#indigenous practices

[unbfacts]

Inuit communities used song duels to resolve disputes. Disputing individuals composed satirical songs, performed before the entire camp in large igloos. The audience's reaction decided the winner, helping restore harmony.

[out-on-the-road]

Bandelier National Monument

[viggiq]

conservation can be v harmful - preserving and "legacy" and nature-as-museum is colonising

white people need to stop assuming indig peeps are destroyers of ecosystems

You know what the most frustrating thing about the vegans throwing a fit over my “Humans aren’t Parasites” post is?  I really wasn’t trying to make a point about animal agriculture. Honestly, the example about subsistence hunting isn’t the main point. That post was actually inspired by thoughts I’ve been having about the National Park system and environmentalist groups.

See, I LOVE the National Parks. I always have a pass. I got to multiple parks a year. I LOVE them, and always viewed them as this unambiguously GOOD thing. Like, the best thing America has done. 

BUT, I just finished reading this book called “I am the Grand Canyon” all about the native Havasupai people and their fight to gain back their rights to the lands above the canyon rim. Historically, they spent the summer months farming in the canyon, and then the winter months hunter-gathering up above the rim. When their reservation was made though, they lost basically all rights to the rim land (They had limited grazing rights to some of it, but it was renewed year to year and always threatened, and it was a whole thing), leading to a century long fight to get it back. 

And in that book there are a couple of really poignant anecdotes- one man talks about how park rangers would come harass them if they tried to collect pinon nuts too close to park land- worried that they would take too many pinon nuts that the squirrels wanted. Despite the fact that the Havasupai had harvested pinon nuts for thousands and thousands of years without ever…like…starving the squirrels. 

There’s another anecdote of them seeing the park rangers hauling away the bodies of dozens of deer- killed in the park because of overpopulation- while the Havasupai had been banned from hunting. (Making them more and more reliant on government aid just to survive the winter months.) 

They talk about how they would traditionally carve out these natural cisterns above the rim to catch rainwater, and how all the animals benefitted from this, but it was difficult to maintain those cisterns when their “ownership” of the land was so disputed. 

So here you have examples of when people are forcibly separated from their ecosystem and how it hurts both those people and the ecosystem. 

And then when the Havasupai finally got legislation before Congress to give them ownership of the rim land back- their biggest opponent was the Parks system and the Sierra Club. The Sierra Club (a big conservation group here in the US) ran a huge smear campaign against these people on the belief that any humans owning this land other than the park system (which aims at conservation, even while developing for recreation) was unacceptable. 

And it all got me thinking about how, as much as I love the National Parks, there are times when its insistence that nature be left “untouched” (except, ya know, for recreation) can actually harm both the native people who have traditionally been part of those ecosystems AND potentially the ecosystems themselves. And I just think there’s a lot of nuance there about recognizing that there are ways for us to be in balance with nature, and that our environmentalism should respect that and push for sustainability over preserving “pristine” human-less landscapes. Removing ourselves from nature isn’t the answer. 

But apparently the idea that subsistence hunting might actually not be a moral catastrophe really set the vegans off.  Woopie. 

[screamingfromuz]

Listen. LISTEN, the longer I spend in the academic world, I am more convinced that describing Judaism and Jews as a religion/ethnic grope/ethnoreligion is unhelpful outside of Academic circles.

The best way to explain Judaism is using the tribe model. A lot of times Judaism is a community first and a religion second, i.e., your level of religiousness is rarely a thing that alienate you from the community.

Think of other tribes, like the Sámi, Aboriginal Australians, Māori, Yurok, Inuit ect. Each have their own unique religion, but we do not think of them as a religious group, because the tribal identity is more important, and the religion is considered part of the culture, not the opposite.

IMORTANT SIDENOTE: I am aware that many of those tribes, and other tribes have a big chunk of Christians in them, usually more Christians than those who follow the indigenous religion of the tribe. BUT for the sake of discussion, I am equating Judaism to the section that does follow the indigenous religion of the tribe.

So, despite the fact that the religious structures of Judaism is very integral to Judaism, it is partly because of the community based focus of Judaism. The most basic example is the Minyan, the fact that prayer is preferred to be done in a group. Or the fact that the Sader is meant to be a celebrated in a group. and so on.

