Print designs to hang on my altar

Love Begins
Cosmic Funnies
Lauren Shippen

Game Changer & Make Some Noise
I'd rather be in outer space šø

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TMBGareOK. The Official They Might Be Giants tumblr
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d e v o n
Fai_Ryy

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@thepaganraccoon
Print designs to hang on my altar
Xenia means you help your neighbours escape immigration police
Xenia means you feed, house, and respect the homeless, regardless of what got them there
Xenia means you do the work to unlearn racism, misogyny, homophobia, ableism and transphobia
Xenia means (with obvious exceptions) you treat criminals and felons as human beings worthy of dignity and respect
Xenia means you make your environments less overstimulating if you know youāll be with an autistic person
Xenia means Fuck the police
Xenia means you talk to the elderly neighbour whoās living on their own, and has nobody in their life
Xenia means respecting your trans friends identity even when theyāre not present
May Apollo, bearer of the silver bow, strikes all the generative AI data centers with his arrows.
bby god sketches
Zeus x Hera concept sketches
Somewhere out there a mortal is about to have the worst day of their life.
šš· Dionysus and Ariadne
just a few sketches - a river god with a couple of his daughters.
Concept art for Dionysus. Been wanting to do more character sheets so that my designs can be more consistent. š·
Finally finished this sketch! Some character and clothing exploration for Ariadne and (maybe) a couple of her sisters. šš
Just about every "AKSHUALLY, this thing is SECRETLY PAGAN!" claim can be traced back to:
Protestants making shit up to try and "prove" whatever shit they decided to hate on was secretly Satanic.
German nationalists making shit up trying to "prove" that Christian holidays had no connection to anything Jewish.
People failing to understand that European converts to Christianity retained many of their old customs and traditions, because Jesus being Lord doesn't mean there's no dragons in that there lake or that the plant lore everybody knows is all bunk.
People making wild assumptions due to a failure to comprehend that similarities between traditions does not inherently imply connection between traditions.
A frustrating part of the mainstream vegan ālove all animals and protect the environmentā mindset is the fact that things need to die in real-life ecology all the time but deer hunting season makes icky feelings and carp culls arenāt cottagecore
The vegan āany animal death ever is morally wrongā mindset doesnāt hold up when:
We donāt have any of the large predators we used to (black bears, mountain lions, or gray wolves) but still retain large deer populations. If nothing is removing animals, theyāll quickly overload the carrying capacity of the environment and have massive losses to starvation and disease that can also pass on to livestock. Human hunters replace the large predators that our landscape can no longer support.
Itās kinder to euthanize an un-releasable hawk rather than try to find it a permanent home with humans. Wildlife rehabs have extremely limited space and resources and are usually run entirely on donated money and volunteer time. Only a few are large and stable enough to care for permanent residents long-term, and those spots are few and far between.
An invasive species poses a danger to threatened native wildlife. I will admit- Australian possums are adorable. But not in New Zealand, where theyāre an invasive species that eats the eggs of ground-dwelling birds that previously had no such predators. The landowners I worked with replanting native bush, all native Maori, had no qualms about setting the dogs on them.
I donāt know how to end this except. Sometimes things just gotta die and acting otherwise just isnāt a realistic expectation.
Highlights from the notes over the past 6 months include a lot of angry vegans saying āyouāre blowing things out of proportion, no vegans actually think like this!ā and a lot of people who work in conservation and education saying āEvery day. I have to fight people who think like this.ā
As a bonus this post was originally inspired by the vegan who called me racist for saying we should kill invasive species
Original
ariadne in celebration
Yes, there is prayer and worship in temples. In librations poured for the gods, in altars carefully set up with statues and candles and offerings.
But there is also prayer on her water bottle, in the way it is covered in stickers that subtly (and not-so-subtly) represent and remind her of her gods. Whenever someone asks what the stickers mean, she smiles.
There is prayer in the little devotions they leave behind on their computer, in the code they've been working on for days. They leave dedications and praises after two forward slashes (like arms raised to the sky) ā secret to most, but not to them. Not to their gods.
There is prayer on the inside of his jacket, the one he always wears to teach. Stitched above his heart are the names of the gods he calls out to the most. He touches his chest, letting out a breath before addressing his class.
