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b"Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com\\n\\xa0\\npaganconference.com\\ntheapsociety.org/aww2023\\n\\xa0\\nS4E1 TRANSCRIPT\\n----more----Welcome back to The Wonder and welcome to 2023. This is Science-Based Paganism, and I'm your host, mark, and I'm Yucca. And today we're going to give kind of. An overview of where we've been and where we're going. Sort of a New Year's episode to, to talk about all the stuff that's going on in our community and our hopes for the coming year stuff like that.\\nSo, that's right. That's, that's what we're doing. Yeah. And we were just saying right before hitting record that this is season four episode. So That's right. Yeah. That's right. We've been doing this for a long time and it, it really underscores how long the pandemic's been going on because we started just a few weeks before, months before the pandemic hit right as it was starting to happen when we were going, maybe we should talk about this thing that's, that's happening in the world.\\nAnd then all of a sudden you're thinking may be kinda serious. , and then boom. Right. , the whole world changed. So yeah. But I think it was for, you know, we can't change that that was happening with the world, but I think that was really good timing for the podcast because, you know, yeah, as you say that I really agree too, because people were shut in and kind of desperate for content.\\nOf all kinds. And so I think both the podcast and starting the Saturday Zoom mixers for the atheopagan community, both of those things really took off. And they started right around the time of, of the pandemic hitting. Yeah, I think the, the atheopagan community has grown so much in the last few years, and part of that I think is the, Is not the pandemic, is just the work that's been done for years and, and people searching for it.\\nBut I think that the pandemic also helped connect people because of that search for content that we had. Right. That search for online community. Right, right. And I think that the word is getting out and it's not just German to Ethiopia, paganism, which of course is a specific path. Mm-hmm. . For naturalistic paganism in witchcraft, generally the word has kind of been getting out.\\nYou know, you don't have to pretend to believe in these gods if you don't believe in them. Yeah, you can still do the witchy stuff. You can still celebrate the holidays. You can still have a meaningful practice. Without incorporating those elements if they don't work for you. Right. And as the word gets out on that, a certain percentage of those people that are interested in that come into our community, find that it's warm and supportive.\\nTake advantage of all the resources available and get plugged in. Right. Yeah. And so speaking of looking into the future, I'm really curious to see. in addition to atheopagan, what other groups start to emerge? Right, right. Because as you're saying this is, this is one specific. Group within naturalistic paganism, right?\\nAnd so there's bound to be other approaches in other communities that pop up. And so it's just gonna be really interesting to see what the landscape is in five, 10 years from now. Very much so. Yeah. One of the things within the sort of naturalistic paganism umbrella that characterizes atheopagan is that we've put a lot of effort into community building.\\nYeah. There are other organizations like the Religious Naturalist Association or the Spiritual Naturalist Society. And the naturalistic paganism website, for example. Mm-hmm. , where, where content creation is the focus. So there's articles to read and maybe podcasts to listen to and all that kind of stuff, but, Doing a lot of the sort of fostering of, you know, gathering people together has not been as much of an effort or they maybe haven't known how to do it.\\nMm-hmm. , I, I come from the background of being a political organizer and so. You know, getting people together around something is kind of my thing. Right."