Fáilte, Wild Things!

Kai or Ruad // Gaelic Polytheist (Irish focus) //devotee of Flidais, getting to know the rest of the family // If you have questions, feel free to ask!

[grecoromanyaoi]

sorry, i mythologized your boyfriend. yeah i took him and a few other boyfriends and merged them together with local folklore and mystic elements into one legendary figure. he's going to be really hard to pin down historically. sorry about that. I can make you his consort in some stories if that helps.

[johannestevans]

Also not being funny even a little bit but if you want to talk about how subversive you are you also need to get a lot more normal about religious minorities in the West like Yesterday. Lwow you're such a cool and radical communist but you don't hang out with or even read Jews or Muslims? Crazy.

"Ummmm well im just kinda uncomfy with organised religion"

Ok. Well. You should be more uncomfortable with state-supported genocide and cultural suppression than with those swarthy folks and their silly hats believing in God and reading holy books. Just saying.

"Oh but homophobia and--"

Jews and Muslims have been doing far more interesting faggotry than you for literally thousands of years. My boy David was getting it daily and nightly. Discussions of multiple intersex genders in the talmud. Numerous works of Muslim poetry about gay love

And that's just Jews and Muslims. Like are you normal about non-Christian religions that aren't the vaguely Nazi-ish nouveau vikings you watch thirst vids of?

Hindus? Jains? Sikhs? Druhz? Buddhists? Shinto? A billion indigenous religions? Are you normal about shamanism? Vodou? Ancestor worship?

It's all well and good talking about inclusion of voices of colour but if you lowkey demand that all of those brown and Black and Asian voices talk like a white gentile person and don't do any weird religious or cultural stuff it's like. Well. That's still cultural suppression lmao

[shofarsogood]

And please, please know about the history of religious minorities in your country! Please understand the oppression that people went through.

Yes, the US has freedom of religion. That did not stop the federal government from outlawing indigenous religions and trying to eradicate them. They kidnapped children and made sure they only spoke English. The elders were unable to pass on their tradition and a lot has been lost. Oral histories and practices weren't written down, and when the elders died, that information was lost. People are trying to revive the languages and the old practices, but some of it, we'll never get back.

The US government did not provide any protections for indigenous religions until 1978.

Please, please listen to indigenous people about their history and stop insisting that "the US has always had the first amendment", as if that applied to everyone.

[asteroidtroglodyte]

“We are descended from the Witches you couldn’t burn!”

It’s a nice sentiment, I like the energy, I do. That said, I am actually descended from a “Salem Witch,” and my Ancestor, Mary Isham Towne, was not burnt at the stake, she was hanged by the neck until dead. We’re not savages y’know.

Furthermore, Mary Isham Towne was a churchgoing, god-fearing woman, who just so happened to be a widow who owned a piece of land that the local judge wanted to purchase, but which she refused to sell, and which he set out to acquire pretty much immediately after he sentenced her execution.

So, y’know.

[asteroidtroglodyte]

☝️FUCKING FACTS

[quinloki]

It was a Tuesday in 1981 when the San Francisco police kicked in the door.

Inside the small apartment, they expected to find a hardened criminal. They expected a drug kingpin. They expected resistance.

Instead, they found a 57-year-old waitress in an apron.

The air in the apartment smelled sweet, thick with chocolate and something earthier. On the kitchen counter, cooling on wire racks, were 54 dozen brownies.

The police officers began bagging the evidence. They confiscated nearly 18 pounds of marijuana. They handcuffed the woman, whose name was Mary Jane Rathbun.

She didn't look scared. She didn't look guilty.

She looked at the officers, smoothed her apron, and reportedly said, "I thought you guys were coming."

She was booked into the county jail. The headlines wrote themselves. A grandmother running a pot bakery. It seemed like a joke to the legal system, a quirky local news story about an older woman behaving badly.

But Mary wasn't baking for fun. And she certainly wasn't baking for profit.

To understand why Mary risked her freedom, you have to understand the silence of the early 1980s.

San Francisco was gripping the edge of a cliff. A mysterious illness was sweeping through the city, specifically targeting young men. Later, the world would know it as AIDS. But in those early days, it was just a death sentence that no one wanted to talk about.

Families were disowning their sons. Landlords were evicting tenants. Even doctors and nurses, paralyzed by the fear of the unknown, would sometimes leave food trays outside hospital doors, afraid to breathe the same air as their patients.

Men in their twenties were wasting away in sterile rooms, dying alone.

Mary knew what it felt like to lose a child.

