I’m Ari. I’m 29 years old.
Follows from @1nkwe4ver
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@learninglore
I’m Ari. I’m 29 years old.
Follows from @1nkwe4ver
Pivoting again pretty quick. Not a huge change, just think my first “little” habits were in the wrong direction.
The goal of spirituality is not to conform to dogma, belief systems or getting it “right.”
The goal should always be to be more in touch with yourself, community, and the world around you.
The thing is, Christianity (at least, the most popular kinds of Christianity in the US) gets it wrong. They don’t see the value in everything that this world that we exist in contains so they build walls around themselves and each other to keep them contained so that they get the prize at the end of their “journey.”
But you don’t go anywhere if you stay in one place. Everyone has their own unique brand of experience and journey, yes, but if, at the end of the day, your experience is to elicit dogma on other people who apparently don’t “get it,” you should probably re-evaluate yourself and what you do in the world.
Not everyone is going to believe what you believe to be real. Not everyone is going to find the “right” path or know what to follow. It’s up to you to decide that. However, if you do not become more aware of yourself such that you become more in tune with the fact that you are human and you are alive and breathing and each and every step you take is one inch closer to being in communion with the Divine and therefore with humanity, what point is there in drawing nearer to Them if not for ego or to brag about your cool altar or what spells you do?
It’s more important to center yourself in your own growth and work towards that while knowing that you are already programmed to be spiritual, to be capable, and free of dogma and centricity. You are human and you are breathing and alive and that’s all you need to be successful in being spiritual. Being in tune with your body, your mind, and your soul is the most important aspect of the vessel that holds you. But you cannot be contained in it - you will one day die and you will come back again. You will one day find yourself in a new life and body and you will be doing the same thing over.
So I ask again what the point of this all is? Why be spiritual you ask? What is the point of it without a religious dogma or belief?
Because in order to be more human, more fully yourself, you must know what it takes to become more human by being involved in the world and seeing what other people are doing in it. You can’t just be holed up online, waiting for someone to give you the answers to eternal peace or knowledge. You can’t just sit there with a book and expect answers. You have to know what it’s like to be human and to do that you must be involved with other humans. That’s the beauty in all of this, I think. To love yourself, you must also love what other people have created and become, regardless of how seemingly righteous they might be or are going to become.
Sadly, we’ve lost that in this epidemic of loneliness. And in it, we’ve lost what it means to be human and put our egos in the same line of spirituality in lieu of meaningful connection with each other as well as Divinity because that’s what we’ve literally been taught religion is and equated it with what spirituality should be.
I don’t have an answer to this problem any more than anyone else, but I do think it’s worth it to consider what you do in your own path of choice. If you consider yourself pagan, why? Why do what you do for the gods? For the spells you cast, for the devotions you have. What’s the goal in all of this? What are you seeking? Is it love? Acknowledgement? End of suffering? Or is it much deeper than that? What is your goal?
Without knowing your intention in this, it’s just an image you cast for yourself and don’t expect it to actually be real or have purpose. Make it real for yourself. Make it mean something to you. Make it your reality and truth. It is the least we can do as pagans.
I have my plan together for building my practice back up! Slow but steady this time. As passionate as I’m feeling, I know burning out/freaking out like last time is a real risk.
Hoo boy I did NOT get enough sleep last night I am discovering
Received my pocket altar to Hel in the mail today!! I love it 🥰 thanks to @notthesomefather
So the last couple years I've made sets of blatantly gay Pride Norse designs (because fuck nazis and their appropriation of norse symbols) and this year I had you guys vote on which idea I drew first.
Y'all chose Odin's crows, Huginn and Muninn, and I finally finished a set!
(If there's a particular pride flag you wish to see with this design that I haven't made yet, always feel free to send me a request!) Like always, I’ve got the full-res designs hosted on my Ko-fi as free downloads for anyone who wishes to use them. Print them on a shirt, make yourself stickers, use on gifts for others- whatever.
I also have them available on Threadless for those who don’t want to or can’t print them on stuff themselves but still want something with the design on it. Each sale will also make an automatic donation to one or more of several related LGBT+ charities.
I’ll be making the Thor Bindrune designs next, and probably the Jörmungandr design I mentioned after that, so stay tuned for those. (Idk if I'll have time to finish them all before the end of Pride month- but hey, better late than never, right? lol) Hope you like these, and happy Pride!
Been deliberately trying to dream about Hel for days and of course I manage it when I’m hardly trying, during my work break, where as soon as I realized I was starting to actually see Her rather than just think about Her, Her face went blurry. 😂😭
Trying to jot down what little I remembered before getting back to work, just in case
Since I committed to returning to my efforts with Hel, I feel like my brain and environment are readjusting.
