Why July Birthdays Matter: A Heartfelt Message

Group of friends celebrating birthday with cake and balloons at sunset by the lake

Hey there, Unplugged Pagan.

Today this one is for all of my fellow moon children out there. The July-born. The summer-born. The ones whose birthdays land right in the middle of heat, long days, family trips, campgrounds, bug spray, and everyone else being somewhere else.

First off, happy birthday to you.

I hope your day is a good one. I hope you get some peace, some laughter, something sweet, and at least one moment where you feel properly seen.

Because if I am being honest, being born in July can be a strange thing.

It sounds good on paper. Warm weather. No snow. No school. Long evenings. Green trees. Lakes, rivers, gardens, campfires, and summer skies.

But when you were a kid, it could also kind of suck.

School was out. Friends were gone. Families were on vacation. People were scattered in every direction. Your birthday did not happen in the middle of the usual rhythm of the year. It happened when everything was already broken apart for the summer.

Some of us did not really get the classic birthday-party experience. Not the way our siblings might have. Not the cake-and-ice-cream-at-home thing with a bunch of friends crowded around the table. Not the classroom cupcakes. Not the invitations handed out at school. Not the feeling that the whole world paused for one small day and said, “This one is yours.”

Instead, maybe you were in the back seat of a car on the way to somewhere else. Maybe you were at a campground. Maybe you were standing in the middle of the woods, surrounded by trees and mosquitoes, trying to pretend that this was just as good.

And to be fair, sometimes it was good.

There is magic in the woods. There is magic in a summer sky. There is magic in being born when the land is alive, when the gardens are growing, when the sun lingers late, and when the night air carries the smell of grass, water, smoke, and heat.

But that does not mean it never felt lonely.

Both things can be true.

There can be beauty in a July birthday, and there can also be a quiet little ache in remembering that your day often arrived when everyone else was away, distracted, travelling, or busy with summer plans.

So to the moon children born in July, I want to say this clearly: your birthday mattered then, and it matters now.

Even if it was celebrated on the road. Even if it happened beside a tent, a trailer, a picnic table, or a smoky fire pit. Even if the cake was missing, the ice cream melted, the friends were away, or the day felt smaller than it should have.

You still arrived under a powerful sky.

You were born in the season of green things. In the season of warmth. In the season of storms, fireflies, open windows, long shadows, and wild growth.

That means something.

Maybe we did not always get the party.

Maybe we did not always get the crowd.

Maybe we learned early that birthdays could be quiet, scattered, improvised things.

But maybe that also taught us how to find meaning outside the expected places.

Maybe it taught us that celebration does not always arrive wrapped properly. Sometimes it shows up as lake water on your feet, smoke in your hair, stars over a tent, or one person remembering to say your name with love.

So happy birthday to the July-born.

Happy birthday to the moon children.

May this year be kinder. May it bring warmth without burning you out. May it bring company without crowding your spirit. May it bring sweetness, memory, laughter, and a better kind of belonging.

And if nobody said it properly back then, let it be said now:

You deserved the cake.

You deserved the ice cream.

You deserved the friends around you.

And you still deserve to be celebrated.

That is it for now.

No Frith with Folkism Means Reckoning with the Nine Noble Virtues

A vintage scale balancing symbols of reciprocity on one side and responsibility on the other

After reading The Wild Hunt’s recent opinion piece, “No Frith with Folkism,” I found myself agreeing with the surface statement while still feeling that something deeper needed to be said.

Yes, Folkism has no rightful place in Heathenry.

Yes, racism, white supremacy, blood-gatekeeping, and ancestry-as-spiritual-ownership need to be rejected.

But that led me to the harder question:

What happens when parts of modern Heathenry were built, shaped, repeated, or popularized inside the same ideological weather system that inclusive Heathens now say they reject?

That question brought me back to the Nine Noble Virtues.

The Nine Noble Virtues are often presented as if they are ancient Heathen ethics. They are not. They are a modern construction. The Wild Hunt has previously reported that the Nine Noble Virtues were created by John Yeowell and John Gibbs-Bailey of the Odinic Rite in 1974, and that Yeowell had ties to white supremacist and fascist movements. The Troth also states plainly that the Nine Noble Virtues are neither authentically from the Viking Age nor really ethics in the ancient sense, and that they were originally developed by the Odinic Rite.

That matters.

Not because courage is racist.

Not because truth is racist.

Not because honour, fidelity, discipline, hospitality, self-reliance, industriousness, or perseverance are bad words.

But because the package matters. The origin matters. The framework matters. The assumptions matter.

Modern Heathenry, especially in North America, has had to wrestle for years with white supremacist appropriation of its symbols and language. The Wild Hunt itself has reported Heathen voices saying that the tie between white supremacy and Heathenry in America goes back to the beginning of organized modern movements, and that modern Heathens have had to keep fighting the misuse of their symbols by extremists.

So I submitted an opinion piece to The Wild Hunt for consideration.

Partly because I think the question deserves to be asked.

Partly because “no frith with Folkism” cannot stop at rejecting obvious racism. It also has to examine inherited structures, moral frameworks, beginner materials, and community assumptions that may have been normalized through Folkish or far-right-adjacent spaces.

And partly, yes, to see whether this kind of internal critique will be given room.

It is one thing to say “we reject Folkism” when the target is safely outside the door.

It is harder to ask whether the floorboards inside the hall were cut from the same forest.

We shall see.

Below is the opinion piece submitted to The Wild Hunt for consideration.

No Frith with Folkism Means Reckoning with the Nine Noble Virtues

By Kevin McLaughlin
writing as Lugh Sulian

The recent Wild Hunt opinion piece “No Frith with Folkism” says something that needed saying clearly: Folkism has no rightful place in Heathenry.

