Leora and I don’t much give Winter Solstice gifts. To avoid the consumerist insanity that often accompanies the winter holidays, we give gifts to each other and Leora’s family at Samhain, while with my family, we focus on birthdays. So I had to giggle when Cara Schulz of the Pagan Newswire Collective’s Minnesota bureau contacted me for a feature on Solstice gift-giving suggestions.

Still, a good gift is a good gift, whether it comes at the end of December or the end of October, and I think I made a pretty good choice.

PNC Solstice Gift Picks

On a naturalistic Paganism list I belong to, the conversation turned to aspecting, a fairly common practice in the Reclaiming tradition (of which I am a practitioner), among others. Aspecting is a way of allowing a deity, spirit, or other entity or even a characteristic, such as Love or Joy, to speak through a person, and it can be a very powerful magical and ritual tool.

The question arose of how those of us of a naturalistic mindset, who do not necessarily believe in the external existence of deities, handle an experience like that. I dashed off a response detailing my own history with aspecting and why it still works for me, even though I don’t believe in gods and goddesses as literal beings out there somewhere. A few weeks later, B. T. Newberg, blogmaster of the remarkable Humanist Paganism blog, asked if I would let him publish it as a guest post. I consented with great joy, and the post appears today.

Deities as Role Models at Humanistic Paganism.

A tragic love story about binary stars? It must be “Restorying the Sacred” time at No Unsacred Place.

The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics press release regarding the star called SDSS J090745.0+24507 and its ill-fated companion was issued in 2005, but I don’t think I found out about it until later, maybe sometime in 2007. Ever since, I’ve wanted to “do” something with the story, but nothing’s ever been quite right. Finally I realized that that’s because I’ve been trying to write about the item, when what I really wanted to do was rewrite it as a narrative, offering it to the world in a way that lets everyone know why it affected me so deeply. I’m honored to at last have had a chance to do so.

My first “official” post at No Unsacred Place is up. It honors the recent passing of Minnesota Public Radio’s Tom Keith and his role in creating my personal story of Minnesota.

I realize that the broad readership of NUP might not be familiar with Mr. Keith, so here’s a bit of MPR’s coverage at the time of his death:

*A Montage of Tom Keith’s work
*Tom Keith, a showman but not a showoff, a commentary by Keith’s long-time Morning Show co-host Dale Connelly.

With delight and humbled awe, I come to tell you that I have been chosen as a staff writer for No Unsacred Place, the science and nature blog of the Pagan Newswire Collective!

I will be embarking on an adventure called “Restorying the Sacred”, in which I will explore myth-making and storytelling and how the creation of new sacred stories can help modern Pagans connect to their now and here.

Neoshamanic practitioner and writer Lupa will also be joining NUP, taking over the “Earthly Rites” column.

I am more thrilled than I can say and hope you’ll join me on this new adventure!

A guest post o’mine, “Bee and Orchid”, with accompanying photography by the brilliant and talented Leora Effinger-Weintraub, makes its debut at No Unsacred Place, the amazing Pagan living blog of the Pagan Newswire Collective. Bless the bees!

I have another guest post up at the Clarion Foundation Blog, this time on those sinking moments when writers realize that their intricate and brilliantly crafted plot lines are actually ridiculously easy to resolve.

B.T. Newberg, author/administrator of the Humanistic Paganism website, has put up a guest post, written by yours truly, on the question of personal practice. Enjoy!

“Writer’s Craft #18-Who Edits You?” at the Clarion blog is a guest post by yours truly regarding the fine art of choosing who gets to critique your precious prose.

Once more, a short essay of mine graces the pages of the I’m From Driftwood blog. This time, it’s a heartwarming holiday tale (no, really!). Check it out!