The day I made that decision, the painful heat that’s been plaguing my town with a Heat Advisory withdrew abruptly. On a day that was supposed to be the hottest we’d had yet, a brief rain came through during the few hours my mother and I would have to be outside. Since then, it’s remained warm, but much more tolerable. My allergies have been acting up, but rather than itching and irritable, my eyes have produced random tears. If it weren’t for the sneezing, I’d think it was an emotional issue I was dissociating from.
I have gathered some sources, a few new, mostly ones I already read. I have learned some things about manifestation, and co-creative relationships in my interim, and role models is one of the 9 keys. Not that I plan to do things exactly like the people I’m learning from, or always referencing the 9 keys. I plan to do as Hel tells me. But one thing I learned from the 9 keys was that role models aren’t road maps, or plans of action, though they can contribute to them. I dont have to do things exactly like them, though they can provide inspiration. But I think in this case, getting my brain familiar with other experiences is very effective in changing underlying, limiting beliefs.
I’m going to explore in my mind what relationship I think the 9 keys might have to my spiritual journey.
As I go, I’m starting to think of questions for Hel, that I’ll ask Her directly. Some I’ve already asked. Understandably, communication might be difficult for a while. It’s incredible I still feel the connection and response from Her I do, after the time I’ve been shut down from this practice.
Three of the recent custom pocket-altars I've made for folks (Hel, Loki, and Thor).
Pocket altars are available for $10/each. Grab one today or check out more info!
(I promise the Frigge prototype is coming! Thanks for being patient!)
The Hel one is mine 🥺 I’m so excited aaaaa
Also love the pride pins in the Loki one! Am LGBT myself and love seeing it
So I’m coming back!
Not that I was a big account before lol but I went inactive and just kinda kept this space for if I ever wanted to look at the info I’ve gathered here again. To get myself back out there, I’m gonna try to talk about what happened last time, what little happened while I was gone, and how I’m feeling today.
So when I started this account, at 27, the time I was here I started out researching and reaching out to Loki. I had a bit of a convoluted reason for being here, having started out my research as an atheist, but found myself much closer to believing than I ever thought I would be. So I researched Heathenry, Norse myths, and started looking into other people’s experiences.
Then I had a dream about Hela. It was only one, but it stuck out to me, and so my focus turned to Her. I still reached out to Loki and experimented with others, not wanting to jump to conclusions or think myself so special I was just being Called or something. I was getting excited about Hel, but I didn’t want to make big commitments I wasn’t ready for, and (as far as I could discern at the time) She wasn’t actually looking for any. I was just overexcited. Wanting to offer myself up. So I kinda tempered my focus on Her with efforts to learn about and research others, from in and without Norse myths. I never identified as a Heathen. Though I looked into it, it didn’t feel quite right.
I often, to different degrees, thought I felt Hel’s and Loki’s presence, though I wasn’t exactly ‘working’ with either of them yet, just reaching out, trying to connect. I didn’t want to ask Them for things, cause even though I didn’t exactly know what I wanted from all this, I was mostly drawn to the fact and feel of Their existences. The growing belief, in varying steps of “oh shit this might be real” was addicting.i saw the relationships others had to their Deities and to reality through their practices, and felt connected to the world in ways I hadn’t- so initially, i only really asked for things when my anxious ass got so scared I really wanted to believe one of Them might help me (ie, my general car anxiety getting worked up during my commutes, and times that bad storms/tornadoes would come through).
I started to believe I was seeing synchronicities, and when I’d invite Hel or Loki into my space, I tried to be honest/discerning about what I felt, and tried to gather divination tools and learn to use them. It was honestly less hard to gain messages as it was to feel confident in them.
Feeling Their presences was a range of strength as I got more regular about my practice, wearing away at my skepticism. How did I remain in-between confident enough about it to engage so wholeheartedly? I honestly don’t know. Maybe hope? Maybe loneliness? Maybe just general pull to the experience?
At any rate, I made a small altar at my desk, and tried to sit at it in the morning and at night. At night I came up with kind of a little ritual, meditating, playing animal crossing (was trying to build a little town in dedication).
Throughout the day, I’d try to make little offerings whenever I’d eat something, and try to feel for Their presences. I tried to get offerings I thought They’d each like, but I also just offered some of whatever I was having.
