The Wildlife (or, Don’t F@#k with Bears)

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I didn’t find it in the newspaper I purchased, but my coworker told me about a news item she read about how there have been five bear attacks this season. Some bears will protect their cubs, but others will attack without reason. (Additionally, a friend of hers was taking his dog for a walk up by the lake and found fresh bear scat and huge tracks, and when he found a fresh kill he grabbed his dog and booked it back to civilization. She also mentioned the time her sister was charged by a mother moose, who dented her rental car.)

Us locals all have stories like this. I was told when I went to Yellowstone to not get within seventy-five feet of the bison we may encounter, and I remember observing them down a gentle slope from a distance of a few hundred feet, and leaving it there. And, I’ve always been a little freaked out by the moose. When one hopped the fence when I was little, minding its own, I ran back to the house. When they wander through my complex/neighborhood, I stay indoors and sometimes watch them from a distance. I wouldn’t get too close to them, I don’t stand a chance.

In the past two years we’ve had an influx of outsiders, moreso than usual. They moved here from places like California to escape the pandemic and they don’t know. Last winter was too easy on them and they stayed. But they ask questions to us about “is this [six feet] how close you can safely get to a moose?”, about a sign showing what six feet looks like in terms we recognize (size of a grizzly bear, span of a moose’s antlers). They do shit like pick up bison calves because “they look cold” and cause that calf to be rejected by the herd (true story, though it happened closer to 2007).

I consider myself a cautious person. There are things I know better than to mess with, and large fauna is among them.

(I originally composed this at the start of the month, a few weeks ago, but I couldn’t think of a good ending.)

Yuletide Vandalism 2021, pt. 2

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In the early hours of Friday morning (Sweden time), the Gavle Goat was set ablaze. This marks its first defeat in five years following the institution of 24-hour scrutiny. Many of my pagan friends recognize the value in setting the goat ablaze, regardless of legality, and I think many of them recognize the same forces I do: misrule and a pull toward some modernized form of ancient ritual.

Coupled with other reports of recent holiday vandalism, and the overall sense of an increased presence of the gods and spirits in the “ordinary” or mundane world, I think this theory is pretty plausible.

Yuletide Vandalism 2021

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I learned (after an impromptu visit from my mother) that the Fox News Christmas Tree (not the Rockefeller one, the one in front of the Fox Station) has been set on fire this morning. The tree is artificial, so this isn’t a Christmas Vacation situation where a loss of tree water can lead to an accident that results in the festive blaze. The person responsible has been arrested, but the motive is unclear as of just a few hours ago.

When searching up that story to get details (I googled “new york christmas tree vandalism”), I turned up another story from two days ago where another tree, in Chicago’s Washington Park, was also set ablaze by vandals, and had to be replaced.

(Update on the Gavle Goat: It is still standing. Although December is young.)

Someone asked “Why our community? Why our Christmas tree?” with regard to the attack on the Washington Park tree (which is the third in a row in its three-year history; that tree is not lucky). Now, call me insane, but if you’ve been on this blog a bit you probably suspect that I suspect the tides are influencing certain people toward vandalism of Christmas symbols not necessarily as a cruel or petty act of violence but as a form of sacrifice to the old gods. The fact that these acts are not state-sanctioned sacrifices, or even recognized as sacrifices, influences public perception of them, but I think from the perception of the forces influencing and encouraging this behavior, this is about as close as they think they’re going to get.

Rabbit Rabbit 12-1-21

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Firstly, an update on the Mesperyian situation:

Secondly, an observation: It seems to me in my recent studies into winter folklore that the harsher the winter, the spookier and more terrifying the winter spirits become. I think it is connected to whether or not winter has historically been a threat. Perhaps it explains my own recent call to the darker side of the Yuletide season; in my lifetime local winters have been quite harsh indeed, although the past two years have been… odd. But perhaps it is a premonition, an indication of what is to come within the next few years.

