Another World, April Edition
Welcome to the fourth edition of our supporters’ journal, Another World! Thank you deeply for your support of our work!
Upcoming Courses
There is still some space available for our next upcoming course, Five Principles of Green Witchcraft, with Asa West. It starts 11 April. To enroll in it as part of your member benefits, please send an email to distro@abeautifulresistance.com
The next upcoming course after this, Being Pagan, instructed by Rhyd Wildermuth, begins 31 May.
In this month’s Another World
A Plague of Gods: Cultural Appropriation and the Resurgent Left Sacred
This month’s in-depth essay (approximate read: 25 minutes) from Rhyd Wildermuth is on the matter of Cultural Appropriation seen through the context of the animist “left sacred.”
We must remember here: in the animist view, the sacred cannot be destroyed, because it is wholly-Other. The sacred is a terrible, terrifying, powerful force. Attempts to destroy it, or to suppress it, only make it angry, make it more insistent about transgressing into the mundane.
That, I think, is what is happening now. It is a messy and unclean process, especially politically. The social justice framework cannot accommodate for this sacred resurgence, especially because the sacred cares nothing for modern myths about racial and national identity. There is little we can do about it, as policing the borders of culture only further entrenches the right sacred at the expense of its left.
Wyrd Against the Modern World: An interview with Ramon Elani by Patrick Farnsworth
Also this month we have a long-form audio and text interview with Ramon Elani on his newly-released book, Wyrd Against The Modern World. The interview was conducted and recorded by Patrick Farnsworth, host of the popular podcast “Last Born in the Wilderness” and author of the collection of interviews, We Live In The Orbit of Beings Greater Than Us.
As things reach their pinnacle, the opposite moment begins. As the modern world falls into its greatest catastrophe, the timeless world rises up again. And I do believe we are seeing some version of this occurring even now. As we head closer and closer to the brink, more and more people are beginning to recognize what has brought us to this point.
Audio: The Trade, by Rhyd Wildermuth
A ritual poetic piece, written and read by Rhyd Wildermuth
In a tavern in a port on the shores of an ancient land, I stole from a man his beauty.
He begged it of me, his haggard face beautiful despite his sorrow, his slumped shoulders too well-formed to betray his anguish.
“Look there in his eyes, I heard the crone say.
He is in pain, and none will know…”