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[grimnirs-child]

The most common mistake people make when thinking about prehistory and how to avoid it.

In "The Dawn of Everything, A New History for Humanity" David Graeber gives what I think might be the best piece of advice I've ever heard for understanding deep human history, and that is to get your mind out of the Garden of Eden.

People speculating about prehistory before modern archeology were quick to frame early humanity as existing in a "state of nature", either with pure innocent tribal communism, or being brutish barbarous cavemen, then something happened to bring us from the state of nature into "society". Did we make a Faustian bargain by domesticating plants and animals? Why is evidence of intergroup violence in prehistory so rare? How did we fall from the innocent state of nature? This, of course, smacks of the biblical creation story, so even if people don't believe it literally, they seem to have a hard time letting go of it spiritually even in a secular context.

This is pretty much nonsense, of course. Humans have existed for over 2 million years. Anatomically modern humans have existed for at least 300 thousand years. Behaviourally modern humans (with symbolism, art, long distance trade, political awareness) have existed for at least 50 thousand years, from our best evidence, but possibly a lot longer. The time between the Sumerians inventing writing and urban living 5,000 years ago and now is only a narrow slice of human history.

If we want to understand human history properly, we shouldn't understand people of the past as fundamentally different from us. They were intelligent, politically aware people doing their best in the world they found themselves in, just like we are today. We didn't fall from innocence with the development of behavioral modernity, religion, farming, war, money, capitalism, computers, or anything else. The world has changed a lot, but people have been experimenting with different ways to live for as long as there have been people, like this example I've posted before about disabled people's role in late pleistocene Eurasian society.

People have been the same as we are now for at least the last 50 thousand years. We have lived in countless different ways and will continue to experiment. There was no fall, and we don't live at the end of history.

[grimnirs-child]

[grimnirs-child]

ROADKILL / SHRINE

an homage to a dead deer i was driving past a few weeks ago and thoughts of becoming earth.

mixed media installation // ko-fi

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Drowning Morana during the total solar eclipse. About two weeks later than usual, but it’s not exactly every day that you get a total eclipse, much less an early Spring one.

Photos were taken just prior to totality. The pic of totality is a blatant steal from a friend, my phone camera lens isn’t up to that!

I’ll have pics of her rebirth later today or tomorrow.

@msgraveyarddirt @labradorduck @slavicafire @zarya-zaryanitsa @slaviclore

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Death

The Nine of Cups

Justice

The Nine of Swords

The King of Swords

The Hanged Man

The Hermit

The Six of Swords

The Eight of Cups

The Five of Cups

The Sun

The Three of Swords

‘The Ghetto Tarot’: Haitian artists transform classic tarot deck into stunning real life scenes:

Welcome to the Ghetto Tarot, a project from award-winning documentary photographer Alice Smeets and a group of Haitian artists known as Atis Rezistans. The idea was to take the classic Rider-Waite tarot deck of 78 cards and create a photographic version of each card using settings and objects in the vibrant ghetto of Haiti.

As Smeets says, “The spirit of the Ghetto Tarot project is the inspiration to turn negative into positive while playing. The group of artists ‘Atiz Rezistans’ use trash to create art with their own visions that are a reflection of the beauty they see hidden within the waste. They are claiming the word ‘Ghetto,’ thus freeing themselves of its depreciating undertone and turning it into something beautiful.”

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Tried something new this weekend

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Bovidae (Antelopes, Cattle, and Goat-Antelopes)

*technically this is the tribe Bovini, there are some other bovines that are more antelope-like but they get their own post. this group is still colloquially referred to as bovines

*not every single recognized species and subspecies is represented because some i could find zero information on, let alone pictures. not doing breeds of domesticated species either because i’ll be dead before i finish that

*common names are taken from the IUCN red list if applicable and iNaturalist (and very rarely wikipedia)

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Every time I light the rings on my gas hob I say, "Hail Frīg, I cook with Your flame."

Shower prayers. I pray to the River Thames, Great Mother of the City, thanking Her and asking Her to wash away ill luck and ill health, during every morning shower.

What uncommon devotional activity do you like to engage in? Let’s share!

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For a "quick start" guide to a basic format for ritual and offerings, I'll always recommend the Longship website.

Also, worth noting - no matter what anyone says, ethnicity has 0 relevance to a desire or decision to practice heathenry. There is 0 need to justify your practice based on ancestry or ethnicity.

Ok hi I have a question for any Norse pagans!! I’m primarily Norwegian ethnically and have felt a pull to take a closer look at Norse paganism after following Hellenic paganism for almost 7 years now, but I have no clue what resources are good or where to start. I truly don’t know much at all so beginner level resources would be really really appreciated. I know the community can unfortunately have huge bigotry issues so I figured asking instead of assuming and finding out I got wrong knowledge or biased knowledge might be best!! Thank you so much and may your days be bright!!

[grimnirs-child]

Land-based ancestors are the ancestors of place, the spirits of those who have lived and died in the same region where you currently live. This could include people who have lived in your actual house or on the land upon which it is built. It could also include, on a larger scale, the people who have lived in your city, state, or even country. These are people whose very bones make up the landscape, whose bodies have decomposed and become one with the natural world. Therefore, their spirits are ever present and act as guardians of land, and it’s vital that you get to know them by learning the history of your home place.

- The Crooked Path, Kelden

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Found family can be an orphaned blind fawn and two god's of death.

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eyes you see in a forest

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Thought and Memory.

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Odin's companions

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You are alive for the first time, so be easy on yourself. But you are also alive for the only time, so make it count.

postcard for February mail club, join here

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My husband gave me permission to share a picture of this special offering vessel that he made to propitiate his Kiln Spirit when working on ceramics.

I love it SO much.