Quotes From "Pagan Standard Times: Essays On The Craft" By Thomm Quackenbush

1
Loving her has become a part of my religion, a gentle mantra with every beating of my heart. I cannot imagine its Ragnarok without wilting. Thomm Quackenbush
2
Holding fantasy to our chests only means our hands are not free to work. Thomm Quackenbush
3
Our brains want God even as our minds debunk the divine. Thomm Quackenbush
4
When I see the moon on a clear night, I do say "blessed be" and I remind myself to be grateful to the universe that I happen to exist in such a lovely and wondrous world, even and especially as I can rattle on about magma cooling, abiogenesis, and natural selection. Thomm Quackenbush
5
Nothing in my beliefs tells me to let my relationship with the divine interfere with romantic love, the friction of sects never getting in the way of the friction of sex. Thomm Quackenbush
6
Pagans earn their reputations for relaxed sexual mores, often in rebellion from the repression of their religions during adolescence. At a Pagan festival, one need only lower one's guard to be offered sex under the cloaking of the sacred. Thomm Quackenbush
7
There are three people in your life: your great love, the one you want to have children with, and the one whom you can spend the rest of your life with. If you find that last one first, you have it made. Thomm Quackenbush
8
Paganism is the default of most children, since they excel at magical thinking. Thomm Quackenbush
9
My main nurturing instinct toward children is mild sadism--picking them up and threatening to drop them--which is why I am a good uncle but would make a poor father. Thomm Quackenbush
10
It is difficult to process the sacred masculine when your closest example has been a man smacking you around, verbally degrading you, lording over you, or otherwise proving a poor demonstration of the use of strength. Thomm Quackenbush
11
Having ascended to some spiritual strength by focusing on the power of the feminine, it is no doubt tempting to wield this strength against that which triggers memories of having once been weaker. Thomm Quackenbush
12
There is a theory that men do not need Paganism because they have endless avenues of societal power available. Why use spells when one can get a bank loan with little trouble? The world already bends over backward to accommodate men, so why perfect the art of magickally shaping it? Thomm Quackenbush
13
I see no reason that a man should have any issue with worshiping a goddess any more than a woman would in worshiping a male deity. It is undeniable that women, particularly in the Abrahamic faiths, have been doing just that for thousands of years, though they do like to sneak in the divine feminine under the cloak of the Virgin Mary. Thomm Quackenbush
14
Women are seen as imperfect or unclean, because of a myth of a tempting apple, because they bleed monthly, because they lack equivalent upper body strength. Thomm Quackenbush
15
Most magick I have experienced can be written off as a stew of psychology and coincidence, and I truly believe this is where magick is best worked. Thomm Quackenbush
16
Magick need not be a crutch, but it is hard to argue that anything you lean on in lieu of building your own strength weakens resolve. Thomm Quackenbush
17
I honor the divine on a daily basis, but I want to know that the greatest magick in my life is living authentically with what I have and can do. Thomm Quackenbush
18
The trouble with psychics is that they convince you that you get this future no matter what you do. It is as though you can cheat the universe out of your experiences, that you need only tweak something here or there to live happily ever after. It allows for spiritual sloth in the certainty of providence. Thomm Quackenbush
19
I don't know what my future will bring me and it's terrifying. To stand before this vast expanse and know that the future could take away what matters most simply because that is the nature of indifferent chaos in the hands of wanton boys. Thomm Quackenbush
20
We are left at the brink of our future each day and the only real choice we have is not to jump but instead make our path through the briar. Thomm Quackenbush
21
I discuss my beliefs less because I bed my atheist, who cannot believe in much more sacred than our kisses. Thomm Quackenbush
22
If she had some level of theism, we might have a shared theological root from which I could shape holy words. Thomm Quackenbush
23
Reciting from rote seems a terrible way to honor the gods and a precise killing of the power of the words. Thomm Quackenbush
24
I have long seen my spirituality as personal, to the degree that I harbor a slight mistrust for anyone who practices similarly. It is as though they are admitting to have on the same cut and color of underwear I do. It may be true, but I don't like to share these details with strangers. Thomm Quackenbush
25
We want our delusions and will violently defend these when confronted. We want to believe that the job that is slowly choking us is good, because the effort it would take to change is too terrifying to contemplate. We never want to hear how badly we are being treated in a relationship because we are strong and how dare you suggest we don't know better. Thomm Quackenbush
