The Wild Hunt (https://wildhunt.org/tag/personal-essay)
“I am all of the parts of love,” she said. “Those parts will be there, whether or not you know me. I am the heartbreak, the rush of falling, the work of maintaining. Hurting does not mean I have turned my back on you, child.”
“I knew that this must be the place for me first by the smell of it,” writes Meg Elison. “Nag Champa on top, followed by the bright-colored mega sticks of incense marked “Rain” in electric blue and “Goddess” in gold and “Money” in dollar green.”
More than Heathenry itself, Loki was the lynchpin of my spirituality, the guiding star and supporting bedrock of my life. When I finally admitted that we were done, it wracked through me in wave after wave of tears. I had, I realized, grown too far from the person I had once been. I looked at my father’s gifts and I could no longer tolerate the cost.
Sköll had caught Sunna; Fvni Lusa had begun his meal; Apep’s gaze had overwhelmed mighty Ra. In town, the church bells tolled, sounding that it was two o’clock or the end of the world. My father complained that he couldn’t see the corona through his eclipse glasses, and I told him they weren’t useful anymore.
This is the first place that has been entirely mine, where every piece of art or display has been chosen because it represents something important to me, something that makes me happy. Trying to see it with another set of eyes feels distancing, like a particularly unpleasant magic trick. I suppose that’s fitting.