknowledging the passage of time and what that means to you and, and doing stuff in a ritualistic manner, which can be all kinds of things.

I mean, it can be everything from kind of formally working in an alter focused sort of setting. With tools and symbols and elements in order to bring yourself into a contemplative flow sense of, of mind in order to transform your consciousness. Or it can be planting seeds under the full moon in your garden because that's meaningful to you and it's how you would like things to grow.

You know, and saying a little chant over them or implanting a, a figure or a symbol next to them to give them sort of a magical quality, right? The range of options is really broad but you, but you really need to have, so,

Yucca: Right, and I, I think a good place to start with that would be what? Really observing and thinking about what your goals are, right? What are you trying to achieve with your daily practice or your regular, whatever your practice is. So that's going to influence what particular practices you'd actually do based on what it is that you're trying to achieve.

Mark: Right, and I think it's fair to say that there aren't really any. Off limits goals for a practice like that. If your goal is, I want to feel witchy,

Yucca: Awesome. Right?

Mark: awesome. That, that, that is totally cool. Great.

Yucca: I'm on board there with you. Yeah. Right.

Mark: your cauldron out and light some candles and burn some incense and do the thing. I like that a lot.

I enjoy it. It's very ple. And when I'm in that state, I find I can transform myself in ways that are really powerful. So go for it. That's great. If your focus is primarily around self-healing or around growth or around philosophical contemplation of big questions like. What am I doing here and what's the universe for?

And that kind of stuff. All of those totally lend themselves to a

Yucca: you get through, get through a a day that, you know is, is really busy. Right.

Mark: Yeah. Assembling, assembling skills that help you in times like that and practicing them.

Yucca: Right. And it can also, you know, the skills that help you be a better, whatever your profession is, or a better student or a better parent, or whatever it is that you are, that matters to you. It's, it's about you and your life. Not, you know. Does Mark and Yucca prove of it? Does it match their life, right?

Like,

Mark: right.

Yucca: yeah. Or, you know, God's sitting on clouds in a heavenly throne or anything like that,

Mark: Right, because remember, everything that we're talking about is within the context of a naturalistic framework to paganism. So we don't believe in the supernatural stuff.

Yucca: right?

Mark: We believe in the psychological stuff, but not in the supernatural stuff.

Yucca: right. This is all, these are tools that we're choosing to use in order to live the kind of life that we want to live. and each person decides for themselves what that life is. Yeah. And it's not like if you make a different choice than someone else, that you're a bad pagan or a good pagan.

That's, that's just not part of the framework that we're operating with.

Mark: Oh, this actually brings up a, an interesting and controversial topic, which is hexing.

Yucca: Ah.

Mark: The reason that I don't do that is because I don't want to be a vindictive person.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: I don't want to be the kind of person that that lusts for revenge,

Yucca: right?

Mark: and that's why I don't. You know, wish harm on people. For one thing, my understanding as a naturalistic pagan is that my wishing harm on them isn't harming them at all. It's, it's harming me, but it's not harming them.

Yucca: that's my experience too. The more I dwell on it, the more I just feel bad about the whole thing.

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: Right. And you know, wishing harm on someone else. I think that when I am doing what we might call magic in, in quotes, is really changing how I. So if I am, if I'm texting or cursing or somebody, I think I'm just doing that.

To me, I don't think I'm doing it to them doing it to me.

Mark: Yeah. That that is. That is my experience of it. The reason that I mentioned this is that, you know, we talk about how, what motivates you to have a practice can be many different things. Well, within Paganism generally, there are some people who just lust for power. You know, they want supernatural power and they like to play around with supernatural power that they believe they have.

So it, it helps them to feel powerful to do, you know, what they think of as hexes on other people curses. Right. Now I don't believe that any of that stuff works, so I just want to keep in mind that everything that we say here is about a naturalistic science, consistent reality-based. Practice. So when you think about, you know, what are you in this for?

If you just want to feel witchy and powerful, that's great. Don't hurt yourself with it.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: You know, it, it's, it's a good rule for life. Don't hurt yourself.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: We, we try teaching that to kids when they're really young to, you know, that hurts. Don't.

Yucca: Yeah. So. How about staying motivated?

Mark: Yeah, that is a big one. Yeah, because and that, that dovetails with that whole issue of the critic voice, the internal voice that says, this is stupid. You're making an idiot out of yourself. You know, none of this has any effect. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Which can sap your motivation. You know, and there's another voice right behind it that is the sort of defeatist voice, which is, oh, what's the use?

Yucca: right.

Mark: Well, the use is, it, it adds sparkle to your life, right? It adds color and magic to your experience of daily living to do these things.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: That has intrinsic value. It's not, it's not extraneous and it's not self-indulgent. It helps you to be a happier, wiser, more together person, and all of those things are important.

Yucca: Yeah. and you're building skills, those things that you're choosing to focus on every time you are doing them, you're, you're building your ability in that. And even if you miss, right, oops, oops, I forgot I missed it yesterday. Oh, I missed it for a whole week. Right. You can always just do it again.

Just start again. Right.

Mark: We learn things through trial and error and. The things that are hardest to learn, we have the most errors while we're in the process of learning them. Right? Hard stuff to learn takes practice. So if you wanna have a daily practice and you've got it planned out for one thing, make sure you're biting off as much as you can.

Chew at a. So maybe an hour of grand opera ritualizing every day is not the thing.

Yucca: You wanna work towards that, great. Right. But if you're, if you're starting that from, you've done nothing. Regularly and you're trying to build that into being a habit, it's a lot to to jump into. Right? So we're not saying if that's something that you wanna do to not do it, but think about whether that's a realistic thing for you, where you're at right now.

Mark: Right.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: But if you, if you construct a daily practice for yourself where simply lighting a candle or two, or, and maybe saying some words counts as your daily practice, you can always add more stuff in later,

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: right? But the fact of doing it on a daily basis, becomes really important.

Yucca: right.

Mark: and what will happen is your understanding of yourself as a practitioner will strengthen as you do that, because that critic voice that says, ah, you're just kidding yourself.

You're, you're, you're not a, you're, you're not a witch. You're a, you're an idiot. Yeah. That voice. That is gonna inherently get weaker and weaker when you can look back on six months of, no, I do this every day and I pay attention to the turning of the seasons and the faces of the moon, and I'm aware of my interstate and I, I navigate that interstate and I use psychological tools in order to ground and calm and get myself through difficult situations. I, I am a practitioner. I, I am a pagan, I am an atheopagan or a naturalistic pagan. And so that voice that says that you're faking, it gets weaker over time, and that's the way that you wear it down until after a while it just shuts up. I don't get that anymore. I go, I go to my focus and I, you know, start to do ritual stuff and I don't get that.

That voice at all anymore, but it took a long time to get there.

Yucca: Right. And we did do, it's been a couple years now, but we did do a whole episode on dealing with the critic voice.

Mark: Yes,

Yucca: so certainly it's still a presence in my life. Not for ritual. Something that I'm very confident in with ritual, but other places it's still, it's there, right? It's something that, that we all deal with, so, yeah.

Mark: And that's, I mean, to be honest, that's part of the journey. It is. That is just part of the journey of life. And when I look at where I was 20 years ago, that voice was stronger than it is now. And that means I'm steadily chewing away at it getting, you know, getting better. And it, I. In many senses, just getting better is kind of the point of living, isn't it?

Ex having wonderful experiences and getting to be a better and better person.

Yucca: Yeah.

what about ritual for the solitary.

Mark: Yeah. This is something I haven't really written about on the blog. , but I think about writing about it on the blog now and then because, you know, in the, in the atheopagan book and on the blog I presented a, a five part, well, six part really structure for a ritual, right? Starting with preparation, which is the sixth.

So preparation, arrival. Qualities, working, gratitude benediction.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: Those are those, those six pieces. But when you're working and, and those work very well for structuring group rituals it's not, as I always say, it is not the only structure that works. It's just a structure that works. So if you're getting started, it's something that's reliable, but you can always improvise and.

In different directions, depending on what you feel

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: when you're working with yourself and you don't need to kind of coordinate a bunch of people's experience together, you can be a lot more fluid.

Yucca: Right. You can pivot and go in a different direction than you were going to do. And you know, you can suddenly stop talking or stop singing and just sit if that's what you need, or get up and dance or do something different than what was planned. But when you're reading, when you're leading a ritual for.

10 other people, that doesn't always work. Right, because you're considering their experience as well as your own experience.

