Pagan Tropers Unite!

Oh boy, the Asian-born Asians LOVE to derail World War 2 conversations about the Japanese-American internment by going "BUT WHAT ABOUT THE JAPAN-BORN JAPANESE WHO DID HORRIBLE STUFF TO US???"

Asian-born Asians only have a fifty-fifty chance of accepting the diaspora anyway, so fuck when they try to drag their own issues into conversations about us.

From the names and pictures, the ones most frequently saying Japanese-American internment wasn't racist because think of the Islanders—are white dudes. The LA Times published a couple of really awful letters in the interest of impartiality, rebuttal here and on Fred Korumatsu Day which Google celebrated with banners, Gary Bullert in an article for the Trip-City Herald and republished on the Huffington Post, rebuttal here.

Those were the ones I was thinking of—but holy hell, Sharysa, who hurt you? Tell me so that I may destroy them, as I'm actually in the archipelago. I will hunt them down and read aloud a very sternly-worded letter! (Unless they were just born and raised here and then moved Stateside, then I can't help because I'm on the other side of the Internet and on the other side of the planet.)

It's not me specifically (my family teases me in an affectionate way, and I ran into a Filipino lady online who said I sounded too angry when talking about the colonized mindset of the Philippines), but a lot of Filipino-Americans have been met with open hostility by the island Filipinos. Like, there's a damn LAUNDRY LIST of things that the diaspora has been told by islanders—they're "not real Filipinos," they're not religious enough, they're "being too sensitive" about things like anti-blackness, and they're paying too much attention to the indigenous tribes of the Philippines and "why on earth would you want to do that?" And yeah, a lot of Americans have stated that they don't feel welcomed by islanders because of their different mindsets.

Which is really hypocritical because they're the ones who wanted us to us to grow up in the West to begin with. (Maybe they only wanted us to be Westernized to a certain extent? Be "open-minded" in that you accept everyone, but don't "call people out on their shortcomings" because that's mean?)

Basically it's because the diaspora wasn't raised with the traditional Filipino mindset, or changed their views somewhere along the line, so when they find out that the Philippines does things like glorifying fair-skinned/part-Caucasian people and marginalizing the indigenous tribes, the diaspora tries to do stuff about it. But the islanders don't really LISTEN to the diaspora, not because of the particular message they're trying to make, but because "they're being too angry/sensitive" (especially when most of the diaspora is very young and therefore subject to "listen to your elders"). It's a massive national Culture Clash.

—
As for pagan news, Aquaman's very amused that I'm taking a Pacific Islander class. Plus he's been taking me underwater in my meditations to meet squids and octopi, but I can't find much info on them aside from the usual "people like to eat them (I feel a little guilty for being one of those)" "they're very smart," and "many people call them devil-fish."

I can't seem to talk to water creatures like I can talk to birds and land animals (and sea-mammals), so I usually have to rely on Aquaman or Manannan letting me know they're friendly.

Also, the sea is starting to play music. So far I can only hear a really deep bass note sometimes, but that in itself is progress judging by Aquaman's reaction.

edited 10th Feb '17 8:39:49 PM by Sharysa

How ya doing?

Getting by.

Mulling over the idea of attending the Interfaith March for Unity in downtown L.A. on April 2 and letting my Pagan flag fly. Possible sign slogan: The Only Thing This Witch Curses is Bigotry

You?

EDIT: Corrected the name and date of the interfaith event.

edited 23rd Feb '17 7:24:14 AM by Karalora

Pretty well, just helping out with my best friend's wedding. Spirit-world is pretty quiet, and I'm trying to get back into creating little pieces of art in-between my writer's block for major projects.

Heya, I'm juggling three part-time jobs. Mostly recovered from the flu I was also juggling, though this cough won't go away and I got back home last night bone tired and woke up with the sniffles again. But I have money! Yey...for like 75% of the past 2 years my roommate's been covering for me, so it's a good feeling to not be a dependent so late into my 20s.

