Forest Door has a lovely post in the species lunation series…

Species Lunation 4 – Wood Frog

I started doing this because I was inspired by Dver’s work at A Forest Door. I haven’t had time to write mine up yet for this go-round, but please read her post. it’s just lovely and I have to say, I read them as much for the beautiful art pages at the end of each meditation as I do the words themselves. wow.

General Update on Stuff & Things

I’ve had a number of questions about what I’m up to lately so here you go: 

What am I currently reading?: I’m working my way through the wonder charm and prayer book Sannion compiled for me out of thousands of Norse, Germanic, Old English, Faroese, and other sources. Most of what I’m reading is academically focused: “Commentary on the Gospel of St. Matthew by Saint John Chrysostom,”  (Matthew has an important passage relevant to eunuchs and eunuchs are relevant to my dissertation); “Contextualizing Gender in Early Christian Discourse: Thinking Beyond Thecla” by C. Stichele and T. Penner. I’ve read it before twice, but it’s an excellent study on the various lenses we can use to engage with a text. Finally, I’m about to start “The Gods of the Ancient Slavs” by Znayenko. I’m not holding my breath on that one – I suspect the scholarship is out of date, but who knows? I might be pleasantly surprised. 

What am I watching?: America collapsing season 2024. *sarcasm* On tv we just finished the series “Fallout” and enjoyed that quite a bit. It had character arc for the main female character, which is so rare. We’re getting ready for the final season of “Evil”, though I do wish they’d have a Catholic consultant just once. Still, it’s entertaining. I like police procedurals so I’ve been really enjoying the show “Will Trent” and just started watching a new show called “Tracker.” Not sure yet about that one, but each episode is getting better and the characters more tightly written. As to movies, I loved the movie “Cabrini” though my one issue was that she wasn’t shown praying enough for an average lay person let alone a saint who spoke of the absolute necessity of prayer. I watched the 1973 “Wicker Man”, the perfect Beltane movie, on April 30^th. That’s always an uplifting family film. I’m waiting to watch the movie “One Life” – it’s out now on prime but I know it’s going to make me cry. 

What am I listening to? : I’m really enjoying The Long Dog Street Band. Sannion introduced me to their music awhile back and it’s potent. It has a very Appalachian vibe to it and some of their music reminds me of post-civil war ambience and melodies. 

What am I working on academically? : I’m working through revisions on my dissertation proposal. I need to have it done in within the next couple of weeks. I’m also trying to keep my Latin and German up to par. I’m getting ready to teach a summer course on Ancient Christian Texts and I just finished a fantastic course on Christian Mystical Texts. I absolutely loved this class. I work at a university that requires two theology and two philosophy courses for every student. It’s part of their undergraduate core. The intro course is set (Faith and Critical Reason in theology or, I think, Introduction to Philosophy) but then students can choose from a large selection of courses in either field for their second requirement. 

What am I doing for fun now? : I’m learning Ladino. It’s a language very much like Yiddish but instead of coming out of Germany and Russia, it was the language that developed amongst Jewish peoples expelled from the Iberian Peninsula in the 15^th century. It has Balkan, Turkish, Arabic, Hebrew, Portuguese, French, and of course a lot of Spanish influence and comes out of medieval Spanish. It’s fascinating. I’m doing a six week online course for fun and relaxation at the moment, but I plan to keep up with it after the course is over. 

What’s up with my art?: I have two shows at the moment, one in Poughkeepsie and one in Beacon. Folks can follow my art adventures here. 

What am I playing on guitar? : a lovely renaissance piece called “Spagnoletta” (anonymous) and a Baroque piece called “Canarios” by Gaspar Sanz. I also have a piece by Carcassi, but that, while lovely, is very much a type of etude and hard as hell. Lol. Then scales. Lots and lots of scales. 

What religious writing am I working on: well, slowly, veeery slowly I have two projects in the works. One is a small novena book for Idunna. The other is a “basics of spirit-work” book, sort of all the things I wish I’d known before I started doing that Work. Both are going to take awhile because I’m focused primarily on academic work right now, which is also part of my religious work (Teaching is a service I give to Odin), and that’s eating up most of my time at the moment. 

