Opening Salvo // WAXING AND WANING POWERS
The Last Lion of Albion
Our pagan past is calling. I’m listening
by Heather Shayne Blakeslee
EXCERPT //
Some of us were born a lion on Albion, that oldest of names for England. The current fossil record shows that lions roamed England 680,000 years ago, and then became extinct only about 14,000 years ago; it is unclear why. But our presence and practices are often the triggering factor for all kinds of devastation and destruction, and our power as a species is both a wonder and a devil’s bargain: We don’t yet possess the wisdom we need to control all of our instincts, our human desire for dominion—for empire.
But for a very long time, all cultures around the world have been trying. With different results, we organize ourselves to have functioning communities and societies via the same well-documented aspects studied by historians such as David Hackett Fischer, author of Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America. The various “folkways” include how we think about rank, gender, dress, food, wealth, or marriage. But also, how do we consider order, power, and freedom? And what about time? Or death? Magic, even?
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