Editorial

Editorial: Beyond the threshold and into the unknown

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ATLANTA – The editor and publisher of The Wild Hunt, Heather Greene, has announced her retirement as of October 31. Greene started with the organization in 2012 as a weekly news writer and took over as editor in 2014 from founder Jason Pitzl. After six years of service to the community as a journalist and editor, Greene has decided to step down in order to spend more time with family and pursue a new career path. 

Or, that is how I imagine the news story would start if I or someone else were to write it in that style. But let’s try something a bit more personal. After six years of writing and editing for The Wild Hunt, I have decided to retire and hand the baton over to a new administration.

Living

Column: Five Years

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Madame Death’s dressed all in black and seated next to a battered metal table…

I wrote those words five years ago this month, the opening line to my first column on The Wild Hunt. It’s a riff – I think – on William Earnest Henley’s poem Madam Life’s a Piece in Bloom, which I would have picked up from its use as an epigraph in Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, but I don’t remember for certain. It is long enough ago that now I can read my own thoughts from then and not be quite sure whence they came; I was then a different person, and the world was a different world. The Wild Hunt itself has changed entirely, going from the herculean effort of one writer, the blessed Jason Pitzl-Waters, to a publication staffed by 20 writers, editors, and business managers. This morning I have been looking back through my archives of the past five years, in part to figure out an answer to a question I have asked myself over the years: what is this column about, anyway?

Editorial

Editorial: Journalism as Ministry

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“Ministry is fundamentally about serving the congregation, in contrast to being primarily about serving the gods,” wrote Sam Webster. That is essentially the role a journalist fills, and its particularly true for journalists who write for and about minority religious communities, such as we do here at The Wild Hunt. Just as a minister must sometimes stand apart from individual relationships to understand the spiritual needs of the entire community, Wild Hunt journalists commit to the credo that “we don’t stir the cauldron; we cover it.” Determining the difference between interpersonal conflict and newsworthy events requires what is perhaps the most slippery of spiritual tools: discernment. While in many polytheist and Pagan traditions, ministers by any name do not hold explicit authority over others, the respect and deference given them may cause them to be apart from the community that they serve.

Editorial

Letter from the Editor

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Letter from the editor
There are times when journalists and editors have to tackle subjects that are difficult, complicated, and even deeply contrary to their own personal world view. We go in anyway, because that is our mission and our purpose. We go in anyway, because that is our personal and professional directive, similar to a doctor or nurse that cures the sick no matter who they might be. It is what we do. While The Wild Hunt was once a successful news blog, it has developed into a recognized news agency with a small team of dedicated and professional news writers who work by the ethical standards expected of objective journalism and who have a passion for their work as members of our collective communities.

Pagan Community Notes

Pagan Community Notes: Cherry Hill Seminary; Tarot Ban Lifted; TWH Fall Fund Drive and more!

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COLUMBIA, S.C. — Cherry Hill Seminary (CHS) has announced the launch of a new Community Ministry Certificate. In partnership with the Sacred Well Congregation, the new 15-month program is designed to lead to ministerial credentials. The program covers such topics as ethics, leading ritual, diversity understanding, family dynamics, addiction and more. As we previously reported, CHS has recently found itself at a crossroads. Director Holli Emore has said, “Unpredictable cash flow has compromised our ability to be sustainable.