Yvonne Aburrow's Blog, page 77

Creative Endarkenment: Pausing to Get Acquainted with Darkness

All creativity roots itself in the dark, no matter how small or large the idea...but before anyone can explore that truth, we have to get comfortable with the idea of darkness.

With Our Thoughts We Make The World

Most religions are a form of metapolitics: their goal is to transform society and individuals (which is the purpose of politics) through cultural and spiritual means. The key thing about metapolitical processes and shifts is that they prepare the ground for political change.

Mystical Polytheism

I have always thought that the deities of Nature are the emergent consciousness of complex phenomena, such as sacred places, mountains, trees, storms, forests, and so on. If this is the case, then any anthropomorphic appearance they choose to adopt is only one aspect or facet of their vast and complex nature. And we cannot say with any certainty that we know them fully, or that we know exactly what they are. We can only say that we do experience them as distinct beings with agency, and that when we experience the presence of a deity, we know that we are blessed by their presence.

Authority in Religious Traditions

We live in a culture and a time where it's hard to be a polytheist. Some days people are atheists with polytheist leanings, some days they are full-blown polytheists, some days they are agnostic. It's okay to have doubts; they are a healthy part of spirituality and religion. If you didn't have doubts, how would you test ideas to see if they really came from the gods, or were just the product of your ego? If you exclude everyone who is a bit agnostic, and don't allow them room to practice, then you might be missing out on good people, and you won't be giving them an opportunity to experience the presence of the gods (and how they interpret that experience should be up to them).

The Devil is in the Detail

It is much easier to say "we don't believe in your mythology at all" than it is to say something more complicated, such as "we don't accept your dualistic cosmology, but we do believe there is a place for acknowledging the darker aspects of the psyche, and deities associated with them, and rather than demonising them, it would be better to integrate those forces into consciousness and work with their energies".

PAGAN CONSENT CULTURE Anthology Is Available!

How might a Druid understand consent? How about a Wiccan, a Thelemite, a Heathen, or a Polytheist? In PAGAN CONSENT CULTURE, Pagans of many traditions show how to ground good consent practices in Pagan stories, liturgies, and values.

Making Meaning at the Movies

Has Hollywood Become Our National Conscience? Many 21st-century movies—both animated children’s films and big production feature films—have tackled moral and cultural questions in ways that have shaped the public conversation. Is this good and helpful or dangerous? In what ways has Hollywood asked the right questions and shaped the discourse? Can the art of movie-making be an act of social justice?

Should Public Expressions of Religion Be Allowed?

Many secularists have argued that no public expressions of religion should be allowed - no hijabs, no cross pendants, no Easter processions, presumably no Pagan Pride Day, no street preaching (can't say I would miss that one), no nothing. I think this would be completely unworkable.

But What About The Tradition?

Truly traditional Pagans should regard LGBTQIA people as an integral part of society. There should be rituals for same-sex partners. Lesbian poets should be celebrated and their songs recorded for posterity. Gay lovers such as Hadrian and Antinous, or Patroclus and Achilles, or Pausanias of Athens and the poet Agathon, should be widely celebrated for their heroic love. Transgender deities such as Loki and Vertumnus should be celebrated for their changes of gender. Humans such as Tiresias should be celebrated for their exploration of the other gender.

The Gay Roots of the Pagan Revival

It is a little known fact that many of the early pioneers of the Pagan revival in England were gay: Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson, who came up with the idea of the League of Nations, was a gay man, and had close connections with the Bloomsbury group, and was a friend of E M Forster and Edward Carpenter, both of whom were gay.