Monthly Archives: February 2022
Please pray for the Ukrainian president
His last communication with European leaders stated that it might be the very last time he talked to them. Putin has basically put a bounty on his head. Ukrainian President Zelensky doesn’t have any military training. He was a professional comedian before running for president and yet he is showing terrifying courage in the face of the assault on Kyiv. He has donned fatigues along with leading members of his cabinet and has taken up arms with those fighting the street to defend his nation. Today, he refused American offers to evacuate him, preferring to stay to fight for his nation and his people. THIS is a president. #Standwithukraine
Updates
(links to all of this are on my twitter – I tend to post my political stuff there).
Lithuania is preparing an appeal to the Chief Prosecutors of the International Criminal court against Russia for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
There are demonstrations against Russia’s invasion all over the world. Better to call it Putin’s invasion because thousands of Russians are demonstrating against the war and in favor of Ukraine’s sovereignty, and in favor of peace all over their country. They’re getting beaten and arrested for it too.
Putin is threatening Sweden and Finland with “liberation”.
Elderly women (we’re talking in their eighties) are taking up rifles and going out to defend their country in Ukraine.
On the Island of Snakes, (historically where Achilles and Patroclus are said to be buried, an island of heroes), Ukrainian soldiers were told to surrender by a Russian warship. Knowing they would die if they didn’t, their final words were “Fuck you” to the warship. CNN chose to censor their final words. May these soldiers be hailed.
In order to blow up bridge access into Kyiv and thus give the city more time before Russians breached their defenses on the ground, a Ukrainian soldier knowingly blew himself up to detonate the charges. Horatio at the bridge. Hail him.
Putin, after massive losses of manpower has called in Chechen mercenaries. They are colloquially referred to as Putin’s Isis.
The Taliban is counseling restraint in this war, which isn’t telling Putin to back off but is still…weird coming from the taliban (I’m flabbergasted by this, and my brain still doesn’t compute).
Finally, because this amuses me to note- Pornhub has banned users in Russia. They receive a message that they cannot access the service and a picture of the Ukrainian flag.
#standwithukraine
How to Help
For those wishing to help the Ukraine but who don’t know how or what to do , here is a list of organizations and charities to which you can consider donating. Many of them are medical.
Ukrainian president Zelensky has put on fatigues and joined his people on the street with arms defending Kyiv, apparently with the words, “When you attack us, you will see our faces not our backs.” Even grandmothers in their seventies and eighties are taking up arms.
Anyway, check out the link here.
#StandwithUkraine.
New Book: “Loki and Sigyn” by Lea Svendsen
Affiliate Advertising Disclosure
On the up side, this book gives interesting etymological information on Loki and Sigyn’s respective names. I actually quite enjoyed reading this part. It was informative and pointed me in directions that I hadn’t considered with both Deities. The book is not a bad introduction for a beginner. Also, the cover is gorgeous and would make a lovely devotional icon in and of itself.
On the downside, the author makes a show of giving a seemingly comprehensive history of Loki and Sigyn in contemporary Heathenry. That would be fine, save that she ignores the work of those like myself, who not only wrote the first extant devotionals to Loki and Sigyn individually, and to Their family as a group, but who frankly, were the ones who, with constant harassment over the issue–including some from at least one person quoted in the book–moved the center in Heathenry so that the idea of honoring these Gods is far less controversial now than it was when we started talking about it two decades ago.
Also, and far more egregiously, while omitting any reference of the first devotionals ever published to Loki and to Sigyn (my own, published in the period between 2004-2014), the author has no problem quoting bynames for Sigyn that my own mother developed and wrote about, and that I first put into print, specifically “Lady of the Staying Power” (the name, not incidentally, of the first devotional to Sigyn ever written in 2009). It’s poor scholarship and were this an academic text (the author tries so hard to sound academic in parts), it would not have been published by any peer reviewed press due to this lacuna and borderline plagiarism.
My books (this doesn’t count the numerous articles I’ve written over the years) on Loki and Sigyn, all available here:
“Our Lady of the Staying Power” now in second edition.
“Honoring Sigyn”
“Consuming Flame”
“Feeding the Flame”
“Heart on Fire”
“Hymns and Prayers of a Polytheistic Household” (includes prayers to both Loki and Sigyn)
“Essays in Modern Heathenry”
For many years I’ve largely been silent when people have done things like writing me out of my own religious history, plagiarizing my work, harassment, bullying, slander, and lies. No more. Every time it comes to my door, I’m going to be calling it out. When I came into Heathenry in the early nineties, a devotee of Odin and Loki, one could not mention Loki in many, many circles without open hostility and in some cases (usually Theodish) threats of violence. It was my work and the work of many of my colleagues who changed that. If that’s too hard to swallow for people like Svendsen then maybe grow a set and admit it, instead of pretending innocence while practicing erasure. When you don’t publicly cite someone, but you draw upon their work in any way, that’s called PLAGIARISM. Plagiarism is theft. Scholarship means coming up with your own ideas, or correctly citing the work of others as you engage. It doesn’t mean copying someone else’s ideas and passing them off as your own without attribution. Not citing extant sources is theft and appropriation. That’s it’s definition. It’s also cowardice and poor scholarship.
Long May Our Gods Be Hailed!
I forgot to note this here. Thank you, Wyrd Designs!
I saw this over on my Facebook feed today.
And for anyone having difficulty reading the image the text is quoted below:
The Theodosian Code 16.10.11 tells us that on this day, February 24, in the year 391 CE, Roman Emperor Theodosius I decreed the closing of the temples and shrines. In the next few years there were further erosions to religious practice including the destruction of those holy sites, and the punishment of those polytheists who tried to worship their Gods.
Over 1600 years later and the Gods and Goddesses are still worshipped, new temples and shrines are being erected.
So on this day, let us post pictures of the new temples and shrines, post pictures of your altars to the Gods and Goddesses. Greet the Gods by name, lay offerings out to them, give them your prayers. Long may the Gods be hailed!
While the decree…
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#StandwithUkraine
As I write this tonight, Russia has invaded Ukraine.
what comes after is far, far worse
Sannion’s thoughts on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. #StandwithUkraine
Gangleri's Grove 