[On Sun­day, March 22nd, I was invit­ed by the intern min­is­ter to speak as a pagan on the equinox at the Uni­tar­i­an Uni­ver­sal­ist church that I attend. This is the text of that pre­sen­ta­tion.]

Hi, my name is Chris, my pro­nouns are “they” and “them,” and I’m a pagan priest. Now here, that doesn’t mean much, and out in the world, it means even less. But I work with an Irish deity—one who few have heard of out­side of pop-cul­ture mis­con­cep­tions, and even few­er under­stand.

But “pagan” doesn’t tell you much. Though reclaimed in moder­ni­ty, the def­i­n­i­tion of “pagan” is an umbrel­la so large that it encom­pass­es any belief out­side of “rec­og­nized reli­gions” (and today, at least, I won’t get into who is doing the rec­og­niz­ing). Thus, it is per­haps iron­ic that many pagans lumped togeth­er under a sin­gle label have belief sys­tems that are more dif­fer­ent from each oth­er than many are from monothe­is­tic tra­di­tions.

Also, there is no cohe­sive com­mu­ni­ty of Irish pagans fol­low­ing The Mor­ri­g­an in the US. When I get togeth­er once in a while with folks from ALL over the very WOO WOO Bay Area who work with Her too, there are maybe a dozen of us.

And like, eight of us are priests, so too many cooks in the kitchen.

This is all just to say my practice—even as a priest—is usu­al­ly qui­et. I pass unno­ticed through the world. I do not pros­e­ly­tize. My in-per­son acts of ser­vice to my com­mu­ni­ty go through orga­ni­za­tions of like-mind­ed folk or to friends. My vest­ments look like work­out clothes. When I write about destroy­ing patri­archy and cap­i­tal­ism, it dove­tails with social jus­tice in a way that flies under most radars.

But today, two days after the ver­nal equinox, I want to take a moment to share some­thing about my prac­tice with all of you that I have found to be a com­fort in recent times. You can take what you like. You can leave what you don’t. Pagan­ism is noth­ing if not a sal­ad bar.

Like many pagans and most Irish pagans, I pay atten­tion to the nat­ur­al world. Now… please don’t think that means I am one with the Earth or some­thing. I am only just ful­ly recov­ered from a bout of poi­son oak that would divest any­one of such a notion.

It. Was. EVERYWHERE.

But in a world with entire­ly too many distractions—most com­pet­ing for your atten­tion, efforts, and money—I pay atten­tion to the sky and the ground and the hori­zon. The way dark­ness and light move across our world. I usu­al­ly know the phase of the moon in broad day­light. I know at what time of year to look for cer­tain con­stel­la­tions. I know how long I have until sun­set and dusk by look­ing at the sky. I watch the sea­sons, and am keen­ly aware of the shift in day length. 


In Irish pagan­ism, fire fes­ti­vals like Bela­tine and Samhain between each sol­stice and equinox are more impor­tant than sol­stices and equinox­es them­selves, but it’s impos­si­ble to track one with­out being aware of the oth­er, so I’m pret­ty attuned to all eight points on the wheel of the year. I usu­al­ly try to find a beach or a for­est or at least a very hug­gable tree and take a moment to mark the pass­ing of the sea­sons.


This aware­ness gives me a per­spec­tive that I val­ue. Every­thing is hap­pen­ing in cycles. A sky that seems at first chaot­ic and arbi­trary is actu­al­ly method­i­cal and pre­dictable. The moon wax­es and wanes. Solar eclipses hap­pen no few­er than two and no more than five times each year. The plan­ets wan­der back and forth against their back­ground stars. The days change their length. And then it goes back. And again. And again. We have been here before. We will be here again.

And right now, we are in the bal­ance between day­light and night—long days and short. The ver­nal equinox. And in six months, we will stand in the bal­ance again as the days get short­er. And a year from now, yet again. It has hap­pened before. It WILL hap­pen again.

You know, at least for five bil­lion years or so.

Here’s how it helps: We stand in a moment in his­to­ry where it is easy to imag­ine that some­thing has bro­ken that will nev­er mend. That we can only pos­si­bly keep falling for­ev­er into this wors­en­ing chasm of humanity’s abil­i­ty to do harm to itself. The forces arrayed are so many and so pow­er­ful. Despair can be over­whelm­ing.

But they won’t win. They are des­tined to fail. We have been here before. We know this cycle.

Such pet­ty bids for pow­er over human­i­ty trig­ger their own resis­tance. It may seem dis­or­ga­nized, but it is actu­al­ly a nat­ur­al, method­i­cal cycle—as pre­dictable as Friday’s equinox. Con­trol and author­i­tar­i­an­ism: these are unnat­ur­al. They require tremen­dous effort and resources. Autoc­ra­cy is a des­per­ate­ly Her­culean under­tak­ing. Where­as the bid for the safe­ty of loved ones—for privacy—for self-determination—for sovereignty—these things exist with­in each of us with­out instruc­tion. A two-year-old who screams, “No!” demon­strates the idea of free­dom as a pure impulse.

We are all savants at defi­ance.

And while tac­tics and strate­gies for max­i­miz­ing effort in our com­mu­ni­ties can be taught, the yearning—the YEARNING for lib­er­a­tion nev­er needs to be. The moment greedy hands reach out to con­trol us, our resis­tance ris­es as nat­u­ral­ly as the sun, and wax­es as pre­dictably as the moon.


We will not give away our pow­er.

I know that author­i­tar­i­an­ism is des­tined to fail. Not because I am an optimist—I’m not. I’m a cyn­ic. Not because I want to be uplift­ing today. I don’t. I want you all to under­stand that peo­ple are DYING.

And I ABSOLUTELY do not say it to jus­ti­fy any iota of apa­thy. Those of us—particularly with soci­etal advantages—should in no way “Sit Back and Allow the Moral Arc of the Uni­verse to Attend to Itself” for we are in a time of great harm and this cycle can’t end soon enough.

But rather more like Rab­bi Tarfon’s wis­dom that we do not need to fin­ish the work, but nei­ther are we free to aban­don it. We can’t give up, but also we won’t lose.

I know author­i­tar­i­an­ism is des­tined to fail because it always has. And yes, there is an “even­tu­al­ly” in there that teems with hor­ri­fy­ing impli­ca­tions, but it always has. It always will. It is like the sun­rise. No effort as har­row­ing as quelling humanity’s urge for free will has ever suc­ceed­ed indef­i­nite­ly. As we join with our com­mu­ni­ty… our efforts at harm reduc­tion, our mutu­al assis­tance, and our relent­less activism will join oth­ers. Our com­mu­ni­ties cre­ate a gestalt of results much greater than the efforts of any ONE of us. Tiny acts of insur­rec­tion are droplets in the upris­ing. We form a del­uge and then a flood of dis­sent that can nev­er be quelled.

I do not know if, in this moment, we stand in the metaphor­i­cal bal­ance in our social cli­mate the way we do between the lengths of day­light in our cur­rent sea­son. I sus­pect rather that a long win­ter is just begin­ning to turn. But I do feel those forces stir­ring from their long tor­por. Rising—as they always will—to the long­ing for auton­o­my.

They can­not defeat our will. They will not over­come our spir­it. As sure as the days will length­en from today, the inevitable fail­ure of yet anoth­er pet­ty bid for con­trol is absolute­ly cer­tain.



We have been here before.