Greeting! and welcome to my blog. I talk about Norse paganism / ĂsatrĂș / Heathenry, spirituality, animism, philosophy, and other miscellany.
I run a website called Skaldâs Keep, which a resource on how to practice Norse paganism. I also love receiving questions so donât be shy about dropping an ask in my inbox!
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The conversation surrounding cultural appropriation has been so severely mutilated by white âalliesâ that the original intention behind that conversation has become almost unrecognizable in most social contexts.
To explain what I mean, the conversation around cultural appropriation was started by black and native people to discuss the frustrations we feel at being punished socially and financially for partaking in our cultural heritage while white people could take, I.e. appropriate, aspects of our culture that we are actively shamed for and be heralded as innovators. It was about the frustrations we feel when the same white people who shamed us would take our culture and wear it as if they were the ones who created it while still actively shaming us for doing the same.
The original push behind naming cultural appropriation and having these conversations were so that we as a society could evaluate why we were punished for our heritage while white People were not. It was supposed to be about seeking solutions. The idea was to create a society where we could celebrate our cultures with impunity. It was never about telling white people that they âwerenât allowedâ to do certain things. We did ask that white People stop doing certain things because they werenât doing them respectfully and were not invited to do them, but the primary reason we asked them to desist was to reclaim the things they had stolen and to reassign them culturally back where they belonged.
White âalliesâ saw these conversations happening and instead of trying to aplify our own voices or even try to learn about the complexities behind why we were saying what we were saying, they instead began screaming over us and creating a narrative that was hardly even the bones of what we originally set out to say. It was like they took the conversation we were trying to have, completely decontextualized it, and stripped it of all itâs nuance in order to gain social currency by seeming progressive.
So the conversation around cultural appropriation went from âThis aspect of our heritage belongs to us and we find it egregious that we are shamed for it. What steps can we take to address the racism thatâs creating this situation as well as rehome the things that have been stolenâ to âyouâre not allowed to do that because if you do that youâre racist, we donât really understand why thatâs racist but youâre not allowed to do that and if you do that youâre a klansman no exceptions. So youâre not allowed because becauseâ
At the end of the day, did I like the fact that sally was wearing dreads? No. But my primary concern was not that sally was wearing dreads but rather that sally could wear dreads and I couldnât. THAT was the intended focus of those conversations. It was about addressing the inequality. It was about us. Now the conversation is just about sally and were completely forgotten.
White People are always asking me what they can do to help. You want to know? Stop talking. Aplify our voices and shut the fuck up because you all have pretty much derailed this conversation and many more like it to the point that we no longer are trying to make steps to understand and dismantle the racism around cultural appropriation and instead are just using it as social shaming tactics.
TL;DR: read my post. Most things worth learning about canât be summarized in the bullet points of a buzfeed article. Donât come into academic circles and complain because everything hasnât been conviently summarized for you. Stop pretending that things arenât accessible to you because you refuse to do the intellectual labor that is learning.
It was a huge milestone of scientific and technological advancement. (Plus, at the time, politically significant). Humanity went to space! We set foot on a celestial body that was not earth for the first time in human history! Thatâs a big deal! Iâve never thought about it before but now that I have, itâs ridiculous to me that thatâs not part of our everyday lives and the public consciousness anymore. Why donât we have a public holiday and a family barbecue about it. Why have I never seen the original broadcast of the moon landing? It should be all over the news every year!
Itâs July 20th. Thatâs the day of the moon landing. Next year is going to be the 54th anniversary. Iâm ordering astronaut shaped cookie cutters on Etsy and Iâm going to have a goddamn potluck. Youâre all invited.
PITCH: We call it Moon Day, and then every 7 years when it falls on a Monday, that's an even BIGGER deal and we call that Moon Day Monday and go absolutely apeshit about it (the next Moon Day Monday is in 2026 so we have a couple trial runs first)
the thing about capitalism is that at a certain point a product reaches its maximum audience and cant really be improved (at least not while remaining profitable), but capitalism requires a product provide infinite growth, and at that point the only way to increase profits is to raise prices, cut corners, and in the case of services start adding advertisements. this is just how the system works.