Mark: Right. You have to consider where you can take them with you when you're leading a group ritual, but when you're by yourself. Whatever your impulse is, is where you can go. Right? So if it's picking up a deck of Terro cards and doing a quick three card reading, or if it's, as you say, you know, breaking into dance or breaking into song, or grabbing a pen and a pad of paper and scribbling down a poem or ideas or. Or even what the, the critic voice is saying to you at this moment so that you can get it out and get it onto paper and then crumble it up and throw it in the trash. Whatever that is. Over time as you become a more practiced practitioner, you'll learn to follow your instincts on this and. Really rich, rewarding, personally tailored rituals that follow exactly what you need to do.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: And they may last three minutes, they may last two hours.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: Just depends on what you need and what you want to do. Sometimes I just like to kind of marinate in the magical world in the the witchy feeling. I just, I like to be in that. I like to contemplate the, the things on my focus that remind me of that light candles in my room and look around at my witchy space and go, yeah, this is really a cool place to be.

I like this. Other times I just wanna call any anxiety I have about going forward. In the day and do that real quick and then move on with my day.

Yucca: Right, and I wanna assure people who are just getting into ritual that, that, even if it doesn't come, Naturally or quickly at first. It is, it is a skill that can be built. And so it, when you're first starting out, y you might not feel comfortable yet just changing the plan and going with the feel and just adapting.

And that's okay, right? You just, it's okay if what you need to do in the beginning is work with a particular structure. Everybody. There isn't an end goal that everybody's going towards, that we're all moving towards. It's gonna be a very different journey to different places for different people.

So you can, if you hear somebody describing something like you hear Mark or me talking about our experiences with ritual and you're not feeling that same thing, that's not a failing on your part. , right? Like you just have a different experience and over time you're gonna build different experiences and, and skillsets.

Mark: Right, right. And, and bear in mind, an awful lot of the schools and practices of pagan ritual or religious ritual generally, honestly, are about helping you. To go into that ritual state of inner calm and focus and presence. And so use them right light incense. Read a poem that takes you into a particular vibe.

That's where you want to go. You know, be in candlelight because it's a lot more conducive than electrical light. As you become more practiced, you may find that simply stepping in front of your focus and contemplating the things there allows you to kind of downshift into the ritual state because you're so accustomed to going there and you're so accustomed to having that experience in that spot, right?

But that's something you learn to do. The incense.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: why they use it in, you know, Catholic churches, in orthodox churches.

Yucca: All across the world.

Mark: yeah, all over the world. There's there's reasons why things like dragon's, blood, and sandalwood were among the most valuable commodities that were transported all over the world during the Middle Ages, well, all over the Eastern Hemisphere during the Middle Ages because they had that psychological impact on people. So, you know, avail yourself of those kinds of tools. Music put on music that helps you feel a particular way that, that, you know, kind of connects you into your body and gives you a feeling of your animal nature and the power of that. There are, there are so many sensory things you can do. One of the things that I do sometimes that helps me is I'll have a glass of wine, just one, but it's enough to sort of lessen my inhibitions, quiet that critic voice, and make it possible for me then to go into my thing,

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: whatever that thing might happen to be.

Honestly, it, it's just about, and, and the reason that I choose wine rather than some other kind of alcohol is that, first of all, when you drink a glass of wine, you know exactly what you're getting. I mean, it, they vary from like 11% to 14% alcohol, which is not that big a variation. You, you, it's a pretty carefully titrated dose, right.

But the other reason is that red wine is so explosively delicious in, in all those different flavorful ways. There's just a way that sipping a good red wine makes me go, oh, life is good

Yucca: you find the thing that works for you, right? Yeah, I'm not a wine person. That's, that's why I, I chuckle at that because I appreciate your appreciation of it, but I have a very, very different experience when I drink it.

Mark: I think I would have to move away from where I live, if I didn't like wine. Because it, it's all that we grow around here. I mean, we grow some apples most of which end up cider actually. But generally it's, it's one country. So you were saying.

Yucca: I love the idea of it, but I just, I just don't like it.

Mark: have you had good wine?

Yucca: I've had wine that people have claimed is good when they've given it to

Mark: Ah, well

Yucca: but I don't, I

Mark: didn't like it. Okay.

Yucca: don't particularly, you know,

Mark: Well, the definition of good wine is wine that you like. So you've, you know, however,

Yucca: haven't,

Mark: However cheap it is, however, you know, disrespectful It is. If you like it, it's good. I, I do not truck with the snobbiness around wine.

Yucca: That's a whole world. That's

Mark: it, it is and it's, it's everywhere where I live and and it's pretty annoying to be honest.

the the self importance that people can get around rotten grape juice.

Yucca: Yeah. Well, and it's certainly. . You know, I think it, it goes without saying, but we're certainly not saying that you need to have any sort of substance to help you with a ritual or something like that. But, but that this, this is one particular tool, right? This is, and, you know, find that, again, find the tool that's gonna be the thing that, or the things that help you, right.

Mark: You can have a similar taste experience maybe with a, a perfect peach or a couple of dark chocolate chips, you know, the same kind of that,

Yucca: cup of thick broth or something

Mark: right? Yeah. Something that gives you that, that deep sense. You know that your body is being nourished and you are. Your senses are being pleased just by the simple fact of existence in doing this thing.

There's, there's just so much to be said for that. And there's a reason why pagans are thought of as being hedonistic. Because we embrace pleasure, we embrace joy,

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: And, you know, joy can be a portal into a ritual.

Yucca: Mm-hmm. . Yeah.

So what else? Anything else that you wanna touch on? For solitary

Mark: I, I'd like to say a little bit more about, I mean, we, we talked about kind of unstructured ritual time. I really want to encourage people that are primarily solitary practitioners or who are just. Building a daily practice or a, a regular practice create that environment

Yucca: Hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mark: you see in your mind as being the magical place. You know, do that. If, if you don't have a, a space, a personal space right now that enables you to do that, see what you can do about fixing it up to make it more that.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: I know, you know, some folks are in the broom closet and they don't wanna reveal that they have a practice to other people around them.

And that's fine. And I totally respect that. Maybe you have some things that you can take out and set around the room when you do your ritual

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: that will help communicate that vibe.

Yucca: right? Or a. Right. If a journaling book or, or even something like a picture book that has just that feeling to it, right? That the artwork has, that particular feel that you're going for, looking for you know, there's a lot, a lot to do.

Mark: Right. You mentioned a journal and that's a really useful thing for a lot of solitary practitioners is capturing. What they did ritually,

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: you know, whether it's tore readings or whether it's just lighting, some candles or anything that feels like it was special or different, you know, keep it, keep a a, a nice leather bound, cool looking magical book and write the dates in and, and capture that stuff because if you do that for a long time, you'll find that when you, when you skip.

And look at your earlier entries, you've evolved.

Yucca: Yes.

Mark: You, you will have changed things that used to feel kind of hokey to you or like they weren't really working, are now really effective. And they, they, they feel effortless. So,

Yucca: you found this new thing through that process that you know you found the thing that really helps you just enter that state, you know, right away or something.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. And of course, as we always say, pay attention and keep going. That's, that's the way to a, a richly lived life. And it's, it is the pagan life, I believe. Pay attention. Know what's going on in the world around, you know, what's going on in the world inside of you and keep going.

Yucca: Mm-hmm. . Yeah.

Mark: So I'm really glad we did this episode Yucca, because we did another one a few years ago about solitary practice, but I feel like there really was a lot more to say. And I know that so many, especially new practitioners who join our community through the pod, through hearing the podcast or hearing about it from someone else and joining the Facebook or Discord communities or seeing a YouTube video in many cases it's kind of mystifying.

They, they almost feel like they need permiss. You know, to do ritual stuff, you don't need permission to do ritual stuff. You can do it all on your own, but if you need it, you have mine.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: You have my permission to gather what cool stuff is to you, whatever that means. I know what cool stuff is to me around yourself and start doing ritual behavior.

It'll feel good and it's a starting.

Yucca: Right. And it really. It opens up so many doors, right? So many possibilities and, and as such a tool when we really need it in life, and having practiced it. When you practice, then when you really, when the time comes that you actually need the skill, you've got it right?