I make more mini labyrinths to de-stress. A patron at the library I work at admired my Chartres plate last night—I'd made the full 11 circuits on it, so that was appreciation appreciated. I've also made the Gossembrot and Reißmann's one inspired by the Santa Rosa (by Lea Goode-Harris. Both have this cute bloc in the pattern and it's called a heart-space!) I doubt I'll do the Roman ones, because I don't really like that they're square.

About the urban legends you'd messaged me about, I believe that storytelling is a human thing. It doesn't have to be limited to some prehistoric age of living in caves. And it doesn't have to be a seven-book series with movie franchise tie-ins, it can be as simple as asking, "How are things?" Or, "How was your day?" And sometimes the answer would be interesting enough to retell, but, organic memories are awfully unreliable—even without a Big Fish Story motivation, so, the information gets passed around, and eventually there's an urban legend. A modern storytelling tradition...and a way to pass information around.

Of course I considered this so annoying before "post-truth" became the word of the year. There's such a thing as Snopes! This is the age of information! Why are so many people dangerously low on basic critical thinking?!? There are life hacks out there that advise mixing acidic vinegar with bleach, that is a death hack! Why is humanity like this?

So, ermm...the tendency to parse info into stories is one medium by which we get inundated by fake news today.

My bosses at the library tell me it's haunted, for instance, and we all believe it. I'm too tired to do much footwork for investigating why they would say that, if there were eyewitness testimonies then what instances can't be explained by the building shrinking slightly as the day's heat wanes, and the cultural context by which we recognize "ghost" (I like the essay Shakespeare in the Bush by anthropologist Lauren Bohannan I think it was—retelling Hamlet to the Tiv didn't work because they didn't believe in or have any concept of a ghost,) and why we have these shared emotional reactions to the idea. I shouldn't just believe what anyone else says that doesn't have anything to do with my job, really, but...urban legends, Bascom's definition of legend runs the gamut between folklore and oral history and maybe myth somewhere in there. It's a good word for letting something like a story simply be what it is.

edited 4th Mar '17 12:40:15 AM by Faemon

I'm just going to leave this here. Do with the information what you will. If you choose to participate, do please note that it is scheduled for midnight EST.

Great post as always, Faemon, so detailed.

Paranoia Agent really must've inspired me, all that stuff about Lil' Slugger and Maromi. I recommend to watch it(I know, this ain't an anime thread; still). The opening theme alone is beautiful. :´) I wouldn't blame anyone, though, if they wanted to find a Maromi plush toy.

I think urban legends boil down to what you pretty much described. (Must... resist.... the urge.... to work Paranoia Agent.... into this.. some... more....) Take some incident or incidents, add in theorizing, imagination and broken telephones and voíla!

edited 24th Feb '17 6:49:16 AM by MerryMikael

As for "post-factual" and "post-truth", I don't buy it either. I can understand if someone threw critical thinking out of the window out of desperation or wish to get unstuck and get somewhere(at least theoretically speaking), but flat-out claiming that truth doesn't exist is something entirely preposterous I have hard time swallowing why anyone would say, let alone sincerely believe, anything like that.

Just as little I can understand why anyone would think mixing vinegar with bleach to be a good idea. Maybe it's a matter of non-thinking. But of course, that would make more sense for a death hack like that! -_-

Kinda hesitated to add this, since I don't know what the lyrics are saying....

...but screw it.

Edit: I only got the markup help to show on the second try after posting. How enigmatic.

edited 26th Feb '17 2:52:35 PM by MerryMikael

Goddamn it, I pressed the wrong button and I lost my post. I'll either edit this or double-post later.

So for most of the week I had a pretty bad wave of depression, and I kept snapping at everyone in the Otherworld and losing my shit at tiny/weird things. (Not helped by my mom exploding at me for only half a reason and ranting about how I need to get a job.) For the past couple of days, I hadn't been breathing properly and there was a crapton of pressure in my head, which I realized because I woke up WITHOUT the nagging physical effects of Your Brain on Depression, thanks to Dionysus "eating" said depression.