I agree.

But I also think the statement opens a harder and more uncomfortable question. If there is no frith with Folkism, then what do we do with the parts of modern Heathenry that were shaped inside the same ideological weather system?

The Nine Noble Virtues are the obvious example.

Courage. Truth. Honour. Fidelity. Discipline. Hospitality. Self-reliance. Industriousness. Perseverance.

To many modern Heathens, these are treated almost like a sacred ethical foundation. They appear on websites, beginner guides, social media graphics, teaching materials, kindred pages, and personal practice statements. They are often presented as if they are ancient Heathen ethics handed down from the Viking Age.

They are not.

The Nine Noble Virtues are a modern construction. They were codified in the twentieth century, not preserved as a formal moral code from pre-Christian Germanic religion. The Wild Hunt has previously reported that the Nine Noble Virtues were created by John Yeowell and John Gibbs-Bailey of the Odinic Rite in 1974, and that Yeowell had ties to white supremacist and fascist movements. The Troth has also described the Nine Noble Virtues as the most famous modern attempt at creating a Heathen ethical code, originally developed by the Odinic Rite, while making clear that they are not Viking Age ethics.

That history matters.

It does not mean that courage is racist.

It does not mean truth is racist.

It does not mean honour, fidelity, discipline, hospitality, self-reliance, industriousness, or perseverance are bad things.

But it does mean the package deserves scrutiny.

When modern Heathen communities say “no frith with Folkism” while continuing to treat the Nine Noble Virtues as a central moral framework, they risk rejecting the visible racism while preserving some of the architecture that racism helped popularize.

That is the uncomfortable part.

The problem is not only who wrote the list. If that were the only issue, the solution would be simple: acknowledge the source, strip away the bad actors, and reclaim the useful pieces.

But the deeper issue is the shape of the code itself.

Why these nine virtues?

Why this emphasis?

Why courage, discipline, self-reliance, industriousness, perseverance, fidelity, and honour as the central moral vocabulary?

Where are compassion, humility, repair, interdependence, care for the vulnerable, accountability after harm, ecological responsibility, or the hard work of restoring broken relationship?

Hospitality is there, yes. But even hospitality can be flattened into a performance of courtesy if it is not tied to genuine openness, protection, and obligation toward the stranger.

The Nine Noble Virtues produce a particular moral atmosphere. It is hard-edged. It favours strength, endurance, self-mastery, loyalty, labour, and personal toughness. Those can be meaningful values. They can also sit very comfortably inside authoritarian, exclusionary, and Folkish ideas of struggle, hierarchy, purity, and worth.

That does not make every person who uses the Nine Noble Virtues a Folkist. It does not make every kindred that references them racist. Many inclusive Heathens have used them sincerely, often because they were presented as standard beginner material.

But sincerity does not erase origin.

And use does not make a thing ancient.

A community serious about rejecting Folkism should be willing to ask whether its inherited ethics still carry Folkish assumptions, even after the racial language has been removed.

That is where “no frith with Folkism” must become more than a slogan.

Frith is not merely the absence of conflict. It is right relationship. It is trust, order, obligation, and peace maintained through honesty and accountability. If Folkism has distorted modern Heathenry, then restoring frith requires more than disavowing explicitly racist organizations. It requires examining the ideas, habits, symbols, and teaching tools that were normalized through those same networks.

The Nine Noble Virtues should not be treated as Heathen scripture.

They should not be treated as the Ten Commandments in Viking clothing.

They should not be placed at the centre of beginner Heathen education without context.

At most, they should be taught historically: as a modern ethical construction, emerging from specific twentieth-century Odinist and Folkish-adjacent environments, later adopted and adapted by many people who often did not know or fully examine that history.

That is a very different thing from treating them as the moral backbone of the faith.

If inclusive Heathenry wants to build something healthier, it needs more than a cleaned-up version of inherited Folkish-era ethics. It needs an ethic rooted in reciprocity, hospitality, responsibility, and repair. It needs to honour ancestors without turning ancestry into ownership. It needs to value courage without glorifying domination. It needs to value honour without turning honour into ego armour. It needs to value kinship without narrowing kinship into blood purity. It needs to value frith without confusing frith with silence.

There is an old temptation in modern Paganism to fill gaps quickly. When reconstructing broken traditions, we reach for lists, codes, symbols, slogans, and simplified teaching tools. That is understandable. People want something solid under their feet.

But not everything solid is sacred.

Sometimes the thing that feels like foundation is just old scaffolding from someone else’s project.

The Nine Noble Virtues may have helped some people articulate discipline, courage, and responsibility. That personal meaning does not have to be denied. But personal usefulness is not the same as communal legitimacy. A tool can be useful and still require retirement when its history and limitations become clear.

Inclusive Heathenry does not need to reclaim the Nine Noble Virtues.

It needs to demote them.

Study them. Contextualize them. Critique them. Understand why they spread. Understand why they appealed to people. Understand why they still appeal to people. But stop pretending they are ancient. Stop pretending they are neutral. Stop pretending they are the natural ethical centre of Heathen practice.

No frith with Folkism means no unexamined inheritance from Folkism either.

If the hall is to be rebuilt, we have to inspect the beams.

Not just the banner over the door.

References

A Request Is Not a Command

Illustration comparing request and demand communication styles with people talking and thinking about dialogue or compliance.

Something caught my attention while I was scrolling through the web.

Sometimes people do not seem to understand the difference between asking someone to consider something and demanding that they do something.

They are not the same thing.

