littledoomwitch:

Hey y’all! Mod L here. I guess it’s time for me to give a life update. Really funny and lovely that I came here to do just that and saw the others had done so recently! <3

I work full time as a software engineer (for three years now!) and I make games on the side. I’m also trans and now go by they/them pronouns. I moved to the South last year and I love it here. I just adopted a very small cat, work with the local chapter of Food Not Bombs, and am currently trying to build a community center. I also write, rp, and do art. I’m not a very online person anymore!

(It’s also super weird to see my old art as the blog icon. I went to and finished art school since I drew that!)

I still practice my faith but it’s very internal/private. Over the course of my time doing intense research, writing, and community-building around it, I tested out and developed a core system that really works for me, and it simply needs less testing now. My faith is intrisically connected to how I live my life, not separate. I’ve been a polytheist since I was 13 and while the work around it often changes, the core beliefs never do.

It’s really amazing to find out how much of an impression we left that people notice when we drop by. :)

Like Mods D and W, I’m on Discord, and sometimes Twitter. If you want to connect, reach out and I’ll get back to you eventually. ^^

Much love.

- Mod L

rootandrock:

One day I was walking around the city with a friend, and they randomly asked me about a weed growing through the pavement. They wanted to know what “occult use” the plant had.

I crouched down and asked it. It gave me a very casual speech about it’s habits and adaptability in an urban setting “I eat the dust that gathers in asphalt and from it I bloom. I spread my children on the tires of cars, and they do the same as me. I subsist on skin cells, spilled drinks, and the precious rain of the gutters.

So I roughly translate: Plant says it survives and thrives. Could show you how to skirt by on nothing, subsist on little, live in urban environments and still keep your connection to the dirt. Maybe even how to better-tolerate living in an apartment complex with noisy assholes. It grows along sidewalks almost ALWAYS. So there’s something about traffic and movement that applies as well - maybe a good plant for getting your ass out of that roach-hovel on 12th and into better digs on 24th.

My friend looked put-out, and expressed disbelief that I had to “ask a plant” what it did, rather than having read about it somewhere. The idea that the knowledge was “new” was unpleasant to her.

I got a little put-out, too. Because 90% of occult books 1: talk about European plants, or Biblical plants. 2: Talk about extremely common, widespread, or culinary plants. They don’t often talk about a wild, native, forb from the Mid-South region. You can’t buy that plant from Azure Green in bulk. Nobody’s going to talk about that plant.That random, wild, hardy, native forb isn’t something that is opined about in extremely expensive hardcover books, or cited in medieval recipes. It’s a new and “unknown” element in European-styled Craft.

Southern Conjure and Rootwork might cover it, but then again… might not. It might be one of those plants that’s too far North, or West to apply to the “Deep South” region’s biodiversity.

Even if they talked about the species, they’re not going to talk about what THIS plant, and the similar plants in the city can teach you. They’re going to talk about elements, planets and general correspondences. It’s going to be vague, like an astrology report, and softly-worded.

It’s not going to say “This plant makes you care a little less that your neighbor is an asshole, because we’re all trying to get by here, goddamnit.” Because that doesn’t really sell. Practicality isn’t really the order of the day when the book could waffle about the psychic alignment of Lavender (it’s PURPLE after all) or the intense vibrations of the Yemeni Myrrh that had to be trucked out under gunfire.

Take books with a grain of salt. Learn your region. Welcome to a gigantic, new, world of information and witchery that knows your dirt, and knows your people, and knows how to make all of it work with the sun and rain that falls there. Yes, even in the city. Even in the cracks in the pavement.

*(It is/was a “Croton” species, Likely a large, mature, One-Seeded Croton. Looking for a “Biological Survey” site for your area, preferably with pictures, is just ever-so-goddamn-helpful in getting to know the neighbors.)

thedesigndome:

Exquisite Figurines Depicting Various Seasons

New York-based assemblage sculpture artist Garret Kane composed a breathtaking series called “Seasons”, actualizing a figment of his own imagination.

Keep reading

(Source: thedesigndome.com)

grimnirs-child:

Ahhhhhhh, nonny, nonny, nonny.

The answer is because, truly, nothing fuels my love for & faith in my religion more than science. And nothing keeps me motivated & driven to keep learning and working in science more than my religion.

I don’t try to analyse my Gods with the scientific method, the same way I don’t try to analyse my experience of being in love. Even if there is specific phenomenology one could identify, neurotransmitters being released, activity in parts of the brain, that’s not what those things are fundamentally about. Science does not hold all the answers to all the facets of the universe or life or the human condition. And a good scientist must always remember the limits of her theory and her experimentation.

But -

On Sunday night I watched David Attenborough’s Planet Earth II and had tears in my eyes at the infinite diversity and beauty of the natural world. Watching thunder clouds rolling over steppes and feeling filled up with love for Sif and Thor. Every sequence of predators chasing down prey resonating so deeply with the part of me that works with the Wild Hunt. And looking at every incredible living thing shown and knowing - that by the wonder of evolution - we are all cousins - all related - our ancestors are the same.

But everything I learn about molecular biology, the incredible, incomprehensible complexity of every cell in every living organism and how they interact - all hewn out of twenty amino acids, coded by four bases, all evolved from a single cell across billions of years - just increases my sense of awe and wonder and faith in the Gods. This is what they gave us.