SO, ethnoreligion is a great academic term, but for outside that world? A tribe is a much better term to explain Judaism.

[vigilskept]

gnashing my teeth thinking about how veilguard talks about the gods only as a joke when they could've gone somewhere truly crazy.... you're so right.

Yeah... you get it. It's just such a missed opportunity!

I don't even mind the jokey tone they use a lot of the time, because we all joke about things we struggle to understand/cope with.

Except Veilguard refuses to let you even try to broach the subject beyond that surface level. In fact, when it does let you engage with it at all, it manages to make things even less nuanced!

I'm just going to talk about Bellara's quest here since it's the most directly linked with the elven gods, and it's already a lot. Fundamentally, her companion quest is asking us two things:

Should elves be blamed for the actions of the Evanuris?

Should they preserve any of their past at all?

The first one is absurd to even begin with. It's not even a good or interesting take on the (very christian!) question: "Are we responsible for the sins of our ancestors?"

The Evanuris are not the ancestors of modern elves. Dalish religion implies that modern elves descend from those who the rebels never freed from slavery to the Evanuris.

This setup is already awful without looking at any of the parallels Bioware has (intentionally) drawn between the elves of Thedas and Jewish/Indigenous people. I have to put the rest of this under the cut because I genuinely don't think it can be shortened without making it sound flippant. In the context of the coding of the elves, the theological/social implications of all of this are so much worse.

TLDR: the indigenous/jewish coding of the elves makes bioware's treatment of elven religion in veilguard thoughtless at best, cruel at worst. they did not have to write themselves into this corner. there was a way of handling this lore reveal without the implication of elven religion (again, jewish/indigenous coded) being obsolete

So, the religion of the Dalish was part of their enslavement. It's the belief they were forced into by the cruel gods they are still devoted to. That's already pretty bad. How could it get worse, you might wonder?

Whether Bioware deviated from their initial inspirations for the elves or not, the implications for these lore reveals in light of those parallels are particularly cruel. Those two core questions in Bellara's quest? Yeah. Those have both been levied against the oppressed groups that Bioware chose to draw inspiration from. Both historically and presently. To justify atrocities against them.

And to be clear, Bioware does not deviate from or subvert the usual indigeous and jewish-coding of the elves in their writing here. If anything, they end up actively endorsing a very significant element of antisemitic and anti-indigenous sentiment.

Indigenous-Coding

Advocates of colonisation have always justified it by arguing they were 'saving' groups of people who were stuck in the past. They had been ‘left in the dark’ through ignorance of Christianity. In the more secular sense, this was framed as Europeans having journeyed through history to reach enlightenment, while the rest of the world was still in an ‘uncivilized’ state.

Christianity and progress had to be brought to these people to save their souls and bring them into the future with everyone else. Their Gods? There were only two possible ways to frame those. Either they were not real at all, or they were evil. Either way, they were obsolete.

In the Americas, these arguments were still used when corralling indigenous children into residential schools or tearing them from communities through the adoption system. Governments pushed the idea that they had to be forced to assimilate because they were 'backward' in their practices and beliefs.

In the settler-colonial state Canada, where Bioware is based, it's still common enough to hear people justify all of this as having been done "for their own good." Even those who admit that the ways colonization was perpetuated were cruel will still try to defend it by telling you, "it was bad, but their ancestors weren't saints either."

Sounding painfully familiar yet? A little uncomfortable in the context of Bellara's questline?

Jewish-Coding

Since the dawn of Christian Church, Jewish people have had a very fraught place in Christian theology. Christianity claims that that the coming of the messiah in the person of Jesus Christ makes the religion of Judaism obsolete. Christians believed the obvious answer to this problem was that Jewish people should convert.

When many did not, they were labeled as ignorant, obstinate, stuck in the past. They were so focused on their history that they couldn't see the truth which had been revealed in the present. There’s a significant legacy of this idea in Christian artwork with depictions of Synagoga blindfolded next to the clear eyed Ecclesia. You still hear echoes of this sentiment in antisemitic language today.

