News

Hurricane Matthew: Pagans in the southeast respond

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UNITED STATES – “We boarded up the house and we left town because our house isn’t (concrete) block construction, it’s wood. We live in an area where there are lots of trees and we weren’t confident that a cat 3, 4, or whatever hit land that we would be safe,” said Kathy Lezon, a priestess from Vero Beach, located on Florida’s Treasure Coast. Hurricane Matthew was a slow-moving behemoth of a storm that flared up on Sept. 28 and quickly shot up to hurricane status, at one point topping off the scale as a category 5 storm with sustained winds of 160 mph before weakening slightly to a category 4 before making landfall in Haiti, Cuba, the Bahamas and bouncing along the Florida coast before skirting north along the Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina coastline. It also affected areas well beyond those that were directly impacted.

Paganism

Column: Black August

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The dog days of summer are here, marked by the rising of the star Sirius in the morning sky, “the star they give the name of Orion’s Dog, which is brightest among the stars, and yet is wrought as a sign of evil and brings on the great fever for unfortunate mortals.”¹ On August 13, Sylville Smith was killed by a Milwaukee police officer. In the following two nights, eight businesses and numerous cars were burned, rocks and bottles were thrown at the police, and guns were fired on multiple occasions, resulting in at least one hospitalization. Meanwhile, the FBI’s National Gang Intelligence Center has alleged that the Black Guerilla Family (BGF) prison gang may be planning “to kill correctional officers and Aryan Brotherhood gang members” in commemoration of Black August. Black August originated in the 1970s following the August 7, 1970 deaths of Jonathan Jackson, James McClain and William Christmas during a prisoner liberation and hostage-taking at the Marin County Courthouse and the August 21, 1971 death of George Jackson during a prison rebellion in San Quentin. Prisoners participating in Black August “wore black armbands on their left arm and studied revolutionary works, focusing on the works of George Jackson.

Hounds

Unleash the Hounds (link roundup)

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There are lots of articles and essays of interest to modern Pagans and Heathens out there, sometimes more than our team can write about in-depth in any given week. So The Wild Hunt must unleash the hounds in order to round them all up. RICHMOND, Va. — In an update to a previous story, Virginia resident Robert C. Doyle was sentenced to 17.5 years for “for robbery, conspiracy, and possessing firearms as a felon.” Doyle was originally charged in November 2015 along with Ronald Beasley Chaney and Charles Halderman, both of whom will be sentenced this month.

Pagan Community Notes

Pagan Community Notes: Max G. Beauvoir, the Parliament, Save the Deer, T. Thorn Coyle and More

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Vodoun Priest and Supreme head Max G. Beauvoir died Saturday at the age of 79. Born in 1936, Beauvoir studied chemistry in both the U.S. and France, and eventually pursued a successful career as a biochemist. He worked at Cornell Medical Center, Tufts University as well as other private research institutions. According to a Washington Post article, Beauvoir was not initially interested in religion at all. However, he was called back to his home and to Vodou by his dying grandfather, who told him in 1973, “You will carry on the tradition.”

Paganism

An Outsider at the Crossroads

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“I still can’t believe you’re moving there. That neighborhood is dangerous.” At that point, I had already had this conversation way too many times, with way too many well-meaning friends who simply couldn’t see past their prejudice. It seemed that every cup of coffee over the past month came with a free intervention attempt. It was getting quite tiring, and my patience was wearing rather thin.