Whose Side Are You On?
The Question We Are Being Continually Asked
I apologize for my recent silence. As every single person knows, things here are wild in the United States, as well as the world abroad. I have sat down many times to write a message and each attempt pauses on a single question: What can I say when the world feels like it’s on fire?
From the ICE secret police abducting folks and ripping families apart to work in privately owned for-profit prison camps, to the stripping of civil rights, to the increase of inequality, to families losing access to food assistance and healthcare, to the blatant corruption and abuse of power by this administration.
From the unjust murders of Black people by police with little to no reprecussions, to the disappearances and murder of Indigenous women at an alarming rate, to the Epstein predators being protected by those in power, to the climate crisis we’re running out of time on.
From artificial intelligence stealing from and eroding human value, skill, and labor while making people stupider at the expense of the environment, to the destruction of the education system, to the ongoing genocide of Palestinians, to the horrors inflicted on Ukraine.
From mass surveillance and erosion of privacy at the hands of tech billionaires, to the controlling of women’s bodies, to the national guard and military being turned on civilians, to corporations poisoning the water, land, and air, to the treatment of trans people.
Etc., Etc., Etc.,
All of these things are asking us the same questions over and over and over and over and over again:
“Are you willing to set aside your “loyalty to a team” and stand with humanity? Can you be a human first and foremost? Can you value living, breathing, human life above any and all profit, identity, or ideology? Whose side are you on?”
This is the fundamental question that needs to be answered as a collective and we are being asked it in seemingly countless ways.
We’ve forgotten who our neighbor is that we are supposed to love. It’s our fellow human. I know that’s a reference to the words of Jesus, but the same idea is pretty universal across religions and cultures, which is why we named it “The Golden Rule.”
So maybe that’s all I have to say. It might not be much, but I feel it’s something we all need to start reflecting on and taking seriously like our lives depend on it, because it does.
So, what’s new with me?
This Sunday I’m keynoting at the Gathering of the Witches online event with other wonderful speakers like Judika Illes, Laura Tempest Zakroff, Lilith Dorsey, Nicholas Pearson and others. If you can, I hope you can make it.
I’ll also be doing a book signing at Barnes and Noble with the amazingly talented Stephanie Pui-Mun Law of Shadowscapes Tarot fame (she has a new deck out) and I’ll be trying not to fan-girl out too hard on her. If you ever got a reading from me in Salem years back, it’s more than likely that I read with the Shadowscapes Tarot. It was my go-to for many years. Our book signing is on November 1st in Emeryville, California.
I’m also incredibly excited to be speaking, teaching, and leading ritual at the Sacred Space / Between The Worlds joint conference next year in Maryland. I can’t express how much I love this specific joint event enough.
I also found a podcast episode we recorded with Jason Mankey that I forgot to edit and put up from the beginning of this year, so I have that online.
I was also recently returned to my friends Courtney, Kenani, and Hillary’s podcast That Witch Life, to discuss The Future of Witchcraft.
Stay human, my friends,
Mat