Criss's Tumblr

[image description: An inky cat - almost a silhouette - sits tall in profile, a glowing red-orange circle (with curled banderoles from at  top and sides) haloing her head. Behind her, an almost card-like scaled golden background, and behind that, the deep blue-black of space. Text reads, “160, A VOID ~ THE SMALL CAT OF BEING MISUNDERSTOOD ~ after the great Théophile Steinlen”]

• • • • • 

The first thing she remembers is warmth, tiny bodies crashing over her own as they fought for a share of their mother’s milk.  Warmth, and a purr that was the world, the sweet vibration of a mother’s love.  The voices in the distance barely registered with her:

“One cat was one cat too many.  You can’t keep six of them.  Those kittens have to go.”

“But Mama—”

“The kittens or the whole damn cat!  One or the other!”

Then she remembers hands, grabbing her and pulling her away from her littermates, from her mother, stuffing her into a cold, rough sack while her mother meowed piteously in the background, broken-hearted and confused.  A door slammed.  The meowing stopped.  And then there came cold, freezing cold, and wetness, and one by one her brothers and sisters stopped moving, and still she fought, furious, cold and wet and tiny and angry, until again, hands, pulling the sack out of the water,  pulling the surviving kittens out into the light.

After that came warmth again, and bottles held by human hands, and fosters who cared so much about the tiny lives in their care, but who knew from the beginning that they couldn’t save them all.  After that came open eyes, and light, and a world.  A world so big and so filled with beautiful things…for the cats who got to leave the shelter.  Her brother, born with a white patch over half his face, got to go.  Her sister, calico and striking, got to go.  And she, black as midnight, stayed.

“We’re sorry, sweetie,” said the volunteers, after yet another open day when no one took her home.  “It’s hard for the black cats.  They don’t understand how wonderful you are.”

And she purred, for them, and she played, for them, and she stopped trying to be charming, for the people who came every second Saturday.  She didn’t need them to understand her.  She wasn’t going anywhere.

She spent her whole life at that shelter, and when new black kittens came in, she taught them how to be cute and coy, how to flirt with the potential adopters.  How to find themselves a home.  And one night, when she went to sleep, a strange dog was waiting for her.

“Hello!” it said.  “Hello, I love you!”

The dog, it transpired, was named Adora, and Adora was a small god.  Not a large god, not life or death or anything of the like, but a small god, of imaginary friends.  And the cat, who had never had a name she truly felt was hers to keep or claim, had done enough for the kittens in her care, the misunderstood and the overlooked, that they were offering her the chance to be the same.  She could be a small god.  She could choose her portfolio.  She could do anything.

Anything but go back to the shelter, where her unbreathing body had already been found by a weeping volunteer.  That time was finished.

She looked at the dog.  She looked at the crying people who had been her only friends.  She wrapped her tail around her legs.

“I am A Void,” she said, “and I will be a small cat for the misunderstood.”

She takes her duties very seriously.  She is with those who are judged unfairly, who speak too fast or too loudly or not enough.  Who are out of step or out of fashion, who never get their points across.  She is with them all, and while she does not love as freely as Adora, she cares for all who bear her banner.  She cares so very deeply.

[image description: A tan, winged creature with large black eyes is frowning. She is made of paper bags and her hair, compost and trash. Text reads, “219, RHEA ~ small god of recycling”]

• • • • •

Rhea believes, truly and completely, that there’s no reason to throw anything away.  Everything can be recycled, reclaimed, turned into something new: a plastic bag can become a tire, a tire can become a road, a delicious dinner can become a compost heap can become a whole new garden.  Zero waste may or may not be something that can be accomplished, but she’s willing to give it the old divinity try, and with the powers of the universe behind her, she might well be able to get there.

If more people followed her, we would waste less.  We would save more.  We might make a better world for ourselves.

Sadly, her message, while a good one, is too easily twisted and misrepresented by people who want to turn it into a form of piousness, who want to claim that recycling, as an act of personal responsibility, can absolve them from the need to do things on a larger level.  They paint pretty lies in the language of sustainability, claiming that all things can be recycled so perfectly that they heal the world.  They say paper can always be remade, and say nothing of harsh chemicals needed to ease the process along.  They say all plastics can be reclaimed, and say nothing of the complications or the risks.

