Friday the 13th and Freya (or Frigga)s Day

Why not being wrong doesn't exactly mean it's right.

So, the idea that Friday the 13th was associated with Freya (or Frigga) and therefore sacred for women is circulating again.

What if we take this apart for a kernel of truth. I'm going to leave the Patriarchy, the Catholic Church and the unlucky part out for a moment and just look at the Freya/Frigga part. (Even amoung the Norse crown, there doesn't seem to be full agreement about which goddess this refers to with some speculating it may have varied regionally. I'll leave it up to the Norse crowd to sort that out. For right now - we just need a goddess starting with F)

First, we're going to start with the Norse calendar. Because to have a Friday the 13th, you need a calendar with a Friday and a 13th. And we may be in luck!

See the Norse followed a lunar calendar with each month starting with the new moon and sacred to the sun. So, if we count that as 1 and follow the current days of the week - every month will have a Friday the 13th. (I haven't been able to completely verify that this was exactly how the Norse counted their days. In fact, they may have worried about counting less than we do because - hey, just look up at the moon.)

But this means - every Friday would have been sacred to Freya/Frigga. Even Friday the 13th. And Friday the 6th. Friday the 20th. Friday the 27th.

You aren't going to deprive a goddess of her due acknowledgement on her day.

So, yes, Friday the 13th would have been sacred to Freya/Frigga

And then the Patriarchy (Darth Vader Music)

Look, the Julian and Gregorian calendars were solar calendars that don't match the Norse lunar calendar so it looks more like we've just got two myths intersecting with a specific, reoccuring day in the Norse calendar.

Except - in Latin it's Veneris (Viernes for Spanish speakers) and in Rome was associated with the planet Venus. (Yes the goddess but the Romans had an odd thing going on with planets).

We've still got our usual set of Fridays. So, why not make all Fridays unlucky?

The usual thought is that 13 was associated Judas and the Last Supper. Which is why we have superstitions around the number 13. And, well, Jesus was crucified on a Friday. So possibly over time, those two came together to make Friday the 13th very unlucky.

But it is unlikely that either Freya or Frigga were involved in the matter. But you may still celebrate your favorite goddess on a Friday.

Hello gentiles I come bearing another announcment!

Do not wish Jews a "happy Yom Kippur." Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the year and the Day of Atonement. It's a day where we fast (if we choose to and are able), and ask for forgiveness from God and those around us for our wrongdoings of the past year. Saying "happy Yom Kippur" is inappropriate due to the nature of the holiday. If you know someone fasting, wishing them an easy fast is appropriate and traditional.

An appropriate thing to say if you don't know if someone is fasting or not (and it's not of your business whether they are or aren't) is "Have a meaningful Yom Kippur".

Yom Kippur starts on Sunday night, and ends Monday night. (September 24-25th, 2023) Many Jewish holidays are happy. This is not one of them. Yom Kippur is a solemn holiday. Your Jewish friends may be in synagogue essentially the entire day (especially if they're more observant, or part of the Conservative or Orthodox denominations). There's a lot of self-reflection and the entire day has a very serious tone.

Reblogging again with this resource for people who want more detail on what to say and why https://jewishunpacked.com/yom-kippur-greetings-what-to-say-to-your-jewish-friends-on-yom-kippur/

https://nerdbot.com/2021/01/09/new-pill-bottles-for-shaky-hands-will-help-people-with-parkinsons/

This makes me cry, actually.

Just to add on. Libraries in many cities have 3d printers you can use that charge you only the price of materials. So if you can't wait for the shipping from the engineers, try your local library.

Priority time, folks: TikTok witches being kinda shallow with their craft is a threat to no one. TikTok witches spreading recycled Satanic Panic/NWO conspiracy theories is a threat to everyone.

I don’t have tt so idk abt this, any context?

TikTok, like any poorly-moderated social media platform that uses algorithms to boost content, is yet another transmission vector for far right conspiracy theories.

A lot of modern alternative spirituality is more deeply entwined with far right conspiracy theories than most people realize, and it's very easy to go from a harmless interest in neopagan spirituality to believing in a satanic pedo network, and pretty much everything else pushed by QAnon. (This idea that there's this underground movement of satanists whose religion requires them to abuse young children for ritual purposes has roots in blood libel and witch panic.)

The New Age movement (which is an actual spiritual movement; it's not just a bunch of people being kinda shallow about Eastern spirituality) tends to buy into the New World Order conspiracy theory, which which derives from claims pushed during the Satanic Panic by a bunch of (now extremely debunked) people who claimed they were involved somehow in this satanic cult (whether because they were straight up lying or misled by false memories unintentionally implanted by people who'd already made up their minds that the conspiracy existed). The NWO conspiracy theory is effectively just The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion gussied up to appeal to the political biases of the average 20th American conservative rather than the 19th century European conservative.

