Just a reminder that Ostara was about two weeks ago. The upcoming holiday is Easter which is the Christian holiday celebrating the resurrection of Christ and marks the end of Lent. Easter’s date is based around the Jewish Passover and Christ is often referred to as the Passover Lamb. The word for Easter in most other languages is based off the Hebrew word for Passover. Religions incorporate local traditions through the conversion process, and in America a lot of holidays have had their traditions enhanced and secularized, as well as commercialized.

All of this. And also a bonus reminder that Ostara itself is a fake “old Saxon” word Jakob Grimm created based on a singular reference to a local goddess (Eostre) made by the Anglo-Saxon historiographer and Doctor of the Church, St. Bede.

The holiday named Ostara is unattested prior to new pagan movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Why blanket boycotting Indiana isn’t the solution 

Joseph Fink, a writer for the popular LGBT-friendly podcast Welcome to Night Vale, tweeted Tuesday that, despite the actions of Indiana’s government, a scheduled live recording would go on. Fink said that doing otherwise would hurt the people being targeted by the unfair legislation. Many would agree with him. There are other ways to fight back.

THANK YOU

As an Indiana resident and an LGBT person, I have to agree.

As much as I am happy how many groups around the country are trying to fight for our rights, sometimes a simple boycott isn’t the correct solution. When it comes to boycotts that directly affect the state’s economy, I think they can be useful and put pressure on the government. Likewise, for conventions like Gencon that are encouraging out-of-state visitors, many of whom are LGBT, it is important to boycott so as to protect the safety of those visitors.

But entertainers who are boycotting simply to punish people in Indiana…I really don’t see the sense in this. I think Nic Offerman made a good choice last night by deciding to keep his performance in Bloomington, where I live (a college town known for its LGBT tolerance and liberal community) and donate the funds to an LGBT charity. I think it’s sad, however, that he decided to cancel his other performance because, given the content of his routine, I highly doubt anyone who supports the law would go to see it.

I think, as much as people are feeling outraged at the state of Indiana for discriminating against LGBT people right now, they are actually forgetting about the ACTUAL LGBT PEOPLE who are residents of Indiana having to deal with this shit. It’s fine to rip on Pence and our government, and do everything you can to put pressure on them. But I think Joseph Fink made the right decision, especially because Night Vale is a show that appeals to young, often LGBT, people who I seriously doubt supported the law and are probably having to suffer the consequences of it.

All I can say is that, even living in Bloomington, the most liberal town in the state, I am still a little bit terrified. I am a barely-passing trans person, so I kind of wear the evidence of my queerness on my sleeve, as it were. And my anxiety about interacting with strangers and going to the bathroom in public were already so high even before this bill passed; if I get turned away from a business or confronted by a store owner, I literally don’t know how I will handle it. It’s already terrifying, and being doubly punished by being snubbed by celebrities for being in Indiana isn’t super helpful, either.

All of this is to say, please, target your protests against the government and participating shop owners. Only support boycotts that will put direct pressure onto the state economy or are orchestrated to protect convention goers or other visitors. Don’t treat all Indiana residents, most of whom do not agree with the law, like a pariah, or do anything to further hinder or punish Indiana’s LGBT citizens in an already trying time.

I don’t even listen to Welcome to Night Vale, but I commend Joseph Fink on this decision.

Reblog if you are a Norse pagan who is not cool with Nazis and/or weird racial exclusionary things

I’m digging out names for someone, at the moment, but I follow a 1312 blogs (I shit you not) and I KNOW I will miss people.

Freyr and Freyja, by Richard Pace

This is a really old ask, but, while I don't have anything in the way of useful information, I am interested in having this discussion! Feel free to send me a message. :)

The thing I don't think people understand about the AsatruLore crowd is that their dynamic is essentially the same as New Atheists, many groups of redditors, and a lot of the white cis male gamers I have observed through my time on the internet:

Basically every statement they make on their forum hinges on making fun of someone else.

Aside from being ableist, it has a number of effects: it doesn't make for very constructive discussions, it forces anyone who wants to find useful information to wade through a lot of name-calling and bad jokes, and it means that the tables can quickly turn on a person because they always need someone to make fun of.

Sure, GLE and I and some of the others around here will point out the problems with people like AL, the editors of Óðrœrir, etc, but it's usually explanation with a point, not the kind of "lol what a bunch of ___! I'm so much smarter than them!" sludge I have seen on AL. AL doesn't seem to have much of a fixed positive stance on anyone except themselves because they need to use others to make themselves look better.

