First off, Tanisha la Rosa on The Lure of Beauty has a post on ways to keep yourself from falling into despair in tough times.

We are not so very special that we are going to experience something that no one has never felt before.

Silence Maestas, ‘Private sorrows, future perceptions‘

Priestess of Aphrodite wrote on bringing magical practices into your daily life.

I quite enjoyed this post by John Beckett. One thing that stood out to me was the idea of not assuming someone is mentally ill because they are experiencing something you have not or do not believe is possible. Often within our various communities (Pagan and polytheist) I have found a dismissiveness, if not outright hostility, toward those who have ‘odd’ experiences. I believe such a hostile approach does no one any good. I also liked Beckett’s post on removing curses we place on ourselves.

This post on genius loci serves as a great introduction to working with them. I first remember learning about these spirits in a dusty little text on Roman religion back in high school. The concept of the genius loci impacted my growing spiritual practices heavily.

Cyndi Brennan’s post on assumed familiarity reminded me of some reading I’ve done recently regarding cults and cult identity.

Scarlet Magdalene reviewed John Beckett’s latest book, Paganism In Depth.

Finally, I loved this post on house magic by Camelia Elias.

…I cannot deny that there is a hole in my heart that can’t be ignored.

That hole is for books. Being surrounded by them, being in awe of them, inspired by them – it just isn’t the same when I’m not around them constantly…

Treya, ‘The Literary Pagan‘ on Nature Bound Pagan

Here’s a fun write-up on the Mystic South conference, over at Priestess of Aphrodite.

I recently found out about this CD of songs from the UK Pagan community that aims to fight fascism, thanks to Nimue Brown.

An interesting post on the values of the Rokkatru, from Tahni J. Nikitins on Divine Multiplicity.

Laurie Beth Dawe has a series of Youtube videos on Rekindling Devotion. I haven’t had a chance to sit down and watch them all, but I like her other work.

Pursuing a Goddess is a very experimental process, but one thing that became very clear to me early on was that I had to show devotion and dedication. That manifested in a lot of ways, from small things like saying more frequent prayers to larger things like more rituals and offerings.
[…]I started doing things to honor Her that weren’t in the traditional Pagan offering palette. I devoted myself to learning about love in both the mundane and spiritual realms. I reveled in the tiny beautiful moments in my days, thinking of Her and honoring Her as I did so. I began paying more attention to the way I dress, and I went out of my way to wear beautiful things that made me feel sexy and empowered. I started exploring sensual movement and devotional masturbation. I wrote songs and rituals, choreographed dances, and cooked delicious food. All in honor of Her.

Priestess of Aphrodite, ‘Reclaiming Worship as a Modern Pagan‘

…a devotee of any Power that exists in a shared field with any other devotee […] is likely to get fucked up if they can’t cope with the idea of that Power having private time with other people. They share unique and complex expressions of relationship with each of us; They have to, in order to suit our often highly individual needs. Although some of our interactions and experiences will line up in interesting and perhaps even meaningful patterns, many will not and we have to be OK with that, and not worry about that or second-guess ourselves or prod too much at one another. 

Silence Maestas, ‘Patience with the Broken Things‘ on Walking the Heartroad

Nicholas Haney, on The Thought Forge, has a variety of posts on spirits: spirits of the forest, of the dead, of the waters. He also wrote a post on the spirits of Michigan State University and the spirits of Michigan.

The point is, if you’re constantly waiting for the perfect moment, the perfect experience, the perfect explanation – you’re literally never going to be satisfied.

Sara, ‘On Satisfaction‘ on Lightning Struck

This post on KALLISTI hits a lot of my own personal interests, namely clothing and textiles. I’m hoping to get back into sewing my own clothes again. Frankly, clothes shopping has always been a frustrating experience for me, sometimes bordering on tears. As much difficult as sewing my own outfits brings I prefer it to struggling to find clothes I like that fit me and fit the styles I like.

We are all human, and the limit of human rationality is the human brain itself.

