Confused Polytheist

I don't know, man, religion is confusing.

[ferretslive]

In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer

[skaldish]

You’re free to discard anything in your spiritual life that doesn’t spark joy.

[thegaymertrainer]

This website has ruined me because I was not expecting a child to speak when he called himself daddy…

[elodieunderglass]

I can’t say I felt the same, but I have tremendous admiration for his composure

[socksolotl]

[Transcript:]

Person filming: Can you again ask me what you just asked me? What was that question? I don't think... Daddy didn't hear you.

Child offscreen: When can we have lesbian?

Dad: Mhmm. Okay. Maybe I did hear you right. Um, I don't know what that is, Sweetie, I don't know what you mean. Child, emphatically: Lesbian!

Dad: No, I know-- I know what you said, but I don't think that word means what you think it means, okay?

Child: It's like... spaghetti.

Dad: [Clears throat] Oh, excuse me. [Audibly restraining laughter] Do you mean lasagna?

Child: Yep!

Dad: Okay. Um, yeah, [high pitched with amusement] I'm sure we can have-- [serious] I'm sure we can have lasagna really soon, okay? We'll-- We'll try to... Yeah, we'll make sure that we can-- we can eat that soon, okay? Does that sound-- does that sound good?

Child: Yeah!

Dad: Okay, alright. Thank y--

[end transcript]

[howelljenkins]

having to come to terms with the fact that love is not an everlasting performance in which you attempt to retain the attention of your significant other but rather a release of control and putting faith into them and trusting them to choose to stay with you no matter what you have to offer

[howelljenkins]

to love and be loved is to rest

[oniongarlic]

There is something wrong with you (said with reassuring affection)

[oniongarlic]

this post is about being disabled

[adhdtho]

your 20s are about fucking up your hair and getting long overdue medical diagnoses actually

[neurodivergent-noodle-deactivat]

it is perhaps more helpful to move the conversation away from “it’s okay not to be productive” to “we need to have a long hard think about what counts as productivity”.

if you’re ill (chronic or otherwise), it is productive to spend a day sleeping and resting up. your body needs you to rest so that it can heal.

but something that is true for everyone is that things like healing from trauma, learning new things, practicing hobbies, building relationships… are all productive ways to spend your time. just because you’re not making money doesn’t mean you’re not being productive.

looking after yourself is productive. looking after others is productive. hell, playing with your pet is productive.

productive means being in a state of producing something. that’s all it means. and when you’re doing the things your body needs you to do… you’re producing your own well-being. you’re producing neural pathways. you’re producing happiness.

if you can feel a sense of productivity from non-traditional productive actions… I think that’s a lot more helpful for your mental health than just claiming that productivity isn’t important. of course it’s okay to not be productive. but I know I feel better when I think of happiness as something I can produce.

[skaldish]

Devotional act: Being the most myself.

[skaldish]

The gods do it. There's no reason why I can't.

[carry-on-my-wayward-butt]

frequently thinking about how god decided off the cuff that people should all speak different languages and therefore become divided culturally and interpersonally because if we managed to successfully organize and work together we would eventually reach and defeat him. OG fascist.

[friendlylycanthrope]

Are you implying the tower of Babel was the first union

[carry-on-my-wayward-butt]

yes💚

[heresylog]

Heresy.

[anarchistmemedistro]

[abiding-in-peace]

“There are many ways to calm a negative energy without suppressing or fighting it. You recognise it, you smile to it, and you invite something nicer to come up and replace it, you read some inspiring words, you listen to a piece of beautiful music, you go somewhere in nature, or you do some walking meditation.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

[normal-horoscopes]

Fucking TikTok "If you're seeing this video, it's not a coincidence, I feel your energy" no you do not. I've got wards like the west bank of the Volga.

[skaldish]

This is actually a great example of what I mean when I say "there's predatory shit in spiritual circles." These tiktok videos are the clickbait of the commodified witchcraft world.

[decepticun]

[archbudzar]

merch / instagram / twitter

[skaldish]

I'm compiling stuff for my eventual post on self-sovereignty, and it's a pretty dang huge topic and I'm still not sure what all the parts are yet or how to organize them.

But some of them are:

Identifying your needs

Identifying why you think what you think

Identifying what your values are

Identifying what your fears are and why

Identifying environments that do not promote your growth

Introspection and shadow-work

Understanding that your worth and wellbeing is inherent

Action, as opposed to reaction or movement for movement's sake

Cultivating the personality

Deconstructing the Ego to reveal the genuine Self

Identifying the origins of personal emotions

Self-love, not in the sense of self-attraction but in the sense of self-connection

It's all still a jumbled mess and I have yet to distinguish my own personal experience from the general approach.