There is prayer in the charms that hang from her rearview mirror. There is prayer in the way they gesture wildly while telling a story. There is prayer in the little symbols he traces on fogged-up glass.
And the gods are always happy to see it.
Status of the LGBT+ people in pre-Christian Slavic communities?
Iāve prepared this post because recently I answered an ask in Polish to a similar question (Ā @nickbreadartĀ ) and later on got a request to translate the informations Iāve included there into English (Ā @vveze ), so we might hopefully create a brainstorm with other tumblr users. Iām a native Polish speaker, so there might be some terminology (or grammar) I might stumble over - please show me the correct direction in case there are better or more suitable English words I can use below.
What I must write first: this post will most likely not satisfy your curiosity. It is, sadly, impossible to answer the question with the current knowledge and historical sources that we are aware of, to put it simply into words. We all know very well that there are huge problems with reconstructing the old Slavic pantheon, rituals, lifestyle, worldview (and so on) altogether precisely due to the lack of original resources. There are no historical sourcesĀ from the first perspective. The strict censorship and teachings of the church over the centuries erased most of the remaining informations, just like it happened with lots of other pre-Christian cultures (here, Iām thinking about our Baltic neighbours in particular).Ā
What we deal with, is a reconstructivist modern Rodnovery based on basically only two branches of knownedge: 1) the old medieval resources written primarily by Christian missionaries or Muslim traders, 2) the continuous customs known from Slavic folkore where parts of theĀ 'paganismā prevailed over the centuries on the course of the syncretism. Iām not afraid to say that both those factors are biased to some extent in the context of our question, and thereās a lot of codes in them just waiting to be properly analyzed.
So, is there anything we might analyze here at all? Is the Rodnovery community open enough to at least discuss this topic?
To the point: there are some details regarding gender, sexuality or relationships that I think we might at least analyze and discuss. I wonāt be able to provide you any definite answers (even though Iād love to). What I can do at the moment is to point out a few things that you might filter through comparative studies:
In many (if not all) Slavic countries that accepted Christianity, there was a custom of making vows called ābratotvorenieā or 'pobratymienieā (their name vary just a little between the various Slavic languages). To understand what they are, you should read about the Greek term for that custom:Ā adelphopoiesis - the 'brother makingā ceremony. According to the informations Iāve found, they were popular up until around 14th century in some European Catholic countries, and prevailed as long as until 18th century among some Orthodox Christians. In the Polish sources Iāve managed to find online (example here in the tables of contents), the vows for ābratotvorenijeā appear indeed as late as in 18th-century Orthodox prayer books for example from the CheÅmskie of Przemyskie regions. That topic is still highly controversial, as many theories interpret them as a 'homosexual marriage of menā (be it platonic or not). Christian theologians naturally reject that idea. What makes me wonder: as far as I know those vows survived the longest among some Slavs and Greeks - please correct me if you have better resources. What we all know, Greeks were acepting homosexuality in their own pre-Christian faith. Then, what about the Slavs?
Lots of Slavic rituals seem to follow a pattern known from many other primeval cultures in which a person dresses up as an opposite gender in rituals meant to evoke fertility. In many articles and research papers Iāve stumbled across, these practices are called for example a ritual transvestitism. In the case of Poland, this is the most common during the season of theĀ kolÄdowanieĀ that spans roughly from Christmas up until the first days of spring (depending on a region). It is a still-practiced custom in many rural areas, and it shows clear remnants of old rites where the spring was evoked and the winter chased away. People dress up in various kinds of symbolic clothing. It includes for example men dressing up as babushkas or brides. Iāve been posting lots of various pictures showing that custom in different corners of Poland, and you can see theĀ ācross-dressingā costumes e.g. here, here or here. Keep in your mind that this is only a syncretized version of a much older ritual. Similarly to the case above, there was for example a spring ritual that was noted e.g. among the Belarusians in which a woman was dressed as the god Jarilo and rode on a horse to announce that the spring had come.
