Religion and Intelligence… Compatible?
Now, I’ve spent a lot of the last year exploring religions. I’m autistic and fairly literal, so I haven’t been able to find a practice that didn’t require suspension of disbelief. In my research I found myself revisiting Paganism and Wicca, as they were the most…. Realistic? of the non-mainstream religions.
My problem was that regular Paganism still largely seems to require a suspension of disbelief and I just can’t roll with that, it’s not in my DNA. In my searches I stumbled upon Mark Green’s blog: Atheopaganism.org.
He has two books: Atheopaganism and Round We Dance. Over the course of a few days I ended up reading both of them, and I really feel like this checks all of my boxes. I’m excited to build a Focus and create a ritual for it. The terminology is something I still need to get used to because it still rings too “religious” for my brain.
In his first book, Mark talks about how rituals are scientifically proven in the mental health field to be beneficial and goes into the details of our three evolutionary brains (the lizard, the dog, and the conscious, basically). Mark is much more eloquent in his words and descriptions, but just know that it hit the exact right part of my heart.
I particularly love his one method of meditation and dealing with the voices and thoughts that come through. His suggestion is to pretend the voice in your head is coming from an empty chair nearby, so you can dismiss the thoughts much easier. I had never considered something like this as an option and I always just dismissed meditation and mindfulness practices.
Even as I started my journey into becoming a licensed therapist, I didn’t QUITE believe so much in meditation. Yes yes yes, I know there’s research and studies, I could just never get it to work FOR ME.
Originally I had looked into Atheistic Judaism, but that was still too religious for me.
The next holiday in the wheel of the year is Midsummer, June 21st. I was hoping that my partner would be home to celebrate with me so we could create our first holiday ritual together, but I will simply have to celebrate on my lonesome.
Maybe there’s something fitting about starting this practice alone, with no pressure to make it perfect. Just me, the season, the sun, and the small act of paying attention.