Christmas Carols

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I like Christmas carols.

It sounds like a weird thing for a pagan to say, and I kind of agree. I don’t subscribe to Christianity, why do I like its seasonal music so much?

I assume a big part of the situation is that I grew up with some of these songs. They fall into a wider “canon” of stuff that was in the air about this time as I was growing up, alongside secular hits like “Frosty the Snowman”, “Deck the Halls”, “White Christmas”, and so on. And I’m sure a fair few of us can list at least ten Christmas songs we heard and liked growing up with little effort. So the more religious songs that were absolutely everywhere (your “Silent Night”s and “O Come All Ye Faithful”s and such) got ingrained into my soul and, hear me out, I’m not so sure that’s a bad thing. I don’t follow Christ, sure, but almost all these songs are about hope, joy, good news, and so on, which are shockingly apt seasonal themes for the Winter solstice (which is more or less a season in its own right, the way it’s celebrated in wider culture).

And maybe that latter bit explains my positive reaction to newer carols I’ve discovered (“Wexford Carol”, which is difficult to find anywhere let alone routinely, and “Mary’s Little Boy Child”). I have a more mixed opinion of “Mary, Did You Know” and “O Come Emmanuel” (the latter for that whole “bind all peoples in one heart and mind” business). But on the whole, when I find myself discovering new Christmas music, I am pleasantly surprised.

I’m not sure if this is a latent Christianity thing or a response to the lack of pagan hymns (a subject I am looking into thanks to a project for a community I’m involved in) and the general Christian overculture. It could be a combination of both, although I was never raised in the faith. (Mommie Dearest should have tried, since she turned out disappointed that I disagreed with her on certain theological fundamentals. Perhaps she believes the Word of God is written on my heart or something like that….) It could be nostalgia, even. Pure and simple longing for a seemingly easier past where the world seemed figured out and the future assured.

In any case, this may be my one Yule-tide based idiosyncrasy (or at least, the one that bugs me a little bit). I may never find an answer to it, and that’s probably OK.

The War On Christmas (Sadly, not an actual war)

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This year, the War On Christmas began in October, shortly before Halloween when President Biden was declared the Grinch, best I can tell for trying to be reasonable about the fact that there’s a global pandemic still around.

The War on Christmas is not a new obsession of the Right. Bill O’Reilly pushed it from 2005 until he was fired for sexual misconduct in 2017 (looooots of sexual misconduct). Before that it was the product of anti-semitic conspiracy theories pushed by the likes of the John Birch Society. Evidently Jews were pushing a secular, multi-cultural agenda for decades. Now, some War on Christmas proponents (by which I mean Dennis Prager) will point out that Jewish people wrote the most famous Christmas songs in the American Christmas canon, including White Christmas, Happy Holiday, and others. So this means Jews have not been pushing a secular, multi-cultural agenda. Or something.

In its modern form, the War on Christmas is a lot of screeching from the right, Fox News, and so on, about how “the left” or in some cases “the radical left” or “the Marxists” or “the Communist socialist system of Islam” (yes, someone actually said this) are out to remove Christian traditions like Christmas from the American public consciousness in order to push an agenda of gay marriage, abolition of the nuclear family, and reproductive rights for women. Ahh yes, all the evils presented in Pandora’s Box, finally unleashed.

Now, if you’ve been paying any kind of attention to this debate at all in the past decade or so, you might be thinking, “I thought a ton of Christmas traditions had nothing to do with Jesus!” (Unless you’re Kirk Cameron, who has somehow managed to pretend everything from Christmas trees to Christmas ham is linked back to the Bible in some way, shape, or form.) You’d be correct. Many customs are secular or pagan in origin, and one can strip all “Christian” elements out of Christmas without missing very much. Many of the things the War on Christmas people claim “the left” is “cancelling” are also secular in origin, for example Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (evidently), “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”, and Santa Claus (specifically the white version). There’s your standard “we can’t put nativity scenes on public government property!” complaints here as well, and that’s a matter of the separation of church and state. The current stance of the government, last I checked, appears to be that if you stick up a Nativity at the courthouse you have to also put up other appropriate display items from other traditions. Of course, this has not been a problem where I’m from. The courthouse here had inflatables of snowmen and Santa last year, as well as the standard lights on the large pine trees out front, and the only house I know of with a big ol’ wooden cross out front is also the biggest exterior display in town.

