Call me Tuiliel or Lily
(30s, she/they, US Mid-Atlantic)
This is a side blog! If I follow back, it will be under my main blog: @lily-leaves
Also, you may want to check out my shop blog: @7serendipities
Welcome! I'm Tuiliel (or you can call me Lily). My posts and reblogs are usually related to witchcraft, paganism, nature photos, or fantasy art and fae aesthetic. I'll put some of my more common tags below.
This is a side blog! If I follow back, it will be under my main blog: @lily-leaves
Also, you may want to check out my shop blog: @7serendipities
More about my specific paganism and witchcraft under the cut.
If you wanna contribute to my deck or book collection, I have a wishlist here.
And, if you're interested - here is my BPAL Review Masterlist.
I've been practicing some form of paganism and witchcraft for more than 20 years at this point, and my practice has wandered around a bit, but I've settled into devotional polytheistic paganism. I mainly interact with the Tuatha Dé and the Vanir and the Fair Folk, though I do keep a shrine to Kemetic deities, and have relationships with several Welsh and Greek deities, and I try to at least have pleasant cordiality with anyone else I encounter.
My witchcraft is very hedgewitchy, focused half on the Otherworlds (Fairy especially) and half on my hyperlocal area, emphasis on spiritwork but also lots of plant and candle magic.
I prefer the term faeborn over otherkin or alterhuman but generally yeah I fall under those umbrellas and it is hard to currently be incarnate as human.
I also run the following e-shrines, though none of them are updated more than once in a while:
@eyes-of-ra : Bast and Sekhmet, and Kemeticism as a whole
@nic-flidais : Flidais and her Daughters - mostly aesthetic/Vibes™️ because there's not a lot written about them
@vanadottir : the Vanir and associated beings (some alfar, some Vanir-by-marriage), heathenry in general
@bright-and-cold : Hela and her family
@queens-of-sovereignty : fairy queens, mostly Irish but also a few Welsh and a few that are UPG - this is almost entirely an aesthetic/Vibes™️ blog
@athena-columbia : the local cultus aspect of Athena as patroness of Washington DC, and the federal government of the United States
@thrudvangr : Thor, made as part of a petition and mostly an archive at this point
Last year, I befriended a Catholic seminarian. We've gotten to be pretty decent friends. Seeing as he was staying in town for the summer and I wasn't, I entrusted him with caring for my plant.
He did a wonderful job, but as he was returning my plant to my custody, he explained "I watered her every other day, I gave her new dirt, moved her into the sunshine, prayed the rosary-"
"What?"
He looked at me, confused. "Isn't she a plant you pray with?"
"No," I said slowly. "She's a prayer plant. That's the... colloquial name of the plant."
Upon seeing his stricken face, I realized something went wrong. Turns out, this entire time, he's been including my plant in on his prayers and leaving her near icons.
Listen, totally cool. My plant becoming Catholic is a great deal for her not dying over the summer. But now I must navigate this interfaith household. Keep me in your thoughts.
I should also add- I ran into my rabbi and explained the situation. I then asked, earnestly, if there was a remedy. A mikveh of sorts, or a beit din, or something.
He turned to me, sighed, and said in a very deadpan tone-- "Plants don't have covenants, Joy,"
So Theodora's a free agent according to rabbinic opinion. I guess I'll permit her to be Roman Catholic.
Its hard work cleaning my new altar. It wasn't in the worst shape, but it definitely needs some love and care. And honestly? I'm happier because of that.
Its all about building the bond with the object, a key part in creating the familiar that will enhabit it. My arms are tired, my back hurts, and I'll definitely need to take a shower afterwards. But with all that said, I feel very satisfied.
