Tag: Paganism
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Privilege: The Other “P” Word
Yesterday I said, “Be nice.” Perhaps encouraging nicety is not the right approach. Perhaps to say “be nice” is too simplistic, and worse, reads very much like, “Hush now, your problems are not important,” or, “You are making me uncomfortable with your anger,” or “There really isn’t that much to be angry about, so can’t you […]
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Top of the Week at BITG
Top of the week to you! This week is starting off with a whole bunch of Internet happenings. First, it seems that my RSS Email subscribers haven’t been receiving my blog posts since mid-December. Sorry everyone. Here’s what you missed: I wrote a post on Yule at HuffPost, and we talked about decentralization. After pulling […]
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The Solitary Druid Fellowship Lives!!
It is an exciting day in the world of Druidry and Pagandom! (For me, at least.) I’m happy to announce that the Solitary Druid Fellowship has launched! The Solitary Druid Fellowship, an extension of Ár nDraíocht Féin (ADF) is live and running at SolitaryDruid.org. This has been a labor of love, and would not have been […]
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Blood Sacrifices Are So Messy
My inbox over Thanksgiving weekend was flooded with talk of — you guessed it — blood sacrifices. The debate raged over whether making blood sacrifices, a practice strongly rejected by my tradition, ADF, is worth consideration. After all (the argument goes), the ancients did it. Plus, there’s a case being made for the awareness of […]
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In Search Of Context
I went to a Unitarian Universalist church this past weekend. After several weeks of intense blogging I felt exhausted, emotionally. With all of the new traffic to BITG, there has been a wave of new readers who have no context for why I write or who I am. Without context, without a sense of where […]
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How Does Paganism Reconcile Pagan Bureaucracy?
I’m coming to terms with the truth about why I left the Church. It wasn’t that I had an experience of deity that fell outside of the Church’s teaching. That would come later. My experience of God was always mysterious, never concrete. I was taught that one could, if centered and open, feel a presence […]
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HuffPost Live Paganism Roundtable Followup
If you missed yesterday’s HuffPost Live Paganism roundtable with me, Amy Blackthorn, Gus DiZerega, Morgan Copeland and Patrick McCollum, you can watch it here: We covered a fair bit of ground in the brief time we had allotted, and it was an honor to be seated beside (digitally speaking) so many interesting thought-leaders and organizers […]
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I’m Not An Expert On Paganism, But I Play One On The Internet
I’m not an expert on Paganism. If you’ve spent any time here on Bishop In The Grove you’ll know that being an expert on Paganism wasn’t why I got into blogging. I blog in order to be a better student. I ask a lot of questions. I point out the things that are curious to me or that […]
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Heartfelt Thanks And A Call For Letters
This has been a challenging week. My post on Monday transformed this blog into a dynamic, charged space. The reactions and responses to my account of the PPD ritual covered the whole spectrum of human emotion, and reading them took me on quite a ride. Today, I’d like to simply offer my heartfelt thanks to […]
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My Pagan Pride Day Post Went Meta
One of the most valuable contributions to the conversation around my Pagan Pride Day post came from a single commenter, who I’ll leave unnamed. He joined the comment thread and my Pagan Pride Day post went meta, because he gave me cause to take a closer look at the function of this blog, and the […]
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I Felt Ashamed At Pagan Pride
The circle. The circle is fundamental. This simple shape, along with the square and the triangle, introduces our early minds to geometry, to symmetry, to physical and social design. This past weekend I felt ashamed at Pagan Pride on account of a circle. My body helped form the edge of a circle. My body stood […]
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Keep Paganism Weird
Ever been to Austin? If you have, you’ll recognize the title of this post, Keep Paganism Weird, as a variation of the city’s popular catch phrase. Plastered on buildings and bumper stickers is a reminder that Austin has a history of wild, weird culture, and that it’s important that the young’ins continue the cultural tradition […]
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Gender Essentialism is a Problem, Pagans.
Inspired by a comment posted on Trans Is A Teacher For All Of Us, I posted the following status update to Facebook: “I wonder how my Wiccan friends might respond to the idea that the Lord and Lady gave us our form, or that a trans person transitioning is the greatest insult to them.” The […]
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Autumn Becomes Emotional
The Rosemary is hanging all about my room, dried and waiting to be stripped from the stem. I look out the window, and the smattering of leaves around my house, an autumnal moat, is a reminder that there are still many things to do in preparation for the winter. The silence I used to write in, […]
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What Do Pagans Want To Read In Their Blogs, Magazines And Books?
Writing is a bitch sometimes. I’ve given myself a number of writing projects, some religious in nature and some more scholastic. Some are a blending of the both. I’ve also begun to explore what it would be like to take my writing to print. All of these things are squeezed into my calendar and shuffled […]
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How Do We Respond to Conflict in Pagan Communities?
Paganism, on the surface, seems like a retreat from the challenges posed by organized religion. Our great, mostly-pentacle-shaped umbrella, under which all shades, shapes and sizes of earth loving, god or goddess invoking creatures rest, looks to the untrained eye like a respite from bureaucracy, miscommunication, and any of the other ills of “The Church.” It […]
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How Do You Know It’s The Gods You’re Listening To?
Since I began working through the Dedicant Path this second time, I’ve run across a number of people who are also starting their studies with ADF. They’re showing up in the comment section on Bishop In The Grove, on Facebook, and I’m wondering if there’s some deeper meaning behind it. A friend of mine suggested […]
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How Much Stuff Does One Pagan Need?
Should I let go of my stuff? Should I have a metaphysical yard sale, in which I sell my Cunningham books, my surplus of pewter jewelry, and my… …ahem… …crystals? Should I rid my closet of the long, green, hooded robe I’ve worn twice, my Guatemalan patchwork jacket I scored for $7 bucks, or my […]
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Want To Make The Gods Laugh?
Make a plan, the gods say. I dare you. Ok, ready? You’re me: You put on your denim kilt, blue button up shirt, and patchwork hat. Your beard is tidy and trim, and your socks pulled up. You load up the car with your husband, a tupperware container of crayons, and a bag of chocolates. […]
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Paganism Beyond the Warm and Fuzzy
I fell into a frozen lake once. It was winter, and we were on holiday from school. I was running ahead of my two cousins and my older brother, and I hit a thin patch. In no time, my tiny body was submerged. The water was violently cold, and I was certain I was going […]
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Pagans Among Wild Geese
I had plans to attend the Wild Goose Festival this weekend. I was supposed to leave today, but then the money got tight. As I wrote about in my last post I made the decision to forgo my studies at Marylhurst for at least a term or two, in part for financial reasons. In light of […]