However, following the screeching about the War on Christmas is my favorite unorthodox Yuletide custom, possibly excepting the sadistic tracking of the Gavle Goat’s survival or lack thereof. My favorite Christmas movies as a child were the likes of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation so perhaps the signs were there from the beginning. The screeching hits the same beats year in and year out, especially when a Democrat is president. It’s like your holiday playlist, except it’s deranged raving about how the phrase “Merry Christmas” is banned and the word “Snowmen” is cancelled in favor of “snow people”. There’s always defiant declarations that “Real Christians/Americans will be celebrating CHRISTMAS this year and there’s not a damn thing the globalists can do about it!” Perhaps I’m strange for delighting so in watching people tilt at windmills. But I suppose finding it funny takes less mental energy than trying to explain to these people why and how they are wrong.

Andred and Mental Health

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The video that started it all. “A Case For Community SPG: Ares and Mental Health”, Aliakai, Jun 17, 2021

My first impression of this video was to the effect of “Hey, this kind of reminds me of Andred and my relationship with Her.”

I have prayed to Her for protection (chiefly from creepy, controlling, or otherwise dangerous men), and She has answered every time. (The times have been few, because I have baggage about asking for things, but when I have asked, She has answered.) When I first met Her, before I even knew Her name, She kept an eye on me. I remember in college in December when the path between the dorm and the location of a test was icy, but the Moon shone in the sky, making sure I got home safely (this is mentioned briefly here).

She is not a Mother Goddess or a goddess of healing and health. That’s the thing. I’m something of a practical-minded person. I feel like if I have a direct means of solving a problem, then I can relax about it. Kind words are great and all but I don’t feel they are all that useful to me. In my experience Andred has not been about simply saying it’s gonna be OK and leaving it at that. She and Ra have helped me organize my life, giving it a structure it might not have outside of school and work. I pray daily. It’s a good reckoning, a cue that the day can begin (which is rough when I have to actually start the day before that point due to reasons, but that circumstance is very rare, and a topic for another time).

Instead, I’ve gotten pointed down different directions. I’ve been told, “I’m your mother now.” And most recently, I’ve been given practical, mundane instructions. “Pick up these things, leave them here. Finish this project.” Or sometimes I get pulled to read up on a given subject (for example, the Fae or English folklore).

Practical directions and reading material get me out of my own head, and while I haven’t needed that much lately, I can’t say it hasn’t helped. Because it has. I feel accomplished when I get something like this done, and that goes a long way toward my self-esteem. Going and doing and reading keep me from doing something self-destructive like dwell on the past with my family.

So, on a deeply personal level, She has been good to me in that way. It’s like resting the body. Resting the mind can help it heal.

Mischief Night Update

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As I mentioned, October 30 is Mischief Night, a non-calendrical holiday where assorted bored teenagers get up to pranks. It isn’t very popular where I live, but can be found in urban centers in the East Coast region and the Great Lakes.

October 30 was also when the town held its Trick-or-Treat, on account of the 31st being a school night. I wasn’t present for the affair but according to the transfer sheets where I work, we alone went through six bags of candy. Others tell me it was wall to wall people, confirmed by photographs in the Nov. 5 edition of the local paper.

I suspected everyone and their brother would be out, after around a year and a half of dealing with, or trying to deny, the plague (not technically the plague but you get the point). We’ll see if the Gavle Goat survives this year, or if the ropes will finally snap. In my understanding, things haven’t peaked, but are just getting underway this year.

