More short, pithy sayings, and short form advice from my responses to questions and social media. I was asked what happened to the dead before the goddess Hel came to rule the realm Hel. My answer:

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This one was brought back to me by the Facebook "Memories" thingy that tells you what you posted on a specific date in previous years. In 2013 I had been posting a daily Anarchy Report about my experiences during the government shutdown. On my Anarchy Report Day 4, a friend had commented that they were not going to do any panic shopping because they were going to come Viking-raid my stash instead. This was my response:

Haha, no, my home is not worth raiding, that which supports me here cannot be carried away. It is the land and the water and the spirit of the garden gnome who turns kitchen scraps into compost, it is the neighbors all pulling together whose children swim in my pool and whose dogs obey me. It is the interconnected web of nature, spirit, and community, spiraling upwards through love.

xxx

On the Asatru Facebook Forum, a member posted asked for a healing bindrune for their dog because it was very sick and they couldn't afford to take it to the vet. It is a credit to the community that everyone who responded was advising how to get affordable vet care rather than giving them a bindrune.

Here is my comment:

"Find a way to get your dog to the vet. Contact the vet's office and ask about payment plans, or search for local area nonprofits, low cost vets, and animal charities that could help. Set up a gofundme. You can pray to the goddesses associated with dogs, Nehellenia or Zisa, but you also have to do things in the physical world. You can't just substitute magic or divine intervention for doing your part, that's not how it works."

xxx

Flowers for Frigga

I posted this on the Official Flower Symbolism and Meaning Discussion Thread on the Asatru Facebook Forum:

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Recently I was contacted through the "contact me" system on my author website. A young pagan had just turned 18 and wanted a join a coven, and the group he was considering joining had requirements for nudity during initiation with which he was so uncomfortable he wrote to a book author from a different tradition for advice. It was obvious that he was deeply concerned and uncomfortable with the whole situation.

I responded and told him that was a red flag. My response was very long, but to summarize: no one should be required to do anything sexual or sexual-related they don't consent to, including be naked. I told him that he has an absolute right to decide what he wants to do with his own body. His consent matters. The question is: is this what he wants to do or is he just going along with it? And I told him that if that is step 1 in his membership then there is concern about what future steps might be. I concluded by saying that I hope that helps him make his decision about whether to join them.

He wrote back for more advice. Again my response was very long, and included a suggestion that he ask them if he could choose what to wear, but I want to share this paragraph:

"There are lots of other pagan groups in the world. It's not a choice between this group or no group. Choose this one only if you are happy with the idea of what you will be doing both to become a member and once you are a member. Remember that if this is a requirement and they won't work with you to respect what you are comfortable consenting to, then if you join them, someday a young girl who is your age now will be facing the exact same choices and you'll be one of the adults putting pressure on her. So this choice is not just a test of you by them to see if you'll do what they want. It's also a test of them by you to see if they respect personal consent or not." 

 He made his choice about whether to join the group and I wished him the best on his path.

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This was about a comment on the perfume forum about going "off tray" after making a tray of preselects. The commenter stated she always made a tray and then always wanted whatever was not on the tray. I was hosting the monthly tray thread so I felt I needed to respond.

My response:

"Be ungovernable. Even by your past self."

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A friend posted on social media that she was having trouble getting her rational mind around the idea of practicing magic. My comment:

"There are many alternatives to "practicing magic." Meditation. Prayer. Dance. Herbcraft. Art. All are forms of each other. Each prayer is also meditation, each dance is also magic, each craftwork is also prayer."