wodneswynn:

wodneswynn:

ei-lena:

thewolfhours:

thespiralpath:

Unfortunately I can no longer recommend Heathens Against Hate as a safe place for:

• People of Color

• Transgender or Gender queer

• Those with Jewish/Islamic heritage/family

• or other LGBTQIA individuals

They have made it clear through interactions on their Facebook group that they place priority on listening and healing racists or racist apologists rather than ensuring their spaces are free of racist apology or rhetoric.

They do not adhere to Declaration 127.

Full documentation in this post

So I’m gonna make a brief reply to this cause I have thoughts on it.

When I was younger, newer to paganism and heathenry and still *very* sheltered, I used to try and do this where I hoped I could “save” these people and have them see the wrongs of their ways. Here’s a secret: I know when we’re young and impressionable it’s super easy to want to like… baby people and and be compassionate to EVERYONE. And I’m not saying don’t!! BUT we need to learn (as I had to) where that compassion is deserving. These people? White suoremacists and folkish heathens? Do not deserve it. You can’t fix them and they’re really very deeply fucked up individuals. It’ll only reach the point until they start dragging you down with them…

So do yourself a favor. Punch a nazi. Or block them.

People CAN change, but in cases of deeply-embedded hate it’s difficult to predict if, when, or what might catalyze a shift. I personally know an actual ex-white-supremacist, and what kicked HIM in the nuts to realize what he was doing was fucked up… his daughter had a half-black child. And he realized he just couldn’t hate this tiny sprog, his own grandbaby. Yeah, we could all wish that people would just… fix their bullshit yesterday, but it’s not realistic to expect it. A lot of times it takes something personal, something unexpected, that can’t be manufactured.

That said… it IS important for channels of deradicalization to exist. Making it easy for people to get out of hateful ideologies and have a support system of some kind rooting for them while they do it can make a big difference for those who’ve already hit some kind of questioning point. That’s inherently not going to be a safe-space for people who need to avoid exposure to hate rhetoric for the sake of their own mental health, but it IS important, difficult work, and I’m glad that there are people who are both willing and able to do it.

Please don’t demonize this group for attempting to provide a path to deradicalization. It sounds like what they’re trying to provide, rather than a safe space for PoC, Jews, and queer individuals, is a safe space for people who aren’t in too deep in the racist bullshit to consider other options, or who have experienced a catalyst to question. And those people desperately need a safe space in which to question – shunning them entirely means that their only option is to talk to other hate-group people who are only gonna pull them in deeper. It doesn’t mean condoning what they believe (that is not deradicalization), it does mean letting them know that they don’t have to be ruled by their path.

If you need to be Not Involved, that’s entirely fine! Looking after your own safety and mental health first is a good thing. I’m also not condemning you if you’re more on the punch-Nazis side. Some people really aren’t gonna change, and making a point at least that acting like that in public is completely unacceptable is still a useful thing to do. Just… please remember that there IS a good reason for at least some people, those who are suited for the work, to do the other thing.

I read the linked post and it doesn’t sound like they’re doing that at all.  It sounds like they’re prioritizing counter-recruitment over the safety and comfort of their extant members.  Which, in action, translates to them enthusiastically supporting the racists.

A space for counter-recruiting boneheads and a safe space for the people that boneheads victimize CANNOT exist in the same physical or virtual spot.  That’s just … ridiculous.  If HAH wants a counter-recruitment space, they should, well, make one.  You DO NOT impose boneheads upon the people that said boneheads actively want to exterminate.

If they didn’t want to present as a safe space for marginalized peoples, then they shouldn’t have presented as a safe space for marginalized peoples. That’s like opening a lemonade stand and then getting all mad when people wanna buy lemonade.

lokeanrose:

corannhena:

grimnirs-child:

lokiwtf:

theemperorsfeather:

skadisman:

theemperorsfeather:

corannhena:

outcasted-animal:

i-spent-two-weeks-in-silver-lake:

lavenderwrath:

i-spent-two-weeks-in-silver-lake:

Kind of disgusted with this “godspouse” thing… Why… People can’t even take sacred things seriously anymore…

I think you should consider looking into it before before writing off the whole concept. The individuals do not make the sum of the thing.

I don’t like the concept. At all. I can’t find anything on it more than a couple years old. I can’t find at literature or formal writings on it. It seems very informal and illegitimate.