In many primeval cultures the divine powers had to be in balance within the stereotypically āmaleā and āfemaleā gender aspects - some gods were even presented as hermaphrodites for ritual reasons. That was often coming with certain religious respect towards non-binary people. Among the Slavs, there are at least two things that come to my mind at the moment. 1) First one is the multifaced statue of the Zbruch Idol of the god Svetovid that has bothĀ āmaleā andĀ āfemaleā figures carved on its sides. Even though the statue itself might be much younger that it had been initially believed after its discovery, the case is still worth analyzing. Some modern Western Rodnovery communities partly follow that concept by creating a multifaced statue which sides represent different gods and goddesses. 2) Second one are cases of ritual effigies prepared for spring or summer rites among the East Slavs. The effigies were sometimes decorated with both the āpenisā and the ābreastsā made of fruits and vegetables. In the past Iāve seen many pictures of such effigies online but unfortunately canāt find any atm - the current Eastern Rodnovery communities seem to stick to an effigy with aĀ āpenisā only.
There are some legends that might be worth analyzing. For example the popular Polish legend about the pagan Queen Wanda who didnāt want to get married. You mightāve heard about this legend before in its version popularized during the era of theĀ Partitions of Poland: Wanda refuses to marry a German (Alamann) prince and performs a suicide by jumping from a cliff to a river. However, in the oldest-known version of that legend (coming from 12th-century chronicle of the prelate Wincenty KadÅubek) Wanda simply wins over the Alamann troops and lives happily until the old age, never marrying anyone. Other legend I know about comes from Czechia, originally from theĀ 12th-century Chronicle of the Czechs by the priest Cosmas of Prague. It tells about three wise daughters of the ruler named Krok. One of them was Tetka who spread the pagan faith among the common people and whoĀ 'didnāt know a manā. The chronicle of Cosmas mentions also a tribe of women who he callsĀ āAmazonsā, living in a fortress Devin (named after a Czech word for a maiden) somewhere near Prague. I can also recall reading that some researchers located one of the ancient tribes of Amazons on the territory of modern Ukraine - I need to go back to that and find out more. Here I want to add that a concept of a woman living umarried or an Amazon was quite often an old Christian code for a lesbian person, what some of you also pointed out after reading my post in Polish. Note also that both Wanda and Tetka are presented as highly respected by the community.
The matters of tolerance? I can speak here only about the history of Poland which Iām the most familiar with. Historically speaking, there had never been any official Polish laws of persecution towards the LGBT people since the creation of the Polish state that came with its ChristianizationĀ (Iām obviously excluding those laws that were imposed by foreigners during the periods of occupation like for example the Partitions or the World Wars). Speaking about the times that interest us the most, which is the furthest to the past we can get, the only historical cases - not many of them - documented during the times of the witch hunt were happening in certain Polish cities that were re-founded under the Magdeburg RightsĀ (historically known also as the medieval German Law or Magdeburg Law) that included various punishments based on the medieval interpretation of Bible. Dr Piotr Oczko even states that 'Magdeburg Law was merciless to homosexual personsā. Thing is, the Magdeburg Law was implemented by some Polish cities during the centuries that followed Polandās Christianization primarily in order to gain the trade rights with the Western European cities. Afterwards, the Magdeburg Law was rarely followed in the local private relations (with exceptions of some witch-hunt-era cases in cities that had a large foreign minority). Instead, the peopleĀ continued to practice the old common law of Poland that had been based on older Slavic tribal traditions in many aspects and which apparently didnāt include any such laws of persecution to be carried on.
Iām really counting on fellow users from other Slavic countries to share similar cases that might be worth analyzing. Maybe more legends? More customs that might hide something undercover? Maybe some historically documented stories (as far back into the time as we could get)? Or maybe I forgot to include something else that is known from Poland? Please comment!
Status of the LGBT+ people in pre-Christian Slavic communities?
Iāve prepared this post because recently I answered an ask in Polish to a similar question (Ā @nickbreadartĀ ) and later on got a request to translate the informations Iāve included there into English (Ā @vveze ), so we might hopefully create a brainstorm with other tumblr users. Iām a native Polish speaker, so there might be some terminology (or grammar) I might stumble over - please show me the correct direction in case there are better or more suitable English words I can use below.
