I need to return to this blog…

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I think it might be helpful to someone, somewhere, maybe out in the great wide world or maybe just in the United States somewhere. Things recently went pear-shaped (or rather, we got the first indication that they’re destined to go pear-shaped in the near future).

I was going to write a post about the one-note nature some people tend to apply to the gods, paralleling it with the one-note nature writers often attribute to their fantasy races and alien species (I even called it “Proud Warrior Race Gods”, as a play on the TVTrope title “Proud Warrior Race Guy”, a specific flavor of “Planet of Hats”). Not sure if that was going to go anywhere though, so I binned it.

Spooky season is once more upon us, though that’s gotten lost in the shuffle a bit. Most people seem to think that spooky season peaks at Halloween and then they move on to the happy, homey (or not) holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas. However, I’m a big proponent of a spooky winter, lasting at least through Imbolc. I may be such for the rest of my life. And it seems like this will be another good year for it. Most people aren’t really in the habit of gathering with loved ones and friends around hearths anymore, and I don’t consider myself a good storyteller, unfortunately. I don’t know who all is (even if I sometimes take stabs at novel writing). However, the advent of audiobooks gave us the next best thing: putting one of those suckers on for all long drives, long walks, lonely nights, and other such things. There are even like-minded folks writing and publishing ghost stories and other creepy tales themed around Christmas, part of a trend that’s been on the upswing since 2015’s Krampus. I hope it keeps up.

I’m not sure what to do next. Or how I feel about what happened. The most I can say on that front is that I’m not surprised. I may sometimes hope that history looks back at us and calls us primitive or (charitably) misguided, but that’s about as far as it goes. I’ll keep crocheting and hope this little act of combating fast fashion will do some good. I’m presently working on next year’s Halloween costume (Sam from Trick ‘r Treat), and I have other projects to finish, but this year’s addition to my Ugly Christmas Sweater collection is finished well in time, so that’s good. Safe from the Yule Cat, at least.

On the subject of Yule, I hope somebody decides to stir some shit up this year. We could do with a war on Christmas.

Once Again…

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‘Tis the season to keep track of the Gavle Goat. It was erected about a week ago and is currently still standing, but I’ll be keeping an eye on it and on other forms of Yuletide Vandalism.

Tangentially related, I’ve observed that some of my cohorts are, like me, kind of over all of the, well, stuff attached to Christmas as a celebration. Like, we still like it, and I especially still like the vibes, the inherent risk of winter even as the climate changes all around us, but Christmas trees are so hard to maintain and the lights are a literal workout to put up and then there’s buying gifts for everyone you know and all of that combined is simply exhausting. At least, that’s what I’ve found for myself.

Maybe this is the new vector of the War on Christmas (c). Just… being less consumerist about it. (In fact, Our Changing Climate did make that argument.) Maybe what we, as humans, need is to recognize the true spirit of the season. I’m not saying that to make an argument for Christianity (the gods know). What I mean is: the haunted nature, the long nights, the Wild Hunt, the return of the dead, just for a little bit.

Enjoy the dark, and tell ghost stories to each other. Or find some online. Here’s some:

That should get you started.

So.

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A few things.

  1. The Gavle Goat survived last year, I think I forgot to note that closer to when it was confirmed. (Editor’s note: see “A little late…“)
  2. There continue to be all kinds of tomten for all kinds of occasions, and I continue to not know why. I’ve now seen them for Halloween, generic fall-festival-ness, Fourth of July, and others that are currently slipping my mind.
  3. Since the Fall Equinox (9/23), I’ve been absolutely inundated with vibes. It’s not uncommon for me to pick up on changes like this, but this year has been especially bad so far, and the days are only getting shorter as of this writing. Everything feels different. Storms, days, nights, all of it. I keep getting the impression that but for certain conditions, I can’t stay outside for too long. (I shouldn’t, especially as winter approaches, because hypothermia is a very real danger, but this is something different.) I keep flashing back to the Samhain I saw a probably normal black dog, but it felt like a Thing. And Jason and the Scorchers were right: “The chill in the air wakes the ghosts of the ground.”
    The ghosts of the ground are waking.
    We’ll see how this goes.

Yuletide Observations

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Every year on Christmas Eve I drive around to see the lights of just about everyone in town. Some things I noticed this year:

  • I learned that the tree decoration I love so much is flat
  • It feels like there weren’t as many lights this year as there were last year. It made the town feel darker (literally and somewhat figuratively); I’m wondering if there’s a connection between this and all the complaints I heard this year about rampant commercialism (not a new phenomenon by any means, see A Charlie Brown Christmas, but it appears to wax and wane).
  • At one point, between two lit up houses, I smelled ash. It immediately reminded me of the Yule fire and the ashes I used for my wards.
  • I turned onto the street I used to live on, then onto that turn-off for the big residential neighborhood there, because they looked lit up. I don’t recall exactly when I got spit back out onto the street on which I used to live. I’m not sure if I was being supernaturally guided or if something was trying to lead me astray.
  • On the whole, the shadows gave me vibes in varying degrees, especially near the end when I was driving on the aforementioned street.

Another Talk About Santa

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I’ve talked about Santa before (and my general idea on him remains unchanged), but there was one little thing I noticed in a couple of more recent Christmas pop songs (the only one whose name I remember is Ariana Grande’s “Santa Tell Me”, but I remain convinced there’s another). That little thing is this: the songs came out sounding a bit like prayers to the Man in Red for relationship help, like it’s a Hallmark Christmas movie.