A request for consideration sounds something like this:

“Here is what I am seeing. Here is why I am concerned. Please think about it.”

A demand for action sounds more like this:

“I have already decided what must happen. Your job is to do it.”

The confusing part is that both can be spoken politely. Someone can say “please” while issuing a demand. Someone else can speak firmly, or even emotionally, while only asking to be heard.

The difference is not always found in the wording.

The difference is found in whether the other person is actually allowed to think, question, disagree, offer another solution, or say no.

Asking Someone to Consider Something

When I ask someone to consider a concern, I am not necessarily telling them that I control the final decision.

I may strongly believe that something needs to change. I may explain why I believe people are being harmed, ignored, pushed aside, or treated unfairly. I may ask difficult questions. I may point out consequences that others would rather not discuss.

That still does not automatically make it a demand.

Sometimes the request is simply:

“Please stop for a moment and look at this from somewhere other than your own position.”

Consideration means listening before reacting. It means examining the concern rather than immediately defending yourself against it.

It means asking:

What is actually happening here?
Who is being affected?
Is there something we have overlooked?
Could this be handled differently?
Is there room for compromise?

A person may hear the concern, consider it honestly, and still disagree. That is part of the process.

Consideration does not guarantee agreement.

When a Request Becomes a Demand

A demand is different because the answer has already been decided.

The conversation may still be presented as though everyone has a choice, but only one answer will actually be accepted.

That becomes clear when someone says no.

If the response to no is anger, punishment, exclusion, retaliation, guilt, or accusations of betrayal, then it probably was not a request in the first place.

It was a command wearing softer clothing.

A genuine request allows the other person to answer honestly. A disguised demand keeps asking the question until the desired answer is finally given.

We have probably all experienced this at some point:

“I am not telling you what to do. I am only asking.”

Yet somehow, saying no brings consequences.

That is not really asking.

Power Changes the Conversation

Power also matters.

A request from a friend is not always the same as a request from an employer, a landlord, an organizer, a leader, an elder, or someone who controls access to a place or community.

Someone with power can make a sentence sound optional when it is not optional at all.

“Would you consider doing this?”

That may sound harmless, but it feels very different when the person asking can take away your income, your place in a community, your access to land, your reputation, or something else you depend upon.

On the other hand, someone with very little power may speak forcefully because speaking forcefully is the only tool they have left.

A strong voice does not automatically make something a demand.

Sometimes it is simply the voice of someone who has asked quietly before and was ignored.

The Simplest Test

There is a fairly simple way to tell the difference between a request and a demand:

What happens when the answer is no?

With a genuine request, there may be disappointment. There may be further discussion. There may even be disagreement.

But the person is still allowed to answer honestly.

With a demand, no is treated as defiance.

The person may suddenly be called difficult, selfish, disloyal, unreasonable, or hostile. They may be pushed out, spoken about, or quietly punished.

That tells us something important.

A request that only accepts yes was probably never a request.

Asking to Be Heard Is Not Trying to Control Everyone

I think this is where many conversations go wrong.

Someone asks that a concern be considered, and the other person reacts as though their authority is being challenged.

Someone says:

“Please look at what this decision is doing to other people.”

What is heard is:

“You must do exactly what I say.”

Those are not the same thing.

Asking for a discussion is not demanding surrender.

Asking for accommodation is not always demanding cancellation.

Questioning a decision is not the same as claiming authority over everyone involved.

Sometimes it is simply asking those with power to remember that their decisions do not happen in a vacuum.

Other people are affected.

Relationships are affected.

Trust is affected.

Frith is affected.

A Boundary Is Not Automatically a Demand

There is another distinction worth making.

A boundary says:

“These are the conditions under which I am willing to participate.”

A demand says:

“You are not allowed to continue unless you do what I want.”

A boundary describes what I will do.

A demand attempts to control what you will do.

For example:

“I will not take part in this under the present conditions.”

That is different from:

“You must stop because I have decided you should.”

Of course, people can misuse the language of boundaries. A threat does not become healthy just because someone calls it a boundary.

Again, we have to look beyond the words and examine what is actually happening.

What Was Really Being Asked?

Sometimes a conflict grows because people are defending themselves against a demand that was never made.

Someone asks to be heard, and others hear an attack.

Someone asks that consequences be considered, and others hear an attempt to seize control.

Someone asks for change, and others assume they are being ordered to abandon everything.

The reverse also happens.

Someone issues an expectation backed by consequences and then insists they were “only making a suggestion.”

Neither helps build trust.

In any healthy community, people must be able to raise concerns without immediately being accused of issuing commands.

At the same time, those with authority should be honest when something is not actually open for discussion.

Do not call it consultation when the decision has already been made.

Do not call it a request when refusal will be punished.

And do not call someone controlling simply because they asked you to stop and consider how your actions affect others.

The Question That Matters

In the end, the difference between a request and a demand may come down to a few simple questions.

Was the person genuinely allowed to think?

Were they allowed to ask questions?

Were other solutions taken seriously?

Could they disagree without being punished?

Were they actually allowed to say no?

That is where a request ends and a demand begins.

When the Flame Feel Low

Two women seated at a table with tarot cards laid out

Today’s horoscope spoke of something long hoped for beginning to move. Not all at once. Not as a miracle landing fully formed in the middle of the room, but as small changes. Small signs. Small evidence that something may finally be shifting.

And yet, if I am being honest, today I feel bleh.

Tired. Worn out. A little too inward. Maybe carrying too much. Maybe sequestered away from the world more than is healthy. Maybe leaning too heavily on screens and words for some form of social connection.

That is not easy to admit, but it is where I am today.