Rent-seeking is the act of growing one's existing wealth by manipulating the social or political environment without creating new wealth.[1] Rent-seeking activities have negative effects on the rest of society. They result in reduced economic efficiency through misallocation of resources, reduced wealth creation, lost government revenue, heightened income inequality,[2][3] risk of growing political bribery, and potential national decline.
The actual economic term for this parasitic behavior is "Rent Seeking", as in "charging you rent for things that didn't used to cost money just because we can."
"The classic example of rent-seeking, according to Robert Shiller, is that of a property owner who installs a chain across a river that flows through their land and then hires a collector to charge passing boats a fee to lower the chain. There is nothing productive about the chain or the collector, nor do passing boats get anything in return. The owner has made no improvements to the river and is not adding value in any way, directly or indirectly, except for themselves. All they are doing is finding a way to obtain money from something that used to be free."
obtain money links to the wikipedia article for Parasitism which might be the most brutal diss I've ever seen on wikipedia ever
so ive been meaning to do this poll for a while because my hypothesis is that seattle is the most Tumblr city, likely in the entire world. tumblr has a huge american majority userbase obviously, but just for comparison going forward, only 0.22% of the american population lives in seattle. as of this reblog, this poll is showing 4% of respondents are seattleites. given, this isnt scientific at all, because my blog just has a lot of seattle connections and seattle followers, but it's still an impressive bias
tech news today is that Mullvad VPN has gone mask-off about being the major funding source for the Swedish Orebro party, who are racist nationalists. unfortunately all discussion of this is occurring on fucking Mastodon instances i can barely load
if you are a mullvad customer (as i am) and want to get out, here is guidance from this guy
If you don't want your Mullvad fees going to fund neo-Nazis - or @mozilla VPN fees, which is rebranded Mullvad - cancel and get a refund immediately
that's whose "free speech" the official account is talking about here, and that's where your fees go to
EDIT: Mullvad has a 14 day refund policy. But the message below is a direct call to ask for a refund if you don't want to give money to Nazis.
If Mullvad refuse a refund, call your consumer protection agency. And reverse credit card charges on the basis of deceptive refund policy representations. It's not like you ever want to be a Mullvad customer again.
archive copy of Mullvad statement: https://web.archive.org/web/2026062717
some people have reported being refused refunds that fall outside their 14-day refund window. my sub was 60 days past the payment date, but fwiw I emailed support with my account number and a screenshot of the above mastodon post and explicitly said "In line with your official account's statement, I'd like to request an immediate cancellation and refund on the grounds that I don't share the values of Mullvad or any other company that knowingly profits Nazis. If you're unwilling to issue this refund, please let me know and I'll be happy to escalate the matter to consumer protection." and they issued my refund without a fuss.
These pescatarian birds are directly exposed to PFAS contamination due to the island's position near the St. Lawrence Seaway.
Over fifty years of data show a peak in PFAS (also known as "forever chemicals") content in seabird eggs in the 90s, followed by a decrease as regulations went into effect. The most recent findings show a 70% decrease of most common PFAS.
While continued vigilance a regulation is needed, this data indicates that regulations are working to reduce PFAS concentrations in marine ecosystems.
Yes!!!! I did a review of literature on PFASs in human drinking water about half a year ago, and there is a lot of really good progress! Please celebrate this, please don't let this solution be forgotten (at least so quickly) as the ozone layer or acid rain.
We are making genuine progress! Producers are dramatically altering how much they use PFAS and how much gets released in effluent, but also there's a lot better understanding of how to remove PFAS from the environment!
I wish more pagans would stop acting like deities are fossils who have remained completely unchanged by time since the day they were first worshiped. If we can acknowledge how much societies and values changed from ancient times up to the present, then we should also acknowledge that the gods can and have changed too. Hell, the gods even changed along with their cultures back in antiquity! Whenever someone talks about an offering, practice or interpretation being "too modern" I just get so annoyed because it's operating on the mindset that the gods can never change, should never change and have never changed, which just isn't true.
The Otherworld is a realm not quite separate from our own, all around us and yet not always accessible or visible to us. It has been interpreted as one expansive world and as having numerous realms and kingdoms within the one Otherworld, and is home to many beings â gods, fairies, and spirits of all sorts, along with some of the most honored and beloved dead.
