I’m pausing my series of long-term plans for 2021 and considering this an intercalary year. This is why, and what I expect the benefits will be.

When religious leaders get in trouble for sexual misconduct, there’s usually a track record of abusive behavior. They were always predators – they finally got caught. But with fallen prophets, there was a time when they were doing good work. And then something changed.

Imbolc is good time for cleansing. And this year, it’s both especially auspicious and desperately needed.

Tower Time is bringing chaos and disruption, but it’s also bringing opportunity. And it punishes those who live in denial and cling to what was. My goal is to understand Tower Time, figure out the best way to deal with it, and help others to do the same.

I understand the reluctance to grant this kind of power to corporations. But we need not accept one form of abuse to avoid another form. Where ever you draw the line, Trump’s lies, conspiracy theories, and incitement of insurrection are on the wrong side of it.

Announcing a new on-line class from Under the Ancient Oaks: “Navigating Tower Time – Magic for an Era of Change.” Registration is open now; the class begins January 28 and will run for six weeks. Here are the details.

If you find your path is blocked, perhaps you need a God or spirit to open the way. But perhaps what you really need is to figure out exactly where you need to apply your own magic. Here are some approaches to remove obstacles and open the way.

If you’ve seen the first three seasons you’ll want to see the fourth, if only to find out how it ends. Parts of it are quite entertaining. But don’t expect to be satisfied. And don’t expect to walk away sad because it’s over.

Devotion is one of the core practices of Paganism and polytheism. But sometimes, despite our best efforts, our devotion gets stale. Sometimes our devotion needs a reboot.

We all want to belong somewhere, and many of us don’t belong where we grew up. The answer isn’t in a DNA test, or in latching on to part of a culture we don’t belong to and don’t fully understand. Building a place where we belong is a lot of work. But what we build is real.

I wish I could show you a bright and happy future for the coming year, but I cannot. Still, The Wheel of Fortune, The High Priestess, and The Magician tell us there will be opportunities if we will see them, and if we will act.

The Top 10 posts of 2020 on Under the Ancient Oaks: a guide to cursing, beginning witches and Pagans, dealing with the pandemic, and the Morrigan – who always seems to make an appearance on this list. Plus the “Next 5” – the top posts of the second half of the year.

While I’ve come to accept that sometimes the Pagan community just doesn’t care about something as much as I do, there are times when I find myself screaming “this is important! Why are you not reading this?!”

It’s always good to look back on the significant events and trends of a year, even a dumpster fire year like 2020. These are eight important things that happened in the wider Pagan community this year.

Good liturgy should be a living thing. This is how my Pagan ritual liturgy has evolved over the years.

What do we know about the Gods, and how should we respond to Them?

The Under the Ancient Oaks Online Winter Solstice Ritual will be Friday, December 18 at 8:00 PM CDT on YouTube.

Joe Biden will become the oldest person to ever be President. Nancy Pelosi is 80. Mitch McConnell is 78. And they’re hardly unique. I want to look at the dichotomy between ordinary people with a desire for early retirement and politicians who never want to retire.

Paganism is orthopraxic and not orthodoxic – it’s more important to do the right things than to believe the right things. But there’s a place for belief in Paganism, even if it isn’t at the center of our religion(s).

A new study shows that some forms of spiritual training can lead to narcissism and “spiritual superiority.” While I find this interesting – and not at all surprising – I’m more interested in how we can avoid it.

There is a place for belief, but that place is not at the center of a religion. As we build our contemporary Pagan religions, we need to consider what goes into an orthopraxic religion – a religion that prioritizes right action over right thinking.

Trump’s continued denial of reality isn’t just a whiny man-baby crying because he lost. It’s an attack on the foundations of representative democracy. We may have no choice but to ignore his rants, but we cannot excuse them, and we certainly cannot reward them.

For most people throughout history, religion was not and is not about beliefs. Rather, religion is a set of practices that help us form and maintain respectful, reciprocal relationships with other persons, both human and not.

My Gods do not expect perfection. But They – and I – like it best if I don’t make the same mistakes over and over again. These have been my biggest mistakes on my Pagan journey.

I want to give thanks for the good things that are in my life, and to acknowledge that much of what I enjoy does not come from my own efforts. But I want to do that without pretending that everything is fine, because it isn’t.

19 years ago I had a spiritual epiphany and it changed my life. And for that I am very, very thankful.

