Exploring duppy stories has been something that encompasses both my need and want to learn about my family’s and my own culture as well as my love of folklore. And it’s interesting because as you begin to study folklore, you begin to notice the similarities and the differences between stories from different parts of the world.

“If apocalypse is coming either way – if it’s already here – then there is nothing to be gained by refusing the struggle. There is nothing to be gained by turning aside and refusing to confront the awful world we’ve inherited. That world is in the process of dying anyway… and what comes next is up to us.”

This is the lesson I learned after having my work co-opted by fascists: It’s not enough to articulate a critique of capitalism—as I did in my article about distributism. If we do not also clearly distinguish ourselves from the fascists, then we will end up losing the debate to both.

Instructed by Rhyd Wildermuth

Under white birch trees.

In front of a fire.

Let that lightning untie all knots in my veins.

The fires still burn and have continuously done so for as long as anyone has been able to guess.

The eighth edition of the Pagan Music List.

On Ramon Elani’s new book

Whatever rules being imposed by the state or the parallel powers of organized crime, they seem to signify a blatant disregard for the lives of marginalized peoples.

There’s a magic that comes with connecting to the land. It can be quite a controversial subject, the land. It’s one of those areas that has been subjugated by the far right, all that blood and soil stuff and of course if you live on colonised or stolen land, well, you know how that narrative goes. But I wanted to talk about connection to land today anyway, despite those things already mentioned.

Are we awakening from this nightmare
or have we been asleep too long?

“I began to see a connection between my anarchist mentality – which, for most of my life, was more of an instinct than a philosophy – and my pagan religion. Specifically, I began to understand a pagan and animist worldview as the spiritual core of a future free society capable of living on this planet without destroying all life here.”

All politics are mythic, and the mythic is political.

The protagonists of such stories venture into the forest with warnings ringing in their ears, told to stay on the path, you know how the story goes and what befalls them when they inevitably leave the path behind. The forests are full of monsters; witches who wait to feast upon the flesh of fattened babes or wolves that gobble up grannies. But not all folk stories pitch the forest as places filled with monsters. The forest is still a place to be wary but instead of monsters, ghouls and ghosts, there is instead magic.

They say the pandemic has popularized walking and the urban concept of the so-called fifteen-minute city – a city where all the necessary things are within a fifteen minute walk.

[Fanon] has taught us well, that it is not through kindness, asking please, begging for crumbs and simply pointing out injustices that we will overcome our condition as colonized peoples. And most importantly, it is not through the reproduction of the oppressor’s tactics that we will regain our humanity.

Stories have a power after all, especially the Anansi stories. They give us hope that we may yet overcome that which oppresses us, our troubles and strife, even when those ills seem insurmountable, too big and too powerful.

‘In his healing of myself, my family, and of this plague I see the work of his silver hand.’

“My paganism has passed through several stages: an early attempt to create my own mythology followed by many years of devotion to Celtic deities, a fascination with mysticism, and my ongoing involvement in pagan radicalism. It seems like a good time to take stock of where I’ve been, and of how I ended up where I am today.”

From Rhyd Wildermuth