There are places I used to want to go. Places that once felt like home, or at least like possibility. But some of those places do not feel the same to me anymore. Not because they are necessarily wrong. Not because I need to turn every feeling into a judgment. Simply because something in me has changed, and maybe something in those places has changed too.

So the question becomes: where do I go from here?

I do not have a clean answer today.

For this reflection, I pulled a four-card spread: past, present, future, and the card representing me, the querent.

Past — Ten of Wands

The Ten of Wands is the card of carrying too much for too long.

It does not say failure. It says burden. It says endurance. It says the road has been walked, but perhaps with too much weight strapped across the back.

That feels accurate.

Work, health, writing, loss, community, change, school, reputation, old grief, and the ordinary grind of trying to keep moving — it all stacks up. Eventually even the simple act of standing upright can feel like work.

The message here is plain:

You made it this far, but you were not meant to carry everything indefinitely.

Present — Four of Cups

The Four of Cups is the “meh” card.

Not despair, exactly. Not collapse. More like emotional disconnection. The cups are there, but they do not satisfy in the same way. The old places are there, but they do not call in the same voice. The world is still moving, but part of me is sitting off to the side, arms folded, unsure what to do with any of it.

This card does not shame the feeling. It names it.

But it also offers a warning:

Solitude can restore you, but isolation can shrink the world.

That is probably the edge I am standing on today.

Future — The Star

The Star is a hopeful card, but not a loud one.

It does not promise everything will be fixed by morning. It does not offer fireworks. It offers renewal, small signs, quiet healing, and the slow return of faith after exhaustion.

That connects directly to the horoscope for today. Something long hoped for may be beginning to happen, but it will not manifest overnight.

The Star says:

Do not demand proof all at once. Watch for small evidence. Let hope return in drops before it returns as rain.

Querent — The Hermit

The Hermit feels like me right now.

Withdrawn. Thinking. Watching. Trying to make sense of the road behind me and the road ahead.

The Hermit is not a bad card. The Hermit carries a lamp. The Hermit seeks wisdom. The Hermit steps away from noise in order to hear something truer.

But there is a caution here too.

The lamp is meant to guide the way, not become a wall.

There is a difference between solitude that restores and solitude that slowly drains. Today, I am trying to be honest about which one I am standing in.

Brigid, Skadi, Ratatoskr, the Land Spirits, and the Fir

Brigid says: tend the small flame. Do one thing that brings warmth back into the day. A candle. A meal. A message. A small act of making.

Skadi says: do not beg old paths to become sacred again. If the pass has changed, take another route.

Ratatoskr says: listen for the small messages moving between root and branch. Not every sign arrives as thunder.

The land spirits say: go outside. Even briefly. Let the world be larger than the room, larger than the screen, larger than the mood.

The Fir says: evergreen does not mean always cheerful. It means still living through the hard season.

The Meaning of Today’s Spread

I do not think today is asking me to solve my whole life.

I do not think it is asking me to find a new community, a new direction, a new purpose, and a new map before sunset.

I think today is asking for one small widening of the world.

A walk. A drive. A coffee. A garden centre. A library. A store. A roadside pause. A moment with the land. Something ordinary, but real.

Not because it fixes everything.

Because it reminds the body and spirit that the world still exists, and I am still allowed to be in it.

Today the flame feels low.

But low is not out.

Godspeed.

Life and Reputation

Woman hugging a large circular wooden sculpture decorated with butterflies, phoenix, and tarot cards in a green forest clearing

Daily Reflection: Such Is Life

Today my mind is sitting with a couple of paraphrased verses echoed through Wardruna’s Helvegen, and through the older wisdom behind it: songs sent onward, deep wells, ancestral pledges, cattle dying, kin dying, the self dying, and yet reputation remaining after the body is gone.

There is something blunt and grounding in that.

Seasons change. Plants grow. Plants wither. Plants die back. Then, in their own time, they return. The plant does not ask my permission. The plant does not require my approval. The plant does not need me to stand over it, worrying whether it will become what I think it should become.

And such is life.

Life moves whether I choose it to or not. People change. Places change. Communities change. Some changes are good. Some are not. Some I understand. Some I never will. But the truth remains the same: I do not control the seasons. I do not control the roots. I do not control what grows after I have stepped away.

Maybe that is the lesson sitting in front of me today.

No. Not maybe.

It is the lesson.

I need to let go. I need to let these things become what they are going to become, because I do not have control over them. And if I am honest, I do not want control over them either.

All I can control is how I carry myself, what I say, what I build, what I leave behind, and whether my name is attached to bitterness or to something steadier.

So today, I turn to the cards.

Four-Card Daily Spread

Past — Five of Cups

The Five of Cups speaks to grief, disappointment, and standing too long before what has spilled. This card does not deny loss. It does not say, “get over it.” It says, “yes, something mattered, and yes, something has changed.” But it also reminds me that not everything has been lost. There are still cups standing. There is still a road. There is still something worth carrying forward.

Present — Death

Death is not only an ending. It is the season turning. It is the plant dying back. It is the old form no longer being able to hold the life that is trying to move through it. This card fits today’s reflection almost too well. Something is ending, or has already ended, and the work now is not to keep digging up the roots to see if they are still alive. The work is to accept the turning.

Future — Six of Swords

The Six of Swords is movement away from troubled water. It is not a triumphant march. It is not a dramatic victory. It is the quieter decision to leave the noise behind and move toward something calmer. This card suggests that peace will not come from winning the conversation. Peace will come from no longer needing the conversation to resolve in my favour.