Mark: And I think, I mean, that, that is true in the ultimate sense. Like when we're dying,

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: I have a feeling that having learned to navigate my inner world and, you know, calm or disregard or overcome or whatever the, you know, the demonn voices that we all have within us,

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: I have a feeling that when I'm dying, it's gonna be kind of an. Road, I, I, I don't have to be terrified. I don't have to be filled with remorse. I mean, there are a lot of, there are a lot of experiences that people have in their last moments that I think could be pretty terrible.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: And. I, I think that becoming familiar with working with your own psychology is a means to easing that process.

Yucca: Yeah,

Mark: I can't prove it It's

Yucca: It's, it's a, it's a feeling you got.

Mark: yeah, it's a, it's a supposition.

Yucca: Well, I hope you're right on that.

Mark: I hope I am too, but I hope I don't find out for a long time.

Yucca: Yeah. . And in the meantime, it's what we got every day, right?

Mark: every day, every beautiful day.

Yucca: Yeah. Well, thanks, mark.

Mark: Thank you, Yucca. It is always so great to talk with you.

Yucca: Likewise, and we'll see you all next week.

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Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com.

The Library: https://theapsocietyorg.wordpress.com/library/

S4E7 TRANSCRIPT:----more----

Yucca: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-Based Paganism. I'm your host, Yucca.

Mark: and I mark.

Yucca: And today we have an interview with a member of the atheopagan Society Council, Robin.

Robin: Hello. Thanks for.

Yucca: So Robin, we were just saying right before hitting record, we realized you are the first interview that we ever had on the podcast. So way back in the early days, you came and joined us, and so we've got you back again. So welcome. So even before the atheopagan Society formed, I think.

Robin: I think so. I, I think it may have been pre pandemic or early pandemic, so, but wild, amazing times,

Yucca: Yeah, So welcome back. We're really excited to have.

Robin: Thank you.

Mark: Yeah. So, well, let's just dive right in. Why don't you tell us something about yourself and your journey to getting to atheopagan and within it. Just kind of what, what's your story been there, Robin?

Robin: Yeah. So I grew up, my family is kind of like nominally Catholic. But I realized pretty early on that that was just like not gonna be for me and decided. I was an atheist. But so like nature and going out into nature always played a really big role in my life. We were lucky enough to have this like little patch of woods at the back of our yard that it was technically our neighbors, but they didn't care that we played back there.

And so we just spent hours and hours playing in the woods. and my grandfather was really big into birding and he took us out looking for looking for birds. And then later on we got involved in like Boy Scouts, girl Scouts, me and my brother. And our parents decided to get involved too and volunteer with them.

So we just went camping a lot and spent a lot of time outside. And so I really just always had that connection to nature and. One day in high school I walked into homeroom and my best friend was reading this book about Wicca. It was Anne Mara's Green Witchcraft, and I was intrigued. And I think some of that was just like, you know, it's like the forbidden thing, , like I'm willing to admit that it was, part of, it was just that like, Ooh, witchcraft.

Mark: Great. When you're a teenager,

Robin: Exactly. Yeah. And. The other things that really appealed to me was that it was based in nature in the seasons and cycles of the seasons, and it was also very feminist, which coming from a Catholic background was just so refreshing. And so, I spent a couple years off and on kind of trying to be the stereotypical pagan.

ultimately, that didn't really work for me either. And so I kind of went back to being nothing or being atheist again. But occasionally I would feel this like desire to, you know, light a candle meaningful in, at a meaningful moment or I, I ended up just kind of feeling like, like I wasn't pagan, I wasn't fitting in.

But I also felt like a really bad atheist, so my, my cognitive dissonance was pretty high. So, and it finally just came to a head for me and I realized like I really wanted this sense of spirituality but one that would still balance with science. So I. For some reason decided the best way to figure this out was to start a blog and start blogging about it. And then I took a quiz on Beliefnet and they were like, Hey, you're a, you're a secular humanist.

And I said, cool. What is that? I had no idea what it was. What like secular, like I knew humanism from studying history, but I didn't know what a secular human witness was and didn't take very long. I started googling like humanist, pagan, and kind of stumbled onto this community, and it was, it was such a great moment.

Just like the sense of joy and relief, finding that like I wasn't the only person thinking like this.

Mark: Hmm.

Robin: So it was, it was incredible finding that. And another thing that has been really amazing being part of this community is you get to see people kind of having that experience again and again being like, oh my gosh, I'm not the only one.

So, yeah, that's, that's the slightly longer version.

Mark: Well that's wonderful. Yeah. We, we do have an awful lot of people who they, they find themselves in our community and they're like, oh, wow. I found my people. This is, this is cool. I thought I was gonna be all alone in this.

Robin: Yeah, and I think that was kind of why I was like, I guess I'll start a blog. Maybe other people will be interested, but realized pretty quickly like I didn't need to, so,

Mark: You know, the, the same thing happened to me. I. I went through this whole process and wrote a 40 page essay and did all this research and came to all these conclusions and threw it up on the internet, and, and, and I had been looking for stuff and my research skills were just apparently terrible. Because there were people already doing this, you know, the, the Humanistic Paganism blog and people like Anya Orga and Daniel Strain and John Cleveland, host and John Halsted.

They were all, you know, well along on the same thinking. And I just blew it.

Robin: Yeah, well we don't make it easy cuz it's, it's under all these different terms. Like you might find us. By going through like humanistic paganism or atheist and paganism or witchcraft. Like there's so many different terms. So,

Mark: Yeah, it's.

Robin: yeah.

So I think another thing that had a lot of influence on me was being able, growing up, even though we weren't religious, we were still part of these really tight-knit communities, and I. Really enjoyed that and kind of ended up pursu, like I found myself looking for communities like that to join.

And I think my parents set a really good example for me because they were always kind of involved with volunteering and different community projects. A lot of times through like scouts. I did a stint in AmeriCorps with the Student Conservation Association, where we, we basically lived in a commune doing for like a year, doing all these different community service projects.

And then my early career was in environmental education and that gave me a lot of opportunities to be in those kind of communities and roles. And then later I shifted to libraries, which is also a community service kind of role. So, yeah.

Yucca: And that's something that you have brought with you into the atheopagan community.

Robin: I, I hope so. Yeah. I very much want this to be not just. I want it to be a community not just like a group of people, but for people to really feel like they belong and they are a part of it. And that, you know, it's not just like these people on high deciding, deciding like, this is how we live and this is what our practices are.

It's, you know, I can contribute something to this. I can decide what is important to me and make that part of my practice. So I hope, I really hope to see that.

Mark: Well, you've been great. Identifying resource, and I'm sure that that's this library background. Identifying resources, bringing things forward. You know, Hey, have you thought about this? Hey, look at what these people over here are doing. Hey, look at these children's books that, you know, espouse our values.

And you know, all of us come from different backgrounds and people are in different situations. You know, Yucca has kids, for example. I don't have. So, you know, Yucca would be looking for resources for her kids books, right? And, you know, videos and whatever it is. And I think that that's what builds a community is when you have stuff that works for a lot of different kinds of people and they can all come together around.

Robin: Yeah, and I think especially talking about books like it, it's amazing. Like I started looking for, at one point I said like, Hey, let me see what kind of children's books I can find that. Reflect the values that somebody in this community might be interested in. And what amazed me was how many I found and how many there are out there.

And I think part of it is that we think about the things that little children are kind of learning and a lot of these books are focused on things like nature and learning about seasons, but they're also really focused on wonder. And that's something that Athe, paganism kind of has in common is that we kind of take this child like wonder at the world and a lot of children's books do the same thing.

And so like sometimes I feel like reading a really good children's book is kind of like doing a ritual. Like when I think of. I like, I love Bird Baylor her books. And so like, to me, like reading the community or the table where rich people sit is, it's like doing a ritual. So I think there's so many opportunities in children's books that I feel like they're this like un unsung resource for us.

Mark: Yeah, and there's all kinds of other things that are very contemporary that are coming out in children's books now. There's stuff around consent and body autonomy. There's stuff around gender. . There's, I mean, obviously, you know, probably the parents that most need to be providing those books to their kids are the ones who aren't, but at least they're out there.

At least those, those stories are being told.

Robin: Yeah, and the idea too is for them to be, you know, as a librarian.

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Robin: Is for them to be available. Like if somebody wants them, they are there for them. But nobody, nobody forces you to take a book home from the library. It's not like an assigned reading. So they're there for people who want it. Sometimes it's interesting because publishing ta a book takes so long as I'm sure you have learned writing a book right now.

