Breaking bread as ritual to heal rifts

WOLVERHAMPTON, England –The political fight over whether the United Kingdom should remain part of the European Union or not was bruising to people on both sides, a situation which has been echoed in other world events such as last year’s presidential election in the United States. One British Quaker has found what she feels is an important reminder of the common ancestry humans share, and she’d like Witches and other Pagans to join her in expressing that bond: the power of bread. Rachel Arnold “discovered Paganism and the power of Witches,” she recalls, “while recovering from a traumatic experience in the Remain campaign.” It was during that healing process that she hit upon bread as a common thread for all humanity, and began to express that understanding through painting and poetry. From there she decided that breaking bread should be a movement, one in which people share that common history in spontaneous gatherings.

Column: I Am the Son of a Refugee

Today we are faced less with a crisis of immigration than a crisis for immigrants. The Trump administration continues to aggressively ramp up its war on undocumented immigrants, as it seeks to expand the federal government’s ability to use police as man hunters and to build new detention facilities. Refugees have been repeatedly scapegoated as terrorists as the president and his allies seek to block them from finding asylum in the United States. Shortly after the election, a Trump surrogate cited America’s Japanese-American internment camps during World War II as precedent for a national registry of Muslim immigrants. At the end of January, President Trump signed an executive order aiming to build more detention centers for arrested immigrants whose deportation is pending.

Pagans join Saturday protests at airports nationwide

UNITED STATES — On Friday, President Trump signed an Executive Order, which put a 120 day freeze on immigration from 7 countries. While the Department of Homeland Security initially interpreted the Executive Order as not applicable to persons from those 7 countries who already possessed a Green Card or a temporary VISA, the White House quickly clarified they, too, were included in the travel ban. Word quickly spread that families had been detained at airports. Spouses were reportedly taken off planes and employees stranded overseas while on business trips. On Friday evening, hundreds of pro bono attorneys headed to airports to seek the release of persons detained due to enforcement of the new Executive Order.

Unleash the Hounds (link roundup)

There are lots of articles and essays of interest to modern Pagans and Heathens out there, more than our team can write about in depth in any given week. Therefore, The Wild Hunt must unleash the hounds in order to round them all up. 

A “seismic political week”

As has adequately been reported throughout mainstream media, the Trump administration generated a number of executive orders and memoranda that are now creating significant backlash and raising concerns in many communities. These orders include, but are not limited to, the revival of the North Dakota Keystone pipeline project, immigration restrictions, and actions to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. To see read more about what the administration has done in what some are calling a seismic week of executive action, read the White House website’s weekly report. While Trump’s first week as president has been punctuated by seemingly non-stop protest and rallies of one kind or another, the pipeline memorandum and immigration orders have generated the most immediate public reaction.

Column: Colonialism and its Discontents

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.