Querent — The Hermit

The Hermit represents me today: solitary, watchful, still carrying a lamp. Not cut off from the world, but no longer demanding that the world gather around the flame. The Hermit does not chase the crowd. The Hermit tends the light. That may be enough. In fact, today, that may be the whole lesson.

Invocation

Brigid, keeper of flame and craft, guide my words so they warm rather than burn.

Skadi, steady one of snow, distance, and hard clarity, help me stand cleanly in my own ground.

Ratatoskr, messenger between worlds, remind me that not every message needs to be carried, answered, or amplified.

Fir Tree, evergreen and enduring, teach me resilience without clinging.

And to the ever-present land spirits, seen and unseen, rooted and wandering, may I walk respectfully upon the ground that holds me.

Closing Reflection

Things change whether I bless the change or curse it.

People move. Places shift. Communities become something other than what they once were. I can grieve that. I can name it. But I do not need to hold it in my hands until it cuts me.

What remains is how I walk.

What remains is what I build.

What remains is the reputation of the one who lived, spoke, stood, released, and kept going.

That is enough for today.

Godspeed.

Fire and Field Notes

Woman sitting at wooden desk with open notebook, book, laptop, and papers, looking out window thoughtfully

I am not easily summed up.

I am a practical person, but I am not only practical. I believe in structure, communication, responsibility, documentation, and doing the work that has to be done. But I also believe in fire, ritual, memory, land, spirit, silence, and the things that do not always fit neatly into a spreadsheet.

Both are me.

I am one person trying to understand life through more than one language.

Sometimes I speak through lessons learned the hard way. Sometimes I speak through reflection. Sometimes through frustration. Sometimes through faith. Sometimes through humour. Sometimes through grief. Sometimes through a candle lit in the quiet when there are no easy answers left.

I pay attention. Maybe too much sometimes. I notice tone. I notice silence. I notice effort and the lack of it. I notice when words and actions do not line up. I notice when people say community, but practise exclusion. I notice when people talk about care, but avoid accountability.

That does not mean I am always right. It means I am watching. It means I am trying to understand what is real.

I want connection, but not fake connection.
I want community, but not performance.
I want honesty, but not cruelty.
I want peace, but not the kind of peace that requires everyone to pretend nothing is wrong.

I have been through collapse. I have been through loss. I have been through endings I did not ask for and changes I did not welcome. I have had to rebuild more than once. And when I rebuild, I do not simply move on as if nothing happened. I look at the wreckage. I ask what broke. I ask what I missed. I ask what can be learned. I ask what can be made useful.

That is part of who I am.

I turn experience into meaning. I turn hard lessons into words. I turn confusion into reflection. I turn damage into something I can carry, examine, and maybe hand to someone else so they do not feel quite so alone when their own ground gives way.

But I am also learning that not everything has to become a lesson right away.

Some things hurt.

Some things disappoint.

Some things need to be released without being analyzed to death.

Some things need a candle, a breath, a walk outside, a night of sleep, or simply the honesty to say: this mattered to me, and it hurt.

I am compassionate, but I am not submissive. I can be patient. I can try to understand. I can give people room. But I am not built to live comfortably inside dishonesty, avoidance, or shallow performance. Eventually, if something feels wrong, I will name it. Maybe imperfectly. Maybe too strongly at times. But usually because I am trying to get to something honest.

I am not looking to be the loudest person in the room.

What I want is witness.

I want real things to be seen. Real effort. Real harm. Real rebuilding. Real care. Real contradiction. Real community, if community is the word we are going to use.

I am socially selective. Not antisocial. Selective. There is a difference. I can talk. I can write. I can show up. But shallow connection drains me. I would rather have one honest conversation than a dozen polite performances.

I am spiritual, but not decorative about it. For me, spirituality is not an aesthetic. It is not a costume. It is not a slogan. It is part of how I stay grounded in a world that often feels careless and loud. It is how I remember that I am more than my work, more than my losses, more than my anger, more than my unfinished business.

I am a person of fire and field notes.

That may sound strange, but it is true.

I need both the sacred and the practical. I need both the ritual and the record. I need both the candle and the notebook. I need both the meaning and the method.

I am still learning when to speak, when to stay quiet, when to document, when to let go, when to challenge, and when to simply keep walking.

I do not claim to have it all figured out.

I am not presenting myself as healed, enlightened, wise, or above the mess of being human. I am in the mess too. I get angry. I get tired. I overthink. I care more than I sometimes want to admit. I can say I do not care while absolutely caring. I can want connection and distance at the same time.

That is human.

That is me.

What I know is this: I am still here. I am still paying attention. I am still trying to tell the truth as best I can. I am still trying to build something useful from what life has handed me. I am still trying to stay honest without becoming bitter. I am still trying to stay open without becoming foolish. I am still trying to keep the fire lit.

And maybe that is the simplest way to say who I am.

I am someone who has fallen, watched, learned, questioned, rebuilt, and kept going.

I am someone who wants meaning, not performance.

I am someone who still believes honesty matters.

I am someone who still believes the fire is worth tending.

Godspeed.

There Are Places I Remember

Woman reading a book by cafe window with community photo album and street view

Hello, Unplugged Pagans.

There are songs that find you at the wrong time and somehow say the right thing. Today, for me, that song is In My Life by The Beatles.

There are places I remember. People I remember. Faces I remember. Some have gone. Some remain. Some have changed so much that I hardly know what to do with the memory of them anymore.

This weekend has been stressful. Some of that stress may be of my own creation. I can own that. I have written a few things lately that came from a place of concern, frustration, and reflection. From those posts, one could probably surmise that I am personally not happy with the direction some places seem to be going.

And I want to be clear when I say that: personally.

