Pagan Ramblings

I love seeing kemetic pagans

I love seeing celtic pagans

I love seeing slavic pagans

I love seeing norse pagans

I love seeing hellenic pagans

I love seeing wiccans

I love seeing eclectic pagans

I love seeing pagans who worship deities of multiple beliefs

I love seeing pagan witches

I love seeing pagans who aren't witches

If you are a Nazi, you have no place in paganism.

(Or anywhere, actually 🙂)

And to clarify (since ya'll need that, apparently), that includes people who are transphobic, homophobic, pro-eugenics (i.e. social darwinism anti-vaxxer people), anti-immigrant, racist, etc.

Ya'll don't belong here, paganism is not a safe place for you, and I don't want you interacting with my blog.

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.

On August 1st, we witches of the Northern hemisphere will celebrate Lammas, also called Lughnasadh. It is now high summer and the union of sun and earth has produced the first harvest. It is a time of gathering in and giving thanks for abundance. Feasting, market fairs, games and bonfires are the order of the day. Active growth is slowing and darker days are coming...

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Rituals to celebrate:

🥳 With people, this is usually the time to gather around a bonfire, to celebrate the blessings of the harvest. Surround yourself with loved ones and make sure to light something - a bonfire or a candle, it doesn't really matter - to celebrate the sun one last time.

🍽️ In the kitchen, learn to play with yeast and bake your own bread. Grains of any kinds are highly thought after in this festival!

🎨 Get crafty, by making corn dolls out of cob husks.

💃 Dress up, with shades of deep yellow, orange and reds to descent of summer into (soon enough) the fall season.

📜 Write in your journal, about what you are harvesting in your life at the moment. What should you hold onto for the winter months?

There was no universal Scandinavian religion, or Slavic, or Celtic.

They were multiple mini cultures with changing and differing views.

That’s why we have different beliefs on who was the ‘High God’ in the Norse myths and physical evidence that we have left. Tyr, Freyr, Odin; have all been the High God in different cultures. Because people didn’t collect under orthodox and shared religion in a pre Christian world the way they do now.