It’s June. It’s cold and raining, and everything outside my window says ‘climate change’ to me in ways that make me deeply uneasy. High winds, torrential downpours, and at the same time, an explosion of hawthorn flowers like nothing I’ve ever seen before. The wild garlic and the horse chestnuts have been exuberant as well.

What does it means for Pagans? The ancestral dates of festivals no longer relate reliably to what’s happening. We don’t know what’s coming, or how it will impact on us. Our world is changing. The seasons are changing, the climate is changing.

Many of us are engaged in the active process of trying to stop everything going wrong. Radical lifestyle changes, political efforts, and reimaging are underway in many places. We need more of this.

I don’t usually use this column to promote other things, but I’m going to this month because sharing ideas and inspiration is a critical part of the solution. So, if you’d like more of me talking about radical change, please do have a look at my Quiet Revolution posts over at http://www.pagandawnmag.org/ . If you’re interested in books, words, authoring and stories please also have a look at this blog post from Kevan Manwaring on beauty in desolation  - https://thebardicacademic.wordpress.com/2016/05/25/defining-goldendark/

Do also check out Jane Meredith on Witches and Pagans writing about local magic and seasonal celebration - http://witchesandpagans.com/sagewoman-blogs/local-magic/in-the-depths-of-samhain.html

It is easy enough to keep our Paganism indoors, behind closed curtains as we keep our heads down to celebrate an imaginary wheel of the year, based on what we imagine nature is doing. In face of climate change, it might be tempting to just hide and deny, but a nature based spirituality, or magical practice just isn’t going to work if we aren’t connecting with what’s happening.

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We need more alternative wheels.

 

This month, Rachel Patterson’s Arc of the Goddess comes out, taking a month by month approach to the wheel of the year. It’s based on a lived experience as a British witch, so won’t translate to all locations. I’m aware of other authors working on regionally specific ways of thinking about the seasons, too, and this can only be a good thing. We need to navigate the changes by engaging with them, whatever the future brings us.