Its easy to fall into consumerism and get that instant gratification. I could have just gotten a perfectly new piece of furniture for this, but it wouldn't be the same. This is important quality bonding time, and to create a familiar in an object you must personify it. You have to take care of it and really invest in its wellbeing.
reading about the participation of children in rituals as a form of play in ancient greece and came across an incredibly charming story from julius pollux's onomasticon where a flood prevented the adults from reaching a sanctuary to sacrifice a ram to heracles, and the children solved the problem by....sticking a bunch of sticks in an apple to give it "legs" and "horns" and offering it as a sacrifice instead. it's such a charming thought and i can perfectly picture kids these days also pretending at sacrificing an apple "goat" at recess
Hey y'all, a friend of mine is in a tight spot and behind on rent and is therefore running a sale in her shop - give it a look?
https://www.etsy.com/shop/livingrootscreations
I can personally vouch for the bath bombs (they are AMAZING, and I've used the fae butterfly ones for some intense in-bath trancework), but there's some herbal smoke cleansing bundles and witchy salt scrubs and perfumes and more!
I am hoping that this is some sort of exaggeration or oversimplification because this is just blatant erasure of a major element of Greek culture and replaced by a more Christian version and I want to bang my head into a wall. That’s not what xenia is, and you just erased a major part of the Odyssey.
@watchanddream Sure! This got a bit lengthier than I intended, but I wanted to try and be thorough.
Put far too simply, xenia is the practice of hospitality, but it's also a ritual and in a sense a contract between guest and host. When a stranger arrives at your doorstep, you're expected to feed them and give them a gift as the host. Typically, you're not even supposed to ask them their name until they've finished their meal. Once you've done this as the host, the guest is now expected to share stories and information about themselves, and not burden you or your household. Typically, people focus on how hosts violate xenia, but guests can also violate xenia.
This is called a guest-friendship, and once it's established, you are expected to offer the same to your host should they ever visit. It's a ritual of hospitality, yes, but it's also used to establish alliances and can be passed down through generations. For example, in the Iliad, when Glaucus and Diomedes discover that their grandparents were guest-friends, they decide not to fight, but rather exchange armor.
Theoxeny is a common story you see in myth where a god (typically Zeus) disguises themselves as a mortal and requests to be hosted by someone. Should the host follow the rules of xenia, they'll be rewarded, but if they fail, they'll be punished or killed.
This is important to the Odyssey, as it comes up multiple times, but in particular, the cyclops, and the suitors. In both these instances, Odysseus arrives disguised and gives a false name, the practices of xenia are failed, and Odysseus reveals himself and punishes the one that failed to follow xenia. The suitors in particular fail xenia, as they both fail as hosts, AND as guests, for burdening Odysseus's household.
Xenia being treated as the golden rule comes across to me like a Christian reinterpretation, as while many Greek philosophers did have something similar to the golden rule, those were philosophers, and the idea that it's a religious command from a god seems much more in line with a Christian idea of where the rule comes from. (Note, I'm aware that other religions had something similar, even as a command from a god, but I highly doubt Nolan is drawing inspiration from those instances)
As @argumate seems to be on a religion thing right now, I’ll take this opportunity to post my own cringey, autistic atheist take.
I don’t really understand how someone can think a religion is true* and not think it’s very important.
Like, I mostly get the live-and-let-live attitude from the atheist side, but I don’t really see how you can think there’s e.g. an omnipotent god who has strong opinions on human behavior and not consider correcting the people who don’t (or who differ on important details) to be worth being a bit rude about.
So… what am I missing? How are there so many people who claim to be [insert religion here]-ists but are fine with the majority of people being fundamentally wrong about the nature of reality?
(*”religion” here being a set of statements about the world. I know some people, for instance, construct a version of Buddhism that amounts to “we should think more about the arbitrarity of our concepts”, but a) that’s not what I mean here and b) I’m not sure it’s really fair to call that Buddhism )
Animist & pagan polytheist here and just. There’s kinda no need to acknowledge or interact with gods or spirits? Most of them do not care that much about individual humans? They’ll hold people to pacts and oaths made to them specifically but if you’re not interacting with them you can kinda just. Continue on as you are.
