The Wild Hunt (https://wildhunt.org/author/Luke/page/5)
Luke Babb is a magical Jack of All Trades, a companion of Robin Goodfellow, and a Lokean. Their eclectic polytheist practice centers travel, storytelling, and relationship as potent forms of magic. Luke lives in Chicago, where they spend time exploring new neighborhoods and looking for Hermes in unexpected architectural details.
As I settle into the house I find myself living most of my life in that space, surrounded by my allies. Hermes near the door, gathering small bright things like a magpie. Athena by the window, firm and steady and unexpected, watching with her grey eyes. The Good Neighbors at the threshold, honey in their cups and hawthorne close to hand.
“Where should I put your altar in the new house?” I asked Loki, settling back into the couch as my partner Bat sat with zir headphones on, listening to the random noises that were all ze could hear. “Do you like where it is?”
“People are angry,” he said, stilted, as Bat relayed the message.
“Who’s angry?” I asked, a little alarmed.
“Beatrice.”
“I don’t know a Beatrice,” I said.
Here is what I know about Robin Goodfellow, the Puck, the mythic figure that influenced Shakespeare’s work. He’s old – old enough that records in the 1500s talk about working with him as a practice that was already fading, only remembered by grandmothers. He’s famous – famous enough that, in one old text, some of the good folk in England are referred to as plural, “robingoodfellowes.” He’s complicated. He’s a household name. All of this is true – and yet I have only found a handful of Pagans practicing today who work with him.
The folks I know who work with Odin, after a certain age, have remarkably similar medical histories. Eye trauma features heavily: cataracts, glaucoma, the sorts of illness that require long periods with eye patches or new, glass eyes to fill out empty sockets. The day my partner looked at me and held up their hand, covering one eye and nodding as if something made more sense, sits with me still on some nights.
There is nothing strange and unapproachable, to me, about the fear of stepping outside my own door. There is nothing more sacred than the relief of coming back. There is nothing more sacred, to me, than the relief of stepping outside my own door. There is nothing strange or unapproachable about the fear of coming back.