renovations in progress

i like frej and freja as fertility gods, i love hel obviously, i like the idea of three different places after death, also the sun as female and the moon as male

i think reincarnation is real so jot that down

i like cthonic dionysus, pre-dark age persephone, the muses

im putting amaterasu, susanuo, and inari in my religion bag, also ritualistic washing before entering holy space

i think angels are fucking dope and that christianity should stop hoarding all the bird people

i also think that the controversial teamup of saints as a concept and east asian divine cultivation making it possible for a person to become a god has something to it

i couldnt tell you why but i also kinda like the jade emperor, not as a guy but as a concept

i think the nordics might have stolen the idea of the fae living in like the other side of the world, like under the real world, from the celts because thats how ive always thought it was so adding that too in the mix

i dont believe in tumblr brand witchcraft, ive been there before and im not going back, its full of scams

i have aphantasia, i cant manifest shit like some of yall seem to do. "just meditate and imagine god-" my brother in religion i cant imagine an apple to save my life

im EXTREMLY aware and weary of prompting and promotion of delusions and delusional thinking and religious communities are a slippery damn slope from saying "the gods are walking among us" and someone having a paranoid breakdown about it, a cult springing up around someone claiming to be a vessel of a god to powertrip, or someone thinking they are or were a god and hurting themself or others because of that belief

for the third one its very relevant because i do think that gods can take some kind of form to intervene in certain ways

other thoughts: as a writer i love the Zoroastrianism good god vs evil god proxy war thing, as a person who has seen what christians have done with the god vs the devil situation i would rather die that make a capital E Evil god or god faction

i like the vague eldritch horrorification of gods, such as the greatest hits: a gods TRUE form being too much for human minds. but also theoretical and quantum physics are eldritch to me, like the fact that we dont know how shit works and are putting math in it to make rules about it and some of it doesnt even work so we have to invent a square hole to put the square block into

also as my blog will tell you, im orvpilled (which is apparently the same as discworldpilled), gods are made of belief meaning there is no canon, there is no orthodoxy, only the belief all consuming

mmmmm conservation of divinity, if a god "dies" another god takes up their domain. thats more of a religious theory thing though

everything has a soul, even concepts, every soul is equal (thats how people and places can become gods)

Create your own pantheon and belief system in order to make religion fun for yourself

I also like exactly three Greek gods conceptually (Persephone in her most eldritch death goddess incarnations, a wine and mania madness god a la cathonic Dionysus, and Hermes) and who will call the cops on me if I yoink em?

Oh but what about your undying dedication to hel and her underworld? You ask me

Well I do still like the three different death destinations, hel could be in charge of one and Persephone another

I saw one of those "Valhalla does not discriminate against the type of battle you lost" posts go by my dash. I really want to say something but the notes are full of people grieving and saying how much comfort this re-interpretation gave them and I'm not that much of a bastard.

This story of the littlest cancer patient going to Valhalla is kind of upsetting but I struggle to articulate why. It's like Christianity wearing my faith like a costume.

I don't want to call it cultural appropriation because, you know, Norse Paganism/Heathenry/Ásatru is a reconstruction of a dead faith - a (more or less) historically-informed best guess based on scanty surviving evidence (much, if not all, of that Christianised). It's public domain mythology, reuse and remix as you like, etc, etc.

But...

Valhalla is not and has never been a place of rest and healing, and to say it is is to fundamentally misunderstand the mythology. Valhalla is where Odinn is building an army to fight the war at the end of the world. It is not a place for children or victims of domestic violence or cancer patients or anyone like that.

If you're drawn to Norse mythology, if you're grieving and you want to believe that your loved ones are in a better place, let me give you a different story.

It starts with a little girl, a child whom the gods deemed monstrous. Her name is Hela and she's the daughter of Loki, so she every right to claim a home in Ásgard. But, as I said, she was called monstrous for her appearance and her heritage and all but cast out. She was given her own realm, far away from the gods, and tasked with caring for the dead that Odinn (etc) have no use for.

The charge that the gods give this outcast child was considered shit-work. Un-honourable, if not actually dishonourable. An insult for a goddess.

But Hela took that duty with solemnity and made Helheim a home for her wards. It's not a hall full of warriors feasting and drinking and fighting. It's quiet; a rest at the end of a hard life. A place full of children and grandparents, mothers and fathers, farmers and shepherds. You and me.

Helheim, like its mistress, is misunderstood and maligned. When we, who have no place in war, die, Hela will accept us into her hall, care for us, and let us to rest, instead of demanding we keep fighting forever.

In the first dream I almost learned his true name (ironic since the media already has his true names, but it was like a more powerful and somewhat bastardised version of his title)

Wulver: a werewolf in Shetland, that is said to have had the body of a man with a wolf’s head. It was reported to have left fish on the windowsills of poor families.

And im telling you right now from personal experience to always choose being a bitch. No matter how much you like someone, if they can voice their beliefs freely but your own have to be locked up tight while they begrudgingly tolerate them, that's an unhealthy dynamic that is going to boil up and explode one day. And im also telling you from experience that when that explosion happens, the religious person is the one whose side everybody takes, because as an atheist you are seen as inherently aggressive and bigoted towards religious and spiritual people even and especially in "progressive" spaces.