Kaye, ‘The Machines We Built, The Nightmares They Make of Us‘ on KALLISI

Lastly, here’s a lovely post by Yvonne Aburrow on instinctive witchcraft.

I found Nyx in a poster.
Who knows what I thought,
a child, as I saw her floating,
all good things edging
along her body as she drove
her nightfall over the Earth.

Kaye, ‘The Cosmos — Void — Night — Radiance’

I really enjoyed this post on ritual and sacrifice in Hellenismos. One quote I especially like from the article is, “We can base our practices off of the ways of the ancients, but household worship is intimate, personal, and routine. That routine you will find yourself, and it will change through the years. What matters most is that it follows the basic steps of ritual, and that it’s conducted with the beauty and greatness of the Gods in mind.”

Our word is the most palpable thing we have in a devotional practice. Nothing binds us more than it.

Sara, ‘On Oaths and Promises to the Gods‘ on Lightning Struck

Another post from Kaye on Kallisti, this time on terminology and identity. Because I link to Kaye rather frequently on this blog I figured it would be remiss of me to not include ‘A Positional Statement on Some Recent Twitter Things‘.

Are we persecuted? In some form or fashion, isn’t just about everybody? I’m not convinced witches and pagans have a corner on that miserable market. That doesn’t make it right or OK by any means. What persecution can do, however, is spark in us a commitment to have compassion for whatever (whoever) the “other” is for us.
Is that possible? In some cases, no. I could list exceptions but I think most of us can figure out what they are on our own (and some of us don’t need to figure it out; we know from excruciating personal experience). Some persecutions are truly unforgivable. And yet, can compassion be an outlook that informs our actions even as we do not forgive? I actually think that’s doable. Not easy, but doable.

Marthy Kirby Capo, ‘The Persecuted Modern Witch‘ on Agora (Patheos Pagan)

Here’s a short post by Steven Posch, which has a lovely evocative line: “For the witch-hunters were right about this much at least: the Sabbat demands everything. The Sabbat demands your soul.“

We need to return to an ancestral way in which nature is not an Other, but an Us. If we truly love nature, if we consider ourselves friends to the animals, then we need to know nature itself, through books and observations, through science and questioning. We need to know the rest of nature as well as we know ourselves.

Lupa, ‘Our Deadly Lack of Nature Literacy‘ on Humanistic Paganism

Kaye on Kallisti has a very interesting post on purification and the terms used surrounding purity and impurity in Hellenic polytheism.

Reconstructionism is a broad term, often abbreviated recon. It refers to the adaptation of ancient polytheism and its structures, and its main concerns are authenticity and historical grounding. The term seems straightforward — until it isn’t. Antiquity lasted for a long time. Religious practices evolved, and information about those practices can simultaneously be scant and way too much. Much of Hellenism is still very DIY, or at least as DIY as a complicated set of secondhand IKEA furniture with the instructions missing.

Kaye, ‘Is My Libation To-Go Cup Authentic?‘ on EIDOLON

Merri-Todd has a breakdown of Hozier’s ‘As It Was’ through the lens of a fairy ballad.

I did not realize until I had it, perhaps, how much I wanted a religion that made the erotic a central concern instead of leaving it to lurk around the borders, beyond the light of the candles on the altar, a religion that wasn’t angry at women for somehow being the cause of everything bad because we’re just so tempting. It goes deeper than wanting to worship goddesses or honor female ancestors, though those desires, those needs, are also deeply important. Hail, Saint Mary Magdalene, consort of the Savior, Apostle to the Apostles: Pray for your sisters who are still stuck under the bus.

Merri-Todd Webster, ‘Throwing the First Apostle under the bus‘

I have even been told that I would have problem in my married life because of my feminist ideologies that I should give up after being married. Are we just supposed to ignore our ideologies, our sense of right or wrong just because we respect our elders? In the name of respect, are we suppose to follow those traditions that we firmly believe are wrong? Why can a girl not ask for equality in life? And if she does, why is she not appreciated? These are some questions that demands pondering.