But, other than a ridiculous number of trick-or-treaters of all ages, very little happened on October 30, according to the Sheriff’s Report printed in the paper (I think by law, along with other public notices). There was a major accident, and a caller reported a youth in a bloody mask attempting to trick-or-treat, but who was told to come back the 31st. That’s it, really. (Of course, around here roughly 40-50% of calls are about wild animals and livestock being places they shouldn’t be. So there’s that.)

As mentioned, I’ve been cultivating a theory that many of the spirits and forces we associate with Halloween don’t associate themselves with Halloween, and we may be seeing more Yuletide activity than anything else.

Preparations

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The past 24-36 hours, I have felt the urge to make sure my emergency travel/magic kit is mostly stocked and there are certain supplies in my car (blankets, shovel, spare charger, that kind of thing). I’m not sure why. I feel like something is coming. I may have prepared in completely the wrong way for what may be coming.

But now I’m succumbing to the slightly subtler urge to blog about it. And I know this is where Andred makes me put things She wants me to write about. So I think She might have something to do with this. So I may have been guided correctly after all.

In an upcoming post I discuss an incident early in our relationship, before I knew Her name, when She protected me on a walk home. I remember still how that felt. Undeniable.

I think She may be acting again in Her capacity as protector. Of women, of the people. She has acted this way before, and I have prayed to Her specifically for protection on several occasions. Perhaps I am finally being nudged down a path that will lead to my ultimate safety, through the winter or more long-term. It’s hard to tell, and shockingly my precognitive powers are close to nonexistent (although tarot is a useful tool to me for preparing for the most likely scenario).

Maybe nothing will happen. Maybe something will happen. But I suppose it’s better to be somewhat ready than not ready at all.

I feel the spirits in this Chili’s tonight (or, Fuses DO just blow)

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At around 7:30 PM last night (11/2) power was lost to about one half of my workplace. Lights, coolers, freezers, hot chocolate machine, gas pumps, etc. without power. Until around 8:30 or 8:45 I thought we’d be able to have the registers running enough to do important closing paperwork. And then that turned out not to be the case. My bosses and I also discovered in the course of the night that a neighboring building was also without power, a slight concern to one resident who was on oxygen (but thankfully not on her deathbed because of it). That resident also says she heard a pop noise from the transformer. I was allowed to leave early, but as we were leaving gentlemen from the power company (whom my boss called three times) arrived to try and fix the issue. I heard talk of a blown fuse.

When it first started I was immediately overcome by the chill across my skin that tells me that spirits are present and the Otherworld is close. It is the feeling that lends itself to encounters like this. (Note: the rabbit is innocuous, but I felt the need to document it for a reason.) The feeling persisted for almost three hours, long after I got home and decided to lock the doors and not emerge until the sun came up (a decision I am still holding to in the morning). I was sitting in the darkened store with a candle, staring at the streetlights and thinking there was once a time when it would have been completely dark. No light of any kind but the fire. And we came pretty close to what that would have looked like. Waiting out the darkness with a sense of creeping shadow and cold, for it was also a little bit chilly.

Now, to be clear, I’m sure a fuse did blow. And fuses do blow. This is a thing that fuses do when they are worn out, overloaded, or both. This is a reality of modern living.

It is also folklorically attested that certain spirits react poorly to substances like iron (and most probably steel, which is mostly iron anyways). The fact that humans use steel in pretty much everything of import from cars to transformers to buildings has caused some to erroneously believe the Fae, who are intolerant to the material to varying degrees (except probably smithing Fae), are nature spirits or prefer natural habitats. And of course, it is also attested that there are beings that simply set out to cause problems, and may exploit their weakness to steel and iron toward this end. Or they may see a situation like a fuse going out and taking out power to two buildings as an opportunity to make themselves known, or cause other mischief.

I can’t say, but I felt the spirits in that Chili’s last night.

A good summary of my evening.