Yeah. It takes so long. And so books, even children's book publishing, it tends to be like a year or two behind the trends. So we'll be talking about You know, about, maybe about five years ago there was this big trend of like, we need to see more people of color in children's books. There's hardly any. And now it's kind of catching up and, and there's a lot all at once. So, hopefully we'll see those trends continue. So

Mark: Yeah. I, I have a friend who published a children's book called I Did Something Good For the Earth Today.

Robin: Oh, cute. I'll check it out.

Mark: yeah, it's, it's a sweet little book. It's the illustrations that take forever. I mean, To be honest, I think it's a lot easier to pound out a lot of words than it is to get, you know, all that artwork done page after page, after page for a children's book.

So

Robin: Yeah, and when you think about editing

Mark: time.

Robin: picture versus editing, a line of text takes a lot longer too.

Mark: Right, exactly.

Robin: Yeah. So now that I've gotten those completely off topic Yeah. But I, I, I will talk about children's books until I'm, until I'm blue in the face. Cause I love it. So, yeah. Oh, so another thing, then I just move on to history.

Mark: Sure.

Yucca: Yeah, absolutely.

Robin: So studying history in college was, had a really big impact on me too early on. And I think, like, I've always loved history and I think that was again, like another part of it that drew me into paganism.

But the community I grew up in wasn't super diverse. So when I went, I ended up going to school at the University of Toledo and it was so much more diverse than the community that I grew up in. And that was an amazing opportunity. But, and then at the same time, I was learning a lot more and focusing on the history and learning learning about the injustices that our society is built on.

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Robin: That really is what put me on this path to appreciating diversity and social justice and like, it's, it's just impossible to ignore when you study history long enough and deep enough. So that had a big impact on me. And another thing that I learned from all of this, so I. Became really fascinated by a field called public history.

And this is studying the way that history kind of plays out or gets fixed in popular culture. So we spent a lot of time studying. We started studied museums and sculptures and like, what does history look like in cinema and what does that have to say about like, what stories do we fixate to tell on about.

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Robin: And it, it just gave me this understanding that like history is not just this like fixed narrative, like this happened in the past and then this happened. It's the study of history is as much about the stories that we tell about what happened. And it's fascinating because the past becomes this, like, it's almost like this mythical thing and we will project our own. Fascinations and insecurities onto this to tell us like what this all meant and it's, I see this a lot in the Pagan community or in Paganism where, you know, you take something like the Druids, like we don't honestly historically know that much about the Druids. We don't have a lot of, we don't have any written records from dues themselves.

We just have accounts from outside. But because it's rich in, in symbolism, we just kind of project whatever we wanna see onto that based on the very little bit of evidence that we have. And so that always just kind of fascinated me and it, it really forced me to take a look at Paganism as a whole and really kind of made me skeptical about the community for a while cuz I would see so many people like spouting things about the burning time without fact checking it. And it, it made me more critical, which I was always kind of like leaning towards that.

But yeah.

Mark: Yeah. I, I really share that. I mean, you know, I, I spent so many years in the Pagan community. I spent like, You know, 27 years or something in the Pagan community kind of playing along and trying not to roll my eyes at certain stuff, like, you know, the, the, the deity stuff, but particularly the take on history, you know, with the, you know, the.

The sweet goddess worshiping rural agrarian who, you know, lived in perfect paradisical harmony with one another in nature. And then were trampled by the terrible bronze wielding, you know, horse riding kurgans. I mean, it was just, it was so obviously a fable and I mean, there are, there are bits of truth in it.

Like any good myth, you know, it's, Pieces of stuff that's accurate, but and where it's pointing is very positive. You know, the empowerment of women, yay. Good. But the story itself when it becomes an article of faith just really, really drove me crazy.

Robin: Yeah, and I'm slowly working my way through Ronald Hutton's triumph of the Moon and. Fascinating cuz he's a historian and he talks about sort of the roots of neo paganism. And one thing that fascinated me was that he talked about, you know, for a long time whenever people talked about classicism, it was always Jupiter or Zeus in the Greek pantheon that people focused on.

But it wasn't until like the romantics popped up and all of a sudden the focus was on pan. And that idea of like this divine feminism kind of like lost goddess kind of took hold too. And it's, it's fascinating the way those narratives about the past can constantly change based on. What's going on in the modern world?

In this case it was, you know, like the growth of industrialization kind of drove this shift to, well, we're not so much interested in, in, in Jupiter and Jov, we're more interested in like the wildness of Pan.

Mark: Right. Yeah. Yeah, I love that book. And there are pagans who hate it a lot. There are people that are very, very angry with Hutton for, for one thing, for really documenting that there was no unbroken lineage of witchcraft from down through the misty

Yucca: That grandmother gave to grandmother and yeah.

Mark: Which doesn't mean that there aren't family folklore traditions, I mean there clearly are.

But the idea that they go back to the paleolithic or something is just a little bit stretched.

Robin: Yeah. And I think if, if your, your belief system is so built on, you know, poking a few holes in a myth is suddenly gonna make the whole thing unravel. You need to re rethink it. Like the, it's good to rethink it. So,

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Yes, indeed. Well, why don't we change the subject a little bit. You serve on the atheopagan Society Council in fact, you were one of the founding members of the atheopagan Society Council. What do you see as your role there and what are you trying to accomplish For the community?

Robin: Yeah. So I hope I at least have been able to, I feel like I have drawn. A lot on my experience in communities and kind of building communities. I also really hope that I have brought a commit commitment to equity and inclusion. You know, I'm not by any measure a perfect ally. I come with a lot of privilege and it's. The work of a lifetime to really unravel and understand that privilege. But I hope that I'm at least making some progress there. And I've the other thing is like I do, I've done a lot of projects for the commu the community. I'm great at coming up with ideas. I'm less great at keeping those projects going all of the time.

But I hope that the projects that I've, I've done and, and the things that I've done are giving people chances not to just like, like I don't want them to just kind of be given like, here's, you know, here's our beliefs, here's what you need to do. I, I hope that I'm giving people opportunities to really consider what their beliefs are and what.

they want their practice to look like and then share with others what that looks like. So like, I'm trying to think of all the projects I've done. I did, I think the first thing I ever did was I did a weekly tarot share where it would just be like a random card and everybody say like, this is what I see.

This is how I interpret it. That one has actually managed, that's like the one project that's managed to keep going. It's changed cans a couple times, but still going. So, I don't think the person, I don't know if the person who's running it wants to be named, so I won't, I won't name them, but yeah.

Yeah. I did for a little while, I was doing a non theist pagan photo share, which is always a mouthful. We need to rebrand that, but, The idea was I wanted, It was focused a lot on Instagram, so I wanted other people who weren't necessarily identifying as atheopagan to maybe feel like they could participate, which is why it has such a weird name.

But yeah, the idea was we, I, I love the like witchy photo challenges on Instagram where they give you like a day. Usually they go for a month and every day you have a different theme. And so that was the idea. We had a different theme based around non theist, paganism and if anybody wants to take that up, it it was a lot of fun and it wasn't that hard to run.

So if you want to take that up and do that again, I'd be so excited.

Mark: I would be so excited if there were somebody in our community that. Wanted to be a point person for Instagram. I mean, we, we do have an account technically, but it hasn't been posted to in forever. It would, that would just be really cool.

Robin: Yeah. Yeah, there's, I mean, there's so much, there's a lot of fun things you can do with Instagram. So, I also Ryan or ran with Tom, the not, or we had an L G B T Q discussion group, which kind of took a hiatus and then we had an affinity group form, so we kind of put it into their, into their hands.

We have a, or had a book club. It's kind of on HI hiatus right now or try to figure out how to bring that back. And then I run the Ohio atheopagan group. So

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Robin: yeah, there's. For me, I kind of have to like, like the thing is I'm great at coming up with ideas. I kind of have to pump the brakes a little bit because we are in some ways growing so fast that I don't wanna like throw too much out there without knowing that it can be sustained.

So,

Mark: that's a conversation we're really having a lot right now. You know, about getting some infrastructure up underneath all this stuff that's already grown. You know, rather than putting a huge focus on growth over the course of the next couple of years, you know, just sort of building all the scaffolding

Yucca: and making sure we don't get burnout because this is all volunteer. So, you know, making sure our attention isn't into too many places or too much all at once.

Mark: I was surprised that you didn't mention the library for the Ethiopian Society website. That was a big project you

Robin: It was that is another one that's kind of on hiatus right now. Yeah. I'd love for me, and I work in a library, so keep in mind I'm biased here, but for me, libraries have always been this kind of like magical, almost sacred place, like these like halls of knowledge. I. Contractually obligated to now pour one out for the Library of Alexandria as I

Yucca: Right.

