Frozen Toes, Unstuck Heels

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A low fire sitting on a pile of ashes. A charred curlique from a wood carving sits in the forefront. Two screws that held the original carving together are visible just behind.

Sometimes discipline means giving up.

I was lucky that when I officially broke things off with a partner of nine years that the pubmoot was only a few hours later, meaning I had a healthy distraction.

Every moot has a discussion topic, and November’s was discipline. Specifically, what that meant for us.

Most people had the definitions one would expect. Stick to committments. Follow through on promises. Do things you would rather not do, so you get to benefit from the desired outcome.

And that last definition of discipline is exactly why I argued that giving up qualifies. I was making commitments and staying with them long after it became obvious that they wouldn’t pay off, in the vain hope that enough commitment would finally get me the results I wanted.

Never mind that, even if I got what I wanted in the form of cohabitation, the accumulated and unresolved frustrations would have seeped in. The marriage I dreamed about would have only locked me in with those frustrations.

When adherence to the letter runs counter to the spirit, the disciplined thing to do is catch yourself, recognize the dead end and change course.

The time wasn’t wasted because I left. It was wasted because I stayed.

Ewicher Yeeger Sege of 2018 is when I started to realize that the relationship I was clinging to had no future, and even if it did I no longer wanted it.

Three weeks later, I finally made the phone call. We agreed, amicably, that it was sad but a relief.

And I wandered, dazed, from a bedroom that seemed suddenly too cluttered and too empty, to a car, to a pub, to the warm arms of friends.

In the story of Ewicher Yeeger (which you can read here), the Deitsch settlers cleared out trees to open up farmland, only to find out that the soil wasn’t going to suit that purpose. Drought further ruined their prospects of growing food and dried out the soil. When rain finally came, it washed the seeds away. The process of clearing the land of vegetation drove out wildlife that they otherwise could have hunted for survival. And then winter came early, cutting off the chance to flee somewhere else and then, potentially, do it all over again.

Recognizing that they were at the end of their rope, they resorted to making offerings of what little they still had left in the hopes of avoiding starvation.

Ewicher Yeeger brought the Hunt through, with all its noise and fury, and the settlers came out in the morning to a valley full of deer and rabbit–meat and fur that would get them through the winter. A little bit of mercy, and a chance to approach the next growing season more responsibly.

I didn’t put it all together until June, when Rob and I took the scenic route to my house after another pub moot. He mentioned that he suspected Ewicher Yeeger had a role in my reaching out to my local Heathen community about 18 months prior. I had always compared my entry into the scene to falling down the well, and I also figured it was mostly Loki who did that nudging, plus my own stubbornness.

But, Rob explained, I’d been living in my own Allemaengel up until very recently. I had spent most of my life feeling deprived or trapped in some way in my interpersonal relationships. It was once I decided I was willing to risk change, not certain I would get the desired result, that game was driven in and the valley became livable. I gained access to a community that actively welcomed me, supported me and recognized what I had to offer.

I had lost a lot by virtue of simply going through life and constantly smashing bad choices up against bad luck, hoping I’d get sparks.

But that rapidly shifted once I was ready to give up a little more, giving up smarter rather than giving up harder. Resisting change didn’t work. Letting life happen to me didn’t work. But the temporary pain of offering hay and cloth, or a difficult conversation and the loss of a lover, or walking a mile down a road with no shoulder in the cold and dark because there were places to be and people to meet, were all rewarded handsomely.

As another friend of the kindred pointed out, Ewicher Yeeger is a god of second chances, but only when you’re ready to admit there’s a problem. Only when you’re ready to do something different. Those who dig in their heels, escalate their commitment, and sink more resources into a lost cause without being open to changing course aren’t able to benefit from what he can offer them.

He is a death deity in a very literal sense, but as his myth shows he has a lifegiving aspect, and folk tradition in practice suggests this is how he’s best known. And death doesn’t have to be literal. In practice, in modern-day paganism, it’s almost never literal anyway. What I’ve understood as my experience with him is about metaphorical death–life transitions, painful change, and shifts in perspective. Letting something end so something else can start.

Perhaps a god of people ready to start living.

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Rachel, Jack and Loki Too

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If you haven’t seen the “Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too” episode of Black Mirror (S5E3), then the next few paragraphs contain vague spoilers.

“Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too” was the story of a pop star straining against being turned into a commodity. Except a whole ton of technology has to be involved in this, because it’s Black Mirror. One of these high-tech commodities was a robot toy named Ashley Too, which holds conversations, sings and dances to Ashley O songs, and spouts a bunch of inspirational pre-recorded phrases. Basically, a way for superfans to have their own little personal Ashleys.

When Ashley stopped voluntarily producing, she was put into a coma by her manager, leaving behind a consciousness uploaded into a ton of mass-produced machines, and a bunch of songs translated from brainwaves and carefully filtered through some chirpy demon vocaloid.

Because, apparently, going full Zechariah Sitchin but then putting in a firewall (or something?) was more cost-effective.

