Column: This Thing all Things Devours

[We are in the final ten hours of our campaign. Consider donating to The Wild Hunt. You make it possible for us to continue to provide a platform for our communities’ important news. What better way to celebrate the October season: Donate to a news organization that supports your spiritual community. Donate to The Wild Hunt today.]

I live in a place unchallenged by winter. We move between cycles of wet and dry with occasional mild cool weather that flickers through in just a few days. Those of us raised in the tropics understand the trial of winter, but rarely the daily onslaught of cloudy and relentlessly cold days that become shorter through the nearly the end of the calendar year.

Column: True North

[Eric O. Scott is one of our talented monthly columnists. Each month he brings you insight and analysis about issues coming from within or affecting our collective communities. If you enjoy his work, consider donating to our fall fund drive today. You make it possible for The Wild Hunt to continue featuring great writers, unique voices, and news reports every day. Every dollar counts.

Pagan Community Notes: Dallas’ Diversity Day, Witch’s Athame, Academy of Arcana and more

Texas Local Council’s (TXLC) Diversity Day was a success for the organization and people involved. In mid-November, the Dallas TX-based local council for Covenant of the Goddess sponsored a Diversity Day to confront and discuss social privilege and to bring greater awareness to “the challenges and struggles of others.” The event, called “We Can Make a Difference,” was held at the Arlington Unitarian Universalist Church on Nov 14. Doctor Beth Fawcett, PhD, MPH led “participants through a powerful exercise known as a Privilege Walk,” followed by an extended community discussion. TXLC organizers explained, “[Dr. Fawcett specializes in race and ethnicity courses and walked the attendees through a series of questions designed to show, in a very physical way, how we go through our lives with or without ‘Privilege’ even when we are unaware of it.” The event was also a fundraiser for the nonprofit organization Black Trans Men. TXLC reports that they raised over $525.00.

Column: Ásatrúarfélagið threatened with vandalism over LGBTQ support

Ásatrúarfélagið, the Icelandic Ásatrú organization, has attracted widespread international attention since announcing plans to build a temple in downtown Reykajavík last February. Although much of that attention has been positive, it was reported earlier this week by the Icelandic news service Vísir that Ásatrúarfélagið had received hate mail and threats of vandalism from foreign Pagans. These threats have, in turn, forced Ásatrúarfélagið to consider the security of its temple and the relationship of its organization to the rest of the world. According to the alsherjargoði, or high priest, of Ásatrúarfélagið, Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, the society began to receive large amounts of hate-mail in February, just after a widely-circulated article about the temple was published in Iceland Magazine. Although the society has always attracted the occasional letter of this sort throughout its four-decade history, this surge of messages was unprecedented.

Unleash the Hounds! (Link Roundup)

There are lots of articles and essays of interest to modern Pagans 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. We begin with two updates on stories previously reported:

A Georgia State House Committee completely tabled the pending SB129 “Religious Freedom Restoration” bill. The unexpected action reportedly killed the bill’s chances of enactment for the foreseeable future. This was the bill that prompted a public response from the Aquarian Tabernacle Church and multiple reactions from the local Wiccan community.