Robin: So, you know, to me, I would love to see I mean like a physical library is probably not gonna be an atheopagan. Pagan physical library's not gonna be in the cards for. A very long time, if ever, but that doesn't mean that we can't have resources in place to go if we want to learn something new.

And this the thing. Another remarkable thing about this community is that there's so many people who are so curious and creative that I'd love to have a place where they can just say like, I wanna learn about this. I wanna learn about meditation, or I wanna learn about you know, ancient history, or I wanna learn about evolution.

And sort of that like, tale of life coming into being. and then having a place where they can do that in different ways and as many formats as they want. So, yeah, the idea is to kind of, the idea at least initially was to build a library with resources that people submit and say like, Hey, this is something that I found interesting and helpful on my journey.

And then we'll kind of put it together in one place so people can find it. It's been a little bit humbling cuz I was like, I'm a librarian. I could figure out how to make a website that does that. And it turns out that's really much harder than than I, I thought initially going into it was gonna be so I am humbled

But yeah, it's something I'd still love to see happen. And I'm kind of waiting to again see like what, like this is something I think that the community needs because it's really special to me. I love and I'm kind of waiting, engaging as we do some strategic planning to figure out like, okay, does this actually fulfill a need that we have in this moment or is that ener energy best spent on something else?

So, yeah, bit of a hiatus, but hopefully someday it is my dream.

Mark: is some very cool stuff there though. So if you haven't gone to v ap society.org and clicked on library there's a long list. There's downloadable resources, there's There's like an ex Excel sheet that will point you in a lot of different directions. There's a link to our Good Reads shelf, that's this huge collection of books that have been submitted by the community.

There's community resources, there's ritual resources. So, there's a lot of stuff there, even though, I mean, it doesn't have the most wizbang interface in the world but it's still pretty.

Robin: you did a great job plugging that. Thank you.

Yucca: Well, speaking of the future what is your vision for atheopagan his future?

Robin: You know, right now I, I would love to see our in-person communities growing. I think especially after the pandemic, like so many people. , we ended up losing communities that we had just because we couldn't physically be there for a while. And you know, like sometimes in your life you leave communities or you know, little circles that you've been in, you have to leave them for some reason or other, but it just happened all at once for so many of us where, you know, now we wanna go back to these places or back to seeing the people we did before and they've all at once, like they've moved away or So, especially with that upheaval, I think I just feel like we're ready for like that in-person connection again.

I, I worry sometimes though that y because we have members who aren't necessarily able to mix that way. Like, I don't see Or sorry, we, we have members who, you know, for, they have disabilities or things that make them high risk so that they aren't able yet to go back to in person. But I, I hope that those who are ready and and willing to do that can have an opportunity to do so safely.

Yeah. And I think long-term, having more local groups is just gonna be more sustainable. Like I loved coming to Century to see all of you, but in some ways for sustainability of the Earth, it just makes sense to have more local communities so that you don't have to fly halfway across the country to be part of a community.

So I hope. Yeah, so I hope we see more in-person communities and I'm gonna do, we're gonna do a gathering at the, for the Ohio atheopagan soon in, in March. And yeah, I'm so excited. I didn't, we did one several months ago but I hope. I'm kind of hoping to like turn the ideas or Ohio Athe, pagans should know.

I'm probably gonna be like, try and turn them into Guinea pigs to see if, like I can create something fun to do that we could recreate someplace else. So,

Mark: Any. Resources like that that you have that would be useful to affinity groups, really welcome you to submit those and get those out into the community. I know that a lot of affinity groups are sort of, they're flailing a little bit about, you know, how do I do this? How do I find people what do we do, you know, if we do a get together, you know, well, what do we do during our get together?

Robin: Yeah. And three years ago it would've been like, oh, just go to, you know, go to Starbucks, go to Panera, hang out and talk. And we. Like, some of our members aren't ready for that yet. And so looking, I'm trying to find other options that isn't like, you know, hang out in a cafe and take your mask off. It's more like, so what we're we're doing in the March gathering is we're gonna make journals.

So, I'm just gonna bring stuff and we're, we'll make some journals. I went down this rabbit hole about book finding, so, yeah, hopefully something cool comes out of it.

Yucca: Is March warm enough in your part of the world to be outside or it'll be indoors with masks? Yeah.

Robin: we're, we're meeting at a library, which if you're looking for like a free place to meet, Check out your local library. Some libraries have meeting rooms that you can book. As long as the library's not using it for a program they're usually happy to to let you book them. So, check that out.

In community centers yeah, but March in Ohio, it may be 70 degrees out and it may be snowing. We have no snowing until approximately five minutes before the time. What, which one it will be.

Yucca: Right

Robin: Yeah, which I remember New Mexico being kind of like that in March too. So.

Yucca: Absolutely. Yes.

Mark: Comes in like a lion or comes in like a lamb, as they say.

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah, that's a, I mean, I, I think that's a particularly rich and fruitful vein for us to, to, to mine in, in developing the Ethiopia Pagan community because, I mean, ultimately, Paganism, the earth orientation of Paganism is very local, right?

It's really, really place based. And so, you know, developing your own traditions for your own local area that are about your own climate cycle, your own landmarks, your own biota that are there. I mean, I just, I have this very rosy sort of picture. Little knots of atheopagan all over the world, you know, kind of working up their own ritual cycles and traditions and it's, it's very heartwarming when I think about it.

Robin: Yeah, and I love that focus too. On, on. Ecosystems cuz like you, I can't help but notice you have a background. Your background is like mountains with lupus in it, which is a very spring-like thing in California. But here it's like, like we aren't gonna see those spring flowers until April if we're lucky

So

Mark: right.

Robin: yeah, I mean, I remember snowstorms on May 1st. Happy melting. Aren't you glad Springs here?

Mark: Yeah, it could be worse. Could be raining. I have danced a may pole in the pouring rain. people were just like, they're not taking our may pole away from us.

Yucca: Slosh, slosh,

Mark: Yeah, exactly. And I had a terrible cold afterwards and the whole thing was pretty miserable, but we danced the May pole that year,

Robin: That's great.

Mark: so, Robin, are there other topics you'd like to talk about? Things, important things for the community or you know, kind of suggestions of things we could do with a podcast or, you know, any of that kind of stuff. I don't mean to put you on the spot, but.

Robin: Number one, I would love to come on and talk about, I could do like six episodes on children's books. I wouldn't

Yucca: should definitely do that.

Robin: That's probably a lot. But I would love to come on and talk about children's books and some of my favorite children's books cuz like I said, I can talk, talk about 'em for a long time and there's just so much rich art and poetry in them that I think I think we need to appreciate some more.

So yeah, I'd love to talk about that. Maybe, hopefully we'll get to relaunch that library and I can come and talk about just library resources too. So, yeah, and yeah, like I said, like I, I have ideas. I don't wanna just like start spouting him off because I don't know how much is going to be realistic.

But yeah,

Mark: Yeah, there's a, oh, I'm sorry. Go

Robin: Oh, I, I just hope we have more good things to come.

Mark: Oh, I'm sure of it. I'm sure of it. The, I was gonna say, You know, I've worked in the nonprofit sector for a really long time, and there is a thing that happens with young organizations where they can actually die by opportunity. They just get stretched in so many different directions by all the opportunities and ideas that get tossed in the hopper, and they lose focus and they just kind of fall. And we, we really need to be careful about that because there is a lot of wonderful stuff we could be doing. I mean, at the Sun Retreat we had a suggestion to create resources for starting campus chapters, like on college campuses or even high schools. I think it's a fantastic idea and I definitely think it's on the back burner.

It's something we shouldn't talk about for the next three years.

Robin: Yeah. Well, and, and that's not to say that we. At least make some movement towards that. Like, you know, I don't see cuz like I'm, I'm not a college student, I probably am not gonna be able to go out and create a campus chapter of atheopagan. But there are already existing lots of. Of colleges have Pagan student organizations.

Maybe the middle ground there is we say, Hey, well, you know, I volunteer. I will come out to your Pagan campus organization meeting and give you a presentation about atheopagan. So, like there's, there is like, there is a way to scale it back if that's something that we're interested in doing, but don't necessarily have the resources to do 100%.

