#nikolayta

[nikolayta]

Life outside sucks, I’ll be back in the cave staring at these shadows if you need me

[nikolayta]

“What would it look like if you were throwing a witchy / pagan / [similar] dinner party?”

Courtesy of @pagan-stitches : Tagged by @henbane-and-honeysuckle

Thank you for the tag! Feels like a fitting trend for the season. I’ve never actually hosted a dinner party before, so this was exciting to plan.

Appetizers/Accoutrements

A relish tray featuring homemade pickles veggies (classic cucumber, asparagus, beans, garlic) and stuffed olives, as well as kampushky garlic bread

Starters

Dill pickle soup, spring mix salad with raspberry vinaigrette and crushed nuts

Side Dishes

Oven roasted honey carrots (hopefully garden carrots depending on the time of year haha), and beetniks (dough wrapped in beet leaves served in a creamy onion dill sauce)

Main

Roast chicken with paprika, caraway, and roasted garlic

Dessert

A sour cherry clafoutis as the main desert and a small side of kutia (for the ceremonial aspect)

Drinks

A fall fruit kompot (apples, pears, cinnamon, cloves) and a honey mead (if you wanna get wild)

Bonus Info:

A plate of food and bowl of kutia left out in front of an empty chair for the ancestors to enjoy with us

Spend the night playing card cards (or card divination) and talking with some music in the background.

━༺❀༻━

Tags/who i’d invite. tried not to tag people who already did this, so this is Not the full invite list (ignore this if you’re not interested lol)

@jezzzebel @dvudushnydiaries @cityexits @etheral-grove @elegantbearreview @fernsinthemist @tonechkag

[nikolayta]

hit with a sudden burst of longing for spring

[nikolayta]

Since starting my spiritual journey I’ve been having issues worshiping or working with the slavic pantheon, but I’ve yet to put my thoughts down as to why I feel this way.

I think one of the main reasons for this is an issue I have with the conflation of hellenic deities with not only slavic deities, but also the general spirits found in slavic cultures. I’ve found this not only on social media (tumblr/tiktok/etc) but also in “revivalist” spaces.

I can understand that the idea of the ‘complete’ pantheon (one with a multitude of gods for the different facets of life) is appealing and searching for an equivalent in your culture can feel more fulfilling. I can also see how equating deities from one pantheon or culture to another (ex. thor being the ‘celtic version’ of zeus) can help give structure to worship and how you view you deities (esp in cultures that lack the historical info that the greek/roman pantheons have), but I think both of these do a disservice to the culture that these deities and spirits come from.

Speaking on slavic paganism, I know many, many things (ranging from holidays, folk characters, and general spirits) have been unnecessarily exalted to a deific position.

And I do make a point to say unnecessarily and not undeservingly because I think a major point of contention for me regarding this is that this deification makes it feel like working with/worshiping these spiritual entities as spirits isn’t enough. Maybe not intentionally, or maybe it’s just my interpretation of this phenomenon, but to me it feels as if people are trying to make these aspects of slavic culture ‘more important’ by deifying them but it’s (in my opinion) more worthy to worship them as they are.

I feel like way about the Zorya and Baba Yaga. Particularly, turning Baba Yaga into a Hecate-like goddess of magic and darkness seems silly to me, if I wanted that type of goddess in my practice, I would just worship Hecate.

This isn’t to discredit or belittle anyone’s particular practice or how they see the divine, I think everyone is entitled to their UPGs, its just think it irks me the wrong way when it’s treated across the board as ‘fact’.

(Also worth mentioning is the extremely prevalent problem of N4zis and Wh1te-supremacists making up stuff in order to claim historical superiority, which I’m sure also factors in to my distaste)

[nikolayta]

Happy Easter!

Photos from Easter supper with family. Not pictured is the vegan cabbage rolls for me and my aunt.

I did manage to get a photo of this beautiful pysanky design, not sure from when.

[nikolayta]

Welcome!

I’m a folk practitioner, animist, polytheist. In my 20s, love gardening, avid researcher/reader.

At the moment, my practice heavily consist of ancestor work and folk practices (typically ukrainian, both from the country and the diaspora), so most things on this blog will follow those themes but I also post about ‘general’ folk magic and spirituality, as well as (primarily East) Slavic polytheism.

Given folk magic (more specifically given my area(s) of focus) is inherently political, I do feel the need for these disclaimers:

This blog is pro-trans, pro-choice, and pro-science. I am against both the invasion of Ukraine and the illegal occupation and genocide in Palestine.

This blog does not support white supremacy, nazis, or fascism.

I am against the use of generative AI.

[nikolayta]

Similarly, water was believed to have healing and magical properties during the eve of the feast of Kupalo (St. John the Baptist, 7 July). Water drunk on the eve of Kupalo was believed to be especially powerful (Boltarovych 1980, 101-2).

The Word and Wax: A Medical Folk Ritual Among Ukrainians in Alberta by Rena Jeanne Hanchuk

[nikolayta]

In practice, the division between herbal and magico-religious medicine is artificial. In fact, they are intricately interwoven. In the context of herbal medicine, a leaf might be understood to have curative power. In the realm of magico-religious medicine, the same leaf is seen to be curative when one applies it to a wound while intoning an accompanying prayer. Folk-medicine practitioners may be quite aware of the importance of the interplay between magic and herbal remedies. They perceive remedies as effective not solely because of the plants and herbs used, but also because of the power of the incantation, the actions, and other factors.

The Word and Wax: A Medical Folk Ritual Among Ukrainians in Alberta by Rena Jeanne Hanchuk