As for the nature of the Jewish God... there is some deviation here. For some Christians, He is God the Father, and He is good. For others — and this idea has been around from early Christianity till now — He is the Creator of the material world, but He is evil.

There are innumerable variations of Christian gnosticism that probably wouldn't be productive to get into on a Dragon Age Blog. What I need to underline here though, is that the idea of the Old Testament God as the devil/the demiurge/fundamentally evil, has been used to justify atrocity towards Jewish people for over a thousand years.

Should elves be blamed then? For the sundering of the Titans? For the Veil? For the Blight? For the evils of this world, created by their Gods?

Implications for Veilguard

Not only is religion in Dragon Age: The Veilguard often devoid of nuance or ignored outright, when the game does engage with it at all, it does so in a way that quite literally draws on these incredibly harmful antisemitic and anti-indigenous sentiments that have been (and still are) used to perpetuate real harm.

To be clear, I don't think the writing here intends to endorse the idea that elves should be blamed for any of what's going on. Bellara's anxieties are being projected onto her people as a whole while she grapples with what this all means for her, I get that. In fact, you could be generous and read some of this as a critique of this particular kind of anti-indigenous/jewish bigotry.

However, I don't think that absolves the writers of any of the implications they've created by confirming that the elven pantheon did exist and was canonically evil.

Elements of Dalish/elven culture might be preserved after all this, but the conclusion the game railroads you into is that their religion is obsolete. Just like Judaism. Just like the many Indigenous religions around the world. Except in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, it’s no longer just the bigotry of outsiders claiming that to be the case. It’s now the objective truth of the setting.

Going forward, the elves of Thedas can keep their culture, but they can’t practice their religion. If they continued to practice, they would be framed the way the Venatori are: evil and stuck in the past. This really can’t be overstated: this is the exact rhetoric that has justified centuries of violence and oppression of Jewish and Indigenous people. This rhetoric is still around and still weaponized.

It’s so cruel to create an in world ‘lineage’ that draws so heavily from their cultures and histories, then validate the rhetoric that has been used to hurt them. At best, it’s thoughtless. But as a company based in a settler-colonial state, this is something they should’ve put thought into, given that they chose to code their elves and Jewish and Indigenous. That was their responsibility, actually.

What gets me about all this is that they actually didn't need to force that conclusion at all. They could have kept the Evanuris as cruel tyrants without demonising the Creators and their worship at the same time.

The Evanuris weren't always Gods. They weren't even always rulers.

In Trespasser, when asked how they became Gods, Solas tells Lavellan that they did so slowly. That it started with a war. That fear bred a desire for simplicity. For right and wrong. For chains of command. That generals became respected elders, then kings, and finally gods.

Veilguard confirms all of this. The addition it makes is that before all this, the first elves were spirits who made their bodies out of the Titans. This all occurred over the course of thousands of years.

None of this needs to be retconned in order to allow for a respectful yet nuanced portrayal of religion!

TLDR pt2: bioware, u could’ve avoided literally ALL of this by making the evanuris part of a priestly class who seized power after the war with the titans. it wouldn’t even have undermined ur lore! u could’ve kept dalish religion alive! u could’ve implied complex political dynamics for your ancient elves without even having to write it! why didn’t you even try?

Trying to Fix This Mess

Say the elves took their bodies from the Titans and settled the lands of Thedas. Say the Titans even allowed this for a time. The dwarves were made from their own bodies after all.

Yet the elves didn't have the same connection with the Titans as the dwarves did. They had no stone-sense, so they couldn't understand the Titans' song.

Generations down the line, some of them took too much from the Titans. More than they were willing to give. That was when the Titans lashed out, making the earth tremble so that all the elves had built crumbled beneath them.

And what if the firstborn among the elves had taken up priesthood to guide the younger ones. They were closer to spirits than the elves that were born into this world, and so the younger ones looked to them for guidance. Maybe they were the ones who were trusted to reach out to the more powerful of the spirits who chosen stay in the Fade, their old kin who preferred to keep their distance from the physical world to preserve the essence of what they were. The spirits of Justice, of Benevolence, of Craft. Those who the elven people paid homage to, and trusted to preserve them in turn.