What I must write first: this post will most likely not satisfy your curiosity. It is, sadly, impossible to answer the question with the current knowledge and historical sources that we are aware of, to put it simply into words. We all know very well that there are huge problems with reconstructing the old Slavic pantheon, rituals, lifestyle, worldview (and so on) altogether precisely due to the lack of original resources. There are no historical sourcesĀ from the first perspective. The strict censorship and teachings of the church over the centuries erased most of the remaining informations, just like it happened with lots of other pre-Christian cultures (here, Iām thinking about our Baltic neighbours in particular).Ā
What we deal with, is a reconstructivist modern Rodnovery based on basically only two branches of knownedge: 1) the old medieval resources written primarily by Christian missionaries or Muslim traders, 2) the continuous customs known from Slavic folkore where parts of theĀ 'paganismā prevailed over the centuries on the course of the syncretism. Iām not afraid to say that both those factors are biased to some extent in the context of our question, and thereās a lot of codes in them just waiting to be properly analyzed.
So, is there anything we might analyze here at all? Is the Rodnovery community open enough to at least discuss this topic?
To the point: there are some details regarding gender, sexuality or relationships that I think we might at least analyze and discuss. I wonāt be able to provide you any definite answers (even though Iād love to). What I can do at the moment is to point out a few things that you might filter through comparative studies:
In many (if not all) Slavic countries that accepted Christianity, there was a custom of making vows called ābratotvorenieā or 'pobratymienieā (their name vary just a little between the various Slavic languages). To understand what they are, you should read about the Greek term for that custom:Ā adelphopoiesis - the 'brother makingā ceremony. According to the informations Iāve found, they were popular up until around 14th century in some European Catholic countries, and prevailed as long as until 18th century among some Orthodox Christians. In the Polish sources Iāve managed to find online (example here in the tables of contents), the vows for ābratotvorenijeā appear indeed as late as in 18th-century Orthodox prayer books for example from the CheÅmskie of Przemyskie regions. That topic is still highly controversial, as many theories interpret them as a 'homosexual marriage of menā (be it platonic or not). Christian theologians naturally reject that idea. What makes me wonder: as far as I know those vows survived the longest among some Slavs and Greeks - please correct me if you have better resources. What we all know, Greeks were acepting homosexuality in their own pre-Christian faith. Then, what about the Slavs?
Lots of Slavic rituals seem to follow a pattern known from many other primeval cultures in which a person dresses up as an opposite gender in rituals meant to evoke fertility. In many articles and research papers Iāve stumbled across, these practices are called for example a ritual transvestitism. In the case of Poland, this is the most common during the season of theĀ kolÄdowanieĀ that spans roughly from Christmas up until the first days of spring (depending on a region). It is a still-practiced custom in many rural areas, and it shows clear remnants of old rites where the spring was evoked and the winter chased away. People dress up in various kinds of symbolic clothing. It includes for example men dressing up as babushkas or brides. Iāve been posting lots of various pictures showing that custom in different corners of Poland, and you can see theĀ ācross-dressingā costumes e.g. here, here or here. Keep in your mind that this is only a syncretized version of a much older ritual. Similarly to the case above, there was for example a spring ritual that was noted e.g. among the Belarusians in which a woman was dressed as the god Jarilo and rode on a horse to announce that the spring had come.
In many primeval cultures the divine powers had to be in balance within the stereotypically āmaleā and āfemaleā gender aspects - some gods were even presented as hermaphrodites for ritual reasons. That was often coming with certain religious respect towards non-binary people. Among the Slavs, there are at least two things that come to my mind at the moment. 1) First one is the multifaced statue of the Zbruch Idol of the god Svetovid that has bothĀ āmaleā andĀ āfemaleā figures carved on its sides. Even though the statue itself might be much younger that it had been initially believed after its discovery, the case is still worth analyzing. Some modern Western Rodnovery communities partly follow that concept by creating a multifaced statue which sides represent different gods and goddesses. 2) Second one are cases of ritual effigies prepared for spring or summer rites among the East Slavs. The effigies were sometimes decorated with both the āpenisā and the ābreastsā made of fruits and vegetables. In the past Iāve seen many pictures of such effigies online but unfortunately canāt find any atm - the current Eastern Rodnovery communities seem to stick to an effigy with aĀ āpenisā only.