Years earlier, in 1974, her daughter Peggy had been killed in a car accident. Peggy was only 22. The loss had hollowed Mary out, leaving a space in her heart that nothing seemed to fill.

When the judge sentenced Mary for that first arrest, he ordered her to perform 500 hours of community service. He likely thought the manual labor would teach her a lesson.

He sent her to the Shanti Project and San Francisco General Hospital.

It was a mistake that would change American history.

Mary walked into the AIDS wards when others were walking out. She didn't wear a hazmat suit. She didn't hold her breath. She saw rows of young men who looked like ghosts—skeletal, in pain, and terrified.

She saw "her kids."

She began mopping floors and changing sheets. But soon, she noticed something the doctors were missing. The harsh medications the men were taking caused violent nausea. They couldn't eat. They were starving to death as much as they were dying of the virus.

Mary knew a secret about the brownies she had been arrested for.

She knew they settled the stomach. She knew they brought back the appetite. She knew they could help a dying man sleep for a few hours without pain.

So, she made a choice.

She went back to her kitchen. She fired up the oven. She started mixing batter, not to sell, but to save.

Every morning, Mary would bake. She lived on a fixed income, surviving on Social Security checks that barely covered her rent. Yet, she spent nearly every dime on flour, sugar, and butter.

The most expensive ingredient—the cannabis—was donated. Local growers heard what she was doing. They began dropping off pounds of product at her door, free of charge.

She packed the brownies into a basket and took the bus to the hospital.

She walked room to room. She sat by the bedsides of men who hadn't seen their own mothers in years. She held their hands. She told them jokes. And she gave them brownies.

"Here, baby," she would say. "Eat this. It'll help."

And it did.

Nurses watched in amazement as patients who hadn't eaten in days began to ask for food. The constant retching stopped. The mood on the ward shifted from despair to a quiet sort of comfort.

Mary Jane Rathbun became "Brownie Mary."

For over a decade, this was her life. She baked roughly 600 brownies a day. She went through 50 pounds of flour a week. She became the mother to a generation of lost boys.

She washed their pajamas. She attended their funerals. She held them while they took their last breaths.

She did this while the government declared a "War on Drugs."

By the early 1990s, the political climate was hostile. Politicians were competing to see who could be "tougher" on crime. Mandatory minimum sentences were locking people away for decades.

In 1992, at the age of 70, Mary was arrested again.

This time, the stakes were lethal. She was charged with felonies. The district attorney looked at her rap sheet and saw a repeat offender. He threatened to send her to prison.

One prosecutor famously whispered to a colleague that he was going to "kick this old lady's ass."

They underestimated who they were dealing with.

They thought they were prosecuting a drug dealer. In reality, they were attacking the most beloved woman in San Francisco.

When the news broke that Brownie Mary was facing prison, the city erupted.

It wasn't just the activists who were angry. It was the doctors. It was the nurses. It was the parents who had watched Mary care for their dying sons when the government did nothing.

Mary turned her trial into a pulpit.

She arrived at court not as a defendant, but as a grandmother standing her ground. The media swarmed her. Reporters asked if she was afraid of prison. They asked if she would stop baking if they let her go.

Mary looked into the cameras, her voice gravelly and firm.

"If the narcs think I'm gonna stop baking brownies for my kids with AIDS," she said, "they can go fuck themselves in Macy's window."

The quote ran in newspapers across the country.

The court didn't stand a chance.

Testimony poured in. Doctors from San Francisco General Hospital wrote letters explaining that Mary’s brownies were medically necessary. Patients testified that she was an angel of mercy.

The charges were dropped.

Mary walked out of the courthouse a free woman. But she didn't go home to rest. She realized that her personal victory wasn't enough. As long as the law was broken, her "kids" were still in danger.

She needed to change the law.

August 25 was declared "Brownie Mary Day" by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. It was a nice gesture, but Mary wanted policy, not plaques.

She teamed up with fellow activist Dennis Peron. Together, they opened the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club—the first public dispensary in the United States. It was a safe haven where patients could get their medicine without fear of arrest.

But Mary wanted more. She wanted the state of California to acknowledge the truth.

She campaigned for Proposition 215. She traveled the state, despite her failing health. She spoke in her simple, direct way. She didn't talk about liberties or economics. She talked about compassion. She talked about pain.

She forced voters to look at the issue through the eyes of a grandmother.

In 1996, Proposition 215 passed. California became the first state to legalize medical marijuana.

It was a domino effect. Because one woman refused to let her "kids" suffer, the public perception of cannabis shifted. The Economist later noted that Mary was single-handedly responsible for changing the national conversation.

