The news that Hagia Sophia possibly contains eight green marble columns from the temple of Artemis at Ephesus reminded me of this poem I wrote in 2008.
News Commentary
Terra Nullius, Terra Pagana, Terra Indigena
Recently there was an excellent column on The Wild Hunt by Luke Babb, Reckoning with Racism through a Pagan Lens. It was a good analysis of the relationship of Protestant Christianity with racism, and of attempts to use that tradition to justify racism.
In the column’s comments section, some readers said they felt that the evidence offered for the intimate connection of racism and Christianity was insufficient. The disconnect seemed to stem from a conception of racism as only being its more extreme manifestations – that is, as actual expressions of violence toward Black, Indigenous, and other people of color – rather than the everyday reinforcement of white supremacy and privilege by those who choose to ignore the fact that they are living in a colonial state that grew rich from the exploitation, dispossession, and destruction of Black and Indigenous communities.
Three major pieces of evidence – the concept of terra nullius, the activities of Christian missionaries, and Indian residential schools – reinforce the relationship between Christianity, colonialism, and racism, and reaffirm the points Babb made in their original article.
» Read the rest of the article at The Wild Hunt
Featured image: native-land.ca
BIPOC Science Fiction & Fantasy
A complete list of Science Fiction and Fantasy by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Colour) would be very long indeed, so I am going to highlight a few of my favourites and add links to more lists.
Black Lives Matter, Revolution, and the Tower
Reflections on systemic racism and how to deal with it, with reference to Tarot imagery. A powerful, must-read article.
I don’t really know how to write this post. The conversation about Black Lives Matter (hint: they do), about police violence against Black civilians,…
Solidarity with Black Lives Matter
There have now been hundreds of Black people killed by police in the USA. The militarization of the police has continued and expanded since the Ferguson protests over the killing of Michael Brown.
I have mainly been posting about the protests on my Instagram and Twitter accounts.
Frederic Lamond, 1931 – 2020
Frederic Lamond, 1931 — 24 May 2020.
Very sad news. I first met Fred in the 1990s and I have many happy memories of him. I also have all of his books. We had great conversations about Wicca and other things and he told me stories about the early days of Wicca. Usually this was around the campfire. I have lit a candle for him. I was also on several mailing lists with him (in the era before Facebook). We wrote a piece together on secrecy in the Craft, which is included in my book (with credit to him).
He will be warmly greeted in the Summerlands by those who are already there. Condolences to Hildegard and the coven. Blessed be.
Notable and quotable: Earth Day
It’s Earth Day today, and the significance of it being in the middle of a pandemic, when Nature is getting a brief respite from the depredations of industry and big oil, has not been lost on people, I hope.
Notable and quotable: coronavirus (3)
As coronavirus lockdown continues and the case count spirals upwards, people are getting more anxious and in need of community support. Here’s another roundup of coronavirus posts.
The Tower and the Virus
My first guest column at The Wild Hunt.
I have been anxious for months, years even. I have watched with growing horror the rise of right-wing populism, the melting of the icecaps, the burning of Australia, the beginnings of wars over water and resources, the seemingly inexorable destruction wrought by climate change. The protests of Fridays for Future and Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion gave me some cause for optimism, but it is also obvious that governments have not been doing enough to turn the economy around to stop the production of carbon emissions. So when everyone suddenly swung into action to deal with the coronavirus crisis, it gave me some hope that perhaps now the needful actions to deal with climate change (many of which, it turns out, are quite similar to the actions needed to flatten the curve of coronavirus transmission) would seem doable. It also feels like now everyone else is as anxious as me.
Continue reading at The Wild Hunt.
If you enjoyed this post, you might like my new book, Dark Mirror: the Inner Work of Witchcraft.
Hand washing song
Storm Faerywolf pointed out in his recent article on The Wild Hunt that singing “Isis Astarte Diana Hecate Demeter Kālī Inanna” twice measures approximately 20 seconds of hand washing, the recommended duration for getting really clean — and it works!
(Video of me singing it after the jump.)
