PaganSquare.com - WitchesAndPagans.com

It's my first time working as an election judge for the city of Minneapolis. (Election Day: now there's a Samhain ritual for you.) Through the course of the day, I see lots of familiar pagan faces at the poll.

This, of course, is only to be expected: being the opinionated people that we are, pagans are much given to voting. This, moreover, is the pagan neighborhood, and me a longtime resident thereof.

I'm working the front door, greeting people and directing them, when a man that I don't know strides in, sporting a jaunty pentagram. It's always gratifying to be reminded that, no, I don't in fact know every pagan that lives in south Minneapolis.

“Blessed be,” I say.

Over the covid mask, he quirks an eyebrow.

“We are everywhere,” he intones.

“Everywhere,” I echo, and point him toward the sign-in table.

This is a very stressful time for many of us. The news inundates us every day to remind us just how stressed we are right now in 2020. We've certainly had enough to contend with this year, but so many things seem to be riding on the outcome of our presidential election on November 3rd. That this level of stress could stretch on for days after tomorrow almost feels unbearable.

I was fortunate to share an insightful chat with Mary Ellen Pride recently, who will be my next featured guest on November's "Women Who Howl at the Moon" podcast. Mary Ellen was voted as "Milwaukee's Best Psychic" in the Shepherd Express for 6 years in a row. She has over 40 years of professional experience and was a leader in the California-based group, Covenant of the Goddess, with which prolific author and activist, Starhawk, is affiliated.

Election Day should be a national holiday.

This year, with its hotly-contested Midterm Elections, it certainly seemed like one, moreso than any other Election Day that I can remember. I even got an Election Day card from a friend.

And it's what the ancestors did.

In the Old Days, people from all over Ireland converged in Tara for Samhain. There they did what the Tribe always does when it gets together: they worshiped, feasted, and politicked.

Why is Election Day when it is? For the same reason that Samhain is when it is. The harvest is in, the animals are back from the summer pastures. With the work of the growing season over, there's time to get together to do the necessary work of the People before winter closes in and shuts down travel.

In this sense, I would contend that Election Day is, in effect, a latter-day descendant of Samhain.

There was no Halloween in colonial America. Halloween was a Catholic holiday, and there were few Catholics in early America. But there was Guys Fawkes' Day, the 5^th of November, which replaced Halloween in post-Reformation England and inherited many of the older holiday's customs, such as bonfires. After the Revolution, Guy Fawkes' Day became a feria non grata in the United States, but Election Day took its place.

Back when, Election Day even used to be a Bonfire holiday.

Dear Nazzes:

During the 2016 US Presidential election, you voted overwhelmingly—against the recommendations of much of your leadership—for an immoral, lying cheat named Donald Trump.

At the apocalyptic climax of your co-religionist Chris Walley's Lamb Among the Stars novels, the Angel of the Lord explains:

Listen while I tell you the real truth....[Satan's] hope was not for the triumph of the Dominion [ = the Satanic kingdom], but for the rise of a fallen Assembly. An Assembly of hatred and malice; an Assembly of men and women...prepared to use any means and any power to win. He sought the Dark Assembly.

Note that the Greek word ekklêsía, “church,” literally means assembly. In Walley's novels, the Assembly is Christianity, the Church.

I.e. that's you he's talking about. You are the Dark Assembly. Yours is the Devil's Christianity.

So congratulations.

The Art of Protest and Protest Art

Get Up, Stand Up
Stand Up For Your Rights
Get Up, Stand Up
Don’t Give Up the Fight
- Peter Tosh

Women and the feminine were a major but not decisive thread in the presidential campaign that elected Donald Trump Nov 8. Not only was his behavior and words regarding women execrable, he was running against one. In terms of the popular vote, she won. In terms of the electoral vote, which gives the advantage to small rural states because they elect two Senators and so have two additional votes no matter how tiny their population, she lost. More specifically, Clinton won in the cities and lost in rural areas. She won the most votes but not in the countryside.

And the nature of this difference is a clue to one of the most important long term trends this election revealed.

If you happened across my public posts on Facebook, you'd know that I was very anti-Trump during this election cycle (no need to rehash why). However, I think it's hypocritical of Hillary supporters/Dems to take to the streets in protest, hang effigies of Trump (WTF?) and vandalize businesses.

This is the same kind of destructive and whiny energy that many demonized Trump for. And, after demonizing anti-Obama folks for saying #NotMyPresident for 8 years, it seems pretty hypocritical to now do the same to Trump. The fact is, Trump IS our President-elect. And, Hillary has called on us to have an open mind and to give him a chance to lead. As President Obama said, Trump's success is OUR success.