An adoring fan and her sister hacked her toy robot, basically liberated that digitized consciousness, liberated the real Ashley, exposed the evil manager, and everyone lived happily ever after except, sorta, for Rachel.

Wikipedia has a far more thorough synopsis.

When I was watching this episode, I thought a lot about the conversations I and another friend would have every time the typical weirdness would go down in a Lokean group we helped moderate. Or, tried to moderate. We were undermined a lot.

A theme we would hit upon fairly regularly was that we seemed to be dealing with a very different Loki than a lot of the more outspoken types were.

The Loki described in many of these posts was very one-dimensional. Suspiciously convenient in how annoying, or involved, or loving or helpful he was. Always available, always clearly recognizable, flawless visuals and audio, always somehow exactly what the poster wanted. Everything is beautiful and nothing hurts.

Yes, even when they’re getting pranked or driven up the wall, because people derive gratification from the aesthetics of hardship.

Our pet theory was that, assuming it was an external entity and not just their imaginations, these people were dealing with a very well-fed thought form. Ashley Too was a dumbed-down product that provided access to a beloved figure like Ashley O, without any of the threats involved in genuine interaction like incompatibility, rejection or pesky little boundaries. These people were talking about a Loki Too, basically.

Irrespective of whether people were interacting with some kind of egregore, or if they were all simply allowing their imaginations to align, they related to Loki as an instrument to get their needs met. He’s commodified. He’s a sanitized product with all the rough edges sanded off, and simplified to this lazy idea of some red-headed iron woobie, who likes to relentlessly prank everyone and endlessly tolerate being blamed for it, because trickster.

That’s not how it works. And even the trickster label is an oversimplification. They get pigeonholed as villains, or “chaos,” or whatever is most convenient for the audience at that particular moment. Every so often I will come across very simplistic assumptions based on Loki being variable. “He’s whatever he needs to be,” and “well, he’s a shapeshifter,” may be true. But they also miss the point entirely when we are talking about people projecting their own desires onto a god.

Which happens a lot.

But, why did it so often happen that whatever Loki allegedly needed to be somehow lined up so perfectly with what people, very obviously reaching out for attention, needed him to be? How does someone like Loki become a cosmic vending machine that you can just endlessly take from, without any regard for reciprocation, or compensation, or autonomy? How does Loki become a product for consumption?

I don’t think it’s coincidence that literal products based on the gods have been rather popular for the past eight years, and Loki just so happened to have a spike in popularity that fits in that timeline.

Not every Lokean is in this for Hiddles. Obviously. But we can’t pretend like these two things don’t have a definite correlation, and probably a causative correlation. And quite frankly, if people lack the discernment skills to tell the difference between “Marvel is involved” (what I am saying) and “you’re not a real Heathen” (what I’m not saying), then I’m no longer interested in their bruised egos.

The simple fact is that the suits and desk-jockeys at Marvel headquarters are not your friends.

They do not care about you, or your gods, or your practice, or your dreams, or your amusing anecdotes, or your UPG. They want your money.

They want your fics and your fanart and your fandom fights and your Marvel Loki figurines on your shrine, because they’re free advertising. They profit off of your emotional responses and your defensiveness.

When we allow our gods to be simplified and packaged for sale, we are allowing them to be forgotten as fully-formed personalities. We allow them to be stripped of their individualities, their complexities, and our ability to think of them as entire entities. We allow our gods to disappear into a list of attributes and correspondences and listicles of the top five most fucked up incidents in Norse Mythology.

We allow our gods to become objects.

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Goddess Worship Doesn’t Replace Feminist Praxis

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There’s an assumption that pagan faiths tend to be more feminist than Christianity.

A lot of us also like to pretend that sub-cultures, such as the pagan community, are less misogynistic. Because if we’re questioning one or two societal beliefs, the rest fall like dominoes, right?

Except they don’t.

The overwhelming majority of pagans were raised either in specifically Christian households, or in secular households where the culture was distinctly Christian in character. If you live in basically any “western” country, that means you. You get time off for Christian holidays by default. The social mores you are expected to comply with are mostly of Christian origin. Your surprised utterances namedrop Jesus.

You are culturally Christian, and you carry Christian ideas into your paganism if you don’t examine them and pick them apart.

Similarly, you grow up in a patriarchy. You live in a society where men have decision-making power that is disproportionate to their actual needs and membership in the population. Ideas about men and women make appeals to a meaningless biological authority (and this is to say nothing about trans and/or non-binary people; patriarchy doesn’t consider them). Women are considered simply less capable, less intelligent, less rational, less trustworthy–less worthy, in general. Your angry utterances compare women to depersonalized body parts and dogs.

And pagan communities are not going to be an exception to this because, as religions full of converts, full of people raised in culturally Christian kyriarchy, we have been receiving that kind of training since we were born. It does not disappear without deliberate effort, and it definitely doesn’t disappear overnight.

