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My speech on the Heathen Visibility Project was a great success! A lot of people were in the group photo, including Selena Fox. (One does not have to be a heathen to be in a group photo with heathens for the Heathen Visibility Project.) She even got everyone to shout “Hail to the heathens” together for her Instagram.

On November 11 this year, I reposted last year’s article that I was inspired to write after witnessing the gradual evolution of a Canadian cultural ritual around Remembrance Day (Veteran’s Day, Armistice Day) that took place at my local cenotaph.  As you might expect, this year I took my lunch break early, since I was working at the bookstore, and when my men came to fetch me I went over to the cenotaph again, shoveling a sandwich in my face so that I would be free for the ceremony.

There had to be twice the number of people who were there than last year.  I recognized the lovable dog I’d patted and the cute little girl in the pink jacket I’d smiled at; who was now a little taller.  This time the cenotaph gate was still locked, but there was a scuffed poppy wreath already laid in front of it.  My friends and coveners, who were there last year, came back as well, everyone with a poppy and a look of determination.  I scanned the crowd and the gate for the elderly veteran whose words had so moved me last year; but he wasn’t there. Then Jamie nudged me and pointed.  “Looks like the people might force them to bring it back to the cenotaph,” he said.  “Check it out; we have cops and everything.”

Today, heading to school, I caught a glimpse of the most heart-stopping sky: it was a sea of roiling clouds, a dark cantata of a dozen shades of grey, spewing forth streams of silver reminding me, as I shivered in the chill air, surrounded by the riotous crimsons and golds of leaves in their death throws, that the time of the Wild Hunt is upon us. 

With November comes the cold, the first promise of winter. With November comes Odin, for to many of us who venerate Him, this is His month, and with Odin comes the Wild Hunt. With November also comes Veterans Day and hard on the heels of the ancestor festivals of late October, it's a good reminder to take a moment to honor our military dead.