Before he did that, I told him that I felt like a useless piece of shit because I couldn't find a job, so I was stuck at my mom's house and I'll be thirty in a few years. Dionysus (and various other gods) went "It's okay, you're fine. We know how you feel."

And I went "NO, MOTHERFUCKER, YOU DON'T KNOW. IF YOU DID, I'D HAVE A FUCKING JOB BY NOW, BUT Y'ALL JUST KEEP TELLING ME FEEL-GOOD SHIT LIKE 'NO, YOU'RE NOT USELESS' AND 'DON'T WORRY, KEEP WRITING.'"

So when I woke up non-depressed after Dionysus went Emotion Eater, I apologized immediately for being such a bastard. I also ran across three shops who were hiring people, on the way home from the shop I was already applying for. I filled out apps for two of them, but I had no time to work on the other two, so I'll wait till next week.

I also finished my crocheted shawl/scarf yesterday (I just need to tie up all the loose ends and block it) and Dionysus is even happier than Brighid about it. Ostensibly it's because "yay, first finished project," but the timing of this after getting a boatload of job applications is pretty suspect.

Plus, one of those places I applied to is a goddamn ARCADE. I'm not saying I want the arcade job because I'm going to apply for the others regardless, but DIONYSUS, YOUR LITERAL JOB IS HAVING FUN, AND ARCADES ARE FULL OF BRIGHT COLORS AND FAKE GUNS AND NOSTALGIA, BRO.

edited 4th Mar '17 11:46:18 PM by Sharysa

Gyeaaah, the head clamp part's the worst next to the chest-wrenching, I'm so glad mine hasn't been that bad in years, and that Dionysus could do away with yours. My roommate (we've been friends for over a decade) recently admitted to maybe probably having an invisible psychological disability like that, and thought of it as a house. Brain fog or feeling existential and sad is like futzing at the porch (if we can bootstraps out of it, if not we're in the living room—or one of us, as of course we don't get the same kind of depression at the same time), being unable to get out of bed for the hypersomnia or fatigue is like being in the kitchen of that house, and the head-and-chest-in-a-vice type feelings are like being hog-tied in the basement.

I've wondered if brainstorming metaphors like that can actually build a depression house in the otherworld. My sort of mindscape/astral/whatever home did come from a failed attempt at making a Memory Palace.

Best wishes to the work endeavors, too! Am drowning in work stuff now (thank gods, because I can't thank the merits I don't have as a person, haha...ha...) but for 70% of the past two years have been supported by my roommate who isn't even my mother, so I totally get the feedback-looping wrath/futility...and of course I'm glad to read that you're out of that too.

Selling craft pieces sounds like a win/win, but I dunno, when it's from devotional work I feel like the energy that goes into it makes them kind of priceless and difficult to part with (not even accounting for if there were an existing demand for it outside the personal, or how little appreciation handmade stuff has gotten since, like, the industrial revolution).

Any other craftsy pagans get that feel?

Not thinking about selling my crocheted stuff until I get a bit more practice, but judging from my crafty friends' experiences, people DO like handmade things a lot. They just don't want to PAY for them. (Not much more than they pay for off-the-rack items, anyway.) If I ever get into the crafting business, I'm pretty sure I'll have "products I can sell," and my devotional things are either going to be mine from the get-go or special gifts/one-off pieces.

It's the Many Deaths of William the Human on the Otherfaith holiday calendar next week! While I'd gotten inspired, animistic feels from the cardinal gods as soon as I'd read enough to get a feel for them, and a mythic consort of the Clarene ran the gamut of proto- soulbonding in my experience, it was my whimsical genre change of Steampunk William the Human that I'd say first categorically broke the veil between Western Faery and my headspace. Unfortunately. Because he's not an admirable figure in the mythfics, though Sage McPaganLastName in the primary Otherfaith social circle fairly criticized the treatment in the original mood piece type fic by Aine Llewellyn a couple of years back. (Critiqued it a couple of years back, it's about twice that old.) Steampunk William the Human didn't like the version I'd written of him, and gave me an info dump of concepts communicating what really happened, and I'm like...dude, that's actually not better? At all?? The whole point of Aletheia android 003 stuck in a loop of killing William the Human is that the Clarene tells the android that it's wrong to get so obsessed and act out no matter what William had done. It doesn't undo anything. It doesn't even necessarily prevent anything. Repeated attempts to cook up guilt and shame through imposing suffering on an abuser is awfully close to abuse. In a chosen relationship, anyway; the dynamic might be different from people under societal pressure to Blood Family.

