Paganism

Column: the Season of Gratitude

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The changing seasons are filled with symbolism, meaning, and traditions. It is a time that many people inside of western secular society are preparing for a variety of celebrations, gatherings, and feastings. Many within our intersecting religious communities of Paganism and Polytheism are transitioning away from ceremonies focused on death, harvest, and the new year. The wheel, as it turns from fall to winter, can also harness reflection on those who have passed through the veil, and various opportunities of working through the shadow self. To put it lightly, this time of year is complex for a multitude of reasons.

Paganism

Column: a Quest for Faith Over a Year, and Over the Years

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From the point of view of many global onlookers, most of Western and Northern Europe might seem an oddly secular, even religion-less place. Despite a history of (ofttimes violent) religious upheaval during the Christian era and a relative growth of Islam in the present day, there is no denying that religion, and more specifically the expression of religious sentiment, has little to no place in the public sphere in many European nations. As such, even simply discussing religion, and especially Pagan and magical ones, isn’t something nearly as self-evident as in other regions, like North America, where a similar degree of religious freedom is the law of the land. In such a context, the experiences of individuals who might want to experiment with various spiritual paths are rarely if ever publicized or talked about. Yet under this veneer of secularism lies a dynamic and ever-changing religious landscape that has much to offer to those willing to get real with religion.

Living

Column: Five Years

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Madame Death’s dressed all in black and seated next to a battered metal table…

I wrote those words five years ago this month, the opening line to my first column on The Wild Hunt. It’s a riff – I think – on William Earnest Henley’s poem Madam Life’s a Piece in Bloom, which I would have picked up from its use as an epigraph in Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, but I don’t remember for certain. It is long enough ago that now I can read my own thoughts from then and not be quite sure whence they came; I was then a different person, and the world was a different world. The Wild Hunt itself has changed entirely, going from the herculean effort of one writer, the blessed Jason Pitzl-Waters, to a publication staffed by 20 writers, editors, and business managers. This morning I have been looking back through my archives of the past five years, in part to figure out an answer to a question I have asked myself over the years: what is this column about, anyway?

Paganism

Column: La Santa Muerte, the Growing Veneration of Holy Death in Paganism

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In many ways, practitioners of modern Pagan religions can be seen as renegades. They are often well-educated about, and in many cases raised within, one of the mainstream faiths and have found that faith to be unfulfilling, uninspiring, or otherwise wanting. Rather than giving up, they have sought their own path and found practices that speak to their own needs within their own contexts. Modern Pagans are those who have seen what mainstream society dictates and have rejected that prescription to follow their own path. However, renegades exist within even the mainstream religions.

Paganism

Column: November and a Return to the Self

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As sunset creeps ever closer towards what was afternoon just few short weeks ago, our activities and thoughts turn inward. Strolls through the brilliant foliage of October give way to the occasional bare tree patches that pop up in November. We cherish warm apple cider, and wear sweaters to ward off the cooler temperatures that mark the transition from the heat of summer to the cold of winter. The Polish word for November is Listopad, a time when the leaves fall. In the Northern Hemisphere, this time of year is one when the veils are still thin between the worlds.