Crossing Many Rainbows

Genderfluid Elven otherkin. Panromantic Demisexual. Norse Pagan/Heathen. Kitchen witch. My pronouns are ze/zir. If you want to argue with me about the validity of any portion of my identity, don't. I'll just ignore you, so I'm saving you the time. Everything here is more or less UPG unless otherwise stated.

[glegrumbles]

Unkindly reminder to anyone and everyone paying attention that L*pp, L*pplander, L*pplings, and other variants of the word are, in fact, racial slurs against the Saami. Saami peoples have been subject to really gross, racist things. Anatomical measurements. Sterilization projects. Cultural and religious oppression and suppression. Being exhibited like animals in zoos. And stuff is still going on, as per the fight currently going on against mining companies coming onto their land and putting in mines against their will that would disrupt or destroy traditional herding. More protests are happening in Sweden, but this is not getting a lot of press coverage outside of Sweden.

[grumpylokeanelder]

Reblogging over here as well. This is particularly important for people who are interested in Heathenry who will occasionally find people peddling Saami drums and cultural goods or purporting to teach Saami religious or spiritual practices. There are a lot of parallels with how First Nations crafts are appropriated and sold in the USA, or “Plastic Shamans” who’ll steal and repackage things into weekend New Age workshops. It is extremely important for Heathens to learn to distinguish when something has been appropriated from the Saami and is being repackaged and sold to you as “Norse”. 

[lohrien]

Paintings by Lindsey Kustusch

[heathenqueer]

Pendant has been thoroughly cleansed and blessed.  I'm working a little kitchen magic (science magic!) by making cottage cheese out of the thing of 1% that nobody here was going to drink.  (A friend came up with his grandmother over the weekend and she left nearly a full gallon of milk in our fridge.  What else am I supposed to do with it?)  

The girlfriend and I went to investigate the hollow entrance--she agrees that's what it appears to be.  The edges of the trees around it are bowed over as if forming an archway, and the leaves around it are sickly and full of holes--just around the entry.  The rest of the plants they're attached to are fine.  There was a spider with a web constructed over it.

The full moon is going to fall the night before the girlfriend's 25th birthday, so we're gonna do some preparations over the weekend and go ward it and leave some offerings on Tuesday night, hopefully.  Seems like as good a time as any.

[heathenqueer]

Working on cleansing my Mjolnir pendant.  It was made for me by a person that I am, through a sort of complicated mess of events, no longer friends with, and because of that, it's got some ties to it that I really need to break before I'm comfortable wearing it again.  I don't want to deal with potential nastiness attached.

Wrote an invocation to Loki and three of his children, and then to Thor, to cleanse, purify, and empower it.  Burned it in a bowl of salt and mixed the salt and ashes.  Now I've got the pendant sitting in it and I'm going to leave it there for a few hours while I go do a few other things.

I'll probably end up anointing it with the potion jar I've had brewing for a few days now--mostly a home-warming spell for the apartment I'm living in, since I haven't properly done that yet.  

(At some point, speaking of, I need to go make friends with the local wights.  And I swear to god there's a hollow entrance at the back of the complex.  I'm going to have to investigate and leave out an offering for the Fae, possibly have my girlfriend come help me with it, because I don't know the nature of them and I would like to ward off anything troublesome before it becomes an actual problem.)

I'm feeling better already about this pendant.

[heathenqueer]

Hello!

I'm not dead, I promise.  Life's just been kind of hectic for a while now.  But things are settling down, and I've been doing a lot of work with my practice and spiritual path, so hopefully things will pick up again soon.  Much love to everyone who's still around! <3

[heathenqueer]

[#death]

Okay so I need some help, because I'm starting to see a pattern evolving.

Yesterday as I was driving home in the dark, my headlights caught a red-breasted robin sitting in the middle of the road.  Birds tend to take flight before you reach them, so I thought for a moment that this was a toy someone had dropped out a window, or that it was already dead.  But as I approached, it turned its head.  I didn't see it take flight as I swerved to avoid it.  I looked in my rear view, but in the dark, I couldn't see whether it had made it or whether it was still lying in the road.