But, ehh, I'd been there and think it's natural—inevitable, anyway—to go through a phase after a horrid relationship where one's so consumed with suffering and hopelessness that the high road is just not an option. In my case, with my sibling; I can't say I subscribed to the societal pressure to Blood Family because estrangement was so common in ours, but neither was it as easy as walking away when the friendship in our siblinghood was gone: my sibling was a great deal older, had all the financial control, natural social skills, didn't drop out of school from mental illness like I did, and so would use all that to gaslight me into staying and (triggery ^note going to church to fix my bad attitude, and act nice around our mother's lover who'd abused me sexually.) Six years after I left, there was still nothing for it but to go around in cycles and circles of how intensely pained I still felt, and blaming and malice and entitlement all disguised by self-pity...and I'm not even disparaging that phase, really, because I think if someone skipped right to the introspection of, "I'll only deal with what's within my bounds: why did I invest emotion in this horrid relationship dynamic, and why do I continue to invest by grieving and stewing in—" when "of course because so-and-so made me suffer so much" isn't an option to answer? The spoke of the wheel of the self would implode, and that's just not healthy. It's definitely a process, even when it happens so slowly that I thought, "This is it. This suffering is the whole of the rest of my life." I was wrong about that being a fact, (or at least I feel that way now), but on the other hand, the futility of concerning oneself with the innermost guilt of another that can not be controlled is eventually true...and utterly inappropriate, I believe, even damaging to insist upon.

That said...sigh...I've seen some horrible collateral damage wreaked by people convinced that they'll only ever be victims and therefore have every right to damage frankly undeserving targets, because they think their feelings can change the facts. I've personally wreaked collateral emotional damage on barely-related targets, in the same mindset: it's not cool. It's flinchworthy to look back on, but I'd rather be in a good enough place to flinch now than still be thinking I'm in the right to do that when I bloody well was not.

Steven Universe fandom. I stepped in my first Malachite debate.

I am all on Team Lapis Lazuli, because I don't believe one deception or a flash of enjoyment for doing something necessary then reverses the dynamic she had with Jasper, where Lapis is the one getting yoinked around by the arm, and afraid to Skype with her friends, and afraid to leave prison. At the same time, I have no problem with Jasper fans. I've read their metas and it's different from mine, but I think I can respect that without changing my standpoint. I'm not their therapist that they have to explain why they love their Big Buff Cheesy Puff, especially when all they do with that love is draw something that they're not even Clockwork Oranging me to look at. The symbolism of the show's obviously very meaningful to me, which is why I include Steven Universe in my pop culture pagan practice, but...the zealous and devoted way some Lapis fans defend our favorite, and demand uniform headcanon from other fans and the show creators, that makes me feel waaaaay more caged in and queasy than a handful of obnoxious Jasper fans ever made me feel however disagreeable I considered their meta. Solidarity, Lapis-lovers: methinks you do it wrong.

Links

HecateDemeter on Wordpress has been posting preparatory spellwork and one or two scripts for a guided meditation, for a Dion Fortune & Company style casting, that cone of protection over Britain in World War II...with adjustments for a uncivil civil war in modern-day America.

