Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth

In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.

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Invisible Gods

We've lost the Winds.

Quick: which direction is the Wind blowing from today? Do you know?

Your ancestors would have known. It would have been one of the first things that they noted on waking every morning.

Because to the ancestors, the Winds weren't just moving air, or an “element.”

They were gods.

Gods, and messengers to the gods.

Messengers because they bear news. Swiftest of gods, they carry information. They can tell the future, and what they tell is always true.

If you know where the Wind's coming from, you know what weather the day is likely to bring. What you do today may well depend on that.

You'll hear sound from farther away if it's coming from downwind.

And smells, borne on the Wind. Every hunter has to know the Winds. They'll tell you where the animals are. But they'll also tell the animals where you are, because the Winds never lie.

So you have to work with them.

Since they're no longer part of our religion, for those who live out their lives between walls the Winds have become an irrelevance, at most an annoyance. We're surrounded by gods that we can't be bothered to pay attention to.

But the Winds are gods still, born of Earth's dance, nor have they ever ceased to speak.

They will tell us truth today, just as they did the ancestors.

All we need do is listen.

 

I sing the wide-winged Winds, fleetest of gods,

tellers of truth, invisible, untiring.

 

Above: West Wind, Tower of the Winds (Athens, circa 50 BCE)

 

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Poet, scholar and storyteller Steven Posch was raised in the hardwood forests of western Pennsylvania by white-tailed deer. (That's the story, anyway.) He emigrated to Paganistan in 1979 and by sheer dint of personality has become one of Lake Country's foremost men-in-black. He is current keeper of the Minnesota Ooser.

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