Post AmUMf5KyBXFSVlWqRM by vkfarfalle@zirk.us
 (DIR) More posts by vkfarfalle@zirk.us
 (DIR) Post #AmSHGk5kdSbzaC40sC by vkfarfalle@zirk.us
       2024-09-27T19:23:13Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       #FediCoven 2024-09-278What first drew you into paganism or witchcraft?I was one of those intolerable, intolerant smarmy atheists through most of my teens.I was researching white supremacist hate groups for a paper in my high school Sociology class, when I discovered that late 20th century Nazi filth was still exploiting indigenous Germanic religious beliefs to give their nonsense an air of legitimacy.This led me to discover LEGITIMATE recon heathenry.
       
 (DIR) Post #AmSHGm2dO1J5d6cYIC by vkfarfalle@zirk.us
       2024-09-27T19:28:22Z
       
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       I saw a verse in the Havamal. Don't remember who translated it, and I've never found it again, but they rendered Verse 126 thus:"When you bear witness to grave injustice /Take the grievance on unto yourself /And offer unto your enemies no peace."I realized that I'd Come Home before I got to the end of the poem. I learned that I was a heathen that day, and I've been learning how to BE a heathen every day since.
       
 (DIR) Post #AmUMf2stIxbEu6NOOe by HeliaXyana@mastodon.nl
       2024-09-28T07:28:34Z
       
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       @vkfarfalle What a fascinating road to a path! As I understand it, identifying as heathen is coupled with an urge to revive ancient, pre-Christian religions. Do you avoid reinventing and reinterpreting those in your craft?
       
 (DIR) Post #AmUMf3mtwiP1hoa7hQ by vkfarfalle@zirk.us
       2024-09-28T21:27:51Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @HeliaXyana No. Our faith was not preserved whole, these past thousand years-- and if it had been, it would not be the same faith as it would have become, if it had been practiced for the last thousand years.It's one thing to retrace our ancestors' footsteps, to see where they've been and honor their journeys. It's another thing to try to be the kind of people they would have wanted us to be. And it's a third thing to become the ancestors we would want for our descendants to look up to.
       
 (DIR) Post #AmUMf5KyBXFSVlWqRM by vkfarfalle@zirk.us
       2024-09-28T21:47:21Z
       
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       @HeliaXyana Those three things are related. Closely related. But they're not all  the same thing and sometimes they pull us in different directions.Our duty to our 1000 CE ancestors is to remember their duty to their 1000 BCE ancestors-- and remember our duty to all our descendants yet to come. They had millennia of sacred traditions because their ancestors spent millennia making traditions. We have decades of tradition and textbooks written by aliens... and our duty to our future kin.
       
 (DIR) Post #AmUMf75neuInxIRl4a by vkfarfalle@zirk.us
       2024-09-28T22:05:03Z
       
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       @HeliaXyana We have to ask ourselves constantly if every step we take is 'heathen', if it's authentic and ancestral.Our ancestors didn't, and they wouldn't understand why we must.They'd ask if they worked. If they pleased the land and the gods. If they brought the community together in peace and prosperity. They would ask if their magic *fed* their luck or soured it.We still have to ask the question. But the fact our ancestors didn't... is part of the answer.(Sorry, done now.)