(Former) Trailer Park Witch

Call me Ursula. Queer, Genderqueer, Autistic, Celtic/Germanic polytheist, General-purpose witch. Nazis, TERFs, appropriators, and ace exclusionists can fuck right off; everyone else welcome. (Main blog: @paradoxical-frog)

[southernsolarpunk-deactivated20]

Original

[chicorystreetcoffee]

[taydivorce]

*reading tarot* ouch! ten of swords. you mustve gotten stabbed a bunch of times recently

[taydivorce]

*flips next card over* by the devil

[skaldish]

I don’t think people realize just how many USChristian attitudes get passed around in Heathenry, so I compiled different statements and behaviors I’ve seen over the years that reflect Christian notions not original to Heathenry. These examples are illustrative rather than definitive, since I’m only somewhat familiar with different Christian frameworks, but it should be enough to give you the picture:

General Christianity

“The first and most important thing you need to do to practice Heathenry is read the Eddas.”

“You must worship Odin even if you don’t want to, because he’s the head god.”

“The point of being Heathen is to live life in a way that grants you entry to Valhalla.”

“Valhalla is the good/awesome afterlife and Helheim is the bad/boring afterlife.”

“The Æsir are good and the jötnar are evil.”

“Odin is like God, Loki is like the Devil, and Baldr is like Jesus.”

“Odin is more powerful than the rest of the gods.”

“Ragnarok is the End Times.”

(“Us vs. them” attitudes.)

(Not knowing what to do with the the goddesses in general, regardless of one’s gender.)

Catholic-Specific

“To be Heathen, you must serve the gods.”

“We can’t truly know the gods, only attempt to understand them through the Eddas.”

“The gods are distant and don’t care about our personal needs or lives.”

“We must act as the gods’ ambassadors on Earth.”

“Making sacrifices should be painful. That’s why it’s called a sacrifice.”

“Ragnarök is the End Times and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

(Treating the Hávamál as scripture.)

(Using medieval Icelandic law-tracts as a stand-in for Heathen religious orthodoxy.)

(Observing strict worship and insisting others do the same.)

(Adopting a very feudalistic relationship with the gods; lord/servant dynamics.)

Protestant-Specific

“Showing devotion to the gods is done by acting as their hands and feet on earth.”

“You must think about the gods all the time and involve them in everything you do.”

“Why should we merely ‘work with’ the gods when we can worship them?”

“Ragnarök is the End Times and we must prepare to fight on the side of the gods.” OR...

“Ragnarök is the End Times and we must help fulfill it.”

(Behaving as marginalized on the basis of their faith.)

(Reacting badly when confronted with new information about Heathenry.)

(Making bold or even standoffish declarations of faith.)

If you come from a Christian background and hear someone make statements like this, you’re probably going to feel pressured to come up with a counterargument for why it’s okay for you to disagree. What you actually need to do is dismiss the premise entirely. These arguments aren’t reflective of Heathen truths and you don’t have to argue with them as though they are.

This is also not a dig at those who’ve made these statements / done these behaviors before. It’s not exactly second-nature for us to break out of the habit of believing in a specific idea or behaving in a specific way when we believed / behaved that way for most of our lives. However, it’s still worth understanding how specific to Christianity these things are and trying to move away from them.

It’s up to you if you want to point out the nature of these arguments to the people making them. But if you do, I recommend doing so tactfully, with a clear head, and with a very clear understanding about what makes the premise Christian in nature.

Let me know if you want clarification on any of these points and why they aren’t reflective of Heathenry. I’m happy to go into it.

[snigepippi]

Gods yes. Here in Scandinavia is not a major issue among older heathens, because we mostly found heathenry through libraries, person to person and speaking to the gods, and of course growing up with mythology and local history. (And the strict Christians migrated to USA 150 years ago). But I see it so often with young people who find heathenry online.

May I add:

* Verses and prayers. Like: "may Odins spirit entering me and take out the evil and ... etc ...etc."

* Lists of heathen Virtues.

* Alternatively treating Thor or Tyr as Jesus.

* You can sin and be forgiven by saying the right things.

As Skaldish say, it is not a dig or admonishing. Everyone know it's hard to figure it out on your own. Especially when young. And those who make groups are often inspired by Christian ideals of a congregation.

The heathens who have mostly removed christian ideals from their life, can be a bit closed off. Many don't want to join large groups or take in and teach strangers. We practice with friends and family, or maybe a small community. And we have a life and jobs. You have to meet us through our hobbies and interests, make friends and then we'll talk and give you pointers.

