Happy secular New Year from The Wild Hunt! We hope that 2021 brings many blessings to all of our readers.
As we look to the brand new yr ahead of us, the occasions of 2021 are nonetheless unfolding, lingering. I’m nonetheless asking, because the Cranberries did in 1993, “Do you have to, do you have to, do you have to let it linger?”
Even with that lingering, it has change into our custom on New Year’s Day to start out a dialogue of themes and occasions which may be vital to the collective Pagan, Witchcraft, Heathen, and polytheist group.
So then, let me don my Cassandra’s hat and predict the place our editorial attentions will flip within the yr to return.
![](https://wildhunt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Cassandra1.jpg)
Cassandra by Evelyn De Morgan (1898, London); Cassandra in entrance of the burning metropolis of Troy [Public Domain]
Theme One: The Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic will stay the principle story the world over, not less than within the brief time period. All knowledge is suggesting that the pandemic will get far worse due to the omicron variant. It is perhaps higher to say that the pandemic will broaden resulting from omicron – some retailers are predicting a COVID “tsunami” slightly than the earlier “waves.” I’m not stunned.
As I wrote final yr, vaccinations finish pandemics, not vaccines. The omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 doubtless emerged in an immune-challenged affected person because the virus developed methods to keep away from that particular person’s immune system. But the amplification and unfold of omicron and the following wave is a mixture of vaccine hesitancy, lack of vaccine availability, and plain scientific illiteracy.
Despite all of that and the non-evidence-based actions of governments like baseless journey bans and oppressive lockdowns, the pandemic appears prone to fade in 2022. Not solely are there new variant controlling vaccines only a few weeks away, together with a brand new, complete vaccine towards all COVID and SARS variants, but additionally therapies for COVID like Paxlovid by Pfizer and Molnupiravir by Merck. These are tablets: oral antiviral therapies given on the first signal of an infection and anticipated to chop the intense dangers of COVID by about 90%. They are onerous to seek out now, however as manufacturing ramps up there will probably be an at-home remedy to hopefully keep at bay extreme ailments.
These drugs broaden the arsenal for COVID administration, lowering the chance of future critical waves that threaten well being programs.
These will imply extra interplay between previously remoted communities and the return of festivals and different gatherings. We will probably be looking out to inform the tales of additional re-openings and the challenges that await these organizations seeking to resume in-person exercise.
Theme Two: The Climate Crisis will change into seen
Even now, there are people – principally non-scientists – who select to not consider that local weather change is going on, not to mention accelerating. Their beliefs gained’t matter.
As I write this, Colorado is ablaze from a rare windstorm and wildfire mixture. Last month, the Mediterranean area confronted cyclonic storms, so-called “medicanes,” that resemble tropical cyclones. These phenomena have all occurred earlier than,however their frequency is rising. The similar is true for harmful flooding and longer, extra intense, hearth seasons, as occurred in Greece.
People are noticing the distinction between climate now and the climate they knew previously. Many have seen the shift, everybody from gardeners to hikers to insurance coverage brokers. There are stories of flowers blooming as far north as Ohio in January. Even people disconnected from the seasons are noticing that one thing appears improper, like northern heatwaves in late December.
As the local weather disaster accelerates and turns into each prevalent and apparent, there’ll undoubtedly be political implications. I think, maybe counterfactually, that the political shift will probably be towards conservativism as a result of it’s way more seductive to sound highly effective and fearless than to acknowledge the Earth is much stronger.
I feel individuals will vote extra to carry on to the way in which it was than the way in which it is perhaps. There will probably be a reckoning and dialogue, and I think it would start this yr. Pagans have been on the non secular forefront of this dialog and can proceed to be.
Theme Three: Speaking of Voting
The US Congressional elections will happen later this yr. All members of the US House of Representatives are up for election and so is one-third of the Senate.
Long earlier than the precise tallying of the votes on November 8, there will probably be an extended line of occasions shaping the political local weather of the United States. Among these occasions would be the U.S. Supreme Court’s determination on abortion rights, laws on LGBTQ rights and voting rights, immigrant rights, and our ongoing reconciliation with the truth that the U.S. financial system was based on slavery, which continues to form racial inequities for Black Americans immediately.
There are many people who flat out reject components of the sentence above, and therein lies the difficulty. The U.S. political system has change into a sport, and with it comes the bread and circuses required to gasoline indignant disinterest when confronted with actuality.
I think extra, not much less, divisive dialogue is on the way in which, together with an total strengthening of the patriarchy. There are elections in Japan, Italy, and China this yr as properly. Regardless of political ideology or inclination, we are going to all be politically fatigued by the tip of 2022.
The query for us will probably be how Pagans, Witches, Heathens, and polytheists will fare all through. I think we are going to climate it properly however we may have some tales to inform.
There are different occasions that can encourage us in 2022. We will hopefully see the James Webb telescope unfurl in 2022 and look into the deepest previous. Queen Elizabeth II will rejoice her platinum jubilee with celebrations as she turns into the longest-reigning monarch in British historical past. Meanwhile, the U.Okay.’s former colonies will mark main milestones of their very own, as Egypt celebrates a century of independence and India and Pakistan rejoice 75 years. The Winter Olympics will probably be held in Beijing. Wakanda Forever, The Northman, Doctor Strange within the Multiverse of Madness and Thor: Love and Thunder are among the many movies scheduled for launch in 2022. Art displays and museum occasions are returning, as is fieldwork in archeology and new analysis on spirituality from varied sciences.
Many Pagan festivals have introduced plans to re-open in 2022, and some new ones are within the works. Pagan and Witchcraft shops are planning their full re-openings, and readers of every kind are seeing an uptick of their clientele. This is all excellent news for our group. We will do our greatest to cowl all of it and extra – at all times from a Pagan perspective, the core mission of TWH.
Beyond the information, we hope to shock you with new options in 2022. We will begin rolling them by Imbolc, our conventional date for our rededication to our TWH mission and implementation of recent actions.
As at all times, we invite you to share your insights, your information ideas, and your press releases with us. We thank all of you for being right here – our readers, our supporters, and our detractors. We admire you correcting our reporting, typically critiquing our enhancing, sometimes copy-editing, and, at all times, sharing our tales. The complaints, the issues, and the reward communicate to us about being one group in assist of each other.
We are grateful to all of you and thanks once more for becoming a member of us by means of one other yr.
Happy New Year!