My new Sense of Place contribution is up. If I haven’t alienated the whole Pagan internet world by worshiping really-existing gods, my frustration with humanist/naturalist discourse, my insistence that humanity is unique in nature, or my irritation with automobiles, then how about some incitement towards Domestic Terrorism?
And I’m being a bit flippant about the “alienation” thing, because laughing a bit at the frustrations of internet communication might just be the only thing to keep me sane if I continue public-writing. That, and the several very kind emails I was sent in the last few days. You know who you were, and I’d again like to re-iterate that your words meant the fucking world to me. This internet-stuff gets alienating.
Also. a book really needs to be written on some of the anti-capitalist Pagan-informed movements in Europe and America. There’s much more than I list in that essay, but the information on many of them is very scant.
Also, because he’s awesome and has a luscious beard that he for some reason shaved off in a dream of mine the other night, my friend Julian Betkowski just posted an essay on Belief and Experience that I highly suggest you read:
It is, of course, important that we talk about our experiences, but it also vital for us to talk of our beliefs, as well. It may be a difficult process for us to disentangle our beliefs from our experiences, but doing so, I suggest, will allow us to better understand our fellow spiritual seekers. If we cannot speak together from a common ground of either experience or belief, at least we can appreciate the spiritual processes that we each engage in.
And you can hear him speak (but not see his luscious beard) on Wyrd Ways next week. Which is funny, because I keep forgetting, I’ll be on there a few weeks after him, so reminding you that he’ll be on there reminds me. That’s how my memory works.
Be well, all of you!
Rhyd Wildermuth 
Thank you for the beautiful essays and the well thought out words you weave you well. You help me pause and think, consider what I believe, and put my hands back to the keys at times when I think I am done. Thank you.
I followed the link of your paragraphs and found the essay beautiful and poignant. As someone who has homesteaded on land that I was moved to sobbing tears to walk upon and knew for whatever the reason I was being told I was needed there. Imagine the shock and horror to wake up to awful sounds one morning, to go outside, walk down an isolated road and see the giant metal maws ripping everything up from the soil for acres and acres. A few nights later the fires came. Then nothing for a few years. Life had started to return. Myself and another had scattered lots of seeds, knowing they could provide nourishment for some of the wildlife as the seasons cycles by. Then late last year came the return of the awful metal grinding. I won’t say what the land is being used for, but I imagine anyone can guess in middle of nowhere U.S. None of us living nearby had any knowledge or say in the matter, but it’s changed the environment. Once men and machine are gone, I’ll return with buckets of native seeds. But no trees will be allowed to live there. Nor for the miles and miles where it had to happen as well.
I am very sorry for your loss!
I’ve a friend who’s been trying to save a dying forest in northern california, and his experience of pain from noting new trees dead every week from Sudden Oak Death is heart-wrenching.
How much more so to see destruction that is intentional…. 😦
Also, that feeling of powerlessness is painful I remember waking up one morning to my landlord cutting down several trees around our house (at 8 am on a saturday morning) because our neighbor had paid him to do so in order to increase the view from her house that she was about to sell. There’s was nothing we could do to stop it and all we felt was endless, impotent rage for weeks afterwards.