The presence of a capital-G-Goddess, or a multitude of goddesses, would seemingly point to a collection of religious traditions in which women are valued. Women are more likely to have leadership roles in pagan communities, certainly, and we have a strong historical precedent for it in the traditions we’re trying to revive in modern paganism. It’d be out of line for me to say that’s not at least a little better than Christianity.

But if the existence of goddesses and gythjas was going to eliminate misogyny, don’t you think Heathens, who have more goddesses than gods, would have been the most feminist-y feminists to ever femin-exist?

And they’re not. A lot of those goddesses are known solely from a list of names. And if anything, we’re probably considered particularly misogynistic by pagan standards, which has a lot to do with the two centuries of our mythology being used and corrupted by the pan-Germanists. And the Theosophists. And the nationalists. And the Literal Fucking Nazis.

And this ties directly into the idea of woman-as-resource, woman-as-object, woman-as-weapon, woman-as-poison. Mentalities in which women are both a threat and a resource to be controlled and contained.

Because Christianity doesn’t have a monopoly on being used as an instrument of hegemony, either.

But misogyny isn’t always that overt, that aggro, that in your face. Sometimes it’s subtle–if only because we are only trained to recognize and push back on the obvious, allegedly-abolished misogyny.

Your goddess-worship might not only be a distraction from the task of ending misogyny, but also a vehicle for misogyny.

Which seems impossible, at first glance. It’s very logical to argue that by recognizing the authority of a woman, you hold a mentality that women are worth listening to and taking instruction from.

But there is a very common mentality in people who want Feminist Ally Brownie Points without having to really change anything, who repeat certain ideas as if they were magical incantations. They respect women. Why, in fact, women are better! Smarter! More competent and capable! Except this role-reversal simply flips the script instead of addressing the underlying dynamics–which is that one class of person must be suppressed so that another class of person can flourish. And it also fails to acknowledge how misogyny pushes women to adapt by exceeding the standards that men are expected to meet, instead chalking it up to an inherent trait of being a woman.

Which is gender-essentialist bullshit, by the way, and only further entrenches the dynamic because it frames the goodness of women in terms of instrumentality.

Your worship is not worth a good goddess-damn if you do not relate to human women as people.

We will probably be in better shape if we give up all hope of a better past, especially when that hope manifests as nostalgia for some golden age of singular goddess-worship that never existed.

What we don’t have to do is try to dress it up in ways that make it palatable to beliefs and sensibilities we have in the present. We cannot make something empowering, let alone liberating, without recognizing the limitations of our source material and that it’s a product of the culture from which it originated.

Obviously, pagan traditions have much to offer, and plenty of potential for good works. “Protest is prayer” is a whole damn thing for me. It just doesn’t behoove us to act like the paganism is the work, or a proxy for the work, when the human work on human problems isn’t also being done.

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The “Godbothered” Hairshirt

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I’m seven years into this whole Heathenry thing, so I’ve encountered the “godbothered” phenomenon. I have also sat through the discernment discourse, through the admonitions to never, ever invalidate which quickly turned into never, ever express any semblance of doubt about the things people tell you…

And I’m tired. I am tired of the idea that we can’t call people out on blatant, self-serving lies–with the added veneer of helplessness and nobility. A high-fashion Heathen Hairshirt constructed of piety and narcissism.

When people go on and on and on about “the gods want this, that, these, those, and it’s so much work you guys” it almost always is finished with an unspoken, “look how special I am! The gods like me! I’m chosen and special!”

The gods want plenty of things. It doesn’t mean you have to hand them over. You’re not helpless.

I catch myself still kind of doing this, more than I would care to admit. I strolled through the same bookshop near my work, where I special-ordered an Edda translation simply because I felt like it, and then impulse-bought an ornament because it had feathers on it and a cutesy quote about “adventure!” that read to me as a wry joke, and, clearly, “Loki wants this.”

I wanted it, to go put it on Loki’s shrine. I balked a little at the fact that it was $6. I bargained with myself to justify getting it. I have zero indication that Loki was involved in this purchase at all. No weird bird sightings. No weird dreams. No suspicious inconveniences.

Just…feathers and a cute quote.

And, the fact that a quote about making every day an adventure read to me as a wry joke kind of illustrates the point. Like, yeah, Loki can and will do weird shit. The mythology is chock full of that. I am pulled out of my comfort zone on a fairly regular basis because of situations I suspect he had hand in.

It’s unhealthy, and honestly kind of ridiculous, for me to parse this as some kind of hardship. At worst, I am very inconvenienced. Usually, I benefit.

And also, anyway, Loki didn’t make me buy the damn ornament.

A lot of people in the pagan community seem to struggle with the idea that they can simply want things. And as someone who struggles with the idea that I can simply want things, I get it. As someone who has absolutely projected my own desires onto the gods, I get it.

But hanging it on the gods is when it’s time to stop.

Your willfulness, your ability to exert that willfulness, and your right to do so in the form of having even the simplest boundaries, doesn’t magically disappear just because you had some kind of godly contact. If you even had godly contact. Because in this woe-is-me-the-gods-want-something bullshit, there’s a failure to admit that maybe, just maybe, the gods aren’t that fixated on us.

