Ritona is a not-for-profit publishing and educational organisation advocating for plurality, tolerance, and respect for pagan, indigenous, and non-industrial ways of being in the the world.
Our History
First founded in Seattle, Washington on Beltane, 2014, we started as an online journal posting articles, essays, and poetry from a diverse collection of authors. Soon after, our first publishing venture, Gods&Radicals Press, began with the print journal, A Beautiful Resistance. The next year, we began paying authors of our online journal and published more print works.
Through kind donations from our supportive readers, we were soon able to then begin paying staff—copy editors, layout designers, and especially our site editor, Mirna Wabi-Sabi.
In 2018, we launched Académie Hérétique, an online course program instructed by writers and authors designed to make knowledge of paganism, witchcraft, and related topics more available and more affordable to a wide audience.
In 2021, we re-founded in Europe as Ritona a.s.b.l., and are currently expanding our educational work and publishing reach through multiple languages.
Our Mission
Ritona is not just the name of our organisation, but also of an ancient goddess of the Treveri Celtic people once indigenous to the Ardennes. Ritona is a goddess of river crossings, and in her we see an important part of our work: finding ways across apparently impossible problems, working with—rather than against— the spirit(s) of nature to bring humans together in harmony.
We advocate for a more tolerant world through pluralism. By pluralism, we mean a deep acknowledgment that others have different worlds and different centres of meaning. Only by acknowledging these differences as deeply human can we then find true commonalities across cultures, religions, and political frameworks.
We also advocate for respect of indigenous and non-industrial ways of being in the world. Simpler, less destructive, and more place-based relationships between humans and the rest of the world have been the primary kinds of relationships for most of human history. The “benefits” of industrial civilization can never outweigh the great harm done to humans and the rest of the world.
How to find out more
To start, we highly recommend reading our online journal, A Beautiful Resistance and reading our books. Three books in particular represent best our mission: Being Pagan, by Rhyd Wildermuth; True to the Earth, by Kadmus; and Reclaiming Ourselves, by Emma Kathryn.
If you like our work and would like to support it, please consider becoming either a monthly or permanent supporter. We offer free courses, free digital downloads, free courses, discounts on purchases, and access to our supporters’ journal, Another World, to all supporters.
If you would like to write for our online journal, our site editor, Mirna Wabi-Sabi, is always happy to hear from you. Contact her at editor@godsandradicals.org.
If you would like to publish a book with us or to offer a course, or if you would like more information about Ritona’s mission and to get involved more directly, our director, Rhyd Wildermuth, is likewise always happy to hear from you. Contact him at rhyd@abeautifulresistance.com
If you have order questions or would like to retail our books, please email us at distro@abeautifulresistance.com