Astra @witchofknowledge - Tumblr Blog

PSA

Please be aware that Wyrd Curiosities at Etsy is owned by Galina Krasskova, a racist, antisemitic, and xenophobic supporter of the alt-right who has also endorsed the rights of any religious group to be racist, antisemitic, xenophobic, white nationalist, homophobic, and transphobic. Sources: X, X, X. Wading into her blog is a wtf? experience: X

Wyrd Curiosities sells, among other things, prayer cards featuring the art of @gracedpalmer, a wonderful artist whose works I reblog, and who is very much opposed to racism, antisemitism, and white nationalism. I strongly encourage those who, like me, admire and wish to support the art of Grace D. Palmer to purchase from the artist’s own Etsy shop.

honorthegods

Reblogging since ‘tis the season to shop at Etsy and to support pagan and polytheist businesses.

It’s always a good idea to check out everything a shop has for sale. Sometimes you’ll find a hate symbol or two for sale or notice an alt-right dog whistle in the shop profile or photos. Google shop names and owners’ names. Ask around tumblr.

Don’t be hard on yourself if you find out later that you inadvertently supported something you don’t agree with. A lot of us old-timers - including me - bought Galina’s books, stuff from her shop, and Neos Alexandria’s devotionals before we knew about her politics. Live and learn.

satsuti

3. Symbols and icons

Set is like most Egyptian gods connected to numerous animal forms, synchronizations, and depictions. But his main and most notorious one is the Sha, also called the “Set animal.” I think the Sha is so fucking cool because while most of the gods are depicted with an animal head representing their characteristics - lions, baboons, cats, birds etc. - no one know what Set’s animal really is or if it even existed to begin with (and if not then why did they chose to depict him in such a way?) It’s been debated that the Sha might be a type of extinct dog, or an ant-eater, or a giraffe (lol), but most of these theories have been disproved and shattered. If this fact alone doesn’t point out what a liminal being Set is, I don’t know what does. I mean.. what does the Sha animal tell us about Set’s nature, really? It’s no coincidence why he’s called the God of Confusion.

However in the PGM (Graeco-Egyptian papyri) the donkey is often associated with Set, as well as the greek Typhon, and they together form Typhoon-Seth:

“When mentioned in relationship to ancient Egypt, the donkey brings up a fast and direct association to the god Seth and to its demonic theriomorphic manifestations. As a matter of fact, the ancient Egyptian word for ‘ass’ or ‘donkey’ is determined from the Middle Kingdom with the Seth animal and it appears as a manifestation of Seth in animal form or as a hybrid with the human body and donkey head until the Greaco-Roman period, in the decoration of the Ptolemaic temples and later in the Graeco-Egyptian papyri; from the fifth century BCE or even earlier, the association of Seth with Typhon becomes more evident in the sources.”

- The Donkey in the Graeco-Egyptian Papyri, Rita Lucarelli

I’ve also seen him associated with black pigs and hippos due to his attempts to disguise and deceive the others in the myths. Another important thing to know is that in humanoid form Set almost always is depicted holding a spear as a weapon, symbolizing him being a war deity but more importantly; him constantly cutting the snake A/p/ep into pieces.

Now I also have my own UPG’s in what I associate to Set and what I’ve experienced him as; in the physical world he mostly comes to me as storms, thunder and lightning, sometimes it’s just a bypassing thing and other times HUGE fucking storms going on for days - depending on his mood or what he wants from me - I associated him with lonely black wolves or dogs, red colors, dark liminal spaces, construction, tunnels, random graffiti and notes, thick smoke, volcanos, blood, dark clouds, foxes, coyotes and weasels (due to their trickster natures) and the fall-winter half of the year - being the ‘harsh and dead’ time of the year, just how the desert is seen as ‘harsh and dead.’

debnisenu

I’m so into this challenge

We need more Set 👏👏👏

witchofknowledge

I read somewhere that there may be a specific region the Sha comes from and it's not necessarily linked to Set directly in finds from that period and area.

I also read that one of the reasons we don't really have an accurate pronunciation of his name is that his priests intentionally obfuscated his name in their writings using wordplay and puns.

egypt-museum-deactivated2021071

Aegis of Isis

Bronze aegis of Isis, the Egyptian goddess whose worshiped as the ideal wife, mother and patron of nature and magic.

Late Period, 26th Dynasty, ca. 664-525 BC. Now in the Private Collection.

Knowledge is more than just knowing

I've been working with deity and spirit for a pretty significant amount of time now, almost six years (that's a long time for me). Arguably longer than that but I'm mainly talking about intentional work. Something I've started noticing is that often a deity or spirit will show me something, or try to show me something, and I can't comprehend it. Sometimes this is a temporary issue, something that I just need to meditate on or let it brew for a bit. But sometimes it feels more akin to a communication issue.

When my mother passed away six months ago, she came to me in dreams almost every night. Some where less dreams WITH her and more ABOUT her, but some it was very obviously her very much being there and wanting my attention.

She couldn't speak to me in these dreams, it was as if she wanted to but there was static interference. She then tried to communicate with me via symbols, which again I didn't understand. So she resorted to something I did know. Memory. She used context from our shared memory to help her get her message across. It was essentially as follows:

"I am safe. I am happy. I am with family and loved ones. I am proud of you."

What I see here is that there is often a knowledge gap between us as human beings and of entities. We don't have the same contextual background (whatever that means to a timeless, otherworldly being).