She never got rich.

She had always joked that if legalization ever happened, she would sell her recipe to Betty Crocker and buy a Victorian house for her patients to live in.

She never sold the recipe. She never bought the house.

Mary Jane Rathbun died in 1999, at the age of 77. She passed away in a nursing home, poor in money but rich in legacy.

Today, over 30 states have legalized medical marijuana. Millions of people use it to manage pain, seizures, and nausea.

Most of them have never heard of Mary.

They don't know that their legal prescription exists because a waitress in San Francisco decided that the law was wrong and her heart was right.

They don't know about the 600 brownies a day.

They don't know about the thousands of hospital visits.

Mary didn't set out to be a hero. She told the Chicago Tribune years before she died, "I didn't go into this thinking I would be a hero."

She was just a mother who had lost her daughter, trying to help boys who had lost their way.

She proved that authority doesn't always equal morality.

She proved that sometimes, the most patriotic thing a citizen can do is break a bad law.

Every August, a few people in San Francisco still celebrate Brownie Mary Day. But her true memorial isn't a date on a calendar.

It is found in every oncology ward where a patient finds relief. It is found in every dispensary door that opens without fear.

It is found in the simple, quiet courage of anyone who sees suffering and refuses to look away.

Mary taught us that you don't need a law degree to change the world. You don't need millions of dollars. You don't need political office.

Sometimes, all you need is a mixing bowl, an oven, and enough love to tell the world to get out of your way.

Sources: New York Times Obituary (1999), "Brownie Mary" Rathbun. San Francisco Chronicle Archives (1992, 1996). History.com, "The History of Medical Marijuana." Weird Everything, FB december 12, 2025

[eisenkrahe]

"For decades, wolf researchers believed ravens followed wolf packs to find food. Every biologist who flew aerial surveys over Yellowstone saw the same thing.

Wolves moving across the snow with ravens overhead, black shapes trailing the pack like a shadow with wings. The assumption was simple. The ravens were following the wolves. The wolves would kill. The ravens would eat. A study published in March 2026 using GPS transmitters on wolves, cougars, and ravens in Yellowstone proved the assumption wrong.

The ravens were not following the wolves. They were remembering where kills had happened before and flying over those locations looking for new carcasses. The relationship between the two species is real. The mechanism is not what anyone thought it was.

Bernd Heinrich, a University of Vermont biologist who spent years studying ravens in Maine and Yellowstone, first documented the scale of the association. His data showed ravens present near wolf packs 99.7 percent of the time during winter in Yellowstone. Not occasionally. Not frequently. Essentially always. On Isle Royale, researcher John Vucetich observed the same pattern from the air.

Every wolf pack had ravens with it. The birds were just always there.

The numbers at kill sites are staggering. The average number of ravens documented at a Yellowstone wolf kill is thirty. The maximum recorded at a single carcass is 135.

A wolf pack brings down an elk in the Lamar Valley, and within hours over a hundred ravens have materialized from across the drainage to feed. They do not wait politely. They land on the carcass while the wolves are still eating. They grab chunks of meat and cache them in the snow and in tree crotches for later retrieval. Research estimates that ravens can consume up to forty percent of a carcass, which means a wolf pack that kills a seven-hundred-pound elk may lose nearly three hundred pounds of it to birds.

That loss is so significant that one study proposed a theory that reshapes how we think about wolf pack size entirely. If a pair of wolves can take down an elk, why do wolves hunt in packs of four, six, eight, or more? The per-capita meat return decreases with every additional mouth. A pair gets the most meat per wolf. The answer may be ravens. Two wolves cannot eat fast enough to outpace a hundred ravens stripping the carcass simultaneously. A larger pack can post guards, feed in shifts, and physically dominate the carcass long enough to retain a greater share of the kill. Wolves may hunt in packs not because they need more teeth to bring down prey, but because they need more bodies to defend the kill from birds.

The ravens pay for their meals. Heinrich documented in his book Mind of the Raven that ravens serve as an early warning system at kill sites. Ravens are more vigilant than wolves. They perch in trees overlooking the carcass and scan the horizon in every direction. When a grizzly bear approaches, or a rival wolf pack, or a mountain lion, the ravens see it first. Their alarm calls alert the feeding wolves to the incoming threat before the wolves' own senses detect it. The wolves get airborne sentries. The ravens get an animal with the jaw strength to open a frozen elk carcass that no raven beak can penetrate.

