The Wild Hunt (https://wildhunt.org/category/perspectives/opinion)
“There is a powerful magic in the names we use for ourselves and each other,” writes Storm Faerywolf, “and taking on a new name is a common practice in many religions, not just witchcraft. To take a new name is, in a very real sense, to forge a new identity.”
“Both Charlies, Hebdo and Kirk,” writes Lyonel Perabo, “played pretty much the same game: riling up people, both for laughs and to score political points. Kirk’s ideology was rooted in Christian conservatism, while Charlie Hebdo was staffed by left-libertarians. Yet they both met with the same fate: they were murdered because their speech was deemed dangerous.”
Spurred by FBI Director Kash Patel’s unexpected invocation of Valhalla following the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Karl E. H. Seigfried asks: if, as Heathens, “we are our deeds,” how should we view the life and death of Kirk?
“Whether the killer turns out to be on the Left or the Right,” writes Storm Faerywolf, “this is a clear example of how Republican compassion is strictly compartmentalized, available for conservative straight white folks but patently denied to anyone else.”
These days, it often feels like I have two choices. I can be myself and in danger, or I can be invisible and hope that I am safe – that nobody notices, that I am lucky, that none of the aspects I can’t control (my health, my class, the city I live in) are the one that get me. It’s no kind of choice at all.
Sheri Barker takes a detour to visit Gettysburg, the site of the pivotal battle of the U.S. Civil War, and considers the effect of the conflict on the land, its guardian spirits, and the state of the nation today.