Rhea is looking forward to the day when she can recycle them, body and soul, into something of more use.  Or perhaps she’ll pass them to her sisters, for their own purposes.  Sharing is the one thing they all keep in common, after all, and she loves to share.

Next time you have a can or a bottle in your hand, think of Rhea.  Find the nearest recycling bin.  She, and the world, will thank you.

So will your children, and tomorrow. 

• • • • •

Join Lee Moyer (Icon) and Seanan McGuire (Story) Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for a guide to the many small deities who manage our modern world:

Tumblr: https://smallgodseries.tumblr.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/smallgodseries

Instagram: https://instagram.com/smallgodseries/

[image description: A tiny big-eyed butterfly-like being with stained glass wings and a gadget-adorned metallic body sports a hat made from a discarded T-Rex toy, looking up hopefully. Behind and blow them, gears spin. Text reads, “Rhea small god of reuse, 221”]

• • • • •

Much like her sisters, Rhea and Rhea, Rhea believes, all the way to the bottom of the bones she may or may not have (being a god, and hence nebulous in form and physicality) that there’s no reason anything should be thrown carelessly away.  A shoe, too worn out to be worn, can become a clever pot for a small plant; a bra, past its use date, can be turned into lockpicks and wound covers and even shell fasteners for an injured turtle.  The world is full of reusable things!  And if we regift and reuse everything until it’s really and truly used up beyond discussion, we can recycle it then, when it’s finally finished.

She is the small god of upcycling and repair, of reuse and repurposing, and she knows what she wants, and what she wants is for you to use that milk jug as an irrigation system.  What she wants is for you to understand your possessions so completely that you can think of a hundred ways to use them.

What she wants is for you to respect the items that devote their lives to making your life better.

Sometimes her position overlaps those of her sisters, and that doesn’t bother any of them.  They know how to share.  An item which passes through all three sets of hands will be an item which is honored, cherished, and truly understood in its time, before it inevitably passes into the palaces of memory, where the gods of the inanimate will gather it close, respecting what it is, what it was, and what it never had the opportunity to be.

Rhea is a god of change and transformation, and she welcomes us as we chart new life paths, as we find new means of being entirely ourselves, as we discover our destinies down paths surprising or familiar.  She will help us to remake ourselves if that is what we desire.  She is always happy to help.  She just wants everything—and everyone—to be used to the very best possible effect.

She cares for the things she protects.  She will protect you too, if you allow her.

She will also hang a windchime made of forks from your porch rail while you’re not looking, but that’s a small enough thing.  That can probably be ignored.

• • • • •

Join Lee Moyer (Icon) and Seanan McGuire (Story) Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for a guide to the many small deities who manage our modern world:

Tumblr: https://smallgodseries.tumblr.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/smallgodseries

Instagram: https://instagram.com/smallgodseries/

[image description: A fancy bower bird with a large yellow eye and a jaunty red beret perches on a colorful pile of ribbons, paper, jars, and bags on a table in a closet packed full of fabrics and other crafty objects. Test reads: “artie bower the small god of crafting hoards 229”]

• • • • •

“Oh, yeah, we’ve got the good stuff.  Cold water-pressed paper from France, hand-spun alpaca wool from a tiny organic farm in upstate New York, glitter mined by the hands of the oreads living deep beneath Mount Olympus, anything your little crafter’s heart desires!  We can get you kitted out right and proper, and all we ask is that you pay at the front till and leave a little something for Artie in his shrine by the door.  He likes buttons and scraps of cloth or paper.  Pretty things.  Useful things, but not too useful, if you get my drift—he doesn’t like feeling the pressure to actually USE the things he has.

“I can tell just by looking at you that you’re one of his.  You may craft on occasion, but mostly, you have.  You glory in the having.  Maybe sometimes you dream about having even more, about being able to make everyone you know jealous without lifting a finger or spending a penny.  And that’s okay!  You know what they say: he who dies with the most yarn is still dead, but wow did he have a lot of yarn.

“What, is that not what they say?  Huh, I must have gotten that wrong…

“There’s nothing wrong with Artie’s service, no shame in a little stash or in shopping the good sales, building up your stockpile against the lean times.  But when your crafting closet goes from pantry to preserve, it may be time to step back and serve another of the craft-oriented gods for a little while.  All the yarn in the world isn’t as valuable as a single set of socks, hand-knitted with love.  Things want to be used.  Life wants to be enjoyed.