They have other things to do than pester you.

This almost always boils down to simple human behavior. Wanting to be special, and happening upon a way to do it that our social groups allow. Lacking, or refusing to develop, the self-awareness that would make us stop doing this. Accountability issues, combined with an awareness that a human can be made to answer for their behavior, but a deity is an awful lot harder to pin down.

And so we get a situation where a human is very obviously out of line, but countering that behavior opens oneself up to questions of piety, ideological purity, rightness of thought and action. All of which are threatening. Nobody wants to be at the mercy of a wrathful god or kindred.

And people eager to manipulate are very aware of how many people buy into that.

When I was at Trothmoot, listening to Mindless Self Indulgence and getting drunk in the Loki ve because I didn’t want to go to the possessory rite, a dude with blatant boundary issues tried to pull “Loki wants you to go to this,” with a straight face.

“Sucks to be him, then,” I said. “Because I don’t feel like it.”

He didn’t seem like he knew what to do with that answer. He paced around the ve grumbling angrily and drinking wine for several more minutes. Eventually he went to the rite by himself, did a hilariously bad job faking possession by Loki, picked a fight because ~Loki made him do it~, I guess, and then got thrown out.

None of which surprised me.

You really can just tell a god “no,” or to come back later, or to leave you alone. There’s no guarantee they’ll respect any boundary you set. But humans aren’t any different, and we still give that advice for interpersonal issues all the time. You’re not a hapless victim of all the stupid little whims of a noncorporeal being just because they’re bigger than you. And the godbothered humblebrag doesn’t impress anyone whose opinion is actually going to matter.

Turn your hairshirt right side in.

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What Heathens can (Indirectly) do About Climate Change

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An estimated four million people participated in the climate strike. September 20th was the first day in months I didn’t get hit with eco-anxiety and I actually felt a certain amount of hope. Maybe Ragnarök won’t actually come yet, you know?

But there’s no getting around that even the very best case scenario is going to be rough. Beats the frighteningly likely alternative by a long shot. But where we are now is not great. And where we will be in ten years will not be an improvement.

I don’t know if there’s anything we, as common people, can concretely do for Jörð beyond giving her the love she’s entitled to, and continuing to raise the alarm on her behalf, but there’s plenty we can do for each other.

Heathenry is about the people as much as it is about the gods–if not more so. That was the idea behind the rituals we’ve been writing for trans empowerment. We identified the aspects of ritual that had psychological benefits (with some help from a trained professional who prefers to be anonymous in this whole thing), and then provided an avenue for them to help a vulnerable population.

Therapeutic ritual can honor Jörð (or Nerthus, or Erde–whatever name she has in your tradition) while providing space for humans to share their love and grief. We can hold vigils. We can collectively plant and consecrate trees. Publicly scold and raise scorn poles against oil execs.

These do not change the actual physics or economics of the situation. But those of us aware of the problem, desperate to solve it and not equipped to make massive change, are constantly carrying rage and grief and terror inside of us. It’s rendering us less able to do anything for ourselves and for each other.

Competently crafted ritual provides a safe setting in which to experience emotions that are frightening–because the situation is objectively terrifying. And the community aspect of Heathen ritual, in particular, allows us to seek and give support while we push through these feelings.

The benefit of outright feeling your feelings is that tolerance can only be built through exposure. And while adjusting is usually cautioned against, I think that’s unsound advice. This is a situation that we cannot opt out of, and constant distress means burnout. And burnout means fewer resources to improve the situation.

My therapist, when I came in asking how best to manage the anxiety, had to remind me that buying Oreos is not going to single-handedly end the world–nor is avoiding them going to save it. Even if there is a lot of non-recyclable plastic in the packaging.

Energy spent on trying to minimize impact entirely, rather than letting myself settle for informed compromises once in a while, is energy that can’t be spent on activism.

And there’s a lot of energy in a package of Oreos.

So you do what keeps you sane, you muster strength in numbers. You direct those numbers where it can work some magic.

Literally, in the case of scorn poles.

When we have this emotional need met, we’re more able to focus on one another. We can develop groups and systems of mutual material support, or get on board with existing ones. We really don’t need a specialized, purpose-built and specifically Heathen approach to this.

That second step isn’t about us, but rather about our values. It’s not about being seen as Heathens, not about the P.R., not about the reclaimed symbolism and the patching up of our reputations–all of which, frankly, I’m tired of and I think is overemphasized.

It is about half a loaf and a tipped cup. It’s about displaced people taking their chances and hoping for your hospitality. It’s about whether we believe in the things we say, or if we’re just a bunch of pretentious dicks who mistake drinking mead for a personality trait.

I am not going to tell you to find clever ways to reduce your consumption and resource footprint. These are things I do because they help me, the individual, feel better. They are legitimate choices as coping skills, because they provide both a healthy outlet and distracting challenge. As long as they’re approached sanely, they’ll keep you sane.

