The Wild Hunt (https://wildhunt.org/tag/homelessness)
That little wet and bedraggled baby shone his light onto a deep, haunted wound and showed me that my part of that haunted space could heal now because the rest is healing, too. It is a big release to let a ghost go. To let that much darkness go. To cleanse a haunting.
For ten years, Kyrja and Randy Withers have worked for the homeless community in New Port Richey, Florida, through their Pagan charity, Hands of the Goddess. Although COVID-19 has thrown some bumps in their path, their work continues.
I. Migration
“no one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark…”
According to the United Nations, there are currently more displaced people on the planet than at any other time in recorded history. Nearly sixty million people have fled or have been driven from their homes on account of war, violence, political destabilization, or severe economic conditions, compared to around 38 million a decade ago. 1 out of every 122 humans on this planet is currently a refugee, and 9 out of 10 of them are in regions considered to be underdeveloped by international standards. While the Syrian war is currently the largest contributor to such displacement, displaced people hail from every corner of the world, from Haiti to Pakistan to Senegal to Colombia.
I. The Silence (December 2013)
It was the last city council meeting of the year on a frigid, snowy evening two weeks before Christmas, and the immediate future of the Whoville encampment was on the line. A few days earlier, the police department had made public its intentions to evict the 50-person camp sometime within the coming weeks. The thought of so many people being tossed back onto the streets around Christmas time had prompted a community response unlike any I had seen before up to that point. In the hour or so before the meeting, the plaza outside City Hall quickly became a crowded scene with protests, press conferences, and media interviews simultaneously occurring as council members started to filter into the building.
This article is part one of a new series, in which I will examine Pagan and Heathen ethical codes. While the Wiccan Rede is arguably the best known Pagan ethical code, it is not the only one followed. We’ll look at a particular code and then explore a specific example of striving to live by that code. Although credit is often given to the 10 Commandments as the basis for Western culture and morality, that claim more appropriately belongs to Solon and his 10 Precepts. Solon was one of the Seven Sages of Greece and widely credited as the father of Western democracy, the creator of a jury of peers trial and appeals process, and the author of the first written civil constitution.