[lokavisi]

These kinds of things are seen across all flavors of paganism, but this is definitely how it shows up in Heathenry. Always gotta check yourself, y'all.

[noosphe-re]

A triggered lightning strike at the Camp Blanding facility, International Center for Lightning Research and Testing—ICLRT

[genderkoolaid]

the problem with saying "everyone has a mix of masculine and feminine traits/energy!" is it leaves unquestioned the idea that some of these traits "belong to" men or women specifically, which undermines the whole point of saying everyone has both.

[juniper-divination-and-witchery]

What Is Lughnasadh (Lúnasa)?

Lúnasa (pronounced LOO-nuh-suh) is the Irish harvest festival that is now celebrated on August 1, and was considered the first day of autumn in the ancient Irish year.1 It opens the grain harvest, the point where the hungry weeks of late summer give way to the first food from the new crop.1 The name comes from the god Lugh; the older spelling is Lughnasadh. It's one of the four festivals of the Irish year, with Samhain, Imbolc, and Bealtaine.2 You'll also see it in the folk record as Garland Sunday, Reek Sunday and Crom Dubh's Sunday.

This article is meant to give an overview of the festival. Each part below has a fuller article behind it: the festival's pre-Christian origins, the dark harvest figure Crom Dubh, and the folk customs that lasted into living memory.

Lammas vs Lughnasadh

You will sometimes see Lughnasadh and Lammas used interchangeably, however they are two different traditions. Lammas comes from the Old English hlāfmæsse, "loaf-mass": it is an Anglo-Saxon Christian rite in which a loaf baked from the first ripe grain was carried to church and blessed.3

Lammas was a church observance built around that blessed loaf; Lughnasadh was a public assembly with horse-racing and trade.45 What they share is the first-fruits moment, the same turn in the harvest year, which is why English speakers in Ireland sometimes used "Lammas" as a label for the native festival and the two ran together.

Modern Wicca adds a third sense, treating "Lammas" and "Lughnasadh" as interchangeable names for a single August 1 sabbat in a Wheel of the Year assembled in the 1950s.6

This guide follows the older Irish festival.

What Lughnasadh meant

Lúnasa was the threshold of plenty. The weeks before it were often the hungriest time of the year, when last year's stores ran low and there was little paid work until the cutting began.1 The festival opened the harvest; cutting corn or digging potatoes before it was considered improper, a mark of bad husbandry.1 The first food from the new harvest went into a festive meal, and people climbed the hills to pick the first ripe bilberries.1 The day marked the turn from scarcity to plenty.

The god Lugh and the assembly at Tailtiu

The festival is named for Lugh, one of the major Irish gods, who was also known across the Continental and British Celtic world as Lugus.27 The medieval tradition makes Lúnasa the funeral games that Lugh founded for his foster-mother Tailtiu, who died clearing a forest into farmland,8 and it places the great assembly at Tailtiu (Teltown, Co. Meath).5

How much of that reaches back to real pagan practice is uncertain. It's unclear how old the origin story is, and by the time we can see the festival clearly it was a Christian-era institution, with a church on the assembly ground.5 The roots are pagan; most of the visible history is Christian. The origins article spends some time going over the major theories and evidence.

Crom Dubh's Sunday

Across much of Irish-speaking Ireland the day carries a different name: Crom Dubh's. The name pairs crom, "bent or crooked," with dubh, "dark" or "black."9 In the folk legends, Crom Dubh is a pagan chieftain whose fierce bull submits tamely to St. Patrick before the chieftain himself converts.10 Recent scholarship traces this figure back through the written record to a medieval idol, Cenn Cruaich, rather than an ancient god of the harvest.9 The full story is in the Crom Dubh article.

How Lughnasadh was celebrated

The folk customs are the most durable part of the festival, recorded across Ireland into the twentieth century.1 People dug the first potatoes and ate them in a first-fruits meal, climbed hills to pick bilberries on "Garland Sunday," did rounds at holy wells, and swam their cattle and horses for protection.1 The biggest surviving tradition is the Croagh Patrick pilgrimage on Reek Sunday, the last Sunday of July.1 The folk traditions of Lúnasa covers the customs and how to mark the day now.

