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Anger is valid
Read more: Anger is validI said that anger is valid because it helps to propel us out of dangerous and abusive situations in Changing Paths (the book). I love that Jo Luehmann has talked about the neurological aspects of processing your anger in this post, and most importantly talking about it—absolutely brilliant. I think that if you turn anger…
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Check your baggage
Read more: Check your baggageChanging Paths: unexamined baggage🧳 🎒💼👝👜 This is an excerpt from my book, ‘Changing Paths’: “Changing your religious or spiritual path can result in unexamined spiritual, emotional, and intellectual baggage from your previous tradition, which can cause all sorts of issues from depression to anger. We all need to unpack and deal with our unexamined baggage.…
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We are family
Read more: We are familyChanging Paths challenge day 21 — family There are two types of family — the one you were born into, and the one you choose. If your birth family is problematic for some reason, you can create your own.
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Seven fires
Read more: Seven firesChanging Paths blogging challenge day 20: hopes and fears. When I chose this prompt, I was thinking of the position in the solar cross Tarot spread that corresponds to hopes and fears. But now, with the news that we will be crossing the 1.5°C global warming threshold in the next few years, I’m reminded of…
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Jungian dreams
Read more: Jungian dreamsChanging Paths challenge day 19 — dreams. Once I dreamed that I was walking across a rocky sandy landscape (the bedrock was reddish sandstone) and saw an old church.
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To the library!
Read more: To the library!Changing Paths challenge 18 — throwback Thursday. This was my local library when I was a kid. It’s where I discovered Greek mythology, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Mary Stewart’s Arthurian trilogy, Robin Hood, Roger Lancelyn-Green, Geoffrey Trease, Henry Treece, and many more. I was introduced to Cynthia Harnett by a teacher at…
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Interfaith relationships
Read more: Interfaith relationshipsGreat new post from John Beckett on interfaith relationships. Our wider society tends to assume that couples will follow the same religion, and generally they do. But interfaith marriages have been a thing for a very long time, whether between Christians and Jews, Protestants and Catholics, or any other combination – including Pagans and people…
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Deep magic
Read more: Deep magicChanging Paths challenge day 17 — deep magic The deepest magic that I know is love. Not sacrificial love, not romantic love, but the everyday magic of connection, nourishing and soul-satisfying.
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Stories
Read more: StoriesChanging Paths challenge day 16 — stories. The power of stories to change and challenge a person’s worldview is immense. My worldview was definitely informed by reading A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin, Tolkien’s The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, The Writing on the Hearth by Cynthia Harnett (now sadly forgotten by…
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Wibbly wobbly
Read more: Wibbly wobblyChanging Paths challenge day 14: changing paths. Changing paths is a wibbly-wobbly thing. During the process, I was all over the place. It was like having the bends (you know, the thing where a diver rises too quickly to the surface and gets cramps) or being on a giant scary roller coaster ride. That’s why…
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Things I miss
Read more: Things I missChanging Paths challenge day 13 — things I do miss about my old path. Unitarian hymns — specifically the earth-based ones like Peter Mayer’s “Blue Boat Home” (which doesn’t get sung often enough in the UK), “Mother Spirit” by Norbert Čapek, and nature-based ones like “Daisies are our silver” and “Spirit of Life” of course,…
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Things I don’t miss
Read more: Things I don’t missChanging Paths challenge day 12 — things I don’t miss about the traditions I have left.
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Lover of leaving
Read more: Lover of leavingChanging Paths challenge day 11 — why I left I left Unitarianism in the end because of archetypes. The archetype that fits me the best is that of the witch, and it’s an archetype that sits uncomfortably in the Unitarian path. (The combination may work for others: didn’t work for me.) I left Christianity because…
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Still friends
Read more: Still friendsChanging Paths challenge day 10 — still friends. I’m still friends with several Unitarians, either in person or on social media. Last September two of our longest-standing Unitarian friends from the UK came to visit us in Canada and we had a great time together. A quote from one of them found its way into…
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Smash that Protestant lens
Read more: Smash that Protestant lensGreat piece from John Beckett this morning which covers some really good points about how to write about different religions, why the word “religion” should not be used as a synonym for Christianity, and how not all religions fit the “Protestant lens” (the way people tend to use the Protestant paradigm as a way to…
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Old friends
Read more: Old friendsChanging Paths challenge day 9 — old friends. Although Unitarianism * / Unitarian Universalism wasn’t my path, I still value many of their ideas and values. They’re green, they’re LGBT+ inclusive or at least welcoming, they were the first to ordain women ministers (the Universalists in 1860, the English Unitarians in 1904), among the first…
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My old path
Read more: My old pathChanging Paths challenge day 8 — my old path The photos in this post represent the comforting and ancestral aspects of Christianity. They’re of Kilpeck church in Herefordshire, which is a very beautiful church and has a Sheela na Gig corbel. There are many familiar cultural aspects of Christianity such as carol services and harvest…
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Devotion, awe, reverence
Read more: Devotion, awe, reverenceChanging Paths challenge 7 — devotion “devotion (n.) c. 1200, devocioun, “profound religious emotion, awe, reverence” (also relates to vow) —Etymology Online What provokes awe in me is immensity — the immense depths of space, the infinite number of stars, the dancing curtains of light in the Northern Lights, or a huge sweeping mountain range;…
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Ritual
Read more: RitualChanging Paths challenge 6 — ritual Candle flames flickering, incense smoke curling in the twilight, standing in a circle of firelight, chanting sacred words. Deep in the woods where everything is transformed by the moonlight. Where the warm summer rain falls softly on the leaves. The atmosphere of ritual is like no other: electrifying, life-enhancing,…
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Cinco de Mayo
Read more: Cinco de MayoHappy Cinco de Mayo! I didn’t know anything about this festival so I looked it up, and apparently it’s a minor holiday in México celebrating the defeat of an invading French army by a small Mexican army at the Battle of Puebla (1862). But it’s celebrated in the USA by the Mexican diaspora. Originally this…
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Tenth anniversary edition of All acts
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Meditation is powerful
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Do you fear death?
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Red flags
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Rapping about the rapture
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Unpacking religious baggage
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Deprogramming with Gillian Jenkinson
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Debunking clobber verses
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Pagan Roots — available now
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Toxic positivity
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