Paganism

Column: Coming Into the Out

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“For the beloved should not allow me to turn my infantile fantasies into reality: On the contrary, he should help me to go beyond them.” – Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of The Earth

I resist watching movies. I have things to do, essays to write, shipping manifests to update, revolutions to plot, tea to drink. But his muscled arms are insistent; the scruff of his beard nuzzling relentlessly. We’re full fed on quiche and french toast with Irish butter and maple syrup reduction, and it’s raining. I give in.

Paganism

Column: Essence

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Two powers, bright, heavy, warp the Abyss around them,
twins birthed from the moment of Love
birthed into the moment before Love. They pull they desire
They push, they fear. –From Notes From The Abyss, IV

Perhaps you’re aware of some of the recent conflicts between Traditionalist strands of Pagan and Heathen thought and more ‘liberal’ strands. Maybe you’re not. Either way, the differences between them seem impossible to reconcile.

Paganism

Column: Bastard Children of a Slaughtering Empire

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Author’s note:
Last year at this time I wrote about being inside an ancient burial mound in Ireland for Winter Solstice. If anything, this essay is the shadow of that essay. 
I write it for the obscured, the displaced, and the massacred at Wounded Knee, and elsewhere, as well as all the other First Nations people whose lives and sacred sites are not honoured by Americans, Pagan or otherwise. And this is also for Anthony. Mound and Mountain Laid Low
I woke into world the bastard child of a slaughtering Empire. I woke into world in an old Shawnee town, but I am not Shawnee, and the town is their ghost.

Paganism

Column: Gates of The Abyss

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“When you hunt for souls in the winter rain
I shall listen in the gaps between towns knowing
Your face is the night storm of the underworld
And you shall bring terror to end all terror.” From Enchanting The Shadowlands, by Lorna Smithers

The Hunter Of Souls
Recommended listening while reading:
Undertaker by Disemballerina

Waiting for a band to play, I thumbed through a Nihilist tract and remember what it means to be mortal while silver-and-black antlers sharpen against flesh. I remember: it’s from the Dead we weave our lives. It’s from the Dead we weave our Meaning. The Cauldron of Awen is as Black as the Cauldron of Annwn, and from both spring the songs of Meaning.