So, entities often need to get creative. If you work with deities it's very likely you have what I call an 'initiation moment'. Maybe you had a dream of a certain deity, or group of deities even, claiming you as their own, or striking a deal with you. Maybe it was in a moment of great need and you had to go digging to find exactly who or what it was. Maybe it was a long drawn out flirtatious dance that doesn't really have a precise 'moment' at all.

They come to us in different ways, using different methods of communication, because they know that we perceive things differently to them.

They also know MORE. More than we can possibly know. Side effect of being timeless and omnipotent. So, they also need to curate their message into a format that we'll understand.

We don't know what we don't know, so when a deity or spirit tries to show us something that we don't know, that is completely alien to our own understanding, it's fairly reasonable to assume we're just not going to get it without some guidance.

In my own personal experience with my deities, They will often show me something I don't understand intentionally. As if they're reminding me of what I don't know. That there are some things that are unknowable to me. It can also be a word of caution to stay in my lane, to listen to others with different experiences than my own, to learn and grow that knowledge and understanding, so that one day I may be able to look back and say

Ah, now I understand. Thankyou.

******************

After writing this out, I feel as if I could go on forever. I've had to stop myself from going on too many tangents and waxing poetic.

I've been told time and time again that I need to write a book or start a 'real blog'. Maybe one day that will be a thing, but for now I'm more than content with sharing my scatterbrained musings whenever and however I feel called to.

#witchcraft #witch #pagan #paganism #polytheism #pagan polytheism #deity work #deity #spirit work

metro-mtp

I was finally able to do a proper drawing of Djehuty with some new pencils, I think he’ll appreciate it. Dua Djehuty!

hornedsnakeofanwyn

Dua Aset, blessed is the earth you walk upon, blessed is the sky you gaze upon, blessed is the water you bathe yourself in. May all things praise you, may the winds be your heralds and the stars be your servants. May my prayers reach your ear, great goddess, and may you deem me worthy of your favor. Dua Aset!

inonibird

Felt like animating, and along came Set.

inonibird

I’ve been getting a lot of asks about Stick-Gods lately, mainly whether I plan to work on it again anytime soon.

Answer: First off, I’m flattered that so many people enjoy my silly comics and stupid puns! When I’m inspired to work on it again, I will. I haven’t been drawing much lately in general; mostly writing, actually. But inspiration comes in waves and the S-G tide hasn’t come in in a while. Let’s just call it an indefinite hiatus.

That said, here’s Sekhmet in an outfit better adapted for kicking ass.

finelythreadedsky

the myth of persephone is about the trauma of the separation of mothers and daughters by marriage and this is the hill i will die on

finelythreadedsky

To be clear I’m not against retellings that reinterpret the relationship between Hades and Persephone and present it as consensual and healthy– I do think there’s something incredibly powerful about looking at a story that’s been passed down to us through millennia about a girl being kidnapped and raped and saying “no. No, that’s not the kind of story I want to hear, that’s not the kind of story I want to tell, and that’s certainly not the kind of story I want my daughters to grow up on.” (Although I think it’s disappointing that these are now the only sorts of Persephone retellings we get, and at this point it’s really not a particularly revolutionary take, given how often it’s been done.)

But I also think we do a great disservice to the women of the ancient world by not remembering how this story, in that form, mirrored their very real pain. I’ve been thinking recently about how we can tell that women participated in the formation of their culture’s folklore because women’s trauma is embedded in it. (In Greek terms, the stories of Leto and Alcmene very clearly come out of women’s traumatic experiences with childbirth, and there are elements of women’s traumatic experiences of sexual assault embedded in, for example, the stories of Daphne or Callisto or Artemis and Actaeon) And the story of Persephone comes out of women’s experiences of being permanently separated from their mothers and daughters at marriage. (See also this post from @gardenvarietycrime.)

For an ancient woman sending her daughter off to be married, knowing that she will see her only rarely and that the odds of death in childbirth were high, Persephone meant something. For an ancient girl leaving her mother and her entire world for a man she may never have met knowing the same, Persephone meant something. I do think a lot of the conflation of death and marriage in the ancient world comes out of this: that a girl is dead to her mother and her family whether she leaves them to go to a husband’s house or the house of Hades. Maybe it’s a consolation to know that someone else has done this before you, to know that a goddess once lost her daughter and a goddess once lost her mother the same way you are losing yours. And that they survived it.

Essentially I think we need to remember that this myth (like all myths and all folklore) is not necessarily entirely the product of men, that women’s voices and women’s trauma remain embedded in it despite all of our written sources being men’s tellings of the story. And when we retell it we risk losing those voices if we are not careful and if we dismiss the myth as it survives today as solely men’s version of the story.

thetwinhalls

Happy Aset Luminous! I’m out today celebrating with a friend, but I scribbled this out before I left. Aset has always intimidated me a bit, but I’m hoping to connect with Her more in the coming years, especially since she keeps ringing my doorbell… >^> Now I’m slowly peeking through the opening.⁣ ⁣ The end of the Kemetic Year is approaching fast! Hope she likes it! ⁣ ⁣ #kemetic #kemeticart #egyptian #aset #ese #isis #goddess #egyptiangoddess #dailydoodle #TTHart https://www.instagram.com/p/BzbCNdUpYcU/?igshid=13ur9fybl853z