There are some legends that might be worth analyzing. For example the popular Polish legend about the pagan Queen Wanda who didnāt want to get married. You mightāve heard about this legend before in its version popularized during the era of theĀ Partitions of Poland: Wanda refuses to marry a German (Alamann) prince and performs a suicide by jumping from a cliff to a river. However, in the oldest-known version of that legend (coming from 12th-century chronicle of the prelate Wincenty KadÅubek) Wanda simply wins over the Alamann troops and lives happily until the old age, never marrying anyone. Other legend I know about comes from Czechia, originally from theĀ 12th-century Chronicle of the Czechs by the priest Cosmas of Prague. It tells about three wise daughters of the ruler named Krok. One of them was Tetka who spread the pagan faith among the common people and whoĀ 'didnāt know a manā. The chronicle of Cosmas mentions also a tribe of women who he callsĀ āAmazonsā, living in a fortress Devin (named after a Czech word for a maiden) somewhere near Prague. I can also recall reading that some researchers located one of the ancient tribes of Amazons on the territory of modern Ukraine - I need to go back to that and find out more. Here I want to add that a concept of a woman living umarried or an Amazon was quite often an old Christian code for a lesbian person, what some of you also pointed out after reading my post in Polish. Note also that both Wanda and Tetka are presented as highly respected by the community.
The matters of tolerance? I can speak here only about the history of Poland which Iām the most familiar with. Historically speaking, there had never been any official Polish laws of persecution towards the LGBT people since the creation of the Polish state that came with its ChristianizationĀ (Iām obviously excluding those laws that were imposed by foreigners during the periods of occupation like for example the Partitions or the World Wars). Speaking about the times that interest us the most, which is the furthest to the past we can get, the only historical cases - not many of them - documented during the times of the witch hunt were happening in certain Polish cities that were re-founded under the Magdeburg RightsĀ (historically known also as the medieval German Law or Magdeburg Law) that included various punishments based on the medieval interpretation of Bible. Dr Piotr Oczko even states that 'Magdeburg Law was merciless to homosexual personsā. Thing is, the Magdeburg Law was implemented by some Polish cities during the centuries that followed Polandās Christianization primarily in order to gain the trade rights with the Western European cities. Afterwards, the Magdeburg Law was rarely followed in the local private relations (with exceptions of some witch-hunt-era cases in cities that had a large foreign minority). Instead, the peopleĀ continued to practice the old common law of Poland that had been based on older Slavic tribal traditions in many aspects and which apparently didnāt include any such laws of persecution to be carried on.
Iām really counting on fellow users from other Slavic countries to share similar cases that might be worth analyzing. Maybe more legends? More customs that might hide something undercover? Maybe some historically documented stories (as far back into the time as we could get)? Or maybe I forgot to include something else that is known from Poland? Please comment!
Highlighting LGBTQIA+ spiritual traditions.
This is from Candelora 2023, held at the Sanctuary of Montevergine in Avellino, Italy in honor and invocation of Mama Schiavona who protects the Femminielli. The Femminielli are their own gender, native to what is now Southern Italy. They bring good luck and have been a part of the sacred landscape of Southern Italy for pretty much all of recorded history. Naples itself never historically persecuted homosexuality, even when many other parts of Europe did the opposite.
In addition to Candelora, the Femminielli also participate in the feast of la Madonna dell'Arco and the Easter Monday tradition of the matrimonio dei femminielli--a magnificent ritual wedding celebration.
There are some very old non-binary genders in this world, particularly around the Mediterranean. Some Femminielli may identify as Trans Women while others may not. Gender is complicated. The Femminielli serve a vital spiritual role to the religious hygiene of their communities. Bringing good luck, joy, and blessings to all from the depths of time itself.
In the video, I think I hear the familiar voice of Roberto de Simone--the very same musical legend responsible for the Neapolitan Opera, "La Gatta Cenerentola," which also features Femminielli in the cast. I did a dive on that one a while back. You can also see musicians gathering to sing and drum for Mama Schiavona. The music they are singing for her is a Tammurriata. Tammurriata refers to the rhythm as well as the dance of the same name that goes with it. The giant tambourine you see in this video is called a tammorra and that rhythm is absolutely ancient. These are extremely devout lay people who are performing this invocation. They have processed here through the city to the sanctuary and this is just how it is done. They have come to pray for protection of the marginalized and to celebrate everything Mama Schiavona and the Femminielli stand for. This is what folk religion looks like.