#polytheists

Okay so my bestie is no longer my friend. Told me over text that she was cutting ties with me permanently. (On Monday)

She changed all (most of) her classes. She had French the period after lunch. Every day for this whole school year I've walked past her classroom (since it's on the way to my next class) and see her and wed walk to science together.

Yesterday, I was just thinking "you know what I want? I wanna see her. Even just a bit of her face in the hallway. I just wanna see her." Guess what. Whole she was walking out, I SAW HER. Cawinky-dink. Right. Yeah.

Last night, before bed, and before dchool today, I was thinking "I wanna see her face in the morning." GUESS WHO JUST WALKED PAST ME. (Like from down the hall).

Can anyone tell me what's going on? This happens 24/7 to me, like the gods like me enough that they'll grant my requests no questions asked, but it's just weird now. If you can think of why I'd be greatful. Thank you <3

Side note: when we had a falling out in November, I was doing the same thing, just thinking "you know what's be great? If we've made up before 2026 starts."

We were texting all day long on Dec 24th, 26th, and she came over right before break ended in January.

Well the short answer is heavy scholarship.

The long answer is that through scholarship we can actually glean a lot about the pagan practices from the written sources. The monks (generally) weren't interested in being deceiving about the myths and practices they were writing about. Some are obviously Christian influenced, like the book of invasions for example. They add the lineage to Noah (as a way of making the Irish peoples 'authentic' in the new church) but the other stories appear to be left more or less untouched and can therefore pretty safely be assumed to be from the pagan oral history. So in this example we can pick out the obvious Christian influence and continue on. Some Christian adjustments are reflections of the writers simply not understanding what they're recording anymore, most surviving manuscripts are from the ~11th-12th century but they have chunks of text from much earlier centuries. By the time the copiers of the surviving texts got to the sections of pagan information they generally had absolutely no idea what was being talked about anymore and just did their best to make it understandable to their readers.

Early Christianity in Ireland (and other insular Celtic areas) is also pretty fascinating because they pretty much were left to their own devices in the power void left by the collapse of Rome so they just adapted their existing faith beliefs to the new god. Later in around the... I want to say 11st century... When the Roman Church really started gathering them back into the orthodox fold higher ups were VERY concerned about a number of "blasphemous" teachings they were hearing about out of Celtic peoples. There are letters from various Roman officials voicing these concerns to leaders of different diocese in the British Isles and basically being told back "look... its unorthodox but I promise they really DO believe in God and the Church, they're just... weird out here..." and I know of at least one missionary that was excommunicated (I want to say someone petitioned to have it reversed) because of their "heretical" teachings. So there is actually a lot that can be gleaned about pagan teachings by looking at the early church in that area as well; which can always be cross referenced with the literary and law practices for continuity.

Lastly there is archeology which can sometimes back up the information we know from writings or bring new light to various practices (like human and animal sacrifices or what areas saw routine festival practice)

I thank You, Ancestors For all my Siblings For all my Brothers For all my Sisters For all my Kyn Ancestors by Blood and Bone Ancestors by Adoption Ancestors by Lineage Ancestors by Spirit Disir Fedrar Ergi þverr Thank You for Life Thank You for Your Blessings Thank You for Your Protection Thank You for Your Power Thank You for Your Healing Thank You for Your Wisdom Thank You…

Redoing the title for this sermon because the original was something of a misfire.

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