That is the core of the mutualism. The raven cannot open the hide. The wolf can. The wolf cannot see a threat approaching from a mile away while its head is buried in a rib cage. The raven can. Each species fills a gap in the other's capability, and the result is a partnership so consistent that L. David Mech, the most published wolf researcher in the world, wrote that each creature is rewarded in some way by the presence of the other and that each is fully aware of the other's capabilities.

The play behavior is the part that makes biologists uncomfortable because it implies something beyond transactional mutualism. Wolves and ravens play together. Not at kill sites. Not during feeding. During downtime. Yellowstone observers have documented ravens diving at resting wolves, pulling their tails, and flying away. Wolf pups chase ravens across meadows. Ravens steal sticks from pups and hold them just out of reach. The interactions look like the cross-species equivalent of two bored kids messing with each other because there is nothing else to do.

Doug Smith, the retired lead biologist of the Yellowstone Wolf Project, had watched this relationship from the air for decades. Wolf researchers have believed forever that ravens follow wolves, he wrote after the 2026 study was published. Every wolf researcher has seen it. I have seen it routinely from the plane while wolves are chasing an elk in Yellowstone Park, numerous times. Ravens are just always there. This is an age-old observation. But it has never been rigorously tested until now.

The 2026 study, which used 2.5 years of GPS data from transmitters on wolves, cougars, and ravens simultaneously, revealed that ravens were not tracking wolf movements in real time. They were patrolling known kill sites. A raven that fed at a wolf kill in a specific drainage in November would return to that drainage repeatedly over the following weeks and months, flying over the exact location where the carcass had been, checking whether a new kill had appeared. The ravens were not following the wolves. They were following the memory of where wolves had killed before.

That distinction matters because it changes the raven from a passive follower into an active strategist. A bird that follows a wolf pack is reacting. A bird that memorizes kill locations across an entire landscape and patrols them systematically is planning. The raven is not tagging along. It is running a surveillance network across hundreds of square miles of Yellowstone, checking sites where food has appeared before, and showing up fast enough when it appears again that every observer since the 1995 reintroduction assumed it had been following the wolves the whole time.

The wolf and the raven share almost identical geographic range across the Northern Hemisphere. Everywhere wolves live, ravens live. The association is not a Yellowstone novelty. It is a continental relationship between two of the most intelligent species in North American wildlife, running continuously across boreal forest, tundra, mountain, and prairie, built on meat, memory, and a mutual awareness that neither species has ever needed to be taught."

Sources: Heinrich, B. "Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds." / Stahler, D. et al. (2002). Animal Behaviour. / Mech, L.D. "The Wolf: The Ecology and Behaviour of an Endangered Species." / Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Living Bird, 2020. / Bozeman Daily Chronicle, March 2026.

[prairiebeetle]

the mythic literalism debate really obfuscates the need for historiography imo. I don't believe that x or y god is a rapist or a murderer in any real sense, but individual opinion should not be the main focus here. what's undeniable is that these mythologies, cultural norms, and cultic practices were developed within a highly misogynistic, ableist, and stratified society, and it's irresponsible to overlook or attempt to 'soften' that fact when retelling or reimagining these stories.

someone else's belief or non-belief in the myths doesn't necessarily matter to me; there's bound to be a range of positions today as there was in the ancient world. but what does matter is whether someone is carrying forward harmful practices or ideas because they've simply rewritten a surface-level 'nice' version of the myths in their head, rather than engaging more deeply with the source culture and seeking to understand their meanings in context.

we can and should worship the gods without needing to ignore, absolve, or justify the cruel, oppressive parts of their myths and cultures. instead we need to ask questions like, what do these things tell us about the function of religion, or gender roles, or property rights at the time, in this place? what might this suggest about the god’s worshippers, their role in public worship or household rituals, or their relationship to civil governance, public unrest, marginalized groups, imperial expansion, etc.?

these types of questions can help you to build a theological foundation and create a practice in line with your personal convictions, grounded in historical context, but able to identity and deconstruct the objectionable parts when you see them. the myths are documents, first and foremost, and that's how we need to treat them. anyone who says that it's hubristic or 'offensive' to take this approach does not have your best interests in mind.

[salixsociety]

you can't deconstruct things you're too afraid to confront. like, ever, actually

[bitstitchbitch]

my family is lucky enough to own a 26 acre mountain property, log cabin and all. Most people would go up there and think that it is fairly pristine nature. There’s the cabin, and a few dirt roads for 4-wheelers, but the surrounding woods look untouched.

