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If you've recently initiated contact with the Slavic gods and are wondering what to do next, here are some upcoming holidays you might want to research and explore. These are Ridnoveri holidays, which is a modern Ukrainian pagan path. Other Slavic peoples have some of the same holidays and some different ones. There are cultural and linguistic differences between the various Slavic peoples and their varieties of paganism but their gods are recognizably named the same names and most pagans consider the various versions of a same name god to be the same god, just like with the heathen Germanic and Scandinavian gods. That is, all versions of Mokosh are Mokosh, just like all versions of Odin are Odin, even if spelled slightly differently (Wotan, Odhinn, Mr. Wednesday, etc.)

The Slavic gods are busy right now so if you are going to pursue your new relationships, just honor them, don't ask for anything unless you're Ukrainian yourself.

Stories, whether oral tradition myths, written fiction, or written nonfiction, change over time. Each generation changes its heroes to suit them. Storytellers tell the same myth a dozen different ways to suit different audiences, occasions, and lessons. Nonfiction writers revise their books and make new editions (like I did.) Every printed or recorded version of a book is a snapshot in time.

It occurred to me as I sat in the morning sunshine mending a quilt that I had made that I was in a way making a new version of my quilt. It started as a way to use up silk test strips from when I operated a custom fabric dyeing business, and every piece in it was a silk fabric I had hand dyed. As I used darning, a type of needle weaving, to mend parts of the fabric that had worn, aged, or cat-clawed away, I kept the same log cabin design and every fiber I put in it was also hand dyed, and yet, the more I mended the more it became a completely different textile.

When someone says "papyrus," most people think of Egypt - specifically, ancient Egypt with papyrus plants growing along the banks of the Nile and being made into sheets of material to write on.

People don't often think of the Minoans in connection with papyrus. But papyrus appears in Minoan art more than you might think. And we're still not quite sure what it means.

This post was prompted by the outpouring of support for Ukraine I've seen on social media. It could apply to any future emergencies too, though. I have seen some very well intentioned people calling on Slavic deities with whom they do not usually have a relationship and I just wanted to write a little guide to how to craft supportive prayers or spells outside one's usual area of practice to respond to current emergencies in the world.

I'm not going to get into political analysis here because it would be off topic for my blog which is about my personal gnosis and experiences with the Asatru religion. If any of my readers would like to see my commentary on military and intelligence matters, I have some posts on my social media about it, as I have been asked to comment because I studied the Soviet Union. This post is just about writing prayers and spells. Writing is my thing now.

The very first book I ever published about Minoan spirituality is Ariadne's Thread: Awakening the Wonders of the Ancient Minoans in Our Modern Lives. That was back in 2013, before I started the Ariadne's Tribe Facebook group and before Modern Minoan Paganism (MMP) had even begun to form in anyone's thoughts.

Ariadne's Thread is based on the set of Minoan-themed rituals I wrote for my second degree in a Wiccan coven back in the 1990s - a year's worth of seasonal rituals and a lifetime's worth of rites of passage. The coven I belonged to at the time helped me "road test" a lot of the rituals, which was very helpful. Then I added a large section about Minoan culture and religion and a mini-encyclopedia of deities and symbols to complete the book.

They're burning books in Tennessee. Supposedly "witchcraft" books, and I would tell you all to go read them, except they mean Harry Potter.

Read that too, if you wish, and if you haven't already. I haven't read it myself, but some younger people I know loved it as kids. The controversy over Harry Potter is that it supposedly promotes witchcraft. The author has become controversial due to anti-trans statements on social media, but the book series does not have much to do with that. There are ways to read a book without putting your money into it, if that is a concern for you.

In Ariadne's Tribe, we developed our sacred calendar one bit at a time over the course of several years, relying on a combination of archaeology, comparative mythology, dance ethnology, and shared gnosis to collect up and organize the festivals. But now that it's a living, functioning thing that we've worked in sync with for a while, something interesting has happened.

We've come to know the seasons of ancient Crete.