Today, I was at the grocery store.  I came back to my car to put my groceries in the back seat, and as I was returning the basket, I noticed a car that had a bird, mangled and dead, caught in the grill below the headlights.  It looked like a yellow-tailed swallow, from the colour of the feathers, but I couldn't see any blood.  I thought at first it might have been fake, a twisted joke, the sort of prop that people tend to attach to their cars down here for shock value.  But I leaned down to look at its claws, and I saw that it was real.

I don't know if someone's trying to get my attention or if there's a message to be interpreted here, but the pattern of dead birds--especially songbirds being struck by cars, which is an exceedingly rare thing--has me listening.

Does anybody have any suggestions or a direction to point me in?  I don't know where to start, except to look to Hela, but I've had her prod at me before, and this doesn't feel like her.

[falconrune]

trufax norse mythology makes a lot more sense if you assume in place of logic and reason centers thor’s brain has a constant loop of party rock anthem

[heathenqueer]

I would be interested in hearing more about your self identity if you are willing/interested/whatever in divulging. I just noticed you reblogged something and was browsing your page. your background is amazing, btw.

Thanks!  Wish I could say I made it, but I didn't; it was one I found while digging around for an appropriate rainbow background.

I'm always happy to talk more about my identity.  A lot of people ask me and I keep meaning to write something up, but then I either don't have the spoons to finish what I started or I just plain forget. This blog's kind of been on a rocky reblog-only hiatus for a while, with some random commentary thrown in, because I haven't had the energy to practice and study get as involved as I would like.

What did you want to know?  I do much better with specific questions than rambling in general.

[hellboundwitch]

(the obvious answer seems TOO obvious...)

Okay can you guys think of a deity that enjoys using sun and light imagery, might be considered a patron of divination and healing, may or not be associated with a bow? The seeming obsession with childhood/youth or whatever may or may not be relevant, I’m not sure.

[libraford]

I’m thinking Hermes, but that could be because I’m making a recipe for Mercury…. »

[nosuchthingasfiction-blog]

Isn’t Apollo associated with all of those things?

[glitterywitch-deactivated201312]

Yo, Brighid is the flaming arrow and associated with all the above though not divination as much. There’s conflicting sources on that and a lot of them are arbitrary neo-wiccan things. 

[theletterkilleth]

all of those things bring Apollo to mind immediately.  he was the god of the sun and of the Pythian oracle, he was almost always depicted as a young man and had younger men like Hyacinthus for eromenoi. His son Asclepius was the patron of healing and he was the patron of archery.

[heathenqueer]

freyja was the first to come to mind for me, though i'm not sure how closely associated all of those things are with her.  she is a goddess of war, though i believe she uses a sword or spear, not a bow, and is closely associated with love, fertility, gold, and brightness as well.  she's also associated with the dead and would travel to the underworld to retrieve prophecies/weave wyrd (which i would certainly relate to divination).  not so much healing, but that seems to be broadly covered in norse mythology by several deities, and personally, i'd relate that to her status as a love/war goddess and one of the protectors of midgard.

the other one this makes me think of is baldr, who is most definitely represented by light/sunlight and could definitely be considered a healer.  he's also representative of innocence, which might be your tie to childhood/youth.  while i don't exactly think he's associated with divination, he is strongly tied to fate--when he was young, he had nightmares foreseeing his death, which lead frigga to demand that all living things in existence swear never to hurt him.  everything did except for mistletoe, which was later used to fashion the arrow that killed him--sort of a roundabout way to come to an association with bows, but there you go.

might be a bit of a stretch for what you're asking, and balder seems to fit closer than freyja, but when i've got a jumble of associations in my head, sometimes the stretch is the one that turns out to be right.  i always sort of...figured it for a test of sorts, to see if you're paying attention enough to really understand the message.

[khal-winchester-deactivated2013]

Fun Fact: the Khal is ordained and has been since college. I used to pay for my unhealthy diet soda addiction with house blessings.

[witchyways]

Note to self: be ordained and do this.

Because cash monies.

[thiscrookedcrown]

I know, right? I’ve been thinking about it for years (read: for about five years) and never did more than a google search about it. Maybe I should stop being so lazy.

