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Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com.\nS4E3 TRANSCRIPT:----more----\nMark: Welcome back to the Wonders Science-Based Paganism. I'm your host, Mark.\nYucca: And I'm Yucca.\nMark: and today we're going to talk about practices and developing a practice carrying one on keeping one fresh and alive. All those things about having a personal.\nYucca: right. And we hope that there'll be a lot of useful ideas and information for people who are just starting, but also for people who have had a practice and are looking for ways to. Continue to develop that or kind of stay in the habit of it.\nMark: Right, because a practice is a wonderful thing to have, and it can also, if you're doing the same thing for months or years on end, you can also start. To feel a little routine, a little stale. And there are things you can do to sort of blow yourself out of that normality, get out of the rut, and try some new things that can incorporate into your practice in really enlivening waves.\nSo that's part of what we're gonna talk about at the end of the program. But at first, let's start talking about developing a pro a a practice. When you're first starting.\nYucca: right.\nMark: When you come to Athe paganism or naturalistic paganism in some kind of sense, and you're like, okay, this cosmology totally works for me, right?\nI'm a science-based person, I'm a reason based person. You know, this evidence-based approach to spirituality, you know, really rings my bell. So now what do I do about that? Well, okay, I'm gonna celebrate these stations of holidays around the course of the year. That's great, right? That will help you to plug into the cycles of nature.\nAnd that's really what we're about, is about having a deep relationship with nature. Understanding ourselves as organisms that are a part of nature. That's a great thing, but what about day-to-day? , you know, the, the Sabbaths are seven, eight weeks apart, right? It's, it's, and at least for me, it's not enough to say, okay, every seven or eight weeks, I'm gonna, I'm, I'm gonna pay attention to Nature\nI, I need more than that. So, Many people have a daily practice, or in some cases a monthly practice that's organized around the cycles of the moon.\nYucca: Mm-hmm. . Right. So I think that a, a really good place to start, and this is whether you're coming in fresh or have had a practice for a while, is to really do some. Some reflecting upon what, why? Why do you want this practice? What, what is meaningful to you? What are your goals? What are you hoping to accomplish?\nBecause it really is about what you are trying to get out of it, right? We don't have any Gods looking down on us who want us to perform this special thing at this special time. It's no what? What is it for you? Why are you doing it for you? And that could be a lot of different things and it's gonna be different for it's different for Mark and for me and for you.\nAnd it's gonna be different at different points in our own lives.\nMark: for sure, because maybe your primary focus is your family unit, right? Maybe what you're trying to do is to create culture and and values for your family, and so demonstrating those and creating experiences that reinforce them. is sort of the centerpiece, the, the core ethic of what you're seeking to accomplish.\nThat's great. Right. But that's gonna be a practice that's about finding the right childhood stories, right, and creating the kinds of household observances that give you and your children and partners\nYucca: household members, whoever they are. Yeah.\nMark: Yeah, the, the kind of experience that reinforces the values and, and cosmology that you find really meaningful.\nSo all of that is great. But in, on the other hand, you may be a solitary person. You may either be a solo person or someone who is partnered with someone that isn't interested in your path, and so you're doing this yourself and you're trying to find, how do I do this in a