How do we know anything about Gods and spirits, and the non-material world? We know through our experiences.

In his victory speech, President-Elect Biden said “we must stop treating our opponents as our enemy.” While I want people to agree with me, if we agreed we would be allies, not opponents. We will all be better off if we respect honorable opponents and we conduct ourselves as honorable opponents… and if we refuse to tolerate dishonorable opponents.

I’m not a natural public speaker. I got started because my desire to lead rituals was greater than my fear of speaking in public. I’ve learned a few things over the past 17 years – these are my suggestions for anyone who wants to do a better job of speaking in ritual.

I want to go back to the beginning of my Paganism, and it all begins with Nature. I do not love Nature because I’m a Pagan. I’m a Pagan because I love Nature.

Trump’s false statements illustrate a key point about magic: no matter how powerful you are, when you deny reality you’re fighting an uphill battle that you’re likely to lose.

Finally, something good happened in 2020. Here are my thoughts on Joe Biden’s victory, starting with a huge sigh of relief.

Childhood dreams can be nostalgic, but we abandoned most of them because they didn’t fit. In any case, our future lies in front of us, not behind us.

The Craft: Legacy is a good movie with a good theme. It doesn’t have the edginess and gothiness of the original, but it has a much more satisfying ending.

A lot of people are having unusual dreams or seeing odd signs in Nature. So am I. So I did what I advise everyone to do when you’re hearing an unclear message – divination. This is what I see, for better or for worse.

If Biden isn’t the clear winner by the time you go to bed on Election Night, expect things to drag out for several days. If Trump claims victory, mock him. If he claims fraud, ignore him. Don’t panic – let the process play out.

The Veil Between the Worlds is a metaphor for the boundary between this world and the Otherworld. The term only dates to the 19th century. Knowing our history is important, but it’s also important to have a useful model of the universe, especially those parts that can’t be described directly.

The Under the Ancient Oaks Online Samhain Ritual will be Friday, October 30 at 8:00 PM CDT on YouTube.

We have an ethical obligation to be good guests when we travel, whether to ancient sites like Pompeii or to a neighborhood park. The land, the spirits of the place, and the various persons – human and otherwise – who we visit deserve our respect.

These are difficult times. They will not be over on November 3, or even on January 20. But we are strong and resilient, and we have powerful allies. We will get through them. This is now.

Doing bad things doesn’t mean we’re bad people – it means we’re human. But if we do the same bad thing over and over again, that says something about our character as people… and about who and what we are as a nation.

Traveling in sparsely populated areas, I experienced a quiet more silent than anything I’ve heard – or haven’t heard – in many years. That’s a reminder to keep silent, to practice silence, and to enjoy silence.

This is my October soundtrack – the songs I listen to and videos I watch when I want to get in the mood for pumpkins, horror movies, and dressing up like I wish I could (or would) every day.

Sometimes we focus so much on the lands of our ancestors we ignore the land where we are. These are my experience of Palo Duro Canyon in the Texas Panhandle, the second largest canyon in the United States.

I’m not going to tell you how to feel about Donald Trump having Covid-19. Instead, I’m going to tell you what I think about the situation, and remind you that we cannot expect Covid to remove Trump from office. We have to do that, by voting him out.

2020 has been a horrible year and it’s not over yet. But for now it’s October, and I intend to enjoy my favorite month. Neither Covid nor Trump can take October from me.

Facts can’t beat myths – people deny inconvenient facts, truth be damned. Rational explanations can’t beat myths – people jump to ad hominem, straw man, or other logical fallacies, or they just tune it out. If you want to beat a bad myth you have to tell a better story.

If you think four more years of Trump will finally bring the kind of cataclysmic change you’re hoping for, I urge you to abandon accelerationism and its apocalyptic thinking. Instead, embrace the art of the possible and the attainable, and help us move in a better direction.

We didn’t just respect Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s legal work, we loved her intellect, her determination, her wit, and her humanity. And so we mourn. But after we mourn, we act.

If you’re looking for something to do for the Fall Equinox – or if you just like the idea of joining in a ritual with people around the world – here are two good opportunities.

Public advocacy for a religious belief is an invitation to a debate. You can express agreement. You can express a contrary view. Or you can decline the invitation. But if you try to tell the rest of us we can’t have a debate, expect to get a debate of a rather different kind.