[witchyways]

http://www.ulc.net/

[heathenqueer]

i intend to be ordained eventually, but i personally don't feel i'm far enough in my studies to be effective at it.  once i feel i've reached that point, i'm definitely going to do it, though.  (how will i know?  lightning strike, probably.)

[khal-winchester-deactivated2013]

It certainly looks like a bunch of people disrespecting Ms. GD when it’s all taken out of context in little snippets. And, I know I’m usually pretty disrespectful, so I understand the confusion. 

But here’s what I actually said in response to her post:

Sincerely disappointed by the use of a slur here. It’s completely unnecessary and NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT appropriate. 

Or…a screencap:

The rest of what she’s posted from me has been taken out of context from my blog, where I made an open apology for not noticing before because people where (rightfully) hurt and upset that the slur had gone unnoticed. More than 300 posts ago. 

So, to everyone who thinks I was disrespecting her, I wasn’t. I’ve said I was disappointed. I’ve refrained from my usual language (which I know you’re familiar with) out of respect. Even in my posts about her. 

I, like a lot of people, treated Ms. GD with respect in drawing her attention to the fact that that slur wasn’t okay to use. In return, she has spit in everyone’s faces and taken random quotes from people out of context to make them look like they’re in the wrong, bashed them on her blog (not by contacting them), and didn’t even actually tag them in the post.

Respect was met with malice and cowardice, but not by who she’d like you to believe was dealing it out. 

[khal-winchester-deactivated2013]

In case you missed it. Here’s what I actually said and where the quotes Ms. GD is responding to came from.

The screencaps don’t include the reblog where I said I had followed her because I was intrigued by the blog but hadn’t seen enough of it to form an opinion—so I followed in order to form that opinion, like a lot of people do.

It’s not there, because it was actually too far back in my archives for me to find.

[khal-winchester-deactivated2013]

I’d like to thank anyone who reblogged this. If you could do so, I would be much obliged. 

[witchyways]

Reblogging to support my Khal and non-douchebags everywhere.

The offending party is pretty much Nothing in my book now. Her actions are despicable, and she will no longer be featured or supported by this blog or its affiliated accounts and websites.

[khal-winchester-deactivated2013]

I’m on my fourth message from PoC who have been attacked or ignored by Ms. GD. Ms. GD is essentially telling them how to react to a word used to oppress them.

[witchywaysmule-deactivated20130]

I am so beyond disappointed in her. What is this bullshit. What is it. You know better, GD. Ew.

[heathenqueer]

this is ridiculous.  from someone who knows so much and has so much to offer and who a lot of us admire so much, it's ridiculous.  reblogging mostly to let you guys know, because i was going to stay out of it but this particular development is...sort of gut-wrenchingly disappointing. ugh.

[heathenqueer]

So I'll probably tell you guys about it later but we held a circle because of reasons, and I've never done like...a proper circle before nor have I had the opportunity to work with my friend RoboAnnie before, but that was a really enjoyable experience, me and her and Tyro working together, with my and Annie's respective patrons helping.

Ugh.  All the deities.  All of the mischief-making chaos gods wrt lighters refusing to light and paper refusing to catch and candles going out, jfc.

Also met Sigyn.

Who is an extremely forceful presence and who sort of swept into the room and didn't give us a name and then we had to figure out who the fuck, but I had a conversation with her and she's lovely.

But yes.  More later.  That was entertaining.

[heathenqueer]

Apparently I needed my ass kicked into gear.

Thanks, Thor.

I’m gonna go start on your food now.

[stars-sun-alcyone]

is ‘thorsven’ a thing? (cause I’ve been looking for the name followers of thor give themselves like the ‘lokeans’)

[heathenqueer]

there was a discussion on heathenproblems at one point over whether there were gender-neutral terms for the followers of other norse gods, since "lokean" is a neatly gender-neutral term.  most others follow the older tradition of "-dottir" or "-son", or go with refer to themselves as, say, "freyrsman" or "baldrswoman", depending on the sort of relationship they have with the deity.  trouble is, these are heavily gendered. the solution they came up with was "-ven", which if i recall means "friend".  so it's a thing, but it's a relatively new thing!

