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In the wake of the epidemic of arson and property destruction that accompanied the first George Floyd protests in Minneapolis—currently estimated at some $26 million dollars worth—we've heard numerous voices raised to justify (or at least soft-pedal) such destruction.

People are more important than buildings, they say.

But I'm a pagan and, because I'm a pagan—as the ancestors did—I think that (in effect) buildings are people, too.

Now, the notion that a building could be a person falls pretty far outside the general overcultural definition of what a “person” is, so (without committing myself to metaphysical specifics) let me rephrase the question: Does a building have a spirit?

Speaking experientially, I suspect that most of us would answer: Yes.

This has implications.

Note that I'm not necessarily talking here about “spirit” in the sense of something separable from physical reality; what I mean here is a matter of integrity-within-self, of (as it were) “being-hood” or “self-ness.”

In this sense, as pagans, we recognize personhood in non-human beings as well.

Animals are people. Plants are people. Rivers are people. Forests are people.

Looking at Received Tradition, we see that made beings are also considered to have spirit: think of the swords and spears wielded by the heroes of epic, for example. Would anyone, anywhere, actually contend that, for example, Stonehenge does not have a spirit?

In the Lore, which is what we heathens call the body of literature collectively chosen by the heathen community as our canon, Hodur is either Baldur's brother or his human rival for Nanna or both.  In the story in which Hodur and Baldur vie for the affections of Nanna, which ends with Baldur both winning the girl and getting killed, there are three basic versions in the lore. The lore has two stories in which Hodur and Baldur are brothers and a different story in which Hodur is a human warrior. In only one of these stories is Loki even a character in the story. In the non-Loki stories, Hodur and Baldur fight with swords. In the story with Loki, Baldur dies in a mock sacrifice that turns into a real one when weapons that can’t hurt him are hurled at him but one of them is magically turned into a lethal weapon. This weapon is made of mistletoe, the only substance which his mother has not made to promise not to hurt him—she made everything else promise because of a prophetic dream he had. This story is in one way a story about self fulfilling prophecy, and in another way about the nature of a sacrificed god who is also prophesied to rise again as king in the next universe.

Now, the novel gnosis: The reason Frigga did not bother asking mistletoe not to harm Baldur is because mistletoe was his own sacred plant. She must have not it wasn’t necessary to ask. But of course that is what also makes it perfect for a sacrificial ritual. Mistletoe is a liminal plant, neither of earth nor of air but partaking of both. It blooms and produces berries but they are poisonous. It grows without roots, and is green in the winter when its host tree is dormant. It’s a bundle of paradoxes, which is what makes it sacred. That is Baldur’s symbol when he is alive. But after his death, his symbol is the ox-eye daisy.  Daisies in general are also a symbol of the dead.

EMPOWER YOUR INNER GODDESS!
It is important for this planet that we awaken Goddess Energy so we can hear the voice of deep intuition  and wisdom once again.

Heading out in the morning, my eye falls on the assemblage of items on the table by the front door: a white cotton face-mask with long ties, stubs of sidewalk chalk in various colors, and a mottled black cow's horn, point trimmed for blowing.

Well, that sums it up pretty neatly, I think to myself.

Face Mask

In these months of the pandemic, face-masks like this one have become more or less de rigueur. As Minnesota slowly opens up again, everyone is expected to wear them in enclosed public spaces. Certainly the vehement explosion of protests following the public murder of George Floyd is in some part pressure-cooker effect following the months-long covid lock-down.

Sidewalk Chalk

I don't go to demos myself, but I'm a big believer in sidewalk activism. (Hey, I'm a writer.) The sidewalk in front of my house speaks, and what it says it true.

Murder is Murder, it says.

Justice for George Floyd Now, it says.

Silence = Complicity, it says: Speak Out!

Blowing Horn

My neighborhood has borne the brunt of the Twin Cities' epidemic of riot, arson, and looting. (We were the sacrificial goat that those in charge threw to the wolves in order to buy themselves time to get their act together.) When the authorities don't, or can't, come through, it's up to us to look out for ourselves.

At our Block Watch meeting, we agreed that if you need help, the best thing to do is to make noise. For most of the neighbors, that means banging pots and pans, but I'm a pagan, and we do things with style: pagan style. Hence the horn, just like in the old days.

Continuing this series on my religious insights I gained while writing a novel, that is, novel gnosis. In Some Say Fire, Hel the goddess is called Hela. Hel the place is called Helheim.

Hela, the goddess

Hint, hint...make something and when you do create it with intention. Be conscious that whatever feeling, thought, intention you put into your creation whether it be a pudding, crocheted hat, daffodil bulb that you plant or a painting that if you create with intention that you WILL manifest your vision into the world and learn about life in the process. I painted "Fairy Cat" in this way and it makes her all the more special on a deeper level than imaginable. Try it sometime! What will you create next, with INTENTION?

Kathy Crabbe is a soul reader, spirit medium, astrologer and artist who has devoted her life to spirituality and creativity. She has published three oracle decks.

An empire of the imagination, Uncle Hugo's Science Fiction Bookstore, the US's oldest (and only surviving) independent science fiction/fantasy bookstore was not only a well-loved local landmark, but a site of pilgrimage for readers all over the Midwest as well.

Now it's gone.

(It also had the grungiest men's room in the Midwest, which—on the evidence of it—had never once been cleaned since the store was founded in 1974. Ah, fandom.)

An unknown arsonist or arsonists burned it to rubble and ash on the night of Friday, May 29, in the arson that has stalked the first George Floyd protests here in the Twin Cities like a withering shadow.

I stand on the sidewalk before the hollow cave of the ruins. Strata of burned books carpet what was once the basement floor.

Touchingly, some people have left flowers. I, however, am here for another purpose.