So when everything seemed to fall apart, the elves turned to their Keepers, their priests, and asked of them what they ought to do. How could they make the earth stop shaking? What would they have to do to be at peace again?

Whatever the spirits themselves may have responded, many of the Keepers (among them the Evanuris) took up arms and chose war. They saw it could be won so they fought, sundering Titans from their dreams and stilling the land.

And yet there was no peace.

Some Keepers sought to hold on to their power as generals, and wanted to wage war on new shores to keep it. Some Keepers thought they had already gone too far, claiming they had acted without the guidance of the spirits who hadn't wanted war.

These Keepers could've caused chaos and endless bloodshed, so the Evanuris formed their alliance to suppress the others. Likely, they thought they were doing so for the benefit of all the elven people. More war meant more death, and it was needless now that the land was still. And even if what they did to the Titans was wrong, it was done and they could not fix it. Better to silence those who meant to stir up fear among the people.

The Evanuris fought until they were the last faction left, naming the few holdouts the Forgotten Ones. They were praised for bringing peace to Elvhenan, and trusting in their guidance their people crowned them as rulers.

Yet some dissent always remained. None of them were infallible. They were no longer spirits, they hadn't been for thousands of years. They were now more accustomed to command than to priesthood after all that war. They had drawn on the power they had stolen from the Titans to gain the advantage over their enemies, and the corruption of the Blight was starting creep in, ever-so-slowly.

Maybe some of the people, unhappy with their rule, started to voice the thought that was expressed by their rival Keepers once more: that the Evanuris had grown distant from the spirits. That Elgar'nan didn't serve Justice anymore. That Mythal had strayed from Benevolence.

So Evanuris took the mantle of godhood for themselves. It was only for peace and stability.

It would be too dangerous if anyone could claim they were deviating from the will of the spirits, so they would claim they were those great spirits. Elgar'nan was Justice, Mythal was Benevolence. They would use their rule only for the benefit of the people, not abuse their power.

And there you go. None of what I've written above can't be neatly incorporated into the existing lore of Veilguard. It leaves the elves of Thedas precisely where they started in Dragon Age: Origins. Distant from their ancient Gods, trying to pick up the pieces of their forgotten past.

[dailyanarchistposts]

“Without Civilization People Would Starve, Epidemic Diseases Would Break Out and there Would be no Medicine to Heal”

Then ask yourself why the Hadza, for example, survive until today. Hunger didn’t exist in such lifeways, but to a rather high degree in the civilized world. Naturally you can reply that eight billion people can’t be fed by hunting and gathering and you would probably be right, even if food forests appeared overnight where there were once shopping centers, commercial districts, insutrial complexes, and streets. Precisely for that reason, even I don’t advocate for a return to pure gathering and hunting. Perhaps a means of agriculture will be found that is sustainable enough to provide for all people without continuing the colossal ecocide. Monocultures are definitely out. Here also, Indigenous cultures deliver us teachable lessons.

Regarding diseases, it is once again the opposite. Civilization first made possible the serious outbreak of epidemics. We are currently treading into an Era of Pandemics. I certainly don’t have a crystal ball, but I can’t imagine any scenario in a decivilized world where something like the current Corona Pandemic could kill millions of people, let alone that such a pandemic could even exist when you have destroyed its very basis for existence. The past should prove me right: epidemics first broke out regularly with the arrival of civilization. There were of course earlier infectious diseases, I certainly don’t want to lie. But never to the extent reached in the civilized world.

With that we finally arrive at the topic of healing and medicine and start off with a Fun Fact: an essential part of modern western medicine is based on the botanical knowledge of Indigenous peoples, which people appropriated in the course of colonialism and later synthesized. Indigenous cultures often utilized methods which modern science only barely understands, if at all. In fact, Indigenous groups as well as uncivilized/precivilized people have at their disposal not only a deep knowledge of nature, but also discoveries which have been lost to city-dwellers.