I am not speaking for everyone. I am not making accusations. I am not trying to pull anyone into a fight. I am speaking from my own experience, my own history, and my own complicated relationship with places that once mattered deeply to me.

But at some point, I also have to look at myself and say: I have already done the ritual. I have already done the release. I have already placed what needed placing into the fire, into the words, into the letting go.

Now I have to actually let go.

Not my circus. Not my monkeys. Not anymore.

That is easier to say than to live.

Because memory is not clean. Memory does not pack itself neatly into boxes. It lingers. It hides in drawers. It sits in old photos, old badges, old event programs, old bits of paper, old objects that once meant something. I look around my camper and I see years of memorabilia from places, gatherings, people, and moments that were once part of my life.

Some of those things still carry warmth.

Some of them now feel hollow.

Some of them remind me of belonging.

Some of them remind me of how conditional that belonging may have been.

There was a time when I was considered, quote unquote, family. I find myself wondering now what that word actually meant. Was it family when I was useful? Family when I was quiet? Family when I fit neatly into the shape expected of me?

Because lately, it seems the only time certain people pay attention is when I say something they do not like. And if I am being honest, that has felt like the pattern for a very long time.

That hurts.

Not in a dramatic way. Not in a “burn it all down” way. Just in that tired, quiet way where you realize you may have been trying to fit a square peg into a round hole for years, and the problem was not that you failed to fit.

Maybe the problem was believing you had to.

I do not know what I am supposed to do with all of that yet. I do not know what stays in the drawer, what gets packed away, what gets released, and what still deserves a place on the shelf.

But I do know this much: some places change. Some people change. Some communities change. And sometimes, the hardest part is admitting that the place you remember may no longer be the place that exists.

That does not mean the memories were false.

It means the path has moved.

Maybe I have moved too.

The wanderer in me is starting to understand that.

That is all for now.

Godspeed.

A Week in the Life of Lugh

Woman sitting in armchair writing in journal with tarot cards on table

Fire, Paperwork, Pagan Trouble, and One Very Tired Coffee Cup

Well now, friends, Bucky Beggins here, reporting from somewhere between the candle flame, the coffee cup, the garden dirt, and whatever strange little corner of the universe keeps approving and rejecting book titles for sport.

It has been one of those weeks in Lugh’s life where the gods did not so much whisper as clear their throats loudly from across the room.

There was writing. There was rewriting. There was a book title that apparently wandered too close to someone else’s fence line and had to be renamed before the gatekeepers of the great digital bookstore would let it pass. There was a moment of muttering, a moment of staring at the screen, and then the decision was made: fine then, we will rename the thing, rework the thing, and send it back into the world with its boots still muddy.

And wouldn’t you know it, just when Lugh braced himself for another round of nonsense, the book passed.

That is how life goes sometimes. You prepare for battle, sharpen the axe, light the fire, summon the ancestors, and then someone from Amazon says, “Congratulations.”

Strange magic, that.

But books were only part of the week. There was also the matter of community, and that is a heavier kettle to carry.

Lugh found himself standing at the edge of the circle again. Not fully inside. Not fully gone. Watching the center, wondering what happened to the old feeling of belonging, and wondering whether the ache was longing, anger, grief, or just plain exhaustion wearing three cloaks at once.

That is not an easy place to stand.

Many pagans know that place, though few like to admit it. The place where you miss the people and want nothing to do with them. The place where you crave connection and distrust the room. The place where the fire still matters, but the gathering around it feels complicated.

There was some public conversation too. Some opinion. Some concern. Some clarification. Some careful walking through words so that concern did not become accusation, and reflection did not become a torch thrown into dry grass.

That is a narrow path.

And if Buck may say so, Lugh walked it about as carefully as a man can while still being honest. Not perfect. Nobody is. But careful. Clear. Trying to speak from concern, not destruction. Trying to ask questions without burning the hall down.

There is a lesson in that for modern pagan life. We like to speak of fire, but fire is not only passion. Fire is also responsibility. A hearth warms. A wildfire devours. Knowing the difference matters.

Meanwhile, life went on in its stubborn little mortal way.

The garden still needed tending. The course work still needed doing. The coffee still needed drinking. The candles still needed lighting. The old gods, the land spirits, and the small household mysteries still waited in the quiet places.

Brigid was there in the forge of words.

Skadi was there in the cold clarity of boundaries.

Ratatoskr was probably running up and down the world tree yelling, “Did you see what happened on the internet today?”

And the landvættir, I suspect, were standing near the edge of the garden with crossed arms, reminding everyone that whatever human storm is blowing through, the peas and peppers still expect attention.

That may be the most pagan thing of all.

Not the drama. Not the title. Not the arguments over what counts as pagan enough, political enough, traditional enough, modern enough, angry enough, gentle enough, reconstructed enough, devotional enough, or marketable enough.

No.

The pagan thing is this: the week happens, the heart gets bruised, the world gets loud, and still the candle is lit.

Still the hands go into the dirt.

Still the book gets written.

Still the questions are asked.

Still the man at the edge of the circle does not entirely walk away.

That was Lugh’s week, near as Buck can tell. A week of blocked titles, open doors, sore feelings, stubborn honesty, community ache, and small sacred continuance.

Not a clean week. Not an easy week. But a living one.

And sometimes, dear friends, living weeks are the only kind that teach us anything worth keeping.

So tonight, light the candle if you have one. Pour the coffee if you need it. Step outside and nod to the land if you can. The circle may feel strange. The road may feel uncertain. The fire may feel low.

But low fire is still fire.

And Lugh, stubborn firekeeper that he is, appears to still be standing beside it.

