Who Makes You Think?

Wow. Sara Sutterfield Winn, who writes juicy thealogy, nominated me for a Thinking Blogger Award. Since I adore her blog, I feel very honored. That's the easy part. The difficult part about being nominated for this award is that you're supposed to list five blogs that make you think. Of course, there are way, way, way more than five blogs that I read every day and all of them make me think, laugh, appreciate beauty, feel connected. So picking just five of them is v. difficult for me. Here, however, are five blogs that I find thought-provocative. (And being provocative is, IMHO, a good thing.)

1. Robin Artisson. Robin writes posts that are way too long for the medium of a blog. He's sexist and he tends to see the world in dualistic terms of right (him) and wrong (others). He's a big comment-deleting baby when I disagree with him and, as noted above and as the king explained to Mozart, his posts are too long. However, his writing is the best and most serious writing that I've found anywhere on the web concerning Heathenry, shamanism, and Pagan theology in general. His world-view is coherent and he's not just pulling stuff out of his ass, especially when he talks about shamanism. He's must-reading if you want to think about the important intellectual questions facing modern Pagans.

2. Hullabaloo. Digby is an amazingly thoughtful writer. She's one of those writers who, after you read something she's written, you're sure that you'd been thinking the same thing all along because it's so obvious -- after she's done the research and laid it all out like that for you. She's passionate, too, in a wonderful way and she has a way with words that I love. If you read nothing besides Digby and Glenn Greenwald every day, you'd be pretty well-informed and you'd have enough to chew on thought-wise for the rest of the day. (Yeah, that was cheating. I'm a witch, did you think I was going to play by the rules? I may cheat again before I'm through. Watch for it.)

3. Derrick Jensen. OK, technically this is not a blog; it's Jensen's MySpace page, but I'm listing it anway. (See above re: witches, rules, and watching for it). Jensen is not a fun person to read; that's because he tells the truth about our culture and what it does to people, animals, plants, the planet. He also doesn't update very frequently, but what he does have to say, well, it has to be said. There are a few writers in everyone's life, I hope, who completely change the way that you look at the universe, who, actually, completely change who you are. Charlene Spretnack did that for me when I was in my thirties. Jensen did that for me at the tail end of my forties. If you don't want to check his blog all the time, order and read his books.

4. Aquila ka Hecate. Lately, I find myself thinking quite a bit about some of Aquila's posts. A South African witch, she's celebrating Samhein when I'm celebrating Beltane, but she has an amazing ability to cut straight to the core of every topic that she tackles. Her discussions of her spiritual practice are meaty and inspiring and common-sense all at the same time. She reminds me of another of my favorite Pagan writers, Druid Anne Johnson.

5. Twisty. Because she's in a class all by herself, because she's gutsy, because she never pulls any punches, and because, even when she's irritating and you don't want to agree with her, even when admitting that she's right will make it more difficult for you to go on living in this world, well, even then, you know that she's right. Twisty isn't saying what everyone else is saying, she isn't trying to make it pretty or nice, and she isn't going to "just give it a rest, for Pete's sake". I love her for that. She's a national treasure. Long may she blame.

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According to Sara, If you’ve been tagged, here’s how you play:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think;

2. List to this post at The Thinking Blog so that people can find the exact origin of the meme;

3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’.

Who makes you think?