Srijana Chhetri, ‘My Experiences of Patriarchal Rituals in the Nepali Community‘

Over on Divine Multiplicity, Katalin Patnaik wrote on how to perform puja (a Hindu form of ritual).

This is perhaps the biggest consideration for me. I don’t want to be a Pagan chaplain, I want to be a chaplain who is Pagan.

Conor Warren, ‘9 of Beagles: A Pagan in A Christian Seminary?‘ on Agora

Through this post on Priestess of Aphrodite I found another book to add to my ever-growing and unmanageable book wishlist: The Empath’s Survival Guide by Judith Orloff.

A lot of folks, especially monotheists, but often polytheists as well, have an oddly rigid and systematized view of the many gods. “So-and-so is a goddess of storm,” they’ll say, or “This one is a god of marriage.” It’s like a very compartmentalized divine bureaucracy, as if you have to take the proper form to the correct functionary or you’ll simply be turned away — not their department.
But who is the god of suicidal friends? Who is the godden of persons who are maybe already dead, but hopefully not? Who takes responsibility for missing adults who left the house under their own recognizance, but aren’t safe from their own thoughts?
It’s not a workable system, and thankfully it’s not how the Holy Ones work, either. They certainly have their interests and typical activities, just as we do. But — again, like us — they are complex persons, and they have relationships with those who honor them. They may not be the best respondent for any particular situation, but when you build ghosti bonds with the Holy Ones, they don’t turn aside; they help as best they can. The best god to turn to in crisis is the one you already know.

Mike Berschenk, ‘The god you already know‘ on Cardinal & Locust (one of the coolest blog names I’ve seen)

I am sharing these Lughnassad posts a bit late, considering the holiday was a few weeks ago. Better late than never, right?

Both are by Kris Hughes. First, her article on Agora, ‘Our Lughnassad Harvest‘. I’m not sure I buy her premise or conclusion entirely, but it was a thought-provoking article. I especially loved this line: “The story of birth, death, regeneration is truly mother nature’s story. She is red in tooth and claw. It’s not eat or be eaten, so much as eat and be eaten. It’s the natural order of things.” It resonated with my understanding and experience of the Clarene especially.

Second, her post from last year, on her own blog. ‘Contemplating Lughnassad‘ has similar themes to her more recent post. One line that stood out to me, and that I am still turning over in my mind, “…preserving the unploughed natural world is more important to me than whether me and my tribe have enough to eat over the winter.“

Owning things is becoming increasingly a privilege of economic class.

We’re used to thinking of buying things being, obviously, a privilege of economic class. Economic class means how much money you have with which to buy things, so it’s unsurprising that buying things is something people with higher economic class get to do more of.

But owning things – even things that were given to you as gifts, that you made yourself, that you found, that, crucially, cost you no money to acquire, and which you never bought – is also an economic privilege, and, I am contending, becoming ever more and more so.

Now, half a moment’s thought will point out that owning things has always had costs attendant, and thus has always been a privilege of economic class. You can’t own a private jet without a hangar for it; for a more banal example, it’s hard to own a car if you haven’t anywhere to park it. The small stuff we keep inside our homes, we can keep more of it when we have larger homes; ergo, it’s not surprising that getting to have more stuff is an economic privilege, and to some extent always has been.

What has changed is just how much of a privilege it is. Which is to say, more than it was not that long ago.

Siderea, ‘The Privilege of Property‘ on Sibylla Bostoniensis

Too often the conversation about cultural flows across color lines devolves into a useless debate about appropriation versus appreciation, a reductive rhetoric that misses the point when people of color are not only replaced, but also rendered invisible. There is no dearth of guides and how-tos in cyberspace that define cultural appropriation with a negative connotation—as the “selecting of certain aspects of a culture, ignoring their original significance, for the purpose of belittling it as a trend.” Appreciation, on the other hand, is positioned as the superior choice, since it involves “honoring and respecting another culture and its practices, as a way to gain knowledge and understanding.”
What these definitions miss entirely is that “culture” is not something material that exists separate from actual human beings. Quite the opposite, the social mechanism by which a culture becomes appropriated relies on a simple truth—that Whiteness, and White womanhood in particular, need constant care and feeding to survive. 