So what are you all up to? ^__^

My Daily Prayer These Days…

I place my trust in the God of the Gallows.

I place my trust in Odin.

ALU.

Odin by Sam Flegel

Happy International Women’s Day

​

image from Montessori site here. I really like the image.

Today, perhaps take a moment to thank the living women who inspire you, and honor those who are now ancestors. I honor Ask, Embla, and the first named Holy Power in our cosmology: Auðumla. I honor first my Disir, and the mighty tribal Mothers of my lines — Lithuanian, Swiss, German, Scots-Irish, Huguenot French. I honor my mothers: my adopted mom, Fuensanta Arismendi Plaza (sancta), and my biological mother, Mary Ann Hanna Dabravalskas. I honor my grandmothers: Linnie Shoff Hanna and Ursula Blazis Dabravalskas. I honor my great grandmother’s: Edna Baldwin Armiger, Lucinda Heffner Schoff, Anna Aviza and Eva Dabravalskas. I honor my great-great grandmothers: the Lithuanian great great grandmothers whose names I do not yet know and Catherine Runkle Heffner and Mary Jane Adams, Jane Newhouse Baldwin and Elizabeth Johnson, and I honor my great great great grandmothers: my Lithuanian ones whose names I do not yet know and Elizabeth Oberlander Runkle, Harriet Frazer, Jemima Yokum and all the preceding generations in my line, all the mothers and all the women who endured. 

I honor those dancers who inspired me and guided me in my first career, who have a place on my ancestor shrine now: Marie Salle, Marie Camargo, Marie Taglioni, Fanny Essler, Fanny Cerrito, Anna Pavlova, Olga Spessivtseva, Maria Tallchief, and more. I don’t mean to omit anyone, but I so rarely parse them out by gender! I give thanks to those writers who have given me comfort, especially Jane Austen, whose work I turned to when I learned my mother was dead. I know I’ve forgotten names that I would like to have here. I’m sure I have forgotten names amongst the living below but you are not forgotten in my heart.

I honor those living women who are fighting in the Ukraine and those who are not on the battlefield but who are fighting to sustain their families. Slava Ukraini. Always.

I honor those living women who inspire me, my teachers and  in academia, especially Christine H. and Sarit KG, and Sue P. I honor my closest friends,  Mary Ann, who always inspires me in my art and encourages me in my work (and who, though not a spirit worker herself is damned fine ground crew), Wyrd Dottir, whom I’ve known since she was in college and who always challenges and supports me in my work, and Tove, assistant, devout Freyja’s woman, and my sister-in-law. 

I honor so many of you, my readers, who have inspired me.  And…there are too many female friends and readers to count. Know that I hold you in my mind and heart on this day. ^_^

Finally, I honor my students, past and present: I pray daily that you have what you need to be courageous, that your thought-worlds ever be large, and that you find your joy and follow it. You inspire me, and teach me every bit as much as I teach you, and I thank you (this is true of my students regardless of their gender, but today is women’s day).

May you all be surrounded by love and gratitude today, by friendship, happiness, goodness and blessings. 

I also remember those Goddesses Who have shaped and formed me: Sekhmet, Sigyn, Frigga, Freya, Oshun, Sif, Idunna, Ostara, Skadhi, Pudicitia, Pomona, Pietas, Eir and so many more, with deepest devotion and gratitude. Tonight will be a night of offerings and thanks. 

This card is available here. This shop is just lovely and sells many prayer cards and other types of devotional art. I highly recommend it.

A lovely shop – and statues of the House of Mundilfari!

I shop too much lol. I like to have lush shrines with pretty things to honor the Gods. This is not necessary, mind you and many very devout polytheists are an-iconic, that is, they don’t use images of the Gods on their shrines. Nor do I think that one needs to break the bank. We should always work within our means, but oh, I do love it when I find something unexpectedly nice (and within my means!) for my shrines. All of that being said, today I got a notification from this seller:  Godgoddessart. The artist, and she is a truly Gods-gifted craftsperson, has just made statues of Mani and Sinthgunt available. She had already made a Sunna. 