Rather, I will point you towards resources that cover what I’ve touched on here–how we can adapt emotionally and materially while we scramble to slow the world going headlong.

The best thing you can do for the environment is to prioritize and support Indigenous environmental causes. I would urge anyone capable to donate money for camp supplies and/or legal fees for Water and Land Protectors, to fundraisers for Indigenous land buy-backs, or various fundraisers you can find under the Twitter hashtag #SettlerSaturday.

Coping With Climate Change: A walkthrough for managing the fear and uncertainty of humanity’s greatest crisis, by Ben Sayler

Mental Health and our Changing Climate: Impacts, Implications, and Guidance from the American Psychological Association. (PDF)

Mutual Aid Disaster Relief is a national organization for providing direct aid to communities affected by disaster. See if an organization near you works with MADR.

Food Not Bombs is an obvious choice, when our goal is to assist vulnerable people and build partnerships that allow for survival. Not all chapters are known to the people maintaining this site, you may have to ask around locally. Check your local anarchist bookshops or community spaces, they’ll probably know.

The Troth’s Red Hammer program provides financial support to those affected by disaster, violence and hate crimes–direct aid is a future goal of Red Hammer. Currently, they’re fundraising for people affected by Hurricane Dorian.

After writing this post I started developing an annual Earth Day ritual in honor of Jörð. Designing these rituals takes a lot of time and any costs come out of my own pocket. If you are in a position to give, any donation you can offer would be helpful in offsetting those costs. That said, please prioritize fundraisers that will benefit Indigenous causes before putting anything in my tip jar.

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The Utterly Ridiculous Tale of How I Became a Lokean

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Picture it: the Delaware Valley, 2012…

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It was during the roaring Marvel Cineverse Zeitgeist. I didn’t really care for Tom Hiddleston’s face, but damn if an angry scapegoated child (ugh, the horns) didn’t eventually get to me on some profound level. I also had a bad habit of reading fanfiction involving…uh. Really specific tropes. That are mythologically canon.

I’m talking about How is Horse Babby Formed.

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Fight me, you greasy bitch.

Between really creepy fangirls and bad fic research, though, I decided I was going to write a well-researched but absurdist fic for the purposes of trolling the fandom. I had nearly boundless options, but, because I’m a one-trick pony, I apparently just had to go and choose How is Horse Babby Formed.

Thor fought an Auntie Anne’s pretzel. Odin and Loki kinkshamed each other for a full page, as is the time-honored tradition. Beck–yes, that Beck–lived in Loki’s closet, because he liked the acoustics. Also, he had stitch-n-bitch sessions with Thor. They knitted Sleipnir a soccer jersey. Odin gave Loki a bit gag at the baby shower. It was glorious.

…and I never finished it.

In between brainstorming horrendous puns and dutifully checking the actual mythology, I had picked up an even worse habit of trolling Omegle, roleplaying as Sleipnir in the “Loki” tag and yelling “MOM IT’S ME” at every single match. This usually either made people extremely mad (mission accomplished!) or led to becoming Tumblr mutuals. (Awkward!)

I’d been aware that Ásatrú was a thing for a while, but had some serious baggage to unpack about it. I was also vaguely aware that Lokeans were a thing, but this was the week following Spongecakegate, so the Tumblr tag was…in a strange state at the time.

I definitely remember someone posting pictures of a horse penis in the tag, is what I’m saying.

Yeah.

So, in the process of Slippytrolling, on a day where my dad said out loud that he hoped I would drop my interest in Norse Mythology as soon as possible (HAH. HAHAHA.), I eventually stumbled on a real live Lokean! On the internet! I had a lot of questions. Specifically, “Why is everyone trying to bone Cosmic Hiddlesypiddles, and also, why is there horse dingus in your tag, you frickin’ weirdos?”

Turns out that had been a troll, and horse jokes were a subject of debate. Alright, so maybe these Lokeans weren’t so weird after all. I mean, as far as people who quarrel about pastry go. But foodies pick bizarre fights too, no big deal.

Omegle conversations led to me ending up on that Spongecake Chat, and after realizing this religion had a built in community where everyone was at least kind of odd, I got a boost of confidence. Kinda like what my ex said Rave culture was like when it was good, except nobody was thizzing (hopefully) or smearing Vicks on each other. I figured, fuck it, I’ll make my first offering. Loki likes sweets, right? It’s 3 am, but I’ve got some brownie mix.

This is also sort of the story of the time I almost fell into my oven in the wee hours of the morning.

Brownies were finally finished, and I suddenly realized I had no idea if this deity I was literally inviting into my kitchen was particular about them. Corner pieces? Edge pieces? Or the weird gooey middle part? I stuck out my hand, hoping some Weird Pagan Shit would happen. I got some vague vibe in favor of corner pieces, but I just plated a little bit of each and set them on the table by my laptop, since there was no altar set up yet. How do offerings even work? Do I just let the food…sit there? Someone recommend contemplatively eating them. Really, really slowly. So I did that.

I had never eaten a brownie slowly in my life. It was weird.