The majority of modern medicine doesn’t even heal but only relieves the symptoms. Take for instance medicines for the Diseases of Civilization like thyroid disease or diabetes, which as a rule must be taken for a lifetime in order to “manage” the illness. In decivilization, the cure itself stands in focus. Healing of the fissures which have grown inside the individual, between people, and between humans and nature. The fissures made by civilization, by power. Our modern medical progress is also anything but innocent – stop romanticizing it. Colonialism, imperialism, and horrific medical experiments largely on the African continent (as well as in the animal world) were always a part of this so-called progress. They remain to this day. My ancestors were tortured and killed so that today a pill can manage your illness brought about by the modern way of life.

Ask yourself: do I want to stand for the continued existence of this world, in which my children will be plagued by the same (and new) ills as me? Or do I want to take this destructive world and destroy it and renew it so that future generations can be spared from these ills? In the end, the best medicine is not fighting symptoms. In so doing, new symptoms often emerge and you end up taking Pill B against Pill A. Instead, you fight the underlying causes wherever possible. Here, at least, civilization is honest when it admits that it has created the worst illnesses and itself speaks of “Diseases of Civilization.”

We have and will all be mutilated in one way or another. Our psyche is damaged and we are destroyed physically by illness and disease. As Diseases of Civilization and other infectious diseases withdraw from life, the need for complex medicine will steadily decrease. A world which places healing at the center would energetically strive to heal ills. For the few modern medicines which could possibly be brought into a decivilized world, people will find non-civilized and anti-colonial ways to produce them. Today’s science also won’t suddenly disappear into thin air. (This also shouldn’t be taken to mean that you should suddenly throw out all your pills just because they have a colonial history behind them. We must recognize that the ills and destruction of our bodies brought on by civilization will not be undone overnight. It means to fight so that future generations will be spared these ills and destruction by tackling the root causes. Some will be corrected quicker than others – a change in lifestyle and diet, the abolition of work, letting wild the surviving specks of the Earth, all can have a quick and not insignificant impact. On the other hand, some threats will continue to harm us for a long time. The poisons which have accumulated into the soils, for instance, will remain with us for decades and centuries.)

With this piece I hope to have offered a glance at a perspective on restoring our lost anarchy, and to have shown that it is modern society which is backwards-looking, not primitive lifeways. Alongside eurocentrism, modern-centrism is revealed to be a grave problem. Our society endlessly describes the possibilities offered by modern technology and entirely ignores what it simultaneously takes from us. It is of critical importance that we examine with sober and objective eyes what we have won with the coming of civilization, but most of all what we have lost.

[storm-of-feathers]

my stance on israel was once very clear but i stopped answering bc im sick and tired of "hey are you a BAD JEW or a GOOD JEW?"

like. are you asking christians their opinions on proselytizing colonialism? are you asking muslims their opinions on 9/11? are you asking lesbians about TERFism? are you asking belgians about DRC? are you asking russians about ukraine? are you asking white people about.... anything?

if the answer is no, why the fuck are you singling out jews?

unless youre giving these litmus tests of ideologies to everyone, ever, its antisemitism. unless you literally lead every conversation with "denounce this shitty thing that people Like You think right now" it's antisemitism. If you are only doing this to jews is antisemitism. It's all antisemitism.

[thatonechocogirl]

yo tv girl mentioned ⁉️

[rob-is-not-a-deer]

A trend where people draw miku? I’ve seen a lot of other Aussie mikus so I made her more specifically a queenslander.

[theforestwitch7]

Hello everyone!

Today, we’re diving into the concept of local magick, what it is, how to start practising it, and why it’s such an essential part of a grounded and sustainable magical practice. ​​✩ ₊‧✩‧₊˚༺☆༻˚ੈ✩‧₊˚༺✩☆✩༻‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊ ✩ ✩

We’re lucky to live in an age where magickal knowledge is just a few clicks away. With the internet, we can learn about Norse runes, Irish folklore, Appalachian magic, or Hellenistic practises, no matter where we live.

This access is beautiful and necessary, especially for those whose ancestral or cultural traditions were lost or stolen. But it’s also created a subtle shift: more and more practitioners are reaching for herbs, tools, deities, and rituals that are far removed from their physical environment. We have people learning such a standardised form of witchcraft. 