It’s so rare to find images of Mundilfari’s family that I snapped them right up and I wanted to post here so y’all would know they were available too. I was dubious at first because they are faceless, but when I received the first statue (Frigga), I was stunned at how powerful a spirit-home, a sacred idol it proved to be. The statues are small – they fit snugly in the palm of one’s hand—which, of course, makes them exceptionally good for shrines of limited space. 

So, for those of you who honor the House of Mundilfari, check this shop out. 🙂

I don’t even know what to say

But I want to share something that happened to me earlier this week. This didn’t involve anyone in the polytheistic community and I’m removing any identifying information – it’s not really relevant to the story. I’m still within a six day process of purification and cleansing as a result of what I’m about to describe, at least one of which left me vomiting and sick from pollution, and I’m not even sure what to say about all of this, but I wanted to share it as a cautionary tale. 

As an artist I often attend local events. This past week I attended a talk and exhibit by an artist who works within a particular religious tradition (not one of ours). I walked in and saw a colleague, a lovely woman that I’ve known for several years wearing the biggest evil eye charm I have ever seen. In retrospect I need to ask her when next I see her if she’d had a preview of the art and knew what we were in for but had to attend anyway for work reasons. 

I got some coffee and sat down to watch the artist’s presentation which included a slide show, after which we were able to go into the gallery space with her to look at her art.  This was a troubling event for me. On the positive side, the art was beautiful, and while I knew about the secular version of this type of art, I was completely unfamiliar with the religious tradition thereof and the historical examples that the artist highlighted in her brief talk were quite lovely. As an (acrylic) artist myself, I very much believe that art is meant to elevate our souls to our Gods and that to bring beauty into the world, to cultivate it, create it is to praise the Holy Ones. The artist even articulated similar sentiments early in her talk but then she began discussing some of her more modern and vaguely political art and for me, it went downhill – not because of the politics either. 

At one point, I strongly feel she blasphemed her own religion and I myself felt stained by having been present. At every turn, both in her talk and in the small gallery, she demeaned her religion’s traditional beliefs in evil spirits, the use of its sacred symbols (which she uses in her art), and even iconography of angels as “superstitious” in the most contemptuous of registers. I suspect, because there were religious people present, she kept repeating that more than she normally would have or else felt that she needed to apologize in case anyone suspected her of practicing her traditional faith. The blasphemy occurred with a piece that reworked a traditional protective charm to elevate both living human women and a particular demon over God. It was difficult to listen to. I don’t expect that colleagues and artists will be religious, but I was caught off guard by the outright blasphemy (that certainly affected a number of people from her own community who were present). When later looking at the art in the gallery I found much of it sterile. The pieces that sang were ones that celebrated human emotions – a piece celebrating new-found love was particularly powerful. The rest was just… sterile, and I couldn’t figure out why until I saw the final piece in the exhibit: a painting of an important historical religious figure with a powerful symbol of this religious tradition, sitting in front of a very modern, very fancy muscle-car. The image itself was tepid but her description noted that this painting symbolized how it was time for tradition to give way to modernity. It never occurred to this artist to question whether or not this was a positive thing (I don’t believe it is). It never occurred to her that tradition may be the curative for the ills of modernity and if we paid more attention to nurturing our religious traditions and to devotion we’d have an easier time dealing with the issues of repairing the world. Basically, I think her art did nicely and sometimes beautifully capture human emotions, like love… but God, and elevation of the Holy eluded her to a degree approaching hubris. Perhaps this is an artist’s prerogative, but it was something that I did not find particularly pleasant to be around. She dismissed the piety and tradition and traditional practices and beliefs of her religion so contemptuously that after an hour I was ready to scream. The blasphemy however, to be specific was consciously and knowingly elevating the demonic or even the human over her God. In this art form, that happened in the context of a traditional amulet form where the apex of the art piece should have been a statement that God conquers evil. This artist changed that to “God praises X” (the demonic name); and she meant it.  