Rumya Puchta, ‘Yoga and the Maintenance of White Womanhood‘ on Namaste Nation

For months that moment has left me wondering—what is Grace in the face of indignity and injustice?
Is it abdication?
Is it apathy?
Or it is action?

Rumya Puchta, ‘On Yoga and White Public Spaces‘

While getting lost in the internet I stumbled over this interview with Lasara Firefox Allen, focusing on their book Jailbreaking the Goddess.

From Misha Magdalene, on Outside the Charmed Circle on Patheos Pagan, an article on ‘The Unbearable Whiteness of Being Pagan‘.

Brandy Williams, author of The Woman Magician (a book I dearly want to read!), wrote a few articles about the term and usage of ‘black magic’. Here is her shorter post on Patheos, and the longer (much longer) piece on her own website.

Jumping off from there to an article by Shannon Barber: ‘Black Magic, Black Heart, Black Skin: Decolonizing White Witchcraft‘. A line that stood out to me was, ‘I will not be held in the sunshine when what I need is moonlight.‘

And a final quote:

Soon, nearly everyone could agree that racism was the evil work of people with hate in their hearts — bigots. This was a convenient thing for white Americans to believe. Racism, they could say, was the work of racists. And wherever you looked, there were no racists: only good men like Wallace, minding the welfare of their black fellow citizens, or the segregationist South Carolina senator Strom Thurmond, defending states’ rights. Racism definitely existed, at some point — no one was out there denying that slavery had happened — but its residue had settled only in the hearts of the most unsavory individuals. Society as a whole didn’t need reform for the sins of a few.

Greg Howard, ‘The Easiest Way to Get Rid of Racism? Just Redefine It.’ in The New York Times

In general, we prefer our gods to be things of the distant or quickly fading past (whether we ‘believe in’ them or not)… To start talking about the Jesus who heals your cousin’s opiate addiction, the Lakshmi who welcomes you to the hospital during an out-of-body experience, or the Astarte (who not only bowed to Allah, but) who feels more clear and present than you expected to encounter in an ‘applied transpersonal psychology’ exercise contradicts not only the rational, post-theist school of thought in today’s dominant culture, but its theology-by-the-book foil as well. When and why did we leave the time period where gods spoke to people and informed our practice of religion? Who decided we’re finished writing the book of acceptable theology, and who gave them that right?

Pat Mosley, ‘Our Gods Are Still Speaking‘ at Divine Multiplicity

Also on Divine Multiplicity, two posts by Kyaza: one on deity-human relationship types and another on pagan taxonomies.

Merri-Todd Webster, one of the Magistrates of the Naos Antinoou (and a writer), posted some lovely stories up on Archive of Our Own: The Forest God and Bride of the Forest God.

On her blog ‘a Sunflower Moon‘, Sarai posted some prompts for connecting to deities. I thought they provide good stepping stones and meditation ideas for newcomers to any form of Paganism.

On her blog Kallisti, Kaye, a Hellenic polytheist, wrote a sort of review for Iamblichus’ On the Mysteries. I always enjoy reading book recommendations (to figure out what I want to read or buy next), and I especially liked how Kaye related her experience with the text.

You may not have heard of Andrew Chumbley, but his impact on Modern Witchcraft over the last 20 years has been extraordinary. Much of the current rise in “Traditional Witchcraft” can be traced in no small part to the work of Chumbley, who spent years documenting magickal techniques and practices, most notably his own Sabbatic Tradition. Chumbley wasn’t a Christian, but if he used the text written about above in his magickal work, he was most certainly influenced by Christianity. And in the world of Traditional Witchcraft such influences are common, not outliers. (And Chumbley is also majorly responsible for the boom in high quality Witchcraft books from speciality publishers.)