[heathenqueer]

Apparently I needed my ass kicked into gear.

Thanks, Thor.

I'm gonna go start on your food now.

[afniel]

Being a Disabled Witch

I still get kind of weird using that word, since I’m mostly-abled most of the time, but I’m also now used to having my life structured in a way I can deal with easily enough. For all intents and purposes if you threw me into someone else’s schedule I’d be disabled, so let’s just roll with that word even if it’s not 100% accurate at all times.

There’s an article on About.com that covers some of the physical hurdles that the disabled and chronically ill can face in the Pagan/witchcraft communities, and while it’s not bad as far as jumpstarting a conversation about mobility barriers, it doesn’t get into the less pleasant side of what the communities sometimes think about the less able-bodied.

(From here I’m going to talk about just one community, because there is a lot of overlap and my experiences lie in that overlap, but I don’t intend to erase non-Pagan witches and non-witch Pagans. Y’all are out there and awesome.)

Imma honk my horn one more time and bring up my fibro. (It is riding heavily on my mind anyway due to the flu flaring it the hells up.) I joined a coven for a little bit and ended up being tossed due to, I assume, expressing my opinion* on one member’s assertion that I had magically attracted my own illness and subsequent unemployment, and other people had miraculously cured themselves of cancer, so why couldn’t I? In browsing around various communities online I saw more of this same kind of attitude pop up now and then: basically, you’re magical, right? So why can’t you heal yourself?

There’s also the very weird way that people with more obvious disabilities are romanticized, about which there was a pretty good Tumblr discussion not long ago. “Indigo children” don’t need structure and treatment for ADHD, they’re ~magical~. Blind people can somehow miraculously see/detect things that sighted people can’t because it’s a ~gift~. And while I really like large portions of the book, weird usage of kinda appropriated terms aside, Urban Magick has this one little bit that I just want to light on fire in which the author (Christopher Penczak) asserts that the mentally disabled homeless talking to themselves are actually ~talking to city spirits~.

What the actual fuck?

So you get the delightful experience of either being somehow ~more magical~ due to your disability, or ~less magical~ due to not being able to somehow fix yourself.

Yes I like using ~woo woo tildes~. Don’t judge.

And heaven of your choice or not help you if you decide to use real scientific medical treatments over herbal, Chinese, energetic, or homeopathic treatments, because then you’re ~out of tune with Nature~ somehow. Bitch please, nature fucked my brain up to start with. Cancer is also natural, and birth defects, and tornadoes, and all kinds of awful shit. ~Nature has no fucks to give~.

Sure these alternative treatments can help. Okay, I actually don’t mean that about homeopathy. But the rest, yeah, maybe. The worst you’re likely to get is a good placebo effect and those can be really powerful. But what’s with all the medical-shaming? It’s fucking weird.

That’s pretty much what it is, too. “You need to use modern medicine? Ew. Something must be wrong with you.” WELL, YES, or I wouldn’t be using it, but what the hells does that have to do with my worth, practice, or ability to be part of a group? Nothing. It’s just shaming, and thinking you’re somehow better than someone else because you didn’t have a bad thing happen to you. Throw in magic on top of that sentiment and you get some of the bullshit I’ve noticed in the community.

I feel like it’d be great if I could wrap this up with a thesis statement but I kind of can’t. I’m mostly just hoping to get a conversation started that needs to be had. But, at the same time, I kinda feel like I’m preaching to the choir by having it here, ‘cause most the Tumblr witches I’ve met are way awesome people and many even deal with their own difficulties. I’m hoping to get my thoughts together a bit better and maybe find a better outlet for this theme at some point.

*The opinion I expressed in person was “Uh, no?” The opinion I expressed later on Tumblr was “THIS PHILOSOPHY IS A FLAMING BAG OF BULLSHIT.” I can see why someone might get angry about that, but really, I have better things to do than hang out with victim-shamers.