The Year in Ireland by Kevin Danaher ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

The Sacred Isle: Belief and Religion in Pre-Christian Ireland by Dáithí Ó hÓgáin, ↩︎ ↩︎

Lammas ↩︎

Lammas ↩︎

Ireland's Immortals: A History of the Gods of Irish Myth by Mark Williams ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

Wheel of the Year ↩︎

Early Irish Myths and Sagas by Jeffrey Gantz ↩︎

Celtic Gods and Heroes by Marie-Louise Sjoestedt ↩︎

"On the Origins and Development of Crom Dubh" by Claire Collins ↩︎ ↩︎

"Trespass and Building in the Lughnasa Legends" by Máire MacNeill ↩︎

[rosecoloredtarot]

Me, shuffling my tarot deck: alright buddy, I need help figuring this situation out

*lays out my spread*

My tarot deck:

[cryptotheism]

Is there any popular occult movement from the 19th century that Blavatsky DIDN'T have an influence on?

Electro therapy?

I'm not even joking the answer is probably no.

[scottcamofficial]

[hometoursandotherstuff]

[morbidmomma]

Loki's Joy

Sigyn, adored by Loki. 😍

For the Logyn art tourney.

[brigitte-poetry]

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.

[breelandwalker]

FULL MOON REMINDER

Prep your spells, put out your jars, get your moon water vessel ready.

Full moon tonight!

[tertain-the-original]

Continuing my bird tarot deck, some of these are from asks so they might seem familiar haha.

Honestly though I’m kind of trying to make sure that the birds truly line up with the cards I put them on. I might change Strength… but for now here’s the Goose defending their babies.

[pibblepunk]

"divine femininity" "divine masculinity" "amab/afab socialization" STFU terf, you're just doing bioessentialism again

[mxmorbidmidnight]

Nazis will never be welcome in paganism. They have no space in our communities, we will have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to nazis. You have no right to the cultures, gods and religions you hijack to spread your disgusting ideologies. You will find no refuge or comraderie amongst pagans.

Reblog to let nazis know they’re not welcome here.

[dovewithscales]

The only good Nazi, is a dead Nazi.

[skaldish]

Alright, I waited until I’d be less nasty about this, but I seriously need to get this off my chest.

I’m someone who interacts with spirits and deities. This is an ability many non-Western cultures recognize and understand, whereas Western society does not.

In order to explain this ability in ways that make sense to Westerners, I have to translate my knowledge into a Western way of thinking. Doing this is very difficult and results in an explanation that’s ten times longer than its non-Westernized counterpart.

Nevertheless, I’ve enjoyed doing it because you’ve all been interested and polite.

Recently though, I’ve begun to understand why many spirit-workers don’t interact with Western neo-pagans: It’s because they might run into Western neo-pagans who throw raging fits at the idea that spirits and deities aren’t things they can do whatever they want with.

If you come across a spirit-worker willing to share their knowledge with you, this is what you do:

Be courteous and attentive.

Be curious.

Speak up if you don’t understand something, even if you’re not sure what you don’t understand.

Ask follow-up questions.

Always assume the spirit-worker is talking about people when they talk about deities and spirits.

Treat the spirit-worker like a regular person too, because they are.

This is what you don’t do:

DON’T tell a spirit-worker you believe gods are archetypes and therefore it’s okay to use them however you please. This is like telling a dog-trainer you don’t believe dogs have souls so it’s fine if you use dogs as toys and handbag accessories.

DON’T try to “correct” a spirit-worker’s skills-based knowledge with your book-knowledge. You’ll look twee at best and like an ignorant jackass at worst.

DON’T use them as a prop to argue your point of view with.

DON’T pathologize them. Experienced spirit-workers know how to separate their spirit-interactions from symptoms of mental disorders. There’s no fucking reason to bring up mental disorders unless you’re asking a question about how to disambiguate.

DON’T assume people identify as spirit-workers. This term describes a person who’s developed a particular skillset. It’s not a bloody identity label.

As far as spirit-workers go, I’m really chill about the fact people view deities as archetypes because I know this has a few different purposes to it. But I will interpret it as nothing but pure entitlement if someone declares to my face that gods are basically Public Domain Blorbos they can play with like dolls. They either need to grow some ethics or get lost.

[honorthegods]

Archaeologists discover giant marble Athena statue in ancient Laodicea in Türkiye - Türkiye Today

Stunning 2-meter-tall white marble Athena statue surfaces in the West Theater of Laodicea as restoration work continues in Türkiye

Exceptional Statue of Greek Goddess Athena Uncovered in Ancient Laodicea, Turkey - GreekReporter.com

A 6.6 ft statue of Greek goddess Athena, carved in white marble, has been unearthed at ancient city of Laodicea.