I walked out of the talk (and noticed that several people did not enter the gallery, even though they had been present for the talk) and went home, feeling more disturbed by the moment. When I got home, I immediately purified myself. Being present during blasphemy, even if it isn’t of one’s own religion (and really, if someone is as blasphemous – and this woman was knowingly elevating the unholy above her God – toward her own tradition then it follows that she’d be just as offensive toward other religious traditions too) and what I can’t understand is why she even connects her art to her religion when she obviously has nothing but contempt for that religion. From her words, she doesn’t seem to realize 2+2=4 and instead finds the tradition itself onerous. Yes, one can venerate a God outside of the tradition handed down at the behest of that God…I suppose. But to do so while attacking the tradition with one’s words and art is disgusting. 

I was so physically sick from it (a symptom that I often have when exposed to extreme spiritual pollution) that my husband went to the divination mat for me to see if greater cleansing protocols were required and they were. It took hours to even begin to feel clean again from a brush with something blasphemous. Was it her words? Was it the art? Or was it rather that art is a conduit for the holy and when someone takes that and consciously, knowingly, pridefully twists it into something shitting on the work of their God, it can be used by something else, something foul, something aligned against the holy? Or at best, it is soulless. Either way, our ancestors were right: what we view, what we expose ourselves to has the potential to grievously affect our souls. We need to make sure that the creations of our hands do not by our intent, serve the unholy. The line between art and magic is very thick after all. Caveat videns. 

Following up on World Ballet Day: Maria Tallchief

I made a post yesterday about World Ballet Day and Wyrd Dottir was kind enough to note in the comments that America’s first Native American (Osage) ballerina, Maria Tallchief has just been commemorated by the US Mint with a quarter. You know I’ll be buying a couple for my ancestor shrine! 

Readers may learn about Maria Tallchief here. She was very lucky – the article accurately describes her early training, which she had to unlearn when her family moved from OK to CA. Her first “teacher” (and I use that word loosely) put her on pointe at five. That is obscenely and dangerously young. She herself noted how lucky she was not to have sustained permanent injury. 

As a ballet dancer, Tallchief traveled and worked with the ballet Russe and, as the article rightly notes, her partnership with Balanchine revolutionized American ballet. 

Here is a signed photo of her from my personal collection. She is garbed for her famous role as “the Firebird” in the ballet of the same name: 

One thing the article above doesn’t note is that her family was deeply impacted by the events depicted in the historical movie “Killers of the Flower Moon”: Maria’s cousin’s family died in a firebombing perpetrated by ranchers who wanted rights to the land and its oil. 

Read more about that here. 

As an aside, when I was still dancing, I read a story about her and the prejudice she faced while dancing for the Ballet Russe. At that time, to be taken seriously as a ballet dancer, one pretty much had to have a Russian name.  She was pressured to change her name to Tallchieva, to pass for Russian. She was proud of her Osage heritage and refused. That stuck with me, because I changed my last name from a very long Lithuanian last name (Dabravalskas), which always perplexed my directors, to Krasskova. I remain ambivalent about it. 

I haven’t found many clips of her dancing, but here can see a clip of her in Swan Lake. (Her style and technique is that of the 1950s. Today, in part thanks to her and the other dancers of her generation, technique has evolved significantly. Always keep that in mind when watching the great dancers of the past). 

Maria’s sister Marjorie was also a famous dancer in her own right. Both women have statues as part of a display: “The Five Moons” sculpture in Tulsa. The sculpture shows five leading Native American dancers: Maria Tallchief, Marjorie Tallchief, Myra Yvonne Chouteau, Rosella Hightower, and Moscelyne Larkin. In 2022, Marjorie Tallchief’s statue was stolen, and cut up for scrap metal. The statue has happily been replaced. 

There were American ballet dancers before Tallchief, most notably, Augusta Maywood, who, unusual for her time, formed her own ballet company, but none achieved Tallchief’s height of fame and it was partly due to Tallchief and her first husband, choreographer George Balanchine, that a distinctly American school of Ballet exists, one that can hold its own (like it or hate its style) with the great companies of Europe.  

Disrespect to our Gods like a blow to the heart

Every so often, I look up the names of various of our Gods on etsy hoping to see new images or statues that might be nice for my shrines. Tonight, right after ritual, I found something that was just ugly, polluted, and so enormously disrespectful – I didn’t realize how much so until a brief exchange with the artist. I found images of one of our Gods reimagined as female but with a very demonic aesthetic.