Godspeed,
Bucky Beggins

Making Room for Questions, Care, and Community

Diverse adults sitting around a table in discussion during a community dialogue meeting

Note: This is a personal reflection offered in good faith. It is not an accusation, not a claim of wrongdoing, and not a statement against any individual, group, organization, or community space.

Hey there, my dear Unplugged Pagans.

This is a follow-up to my earlier post.

Yes, it generated some traffic. Yes, I understand that some people may have strong feelings about it. When people care deeply about a community, a place, a festival, a tradition, or a shared history, emotions can rise quickly.

I want to begin from a place of respect.

I am not insinuating wrongdoing. I am not accusing anyone of anything. I am not suggesting that any individual has acted improperly. I am not speaking from private conversations I have not had.

As I said before, I have not had discussions with anyone connected to that pagan space regarding these concerns.

What I shared was personal reflection. Personal concern. Personal opinion. Questions from a general perspective.

And I believe there is room for that.

Concern Can Come From Care

Sometimes concern is not an attack.

Sometimes concern is a sign that something still matters to us.

When we notice change in a community space, it does not mean we are against that space. It may mean we remember what it has meant to people. It may mean we are trying to understand where it is going. It may mean we are trying to hold memory, care, and hope at the same time.

That is where I am trying to stand.

I am not interested in tearing anything down. I am not interested in assigning blame. I am not interested in creating division for the sake of division.

I am interested in honest reflection, careful language, and the hope that community can make room for questions without immediately turning those questions into conflict.

Communication Under Load

One of the lessons I keep returning to from Standing on the Ledge, and from my work around communication and conflict management, is this:

When pressure rises, clarity matters.

Under pressure, people can hear concern as accusation. They can hear questions as judgment. They can hear reflection as attack.

That is why I want to slow this down and be clear.

I am asking questions from a place of care, not condemnation.

I am sharing concerns from a place of reflection, not accusation.

I am speaking as someone who values community, tradition, shared spaces, and the people who have helped build them.

Change Is Not Always Simple

From an organizational behaviour perspective, communities change over time.

Volunteer spaces can become more structured. Informal gatherings can develop formal systems. Festivals can grow, move, reorganize, professionalize, or take on new responsibilities.

None of that is automatically wrong.

Growth can be good. Structure can be useful. Leadership can be necessary. Change can help something survive.

At the same time, change can also feel complicated for people who remember earlier versions of a space. Some may feel excited. Some may feel uncertain. Some may feel nostalgic. Some may need time to understand what has shifted.

That does not make anyone the enemy.

It simply means people are processing change from different places.

Questions Can Strengthen Community

I believe healthy communities can hold thoughtful questions.

Not hostile questions. Not cruel questions. Not questions meant to wound.

But honest questions.

Questions about direction. Questions about belonging. Questions about memory. Questions about how change is communicated. Questions about how people remain connected as a space evolves.

Those questions do not have to weaken a community.

Handled well, they can strengthen it.

They can help people listen better. They can help clarify misunderstandings. They can help honour what came before while still making room for what comes next.

Why I Am Not Retracting the Previous Post

At this point, am I going to retract the previous post?

Most likely not.

Not because I want conflict. Not because I want anyone upset. Not because I believe anyone has done anything wrong.

I am not retracting it because it was my personal opinion and my personal reflection.

It was not an allegation. It was not a charge. It was not a statement of wrongdoing. It was not aimed at any individual.

It was a reflection on change, community, and concern.

People are allowed to disagree with me. People are allowed to see things differently. People are allowed to feel protective of the spaces they love.

I respect that.

My hope is that disagreement does not have to become hostility.

Standing on the Evidence, Not the Heat

One of the ideas from Standing on the Ledge that applies here is the difference between reacting from heat and returning to evidence.

The heat says, “People are upset, so everything must be broken.”

The evidence says, “What was actually said? What was not said? What can be clarified? What tone can be improved? What care can still be offered?”

So here is the clarification, offered plainly and respectfully:

I am not making accusations.

I am not insinuating wrongdoing.

I am not claiming private knowledge.

I am not asking anyone to take sides.

I am sharing personal concerns, personal observations, and general questions about community, change, communication, and belonging.

And I am doing my best to do that with care.

A Hopeful Way Forward

My hope is simple.

I hope we can care about community spaces without becoming afraid to ask questions.

I hope we can disagree without assuming the worst of one another.

I hope we can honour the people who built things, the people who maintain things, and the people who are trying to understand where things are going.

I hope we can remember that a community is not only a place or an event. It is also the way people speak to one another when things feel uncomfortable.

That is the ground I am trying to stand on.

With respect, care, and hope.

Thank you.

Godspeed.

The Earth Will Survive Us

Silhouette of a person dissolving into glowing particles with a sunset mountain landscape

CAUTION THIS POST MAY OFFEND SOME

There is something deeply uncomfortable about admitting that humanity is temporary.

Not metaphorically temporary.

Not politically temporary.

Not “we need to change our ways or things will get difficult” temporary.

I mean temporary in the older, colder, truer sense.

One day, human beings will be gone.

Maybe by our own hand. Maybe by disease. Maybe by climate, war, asteroid, famine, mutation, time, or some force we do not yet have a name for. Maybe not for thousands of years. Maybe not for millions.

But eventually?

Yes.

Eventually, we pass too.

Reader’s Moment

If that thought unsettles you, good.

It should.

Not because it is hopeless, but because it cuts through one of the deepest illusions modern humanity carries: the belief that we are permanent.

We build as if we are permanent.

We consume as if we are permanent.

We make plans as if history bends toward us forever.

Even our environmental language often carries the same arrogance.

We say we are going to save the Earth.

But are we?

