Link: http://sacredspacefoundation.org/

I am currently at the Sacred Space Conference XIX in Laurel, MD. So far, so good. The hotel has been a bit odd, but fortunately Ivo and I have a nice, diplomatic manner and we have been able to smooth over a thing or two.

I did the Castle Arianrhod ritual last night, and I will admit it went very well. I love building the Crystal Castle, but once I got the center spire done I noticed that it was slightly closer to the ceiling than in the Great Room at home and so I had to use a little tea candle instead of the silver pillar candle I had brought. I think the hotel staff would have been odder if I had accidentally burned down the building the first day of the conference.

I haven't had a chance to go to anything else besides the opening ritual. I was going to Thorn's workshop at 9:00 a.m. but I forgot that I had promised the Project Manager at work that I would dial into the Technical meeting this morning at it is at (wait for it) 9:00 a.m. In fact I am writing this while I listen to them blather on and on and on...

I just read an article in WitchVox ( Becoming Disenchanted with Wicca ) in which the author, under the mask of issues with the superstitions of Wicca and paganism and a general slam against religion, encourages Wiccans to "Embrace the new atheists (Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Dennett) . Before you dismiss them, read their works."

I have read Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris. Generally, I find their atheistic fundamentalism to be on a par with monotheistic fundamentalism. And I have occasionally thought to myself 'how would I, as a Wiccan, answer their critiques and criticisms?" Of course, I usually have to run off to do and see and be somewhere else.

Now, however, I will have to sit down and see how I would answer of some their ideas. Some, like the importance of science and reason, are not antithetical to wiccan and pagan thought. But some, such as the purely materialist and mechanistic view of the universe, are certainly not part of my belief system.

I am going to think about a response to the article on WitchVox. Now, one of the criticisms of the New Atheism and its arguments against religion (and the author of the article seems to forget that Dawkins and Harris are against ANY religion, even one that is based solely on the Jungian idea of archetypes) is that the paradigms or 'field' in which the 'con' and 'pro' arguments do not overlap. There is some validity to that observation. But I feel that a response can be made.

I don't know when I will have that response ready, it will take quite a bit of thought, but I will do it.

Welcome to my weblog. This will be an experiment in opinion, commentary, and musings. It may be boring, it may be challenging, it may be funny. It will certainly be an adventure.

Having never used this medium before for expression, it will be an evolutionary process. I am sure that when I look back on it in a few months I will wonder what I was thinking.

Again, welcome and enjoy!

Brightest Blessings
Michael