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The Etruscans are every bit as enigmatic a civilization as the Minoans. People like to speculate about the Etruscans and wonder who they really were and where they originally came from. Part of this process often includes the possibility that there's a connection between them and the Minoans. But is that really the case? Or can we even tell?

First, let me be clear that the two cultures don't overlap in time or space. The last major Minoan city, Knossos, was destroyed around 1350 BCE. Anything resembling Minoan culture on Crete that may have remained after the cities fell then disappeared altogether during the LBA collapse, around 1100 BCE.

Like tides, lives have high and low times. Sometimes you're riding on top of the wave, sometimes you're impossibly riding inside the tube of the wave and it is so cool and amazing, but sometimes you're in the trough. You can stand up and yell "Make wave!" or just wait it out and it's coming around the same either way.

If you're feeling low, and feeling like you aren't doing enough with your religious and magical practice, this advice is for you. 

The Poetic Edda is one of the basic texts of The Lore, the collectively decided cannon of Asatru and related Heathen sects. Thorstein Mayfield has made a new translation, with extensive footnotes. It was sent to Witches and Pagans Magazine for review.

This new translation of the Poetic Edda is subtitled A Heathen Study Edition: Mythological Poems. Author Thorstein Mayfield holds a Master’s in Literature from the University of Houston at Clear Lake. He is a founding member of Woden’s Folk Kindred in Texas, the organization that owns the publishing company which published this book.

I like science metaphors when talking about heathen concepts that differ from the ideas common in our current modern American culture. In the Fireverse, my fictional universe based on heathen mythology (see previous entries on that topic), the main human character is an author stand-in who gets a guided tour to the worlds and time, like the main human character in Dante's Bible fan fiction. Like me, she likes science and especially physics as spiritual and religious metaphors, so, the Hel-Boat looks like a Viking longship but behaves like a spaceship, landing and taking off from the Nine Worlds as if they were planet type worlds rather than the dimensions the main character knows them to be. Metaphors for the multipartite soul didn't come up in Some Say Fire because the main character is already in her afterlife after the opening scene, but I'm thinking about them now.

Reading Heathen Soul Lore Foundations to review it (review coming soon), I encountered a metaphor for the various parts of the human soul based on alchemy, especially the idea of refining salts to transform substances into other things. This metaphor just doesn't work for me because I'm not into alchemy. During my daily morning coffee ritual I had a conversation in my mind with Odin about metaphors for the soul.

I'm on Magick TV this week talking about a metaphysical phenomenon in my local area. The full episode will be available Saturday (that's Nov. 19, 2022, if you happen to be reading this in the future) but a short interview with me is live now. 

Ed Hubbard interviewed me for his show on Halloween, which is why I'm wearing a costume in this clip. The night before, he and I had been the two Guests of Honor at the Sin City Witches Samhain Soiree, where we selected the King and Queen of the Soiree. (See prior blog post about that.) I invited Ed to my street's American Halloween. In this video, you can see some of my light-up Halloween decorations in the background. At one point you can also hear some trick or treaters in the background, since my street has been doing our Halloween outside since the pandemic started. (See prior blog posts about that.)

All those topless women in Minoan art played a major role in the popularity of Minoan archaeology during the early 20th century, when the cities of Bronze Age Crete were being uncovered for the first time in over 3,000 years. They were quite racy for the Edwardian era, being considered almost pornographic back then.

But to the Minoans, they were sacred.

Time Prayer