Moonchild @moonstoneandlabradorite - Tumblr Blog

"Jormungandr" Lineart version

This is a simpler "old map" style version of my Jormungandr piece that I did as a patreon exclusive (it was a monthly print for august and patrons can still order it, not sure if i'll make the prints available publicly in my shop or not tho). I was mostly playing around with digital watercolors and paper textures

(if you like my art and wish to see more of it, consider becoming a patron or leaving a tip via kofi | please do not repost)

sylvanidae

Skoll & Hati (2022)

jaelmoray

meseh-aha

Hel... Is a great many things.

She is Death, in all its forms. Rotten or rotting, long dead bones whispering to the earth, Winter at its coldest. Quiet but comforting, a familiar presence in the void.

She is Necessity. For new beginnings, there must be an end. A necessary darkness as time turns to see the light once more. She is steadfast in Her thoughts and actions, not a single movement wasted.

She is Change, for what bigger change is there than Death? She is the shift from Autumn to Winter, the dying breath of a season. She changes the world around Her with Her mere existence, leaving brand new chapters to be written in Her steps.

She is Healing. She will strip you of your rot, your dead things, your grief. She takes sorrow, pain, misery, and She will bring their Death.

She is Comfort. As necessary as She is, She knows Death is painful for those still living. She is not cruel, She holds no malice. She does what She must, and She will hold you through it.

will-o-the-witch

I've heard similar things about tarot directly from Romani and how it's taking away a rare income opportunity from them

Many people, especially Jewish and Romani people, have written at length about how the "tarot is closed" discourse is just white goyim projecting stereotypes onto us and trying to speak over us for ally points.

skaldish

I get it's disappointing to learn that most things in mainstream Heathenry were created by folkists and fascists, but people are way too comfortable with sticking their heads in the sand about it.

ocdnatural-deactivated20220809

love ouroboros. cannibalization of the divine except you are the cannibal and the divine and the witness watching it

notthesomefather

Pay attention to posts about Heathen/Asatru conferences and speakers.

I recently saw posts from a "heathen" event where each speaker has a bad history with racism and/or anti-Semitism.

We all know the bigots who are hijacking our faith will never admit outright to having racist ideologies, but some are getting smarter and are backing off the usual dog-whistles.

If you see posts about Heathen/Asatru conferences and speakers, please research them thoroughly. Pay attention to what other websites are popping up first when you look the speaker or event up.

Look up speakers and events in conjunction with words like "controversy," and "accusation." You can force Google to do that by typing: "keyword surrounded by quotes" + "another keyword in quotes following the plus sign" for example: "Tom Rowsell" + "anti-Semitism"

moonstoneandlabradorite

Recently got a devotional tattoo for Hel. She’s so important to me and I wanted to do this for her but also myself. Offered all of the process, pain, and aftercare to her and she was with me the entire time. My artist was absolutely amazing and I’m so in love with how she depicted her. This is absolutely how she looks to me. 💚🖤💚🖤

moonstoneandlabradorite

Oops got another one for Hel too. 💀🖤

#just cover my body in deity tattoos #and I’ll be happy #Hel #norse paganism #tattoos

Devotional tattoo for Jörmungandr. Opposite leg of my Hel one. 🐍💚🐍💚

#Jörmungandr #norse paganism #devotional tattoos #tattoos #a river waiting to wake

skaldish

So recently in a discussion I had with two other heathens about abortion rights and after both of them basically "mansplained" to me, a person that has the organs to push out a human how those organs worked. Told me to stop being a "snowflake liberal" and said that heathenry has always been a conservative religion and people like me are ruining it for everyone else. And they also said that I should watch for Freya, as She will most likely abandon and punish me because I'm a "baby killer supporter"

So actual question, as I'm not all that smart when it comes to academic research, is/was heathenry really conservative, I mean to the extent that it's starting to sound suspiciously like another religion..

Sorry, I know I should do the research but I have a really hard time comprehending academic papers, and need a layman's explanation 😅

No, and that is because our concepts of "liberal" and "conservative" are contemporary inventions. To retroactively fit either of them onto heathenry would be revisionist.

There is one exception though, and that is Odinism. This particular brand of Heathenry was born out of Nazi Germany and leans drastically right, valuing typical Nazi things such as "traditionalism," ethnocentrism, folkism, nationalism (in the form of tribalism, in this case), and "racialism" (separation of the races). The Nine Noble Virtues come from this lineage, actually, invented in the 1970's by actual literal fascists.

