Welcome to Voices of Pagan Pacifism, a website dedicated to showcasing and celebrating all the diversity and passion that dwell within the souls and songs of peacemaking Pagans throughout the world.
We have a fantastic issue for you this Samhain! As the world turns towards the dark half of the year, our thoughts turn towards the role that death, destruction, chaos and decay play in the Pagan approach to peacemaking. Yet we also seek the wisdom of our ancestors and beloved dead, the insights they unearthed during their lives and the actions of love and inspiration that are their legacy.
In the spirit of the season, we here at VoPP are pleased to feature excerpts from an article on the origins and folk customs of Samhain by the late Alexei Kondratiev, who crossed the veil and joined the ancestors earlier this year. Kondratiev explores the relationship between order and chaos, light and dark, and the ways in which we can delve into the fecundity of the Otherworld to reinvigorate and renew our lives on this side of the thinning veil.
In a similar vein, Starhawk shares some personal reflections about the death of one young peace activist, and what his death — and his life — meant to the community. As Pagans, how do we confront death and violence in ways that give them meaning? How do we honor the dead and the sacrifices they have made?
As the landscape sheds its colors and withers to shades of brown and gray while the wind howls through the bare-limbed trees, our musings naturally turn inwards to our own fears and uncertainties echoing back to us through the dark. Alison Shaffer explores the work of fear and courage through the retelling of a dream-vision of unseen monsters and a moonlit sword.
Meanwhile, Jeff Lilly investigates a vision of his own from back in 2006, as part of a review of Frank MacEowen’s The Mist-Filled Path that confronts the history of violence in Native American and European relations and asks how we can honor the ancestors of the land while respecting cultural diversity and integrity.
And last but not least, VoPP features Pagan author Brynneth in an interview about her personal approach to peacemaking, along with some helpful advice about how to bring peace work into our rituals, our home and our work environments.
In addition to these wonderful pieces, I’d also like to point you towards several articles off-site in keeping with this issue’s theme. First, Christian writer and peace activist Gareth Higgins shares his thoughts on the recent suicides of gay teens and asks some difficult questions about the role that we each play in a modern culture of violence and intolerance. Also, although Isaac Bonewits has also crossed the veil to join the beloved dead this past year, his work still lives on through the articles and essays available on his website. In particular, his essays “A Call to Arms” and “Some Thoughts on Terrorism” are well worth reading and reflection.
