Milkrat: From the Shadows
Carlyle Grundon | April 7, 2022
Quinn Bonney
Milkrat shrine in the basement staircase of Sunderland dorm.
Many Warren Wilson College (WWC) students have stumbled upon a Milkrat shrine at least once in their time here. Third- and fourth-years remember a time when students affiliated with Milkrat would put an entire dorm room on top of Gladfelter in the name of Milkrat or would try summoning demons in the homecoming pasture.
These secret ceremonies always had some kind of offerings. The Milkrat way is to scavenge for items of significance to gift to the deity. Milkrat is shadowy and chaotic energy, who thrives in acts of selflessness in her name.
Milkrat is a college-based religion that first appeared at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., in the early 2010s. A sibling of an Evergreen student came to Warren Wilson, they started a Milkrat following here. How it originated at Evergreen is still a mystery.
Adherents, called messengers, believe Milkrat is a deity that lives in the 8th dimension whose eight teats all represent something different: ignorance, hubris, boldness, kinship, isolation, cowardice, and survival.
The eighth teat is forbidden and most spend their entire life searching for this mystery. These teats are all in balance with one another, and all are important in a fulfilling life.
Will Waas, a WWC student from 2018 to 2020, is a Milkrat messenger. When he came to WWC, he said he remembers hearing about Milkrat and becoming fascinated with finding out more.
“I just started asking everybody who had been at Wilson, and after I interviewed one person, I’d ask who else I can talk to, and they would lead me to another person,” Waas said.
When Waas began his Milkrat spiritual journey, WWC Milkrats were led by a high priestess. The priestess left, passing down a few words of wisdom, of which Waas passed down to the current generation of Milkrat followers.
Waas wanted Milkrat to continue at Warren Wilson; however, he was told Milkrat was an individual journey, and that messengers had to discover their own path.
“If you’re going to do it, don’t try to do it as we did it, because you will never be able to know.” Waas said.
Waas imagines Milkrat as a being in outer space.
“I imagine Milkrat floating in outer space, phasing in and out of our dimension, and she’s blasting a purple ray of energy at everyone doing Milkrat things,” Waas said.
There has been a lot of false information spread about Milkrat in the wake of Waas leaving.
“I thought Milkrat started years ago when a student found a dead rat in the milk dispenser in Glad and decided to make it a deity,” said Ahmed Keller, a student who came to WWC in Fall 2020.
Orion Quick, a WWC junior, said that they found Milkrat an unlikely source of community. They think this is a reason why it is so popular, though it wasn’t as if one day they woke up and were all of a sudden a part of Milkrat.
“You never really join, it just finds its way into your life at the right time,” they said.
Messengers believe Milkrat is more about the purpose it brings to those close to Milkrat than anything else, whether that be the community or something else.
“Is Milkrat real? Who knows,” Quick said. “It’s fun to be a part of something that’s half joke religion and half spiritual guidance.”
Milkrat means something different to every person who is a part of the following. For some, it means creating ceremonies and scavenging for gifts. For others, it means making music and art in the name of Milkrat. For many, it’s some combination of both.