SAKURAI, Nara Prefecture—An animal bone unearthed from ancient ruins here indicates that a fortune telling method imported from China was adopted by shaman queen Himiko and leaders of the Yamato State.

Sakurai city’s education board on Jan. 29 said the bone was discovered at the Makimuku...

This is all well and good, but I just want to make a few things clear:

First, we do not know if the  "Yamadai " mentioned in the Hou Han Shu and other Chinese chronicles is really modern-day Yamato around Sakurai City. 

There has been a long history of assuming that Himiko dwelled in this region, and at least the description of her burial in the "Records of Wei" seem to support this. However, one must understand that there is an extremely pro-emperor nationalist slant on choosing to place her in this region. In the Nara era, the Japanese court, and, in particular, the imperial family were looking for ways of legitimizing themselves through a continuous history. Claiming Pimiko/Himiko as an early ancestor of the imperial family does two things: it a) supported the claim made in the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki that the royal family are descendants of Amaterasu herself and, therefore, some of the earliest people who settled Japan. It also b) bolstered views of the Japanese courts in Nara and later Heian (Kyoto) against the Chinese courts by asserting that they once struck fear in Chinese travelers who came to the Japanese islands.

One might look at all of this and say, but surely now none of this would matter. Surely not in modern Japan. Well, I am here to tell you otherwise. Just as, in the US, the right-wing publishes textbooks and "academic" materials claiming that the world was created in six days or that the settlement of America by westerners was actually peaceful (ugh), in Japan there are right-wing scholars who continue to publish materials, and even send them to Japanese departments like mine, that reflect a very strong pro-emperor slant. 

The truth of the matter is that Himiko herself is a hot topic. Even as early as the Edo era, Arai Hakuseki and Motoori Norinaga debated whether Himiko's kingdom was in Nara Prefecture or somewhere in Kyushu. This debate has continued even into modern scholarship, both in Japan and in the West. There are strong points supporting each argument, for example:

Pro-Nara:

Pro-Kyushu:

I am not particularly pro-Yamato or pro-Kyushu, but it is an interesting thing to be aware of. It's also important to be aware that there is a lot of ethnic history invested in this as well. The Jomon Japanese person was probably more closely related to the Ainu and native peoples from Siberia, with darker complexion and heavier bone structure. On the other hand, because of later arrivals from Korea, another group of ethnic people with lighter skin and smaller bone structure arrived in Japan. While the Japanese people who exist today are generally a mix of both of these groups, those with more traditionally "East Asian" features are found in the greatest concentration in central Honshu, where Nara Prefecture is located, and it has been that appearance that has been more strongly valued by mainstream Japanese society for centuries. On the other hand, people on the peripheries, more closely linked to earlier ethnic groups, have been treated like outliers and their contributions to Japanese history have been undervalued. That is why I think it is extremely important to be aware of the Yamato-Kyushu debate when talking about Himiko.

And also, it bothers me that the article assumes that, just because a bone like this was discovered at the Makimuku ruins, it is immediately linked to Himiko herself. There has been nothing concrete linking her to the site itself, except that the building structures there have been dated to the 3rd century; if we don't even have concrete evidence that she was there, how can we assume that a particular item definitely belonged to her? We know that this region had some interaction with Korea: We must consider all possible avenues through which it may have come to Sakurai. While this might be an important piece in unpacking the "Himiko puzzle," as it were, I feel like the Asahi Shinbun's title is extremely speculative and sensational.  

I can’t believe signofthehammer and I play the same faction on WoW. I feel like I need a long shower to wash off the nope. ._.

9 years nerd

Enjoy.

Heathenry is an open religion, pass it on

Heathenry is a folk religion, pass it on

Ding dong you are wrong

Agree Heathenry is open. Is it not also in a sense a folk religion? Insofar as it’s non-centralised, “defined as the beliefs, practices, rituals and symbols originating from sources other than the religion’s leadership”? People seem to do things by drawing from the sources and discussing with others. I know it’s complicated with religious revivals vs, like, popular Christianity, and so on. What are people’s thoughts on this?

Normally, that would be true of some heathen traditions. In fact, Nordisk Sed/Forn Sed groups in Scandinavia, who base their practice on local folketru or folk beliefs, identify openly as a "folk" religion in the sense that you have described here.

Unfortunately, that is not what signofthehammer, one of the two most outspoken racists on the #asatru tag, meant when he said "folk religion."