[skaldish]

Some other miscellaneous thought-salad for myself:

Christian-colonized society teaches us that "being an authority" or "pleasing authority" are the only two ways to earn respect. We learn sovereignty is an external accomplishment as opposed to an internal praxis.

Discuss how we're taught to associate feelings of shame with self-awareness.

The best teachers are not the ones with the most students, but the ones who create teachers. The best kings are not the ones with the most subjects, but the ones who make more kings (this analogy doesn't work in Christian colonialism for a reason).

Sovereign Beauty as the cultivation of the self, allowing yourself to bloom organically, as opposed to shoving yourself into a prescribed standard.

If the sovereignty of something threatens the sovereignty of something else, that "something else" is not truly sovereign.

This is internal work that can't be externally faked.

[myrkvidrs]

Valar Portraits:  Aule, Ulmo, Melkor, Orome by jessie_一条咸鱼

[rootandrock]

Re: Hard Polytheism and ... well, living as a believer for any length of time.

Last night I privately said: "Re: Teratogenic Grain-fungus-deer-god shenanigans - I think that's why Anubis was the first god who really resonated. A skin-wearing priest who made the fateful cut upon the body, and suffered the taboo to preserve the body against corruption. It's not that he wasn't Anubis - he was - but that tributary that fed into him is what drew me, and one day (when he'd had many years of good use out of me, and taught me a lot) he passed me onward along the stream to find the other pieces."

And while I also did not realize the pun I made (y'know... piecing back together Osiris... who is also not my Hornwearer, but probably could be someone else's Hornwearer), it strikes me as very cool and fascinating how this dataset means a very specific thing to me, and a completely different very specific thing to someone else.

For me The Hornwearer happens where a bunch of overlapping circles form the right concentration and shape. There he is. Right there at that spot. If you were to add anything else... it's just not him anymore. There's so much blending around the edges, yes... but that spot is him, and outside of it is no longer him-him, but may be close enough for gettin' the work done. I'm not sure how hard that polytheism really is, at that point.

And for other people that data set is Odin, or Cernunnos, or Dionysus or Christ or Lucifer or ... well, you get the picture. They add a new circle or slide away one that isn't quite right... and there is their god.

So when directly asked "But who is The Hornwearer" - Fuck if I know, bruh. It depends on the overlapping pile of things, of shapes and people and animals and styles of practice and the reasons for practicing and even seasons of the year. Most gods don't have Proper Noun Names, they have Kennings. Your name is probably ALSO a Kenning. Are you an Anointed One, a Heralds from Kynthos, or maybe a Still Waters? He is The Hornwearer - he wears horns that is his What, but I can't even guess as to his Who.

[coldalbion]

The porous nature of identity is writ large when it comes to gods and spirits. This is why I have problems with "human". Human has become obsessed with inclusion and exclusion because it's centralised. If we de-anthropocentrise the kosmos, if we see all rock, tree, mountain, wheat, mushroom, gut-bacteria as ancestor, then what? Is Odin a singular Old Man? Sure, that's a localised instantiation, like the one eyed guy I met on the way to the pub who vanished.' But he can also be a pack of wolves, can shine out of the Gundestrup Cauldron and be co-present with the skull and spirit of the deer who lives ion my altar. Just as I live in that bloodstained and incense-smoked skull, as well as sitting in the wheelchair-that-is-also-me-which-is-as-Woden's Wain-is-as-the Great-Bear-which-is-as-every-human-sacrifice-and-poet-and-king-and einherjar. And Anubis/Anpu cracks the bones as a hundred jackals in the desert and a thousand temple priests and guides the souls with Hermesian speed, and Siva Destroys and Creates as Kali dances and Freyja gets blood on her lips and amber at her throat while the Mountain Mother of old Anatolia pets her lions and Innana lets fall her clothes and veils. Salome dances and demands the Baptist's head, and Bran and Mimir blend in mirages of smokes and herbs.

Let me emphasise - I do not say same. I abhor the "identical". I-becoming-as-We does not reduce richness. The numinous overflows the circle. The daemonic always exceeds.

The only way to live with that? To be daemonic in ourselves. Fugitive. Transient. Truly Mortal.

"Immortal mortals, mortal immortals, one living the others death and dying the others life." - Heraclitus

[wecopewithourptsdwithmemes]