Now, somebody reading this post might be wondering, "wait, New Agers are pretty critical of Christianity and consider themselves progressive - why are they going for this?" One reason is that New Age is a very libertarian movement, and libertarians slide into fascism pretty easily. Also, a lot of New Agers simply aren't progressive whatsoever; they're just conservatives who aren't Christian. Another reason is that some people who consider themselves progressive assume that these conspiracy theories must be fundamentally true on some level, put their own spins on them, and functionally repackage this bullshit to sell to a new audience. Thus we get people thinking it's progressive to believe that Christianity was produced by an ancient global conspiracy, because unlike those mean Nazis, they aren't blaming Jews for it. They're just blaming... (checks notes) ...space lizards who just so happen to be dead ringers for every antisemitic allegation in the book.

And of course, another idea that's popular with a lot of neopagans is the Great Goddess hypothesis. The Great Goddess hypothesis is one of those ideas that came about during the Romantic period, that influenced modern witchcraft. The problem is, it's discredited as hell. There's literally no evidence of some pan-European goddess cult that only ended once patriarchy became a thing. Loads of evidence for many diverse goddesses, sure, but that's obviously not the same thing.

However, some neopagans refuse to accept this, and quickly resort to conspiracism to maintain their belief that this pan-European goddess cult was a real thing. Depending on who you ask, you'll hear that Christians, the patriarchy, or the Jews are part of this conspiracy to keep the truth of the Goddess from the masses. (Albeit, they probably won't say "Jews" outright; they'll probably use some form of antisemitic dog whistle.) This is because once somebody accepts a conspiracist explanation for one thing, it's pretty much only a matter of time before they're accepting conspiracist explanations for just about everything they have a grievance with.

I realize this is a long post, but I wasn't sure exactly what all you didn't know, so I figured I might as well get as much context in as possible. I hope it gives you what you were looking for.

(throwing out there that the Law of Attraction is just conservative meritocracy propaganda aimed at non-Christians!!)

Oh yeah. Stuff like the Law of Attraction and the Law of Assumption are 100% conservative Christian meritocracy BS repackaged for the "spiritual, not religious" crowd.

And then there's the weird emphasis on the gender binary and reproduction in many Neopagan circles. So many of these people are poisoned by paternalistic religions (in the U.S., that's typically Christianity) and never really recover. They just recapitulate some of the most toxic divisive crap, but now it's under the auspices of their interpretations of the divine.

It's why my queer self was never fully accepted into most of the groups I interacted with in my twenties, and why others who criticized the cishet white dominated mindset of the "elders" were marginalized - most of them left rather than fight the hierarchy.

It's been my experience that these types cling to the conspiracy theories and pseudohistory pretty hard, too. Like they just refuse accept that the real world is messy and complicated and hold onto a straightforward "us vs. them" narrative so they never really have to question themselves or think critically about much of anything.

Average color of US states based on satellite imaging.

fond of the average by county version of this:

also the world version:

i know we're all sick of self-care being a marketing tactic now, but i don't think a lot of us have any other concept of self-care beyond what companies have tried to sell us, so i thought i'd share my favorite self-care hand out

brought to you by how mad i just got at a Target ad

Up The Wolves by The Mountain Goats // Minotauro by Jordi Garriga Mora

Witchcraft Exercises

Just a quick compilation of the posts I've made about exercises to help improve your craft. These can be used as journaling prompts, inspiration for activities, or as methods for pulling yourself out of a slump and recharging your witchy inspiration.

Most of these are also available in the May 2021 bonus episode of Hex Positive (check your favorite podcatcher).

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Mushrooms 🍄 ft. Rain droplets.

Remember kiddos, it's not a witch war unless both parties are witches.

Legally speaking it's not a witch war unless both parties are witches with actual magical beef. Otherwise it's just sparkling arrogance.

I am so stealing that!

Cernunnos: *huge powerful deity older than time, strong and knowing and absolutely fucking awesome*

Me: *a weak little man* I brought you a dandelion as an offering :)

Cernunnos: *knows I'm a dumb depressed little shit* ah yes this is wonderful thank you :)

@witchofkeys Ooooof it us ._.

omg, yeah. XD

“You read something which you thought only happened to you, and you discover that it happened 100 years ago to Dostoyevsky. This is a very great liberation for the suffering, struggling person, who always thinks that he is alone. This is why art is important. Art would not be important if life were not important, and life is important.”

— James Baldwin, Conversations with James Baldwin

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Gaulish Detroit cultus

Yeah, yeah, it’s trendy. But more importantly, it helps me give word to the unique ways that the gods manifest in my glorious iron City, a City that is very important to me and to my soul. This is just a brainstorm for now, nothing overly developed or illustrated.