3AM rolled around, and upon realizing I had stayed up all night doing Weird Pagan Shit, I decided to go to bed. I stuck the remaining brownies in the fridge so other people could try them, packed up my laptop, and was in the process of stepping out of the kitchen when I heard a CD fall.

It was 2012 and I’m a bit of a Luddite. Stay with me.

The boom box was across the room from me and the CDs had been stable in their stack on top of it, I thought. But this seemed exactly like the kind of thing Loki would do, to my limited knowledge. It was one of my albums, so I picked it up to flip it over and make sure the case didn’t crack.

Tori Amos’s Little Earthquakes.

Well that’s weird, considering I was thinking about Sigyn on my way out of the room. But it wasn’t damaged, so I put the CD back on the boombox, willing it to stay in place, and headed upstairs.

And then somehow, despite Astral Babygate, and the Mjölnir Panty Raid, Ruining Polytheism and a bunch of other overblown, weird controversies that escaped my attention, I somehow stuck around for 7 whole years other than the fugue that ended with a lot of–to me–proof that the gods were very much real. And then got nudged into a positive in-person community, and rapidly expanded my practice. And then swore a whole damn pledge. And I’m not seeing any signs of stopping. Not that I am allowed to, anyway. Because pledge. But I’m not planning to, either.

Happy Heath-a-versary to me.

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“Inclusive” Isn’t Enough

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I refuse to be friendly with people who think Heathenry is only open to the “right” kind of people. I refuse to be civil with people who advocate for harm to marginalized racial, ethnic and religious groups. I will not tolerate anyone supporting an ideology that endangers LGBT+ people, or who think gender roles are a rigid and non-negotiable truth. (Because they’re not.) I have absolutely no patience for people who cannot accept that disability is going to be something they’ll just have to deal with seeing in their lives. They’re in the wrong faith anyway, with our one-eyed and one-handed gods.

But it’s not enough to just say so. An inclusive stance is a reflection of your ethics, and any ethical stance without a standard of behavior and action to back it up loses its legitimacy. This is literally a fundamental rule of ethics. A non-prescriptive philosophy is an inactionable philosophy, and therefore useless.

Which is to say, you don’t simply make that announcement of inclusivity, or sign Declaration 127, and call it a day. Any kind of real change takes more time and work than just saying you’re safe. It’s a start. But you have to prove that. If you want to be trusted, you have to accept that people will distrust you until their concerns are satisfactorily addressed.

And I’m not saying you have to go physically fight people–diversity of tactics has a vital place. The point is, do what you are capable of, but do something.

We have a responsibility, as inclusivist Heathens, to vet people carefully. And then keep paying attention. It’s tiring. It takes time and effort. I keep an eye on people for several days or dig through months worth of their content before I reach out to them. I’m more obsessive about it, because I didn’t trust my judgement before. But it’s not unreasonable to spend 10 minutes skimming someone’s online trail to see what turns up. It really does need to be done.

It’s not just the Asatru Folk Assembly and Odinic Rite contributing to the problem, because not every racist or hateful Heathen is affiliated with them. Some of them are still hanging on in organizations that would love to think they’re progressive. And not all contributions to a problem are morally equivalent, either. Idealogical Puritanism is a destructive mentality that shuts out imperfect but promising allies, and misguided people who could be easily redirected. But it behooves us to know what’s going on, and what people’s concerns are, so we can address them effectively.

And the big thing is white supremacy. If we don’t learn to recognize it, we let them network unchecked and continue to use Heathenry as a weapon. And it’s vital to remember that white supremacy is a value of the dominant culture and we all get trained to participate–if we don’t examine our own selves, and each other, we will end up perpetuating it. If we unwittingly broadcast that message, not knowing the underlying meaning, we help the more obviously aggressive and dangerous white supremacists do this. If we do not take the time to consider the source of our information, and we repeat standard white supremacist rhetoric, we become an active participant.

And people cannot trust us, though that’s among the lesser of our problems.

People won’t want to be part of our supposedly inclusive faith if we don’t work to make sure they feel welcome. If we boost messages from the racist contingent, intentionally or not, people won’t be able to tell who can actually be approached. If we let racists into the same spaces and events as marginalized people who are curious about, or already practicing our faith, we are enabling the former and endangering the latter. If we don’t make the effort to prove that we don’t tolerate that behavior, we can only blame ourselves if people don’t trust us. If we make it about ourselves, we’re failing to walk our talk.

When we create Heathen spaces, we take on the role of hosts. Our job is to set a nice table and give visitors somewhere comfortable to settle in.

Inviting people in without meeting their needs does not include them. It ultimately imposes upon them. And that’s bad hospitality.

Do better.

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Musings From the Mud

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Finally have a post ready. Quality isn’t guaranteed.

Staring at the sky listening to a woman mourn her twenties, and thinking about reaching out to someone I have been nursing a very abrupt and intense crush on. Unsure of whether this would be their scene, because I’ve never seen any indication that they go for folk music like I do, let alone country soul. The breeze is nice, this is my home, more so than the nearby house I grew up in.