As does the stunning beauty and elegance of the laws of physics. The wave equation. Dirac’s equation that knew more than he did. The energy-matter equivalence. Quantum-electro-dynamics, which is accurate to a degree equivalent to measuring the distance between New York and Los Angeles to within the breadth of a single hair. The fact that I can look up at the night sky and see light from millions of years ago. 

This is beauty, this is poetry, this is magic, this is where I find my Gods.

theancientwayoflife:

~Tripod with young ithyphallic Satyrs as legs.
Medium: Bronze
Date: A.D. 1st century
Provenance: Naples, National Archaeological Museum
(Museo archeologico nazionale di Napoli)

(Source: ancientrome.ru)

orestian:

violent-darts:

teawitch:

calyhex:

bogganbeliefs:

norvicensiandoran:

anaisnein:

coasttocoastlikebutteredtoast:

skadisman:

bogganbeliefs:

A conversation I had with an atheist friend:

Them: “So, you believe in a mighty sky wizard?  You?”

Me: “No.”

Them: “Oh, good. I-”

Me: “I believe in a trickster sea wizard, a poetic blacksmith goddess, a trio of bloodied, prophetesses and a highly skilled, porridge-loving, well endowed god.”

Them: “…alright then.”

Me: “They say hi.”

Before I got Odin’d, when my deities were only Skadi and Njord, I had a conversation that went something like
“you worship some old guy up in the sky?”.
“Nah…. mine’s an old guy in the ocean. And a middle aged woman in the mountains”

I had a similar convo with someone who, out of nowhere, asked if I believed in God.

Me: Which one?

Them: You know, God?

Which one?

The main one!

Odin?

You know what I mean!

Thor?

God!

Which one?

lightly snarky atheist person: so what do you think about god then
me: oh yeah that shit is worse than meal moths once you got em nothing works
person: what
me: what

I used to have so much fun doing this to Fundis on my college campus sometimes.

My favorite was when I was a Wiccan though.

Them: “So wait, what?”
Me: “uhm… Basically I worship Mother Nature, just as a Goddess?”
Them: “… Well, unlike the invisible friend in the sky, I guess you can prove Nature exists. New question… Why?”

The other fun one was my mom. One day mythology got brought up and I point out people “still believe in those gods, you know, Odin, Thor, Zeus, Athena…” and she went “wait, really?” “… What Did you think I meant when I said Paganism?” “… Uhm… Not that. Wow. REALLY?” XD

My current SO also gave me the “so instead of one imaginary friend you’re telling me you have several…” I asked @jenniferrpovey where I should go from there, and her suggestion was something like “Just suggest that the world is such a mess, it makes sense to suspect it was designed by committee.”

This is gold.

Science class devolves into Creation debate. Caly has fun.

Girl: Well I believe it should be taught in school that Earth was intelligently created! It’s not necessarily a Christian thing!  Everyone believes it! Even Caly! Right Caly?

Me: [completely straight-faced]  Yes, I absolutely believe that many of the hills, lakes and mountains of Scotland were created when Grandmother Beira was striding over the countryside, and dropped rocks from her creel to act as stepping stones. Oh, and she created Ben Nevis to be her throne, and used her hammer to carve out the lochs, and let the oceans form around the Hebrides.

Her: …

Me: What? 

Her: You…you don’t believe in GOD?

Me: Oh,  Manannán and I are pretty chill, as long as he gets his tea on the regular.

Her: Devolves into red-faced stutters. 

Teacher: So Her, which intelligent design should we use then?

Me: [Gets an A for participation that day]

Ah, but have I spoken of the great sneezing war?

I once worked at a social media startup that was as liberal AF. With about a dozen people, we managed to cover Hinduism, Judism, and not one but two witches (one writing gay erotica and the other a member of the Sisters of Perpetual Indugence.) But none of that was the problem. We also had a staunch Christian and a hardcore atheist. 

Now the office was “open plan” which meant if anyone sneezed, everyone heard and people did the usual “bless you.” 

Me: *Sneezes*

Office mutters “bless you.”

Christian “It’s GOD bless you.” 

Me in a confused voice “But which one?”

“Which what?”

“God?”

Friend loudly “Zeus bless you”

Me “thank you.”

From then on, when a sneezed a variety of gods were called on the bless me.

But then there was the other side of the Sneeze War

Atheist sneezes.

Passing intern “bless you.”

Atheist “I don’t believe in that.”

Intern whose mind really was on his job and not potential deities. “Huh?”

Atheist “I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in god.”

Intern, looking confused about why they were having this discussion. “umm, okay, that’s nice to know.”

Atheist “So you don’t need to bless me because I have no god.”

Me (mostly feeling sorry for the intern at this point) “Would you like to borrow one?

Atheist “huh?”

“A god. Would you like to borrow one? See, I’m Pagan so I have lots of gods. I can lend you one if you want. You’re a writer. We could hook you up with a god or goddess of writing.”

Atheist. “Umm, no, that’s fine. I don’t need a god.”

“Okay, well let me know if you change your mind.”

 And the great sneezing war continued until the startup shutdown. 

I have begun to answer “do you believe in God?” with “no, that would encourage it.”

^ I’m stealing that last one.

prtypsn:

bsabo:

The witch’s pantry

#is he the witch or is he the witch’s sidekick #bored lil college student earning minimum wage chopping up salamander livers and reorganising the ingredients jars into alphabetical order #putting ‘best before’ dates on all the labels #”i can’t believe she was keeping the HUMAN EYEBALLS with the NIGHTSHADE ugh”#better than starbucks (via queerpotters)

crimson-tearz:

Stray Witch by Savannah Horrocks