Paganism

Column: Plaster Divinity

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Athena looms. She towers. She stands above me, dominating my entire field of vision. She raises her right hand into the air, as if to bring some other addressee to a pause; she stretches her left hand to me, palm upturned, as though she were offering to help me to my feet. Fabric folds around her body, bunching together at her waist and shoulder – enough fabric, it seems, to wind around the world. Her war-helm rests atop her head; on her breast sits the head of Medusa.

Paganism

Column: The City at the Gates of the Dead

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I. I was looking for my cat, but I met him instead, there on that blasted hill in the Otherworld. I wake into the city, the city which stretches from borough to borough, neighborhood to neighborhood, downtown to downtown across the earth. I wake into a city that does not know my gods, the Singers in the Dark. I am a foreigner, though I’m ‘from here.’

Living

Column: Experience and Growth at the Spring Mysteries Festival

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I first heard of the Eleusinian Mysteries in late 2009. Western Washington University (WWU) Pagans, I was told, always went to Spring Mysteries Festival and Hekate’s Sickle Festival, carpooling to the state parks where they would take place. This is also known as “camping with friends” to any parents with lots of questions. The experienced WWU Pagans assured me that my interest in Greek mythology was a perfect fit for the Spring Mysteries Festival that was held over Easter weekend every year. Work tends not to ask too many questions when you request time-off for Easter weekend and cite a religious event.

Paganism

Culture and Community: The Significance of Black History

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“To Know, To Will, To Dare, To No Longer Be Silent – by Tanisia Greer
Today is the last day of February concluding Black History Month for 2015. Each year the U.S. celebrates the legacy, and influence of Black people whose stories have historically been omitted from history books. It was in 1926 when Carter G. Woodson first founded Negro History Week. In 1976, it was expanded into Black History month. One week or an  entire month, this celebration has held a lot of meaning for many of over the years. While the elevation of African American voices during this one month does not erase the disproportionate lack of celebrating these voices throughout the year, it it does bookmark a consistent time where we are mindful of the contribution of Black people in this country.

Paganism

Column: Night of a Million Stars

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“In the practice of mutual aid, which we can retrace to the earliest beginnings of evolution, we thus find the positive and undoubted origin of our ethical conceptions; and we can affirm that in the ethical progress of man, mutual support – not mutual struggle – has had the leading part.” – Peter Kropotkin

I.

It was a maddeningly hot afternoon in August, and I had just spilled some cat food on the living room floor. I instinctively reached for the vacuum, momentarily forgetting that the air conditioning was already on, momentarily forgetting that I lived in a hundred-year old brownstone with a fragile electrical system. I hit the button on the vacuum to turn it on and, at that exact moment, I realized my mistake. The power went out.