Sometimes, obviously, I’d feel nothing. Sometimes, I felt Them, with few distinct words- like an emotional presence, almost. Sometimes it was stronger and the words were so clear I’d feel afraid to believe it or talk about it. “Surely I’m just making this up” I’d think.
A couple of times, I would feel Hel’s presence seemingly out of nowhere- the sensation was so intense. It was so exciting.
Then finally one day, doing my little nightly ritual, I tried a bit of automatic writing, reaching out to Hel. It wasn’t my first time trying it, but it didn’t really even work as automatic writings then. It felt, for the first time, like I truly wasn’t in control of where my fingers moved.
I was so happy I was overwhelmed. I spent the next day extremely pleased and excited. My doubts were pretty much extinguished. Hel was responding to me. She wanted to work on something with me.
Then… I stopped. Occasionally I dragged myself into something, but more and more I just found excuses not to keep up this practice. When I did try, I couldn’t get there, likely because my consistency was falling apart.
What happened, I believe, is I hit my threshold between hoping and believing. Once I finally believed I was speaking with a real, true Being suddenly I was just in fight or flight. The happiness and excitement had been real, but so was the terror. It ranged from terror at the unknown extent of what all She might want from me, to simple lack of social spoons to interaction with anybody real, much less Someone I wanted to impress so badly.
So after a few weeks, I drifted so far away from actually doing anything I just decided that I was going to stop. Maybe I had created something like a tulpa by accident, I told myself. And regardless, it was unrealistic for me to think I could adopt a whole spiritual practice in secret in my current situation. There was a fantasy of what I wanted, but I was afraid to get it because it could easily be too much, and I wasn’t afraid to get it, if getting it meant I’d gone off the deep end, or something, as opposed to actually getting it. I was also afraid, embarrassingly afraid, of simple rejection. Both total and partial. What if She wanted nothing to do with me? What if She was cool to work with me but there was nothing special about our relationship? I mean, I didn’t have to be fated or claimed by Her or something, but whether by fate or by simple relationship building, I was somewhat afraid She’d want me, just at arms length, if that makes sense? I don’t know. I was afraid of filling in the blanks with wish fulfillment and then being crushed later as I improved at discernment. Not that our communication had been on big topics at all so far. I was just a mess. What if my thoughts went embarrassing places when I was trying to speak to Her mentally? What if, what if…
So I stopped. But for the last few months, and then more frequently the last few days a few things made me think of Hel, and then all of a sudden I was hit with this “I need to reach out to Her again.” Within a few days, I’ve gotten the stuff for Her altar back in place, Ive got Her anchors placed there, and I’ve started giving Her some offerings. I’ve even felt Her presence, though of course nothing has been as clear as before yet.
I feel much more All-in, and very not concerned with much any other Deity right now, though I still gave my Loki items their place back as well.
I probably won’t be sharing much about my interactions with Her, should She choose to respond to my calls. At least not for a while. Mainly because the way I’m feeling, the only one I want to tell me I’m wrong about much anything I do is Hel, right now. But I still want to meet and get to know people and interact! So I’ll try to have an in between as far as what I share haha.
I kinda want to change my url to something Hel-centric, but I want to wait a little since I just came back. If I’m struck with inspiration, I’ll change it in a week or so
Pocket altars for Thor, Loki, and Hel are now available for $10 with customization options.
I'm finalizing an altar for Freyja, and it's my hope to construct altars for other gods as well. If you'd like an altar for a specific god not pictured above, please send me an Ask!
Find out more info on this post, or under the cut.
One thing I’ve found different about returning to this practice already is that I simply have no interest in pursuing any Deities attention besides Hel’s. Like before I was getting excited about her but I kept trying to look into others. Now I’m all in.
I’m back!
Probably gonna make my name Hel-centric sometime soon, but gonna try to be active for a bit before I go doing all that lol
hel is so funny bc like she was just born half a corpse and odin saw her and was like 'yuuupppp youre a god of death. get in there' and then made (hel, who presumably, is still a child) queen of basically 90% of everyone who dies. also shes a horse girl.
HELHEIM | HEL | WORLD OF HEL 💀
Big Print version of a panel I made for Verses of the Nine Worlds by Nico Solheim-Davidson (Pre-orders available until October 8th). The poems in it are Homeric and Orphic-inspired; so the panels represent the Nine Realms of Norse cosmo/mythology in a style inspired by Greek red/black-figure ceramics, Viking Age knotwork and petroglyphs.
Prints of these panels are available in my $hops (with free US shipping!)
ETSY | KO-FI | BOOK PRE-ORDER LINK
maybe i wasn’t meant to be loved