But we actually carefully maintain that nature. We cut down the deadfall. We pull invasive plants. We trim the elderberry bushes. We get more animals than almost anywhere else on the mountain because we put up salt licks and water troughs.

some of these same things are true of national parks. A lot of places that you think of as “untouched wilderness” are influenced heavily by human care and maintenance. And this isn’t a bad thing. We are animals too. In many ways, our ecosystems depend on us to keep them healthy. Many “wild” plants that are useful for food or building materials are actually semi-domesticated because indigenous groups cared for them and encouraged their growth so they do better with human care.

we have a place in nature. We just need to be conscious of our actions.

EDIT: since this post took off, I thought I should add some sources

'Forest gardens’ show how Native land stewardship can outdo nature

Patches of forest cleared and tended by Indigenous communities but lost to time still show more food bounty for humans and animals than surr

Indigenous Fire Practices Shape our Land - Fire (U.S. National Park Service)

For many millenia, fire was integral to many Indigenous peoples’ way of life. This page describes ways Indigenous people used fire in the pa

Untouched nature was almost as rare 12,000 years ago as it is now

Most land on Earth has been shaped by humans for at least 12,000 years, suggesting low intensity land use is compatible with preserving biod

Also a disclaimer that I am not indigenous or an ecologist. I am putting time and effort into learning, but I am not an expert.

[pagecommando]

As op says, the native americans/first nations people shaped the land around them for their own benefit with the tools and technology at their disposal. The idea that they didn't is the kind of 'Closer to the land/magical elf' thinking that makes them simultaneously more and less human. (And honestly why Cameron's Avatar and stuff like it annoy the crap out of me, because it makes conservation a 'magical' act that has an idea that people 'shouldn't' interact with nature or even go into it if preserving it.)

[systlin]

Incidentally, if you are fishing any stream or river in the Mississippi river watershed and catch any fuckers that look like this;

DO NOT THROW THEM BACK FOR FUCK’S SAKE. 

That’s an Asian Carp, and they ARE invasive. The Iowa DNR encourages people to catch, kill, and eat as many as possible. 

They’re also tasty as hell, even though they’ve got lots of bones. 

[systlin]

Also, yes, this fish has weird eyes that are set real low and look downwards. 

It does not have two eyes on the same side; it just has a mark there that looks sorta like one. 

Another pic;

They mostly eat plants, but sometimes will get snagged when line fishing. But, they also do THIS;

Midwesterners being who we are, we immediately knew what to do; BOWFISH THEM SHITS

And INVENT THE SPORT KNOWN AS ‘SCARPING’, which is just netting them out of the air/smacking them with baseball bats/spearing them with pitchforks/ect while waterskiing;

[thatweirdlittlegothgirl-deactiv]

See…I’m good with a bow…but not that good. I AM however much better with a net and having the prey come to me. …Does anyone want to take me to go Scarping?

[systlin]

You can also use a shotgun

The DNR actively encourages all inventive ways of killing them off that people can come up with. There’s no limit on them, so you can fill up the boat. 

And they’re DANGED tasty. Nice mild firm white flesh. 

[cerulean-beekeeper-deactivated2]

Only in American might you go shooting fish off the back of a moving boat.

[numberlover1729]

for the environment, yeah.

[peashooter85]

These things are a menace and they desperately need to be exterminated! They are a non native species that have devastated the ecosystem of the Mississippi River and are proceeding to invade all connected tributaries. They literally eat everything and reproduce leaving entire rivers lifeless wastelands. If they enter the Great Lakes it will be an ecological nightmare. For the love of all that is good and holy start murdering them with prejudice before it is too late!!!!

[kasaron]

Hogs, and Asian Carp are KOS in America.

Good eating, and everyone, including mother nature will thank you.

[moth-doe]

They are also a huge factor in the extinction of the Axolotl in the wild

EAT EM BOYS

[father-moss]

Father Moss wish you a prosperous day. Reblog for luck.

[the-library-alcove]

How many mass graves and extinct cultures are needed to convince Christian apologists that missionaries and missionizing are inherently xenophobic?

The answer is apparently always, "At least one more."

[the-library-alcove]

It just like... look. If your religion has an explicit instruction of belief that it needs to take every other religion out there in the world, wipe them out, and replace them with itself, that religion is xenophobic. And the people who engage in the fulfillment of that process are xenophobic. It might not be as explicitly nasty a xenophobia as ethnic genocide, but it's still an instruction to commit cultural genocide.

[the-library-alcove]

#i hate all religions equally

The number of people who have added this comment or others to the same effect...

Yeah.

You're no better than the missionaries who want to wipe out other cultures and replace them with Jesus. You say that you "hate all religions equally"? Fine--that means you hate exactly the same number of religions that they do, plus one. From the perspective of those facing the hate, it really makes no difference.