I didn’t get a good look at this singer at first and thought she was artfully draped in gold lamé, and I suspect it was because of her singing about walking through fire after telling a humorous tale of having literally lit herself on fire. It ended up being a standard 70s inspired maxi dress, but it suits her anyway.

It feels good to lie on the compacted mud beneath me, even with the waterproof blanket between us there’s a sense of relief. It has felt like it wanted to be touched. I’m not supposed to have my shoes off, it’s a safety thing, because people never check where their glass is going here. I don’t care. I’ve been going barefoot and letting the swordgrass and dry stiff straw and baby Rosa multiflora sprouts scratch my soles so the land can take whatever it wants from me.

When I left my now ex I was terrified that I was never going to have any semblance of humanity again, which was a terrible illusion created by the expectation that I whittle myself down into a more user-friendly instrument. Too much. Too little. Go away. Where’d you go?

Well, I’m fucking gone and doing an awful lot better than I had let myself believe I was going to be.

The air no longer feels smothering. The first hints of fall. When everyone leaves, the leaves start dropping. A sudden withdrawal, I guess, from the abundant accidental offerings of chili dogs and funnel cakes and fair trade single origin coffee and ice cream and all manner of booze and, ahem, burnt offerings. Though the Landvættir could surely live without the glow sticks and forgotten air mattresses. Bought only to be thrown in the trash, by someone else. Because it will always be somebody else’s problem, I suppose.

Look how well that’s turning out for us.

“If you’re in love, you have nothing but work to do.”

Heartening.

Perhaps the necessary struggle to tolerate being on my own is the easier route. But she’s not wrong.

The fact that the dog days are finally over and there’s the vague suggestion of a chill in the air and night has fallen and it’s too dark to spin yarn anymore has me thinking of the Yuul spinning Verbots. And so, by extension, Yuulsege.

When I left my ex I was lucky enough to be able to fall into the arms of my community. The series of events slowly working up to this brought people I could lean on to the forefront. Options were visible. I was not going to be alone and suffering in the ways I had spent many years fearing. I had, in a social sense, a home to come to.

And that was vital.

And yet, while writing this, I’ve bailed on writing blog posts and am avoiding social media because Hell is Other People and I don’t know how to act. I want to be alone. I want to be invisible. And so therefore the solution, apparently, was to go to work. And then go to music festivals where I had freebie tickets, and be politely ignored, which is what humans do in large numbers and close proximity. Despite our collecting in a hay field, city etiquette kicks in.

I am sure that all of this is entirely because I am starting to feel like a product, like I am too much, too close, go away, where’d you go? I am afraid of being an instrument again. Or continuing to be one, because I’m not sure I’ve ever not been one.

I catch myself leaning in to be engulfed, and then pulling back and aggressively flagging my interests, my identity, stepping back from testing the waters because I don’t know who I am. I’ve never been a real person before. And it leaked into the way I interact with the rest of the community, ramping up with every tactically beneficial acquaintance.

Like a muscle knot, if left for too long without being broken apart, more will catch and tangle. And eventually the forgettable bundle of angry muscle deep in your shoulder blades is sending pains shooting up your neck into your eyes, radiating around the front and threatening to crush your chest.

A simile I hope nobody else can relate to.

I am frightened and resentful when people see potential in me, and then expend resources trying to get it realized. I give up easily, I become exhausted and run away, and am often too scared, too ashamed, too frustrated to get back on track.

Trothmoot spelled networking spelled the looming threat of success, and my first instinct is to sabotage it all for the sake of familiarity and the perception of safety and missing the comfort of being sad.

And that habit will have to be broken.

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So, Your Pagan Event Is Getting Picketed – Here’s What You Can Do

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Pagan pride season is coming up again. There are, as you may already know, certain groups who will go out of their way to try and crash your events.  It helps to know how these groups operate and how to get rid of them–without legally jeopardizing your own event. Mass gatherings like pagan pride require the organizers–and the attendees, by extension–to remain in the good graces of the powers that be.

Not the gods, but the people issuing your permit to gather. Or the people you called to alert that an event too small for permits was happening.

Picketers can throw off the energy and momentum of your event, and they often attract a crowd. The gathering of a crowd means that picketers now have an audience, and having access to more people means that they’ll stick around for longer because they like the attention and have more people to target.

Drawing a crowd also presents two possible dangers for your event: one, that it will drag attendees away from your event to go yell at the picketers, and two, increase the likelihood of someone doing something dangerous or illegal because they’re pissed off.

Which can result in forceful legal intervention, a horrendous lawsuit, and will create issues with organizing the next event. We don’t want that.

So we’ve established that debate, argument and heckling don’t work. Fighting and forcing picketers away also doesn’t work, for slightly different reasons. Provocative groups are often, as a rule, lawyer happy.

So what does work?

Cut off their attention supply, and bore them to tears.

warning - live trolls do not feed

You usually can’t force them to leave unless they encroach on the area you have a permit for–and even then, public property can’t be monopolized, and free speech is a demo derby. That can make picketers virtually untouchable.

