I’ve been spending the weekend at a conference on spontaneous orders, also known as complex adaptive, emergent, or self-organizing systems. In the human world what those terms, and some equivalent ones, point to is how certain kinds of order can arise even though no one is in charge, and as a result the chances for anyone picked at random from within that order to successfully achieve his or her plans is enhanced. There are many
Read more →I’ve been scurrying about and making lists preparing to leave for my big adventure starting this Saturday: the road trip of a life time to the Yukon. It’s been very hard to think about blogging. I’m picking a friend up in Arcata Saturday, maybe squeeze in a purifying before-trip sweat, and then heading to the far north with a short stop on an island off BC’s Sunshine Coast. We’ll drive up the west side of
Read more →I have been working on a book on the 60s and the culture war. As part of my research, I looked at Biblical criticisms of abortion – not a major theme of the book by any means, but I am touching on it. The anti-abortion movement has been a critical part of the culture warriors’ attack on women and the feminine. What I found amazed me. I want to pass it on to any Pagans
Read more →The Fall Equinox is upon us. It is giving us all an opportunity to focus on the question of balance, and I hope also on what Pagan religions generally offer the modern world that the dominant Western and Eastern faiths do not. Peter Berger, the great sociologist of religions, divides the world’s major faith traditions into two categories, those monotheisms identifying in different ways with Abraham, and Hindu traditions as well as Buddhism which emerged
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