[shofarsogood]

If I say "I'm Jewish and I hate the ideas of missionaries because historically they created pogroms and ghettoes and started genocides multiple times," and your response is "I hate all religions equally," which INCLUDES Judaism, what you're actually saying is "those people were bad but they should have succeeded."

[nightingalesighs]

These missionaries/missions have actually contributed to ethnic genocide. “Kill the Indian to save the man.” Was literally the line of thought for putting Indigenous American children into residential schools and how many mass graves have we found? How many are still waiting to be discovered? How many human beings are in unmarked graves, still separated from their culture, having found no peace even in death. And this is but one example.

Gtfo with “I hate all religions equally”. If you believe this you’re equally racist as the people you claim to hate.

[the-library-alcove]

Those residential school mass graves were the original instigation for this post... and yet there were people who, in the immediate aftermath of their discovery, argued on this post that they were acceptable.

[cultusquercus]

"These people don't really do magic or else they'd be posting photos."

The people in question: posting photos in my DMs/on platforms with privacy controls

[traegorn]

The folks demanding people post photos are so hilarious to me. Like it's the exact opposite of the culture of secrecy that was drilled into a lot of us for decades.

Like... post if you want, don't post if you don't want, and don't be weird to other people for fuck's sake. 😆

[chirotusinfinitum]

That's ... a thing? People really think you don't do magic if you don't post photos?

[cultusquercus]

Well to be fair, in this instance it’s mostly just one guy saying it as part of a several months long harassment campaign.

[maimonideznuts]

"omg, she's such a girl boss"

She kills babies like it's her job, if that's a girl boss?

"I'm a witch and my patron is Lilith"

That seems like a bad idea, her whole thing is promising irresistible deals with inevitable pitfalls that will destroy your life and relationships... Maybe don't do that.

[penrosesun]

"But the rape/SIDS demon is ~misunderstood~ JuSt LiKe Meeeeee"

She's a rape/SIDS demon. You actually do not, under any circumstances, "gotta hand it to her."

Like, bluntly, it's not just that Lilith isn't a misunderstood girlboss goddess who was tarred with an association with rape and SIDS. It's that it's literally the opposite of that. Lilith was the mythological embodiment of rape and SIDS, and her association with feminism is entirely due to a misogynist in the Middle Ages claiming that feminism was bad and should therefore be associated with the rape and SIDS demon.

Claiming that Lilith is your feminist girlboss patron is like claiming that your biggest personal inspiration for the fight for trans rights was the totally 100% true story of the "down with cis" bus, which btw wasn't actually about people committing violence, it was instead the heartwarming story of how people wearing "down with cis" t-shirts drove a bus to Washington and convinced Congress to give trans people equal rights. Like 1) that's absolutely nothing to do with what the "down with cis bus" story was about, and 2) the "down with cis bus" story was an obvious lie which was created by someone who was trying to discredit the movement you claim to support.

It's not actually particularly feminist to claim that the an anti-feminist screed is true and real and important (they just got some little details wrong).

If you want to be feminist about Lilith, maybe start from "the forced and invented association of feminism with the Jewish rape and SIDS demon is some misogynistic bullshit," because it is.

[chaoticevilspacewitch]

Radical thought: make-believe figures are make-believe, and their meaning and significance can change with time and audience (hell, not even just mythological figures; witness Guy Fawkes).

If the make-believe figure of Lilith works for you as a subversion of Judeochristian patriarchal mythology and its ongoing impact on the world, you rock that girl!

[dappercat123]

Maybe make up your own figures instead? Instead of taking them from others,

[changelingfangs]

If you're going to try to "fix"/reclaim Lilith at least fucking read Judith Plaskow's the Coming of Lilith for fuck sake.

[emasperusual]

What is the actual story of Lilith? I was told she was Adam's first wife who didn't obey him and wanted to be on top during sex. Where the fuck did that come from?

[maimonideznuts]

There's no singular story of Lilith, she doesn't really have any origin story that I know. She's a Shaeda of infant and childbirth death, and other disasters, one of many perils in the world. Subtle like a venomous spider that makes a web in your shoe, and interacting with her is like picking up a venomous snake by its middle.

[emasperusual]

Reblogging so more people know.

[penrosesun]

The story that she was Adam’s first wife comes from a sexist medieval satire.

[keshetchai]

I don't really wanna bypass the other problem with what @chaosevilspacewitch said, which is "Judeochristian." Lilith is not a part of Christianity, and never has been.

Like it's really really important to recognize that!