Artistically, the images (and no, I won’t link to them. I neither want to see the artist harassed nor to send her custom.) are very skilled. This is a gifted artist …who chooses first to reimagine male Gods as female (something I consider blasphemous (1) – what does this say about our female Deities? Are They not enough? I realize she’s probably not a polytheist so it’s not something likely thought about – and I think the artist is female but I’m not 100% sure), and secondly, occasionally reimagines Them as demons. Remember my modernity post from early this morning? This is a perfect example of everything I was talking about there (2). 

Statues and images of our Gods are sacred. They are icons, doorways to the holy. Our shrines are sacred space. These things matter. I would note that I didn’t see Jesus or Muhammed, the Lwa, the Kami [mis]represented by this artist (though it may be that I just didn’t spend enough time on her site). I did see one of our most beloved of Gods. Why is that ok? I’m an artist. I would never misrepresent any Deity, certainly not polluting Their image by presenting that Deity as demonic. Disrespect is disrespect and I don’t think we do our Gods honor by showing disrespect to another’s pantheon. What is wrong with people that they think it’s ok to do this to sacred images? It’s either openly malicious or a deep lack of ability to sense what is sacred, pious and good. It’s corrupting. I say this not only as a priest but as an artist myself. Here’s the thing though: They are not characters and therefore, They’re not open to our manipulation (3). With sacred things some respect is warranted and the painting of images of the divine is one of those things (4).

A blessing on all of you tonight: 

May your eyes look upon sacred things. 

May your souls be nourished, 

and our Gods glorified. 

May artists be inspired;

and their own spirits elevated

by contemplation of sacred things. 

May all things follow the order of the Gods, 

rightly and well.

Alu.

Notes:

1. It’s one thing if a male Deity chooses to appear to someone in female guise. Some Deities will do this type of gender swapping. They’re Gods after all and can do what They want. Loki has been known for instance, more than once, to appear in female guise. That would be a clean and devout place from which to work. That’s not what is happening here though. The motivation isn’t clean (and immediately after corresponding with the artist, I had quite a few problems here with this piece as I was writing it, with my browsers, with my computers, things that didn’t stop until I blessed the computer twice and with khernips. I take that as a clear sign that I’m dealing with something polluted).
2. Here is what the artist said about her piece, “this is my own interpretation of Mani. A lot of my work features traditionally male characters re-imagined as female, or non-dieties (sic) portrayed as gods, pop-culture icons portrayed as demons, or as anything they generally are not, etc. It’s a recurring theme in my work.” She was surprised that I found it problematic but really, how would you expect a devotee of Mani to feel? 
3. I think we could be said to be the intellectual property of the Gods, not the other way around!
4. If you want to draw demons, draw demons. Just be original and leave our Gods out of it. I think though that this is something every artist of sacred images has to confront and I know when I paint images of our Gods it’s something I pray an awful lot over (and during!).  

artwork

I have an art show coming up this October so I’ve been painting away. Check out my art site here. My latest is a still life titled ‘Adam and Eve’ and a homage to the nymphae titled ‘Autumn Dance of the Birch Maidens.” Check them out. 🙂

Book Review: Color

Affiliate Advertising Disclosure

In June 2021 I attended a three-day artist’s workshop. It was held in Woodstock, at the Woodstock School of Art and was just marvelous. Artist Christie Scheele taught us all about mixing colors and how from the three primaries plus black and white, you can make nearly any hue. It was fascinating and I learned a ton. It was also really nice to get back to painting. I never paint much during the academic semester. Academia is such different headspace and it’s difficult for me to switch between the two. Anyway, I turned out four paintings, an oil and three acrylics and learned some lovely tricks to priming my canvas. During the course of the class, the teacher recommended a wonderful book by Victoria Finlay titled Color: A Natural History of the Palette. It’s an excellent work, an exploration of the history and development of some of our favorite colors. It’s just fascinating and since the author is not an artist, it’s also accessible in a way that color manuals might not be. You really get all the ins and outs, including the scandals about colors that we take for granted. It’s a very entertaining read, and as much cultural history as art history. I couldn’t put it down. This one is a treat and I cannot recommend it highly enough.