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Sometimes I miss being a little babby Heathen.  When I was first getting into this whole situation, it really injected a whole new appreciation for life and the world around me into my life; every little thing felt divine.

I don’t feel that very often anymore, and sometimes that makes me sad.

But one thing’s never changed:

Every time the rain comes, and a big peal of thunder shakes the sky, I smile, and I think to myself, “Ah, there he is.  There’s our boy.”

[quasatruar]

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knock knock it’s odin the death god 

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Reenactor throws a spear at a drone

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Why are there so many hoodoo and rootwork books written by white people? I’m not saying white people can’t be taught by black practitioners but that is uncommon, and hoodoo ad rootwork are primarliy black practices. If I want to learn about a practice that is outside my expertise and outside my white ass world, I want to hear from people of color.

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another shot of my freya altar

saw some fucked up shit on twitter just now so you bet your ass i’m burning lavender and yarrow under freya’s eye

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The Dawn, The Day, The Twilight and The Night - Bouguereu

[quasatruar]

Norse Stories

There are stories about Norse heroes literally defeating greed in the form of a dragon, a wandering god who explores the entire world to gain wisdom, and feuding farmers who question if their violence really satisfies their previous injuries…these are deeply human stories.

If the first thing you want to do after hearing those stories is to put down others, chase them away from the culture, and hate others…then you’re not actually listening. That’s not what those stories are about. That’s not why they told those stories, celebrated those heroes, and worshipped those gods.

If you default to hate instead of sharing those stories with enthusiasm, then you’re the root of the problem.

[quasatruar]

“Surtur was the lord of Muspelheim and leader of the Eldjötnar, or Fire Giants. His name is usually translated to mean ‘black’, in keeping with his charred appearance. The origins of Surtur are not clear: Muspelheim was the first land of the Norse cosmos, predating Niflheim and it may be that Surtur was always there. Once the children of Ymir appeared, Surtur and his fire giants interacted with them, but seem to have a different, obscure origin. Muspelheim is said to be impassable to those not native to it, but all the same Surtur guarded its borders against incursions until it was time to attack Asgard at Ragnarok. He was armed with a flaming sword, with which he slew Freyr and set fire to Asgard and even Yggdrasil. It was Surtur’s fire that burned the world and completed its destruction. It has been suggested that Surtur is the reason Muspelheim was a fiery land – he made it that way with his sword. This in turn suggests that Surtur was even older than Ymir: he was present at the beginning of the cosmos and at the end. He is, not surprisingly, associated with volcanoes. The Norsemen who settled in Iceland would have been reminded about the power of Surtur from time to time by eruptions and plumes of smoke from the mountains. Surtur remains influential to this day – when a new Icelandic island emerged from the sea as a result of volcanic activity between 1963 and 1967 it was naturally named Surtsey.”

— Norse Myths: Viking Legends of Heroes and Gods

[quasatruar]

Sociology - Odinn & Freyja lol 

What was your college major and which deity(s) do you work with the most?

I’m really curious to see if there’s any correlation. I’ll start:

Multimedia Journalism: Hermes 

[quasatruar]

Thor reified men’s confidence in their own strength, while Odin reified the awareness of their insufficiency. He provided, however, the flash of sacrality, the moments which sear or bless, when men are lifted above themselves as transports in which they overcome their limited condition.

Lotte Motz, The King, The Champion, and the Sorcerer: A Study in Germanic Myth (1996, Studia Medievalia Septentrionalia)

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How can you claim to venerate Woden, he who is called the Wanderer, and turn away a hungry stranger from your gate?

How can you claim to venerate the god of travelers, the lord of hospitality, when you turn away the needy and refuse to uplift the lost?

You can’t.

[quasatruar]

Autum is the ragnarok of plants

[quasatruar]

Elitism in Witchcraft Ain’t Cute

So many asks I’ve gotten on here have been about how people think XYZ kind of magic is dumb because it’s something new. Emoji magic, cleansing spray bottles, and even the infamous wet-wipe magic. I’ve made it clear multiple times that I won’t look down on someone else’s magic just because I didn’t think of it.

But elitism in Witchcraft goes through so many of these sub-communities. If you’re not “academic” enough or you use words a certain way, your not taken seriously- which ties directly into classism. The entire reason I write is to put out information that either isn’t out there, isn’t talked about, or isn’t celebrated and make it accessible and reader friendly. I recently got a series of strange responses on a post that boiled down to “you don’t know how semantics work and this makes me angry!” They said I was ignorant of my own culture because of a wording choice. Toting that you are an “academic”, an initiate of a certain tradition, or follower of a certain path does not make you better than anyone else.