Now, I’m not sure how in his purview that is, but it kind of made me think. At the time it just made me think that this idea that Santa is not meant to be regarded as a physical entity, but is instead a spirit and therefore acts as such, had some merit (plus, it’s always better to ask the aid of spirits you have a relationship with, and we’ve all got a relationship with Santa, at least here in the States). But also: can Santa actually help in matters of love? Not sure on this one, as stated, but I have seen the odd Pagan blogger making links of sorts to a cluster of holiday figures that come to include the Ghosts of Christmas from A Christmas Carol, Bacchus/Dionysus, Odin, and others. Some of these links are probably more tenuous than others, but as also mentioned, probably better to hit up a long-time friend instead of a stranger.

Another thing to note here before I forget, is the interesting relationship I’ve had to this idea throughout my life. I wrote a letter to Santa once in high school because I was in love (that one didn’t work out, probably a good thing), and I’ve gradually gotten back into a practice of offering milk and cookies. A lot of it coincides with becoming Pagan myself and the winding road that has taken for me over the years, and I’ve found the notion of spirit!Santa helpful in that regard.

All of this to say, it probably doesn’t hurt to ask the guy for help every once in a while, especially around the holidays.

Tomten, Tomten Everywhere

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These things. Are. Everywhere.

I feel like within the past three to five years I have seen an absolute explosion of items fashioned similarly to the above photo, just chillin around the place as Christmas decorations. And not just for Christmas, either. My workplace’s accountant has one dressed like Uncle Sam on her desk for the Fourth of July and another in black for Halloween. They are inescapable.

And I’m not sure why this of all things is the holiday decor trend for all possible occasions.

According to The Old Magic of Christmas, “[t]here is only room for one tomten in a household, so give the others away”, pg 106. And yet people inexplicably purchase dolls of these creatures in fairly significant numbers. I don’t know if the rules are different for businesses, and I don’t recall any vibes from seeing groups of these dolls, but I always thought it odd that, say, my bosses would keep more than one because they like the way the dolls look.

And while they do have a nice Yuletide vibe (that being half the point), in the States at least they are getting used for all sorts of holidays. I’ve seen 4th of July tomten; wood cutouts of the same that can hold different items; a chef tomte for, as far as I could tell, no discernible reason; and even the odd Halloween variant.

My question is: why?

See, I’ve been paying attention to a fair number of changes to Christmas fare in the past few years. Krampus has gotten more popular, and people seem to be getting tired of the same cheery nonsense every year. The “anti-Christmas” song (such as “The Night Santa Went Crazy” or “Ho Ho F@#$ing Ho”, for example) has been steadily gaining traction for at least a decade. But that’s just in the States. We’re talking at least partially about folkloric icons from parts of Europe that have been knocking around for centuries, with their own lore and context.

In part, I’m sure, the answer is capitalism. Marketers saw the changing trends and thought “this image [tomten] is similar enough to Santa, let’s try that” and have had an utterly indisputable level of success.

But, as with the Gavle Goat that I’ve discussed last year, it’s possible unseen forces are also at play. I joke to myself that the tomten are going to awaken in the night and take over. But, considering the overall fuzziness of the “real world” at this time of year anyways, and increasingly so in recent years, maybe I’m not too far off? Maybe they are taking over?

Roe v. Wade

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TW: This post covers the violation of women and the bodily autonomy of people who can conceive, up to and including rape. I invite you to skip this one (and realize I have a much higher threshold than others but even this is getting to me, hence this post).

(Side note: this post took quite a long time to complete due to fluctuating numbers of spoons on part of the author.)

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, then you know by now that the leaked opinion has indeed held. In a 5-4 vote, Roe v. Wade has been struck down. I’m not surprised, though I’m a little impressed they did it in spite of backlash. But, I’m disappointed, tired, afraid, and a little angry.

I don’t believe I have a dedicated post on here about Andred’s possible aspect as a Protector of Women (broadly), so this may be that post. I’ve spoken at length about witches and the interweb of connections between the goddess, Her animal, and a potential expanded role as time passed. I think this is another such case.

The long and short of it is this: as accounted by Tacitus, upon the death of Boudica’s husband Prasutagus, the Roman empire ignored his will and attempted to annex Iceni territory, in the process flogging Boudica and raping her two daughters (whose names I can’t provide because they’ve been lost to time). This, coupled with the financial strains the Romans placed on the Britons generally, drove Boudica to take up arms in a bid for freedom, and to gather allies along the way.

There are two key quotes I want to call attention to. The first is this:

“It is not as a woman descended from noble ancestry, but as one of the people that I am avenging lost freedom, my scourged body, the outraged chastity of my daughters … This is a woman’s resolve; as for men, they may live and be slaves.”

via https://folklorethursday.com/legends/celtic-warrior-women-queen-boudica-of-the-iceni/

And the second is the opening line to Boudica’s speech: “I thank thee, Andraste, and I call upon thee as woman speaking to woman.”

These indicate a perception either on part of the Iceni and other Britons, or on part of the Roman authors who recorded events and whose manuscripts survived to us in the present, that there may have been a special perception of Andred’s connection to the women of the tribe (or alternatively, Boudica held a high religious position that made a seemingly more informal dialogue possible, or both). And I’ve stated earlier that it is possible for the roles of the gods to change over time as people change.

And, from my own practice, I have had great success calling on Andred for help in matters of feminine health, wellness, and protection.

However long feminine matters have been a part of Andred’s spheres of influence, I think they’re well-entrenched by now. And sometimes, you’ve just got to pray about it.

Andred, Protectress and Avenger
Queen of the Witches
I call on You as woman speaking to woman
I tell you there is no safety for us, no right of life or liberty
The fall of one is the fall of all
I am heartsick with fear
And weary–so weary
So I turn to You

Walk with me
Grant me vigor and courage
Let me face each day
Be at my back and at my side and before me
Guide my hand and my step
Be my leader as you were Boudica’s
And I shall not want for boldness