Living

Sidewalk shrine by homeless family sends a powerful message

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PORTLAND, Ore. – Stumbling across a spontaneous shrine is a common experience in the United States. It may be a cross on the side of the road marking the place where a loved one died in a car accident, or a photos, card, and flowers stuck in the links of a fence where a recently passed celebrity lived. Throughout history, humans have created these shrines to remember and reconnect with the dead. On Sunday, Alley Valkyrie passed a sidewalk shrine that was very similar, yet very different, than most spontaneously created shrines.

Paganism

Column: This Is Not A Coming Out Story

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[Today we welcome Luke Babb. They graduated from Truman State University with a degree in English, and briefly toured Saint Louis University in pursuit of a Masters. They currently live in Chicago with their fiance where they write, participate in the storytelling scene, and work two jobs. This is their first work with The Wild Hunt.]

I have come out as bisexual, trans and queer, but I cannot come out as Pagan. Which means that this is something else.

Paganism

Column: Magic vs. Religion?

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Are magic(k) and religion contrary? One of the ongoing debates in our Pagan Community is the place of magic. Some gather to ‘only’ celebrate and worship. Some find magic central to their practice. Being heterodoxic, Pagans revel in the diversity of opinions we hold, so the range held on this topic is vast.

Paganism

Cousin Gabriel

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Ask my cousin Gabriel about his ’56 Chevy sometime. He’ll tell you all kinds of stories about that car – stories that never end up quite the same way, but always share the same basic formula: cruising around town, running into pretty girls, picking them up and going to the movies. The story tastes like pure Americana; I almost expect Veronica and Jughead to show up. Gabriel has never had a ’56 Chevy; he’s never driven a car. When he was a child, he fell from a second-story porch at my grandparents’ home on Cherokee Street in south St.

Paganism

Choir Boy

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Mr. Dellard, standing behind the piano in Shepard Elementary School’s music room, points to me. This is my signal; I step forward, separating myself from the rest of the eight year old boys that make up our public school choir’s tenor section. I have the solo in this song, the only song in our repertoire that even has a solo. For two verses, the twenty-five other children fade into the background, dim lights eclipsed by my star. They are merely the Supremes; I am Diana Ross.