Then take a look at mythology. I don’t have the Greek sources but I’ve reblogged links to where it shows up in Egyptian mythology. And then there’s the concept of Bhakti.

intaier

would have more on that.Oh and there is a similar concept in Voodoo but I can’t remember what it’s called.

theemperorsfeather here on Tumblr has a list of links about deity/spirit marriages, including (starting about halfway down) some links regarding such from the 19th, 18th and even back to the 14th centuries: http://theemperorsfeather.tumblr.com/spiritmarriage

The term in vodou is “maryaj lwa.” That IS pretty formal and structured but then vodou has a tradition that goes back longer than modern pagan/neopagan/reconstructionist/whatever faiths.

But a lot of it IS very informal – or appears to be – because most of us writing about it under that term (”godspouse”) have no structured religion to help us out with it. We don’t have convents or monasteries or much in the way of a religious tradition, period, that goes back more than I dunno, how old are pagan reconstructionist religions in the US? 100 years tops? Not very old. And within those faiths there’s little open acceptance of people having sexual or romantic experiences with spirits/deities despite there being lore in multiple traditions that specific mentions people and god getting it on and/or marrying. Add in Western cultures having sex hangups, and hangups about mysticism generally and here we are! Isn’t it fun.

Also, if what you see of it is mostly on Tumblr – well, Tumblr also tends towards a very informal writing style for the most part.

At any rate, it is a personal relationship between the human and the god, and it isn’t really up to any outsider to decide whether some other person’s personal relationships are “formal enough” or “serious enough” to be “legitimate” or respectful to that specific god within that specific relationship. If a group tradition says “if you do that, we consider it disrespectful,” fine, that’s up to the group religion to agree on those things, but I for one am not part of your group religion (or, really, anyone else’s) – your standards do not apply to me.

There is nothing more serious and respectful than taking seriously a deity’s request to interact with Them as They wish you to, and confronting how that can utterly change your life.

If you’re looking for further writing/research, doing searches for “spirit marriage” or “bridal mysticism” (and like, looking through academic writing about literature, esp. analysis of historically known mystics, or anthropology maybe) may be more helpful than “godspouse,” which is a pretty new term.

Godspousing specifically isn’t my thing at all, but it’s a completely legitimate (and absolutely serious) deity/human relationship. I have different ways of interacting with my gods which are no more or less valid and meaningful and true and complete than others.

I wanted to say something about lack of formality in the language and writing style, though.
Just because people speak of something in casual and lighthearted language doesn’t mean they don’t take the subject seriously or have an understanding of the subject (and this is especially common in informal mediums like Tumblr). In fact, sometimes we find ourselves needing to talk about something tremendous and deep and important and we simply do not have the language for it, and so it’s because the subject is so serious that we blather and joke and draw silly comparisons and coin amusing terms. I say this as the person responsible for the phrase “deerpocalypse 2015” to describe a massive and important phenomenon that we simply did not have a word for, and when faced with something that much bigger than myself, I resort to frivolous language.

And godspousing does go much farther back, albeit with different terms and under different paradigms in various cultures and eras.

Bolding for emphasis – totally. It’s a coping mechanism sometimes; I’ve done that even before polytheism, to cope with serious shit in my life. And sometimes, frivolity and etc. is because I’m happy and joyful about what’s going on, and gosh I’m sorry I don’t express that in the right formal serious acceptable ways. (I’m not sorry.)

Reblogging in order to repeat this for emphasis.

There is nothing more serious and respectful than taking seriously a deity’s request to interact with Them as They wish you to, and confronting how that can utterly change your life.

Without even touching the godspouse thing: I’ve had conversations with people — in real life, even, I know almost no one IRL to be talking to about things like this but I was at a small meditation workshop a few weeks ago talking to a very nice witch and this happened — who are shocked, /shocked/ at the idea of claiming ANY personal devotional relationship with a deity. Because, really, who the hell do you think you are, what appalling, delusional pride you must have to imagine that They would ever notice you or communicate or interact in any way with you, what makes you so special.

And I get it. Monotheism hangover issues, the mandatory self-deprecation culture of women in particular, let’s not forget emotional defenses against the appalling possibility of succumbing to hope, and against jealousy, and, oh, all sorts of hells. Trust me, I get it. 

