community
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Review: An Apostate’s Guide to Witchcraft
Read more: Review: An Apostate’s Guide to WitchcraftOnce upon a time, Christendom labelled the Emperor Julian “the Apostate” because he reverted to Paganism. Nowadays, the title is applied to people who leave the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Moss Matthey left the JWs in order to live his truth as a gay man—as many others have left high control religious groups for the same reason.…
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Other blogging challenge posts
Read more: Other blogging challenge postsTwo other people participated in the Changing Paths blogging challenge 2024: Jarred the Wyrd-worker and The River Crow. Kudos to Jarred for keeping it up for the whole month and continuing to write blogposts in response to the prompts at the end of the chapters in Changing Paths. And The River Crow wrote some beautiful…
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People I admire
Read more: People I admireChanging Paths challenge day 28. People I admire. (This is by no means a complete list of people I admire. Some of the people I admire are not famous but have spent a lifetime doing a thing in an admirable way.)
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My path
Read more: My pathChanging Paths challenge day 17: my journey Despite the adage that one supposedly becomes more conservative as one gets older, I have in fact become more left-wing. I’m generation X but apparently this is also true of millennials. Good job millennials, keep it up. In terms of my Pagan path, my goals have shifted towards…
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Roots and wings
Read more: Roots and wingsChanging Paths Challenge day 13: Roots and wings Today’s prompt is a reference to Carolyn McDade’s classic song, Spirit of Life, which contains the line “roots hold me close, wings set me free”. My family roots are in nonconformist churches but there’s also a strong tradition of loving Nature. My Mum loved Nature and so…
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Reblog: Desiring sacred community
Read more: Reblog: Desiring sacred communityMy belief that both I and the other are sacred has me focusing more on building and nurturing relationships between the sacred self, sacred others, and the sacred world. I find myself looking more at the importance of community. — Jarred the Wyrd-worker Desiring sacred community: Exploring a journal prompt from chapter 6 of “Changing…
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In The Magick Kitchen
Read more: In The Magick KitchenCheck out my conversation with the wonderful Elyse Wells (writer and podcast host) on The Magick Kitchen podcast, series 5, episode 9.
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Change
Read more: ChangeChanging Paths challenge day 27: change My favourite times of year are the transitional seasons of spring and autumn, when everything is changing rapidly. In spring there are new blossoms and new leaves emerging, and the days lengthen rapidly. In autumn, the leaves turn red and yellow and orange and are blown away in the…
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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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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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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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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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Blogging/photo challenge
Read more: Blogging/photo challengeThe Changing Paths challenge for May 2023. Feel free to skip a day or post something different from the topic of the day, but if you do the whole thing, I think you’ll arrive at a new perspective on your path.
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Benefits of religious practices
Read more: Benefits of religious practicesAltruism is good for you. Caring for and about other people is good for you. Loneliness is stressful, and can give rise to those self-critical thought spirals as you lie awake at 4am. The solution? Spend more time creating connection and meaning.
Changing Paths 