It is described in âthe Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countriesâ by W.Y. Evans-Wentz:
âBut this western Otherworld, if it is what we believe it to be â a poetical picture of the great subjective world â cannot be the realm of any one race of invisible beings to the exclusion of another. In it all alike â gods, Tuatha De Danann, fairies, demons, shades, and every sort of disembodied spirits â find their appropriate abode; for though it seems to surround and interpenetrate this planet even as the X-rays interpenetrate matter, it can have no other limits than those of the Universe itself.â
This cosmological concept descends from the ancient Celtic religions, and the Otherworld (by its many names) is found throughout the lands in which the Celtic tribes resided and lives on within the traditions preserved by reconstructionist and traditional Celtic pagans and Celtic folk magic practitioners. The Otherworld, along with other Celtic pagan beliefs, can also be found within many neo-pagan and neo-druidic practices and movements.
NAMES OF THE OTHERWORLD
The Otherworld bears many names across the Gaelic and Brythonic mythologies and cosmologies.
Irish
In Irish tales, the names of the Otherworld or realms within the Otherworld include:
TĂr na nĂg â âthe Land of the Youngâ or âthe Land of Youthâ
TĂr Tarngire â âthe Land of Promise or âthe Promised Landâ
In the Irish tale âImmram Brain maic Febailâ (âthe Voyage of Bran mac Febalâ), Bran embarks upon a quest to the Otherworld via a sea voyage. Some days into their journey, Bran and his company encounter ManannĂĄn mac Lir upon his chariot. ManannĂĄn informs them that though their surroundings appear as the sea to them, to the god it appears as a great field of flowers. In this tale, the realms of the Otherworld are depicted as individual islands somewhere in the Western Sea.
In the story âEchtrai Cormaic I Tir Tairngiriâ (âthe Adventures of Cormac in the Land of Promiseâ), Cormac enters the Otherworld and encounters great bronze palaces, houses of white silver that are thatched with the wings of birds, and a courtyard, in the center of which is a great fountain or well with five streams flowing from it. There is said to be a fairy palace beyond the fountain, and there Cormac encounters âthe loveliest of the worldâs womenâ.
In many tales and poems, the Otherworld is depicted as being incredibly beautiful and as having very many apple trees, hazelnut trees, and great oak trees. Itâs said to have plains filled with colorful flowers and dew of honey. And of the food available in the Otherworld, there is nothing that is not irresistibly delicious. Those who dwell within the Otherworld do not age, nor do they feel pain or take ill. Some believe that it is the fruits that grow within the Otherworld that provide its inhabitants with their everlasting youth and good health. Others believe that itâs the Otherworld itself that keeps one young and well.
Time moves differently within these realms. Many tales state that one could spend what felt like a few days in the Otherworld, only to return to this world and find that their friends and family had all died, and many years had passed whilst they were away.
In Welsh Cosmology & Mythology
In Welsh tales, the Otherworld (called Annwn) is not ruled over by ManannĂĄn mac Lir but by Arawn and, later, Gwyn ap Nudd. In many of the Welsh legends, Annwn is described as a world of eternal youth, free of illness and disease, where no one could ever go hungry for there were endless supplies of food and drink. It was a realm of incomparable beauty where the gods, fairy folk, great ancestors, elves, and spirits reside. Like in Irish myth, Annwn is believed to be either a subterranean realm, under the sea, or on an island to the west. It is also a magical realm hidden from humankind.
Some tales depict a paradise-like world that is like all the best and most beautiful things within our own world with sprawling gardens, plainlands, and orchards, while others describe a âhellishâ place (most likely an outcome of the Christianization of the Welsh culture and beliefs). Both interpretations, though, speak of Annwn as the land of the dead.
The Welsh epic âCad Goddeuâ (âthe Battle of the Treesâ) tells of a battle between Arawnâs army and the forces of Gwynedd. The army come forth from Annwn is described as being made up of unearthly creatures, such as enormous beasts bearing one hundred heads, great serpents, and giant toads with claws.