26
I do not want to credit my life to spells and rituals, cushioning me from the consequences of living. Thomm Quackenbush
27
I reserve magick for necessities, a bit like the good china. It has a time and a place, but eating peanut butter sandwiches off it each morning chips and devalues it. Thomm Quackenbush
28
I am not interested in wishing hard and having the Universe provide all I need without any work on my part. Thomm Quackenbush
29
We can never know how much they deserve our sympathy, but we have to give it unreservedly as they are people innately full of the divine who instead choose to behave infernally owing to poor programming. Thomm Quackenbush
30
Frequently, people confront us who seemed to be egging the world into calling them on their miserable actions so they can have the pleasure of angry vengeance or an excuse to attract attention. Our compassion cannot be giving them what they think they want, since it is unreasonable to want to be hateful. Thomm Quackenbush
31
As compassionate beings, we cannot harm others, not even through our inaction. Thomm Quackenbush
32
She closes my door behind her and all the petty stresses of life reappear, eager to make up for lost time. I've developed a phobia of that door closing for the last time, of losing her in any way or of being lost. Thomm Quackenbush
33
They act as if their religion were a celestial gumball machine, taking no blame for personal failures because they won't manifest their will in the real world by working for their goals. Thomm Quackenbush
34
I have heard that Paganism is for broken people, but life cracks everyone in some way. We are a religion of healing people. Thomm Quackenbush
35
If psychics are real, it implies that the universe is far vaster and stranger than conventional perception would state. If psychics can talk to the dead, that removes the sting of mortality and loss. It also suggests there is predestination, a way to cheat the vagaries of Fate with foreknowledge. The cost for believing in them is tiny indeed compared to that. Thomm Quackenbush
36
Those who mouth your sacred words with an accent you deem wrong annoy you more than those speaking something you cannot understand. Thomm Quackenbush
37
Like language, I think any who have not acquired spirituality by a certain age are doomed to be never fluent and you are likely to mimic the one that surrounds you. Thomm Quackenbush
38
A modern culture built on the back of dying gods immerses me. Thomm Quackenbush
39
I cannot let my blood pressure rise because someone wishes to spread his or her bad day around, as if to dilute instead of multiply it. Thomm Quackenbush
40
Anger is a powerful, transformative emotion, one that can light the fire under us that propels us ever higher. However, the woman wasting time at the grocery story, the man cutting us off, the website that will not load are not the right targets for our energy. Thomm Quackenbush
41
When I lay down on my deathbed, I want to know that I have done all I could to be a first rate human, not a third rate pawn of the gods. Thomm Quackenbush
42
Pagans can be just as monstrous as any other group. They can be murderers, rapists, pedophiles. We need to accept that they are our problem and deal with them. We need to speak against their crimes and challenge them rather than letting our silence make us complicit. Thomm Quackenbush
43
My soul is not satisfied with an inert universe. The gods may not make a habit of speaking to me personally, but I can't help but whisper comments to them. Thomm Quackenbush
44
My characters will happily march off a cliff if it is in them to do so, but may the gods help me if I write that the character is an alcoholic when they are not. They will fight me at every turn and it is their domain. A writer cannot win against a stubborn character. Thomm Quackenbush
45
It is a challenge to love someone who does not see the divine as you do, and much harder still to date someone who considers your spirituality a design flaw in an otherwise worthwhile human being. Thomm Quackenbush
46
I am copacetic with leaning on the sacred, but I need to make sure all the mundane bases are covered before we break out the crystals and incense for a good chant. Thomm Quackenbush
47
If you do not need something that it is still useful, give it to someone who will appreciate it before you douse it in lighter fluid in hopes Santa Odin will put a new one under your Yule tree. Thomm Quackenbush
48
I miss more loving someone so deeply that I can't imagine a forever without her kisses. Thomm Quackenbush
49
If you think it is spiritual to burn food in front of starving people in hopes that your gods will bring this back to you in triplicate, you are missing the point and sowing animosity from all sides. Thomm Quackenbush
50
She had experimented with Wicca eight years ago, found that her spells did not produce the desired results of making her every bully bald and fat, and threw it in the corner of her soul as effete and impractical, as she had with a series of other theological outfits. Thomm Quackenbush