But I think that it’s a fundamental if highly understandable misconstrual of humility. It takes quite a lot of arrogance and pride, when you think about it, to refuse to engage with the reality of the universe that actually presents itself to you on the grounds that to do so would be gauche. And that’s what this whole line of objection amounts to. It feels gauche. Not done. Not what nice, right-thinking, thoughtful, well socialized and educated people do. Vulgar. Against the unspoken rules of gracious behavior. Better to nope out on the entire possibility and simply refuse to contemplate such a thing than to even /consider/ behaving in this presumptuous and appalling manner, compromising one’s image of oneself as sensible etc, associating oneself with people of whom one does not approve, and so on. This feels like humility, it’s socially parsed as humility, but it’s literally the 180-degree opposite. It puts correct social posturing and high-functional culturally dictated hoop-jumping ahead of the devotional relationship. It decenters the deity and centers self-image. 

And the whole argument over godspouses is just the same exact argument, writ at its largest. Why draw the line there in particular? Because it’s too preposterous? So is everything else about all this. Why isn’t it too preposterous to even entertain the idea of deities or incorporeal beings existing? Why choke just here? Where’s the disgust coming from? I mean, seriously ask yourself this. But pour a drink or your preferred equivalent first because you may find that your answers take you into uncomfortable learning territory. Ask me how I know. I am as susceptible to the potent mix of cultural and psychological stealth toxins that drive this thinking as anyone else, maybe more so than average.  I’m still in the process of actively working through a lot of it. But I can at least see it the right way up now and perceive the absurdities and pathologies.

You have the nail on the head here I think, lokiwtf. 

Godspousery is inherently a challenge and a strike against the beliefs that our culture indoctrinates us with in respect to religion and the divine, acceptable behaviour, and “consensus reality”. Because it, of necessity, treats Deities or spirits as fully real, fully individual, fully able to interact with and form emotional bonds with humans. This just goes right against prevailing attitudes of what the divine looks like and what a human’s relationship with that can look like, and perhaps most potently, what reality and sanity looks like. What’s pretense. 

I mean it’s the logical conclusion to understanding that we share a many-layered world with spirits of various forms, which are individual and actual people. But it can push people’s noses right into it in a way that talking in abstracts and keeping things relatively impersonal doesn’t. It forces you to take a good hard look at just what it is you believe and how out of line with the consensus reality of the man in the street those beliefs are.

It’s a lot less scary to think, what if it’s made up? than to consider what if it’s real?

Reblogging again b/c I really like a lot of these replies, especially lokiwtf’s and grimnirs-child’s.

Everyone needs to read all of this right now. EVERYONE.

mothermoonie:

Witches are both because magic is both🌞

spacetheticwitch:

To Witches Who Are Going Back to School

For those in the broom closet, or for those who are open, for baby witches and for the experienced, here are some back to school witch tips to help your school year be magical and spectacular ❤

• Draw sigils on assignments for good grades/to have your teacher appreciate your work, scratch them out really hard/fast or erase them to charge.
• Charm your lip balm to be persuasive, or to be heard!
• Draw a tarot card in the morning to see what you should be aware of for the day, or what you need to work on for the day.
• Stir your morning tea or coffee counter-clockwise to rid bad energy, and stir clockwise to bring in good energy, luck, and any other sort of positive intention.
• If you have a binder that acts as a book of shadows, place sigils on them to keep wandering eyes away.
• Glamours, glamOURS, GLAMOURS!!!!! They work so well if you’re running late. I like to mumble them to myself and mediate on Rose Quartz when I’m in a rush.
• Eat small snacks to keep yourself grounded, and don’t forget to breathe after each class. Trust me, I know it can get frustrating with obnoxious people.
• Charm talismans/amulets/bracelets to help you be on time/remember your homework.
• Put satchets in your lockers/decorate your locker to make it a little safe space or school-friendly altar.
• Keep the list going! I started school Monday and I’m eager to see what else witches can do for school!

answersfromvanaheim:

Oh right I should link to my book.

This is my baby. It was written in a month for NaNoWriMo (2013, I think?). I will eventually write a sequel. It’s about a girl and her companion tree spirit in a world where the deities have decided to step back and let their creations figure things out for themselves.

chironomy:

littlehellenicthings:

Also real talk, but if a god has a problem with a way you’ve behaved around or about them they’ll let you know, kay?

People will whine about how doing this or that is somehow ~disrespectful~ to these great and profound beings but then act like said powerful entities can’t tell their own followers if they dislike something, you know? Seems a bit contradictory, and not in the cool Dionysian way.

IME this is for real and folks who get up in other worshippers’ practices for being “disrespectful” need to drink some water and calm down.