Category Archives: Inspiration

Mid Winter Blessings

Amidst the busyness that comes upon us every year around this time, we at PaganRenewal.org wanted to take a moment not merely to wish you season’s blessings of peace and love but rather to affirm that these are now, as always, our reality, if only we will open our hearts. Continue reading Mid Winter Blessings

In Memoriam & Ad Infinitum

As we come again to Winter Eve, the end of the harvest season, the time when the Veil between the mundane and spiritual worlds thins, we have an opportunity to turn inward, celebrating our heritage, remembering our beloved dead, and recognizing our own mortality as the cold and dark close in around us. Continue reading In Memoriam & Ad Infinitum

On the Harvest: Sacrifice & Love

One of the greatest contributions that Reform Paganism and the Pagan Renewal offer the broader Pagan and human communities is our emphasis on love—sometimes called “compassionate lovingkindness and sympathetic joy”—as an essential practice and virtue. Continue reading On the Harvest: Sacrifice & Love

Our Source of Joy, Vitality, and Power

Reform Pagans often speak of Paganism through the metaphor and image of the Great Tree of Paganism, whose roots draw from the unremembered past and whose branches grow into the unimagined future. As we approach Mid Summer (the summer solstice, also called Litha), a sabbat often associated with joy, vitality, and power, we have a special opportunity to contemplate the eternal stele that provides and ensures each of these blessings within the Great Tree of Paganism. Continue reading Our Source of Joy, Vitality, and Power

One Branch, Many Blossoms

Reform Pagans often illustrate our place within Paganism through the metaphor of the Great Tree of Paganism: We speak of the Paleopagan roots, Mesopagan trunk, and Neopagan branches, and we distinguish our Neopagan branch from coequal branches, each of which serves its own purpose. Continue reading One Branch, Many Blossoms

On Beltane and a Birthday

Happy (early) fifth birthday, ReformPagan.org!

May 5 is the anniversary of the launch date of ReformPagan.org on May 5, 2012; as the calendar midpoint between Mid Spring (the spring equinox, also called Ostara) and Mid Summer (the summer solstice, also called Litha) for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, May 5 is also the date on which many Reform Pagans observe Summer Eve (Beltane). Continue reading On Beltane and a Birthday

Facing All Things Through Paganism

When the fog of uncertainty gathers around us, when tremors shake the very foundations of our lives, when thunderheads of cataclysm loom on our horizons, that is a time to take refuge—and find strength and courage—in humanity’s once and future faith: Paganism. Continue reading Facing All Things Through Paganism