The well-known âPreiddeu Annwfnâ (âthe Spoils of Annwnâ) is another tale mentioning the Otherworld. It is the story of a journey into the Otherworld led by King Arthur. The tale depicts various realms or kingdoms within the Otherworld, including the Fortress of the Mound, the Fortress of Hardness, the Fortress of Mead-Drunkenness, and the Glass Fortress; though some interpret these names to be alternate names for the Otherworld in its entirety and not of individual lands traversed by Arthur within the Otherworld.
The legendary island of Avalon is also seen as a later interpretation of Annwn. Avalon famously features in Arthurian legends as the paradisical Isle of Apples.
ENTERING the OTHERWORLD:
Many of the old tales speak of humans gaining access to the Otherworld. Sometimes they were invited or summoned there by some god or spirit (as ManannĂĄn mac Lir was known to do), sometimes they were stolen away or kidnapped by one of the Otherworldâs inhabitants, and some folk entered the Otherworld of their own design during those times of year when the walls between their world and the Otherworld were lowered, such as during Samhain and Beltane. There are also many tales of folk (some quite famous, such as Cuchulainn, Lanval, and Ossian) being lured or enticed away by a fairy to the Otherworld to live as the fairyâs lover. It is also believed that musicians would be stolen away to the Otherworld to entertain its inhabitants.
As mentioned already, many believe openings at the base of hills and mountains to be entrances to the Otherworld. So, too, are ancient burial mounds, bogs, and caves seen as Otherworld gateways. It is also believed that patches of mist or fog could have within them some opening to the Otherworld, as in the Irish tale âEchtra Cormaic I Tir Tairngiriâ. In this story, King Cormac sets out from Tara with many soldiers to find his way into the Otherworld to take back his wife, daughter, and son (whom he lost in a trade-off for a magic silver bough). On his way, a thick fog befalls the party. When the fog is lifted, Cormac is alone in the plains of a foreign land, having been taken into the Otherworld.
In some tales, one could enter the Otherworld after they were gifted an apple or a branch bearing apples (such as the magic silver bough mentioned in the story above) from a sacred apple tree. The apple or branch was magical and acted as a key, allowing one to pass into the realm of the SĂdhe-folk so long as the apple or branch was in their possession.
SĂdhe, though now commonly used in reference to those inhabitants of the Otherworld, are the mounds, hills, or places believed to provide access to the Otherworld. Previously, the term sĂdhe was used specifically to mean the palaces, courts, or halls in which the spirits of the Otherworld resided.
TECH DUINN:
In Irish lore, there is a separate Otherworld where one goes after death. This realm of the dead is Tech Duinn, the domain of Donn â an ancient god of the dead and ancestor of the Gaels. Tech Duinn means âthe House of the Dark Oneâ (âDonnâ means âthe dark oneâ).
There is a 9th-century poem which states that Donnâs dying wish was to have his descendants gathered to him when they died â âTo me, to my house, you shall all come after your deaths.â While the Otherworld is often described as being a paradise of great beauty, that is not how Tech Duinn is usually depicted. Rather, it is most commonly portrayed as a frightful place of darkness and dread. Why, I do not know. Perhaps this is simply due to it being the home of Donn, the Dark One.
Tech Duinn is said to lie at or beyond Irelandâs western coast. It is believed that the entrance to Tech Duinn lies on, within, or beneath Bull Rock, an islet bearing a natural tunnel and resembling a portal tomb. Bull Rock lies off the western point of the Beara Peninsula.
A line from Yeats comes to mind in regard to the Otherworld in general, but specifically when speaking of Tech Duinn and Donnâs dying wish -
âIn Ireland, this world and the world we go to after death are not far apart.â
Suffice it to say, the Otherworld has inspired numerous poems and exciting and moving tales, pieces of a time long gone by preserved (hopefully) forever through art. And today it is the source of much scholarly exploration and debate. How much of the Otherworld as we understand it now has been altered by Christianization? How many of the old tales were twisted and reinterpreted to suit the narratives of the Church? We do know that a great deal of this occurred within the preservation of Celtic lore and history, and what tales we have of the Otherworld were not left untouched by this. I hope that this piece, as brief as it is, might inspire others to explore the old Celtic tales in their many interpretations, for there is much to be enjoyed there, as well as much to be learned.