I understand that some Pagans are ambivalent – at most – about the Gods. That’s fine. Paganism isn’t Christianity – believing the “right” thing isn’t what’s most important. But I couldn’t stop caring about the Gods if I wanted to… and I don’t want to.

There are times when magic is a lot of fun. But this isn’t one of them, and if I wait for it to become fun again I may not be doing anything for a long time. That would make things even worse. Sometimes working magic is work. But sometimes work is necessary.

Every religion must have its non-negotiables, the things that make it unique and thus give it a reason to exist. But what do you want to make non-negotiable in your religion? A cultural norm that changed long ago? Or the values and virtues of our Gods and ancestors?

We feel what we feel, and if what we feel is rage, then we’re enraged. Naïve comments like “don’t let it get to you” or “just let it go” only make things worse. But we have an obligation to do everything possible to insure that our rage does not harm anyone.

More answers to questions: disruption of natural places, skills for Tower Time, Druid resources for kids, and the challenges of the contemporary Pagan community.

Answers to questions around polytheist beliefs and practices: validating UPG, finding appropriate offerings for deities, how many shrines can you handle, and should you offer your blood?

When I look at the most influential books on my shelf, I see science books right alongside books of history and religion. If you’re looking for advanced Pagan books, look outside the Pagan section of the book store.

This past Sunday I got up well before dawn and went for a long walk in one of the local greenbelt parks. It’s a poor substitute for real travel, but it’s all I’ve got at the moment. I’ll take it.

Basing your religious and spiritual beliefs on works of fiction is rarely a good idea. But some stories aren’t just made up. They tap into something deeper and more meaningful. Sometimes inspiration comes to us in the form of first-hand experience.

Christian fundamentalism in the United States is dying, and a decisive victory over Donald Trump in the upcoming elections will hasten its loss of power. But there are other things we can do to help end it, and to make our own lives better in the process.

Folklore, fiction, scripture, and myth. All of them can be helpful in building a strong Pagan worldview and practice. But they are not the same and we need to know which is which. We need to know if a story originates in imagination or in experience.

The big questions of life are not idle speculations. They’re a response to the realities of life that face us all. Do I have this all exactly right? Probably not. But the details will sort themselves out. Let’s embrace our immortality as deeply as we can.

History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes – and history is rhyming right now. It’s telling us that while things are difficult and dangerous, we are on the verge of a victory that will be monumental… if we will seize it.

For many of us, the Gods and spirits who have been strong presences in our lives have gone silent. We were so busy with the pandemic and responses to injustice and our own lives that we didn’t notice it right away. But eventually we did. And we want it back.

Do what you have to do to get by. But don’t abandon your dreams. Don’t restrict them. Don’t curtail them. When it comes to your life, don’t set small goals.

I don’t know when I’ll be able to eat in a restaurant or see a movie or attend a Pagan ritual in person again, so I’ll take a bit of beauty where ever I can find it. For me, that comes with darker mornings and earlier evenings.

Denton CUUPS Online Lughnasadh Ritual will be Saturday, August 1 at 8:00 PM CDT on YouTube.

When any religion claims ownership of a World Heritage Site that is significant to many people from different religions, it makes the world a little smaller and a little poorer. I am thankful I was able to see Hagia Sophia when it was a museum.

Have things gone quiet for you? Have certain Gods and spirits become conspicuous by Their silence? Are you starting to feel the need for something deeper, more ecstatic, more magical? And if so, what are you going to do next?

Much of our talk about evil is intended to comfort ourselves: to distance ourselves from people who do horrible things. It lets us tell ourselves that we could never do such things, even though history shows that given the right circumstances, we probably would.

Jason Mankey says he’s a know-nothing witch. While I completely agree that accepting the limitations of our knowledge – and of our ability to know – is a good and necessary thing, I can’t be a know-nothing Druid.

I overthink magic the same way I overthink mundane decisions and circumstances. The good news is that the same traits that cause us to overthink things can also help us confidently move from thinking to doing.

Good magic requires clear, tangible targets. But the fact that some goals can’t easily be turned into a precise target statement doesn’t mean you want them any less. What do you do when all you have is a dream?

An atheist blogger says “part of the case against God is the sheer absence of God.” His problem is the assumption that either the Christian God exists or no Gods exist. For those of us who follow one or more of the Many Gods, this is a reminder to never let other people set the ground rules of our religions.

New anthropological research demonstrates that performing religious rituals helps reduce anxiety in stressful situations. It’s nice to see science confirming what we’ve known all along. What’s not so nice are the materialist assumptions in the study.

