Blood, Whiskey, & History

I sometimes think about how theistic pagans must feel about me. Here is someone who builds altars to the gods, who celebrates the wheel of the year with elaborate rituals, and who makes an effort to learn about a particular pagan tradition of the past. And yet, I don’t believe the gods exist as fully autonomous, supernatural beings, nor do I readily accept various traditions that posit the independent reality of a spiritual realm filled with ghosts, spirits, and other mysterious forces. So, as far as they are concerned, I don’t believe at all.     I imagine (and know, from some firsthand experience), that some of them feel deeply offended by this. Because what I’m doing, from their point of view, is partaking in all of the outward actions and rituals of their belief and yet, not really believing. It must seem upsetting or even deeply disturbing, that I could pretend, as it were, to be a part of the faith when I’m really not. I would expect to hear accusations of dishonesty or ...

When I first began to feel drawn toward pagan practice, I was searching for an outlet and a vessel. A place –   a way   – to pour all those moments I encountered in contexts that seemed unsuited for them. Hearing a song during a party that transported me to a more somber, serious place; wanting to dash out of the coffee shop at the season’s first sign of rain to welcome it; attempting to convey to skeptical Skeptics the overwhelming feeling of ecstatic experience that made the term “spiritual” unavoidable for me.     Such moments had been with me as long as consciousness, but as I grew into my young adulthood they increasingly made for an awkward fit into the rest of my life. In college I discovered how much I loved to think – critically and purposefully – and that moreover, I was pretty good at it. After graduating I went straight into a PhD program for history, and as my intellectual confidence grew (an unusual dynamic in grad school but, I was lucky in many ways i...

“You'll see him in your nightmares You'll see him in your dreams He'll appear out of nowhere but He ain't what he seems You'll see him in your head On the TV screen Hey buddy, I'm warning You to turn it off He's a ghost, he's a god He's a man, he's a guru.” — Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, “Red Right Hand” Thomas Shelby is a god. Not just of mine, but of many. They might not know him by that name, might even resist the implication that their adoration comes from a religious place, but doubt it not – the man is a god.  "Past the square, past the bridge, past the mills, past the stacks." Like all gods, Tommy Shelby never existed – in that he was never a flesh and bone person with a home address and farts that smell and shits that stink. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t real. He is real, alright; in the minds, imaginations, subconscious and even hearts of countless people. Do not mistake this dynamic for one of ordinary fandom. For sures, t...

On Winter solstice I observed Yule. For the first time, I had to bring my   celebrations inside; it was raining all night.   But the adjustment worked out beautifully; using the detachable top of my outdoor fire pit, I made a diamond of candles and lit them all to serve as a small fire. It was lovely to sit next to the Christmas tree, that most celebrated of pagan traditions that managed to survive into the present despite centuries of doctrinaire Christians trying to eliminate it, and contemplate continuity with the past.   Flexibility, I've learned, is necessary when going about developing your own rituals. In my earliest pagan holidays, I came up with elaborate scripts and lists that planned out the order of events and observances down to the last detail. But I’ve found that that generated more stress -- and frankly more stuff to clean up the next morning -- than benefits. So while I have kept the best aspects of my initial constructions, I’ve been trying to simplify ...

Nothing lasts forever. It’s a common saying, but I wonder how many of us really sit with this truth or allow it to shape our worldview. When I got my PhD, I had a huge party. One of the friends in attendance was younger than most of us, an undergraduate involved in activism who took political and philosophical questions seriously, and strove to give them their due. Like everyone else, he had a lot to drink that night, and ended up sharing some existential quandaries with us by lamenting how as religious claims were obviously not true, and everything eventually passes away or ends, and the universe itself is expanding and so eventually will be no more as far as we can tell, therefore — and here was the key phrase he kept repeating in despair — everything is dust. And then he threw up in one of the bedrooms.  Which is a reminder of why one should generally avoid 1) over-drinking, 2) existential questions which cannot be resolved or do not have a satisfying answer and, especially, 3)...

Last week we welcomed to our home a new member of our pack.   His name is Leon, after Leon Trotsky. He’s a mutt from the shelter, at least 3 years old, and an absolute lover.  For my partner and I, bringing Leon home is an emotionally intense and important experience. First there is simply the change — finding new routines, working to make sure Leon and Connolly (our other dog) get along, and adjusting to another person you don’t really know yet being present in the house.  Because a dog is a conscious being. I’ve long found it notable that the best English has to express this is “sentient being,” but that sounds so clinical and distant, and something as likely to be applied to some sophisticated robot in 20 years time as a creature that has been a constant companion of humans for millennia. So, I prefer to refer to dogs and other similar animals as people (as distinct from human), because to me, that’s what they are. As Carl Safina, one the author of one of my fav...

When agnostics and atheists speculate about why people believe in God or other supernatural systems, an oft cited reason is that without the comfort of the ultimate triumph of good and an afterlife, living would be too hard for many to bear. I suspect that this is true. Through sheer biological accident, I came into this world infatuated with everything in it, and while very prone to anxiety, very resistant to depression. (Yup, they are not the same thing.) That and the (also accidental) blessings of my life have equipped me to generally find life pretty fucking awesome. (Here’s hoping that general lucky streak never runs out.) But I’m very aware that this is not the norm and, many have been dealt the opposite hand, both in terms of disposition and experience. And I can never really know what others endure unless I experience it myself. So this has always seemed the best argument, in my mind, for laying off people have certain beliefs that do no apparent harm to anyone else, as unfound...