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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The Great Lammas Massacre

It's gone down in local pagan lore as the Great Lammas Massacre.

Lammas 1985. One of the local Wiccan churches is holding their August Eve in a city park.

In mid-invocation, the high priest looks up and sees police approaching, so he picks up his athame and starts to open the circle.

Bad idea.

Anyway, no one got shot, and, in the long run, what opened up instead was a conversation that has resulted in a pretty good ongoing relationship between local law enforcement and the pagan community.

I talked a while back with a woman who had been there that night. She'd been a neophyte at the time, and had been wearing a white robe and a crown of flowers.

“The police kept asking me if I was OK,” she told me, laughing.

“They were sure I was going to be the sacrifice.”

 

Dancing, flying, ever on May Eve.

I danced in the Virgins' Round:

white witches in white gowns.

 

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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.

Comments

  • Ian Phanes
    Ian Phanes Monday, 30 April 2018

    That police officer from the mainland was very lucky that she didn't lead him on a frenzied chase through a cave to meet the...

  • M.T. Noah
    M.T. Noah Thursday, 03 May 2018

    I wish I knew more about this.... ly. Thank you.

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