It's this kind of Heathenry that right-wingers (and some self-identifying libertarians and centrists) think of when they refer to Heathenry, often without realizing Odinism doesn't predate 1890 at the absolute earliest. (They also don't always call it Odinism--I just do for the sake of distinguishing it from older forms of Heathenry like forn sidr/forn sed).

They also tend to subscribe to a more boiled-down version of it, which is why the fascist components typically go unrecognized (or ignored in favor of the viking glamour).

Now, as for what Heathenry on the whole has always been? That has varied with time, location, and the sensibility of individuals. Our values are something we add to our Heathen practice, as opposed to something Heathenry gives us to follow. We can see this reflected throughout history.

The only real constant element in Heathenry is Animism--the belief that all things are interconnected and, to some degree, possess a vital essence of their own, and therefore agency. It's considered good manners to interact with the forces of the world in positive ways, because doing so will make our living environments and everyone in them happier and healthier for it.

Keep in mind that Heathenry is not a religion of doctrine. It's not like Christianity where you must do XYZ thing or be punished. We don't fear our gods, and they don't act as our lords, let alone the distant arbiters of our lives. And from what we can discern from text and culture and just the experience of them, punishing us for exercising bodily autonomy seems to go against everything they gods represent and stand for.

(The idea that Freyja would abandon anyone for saying women should have bodily autonomy is, frankly, fucking absurd. It's Freyja. Have they even met Freyja? This goddess rages at the mere mention of getting married off against her will. If you show her an idiot who tells her what to do with her body, she'll show him a one-way ticket to Helheim.)

If you want some gimmicky historical viking thing to go off of, consider this quote: "trúa á mátt sinn ok megin." I forget which exact saga it comes from, but it refers to trusting in one's own strength and power; the ability one has to exercise their own will and agency ("megin" has a complex meaning).

So in other words, choosing to exercise authority over your own body is probably as viking as you can get.

skaldish

So I'm noticing something really interesting as I browse through stock photos.

If I search for images for any well-established religious practice—Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Wicca, etc—I can easily find photos of people engaging with that religious practice. They're doing things like praying, contemplating scripture, meditating, partaking in a holiday or ritual, standing before iconography, practicing some kind of religious-specific activity, and similar.

However, I don't see photos like this when I search Norse Paganism. And it's definitely not because there's a lack of things tagged as such.

Nah, instead I get mostly graphical illustrations, and what photos I do get are mostly objects or still-lives. And when it does have people? They're either in viking costume or reenactment garb.

There's no images of a heathen blót, no people casting runes or drawing lots, or just sitting in contemplation on a bigass boulder in the ground. There's no photos of knitting or nalbinding, or people standing in front of altars in consideration. There's no photos of feasts or of gatherings or of sacred groves—and on the very rare occasion I do see these kinds of activities portrayed, the models are ALWAYS in viking garb.

I don't know about you, but I personally think it speaks volumes about Heathenry's current problems.

skaldish

One god that I don't see people talking about much (at least in tumblr circles) is Ullr. I don't know much about actively being heathen, but I found myself inescapably drawn to Ullr a few years ago after a somewhat crippling accident. Finding your blog has made me start thinking about how to better approach my heathenry, and I don't know, maybe you have some wisdom to share? I've been told by the person who introduced me to heathenry that the best way to honour Ullr is by doing physical things, like skiing for example. If I'm incapable of doing that....what do I do? I've never been much good at worship or hearing the divine - I'm a very grounded person, if that makes sense. Not spiritual. Why did he pull me to him only after I became disabled? It feels like a cruel joke sometimes, but I doubt that's what it is. I just don't know how to hear him. The initial pull was like a bludgeon to the head for weeks, and I haven't felt anything like that since I devoted myself to him. I don't know, I apologise if this message is scattered, my disability has flared up today and pain makes it hard to think but it also makes me honest. Any advice?

- 🎯

It actually doesn't surprise me at all that Ullr would start bugging you at such a time in your life. He may be a god associated with skiing and archery, sure, but these are just extensions of Ullr's real skillset—survival, resourcefulness, adaptability, and human innovation.

Evolutionarily-speaking, we humans sacrificed strong bodies in favor of highly-developed brains, ones that afford us a degree of ingenuity unmatched by other species. Skis and bows were both invented for the same reason—to give us an overwhelming advantage in situations and environments were we'd normally have the disadvantage. No other species on Earth can do this nearly as well as we can.

I see Ullr as a god who embodies this particular aspect of our humanity. It's something that goes beyond athleticism and can be applied to just about anything, so this would be principle I'd recommend trying to connect with him over.

The gods aren't really beholden to able-bodiedness because a number of them are disabled. When they work with us, they work with all of us as we are.