Don’t touch them, by the way–because again, these people are prone to filing lawsuits.

Before you Start:

Step zero, which has to happen before any response can be planned, is to have the permission of the event organizers. In the case of Philly Pagan Pride, the idea was from the organizers, so we didn’t have to worry about this. With Seasons of Transition Pt II, we had volunteers from within the community who approached me first and ran tactics they had in mind by me.

But it is absolutely necessary that you are working with the event, to prevent any possibility of accidentally working against the interests of the event. Make sure you understand what the event permit allows–or what’s allowed when you hold an event sans permit.

Once this is sorted out, you’re free to proceed to step one.

Continue reading “So, Your Pagan Event Is Getting Picketed – Here’s What You Can Do” →

Not Dead, Just Busy!

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I disappeared for a bit there because, according to my therapist, I “overwork myself” and “need to practice self-compassion.” Whatever that means. Anyway, the blog was one of the first things that got cut because there were no oaths or responsibilities attached to it which made it very low priority if things got hard to manage. I’m getting a little better now.

So, update.

I left a group I was on the mod team for. It was toxic for multiple reasons, as most Lokean groups online inevitably are. Most of the mods left. I had to take a break from basically any relevant things online (other than being openly very salty) because I’d get wigged out and very annoyed. I’m getting back to an acceptable baseline.

By the time this is posted, I’m going to be on a plane headed for Seattle to go to Trothmoot. Babby’s first Trothmoot. First Trothmoot since the end of the Verboten Jotunn Blotin’ policy. (Remember that discourse?) I am very paranoid that people will not like me. There are more important things, at least in theory, than people not liking me. I am still deeply concerned about this possibility.

Also planes. Also allergies. Also not sleeping right. Also being cold “Travel” and “travail” were once the exact same word. Go figure. I have packed a lot of snacks and my comfort hoodie.

Work is being done on our next trans empowerment blot/Sege. Our first one was in early April at Baltimore Witchfest. We were indoors, with a closed room, a small enough crowd to be no pressure, and access to a workshop called Drum Church where I had the opportunity to space out on purpose and then grab lunch before doing the thing.

This time around we don’t have the benefit of having a venue handed to us. And venues are expensive. So we are doing the thing outdoors. So we are contending with the possibility of the local hate preachers. Or some local wingnut starting something. Or worse.

No pressure.

There’s a lot of coordinating and meetings and planning and filling of forms to be done in relation to all of this. I have an activist background (…and, like, foreground I guess, since developing and hosting these rituals is activism) but none of that has involved the actual organization aspect. I am treading new water.

Hopefully I float!

And, like, you know? I have these aspirations towards serving the community as clergy, especially in terms of providing spiritual care for incarcerated Heathens. And I figured–again with the splitting connotational meanings of identical words–that with clerical work and clerical work, there was a lot of form-filling and filing and such to be done. And some meetings.

But you guys there are so many. I’m not even ordained yet. I’m not able to get into the Troth’s clergy program yet. I’m really hoping the tedious stuff is a big part of the training. Because, from what I hear of the clergy I know personally, and from what I’m seeing, there’s so much more of that than marryings, buryings and baby blessings.

Though there’s that, too! Baby blessings are something that inevitably spark a ton of debate, but they’re really incredible to witness in person.

So my last update here is going to be some boring housekeeping.

When I hoarded this username it was just supposed to be a placeholder. I had some weird idea about an online shadow work journal. And then never got around to it, because, uh. The shadow is the shadow for a reason. You don’t go publicizing that stuff unless you have really, really bad boundary issues. I ended up sticking with a trained professional.

The name was just a goblin-themed pun on the idea of a “sparkle pony,” aka, someone who will probably die in a puddle of their own body glitter if left to their own devices at any kind of Burner event.

Since I went on a rant about snacks and Trothmoot I’m, very obviously, not actually a sparkle pony. I got this, even though my anxiety is very certain of terrible things happening.

Again. Trained professional in my corner for a lot of very good reasons.

So what I’m getting at is that I am, in addition to hopefully getting back on a schedule, changing my blog name. Rebranding a tiny bit, and maybe changing up my content a bit because I fell into a niche of info posts, and that was getting constricting. Maybe I’ll include a little more of a ~lifestyle~ bent here. While I haven’t officially linked my legal identity with this blog, I’ve definitely left enough crumbs for anyone who cared to figure it out.

I was kind of officially out of the broom closet as a result of presenting at Witchfest, so.

I’m going to be focusing July on getting our ritual for PTWC set up, and then maybe queueing new content.. My Halloween store job comes back this summer and, while the routine and income certainly help, it is time and energy spent.

My goal is to get back on my old fornightly schedule as of August 1st.

Which is a Thursday. Remember when I used to post every single Thursday? Whew. Would be nice, but I don’t see that happening soon. Biweekly was usually manageable.

So. Tidbits and crumbs for now. Back to big posts in August!

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