Birb Noises

I...tried to make a meme and got carried away and made A Thing that is like partially unfinished because i spent like 3 hours on it and then got tired.

I think this is mostly scientifically accurate but truth be told, there seems to be relatively little research on succession in regards to lawns specifically (as opposed to like, pastures). I am not exaggerating how bad they are for biodiversity though—recent research has referred to them as "ecological deserts."

dude.

Unfortunately, there is no such thing as an unproblematic pagan author. Even the ones who seem like they’re doing things mostly right have their flaws.

Here are the ones to avoid, fullstop:

Silver Ravenwolf - Conflates Wicca and witchcraft, claims only Wiccans are true witches, erases non-Wiccan witches and pagans, constant Christian-bashing, misinformation, false history, cultural appropriation, contradicts herself, hateful rhetoric, racism, history of attacking critics.

D.J. Conway - HUGE problems with incorrect information about deities, questionable interpretations of historical events, also conflates Wicca and witchcraft.

Raymond Buckland - Appropriates closed cultures, uses the g-slur to exoticize certain rituals and techniques, propagates false history (documentary on “The Burning Times” is utter rubbish).

Edain McCoy - Yet more misinformation about deities and history (POTATO GODDESS!?), mostly where it applies to certain Celtic-associated personages and events. Tries to make EVERYTHING Irish, especially when it’s not.

Catherine Yronwode - Racist, perpetual bully, claims LGBTQ+ teens should kill themselves and along with her husband has provided pamphlets and counseling to encourage this, known for attacking people online, threatens critics and pirates with death magic. Oh and she claims New Orleans voodoo is “fake” to bolster her own credibility.

Christian Day - The problem here isn’t so much with his writing as with his personality. The man is a rape apologist and has harassed women on social media on numerous occasions after they’ve called him out for problematic statements, and has threatened other Salem practitioners over personal and business disputes.

Here’s what to look out for with the decent ones:

Judika Illes - Supports Silver Ravenwolf, conflates voodoo and hoodoo, some cultural appropriation.

Scott Cunningham - Outdated information (not his fault, he died in the early 1990s), incorrect correspondences, proponent of “The Burning Times” myth, incorrect history, conflates Wicca and witchcraft.

Tess Whitehurst - Frequently quotes her own beliefs as fact without supporting evidence, conflation of deities and practices.

Ellen Dugan - Vehemently against Christian witches, proponent of “The Burning Times” myth, sometimes conflates Wicca and witchcraft.

S. Connelly - Conflates voodoo and hoodoo, cultural appropriation from both.

Dorothy Morrison - Some cultural appropriation, conflates hoodoo and witchcraft.

Anna Riva - Outdated information (1970s), some appropriation, conflation of voodoo and witchcraft, mild misuse of Christian terminology and rhetoric.

Keep in mind, this list is far from exhaustive, and there are plenty of authors that I have read and not seen problems with, but that may be because I’m not looking at it from the right angle.

For instance, everyone seems to have a problem with Kate West, but I’ve found her books to be helpful and informative and aside from the obvious Wiccan fingerprinting (which you’ll find in most modern pagan literature). And I’m sure someone is going to tell me in the notes of this post exactly what it is I’m missing.

Authors like Cunningham, West, Dugan, Illes, Whitehurst, and Morrison are EXCELLENT resources. I’ve even found redeeming qualities in one of Grimassi’s books (for me, anyway). You just have to know how to pick around the personal opinions they throw into their work and forgive the stuff that doesn’t jive with your way of thinking. Also, fact-check ANYTHING that claims to be representative of actual history. Because chances are that it isn’t.

The important thing with any pagan book is critical thinking. Take things with a grain of salt and include practical research in your studies. Don’t just take pagan authors at their word.

Me: nice

The trees: *rustle slightly in the breeze*

Ogham was a writing system used in Ireland primarily between 400 and 600 CE, which is well after the introduction of Christianity, and therefore the Latin language and alphabet, to Ireland.

Ogham was most likely created by one person with a knowledge of both Latin and Irish.

ALL OF THE EXAMPLES OF OGHAM IN HISTORICAL CONTEXT ARE USED FOR NAME MARKERS.  They all say relatively the same thing: X son of Y (of the family/clan Z).  There is ONE Ogham stone that says X daughter of Y (I think it’s in Wales.  Yeah.), and believe me, I was really excited because the word in Archaic Irish ends with a vowel instead of a consonant.  Otherwise, they’re the same.

ALL OF THEM.

This was incredibly frustrating for me as a linguist trying to write a paper on Archaic Irish. 

Look, I KNOW THIS.  If there were other examples of the use of ogham WITHIN THE TIME IT WAS USED AS A WRITING SYSTEM, I’d probably know.

The letters in Ogham are LETTERS.  THEY WERE USED FOR WRITING AND NOT FOR DIVINATION AND NOT AS RUNES, OKAY.  WITHIN THE HISTORICAL LINGUISTIC CONTEXT, THEY DID NOT HAVE MEANING BEYOND THAT.

The sound [p] does not exist in Ogham, mostly because it was just beginning to exist in Irish at the time Ogham was used as the primary writing system.  On the other hand, [kw] is its own sound, because Irish rocks like that.

These are the sounds that exist in Ogham. Anyone who says differently is selling something:

Ogham is written on rocks, from the bottom up, across a center line.

Newest pokemon eps gave us a flashback with a younger Guzma !