Sometimes people get weird signs and dreams and sometimes those people then end up in our circles - and other times people just ignore it. And either choice is fine. It’s very opt-in. You can opt out. Most of them do not care very much, and none of them are all-powerful or any of the omni things people claim the Abrahamic god is. They’re just a few degrees more than us on each scale.
But it’s like. Not everyone needs to be interacting with wild animals, either? You can leave that to rehabbers and zookeepers and you can go to zoos or the wilderness if you wanna see them (this is things like open ritual circles, in this metaphor), and maybe you will and maybe you won’t, but you can also just spend your whole life somewhere they aren’t, except for tiny little mostly inconsequential things that some people interact with but you ignore, like pigeons and squirrels.
I think a lot of animistic folk religions are that way, too? (The indigenous tradition I was raised in certainly is.) Some people are deeply involved with the spirits, but for most people it’s just kinda fun to engage in holiday celebrations, because it’s not that deep for them, it’s just about food and community (and pretty lanterns or whatever the focus is). Ritual can be very calming even if you’re not a deep believer in what the ritual is honoring.
I was mostly answering the question by pointing out the underlying assumptions in the question that I don't feel like my practice has, which is that even if I am right and they are wrong, that it doesn't really matter because you aren't Required to do anything - but this is another very important point!
I think I'm right, based on my experiences and those of others I know and/or trust. I've developed a narrative that makes sense to me that is informed by the beliefs of others.
But I Could Be Wrong. And I know that.
I'm only certain enough for me, and my life. It seems to make sense and seems to work, so I'm gonna keep doing it this way as long as that remains true. But it could change in the future, and I'm not about to tell other people what to do. Even within my spiritual circles, as a teacher - I say, this is how I do things, and this is what I think, and this is what other people say. But you should figure it what works for you, what makes the most sense for your life.
Proselytizing is not at all universal even within Abrahamic religions, much less the world at large. It's annoying as hell and we'd all be better off without it, and without the belief that anyone has got it 100% correct.
As @argumate seems to be on a religion thing right now, I’ll take this opportunity to post my own cringey, autistic atheist take.
I don’t really understand how someone can think a religion is true* and not think it’s very important.
Like, I mostly get the live-and-let-live attitude from the atheist side, but I don’t really see how you can think there’s e.g. an omnipotent god who has strong opinions on human behavior and not consider correcting the people who don’t (or who differ on important details) to be worth being a bit rude about.
So… what am I missing? How are there so many people who claim to be [insert religion here]-ists but are fine with the majority of people being fundamentally wrong about the nature of reality?
(*”religion” here being a set of statements about the world. I know some people, for instance, construct a version of Buddhism that amounts to “we should think more about the arbitrarity of our concepts”, but a) that’s not what I mean here and b) I’m not sure it’s really fair to call that Buddhism )
Animist & pagan polytheist here and just. There's kinda no need to acknowledge or interact with gods or spirits? Most of them do not care that much about individual humans? They'll hold people to pacts and oaths made to them specifically but if you're not interacting with them you can kinda just. Continue on as you are.
Sometimes people get weird signs and dreams and sometimes those people then end up in our circles - and other times people just ignore it. And either choice is fine. It's very opt-in. You can opt out. Most of them do not care very much, and none of them are all-powerful or any of the omni things people claim the Abrahamic god is. They're just a few degrees more than us on each scale.
But it's like. Not everyone needs to be interacting with wild animals, either? You can leave that to rehabbers and zookeepers and you can go to zoos or the wilderness if you wanna see them (this is things like open ritual circles, in this metaphor), and maybe you will and maybe you won't, but you can also just spend your whole life somewhere they aren't, except for tiny little mostly inconsequential things that some people interact with but you ignore, like pigeons and squirrels.
I think a lot of animistic folk religions are that way, too? (The indigenous tradition I was raised in certainly is.) Some people are deeply involved with the spirits, but for most people it's just kinda fun to engage in holiday celebrations, because it's not that deep for them, it's just about food and community (and pretty lanterns or whatever the focus is). Ritual can be very calming even if you're not a deep believer in what the ritual is honoring.
