Hunter S. Thompson is dead and I don't feel so well myself. One of my heroes is gone.
If witchcraft is the art of changing reality or the art of revealing the hidden, then Hunter was indeed a master. The sad truth is, too often in modern Paganism we think that we're the first ones to come along who really understand this. There have been witches for as long as there have been humans; changers, thinkers, growers, challengers of the status quo; there have been witches as long as there have been heroes. It's only been in the last hundred years or so we've gotten 'civilized' enough that we don't automatically burn our visionaries and magic-makers at the stake. Sadly enough, it's my judgement that this means we don't honor the visionaries who have gone before us; we have no sense of history. We have no sense of heroism.

I would like to challenge all of you to celebrate Witch History Month, whatever month it is that you're reading this. I want you all to go out and read about rebels, rabble-rousers, whistle-blowers, advanced thinkers, heroes, questioners of established truths, and troublemakers of all stripes. I want you to adopt new heroes.
I'll even be so kind as to provide you with some names.

Major General Smedley Butler. Stacie Neldaughter. Julian of Norwich. William Butler Yeats. Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Dr Henryk Slawik. Deganadiwah. Lenny Bruce. Xanana Gusmao. Daw Aung Sang Suu Kyi. Rigoberta Menchu Tum. Harvey Milk. John Muir. Rachel Carson. Dr Helen Caldicott. Dr Nawal El Saadawi. Sojourner Truth. Anna Mae Pictou Aquash. Richard Feynman. Wilma Rudolph. Roberto Clemente. That should be enough to get you started.

The fact is this; it is a rare hero indeed who didn't question some sort of status quo. Heroes are rarely the sort of people who sit around and say 'hey, everything's fine the way it is'. In that, witches are heroes; we rarely sit around and accept. For that matter, you are all heroes as well. And it's only in learning how others showed courage, rebellion, and questioning that we ourselves learn how to be brave, be strong, and to ask questions.
Learn your history. Be a hero. And maybe somewhere in the Summerland Hunter S. Thompson will be briefly amused.

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