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Wildfire | Definition & Facts | Britannica

 

The moral of the story is, sometimes even the wise can be really foolish.

Before it got burned down during the George Floyd riots, Gandhi Mahal was our neighborhood South Minneapolis South Asian eatery. While nothing particularly remarkable, what they served was acceptable Indian restaurant food, and certainly easier than cooking it yourself.

Like many pagans, I have a passion for Indian food, the hotter the better. (Spicy is just about the only form of machismo in which I regularly indulge.) At Gandhi Mahal, they offered a heat spectrum of Mild, Medium, Hot, Very Hot, Very Very Hot, You're Gonna Die, and...Bollywood.

So of course one night I just had to order Bollywood hot. Call it a challenge.

What did I order that night? I can't remember. It doesn't really matter, because I couldn't taste it anyway.

No flavor. No flavor at all. Just fire.

Fire and tears.

Oh, I ate it, ate it all. Oh yes, my precious. Did I enjoy it?

You've got to be kidding. Call it a “Three-Alarm” fire: fire going in, fire inside, fire coming out.

“Why do I do this to myself?” I thought repeatedly next morning: “I love my rectum.” The things we do for bragging rights.

Among pagans, as among traditional peoples everywhere, the lore features two general kinds of teaching tales: hero tales and screw-up tales. Hero tales teach by giving us something to aspire to. Screw-up tales teach by giving us something to be smarter than.

Last modified on

Posted by on in Paths Blogs

Tolkien once wrote in a letter to his son that he was "a Hwiccian (of Wychwood) on both sides."*

Curious words, are they not? My mind generated an entire alternate universe in which Tolkien was the granddaddy of Fam-Trad Witches, and all the things in our culture that would be different if it were so.

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Last modified on

Posted by on in Paths Blogs
Novel Gnosis part 26: Njord

Njord is a sea god in heathen mythology. He is the father of Freya and Freyr. The lore does not say who their mother is, but it is hinted that it might be himself, or his counterpart. That would be Nerthus, except that Nerthus and Njord never appear in the same story. Nerthus appears in lore written by Tacitus in the Roman era, and Njord appears in lore written in the Viking Age. Linguistically the name Nerthus probably became the name Njord, and thus, Nerthus the goddess probably became Njord the god.

In Viking Age heathen mythology, Njord was briefly married to Skadi, the frost giantess who became a goddess of winter. That story took place in Asgard, though, and Njord, Freya, and Freyr all settled in Asgard as adults, with the status of hostages after the First War. So, Skadi is a stepmother, and after the divorce, a former stepmother. 

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Last modified on

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Do the Dead Still Speak to Us?

Do the dead still speak to us?

Of course they do.

I, Steven, who do not believe in life after death, I tell you so.

They speak to us in memories. Have you ever heard your grandmother's voice in your head, counseling one course of action or another?

They speak to us through their deeds. Through stories, through their remembered actions, the ancestors tell us today how to behave or how not to behave.

They speak to us through their words and songs. We live by the Lore, and through the Lore their words and ways come down to us. In oral cultures, memory is passed down in songs. Many covens have a Book of Shadows; we have a songbook.

They speak to us through their artifacts. Although here in North America, relations between First Nations communities and archaeologists have (and understandably so) been contentious, the Mapuche of Bolivia love the archaeologists. “Through them, the ancestors speak to us,” they say.

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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    When it comes to belief, I'm very much of the "Value Added" school of thought: let's go with what we know for sure. Then if there'
  • Tasha Halpert
    Tasha Halpert says #
    I like your philosophy, and agree! Blessed Be and a Good Samhain to you also. Tasha
  • Tasha Halpert
    Tasha Halpert says #
    I must respectfully disagree. While I honor your belief I hav so much evidence of "the dead" speaking in the past umpteen years to

Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs
Trust Yourself

Trust Yourself

Experiencing a Myth Gives You Power

 

When we actually experience a myth, we find power to radically change our lives for the better. Trusting yourself—your instincts, observations, hunches, and musings—is a doorway into mythic realms, making myths not just ideas or stories in the intellect but also visceral experiences.

 

I had a wonderful incident about self-trust and living in myth. It made me so happy that I just have to tell you about it. It also is an example of what I mean by "experiencing myth."

Last modified on

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Do Rivers Have Rights?

One of the important ways in which pagan religions differ from non-pagan ones lies in the pagan understanding that non-human beings, as well as human beings, have rights.

These rights are inherent, not bestowed.

Animals have rights.

Trees have rights.

Rivers have rights.

Mountains have rights.

Oceans have rights.

Planets have rights.

Stars have rights.

The rights of non-human beings, of course, are not the same rights as those of human beings, although there is certainly some overlap. To every people, its own law; to every being, its own rights.

Last modified on

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
A Song for Everything

I'll tell you, those old pagans had a song for everything.

Everything.

Not just holidays, not just fun. Work, too.

Rowing. Plowing. Sowing. Mowing.

Chopping wood. Cleaning. Weaving.

Hell, they even had a song for wiping your butt.

(As a matter of fact, the butt-wiping song is one that I happen to know. So does anyone that's ever raised a kid. And no, I'm not going to sing it for you.)

The worst fact of pagan history is that we've lost most of our old songs forever.

But not all of them.

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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    Thanks, Chris, that makes for good hearing. I might add that in the most recent edition of the coven songbook, there are nearly 70
  • Chris Sherbak
    Chris Sherbak says #
    I still lovingly cherish your Solstice songbook from Pro Dea.

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