Initiation is never required, but it is often helpful. And while self-initiation has limits, it can be quite effective. A true life-changing initiation comes from a God or other spiritual ally, regardless of who is officiating.

I constantly emphasize doing what must be done. You don’t have to like a bad situation, you just have to deal with it. But “dealing with it” includes having enough good experiences to remind you that life is more than trying to stay alive. We need moments of joy and pleasure.

Some Pagans have been doing online rituals for years. Most of us are trying to learn how as fast as we can. I can’t wait to get back to in-person group rituals, but the more ways we can honor our Gods, work our magic, and connect with like-minded folks, the better off we’ll be.

Those of us who’ve been talking about Tower Time and The Storm for years should not be surprised by anything going on. Let’s quit trying to act respectable and become the strongest, most competent witches, Pagans, and other magical people that we can be, that we need to be, and deep down, that we want to be.

I’ve been doing public ritual for 17 years and I’ve yet to do one perfectly. I’ve learned two things. Don’t be afraid to make a mistake. And also, do everything you can to keep from making a mistake. Here’s how to do both.

Even if your worship is a private thing, it brings you closer to your Gods. That will cause you to bring Their values and virtues into the world, and help restore Them to a place of prominence and honor in the wider society.

I do not believe in an actual purgatory. But purgatory is an apt metaphor for the intermediate state in between open conflict and real peace. What we do here and now will determine if we can build a world that is fair and just for all, or if we will yet again descend into the hell of war.

The Under the Ancient Oaks Online Summer Solstice Ritual will be Saturday, June 20 at 8:00 PM CDT on YouTube.

For those of us who are called to the practice of magic, nothing can take its place. And if you’re going to learn magic, work magic, and make magic a part of your life, why not turn it all the way up?

In his eulogy, Rev. Al Sharpton preached against the systemic injustices that led to the death of George Floyd and many others like him. But then he said “I’m more hopeful today than ever.” I think Rev. Sharpton is right.

Religion is far more than belief. Politics is the collective expression of our highest values, and ignoring politics is supporting the status quo. I serve a Goddess of Sovereignty who demands I help build a more just society, but ultimately, devotion comes first for me.

Are you better off than you were four years ago? If you are, that’s a very good thing. If you’re not, what can you do to make 2020 look better in December than it does in May? And if that’s not possible, what can you learn from this year that will make 2021 better than 2020?

An Instagram post insisted that “you need tons of training from established witches before you cast your first spell.” While training from experienced witches and other magic users is great, the only way to truly learn magic is to do magic.

A city official who only selects prayer leaders who meet his own religious criteria is not representing all his city – he’s subtly trying to establish his own religion, in fact if not in law. If Eric Hogue won’t select women to lead civic prayer he should resign.

Good art helps us understand the bad times in which we live. It comforts us, inspires us, and challenges us. Let’s share the good art we find. And if we can’t find what we need, let’s go make it ourselves.

As a Pagan I’m committed to the idea that while life is difficult and often painful, ultimately it’s beautiful and good.

Announcing a new on-line class from Under the Ancient Oaks: “Operative Magic – Theory, Strategy, and Practice.” Registration is open now; the class begins June 4 and will run for six weeks. Here are the details.

Any living religion is a product of the interactions of the people who practice it, their Gods and spirits, and the place and time where they live. So of course the pandemic has changed my Paganism – how could it not? But my Paganism is helping me get through this, and for that I am very thankful.

The many Gods are not relics to be locked away in pretty boxes and brought out for show on special occasions. They are living persons with Their own sovereignty and agency who do Their own things for Their own reasons – at Their own time.

Here’s the rest of this cycle of Conversations Under the Oaks: Pagan leadership roles, the limits of interfaith activities, Pagan monotheists, and how to have our own temples.

It’s a mistake to assume Gods or spirits could not have caused the pandemic, even if we conclude they did not. We need to respect the findings of science and the scientific method and also respect the agency and activity of the Gods. Not one over the other. Both.

Three questions on Pagan prayer: one from a former atheist, one from a former fundamentalist, and one from a new Pagan.

This round of Conversations Under the Oaks had lots of questions about beginning spiritual practices. While these are basic practices, they aren’t just for beginners. As we learn and grow, we don’t outgrow prayer and meditation and such – we maintain them and we build on them.