Mark: Right, right. Yeah. We would need to create sort of a packet about how you set up your group and but then what I like about your suggestion is that most people live in an area where there are only a few colleges. So they would only be making a handful of presentations instead of managing a program, like a national program of college chapters.

Robin: Yeah. And, and I think it gives, you know, if there are people in those college groups that already exist, an opportunity just to know that atheopagan is an option. Like you don't have to be like deity based in order to be pagan and. And like, even if they don't go on to create their own atheopagan college organization they still have those resources and, and that knowledge and that can be really empowering.

Mark: Yeah, and it helps to build open-mindedness in the new, in an upcoming generation of Pagans too. You know, because one of the things that non theist pagans have experienced in some parts of paganism is real pushback from theistic pagans who are kind of threatened by the idea of people not believing in their gods.

And I think exposing people to these ideas can help them to become more comfortable with just as an option, as another, another possible way for people to be.

Robin: Yeah. Well, and I think you did were you the one who wrote a blog post saying that like, atheopagan, or I'm sorry, humanistic paganism was like the number three blog now, or

Mark: that was actually John c Cleland host over on the naturalistic paganism blog. Yeah. That it's kind of amazing. I don't know how they calculate this, but there it is.

Robin: Yeah. And it, I'm gonna make a bold prediction, and I, I might be wrong, but I do think that, and I, I experienced a little bit of that early on, but I, it's just become less and less common now. Like I started, I, I have like a TikTok where I occasionally talk about Ethiopia, paganism, and it's like, by no means like an official Ethiopia, pagan thing, but I was expecting like somebody to be like, you can't be this.

And I, I've gotten nothing but positive comments on it or people saying, oh my gosh, I didn't know this was a thing. This is great. So I, I'm just gonna make a bold prediction and say that I think I hope will be a problem in the past,

Yucca: Yeah.

Robin: I, it's a really actually interesting question to think about. What would, like, what will the Gen Z pagans be like? That could be , that could be a whole podcast episode,

Mark: Oh yeah. Yeah. Cause I mean, it's interesting. What I have seen is that an awful lot of the kind of boomer, gen X pagans, they have kids who are now grown who are not practicing. A lot of them are, are not continuing in paganism, and some of that may be because of experiences that they had as kids at Pagan festivals.

Either being ignored or uncomfortable, I don't know, but kind of a thing.

Robin: One thing that gives me so much hope about Gen Z and these young generations is they're so diverse. They're exposed way more to different ideas than I ever was as a kid and that older generations. So that is what gives me the most hope like they are. They are very much they have a lot of what's the word I'm looking for?

Cultural. They, they have a lot of cultural competency and they have a lot more perspectives and ask access to more perspectives than we did growing up. And so, and they care. Like they, they, they're very active and they gimme a lot of.

Mark: Me too. The, the amount of care that I see young people taking with making sure to properly gender one another and, you know, to, to try to draw diverse people into their circles of friends. It's, it's so different than it was when I was a kid. And it, it may very well be that what we're seeing is not that paganism is being abandoned, it's that the last generation's paganism is being abandoned.

And that's a very different thing because I mean, I do see a lot of spontaneous ritual creation going on. I mean, the. Which thing is very much alive and well. But maybe it's not, you know, descended from Gerald Gardner and, you know, traditional in that way, which is fine.

Robin: and there's, I mean, there's things, if we look back, Joe Gardner, I mean, there were things then that were problematic and

Mark: Oh yeah.

Robin: I, I hope that they're going to create a craft that That reflects more modern values

Mark: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Well, that's certainly what we're trying to do. You know, that's, that's why we have the principles and it's why we have ongoing conversations about to be the best people we can.

Yucca: I think it's exciting. It's, there's been so much change in just the last few years, so.

Mark: Yeah. And the inevitable backlash, of course,

Yucca: No, that's how it goes.

Mark: yeah. But backlashes don't last. They, and they generally don't win. So,

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: I mean, the only, the only one that I can think of that has won successfully, is now under siege for women who refuse to wear hijabs. So, in Iran

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: I mean the, the Iranian revolution was definitely a backlash to western colonization of Iran.

But now they're having a backlash to the backlash, and hopefully they're gonna modernize. I would hope.

Robin: Yeah, it's just because like sometimes we look at these efforts as like, this is doomed. Like, you are not going to win this fight to resegregate the the us us. But to me, I mean, I worry though that just because something is doomed doesn't mean that it isn't going to cause harm as it happens.

Mark: Sure it's gonna hurt people. It is hurting people, and we have to be really aware of that and do what we can to minimize that.

Robin: Yeah.

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: Well, Robin, it has been wonderful talking with you and we are definitely gonna have you back to talk about children's books. I can envision a series now on atheopagan Parenting.

Robin: Yeah, I do not volunteer to talk about parenting because I do not have children. I love children. I do not have children. But I will happily always talk about literacy and books. So we should do it.

Yucca: and I, I think the books would be wonderful for parents, but as you were talking about, children's books aren't just for children. , right? There's so much, you know, I read a lot of children's books cuz I have kids, but I have my favorites that I'm like, don't you wanna read this one? I'll just put this one on the top of the pile.

And frankly, if I didn't have them, I'd probably still be wanting to read those, the kids books, even without kids, because there's, I mean, sometimes the art is amazing and you know, there's just so much. So I hope that that would be valuable too to our listeners who aren't parents or don't have. Younger people in their lives.

Robin: Yeah, and I will say as from a librarian perspec librarian's perspective, like just because a book is written more with the parents in mind doesn't like, just because it's a book that the parents love a lot and the kids are like, oh, whatever. Kids enjoy spending time with adults and they learn from having books read to them and they in, they like, the thing is they will laugh because you're laughing or they will think something's funny because you're la you're, you think it's funny and that quality time with your kid.

As long as the book's not completely going over their head it it, it's gonna benefit them. They are gonna learn from that and they're gonna learn to love reading and they're gonna learn to love books and learn to be curious about the world. So like, I give, like one of the books I give out a lot and recommend a lot.

I, I recommend it because the parents think it's funny. Like kids are like, yeah, it's cool. I like it. But the parents are the ones who are laughing at the inside jokes. And that's the book is mother Bruce by Ryan Higgins. So like, and it's to, it's about a, a grumpy bear who mostly likes to make recipes that he found on the internet.

And parents always laugh at that part. And then kids see them laugh and laugh.

Yucca: I'm gonna write that one down. I have not heard that mother Bruce.

Robin: short version. it's cute. And then there's, there's this like whole mistake and identity thing and it's hilarious. And it's hilarious to parents. Kids think it's funny, but parents think it's really funny.

So, short story. Don't feel like just because it's a book that you, that is kind of more aimed at you doesn't mean that your kids aren't getting something out of it. So,

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: Yep. Well, Robin, thank you so much.

Robin: You are welcome. Thank you for having me. Thank you for, I hope I didn't ramble too much,

Yucca: Oh, this was fantastic. I think a lot of great stuff. Yeah. Thank you.

Mark: Yeah.

Robin: thanks.

Yucca: All right, well, we'll see everybody next week. Thanks so much.

Robin: Have a good evening.

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Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com.

S4E6 TRANSCRIPT:----more----

Yucca: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-Based Paganism.

I'm one of your host Yucca.

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

Yucca: And today we are excited to have a very special interview. So we have Rana joining us.

Rana: Hi. Thank you for having.

Mark: Welcome Rana. Rana is a member of the atheopagan community and serves on the atheopagan Society Council. And we are, this is part of our series to help people in the community to become. A little bit more familiar with who's serving on the council and you know what their vision is for the future and all that good kind of stuff.

So we're delighted to be able to talk with you today, Ron.

Rana: Thank you for having me. I'm really looking forward.

Yucca: Yeah. Thanks for coming on. So I think, I mean, maybe a, a good place to start here would be with what brought you to atheism.

Rana: Yeah, so I was raised without religion and I never really related to when people talked about God or religion or having a faith. I didn't really have a reference for what that meant. My parents are not religious, and I remember them, you know, having negative views of religion due to hypocrisy and news scandals and stuff like that.

I'd been to a few churches as a kid for weddings and events, but I never really felt like I fit in there, didn't feel like it was something for me, and just didn't understand it really. And on top of, you know, Being the child of an immigrant from the UK and an immigrant from Iran, there have been a lot of places and times in my life that I felt like I didn't fit in, and religion just definitely felt like one of them where I accepted that I just, I don't understand this, it doesn't apply to me.

