Suspected Bunny Tracks
Photos from this morning as I discovered there are bunny tracks, it looks like, all around one side of my car. Is it a sign?
Easter
I wanted to share this video with you all because it mentions hares (YAY!) as fertility symbols who may or may not have been able to reproduce asexually, as part of the origin of the Easter Bunny
On Jackalopes
A jackalope is a local legend where I’m from, and is said to be a jackrabbit with the horns of a pronghorn or antelope. The name is a portmanteau of “jackrabbit” and “antelope”, though a jackrabbit is another name for a hare, and a pronghorn is actually a type of deer. They are said to be the product of male hares and female antelope, and only mate with each other during lightning strikes (and also that their horns get in the way during the process, which implies that the female of the species also possesses them). Also called “the warrior rabbit” (though once again, a jackrabbit is not actually a rabbit), they are known to charge at people and take their legs out from under them, and gore them with the horns.
Can be lured with whiskey, and are exceptional mimics of human voices, a skill they use to elude capture.
I bring all this up because jackalopes came up in therapy today as a means for me to help process some of my baggage. I associate them with Andred in a roundabout way through Her association with hares and the relatedness of hares and jackalopes, and so during session they became Her symbol and Her weapon against my abusers. In my head, they swarmed and attacked through overwhelming, primarily. I’m sure they left a bloody mess behind, but I wasn’t around long enough to see it. That wasn’t the point of the exercise. But it did help me see the relatedness of the two, and bring Andred and I closer.
More on Jackalopes:
The Shrine
In my new home are two somewhat awkwardly placed cabinets, whose doors open from the inside out toward you. I’ve made them into shrines for my gods. Andred prefers, by and large, Her doors to be left open so that Her essence may seep in and act as a protective force and sort of like a home deity (though I recognize well enough She is much more than that). My mother closes the doors. She did it once when I was away, and then another time I watched her do it right in front of my face, like it was nothing.
While Andred respects that I don’t want this to happen, it points to my mother’s disrespect for sacred spaces from religions that aren’t hers. Which is to say, if it isn’t some flavor of Christian, she doesn’t agree with it. She treats it like it’s a quaint little thing that I’ve done that I might one day grow out of with the right “guidance”, or I might just…come to realize one day that I should be on the Path of Christ…or something. This isn’t the first time or way she’s mocked my practice. She mocks spells, Yule (doesn’t seem to know the other holidays exist), and so many other things, yet has made it abundantly clear to me that she still holds to Christian stances on so many things (such as homosexuality, “a sin”).
Andred seems Endlessly Patient now, but I wouldn’t be shocked to hear one day that my family’s couple acres or so is absolutely covered in rabbits. In fact, I’d laugh my ass off.
Labor Day
I’m beginning to feel Andred again. The summer heat broke a couple of weeks ago and now it’s starting to be properly chilly. Fall is coming. It’s September, today is Labor Day, and it’s the second or third week of pre-season football (my parents are protesting this year, due to the whole hullabaloo about kneeling/”taking a knee” started by Capaernick last season). And, it has a particular order in this town: summer is tourist season (and also the heat of Ra, who gets brief mentions here where relevant), then we come into hunting season, and then, snow gods permitting, skiing, snowboarding, snow machining, and the annual sled dog race (top notch puppers right there).
In ancient times, this is about the time everyone goes back to their villages from the hills or from wherever they were fighting and raiding, to harvest things, cull the herd, and prepare for winter. It’s time to start cleaning up, regrouping, and preparing for the coming year.
And, as you might be aware, I’ve recently moved (I call it being kicked out with plausible deniability because I don’t like to sugar coat things). I’m almost completely set up, and She has her own shrine space. My mother keeps closing the door on it, but that’s a post for another time. So personally, I have to regroup, because a wrench has been thrown into my plans (to be brutally honest, it’s the latest of many wrenches, but at least the most brutally honest of the lot of them). I have to reassess and gather myself up. I don’t know what awaits in the days ahead, but this is not a season for very much action. This is a season for figuring out what I’m going to do next.
I learned within the past few years that if I move with the seasons, instead of trying to move in spite of them, then I’m a lot happier. Now I’m at least in an environment that ensures me peace and quiet, free from certain toxic persons, and I can still myself and worship the gods. Perhaps this time I’ll make choices I’ll be satisfied with, not ones I feel half-pressured into.
To Andraste
Shining Andraste, great of glory, great of name, most noble of goddesses, in you did the mighty place their faith of old. Andraste of the Iceni, in desperate times did bright-haired Boudicca call on you, and neither she or will you ever be forgotten. Andraste of the blood-stained field, swift-riding goddess of honor and strife, invincible mistress of contest and conflict, friend of all those who struggle for the right, I call on you. Andraste, you know that in this life victory oft goes not to the good but to the strong, and yet such a battle is well worth the fighting.
Source: https://fieldstones.wordpress.com/2012/08/14/to-andraste/
On Hares
I recently looked up “rabbit vs hare” cuz I thought they were just two names for the same creature. I was wrong.
https://www.diffen.com/difference/Hare_vs_Rabbit
This link lays out all the differences between hares and rabbits even though they look very alike. Andred Herself seems not to mind that I’ve gotten the two mixed up, but I wanted to make this post to alleviate any confusion going forward.
Today’s Sign from Andred
Chràbhaidh a Andred 