Many of us can name the “staple” magickal herbs like rosemary, mugwort, lavender, and sage, but how many of us know what wild plants grow in our backyard, park, or nearest forest? Do you know what flowers the bees near you rely on? What spirits live in your city or town? These are what the magickal energy around you is formed on. If you live in Florida, you can’t expect Irish spirits and magickal creatures to be living there. You need to learn about the creatures, energies, and spirits that reside around you. This can greatly strengthen your magick since you’ll be using it in a way that makes sense to what’s around you. Using the wrong magick for your region can cause things just not to be very useful. The magick follows the same rules as actual physical tools. If you read that in Northern areas, lots of clothing is used to protect against the weather, then you use a winter coat to protect from the harsh heat it won’t be useful at all. The same goes for using sunscreen as protection against the cold. ✩ ₊‧✩‧₊˚༺☆༻˚ੈ✩‧₊˚༺✩☆✩༻‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊ ✩ ✩

Connecting with local magick deepens your connection with the land. When you learn the names and properties of local plants you’ll begin to feel the natural rhythms of your specific seasons. You’ll start to notice changes in the weather, the wildlife, and signs from local spirits and ancestors. This awareness grounds your practise and will give it a deeper meaning. It will also help teach you what are actual signs and what are mundane. If you know about the local wildlife’s habits, you will know what’s supposed to be there and what is unusual. If you know that a specific species of bird Always migrates through your town in October, then you’ll know it’s mundane. If you didn’t know this, you might think it’s a sign when it isn’t, just because you don’t often see these birds. ✩ ₊‧✩‧₊˚༺☆༻˚ੈ✩‧₊˚༺✩☆✩༻‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊ ✩ ✩

Local magick also supports sustainability. Importing herbs and tools from across the world can damage ecosystems and exploit workers. Locally sourcing your herbs and tools keeps your money from going to major corporations, supports local witches and business, and prevents the overharvesting of sacred plants. As well as local plants and tools, working with local spirits can be very helpful as well. There is a unique energy, consciousness, spirit, or whatever you want to call it that belongs to every place. Get acquainted with this. Learn about the energy of the local places themselves as well as the spirits that abide in them. This can open new doors in your craft. Local spirits appreciate offerings, attention, and care. They are watching and can become powerful allies. ✩ ₊‧✩‧₊˚༺☆༻˚ੈ✩‧₊˚༺✩☆✩༻‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊ ✩ ✩

**How to begin practising local magick**

Take walks in your local nature.

Begin learning the names of plants and animals in your area. See how many you can identify on each walk.

Keep a seasonal journal. Record how your area changes throughout the year: what flowers bloom when, how the light shifts, what animals come and go.

Look into your region’s history and folklore. Research Indigenous beliefs if you can do so respectfully, and learn about past settlers, urban legends, and local superstitions.

Connect with local spirits. Leave offerings at old trees, springs, crossroads, or natural spots that feel “charged.” Introduce yourself. Ask permission to gather.

Use local materials in your spells. Wild herbs, stones, shells, stormwater, dirt from your yard. These are potent, personal, and often more powerful than imported tools.

Talk to elders or locals. Folk knowledge often lives in small stories, gardening tips, or offhand comments about the weather. Pay attention.

Meditate in nature. Spend your time in it and learn the energy of your space.

Recognise that there are many different areas within larger spaces all with different energies and spirits. The park, a nature preserve, the river, downtown, all of these will have different magickal feelings and spirits. Learn to tune into them and work with them. ✩ ₊‧✩‧₊˚༺☆༻˚ੈ✩‧₊˚༺✩☆✩༻‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊ ✩ ✩

**Important Things To Be Aware Of**:

Make sure to be respectful of nature. Do not take anything that would not be respectful or necessary to take. Learn about what is endangered, what is in abundance, what is protected, and what is invasive.

Do not leave anything behind. Do not put salt in the soil, do not leave trash, and research what can be put in the soil and what can not.

There may be local practises that are not open to you. Be very aware and respectful of this. *However* there is a lot of nuance in closed practises, this nuance is not often recognised in online spaces. For example, if you live in an area with a lot of indigenous people such as Mexico who have local practises, they may be closed, but they also may happily invite you into it. You do not need to refuse this just because people online tell you that you cannot join if you’re not indigenous. Listen to the people who are in the practise, not the people online.