Jason Mankey, ‘Why Can’t There Be Christian Witches?‘

…I’m not sure deities need us to speak for them. They are goddesses and gods after all, with more power than you or I. If they were truly angry about how they were being portrayed and worshipped I have to assume they’d stop that sort of worship, or set up counter-points to it. I find it funny that those who often speak the loudest about “the gods having agency” are the same ones who often wish to limit that agency.

Jason Mankey, ‘We All Just Speak for Ourselves: Absolutes in Deity and Witchcraft‘

First, Averill posted headcanons for bird associations for the Otherfaith gods and spirits. A whole lot are listed, so definitely check it out!

Next, an informative review of Kirk Thomas’ Sacred Gifts: Reciprocity and the Gods. After reading that I spent some time just reading through various posts on Marc’s blog, finding a lot to be considered and contemplated there.

… I feel that the whole “so inclusive that we denigrate every view point” is one of the biggest failings that the whole “community” has.

Marc, Why I Stay Pagan from 2013 (emphasis added)

If you believed in multiple and independent deities, well, you were wrong.  You were corrected.  The gods were all facets of one universal source, not independent entities.  The same people who said that belief didn’t matter, and that Paganism was focused on action, were the first to cast aspersions were you to go beyond the pale of indoctrinated theology and believe – truly believe – in multiple gods.  
And it’s funny because in my twenty years, that really hasn’t changed.

Marc, The Realization of Polytheism from 2017

Funnily enough, this is a link to…a bigger compilation of links. ‘Electronic Faeries’ has tons of links to various websites, Facebook pages, and more around the net, all focused on fairies. Absolutely worthwhile for those looking to explore into fairies deeper!

Seao Helrune has a post about ‘spiritual junk’. Here’s a quote I found intriguing.

…the junk can become the point, and therein lies a trap that I think a lot of people fall into (but hardly ever discuss). Unless it’s an item stipulated by a spirit as a condition of conjuration (and potentially pacting) that spirit, or ingredients for something like a hoodoo hand, if ever you find yourself thinking that you can’t do something magically without a certain item or that you need that thing to *fix* your practice, then you may have a problem. This is especially the case if that magical thing you think you can’t do without that thing is actually down to the application of a basic skill.

Seo Helrune, Spiritual Junk from 2017

Morgan Daimler brings author recommendations in ‘Top 5 Favorite Witchcraft Authors‘.

Lastly, there is an upcoming online convention for Loki called Lokifest. You can find out more about it here; it will be occurring in August, so if you want to attend sign up soon!

My emotions do feel like a poison. They sicken and rot, and they boil and bubble over — and with nowhere to go — they corrode.

Averill, ‘A Work in Progress’

Yvonne Aburrow has a list of books to help introduce kids to Pagan world-views and values. They also wrote a (short) post about polytheism in Wicca. (There’s also this post, ‘Towards an inclusive Wiccan theology‘ that may be of interest to people.)

The simplest prayers are often the loudest. Lighting a candle and sitting in silence can be a powerful prayer to support your focused intent. Perching in the prow of a boat and smiling into the sea spray sounds like a lovely way to honor and commune with any number of water deities. The point is, feeling into the true meaning of the action, both for you and your devotional target.
I think prayer is especially meaningful when it is consistent.

Grace E, ‘Grace Notes: Prayer’

In one of the groups I am a part of a member linked to a post on prayer in the ‘digital age’.

… what I learned was that God wasn’t the one who needed my prayers. It was I who needed them more.

Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt, ‘How prayer helped me detox from the internet’

I stumbled over Ryan Smith’s blog (which I had somehow missed) and wanted to link to two of the posts I read this week, but I recommend checking out the other posts on his blog as well! First up is ‘Guides, Not Gatekeepers‘, about leadership and clergy roles, and the second is ‘Mysticism and Personal Practice’.

As linked in one of my groups was this amazing Tree of Contemplative Practices. The image is below, but I recommend checking out the webpage it is from – their version of the tree has information for each of the practices listed.