SOURCES & FURTHER READING:
'Cad Goddeu'
'Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia' - Koch, John T.
'Celtic Myths and Legends' - Rolleston, T.A.
'Dictionary of Celtic Mythology' - MacKillop, James
'Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore' - Monoghan, Patricia
'the Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries' - Evans-Wentz, W.Y.
'Hy Brasil: the Metamorphosis of an Island' - Freitag, Barbara
'Immram Brain mac Febail'
'Irish Fairy Tales' - Stephens, James
'the Lord of Ireland' - Ă hĂgĂĄin, DĂĄithĂ; Prof.
'the Mabinogi and Other Medieval Welsh Tales' - trans. Ford, Patrick K.
'the Mabinogian - A New Translation' -Davies, Sioned
'Myth, Legend, & Romance: An Encyclopedia of Irish Folk Tradition' - Ă hĂgĂĄin, DĂĄithĂ
'the Mythology of Ancient Britain and Ireland' - Squire, Charles
'Otherworlds: Fantasy and History in Medieval Literature' - Byrne, Aisling
'Preiddeu Annwn'
'the Religion of the Ancient Celts' - MacCulloch, J.A.
âthe Sacred Isle: Belief and Religion in pre-Christian Irelandâ - Ă hĂgain, DĂĄithĂ; Prof.
âTales of the Celtic Otherworldâ -Matthews, John
The rule could have heavy impacts towards trans people across society.
Last week, the Trump administration quietly released a sweeping new federal rule that would use funding threats to force institutions across the country to reject transgender people. The 400-page proposed regulation would codify the administration's anti-trans executive orders into binding federal policy, imposing a blanket prohibition on federal funds going toward "gender ideology"
The proposed rule, formally titled "Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance," rewrites the government-wide framework governing all federal grants across every agency. Among its most consequential provisions, it requires that before a federal grant recipient can receive money, the award must pass a "pre-issuance review" conducted by a political appointeeânot a career expert or peer reviewerâto ensure it is "consistent with applicable law, Federal agency priorities, and the national interest." The regulation explicitly instructs these appointees to screen for "denial by the recipient of the sex binary in humans or the notion that sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic." [...] An institution that acknowledges transgender people existâthrough its policies, its training, its healthcare, its bathroom access, its HR procedures, its name-change processesâcould be deemed to "deny the sex binary" or to âsupport the notion that sex is mutableâ and have its federal funding blocked.
Importantly, the gender ideology prohibition has no age limitationâhospitals could be targeted not just for providing care to minors but for providing gender-affirming care to adults, because prescribing hormone therapy to a transgender patient of any age could be deemed promoting the belief that "sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic."
This is all very bad and horrible, but I want to be clear that itâs worse and more sweeping than just eliminating trans research.
This torches everything. And I do mean everything.
A very abbreviated list of its ramifications include (but are not limited to):
ending funding for ALL DEI related initiatives
allowing the government to terminate grants at any point for any reason
preventing researchers from publishing, going to conferences, and being part of academic societies
requiring that topics must support the presidentâs agenda.
What this means, and if anything Iâm under selling it, is the death of science and research in America. It allows the government to restrict any topic they please at a whims notice, putting officials who have no background in the topic in charge of deciding funding continuity. It controls what gets researched and if/how researchers are allowed to share their discoveries. There are no books to burn if the government never allows them to be written. This is fascism plain and simple.
Please, if you only ever write one public comment, this is the one to do.
Bringing back this guide to writing an effective public comment. This gives you the basics you need to know, what you need to include, a basic outline you can follow, etc.
Public comments are not a vote, it is a chance for you to say "here is an issue with this law I think you need to address" and provide justification for legal challenges if it goes forward:
"Comments raise the bar that agencies have to meet when making a rule; âif an agency fails to adequately respond to significant, relevant comments in a final rule, members of the public may seek to challenge the rule in court on that basis and claim it could be struck down.Ëź"
But also, if possible, don't stop at writing a comment. Don't stop at calling your representatives. You should ideally be talking to people in your community about this and organizing resistance on-the-ground; there is a good chance people are already doing that even if you aren't hearing about it.