She was not subsumed into/incorporated into Christianity at all, and so she cannot be a subversion of "Judeochristian patriarchal mythology."

Judeochristian is a highly problematic term for a VARIETY of reasons, and people shouldn't use it (outside of, perhaps, the first three centuries CE, where Christianity was still defining itself as a unique religion) because they will inevitably say/imply some shit that just isn't true! Like suggesting that Lilith is a part of Christian mythology in any way. She isn't.

Like @penrosesun mentioned, the idea that she was Adam's first wife is from a deeply misogynistic text. She's not really a girl boss there. She actually leaves and is told if she doesn't return 100 of her demon children will die every day. And she agrees to that and declares she was basically made to bring pain and death and likes this. So. Not exactly a good thing.

Things associated with Lilith in various jewish texts:

Tragic death of infants / committing infanticide (particularly of disabled, unhealthy, or "strange" children)

Birthing demon babies that will die in the hundreds (possibly even killing her own children)

Miscarriage (especially with genetic defects)

Giving children epileptic fits

Causing death in childbirth

Having hundreds of agents of like...evil and badness

Being the partner/consort of a demon prince/king (Samael/asmodeus)

Nocturnal seminal emissions

Adultery

Possibly the first mention of Lilit is just referring to a screech owl/night bird. She does show up in the talmud (predating the alphabet of Ben Sira, aforementioned misogyny text) but all of those earlier mentions seem to be limited to her being a horrifying demon.

Ex: shabbat 151b:

Rabbi Ḥanina said: It is prohibited to sleep alone in a house, and anyone who sleeps alone in a house will be seized by the evil spirit Lilith

Niddah 24b discusses miscarried fetuses that resemble the form of "a Lilith", who appears as a woman who has wings. But this suggests it's a category of creature, not a singular woman.

[[ I've seen one really good tackling of a more feminist (less misogynistic than Ben Sira) reading of Lilith that I greatly enjoyed but CRUCIALLY, it didn't erase her connection to infant mortality or to Judaism. It's the middle grade graphic novel, The Unfinished Corner.]]

[hermthejewishwyrm]

"Let her be appropriated by philosemetic girl boss pagans" girl the SIDS

[maimonideznuts]

I really would love to pawn Lilith off on people who want to steal our shit for their own religious practice, but as annoying as they are... it seems morally questionable not to warn them away in the strongest possible terms, from worshipping or making deals with the demon who murders people during childbirth or robs them or their companions of their children afterwards.

[spot-the-antisemitism]

they’re gonna make her the abortion goddess soon arent thry

[kosher-salt]

They better not. Lilit is not a patron of abortion; Lilit is the representation of denying a mother healthcare to terminate a doomed pregnancy. Lilit is the symbol of the child who died after a handful of painful hours and never should have been forced into existance. Lilit the evil at the core of every preventable death from ectopic pregnancy. Of trafficking. If they want to use Lilit for something in their contemporary, non-Jewish lives, fine. They should associate her with the lawmakers choosing power and force over reproductive health and freedoms. That I could get behind.

[spiderbitesandvampirevenom]

settlers are always so enthusiastic about ''foraging'' and then you'll start talking to them about indigenous horticulture & sustainable harvesting practices and they quickly reveal that they're more interested in the aesthetic of being a Crunchy Woodland Creature than like reducing their reliance on exploitative industrial agriculture or rebuilding their local foodshed

[spiderbitesandvampirevenom]

This is not true and it is in fact neither very simple nor very plain to forage sustainably. This kind of flippant "it's such an easy hobby" attitude when it comes to harvesting is exactly *why* there are so many problems with once-abundant traditional foods being depleted. Every plant is different, has different needs, and can support a different intensity of gathering. Foraging isn't just some fun hobby, and shouldn't be treated like one. It is a method of intentionally working land to gather resources meant to sustain oneself, whether those resources be food, medicine, or something else. It requires conscious maintenance of the land you are working, and active monitoring of not just your own gathering, but the gathering of your entire community. It requires experiential, often generational knowledge. You cannot boil a resource-gathering operation down to a simple truism and expect others to be able to do it respectfully and sustainably.

[then-said]

[yuumei-art]

This is basically how my huskies see themselves when they try to hunt deer in the forest behind our house. And they would have succeeded too if it wasn't for that meddling fence! The full hours long art videos, HD image and PSD files will be DMed on my Patreon on Dec 5th :)

[fishfamfarm]

HI! We need HELP!

I don't know where to start this post so uh.

The very basics is that we're being evicted from the land that we've been working for the last five+ years to turn into a profitable farm (*mumblemumble generational trauma and family infighting mumble*)

The good news: there's options near by and I'm relatively confident we can qualify for a farm operations loan to secure new land!

