So despite recent activity I don’t think arguing with most TERFs is really worth it. You can quote scientific journals, actual writings from antiquity, and the like, but it won’t do any good, because it’s not about science or history or any of that, it’s about excluding people.
It’s the same with white supremacists in Heathenry, it’s not really about “preserving the culture” if it was, they’d actually be participating in cultural activities and encouraging others to participate, it’s about making Heathenry their “white boys’ club”.
TERFs in the Pagan/polytheist community: [insert transphobic comment here]
Also TERFs in the Pagan/polytheist community: I worship Freyja (brother had trans/gnc priests, and then there’s seidr), Inanna (who “turns men into women and women into men”), and Aphrodite (who has a genderqueer child and a masculine form who may or may not be that same child).
In conclusion, all ur fave goddesses love trans people.
It’s amazing how some Heathens will talk big about how they’re part of a “manly warrior religion” and then say shit like “well I didn’t stand up to bullying/speak out against an abuser/call out homophobia, sexism, racism etc. BECAUSE FRITH.
Meanwhile they can’t seem to have any conversation about Heathenry without it devolving into an argument.
Back in 2012 someone posted a photo of an offering they made to Loki and it was a little premade spongecake. And polytheist Tumblr was in an uproar about it because ‘that’s not an adequate offering to Loki’ and some other bullshit. But it sparked a discussion about gatekeeping in the polytheist communities, how canon lore goes deeper than the gakekeepers think it does, and fuck it- they’re your gods, honor them how YOU want to!
So some people use the day to honor Loki, but I use the day to honor my deities in ways that are completely appropriate, but to an outside perspective may look silly or amateurish.
Such as:
Or bumming a cigarette off a co-worker to make this in the parking lot of a Baby’s R Us to make this:
It’s gonna be a little harder now that I work in a place that has significant security, but I am not above making offerings to the gods by the dumpster behind Hallmark.
Hello friends. I am an avid stone hoarder collector and over the years I have learnt some things because I’m a clod and do stupid things sometimes.
(Sources are trusted as mere references and my own experience, that being, be sensible with rocks, just because a website says they won’t kill you don’t lick it, rub it on your face or throw it at people…)
So…
DO NOT WATER CLEANSE (or make Elixirs out of):
Anything under a mohs hardness of 7 —- check it out on Wikipedia it should have general scale of what the mineral’s hardness is. If you really want to water cleanse a stone, you should be okay with anything higher than five. Some common ones here. This is a precaution to stop it crumbling away into nothing or dissolving, as I did when I took a chunk of azurite to the pool. Yikes.
If it looks brittle in anyway, like Selenite and box-y looking quartz or even geodes, if it’s light, like Jet, or glittery and rough textured – like azurite, stay away from water.
Any mineral that is bastardly poisonous —- Malachite being the obvious one – heard a few horror stories of poor clods being poisoned by that, for the love of God not bismuth (its a metal, why do they even sell that, sheesh) sulfur are all no-nos. Most of that list will not kill you if you get the residual water on your hands, but hey, lets not risk mercury poisoning.
(I checked three ‘crystal healing’ books and not one mentions this kind of stuff – I mean, wow, you mention every stone on the planet including oozyflappychappy-ite from the deep jungles of timbuktu of which only four exist but not make a list of the ones that can kill you?)
Any metals! – Haematite, Copper and Bismuth, again, come to mind.
Anything dyed. – I’ve had dyed howlite and turquoise fade in the sun.
Anything that’s translucent! —- The quartz family, agates and fluorite are common culprits for fading in the sun.
——-
Some other basic precautions are sound cleansing, if you’re using a tuning fork with a small, “soft” stone, it may well be brittle. Same with passing things through flame, brittle stones might be a bitch to clean if you blacken them.
Tumbled and polished stones, very hard and common garden varieties that anyone can name are usually approachable and safe.
Necromancy is a form of witchcraft that has been practised all over the world by a great number of cultures, communities, and faiths for a very, very long time.
But,… what is Necromancy?
When defined by the search engine, Google, Necromancy is as follows:
“Necromancyˈnɛkrə(ʊ)mansi/” Noun
The supposed practice of communicating with the dead, especially in order to predict the future.“alchemy, necromancy, and other magic practices”.
Witchcraft, sorcery, or black magic in general.
Origin: Middle English nigromancie, via Old French from medieval Latin nigromantia, changed (by association with Latin niger, nigr- ‘black’) from late Latin necromantia, from Greek (see necro-, -mancy). The spelling was changed in the 16th century to conform with the late Latin form.
Comes from the Greek “Nekros” (”corpse”) and “manteia” (”prophecy”).
Witchcraft isn’t a single or closed tradition and people enjoying themselves with tarot cards they got at a Halloween store or a pentacle they got at Spencer’s isn’t cultural appropriation!
may the bridges I burn light the way 