A Pagan's Blog

In 2010 I wrote in this blog “Imbolc is one of the less intensely celebrated Sabbats, I think because it has fewer real world connections in our lives.  In most places the coming Spring Equinox, Ostara, is well suited to its symbolism of the triumph of the sun and powers of growth and regeneration. Yule, our previous cross-quarter Sabbat, celebrated the Winter Solstice, and the wealth of meaning it carries symbolically and experientially.”

I think I had only begun to understand this Sabbat. Continue Reading This Post »

UPDATE  below

Science Daily reports on a new theory by Erik D. Andrulis that if true demonstrates the earth is alive.  The peer reviewed journal Life has just published Theory of the Origin, Evolution, and Nature of Life, which argues the earth is alive .

Andrulis writes:

If this holds up it means James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis’s “Gaia Hypothesis” is true in a literal sense and that while evolution takes place, life did not evolve out of non-life.  Insights by pantheists and panentheists would be shown more accurate  than those of simple reductive materialists.

According to Science Daily, Andrulis has already used the theory to “identify a hidden signature of RNA biogenesis in his laboratory at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. ”

The original paper is technical and parts are well beyond my ability to understand, but in case some of you are better equipped, the paper may be downloaded here.

Publication does not mean proven, but it does mean competent readers well versed in the subject found it worthwhile.  Stay tuned.

P. Z. Meyers , my favorite pushy atheist, has a strong denunciation of the paper. On the one hand this is to be expected because it crosses so directly against his thinking.  On the other hand, most papers making big claims are shot down because they should be.  Time will tell. (Thanks Makarios, who for some reason Beliefnet would not let post here.)

I have been slow in writing this post because I have wanted to do my experience justice.  In late November I crossed the country, stopping off in Lawrence Kansas for Thanksgiving with family before returning to California.  Starting from the east coast, on my way to Kansas I visited friends who had moved to Springfield, Missouri.  As much as any place Springfield probably deserves  to be called the “buckle on the Bible Belt” and is certainly not noted for its Pagan community.  There might be one, but if so I did not have the pleasure of meeting any.  Instead I stayed with an old friend from college and his wife, who is an ordained minister in the Assemblies of God, the largest Pentecostal denomination in the United States and a major force within conservative Christianity. Continue Reading This Post »

A friend of mine well versed in these matters and appreciative of problems on both sides has recommended this analysis as the best she has come across for understanding the issues at stake and why we should care.