Pagan Theology:  The Mountain While I think both of us would really like to avoid any reference to Miley Cyrus in this column,  I am going to talk about the mountain, and the climb [1].   We all have our own mountain, and our own path.  For some its steeper, for some, higher.  Sometimes its wooded and we, like Dante, can’t quite see where we are headed.  For others it is so rocky and barren they can barely stand it.   Many people decide on the Christian path, even if they don’t stick to it and their mountain looks really different from the one Christ actually climbed.  Others, the secularists, turn away…

Pagan Theology:  Exegesis One big advantage any theologian of the book religions have is the they, um, have a book.  That gives them a lot to talk about [1], even if it many times doesn’t make a heck of a lot of sense.  The critical analysis of religious texts, more specifically Christian texts like the Bible, is called exegesis.  The word derives from the Greek meaning “to lead out.”  Exegesis takes on many different forms, it can mean the direct, religious, interpretation of the text either through inspiration or rational inquiry, or it can mean the “meta” analysis of the text where you look at the text independent of faith…

Pagan Theology:  A Practical Path In thinking about recent world events and the terrible suffering many are facing, I found myself asking, “what would a ‘Pagan’ make of all this?”  What would, or should, our response be?  I kept thinking that my answer would be: “we are a practical path.” What do I mean by saying we are on a practical path?  How might that relate to what is going on in the world, not just in Japan but also in North Africa and the Middle East, and, to a far lesser extent, within the US and our economic difficulties?  How might a “practical path” give us courage and strength…

Pagan Theology:  Blessings A Unitarian Universalist minister I know recently said that one of the purposes of religious practice is to empower us so that we may go out and bless the world [1].  That idea of empowerment as a vehicle through which we both are blessed and bless the world intrigues me.  How do we Pagans bless ourselves, so that we may be powerful enough to bless the world? As Pagans we talk a lot about blessings.  Blessed be.  House blessings.  Blessing the working or tools.  We even use “blessings” as an address when closing out letters or e-mails.  But what, exactly, is happening when we bless?  Who is…

Pagan Theology:  Democracy What is the relationship between democracy and Pagan religious practice?  I’m not talking about political democracy.  In this column I’m talking about democracy in our religious practices and traditions.  We know that Pagans gave rise to Western democracy through the Greeks, and many Pagan cultures had democratic political practices [1]. But how far do we go in practicing democracy, and all that it implies, within our groups and covens?   What obligation do we have to operate democratically?  How does democratic practice affect the way we run our groups? This is an interesting question, one that goes deeply into the concept of teacher/taught, elder/junior, and mystery/initiation.  For us…

Pagan Theology:  Yule, theodicy, and magic Yule seems to occupy a special place in the cycle of the seasons.   It is a time of contradictions: the shortest day of the year, but the longest and happiest night.  A time of bloodshed, when the Holly King dies at the hands of the Oak King of summer, and a time when the animals are slaughtered in preparation for winter.  It is named after a German festival, but it’s commemoration of the winter solstice, a very Mediterranean idea [1].   Yule is at Christmas time, but it has not been tainted like Christmas.   It is a pure celebration of joy.  It is finding light…

Consider the dark path, The lessons of decay, of death, of night. They call to us as we call to them. Just as the light and warmth bless us The dark lessons give us fear, and balance. She is the Goddess of the Dark Who owns the crossroads And is the mother of the tomb Tonight we hear her voice Smell the wind from her gates. Her words come to us As whispers that fade with the sun. All decays and passes From this life to the next. As the tide ebbs and returns, As the blossom fades and falls, As the blood cools and hardens, As decline comes with…

Tonight we call into the well of night. We call the wildness of the void, Asking that acceptance overcome us For life is immortal only because life must die Cernuous, master of the hunt that takes us all And has taken all. He is with us here. He is behind us. He surrounds us. His call comes but is distant. It rises from the shadows and waits. Night takes back all gifts. The night banishes the world. He is the night. As the night he is with us. He is behind us. He surrounds us. His call comes but is distant. It rises in the shadows and waits. His patience…

Pagan theology:  Down the Wookey Hole The English town of Wells in the county of Somerset, England is a few minutes north of Glastonbury.  It is home to the great Wells cathedral and sits in the middle of some charming English countryside.  The whole region is resplendent with Pagan sites, from Glastonbury tor (Wells also has a tor) to the springs of the Goddess Sulis-Minerva at Bath, to the nearby Salisbury Plain with the Stonehenge and Avesbury circles.  It also has an interesting geology, being associated with the same limestone formations that produce the springs at Bath.  Wells also has three “wells” or springs, two of them on the Cathedral…

Pagan theology:  Are we the last hope? By nature I’m a pretty fatalistic and ruthlessly practical person.  Make a psychic prediction?  Then you’ve got to convince me you’re not a cold reader [1].  If you claim that recycling is beneficial to the environment: you’d better have done a mass and energy balance [2].  I try to look at the data, but, unfortunately when one does look at the data one can often come to some pretty depressing conclusions.  Like the state of the environment. Since we just dumped a 435,000 – 2,262,000 barrels [3] of oil into the Gulf of Mexico I thought it might be useful to consider some…