Today is May Day, Beltane, a celebration of spring for many people, especially including those who choose the path of earth-centered, or pagan, religious traditions. This creation story comes from Lady Abigail, high priestess of the Ravensgrove Coven in Greenfield, Indiana, and was taught to her by her great-grandmother. It strikes me as a story that would be most welcome in our Unitarian Universalist circles as well.

Mother Earth and Sister Moon: A Beltaine Story of Creation

by Lady Abigail, remembered from her great-grandmother

In the beginning, there was no land and no water, no stars and no sky. Only a great void filled with all that could be. Living within the void was creation, not yet by name for no words had yet been spoken. Silence was the void.

Then like a whispering wind gentle on a summer night, a sound crossed the great void. Our Grandmother of the Night called to the Grandfather of the Day. “Grandfather, do you see we are alone and have no children; our sky is empty and our hearts alone.”

Suddenly, Grandfather Day spoke in a deep thundering voice. “Then we shall have Children: daughters, two daughters.”

(Read on … )

Unitarian Universalist blogger Joel Monka submitted today’s piece to the (now unfortunately defunct) UU Blog Carnival for September, 2006, on the topic, “What gets you through the hard night?” Joel blogs at CUUMBAYA, “Conservative Unitarian Universalist Member Blogging As You Asked!”

What gets me through the night

by Joel Monka

Neopagan faiths are called “Earth based religions;” most people think that means we worship the Earth itself. Some in fact do — there is that old joke that Wiccans make the best lovers, because they really do worship the ground you walk on! But it also means that we are oriented on this world, not the next. The Abrahamic faiths teach that the next world is the real one, that this life is merely an entrance exam. Most Neopagans believe in a form of reincarnation — either as an entity, or that the energies we have gathered are recycled, like a rock band breaking up to form new groups with new sounds. Even those that do believe in an afterlife — primarily those that call themselves heathens — believe that any judgment they face is based on their performance in this world, not on the mental gyrations they went through to prepare for the next. The essence of all these possibilities is one reality at a time… if you make yourself truly worthy of this world, you have nothing to fear from any other.

But there is yet another depth to the term “Earth centered” — that we must live in the present tense. Here is what I have written in my personal Book of Shadows:

(Read on … )