Our words, meanings, and Magic’s are different. That has always been true and always will be true. I see so many creative uses for everyday things on here all the time that I would have never thought of. It falls under “new age” or pop-culture magic and gets shit on immediately. Stifling someone else’s creativity or expression because you personally don’t like it doesn’t make you elevated, it makes you an asshole.

So use Pokémon cards as tarot if it works (it probably fucking will) and cast curses with windex, and always experiment with what works and what doesn’t. Be bold. Look to whatever you can to adapt to. And if you find yourself getting hot and bothered because someone is using cleaning supplies in magic, or uses the wrong possessive pronoun, take a deep breath and use that energy somewhere else instead of hollering at people.

And to the witches who’ve had a surge in anon antics or shadey messages, remember the great ancestral wisdom of the 3F’s. If they ain’t feedin, fuckin, or financing you pay them no mind.

[quasatruar]

[quasatruar]

“so what do death witches do?”

good question!

before i jump in, i wanna emphasize that there’s no right or wrong way to do death work. i know i’ve struggled for a long time with the idea that i’m not “witchy enough” or don’t spend enough time with the craft, so don’t take this as any sort of shaming of your practice or the time you spend with it! this is just what works for me.

that said…

we do a lot of things!

ancestor work

spirit communication

divination

comforting the living left behind

attending to the dead, emotionally or physically (as in mortuary workers)

work with cycles of change

healing

shadow work

lots more!!!

if you’re interested in anything specific that i listed, let me know and i’ll work on a separate post about it!

here’s a rundown of how i incorporate these things into my life:

ancestor work is my primary practice. i honor long-gone ancestors, but also close relatives who have died. “honor” can look very different for many people, as can “work,” but i do things like tend to my grandparents’ grave, talk to my ancestors about what’s going on in the world they’ve left behind, and petition them for favors.

to attend to the dead, i tend other graves in the cemetery. 

this story is of those moments where i’m like “wow, willow, how did you not know you were a witch” – when i was first driving and spent a lot of time with my grandparents’ grave (moment 1), i had a strong affection for another grave of someone unrelated to me and would regularly tend to it and place flowers on it, despite not knowing them, because it was regularly unattended and i felt that he deserved the comfort of being cared for (moment 2).

other death witches attend to the dead by working in mortuary sciences!! a great book on this topic is Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, by Caitlin Doughty, about facing her fear of death by working in a crematorium.

now, shadow work is one of my favorite topics. essentially, you work with the darkest parts of yourself to integrate yourself as a whole person by facing what you fear about yourself. this can be done through divination but also with self-reflection, journaling, and mindfulness.

divination itself is one of the oldest ways i’ve practiced witchcraft. i’ve been reading the tarot cards for 10 years now and also dabble in pendulums, oracles, shufflemancy, osteomancy, curio casting, and tons of other forms. in death work, divination can be a form of spirit communication, where you speak to spirits of the dead or other types of spirits, or it can be fortune-telling, self-reflection, and many other things.

some people think healing is strictly the place of green witches or light workers, but you can’t have light without shadow. for example, many witches think of Hades as just a “death deity,” without recognizing how He can be a healing force by helping us reckon with our fear of death and knowing when it’s our time. it’s also working with the cycles of change.

other cycles of change include observing the wheel of the year, or my personal take, observing the local changes of season. i have my own associations and my own calendar related to the midwest climate, but practicing the wheel of the year is an excellent way to tap into general seasonal shifts and have a community to help!

finally, comforting the living left behind is one that many people practice without realizing it’s a form of death magic. not only are you honoring the deceased by helping their loved ones, but you’re helping create change, or death of the old, within the living.

i hope this helps any budding death witches! ✿◕ ‿ ◕✿

[quasatruar]

Veleda was a seidr volva who lived in the first century AD.

She was mentioned by Tacitus and according to his works, she predicted that the Batavi (Germanic tribe located in which is now the Netherlands) would be victorious in their uprising against the Romans.

She was highly regarded among several Germanic tribes including the Bructeri, Batavi, Tencteri and a few others. When the Batavi tribe captured a flagship of the Roman general Cerialis, they gifted it to Veleda.

I thought it would be nice to mention her since I have never seen anyone mention any Germanic woman of history. Veleda also was a mediator between the Germanic tribes and the Romans.