And I mostly felt okay about that. Many years later, I discovered the term atheist, and for a long time I have felt apathetic towards Philosoph. Phyla, sorry. Philosophical and theological debates about the existence of God or not, because it feels like it just doesn't matter to me. Bio. I like that term atheist, like an apathetic atheist.

I was really drawn to the paranormal as a child and I watched a lot of stuff related to that. I'm sure I saw a segment somewhere about witchcraft or Wicca or paganism, and I'm sure that embedded itself somewhere in my mind. , I was definitely drawn to witchcraft as a team. Many team girls seem to be, I've noticed, and it made me feel seen in a certain way and had a really big appeal for me that I couldn't quite put my finger on, but it just felt like something that I liked. Now that I'm older, I can see it a little bit differently that I think it's about power and autonomy. It's about discovering yourself, your body, your sexuality, how you process feelings, you know, getting into the psychological aspect of it. And so I only ever did things on a very casual, solitary basis, and I think I liked the sensory aspects more than the frameworks themselves.

I really enjoyed going to my local new age store, and I felt, I remember feeling really calm and curious when I was there. It just, it always felt like such an experience with the smell of incense and the gentle bells and calming music and being surrounded by books. It was just perfect for an introvert, shy, like kid like.

and it also felt like a place full of this esoteric knowledge, and I've been a very eager, lifelong learner. So the whole thing just really appealed to. , but I also feel like I spent a lot of those younger years searching and never quite finding whatever it was I was looking for. I never became involved with any other people or groups, and I always just remained on my own.

And in retrospect, I'm kind of glad about that just because I've heard so many mixed and negative experiences about folks getting involved in groups, especially as a young person. So, . You know, it's hard to say what it would've been like if I didn't get involved with the group, but that was just how it went. I spent quite a bit of my twenties being out of touch with anything spiritual. I held onto some interest in ghosts in a vague sense of paranormal, and I just kept this agnostic take on it. But perhaps there are things out there we don't yet understand, but I can't say for sure either way. What is the ultimate answer, ultimate truth.

Yucca: Hmm.

Rana: I slowly became a more skeptical thinker, and I had one particular partner who really modeled that for me, and I'm very grateful to have adopted that mindset over the years. He was also an atheist as a rejection of a Christian upbringing, and I noticed a lot of my friends had a similar path. as I continued to grow and really just broaden my perspective of the world, I became very existential and got a starker, for lack of a better word, materialist picture of the universe, and that really strongly has defined my worldview.

Going forward, I realized I was an atheist and I felt an overall sense of clarity about that. Like it didn't feel like a bad thing to me. It, I felt good about it. But I didn't know any atheist spaces where I felt like I belonged or felt comfortable. It always felt like there was a larger interest in being angry and logical tends to be very male dominated, and there was just.

Felt like more debating than a feeling of building a community or building shared meaning together. I, I never quite saw anything like that happening. Many years passed, and then at the beginning of the pandemic, I sort of had a reckoning where I realized how important critical thinking and rational thought are to me. There was a driving force behind it with all the pseudoscience and conspiracy theories that were going around. The uncertainty of that time also brought witchcraft to the forefront as a trend again, and got me thinking about it a little bit more. And I started following some content creators. But I have a hard time trying to make that separation of just ignoring the things that I don't connect with.

And you know, like discussion of d d isn't magic for me. , it's, it's not very interesting to me,

Yucca: Right.

Rana: and I found myself searching for ways to learn the taro. Without the supernatural aspect, and I didn't even know what to call that. I remember googling secular tarot, and I think I found one blog and it didn't seem to have a lot of content, and so I thought that just wasn't a thing.

I actually started to wonder if I should make it a thing . I was like, is nobody doing this

Yucca: mm-hmm.

Rana: because I, I feel like I'd heard of the tarot being a psychological. Like having a psychological aspect to it. And I wanted to learn more as using it as a psychological tool and not for divination. I started joining some witchy subreddits and I eventually found the SaaS witches subreddit, which was forgetting what it stands for, all of a

Mark: Skeptical, atheistic agnostic and science seeking witches, I, I think is what that stands for.

Rana: Yeah, that's right. And I remembered seeing either a post or a comment about atheopagan and the name itself made me pause, like, whoa, I've never seen those two words together. What does that mean? So I looked into it and I saw that there was. The community and I joined the Facebook group and I was just really blown away to have both of these things that I was interested in suddenly crystallize and come together in this singular idea, which also had a whole community attached to it.

It really never occurred to me that these two parts of myself could coexist together. . And since it was the beginning of the pandemic, it was also a very particular time

Yucca: right.

Rana: And, you know, I remember challenging myself to just go to one of the mixers, peck it out, and I distinctly remember having a feeling of familiarity and feeling like I was in the right place.

It's a little hard to describe. But it's not something I feel too often. So it was notable. And you know, those video chats really became a very meaningful part of my routine, especially in the earlier parts of the pandemic where there was a lot of uncertainty and fear and a need to really process what was happening with other people.

And so I was really grateful to be able to do that. Like-minded folks who were grounded and rational and but also had warmth and just a sense of comradery. So, you know, overall finding the community was just this really big and refreshing change for me that gave me access to a community as an atheist and let me, Have my witchy interests, but stay aligned with science, logic, and reason, while also keeping the warmth of wonder and humanity, and I have yet to find that in another space.

Yucca: Hmm.

Mark: Well, that's wonderful. I, I'm, I'm always excited to hear the stories of, you know, how people found us and what it seemed like when they got here. Yeah. That, I mean, from the, from that first mixer, it was really clear to me, you know, oh yeah, this is one of ours. .

Yucca: Yeah. So were there certain values that. that you saw that atheopagan had or the community had that really attracted you to it?

Or, you know, what, what was it specifically that really pulled you in?

Rana: Yeah, I know I mentioned like rational and critical thinking a little bit. I really respect the group's commitment to doing better and not doing things out of the name of tradition. I really love the social justice aspect of the group that everyone is on board with that, and I really appreciate that.

I've seen a lot of healthy communication. Positive healthy debate and also good conflict resolution and having that modeled for me and framed in a way that we're all learning and growing together. So having a little grace with each other, you know, cuz none of us are perfect. I also really value that it's a larger social space where our conversations start from having a shared world. like that isn't necessarily safe to assume from a lot of other spaces and sometimes I do forget that. I love that we're encouraged to question everything and overall there's this sense of a desire for knowledge and I love learning and hearing the things that other people are learning about and sharing.

Cuz a lot of the times it's something I would've never encountered on my own.

Yucca: Mm. Mm-hmm.

Rana: I also very much value it being a space to be vulnerable. You know, along with atheist and agnostic people, often not having a shared space with minded others and forming a connection. . I think there's a real lack of spaces to be vulnerable just in general.

And a place to share life's highs and lows with people who share your worldview. And you know, plenty of people find this through friendship, myself included. But I think it's different to have a larger community based on this. A community feels like a space where you're exposed to people you may not otherwise have a friendship or other connection. and I think those other connections are really valuable to expose us to the wider variety of people out in the world and subsequently their interests and knowledge. You know, like I said previously, I've seen. and felt a lot of vulnerability within the Ethiopia Pagan group, and I find that really meaningful to have a space to share and process things with others, knowing that they won't judge you and they may even have resources or similar experiences to share.

I love that Ethiopianism. Specifically death and pleasure, positive space. That feels really important to me since death and sex are fundamental parts of the human experience. And again, I just feel like we lack healthy spaces to process thoughts and feelings about that. And it feels like we're.

Pushing back against the over culture, you know, like we've, we've talked about before, just this overarching, the overarching social norms, especially of the US and we're just doing our best to live our values and also modeling another way of living. I've also seen how religious groups tend to give people a connection to community.

and I've always kind of envied that as a non-religious person, it felt like something I didn't have access to. And I see how those communities sometimes really bring someone through a time of need. And you know, I think there's, thinking ahead a little bit, there's also a sense of vulnerability that comes with.

I've noticed people become more religious as they age, and it gives them that connection and support from other people. But I also see this larger epidemic of loneliness in this country, and I think that can become worse frankly, as you age and especially. The people I know tend to not be having children, myself included.

So for myself, I'm the only child of immigrants who is not having children, and it feels really important for me to establish chosen family and meaningful social circles around me

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Rana: ensure that I have that community around me as I continue aging. And I really want to be part of that support for other people as well.

Yucca: Hmm. That's really beautiful.

Mark: yeah. That's wonderful.

Rana: Thank you.