Or are we trying to save the conditions that make human life comfortable, possible, and familiar?

That is not the same thing.

The Earth Is Not the Fragile One

The Earth has endured fire, ice, extinction, impact, flood, volcanic winters, shifting continents, poisoned atmospheres, and oceans that rose and fell long before anything resembling a human being stood upright and gave itself a name.

She has buried worlds before us.

She will bury ours too.

That is not cruelty.

That is time.

The Earth is not a glass ornament sitting on the edge of a shelf, waiting for humanity to catch it before it falls.

She is older than our prayers.

Older than our gods.

Older than our languages.

Older than our grief.

And if humanity vanished tomorrow, the wind would still move.

The rain would still fall.

The roots would still search downward.

The fungi would continue their quiet work.

Something would crawl, bloom, rot, adapt, and begin again.

Life may change shape, but the Earth does not require our permission to continue.

That Is the Revelation People Fear

I do not think people are only afraid of environmental collapse.

I think they are afraid of insignificance.

They are afraid of realizing that humanity may not be the main character of creation.

They are afraid of looking at the long story of this planet and seeing that we are recent.

A brief flame.

A loud animal.

A clever ape with tools, myths, machines, and a dangerous belief in its own importance.

That does not mean we are meaningless.

It means we are not eternal.

There is a difference.

The Problem With “Saving the Earth”

This is where I become cautious with some modern environmental thinking.

Not because I believe pollution is fine.

Not because I think forests should be stripped, rivers poisoned, animals erased, or every living thing turned into profit.

I do not believe that.

But I also do not believe every action taken under the banner of “saving the Earth” is automatically wise, balanced, or sacred.

Human beings have a bad habit of panicking in one direction after causing damage in another.

We create a problem through arrogance, then try to fix it with more arrogance.

We strip-mine in the name of green progress.

We industrialize our solutions.

We replace one form of extraction with another.

We call it sustainability because the slogan sounds cleaner than the machinery behind it.

That is not reverence.

That is rebranding.

A Pagan View of Extinction

From a pagan perspective, extinction is not unnatural.

That may be hard to hear.

But nature is not a museum.

Nature does not freeze every species in place because we find them beautiful, useful, symbolic, or emotionally comforting.

Things arise.

Things flourish.

Things decline.

Things vanish.

The leaf falls.

The body returns.

The bone becomes soil.

The old forest burns and something else grows where it stood.

This is not a failure of the sacred order.

This is the sacred order.

The mistake is believing humanity somehow stands outside that cycle.

We do not.

Humility, Not Hopelessness

Now, this does not mean we shrug and say, “Nothing matters.”

That is not wisdom.

That is laziness wearing a dark cloak.

The fact that humanity is temporary does not excuse carelessness.

A flower is temporary too.

So is a deer.

So is a fire.

So is a human life.

And yet we still tend the garden, feed the animals, honour the hearth, bury our dead, protect our children, and try not to poison the well we drink from.

Temporary things still matter.

Maybe they matter because they are temporary.

But we need to be honest about what we are protecting.

We are not saving the Earth.

We are trying to preserve a livable place for ourselves, our children, and the other beings currently sharing this age with us.

That is a worthy goal.

But it is not the same as pretending the planet cannot go on without us.

The Earth Does Not Need Our Ego

The Earth does not need our saviour complex.

She does not need our panic dressed up as virtue.

She does not need us to pretend every new technology is automatically salvation because someone placed a green label on it.

She does not need another priesthood of experts, corporations, politicians, and marketers telling ordinary people that salvation can be purchased in a newer, cleaner package.

What she may require from us, while we are here, is much simpler and much harder.

Restraint.

Humility.

Reverence.

Honesty.

The ability to say, “This helps us, but it still costs something.”

The ability to say, “This solution may not be as clean as we were told.”

The ability to say, “We are not gods. We are participants.”

The Old Lesson

The old ways never promised that human beings would last forever.

The old stories are full of endings.

Worlds burn.

Gods fall.

Winters come.

Kingdoms rot.

Heroes die.

Even the mighty are eventually taken back into the great turning.

That is not nihilism.

That is perspective.

To walk a pagan path is not to pretend nature is soft.

It is to know that nature is beautiful, brutal, generous, indifferent, intimate, and vast.

It feeds the lamb and the wolf.

It grows the healing herb and the poison berry.

It gives the harvest and the killing frost.

It gives birth, and it takes back.

Always.

So What Do We Do?

We live well while we are here.

We stop pretending our comfort is the centre of the universe.

We stop calling every human fear a planetary emergency.

We stop using “saving the Earth” as a way to avoid saying, “We are afraid of our own ending.”

We plant trees anyway.

We protect water anyway.

We waste less anyway.

We question easy answers anyway.

We resist greed anyway.

We honour the land anyway.

Not because we are immortal.

Not because we are saviours.

Not because the Earth will collapse into nothing without us.

But because relationship matters while it exists.

Because the hearth matters even though the fire eventually burns down.

Because the song matters even though the singer dies.

Because the path matters even though no one walks it forever.

The Hard Comfort

Humanity will pass.

That is not a curse.

That is the same law that governs leaf, bone, star, empire, forest, and flesh.

The Earth will survive us.

Perhaps changed by us.

Perhaps scarred by us.

Perhaps relieved of us.

But she will continue in some form, because continuation is what she has always done.

The question is not whether we can make ourselves eternal.

We cannot.

The question is whether, while we are here, we can become humble enough to live as kin instead of conquerors.

That may be the real spiritual work.

Not saving the Earth.

Saving ourselves from the illusion that we were ever outside her reach.

Godspeed, fellow walkers of the old paths.