[phillypagan]

Shit, I’m sorry you get these attitudes. And I totally agree, this conversation needs to happen. But, like you, all the people I interact with are pretty intimately aware of how invisible illnesses and disabilities are not easy to fix. I guess we (in the sense of people aware of ableism and pwd) need to figure out good talking points for having this conversation in events and in closer social groups (covens, circles, etc).

I hereby want every Pagan/witchy convention/conference to include a panel on racism, cissexism, ableism, sexism, and heteronormativity in the community and how to avoid them. 

[ealasaidh]

Yes please! I got cornered at Pantheacon last year by some woman who’d overheard me mentioning my fibromyalgia during a conversation which did not involve her. She lectured me for like fifteen minutes on how it was all due to ~unshed tears from my childhood self~ or some shit! I was so taken aback. Just, what.

I’ve heard a lot of flak for pagans/witches who take psych meds, too — which, not helpful, assholes! Psych meds can have weird energetic effects (which I’ve learned a few techniques to mitigate), and if we in the pagan community could actually talk about this shit without all the added magickal stigma on top of the cultural stigma, it’d be really nice. Like, I don’t take my psych meds for fun, I take them so I can function.

Also, woo-woo tildes are my new favorite punctuation.

[natural-magics]

Garlic is excellent when you are sick. It stimulates your immune response, is anti-microbial and promotes sweating. It is useful when traveling to discourage parasites. Garlic contains allicin, a substance which has antibacterial, antioxidant, lipid lowering and anti-hypertension properties. Garlic also decreases cholesterol, LDLs, and blood pressure.

Nutmeg (seed) aids digestion, flatulence, diarrhea and nausea. It is a mild sedative in small doses and narcotic in large doses. It works well steeped in warm milk or brandy.

Cardamon improves antioxidant status while breaking down blood clots without significantly altering blood lipids and fibrinogen levels.

Cinnamon prevents heart disease and also prevent diabetes. The Center for Applied Health Sciences in Ohio conducted a study of 22 subjects, half of which were given a 250mg of water soluble cinnamon daily while the other half were given placebo. It was discovered that those who drank cinnamon had a 13 to 23 percent increase in antioxidants connected with lowering blood sugar levels. Cinnamon is also an astringent, dispels gas, anti-bacterial, anti-microbial, and relieves diarrhea.

Cloves are anesthetic and work well for toothaches (a drop of the oil on the offending tooth) and as a sore throat gargle.

Oregano contains the compound carvacrol which has been proven to be effective against blood pressure. Oregano also helps indigestion, coughs and headaches. It is an emmenagogue and is a good poultice for painful swelling.

Fennel (seed) is a wonderful warming plant to help ease flatulence, indigestion, colic and gastro-intestinal spasms. Fennel will also ease throat tension and coughs as well as bring up phlegm from the lungs.  Garden sage (leaf) is cooling, disinfectant and astringent. It cools a fever, cleanses the blood, eases headache and nervous tension. It also stimulates digestion and is an emmenagogue. Garden sage also works well as a mouthwash for sore throat, mouth ulcers and bleeding gums. 

Ginger is heating and increases circulation especially to the pelvic region. It is useful for nausea, motion sickness and to stimulate the appetite. Ginger makes a lovely footbath to warm you on a cold night.

Onions contain quercetin, an antioxidant flavonol found to prevent heart disease and stroke.

Turmeric (root) is warming, analgesic and astringent. It promotes bile, relieves a congested liver and gallstones and aids digestion. Turmeric also reduces tumors and uterine fibroids and is an emmenagogue.

Peppermint (leaf) is both cooling and stimulating. It helps cramps from gas, bloating, motion sickness and nausea. Peppermint can also soothe a headache by drinking the tea or putting a cool cloth soaked in tea across your forehead. Rosemary (leaf, flower) is warming, both a circulatory and liver tonic. It is a digestive aid and stimulates the liver as well as gastric juices. It is an emmenagogue and will soothe a headache. Rosemary is antiseptic and a great wound soak. Tarragon (leaf) stimulates the appetite, relieves flatulence and colic. It is also anti-fungal and anesthetic. Thyme (leaf) supports the stomach. It is also antiseptic (good as a wash for skin infections) and antispasmodic. It works well for congested lungs and shortness of breath.