Mark: So. Yeah. I mean there's, there's just, there's so much there that you're, what you're expressing is a reflection of what I really hope for, for this community. You know, what, what I want it to be. And it's not that I don't think that it is, it's that, you know, being in the middle of it, I, I can't necessarily trust my own perceptions.

So it's very validating, you know, to hear you reflect that back. You're, you're serving on the atheopagan Society Council now have been since last summer, and you have some other volunteer roles in the community as well. What do you see as your roles for the community?

Rana: So, first I wanna say I was really honored to be asked to be on the council. I didn't. And I honestly didn't really understand what the council was until we talked about it more, and I got a pic, a better picture of what it means to be as a registered religious organization and what that entails. I decided to join because I wanted to be a part of creating a stable future for this community that I've come to really care.

For myself, I feel that I have a quieter form of contribution. I like to work in the background and I intend to contribute through planning, designing, strategizing, and creating structure. I have some experience with that from managing a small business, and I've seen quite a bit of crossover in how small businesses work and how.

The organization is growing and, and needing some processes figured out and things like that.

Mark: So as a member of the council what, what is your hope to bring then in terms of values, vision, I guess, I guess this can go into our next question, which is, you know, what is your vision for this community? Where do you see us going?

What do you hope for us? All that kind of.

Rana: Yeah. My vision is for the community to stay centered on the needs and desires of the community as it continues to grow and change a little bit. I think it's really important that it stays adaptable as it scales because it will become more complex and I'd hate to see. Anything fall apart just because there isn't structure there.

So this feels like a really good time that we're building that structure in really keeping things set up in an egalitarian way like we have discussed, and communicate our efforts to the community and make sure they're aware of what we're doing as a council and as leadership in general council and moderators for the most.

Currently make up the leadership and really keeping the conversation open. And I think staying open to new ideas and ways to go about this. I know we're not reinventing the wheel by doing what we're doing in terms of having a decentralized community that. Is trying to create that structure and I'd love for us to look at what other groups have done and see what's worked and what hasn't, and examine that and do our best to adapt that for ourselves. I've seen atheopagan have organic growth, and that's fantastic. People are coming to the community, they're connecting and resonating. And I think that's great. So from my perspective, the focus is really on just creating those robust systems to maintain what we have. Create that really solid foundation and be able to continue to scale and grow.

You know, we're an online community and the fact is, online spaces are always in flux. You know, imagine if the group started on Live Journal or MySpace, or even I, IRC chat. Because I've been a part of communities that were on those platforms and they're now defunct most part. And I think it's, it's just important that we remain adaptable in that sense, like technologically.

And I think that will be an ongoing exploration for us. And it's not just us too that are considering.

Mark: Yeah, I, I love your big picture thinking. You know, you, you, you managed to click back up and look at things from a high level, and that's so important. You know, it's, It's really easy, especially when things are happening so quickly, it's so easy to get kind of caught up in the minutiae and not, and not see that big picture.

And I, you know, I really appreciate that you, you bring that for us. You know, another thing that I was going to mention is that on our, in our adult salons that we do once a month, you've really been a rock with. Tremendous resources and a real wisdom that you bring to talk about all kinds of, you know, relational issues and just variety of stuff.

It's, it's really been great to have you in those spaces. And, and I know that you feel very strongly about how important it is to have those safe environments to talk about adult topics. So, just wanted to kind of. Give you flowers for that for you know, cuz I really appreciate, you know, how you've really taken that on.

Rana: Thank you. Yeah. I really value having that space and that directly ties back to what I said about vulnerability and something I didn't even get to touch on too is the idea of play. I really love that Ethiopianism is also about embracing play and levity and. Making sure we have that in our lives as adults.

That's something that I've found is really important for my mental health play. Can also relate into pleasure, but not necessarily. And I think it's just important to have that, that space for each other and, and that idea of a. Space is also something that's difficult to access sometimes. And I think sometimes people don't even know how to express what it is that they're looking for, but I think sometimes it's that, and especially having that with other adults where you can speak frankly and ask questions and not be judged.

Mark: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. That's certainly the vision of those spaces. And Once again, you've just been really remarkable with, oh, I have a link, I have a website, I have a paper, I have a guidebook, I have a book recommendation, I have a video recommendation. You know, it's like whatever it is we're talking about, I can count on you to , have something really, you know, quality, value stuff to bring to the table on it.

And it's it's really great. It's just really a great thing We

Rana: I'm honestly sorry.

Mark: We missed you last week.

Rana: Oh, I missed you guys too. Yeah, it's honestly really lovely to have a space to share all of that random stuff that I save and hopefully make a meaningful difference for someone else.

Mark: So, I mean, we've been working together in a variety of contexts for a while, but I was gonna ask Do you have any questions for us? About anything

Rana: Oh, I wasn't prepared for that question.

Mark: I wasn't either. It just showed up.

Rana: I don't think so. I mean, honestly I mean I haven't interacted as much with you Yucca, but I know Mark, I've spent many of afternoon of mine with you in the mixers and, and the adult salon and all of our like, various events. So nothing is immediately coming to mind.

Yucca: Just wait till we stop hitting the record button and then it'll all come Right.

Mark: Right

Yucca: you wake up in the middle. Oh, I should've. I should've asked. Yeah.

Mark: Well, at any time, honestly, it doesn't have to be now. Any, any time.

Rana: Did you have any other questions for me?

Mark: I didn't, how about you, Yucca?

Yucca: Well, earlier on you talked in the beginning about different content that you had started watching and getting and interested in kind of before you had found the atheopagan community. Are there still are there particular content creators or platforms that you still really enjoy that you'd wanna share?

That you can think of,

Rana: That's a great question. I do find value in some of them. I am not sure that I would share them just because they think

Yucca: sound like you're

Rana: has a different.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Rana: Yeah, and everyone has a different comfort level with a level of animism or I hesitate to say woo. Some of it touches on that sometimes. I think it would make more sense for me to share it in like a more context dependent way, but yeah, I've occasionally found things here and there that I do have an easier time connecting.

just because I know that Ethiopianism exists. Like I've found my corner right? Because it, it felt a lot more lonely to be like, man, I like some of this, but some of this is just not for me. And. It's, it's just, it's really nice to have a place that I don't have to have that. Yeah. But feeling of needing to ignore certain parts of it because it kind of ruins it to a degree, you know?

Yucca: kind of increases that lonely feeling you were talking about, right?

Rana: Mm-hmm.

Yucca: almost fit in, but you don't quite fit in, so it just kind of makes you feel a little bit more lonely, cuz you found the, you found it, but then it's not really, it's not really quite right.

Rana: and I've, I've felt like I've balanced between the poles of many identities over time. And so, like I said, it, it's always notable to me when I'm pretty distinctly feeling like, oh, I belong here. This is my, this is my place. So,

Mark: You know, I was, I was thinking about that feeling and that, you know, that that sort of like octagonal peg with a round hole feeling where it's like, you can almost get in there , but it's, it's not quite right. And it occurs to me that one of the things I think that makes atheopagan more able to be more of a complete fit for people than many other Pagan spaces is that we have articulated principles that, that we've got written values that we all cohere around. Because, you know, if you just run up, if you run up the Pagan flag and hold an event, You know, the, the value sets of the people who show up may be radically different, and in some cases, you know, they may just not be people that you want to hang around if they're neo-Nazis or whatever. So I, I kind of feel like, you know, we've, we've got this nice walled garden and we keep inviting more and more and more people in, but at least, at least there's an understanding.

You know, what you're expected to value. You know, valuing, respecting people and valuing critical thinking and you know, all those kinds of things. And I think it may make it a little bit easier for people to find that sense of belonging than some other spaces.

Rana: Yeah. I think that is where structure is really an asset to this group. I think you're really right that the principles were something that I saw quickly off the bat. When I learned about the group, it became very clear to me what the group valued and outright the rules of the group, and it reminded me of the principles of Burning Man, which are a little bit different.

That was a community that I was involved in and was really meaningful to me. And when I think back on it had a similar parallel of trying to find meaning and make meaning with other people without religion being a part of it. And I have felt that the increasing interest in events like that are.

Possibly because a lot of younger people are not interested in organized religion, and I think it's very natural for us to find those spaces to have connection and meaning together in a way that's bigger than consumerism

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Rana: bigger than. Even just a, a friendship, which I'm not devaluing a friendship in any way, but like I said, I think, I think having a larger group community space is just a very different asset.