“So let yourself use them.  Enjoy what you have while you’re still here to enjoy it.  Artie will understand.  Artie will even celebrate with you, because every piece used is a piece to be replaced, and there’s nothing Artie loves more than a good haul of fresh and new.

“Just remember to make something, if you can.”

• • • • •

Join Lee Moyer (Icon) and Seanan McGuire (Story) Monday, Wednesday, and  Friday for a guide to the many small deities who manage our modern  world:

Tumblr: https://smallgodseries.tumblr.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/smallgodseries

Instagram: https://instagram.com/smallgodseries/

Don’t get me wrong, I love and appreciate the beautiful aesthetic a lot of posts on Tumblr have going on, but that’s not even close to real life for me.

Sometimes I scroll through the witchcraft tag and see nothing but beautiful selfies and elaborate spells with three paragraph long ingredients lists and just feel so overwhelmed just by trying to imagine having to set up and maintaining a space in my life neatly enough to pull that off.

It feels like they have little to do with my craft.

I admire the witches that have the spoons or patience to make witchcraft, a thing that in my life has always gone hand in hand with desperation, look so pretty.

But this is my reminder to all of you that witchcraft can be messy if you need it to be.

It’s a reminder that: witchcraft can be and is desperate and hopefull, planed and executed within minutes and used when needed.

That some witchcraft doesn’t know full from new moon, but it does know ‘Please, please, please!! This has to work!’ by heart.

It knows ‘I’m feeling like laying tarot cards right now’ and ‘I wonder if I can make runes from polymer clay?’

It always knows.

If you are a super aesthetic witch? Great! I’m sure your magic enjoys being arranged artfully.

But if you are a messy, lost soul that needs help more than beauty? Your magic knows and it is there to help.

Your witchcraft knows you. It’ll come when you call.

(secret bonus: the other side of her tag)

It’s so easy to forget about a form of cleansing that is so relieving and fulfilling. Phone cleansing!

What white people hear: never use sage ever, don’t ever buy it, don’t own it, don’t even look at it.

Look, y’all. There’s a couple of facets to my talk today.

1) Yes! You can buy sage! You really, truly can! Buy it from either native sellers (go to a powwow! Eat our food, buy our stuff, watch some dancing!) Or buy it from a seller who sources the sage from native people. Pick one. And no, buying it from 5 Below doesn’t count.

2) you CANNOT smudge. This isn’t just you “shouldn’t”— this is a YOU ARE INCAPABLE OF SMUDGING. Waving a sage stick around your doorways IS NOT SMUDGING. It is smoke clensing. Smudging, depending on the tradition and tribe, could easily have dancing and drums involved. You, as a white person, do not have the cultural BACKGROUND to even know how it works. At all. Period.

3) please, for FUCKS SAKE, stop making posts here on tumblr where you tell other white people about cultural appropriation and what they can and cannot do. Please stop, your license has been revoked because none of you bother to get the facts right. We native people are FULLY CAPABLE OF DOING IT OURSELVES. Consider instead: a) reblogging our posts where we talk about it! We’re here! We have made posts!! b) Making a post that states what we said and then LINKS BACK TO US. Screenshot with a link if you must. Stop centering your own voices in these conversations. You are already centered in everything, stop centering yourselves in a native space.

I’m tired of this nonsense, y’all.

Phone wallpapers // Gods and modern issues

The other day I got a worried person asking “why I bring politics into this” and why I am “not going to give an apology” to them because I don’t tolerate racism, xenophobia or misogyny. It was… the clumsiest attempt at emotional manipulation I’ve yet faced. I really hope that Nazis and their friends learn to read some day, because I think I do have it written down on this blog in several places that hey, fuck off.

These are from me to you, use as phone backgrounds if you want to! Click on them on my blog or reblog them to your own (I would appreciate it if you use any!) to get the full-size pictures.

1 TYR - 2 SKADI

3 ODIN - 4 FREYJA

5 LOKI - 6 IDUN

Little descriptions under the cut.

Water:

Earth: 

Fire:

 Air: 

okay, so that post about how taika waititi wouldn’t be afraid to use britney spears’ toxic in a fight scene and