✩ ₊‧✩‧₊˚༺☆༻˚ੈ✩‧₊˚༺✩☆✩༻‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊ ✩ ✩

Local magick isn’t about limiting yourself, it’s about deepening your roots. You can still work with other traditions respectfully, especially ones that are part of your heritage or calling. But grounding your craft in the land around you gives you a steady foundation. It makes your magick personal, sustainable, and powerful

- Forest

[leohtttbriar]

this is a properly horrifying open-plan no walls vulnerable state to exist in. testing what’s real by letting yourself die—can’t judge the stakes of any moment—can’t trust what you learn as you go—and everyone is there Witnessing. seven says the situation explicitly but she doesn’t say if the dream-sharing is a similar collective bonding as the borg, if it’s a watered down version, if it’s not as ecstatically together. gotta wonder how she walked away from it and whether she liked being so connected to everyone’s mind or whether she hated it—for the connection or for the un-thorough nature of it. like, maybe there’s a cut scene where afterwards she asks chakotay to help her meditate so she can focus on the vague memories of vague dream-oneness and find some level of comfort in relating to people in the way she was raised to, by being with them in a shared mental capacity.

or maybe she was extra relieved to be out of that shit now that she’s experienced what it is to own one’s own person.

anyway, when the lads all have their early-breakfast date, i’m convinced seven, b’elanna, and janeway were just finishing up an all-night manic project trying to see if they could use the warp core to power an absolute-zero chamber. for the purposes of control.

[incublud]

Long ass rant

SOME Hellenistic polytheists need to STOP brown-nosing other practices while contradicting their own rules 😭

I need to rant about something that's been getting on my nerves lately. It's when young hellpols (shortened word for hellenic polytheists) try to force their religious beliefs onto others and demonize Luciferian practices because they go against their beliefs. I don't mean any harm to hellpols, but I saw someone say that no religion or spiritual cult should offer blood because it's miasma. And I'm like, bro, not all religions think that way, OR EVEN BELIEVE IN SPIRITUAL DIRT. It's not just infernal entities that accept blood offerings, and it's stupid to hate on other practices just because they don't fit your beliefs. I had my doubts about this person, but I gave them a chance in this discussion. I shared my perspective as a Luciferian Pagan, explaining that blood is a key part of my practice, and their response was just ridiculous. They said that a bond with a god should be based on trust and respect, not blood offerings, and that other practices are dirty and wrong for it. It's unbelievably judgmental and narrow-minded, and it's not just about blood offerings.. It's just insane to impose their beliefs on others and label others practice as 'miasma.' It's beyond frustrating how some people within different pagan communities can be so stubborn and ignorant. They need to take a step back and reflect on the harm they cause by imposing their beliefs on others. Not only does their behavior mirror several religions many pagans left from, but they also have the audacity to dismiss the practices of several Luciferian Pagans because they are "wrong" and "spiritually dirty" is disgusting behaviour.

[postcard-from-the-past]

Indigenous food practice from the Solomon Islands, Oceania

French vintage postcard

[sharpth1ng]

Im not going to reblog the posts these are from because I don't want to give them reach, but if you see shit like this

It's not fucking real! There is no "Native American zodiac" because Indigenous people in the americas are not a monolith! In the US alone there's more than 500 federally recognized groups, and thats just the ones the government has legitimized (and there are massive issues with a colonial government getting to decide who counts but thats another story entirely).

All of these groups have different beliefs systems, languages, systems of symbology, ect. Im sure there are Indigenous groups somewhere doing something like astrology because there are Indigenous groups all over the world doing a wide variety of practices, but I've never heard of anything like this. And even if there were a zodiac system being used by some Indigenous groups it would not be the "native american zodiac", it would be specific to whatever group was practicing it.

Im really tired of people making up new age bullshit, assigning it to "Native Americans" like we're all one thing, and then passing it around the internet like it's real. I did a cursory google search for this term and there's loads of sites talking bullshit about it like it's legit. The few named people I've found claiming to have knowledge about this don't mention connection to any specific group or band, they don't claim to be Indigenous at all, and Ive never heard anyone in my real life talking about anything like this.

So yeah, anyways if you see this know it's fake. I'm tired.