The bad news: since goImagine closed, we've had to completely rebuild the store on a new platform and traffic/sale have cratered because no one knows where to find us. That's where you can help!

Please signal boost this post and check out our store!

We have soap, fiber, stickers and BRAND NEW lip balm! Our stuff is made from things we produce right here on our farm, and other ingredients and equipment sourced from local businesses.

Our current goal is to build up $2500 in capital and use that to fund purchases of more supplies and equipment for operation.

Big ticket items include:

A drum carder

New spinning wheel (in case I can't recover my old one)

An electric milker (I'm milking all of our sheep by hand currently!)

More soap molds

Getting the current back log of fleeces to our local mill to become yarn

This winter's supply of hay

And just various other supplies that are in constant need of reordering I have a LOT more planned, so please reblog this post and add our store to your watch list.

THANK YOU!

[everydayoriginal]

Origin of Bear by Nina Pommelin

Where was broad-forehead born, was honey-paws produced? Born in the sky aloft, on the horns of the moon, on the head of the sun, on the Seven stars’ back. Fire shot in flashes from the sky, on a wheel the world turned around, while broad-forehead being formed. From there was he let down to earth, on the edge of the forest-fort, in the home of the golden wilderness.

*

The bear was arguably the most important and respected animal to ancient Finns, essentially considered a deity. It was believed that humans were descendants of this deity; they both ate the same food, could stand on two feet, and shared the same wisdom and emotional intelligence.

The bear was said to have come from the sky. When it set foot on earth it was warned not to ever harm humans. But it did, and as a punishment the bear was beheaded and sent back to the sky. This is the origin story of the Big Dipper constellation.

Painted in ink, white poster color and gold medium on 300 g/sqm Lanaquarelle 100% cotton hot press watercolour paper. The painting is unframed.

VIEW DETAILS brought to you by Every Day Original

[shinonart]

Check out my new bear painting!

Super happy with how it turned out. I will also be making gold foil prints of this later, but here’s your chance to get your claws on the original!

[creekfiend]

I think a lot of this 'religion is necessarily oppressive' stuff honestly is kind of like the confusion about ppl thinking that like, slavery and scientific racism and etc came about BECAUSE OF beliefs that Black people etc were not fully human rather than those beliefs -- those ARGUMENTS, really -- being JUSTIFICATIONS that were invented to allow white ppl to continue to engage in slavery which was at its core about economic exploitation. Like that most systemic bigotry serves a Useful Purpose to those in power and that's why it exists; the policies aren't put in place because of the beliefs. The cart isn't pulling the horse. Christian stuff was used to justify the same things that later, "scientific progress" was used to justify in the west (e.g. scientific racism, eugenics, etc. Very very very much rooted in the idea of certain beliefs and cultures as inherently more rational and forward thinking because BEING RATIONAL AND VALUING SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS WERE CULTURAL VALUES AT THE TIME.) (This does not say anything about Science. It says things about Institutes and power and oppression.)

Similarly, you see a lot of people saying "well religion is used to justify oppression by the people in power" and its like yes. Religion is not unique. Beliefs about what is true about the world -- ideology -- can always be used to do this and frequently is.

When there are common beliefs held by a majority of people in a given culture those beliefs will be used by the people in power to explain and justify the things they do to maintain power and control in society.

This isn't a function of religion. It's a function of power.

When people say "well, this religious rhetoric is/was used to justify misogynistic legal standards in this society" the answer is yep. And if it wasn't that it would be something else because that society had an investment in that specific kind of oppression of women. We have seen this morph into 'rational' 'scientific' explanations for women's inferiority and justifications for making women second class citizens once the cultural values swing more towards rationality and science, as well. Thats... regular.

Like... love to have a good faith convo about this with someone who doesn't get weird and reactionary about "Religious People" but sure not seeing much of that going on. Weirdly.

Anyway.

[chamerionwrites]

#i think this can be a tough pill to swallow bc it necessarily involves#accepting that your secular ideology and philosophy can be exploited just as easily for violence and harm#as religious ideology can#because thats humans babey#fascinating also to me is the phenomenon of people believing that bc they do not subscribe to any beliefs that they see as#''religious'' or ''spiritual'' they are immune to magical thinking of any sort.#i promise you that is not true in the slightest.#and also the things that we each identify as SILLY AND OBVIOUSLY UNTRUE FAIRY TALE SHIT is... culturally determined hee hee#im sorry to tell u that no one is objective about reality. thats rough buddy!