An interesting blog post I'd found that's the first I'd read about Lucumi and I used to have this really snotty and classist attitude towards this one blogger of Orasyon who insisted, similarly, that the craft can't be learned from books or websites. Eventually I grew out of that with, yeah, a lot is spirit-taught and unique to my relationship with that specific spirit, and I can't be arsed to blog about every little thing, and while I can reach for similarities with others to make a method out of it...there are as many dissimilarities to the point that I'd say, actually, maybe this only works for me, and even then just that one time. But from the link I'd say that there's definitely a separate development with systems and traditions of the craft that do presume literacy and internet access and that otherwise anyone can develop psychic sensitivity and more active abilities who don't have it naturally. That might be a "well, duh" to some, but I'd really had to shake hard to dry the attitude that anything can be transmitted in text as an approach that can parse and record anything. Really, there's aspects that the body of written information can't touch, or just shared knowledge that comes from socialization in offline time and space. I like writing and reading a lot, so I might have forgotten that that's not the only bedrock of a canny craft.

Kelly-Ann Maddox's journal prompts got a bump up on the page today. I haven't given any of them a go, since I just haven't felt much like writing, but maybe sometime this week or next.

Heading out to my job interview. Asked Hades for help and I'm bringing Persephone's necklace.

Edit: Well, the only problem with the job is that the "traveling" they mentioned on the application doesn't just encompass business training and other stuff—we might need to cover for OTHER business locations. All the way out to Vallejo and Pacifica.

That's a pretty extreme last resort deal and I did tell the interviewer that I can't drive on the freeway, but when someone mentions "you might need to drive to Pacifica if they need someone to cover there" and Hades goes "Ugh, NO," it's not a good sign. On the plus side, she asked if I was okay working alone because a former employee had a panic attack when she tried to work the store on her own. Even if I wasn't introverted as fuck, panic attacks seem pretty excessive. So... win some, lose some?

So yeah, gonna hope I get another of my jobs (hint to Dionysus, the arcade hasn't gotten back to me yet) while I look for more places to apply to.

edited 10th Mar '17 2:34:07 PM by Sharysa

Dang. So when Hades says I don't need to drive thirty miles out to Pacifica or Vallejo, he gets me an interview to another place two days after I send in an application.

rant about offsite stuff

Shout-out to pagan so-called "defenders" of abuse victims who yet said nothing when an accuser transparently tried to control a disabled woman's finances and who she was allowed to speak to. Shout-out to the Tumblr pagansphere who signal-boosted doxxing, slut-shaming, homophobic policing of artistic expression, and anti-Asian ethnocentrism. I am ashamed to have considered any of you teachers or allies. Post-truth started with you! Well done!

/end rant

Yeah, it was last year (as in 12 months by now, not just before January) and I wasn't any of the ones targeted or doxxed. Obviously, I hold grudges for reasons.

Oh boy, that sounds insane. Much hugs.

Much thanks, just needed to vent...will pass on digital hugs to the target, who never, ever claimed to be the real victim in all this but I face-claw in horror at nobody seeming to notice/care that a lot of those attacks went far beyond the pale and lost any moral high ground the accuser would ever have, and this stalker with a contrived, conceited vendetta and appaling self-absorption is still "checking up" on her, and simply will not believe that the accused's characters who bear zero resemblance to them (except for one vowel similarity in the name and maybe a braid) are not proxy them, nor that the accused had zero interest in stalking the accuser after telling them to back off four years ago and apparently blocking them.

I'm insane, too; I know how much it hurts not to have personal feelings supported or believed. I'm not shaming/blaming a victim, though. I'm shaming a liar and everyone insipid enough to have believed in them. The evidence went something like...that the accused was lying about their age because they were both 16 and 17 in 2010. Everyone who wasn't born on the stroke of midnight on new year's will be two ages a year! And

nope. rant over. i mean it this time. fwwwhhhheeeeewwww

TL;DR thanks

edited 14th Mar '17 6:03:46 AM by Faemon

Wait, they called people a liar because of THEIR BIRTHDAY???

Not enough facepalms in the world.

It was more like, they called someone a liar for not being "consistent" about their age by one unit. But the assigned constant of that point in time, Big Significant Spiritual Development, wouldn't necessarily have been one pinpoint moment at a specific age. You can have your first encounter with a patron deity a few weeks before your birthday, but only become comfortable with devotional practices a few months after, right?

But if I ask you, "Since when were you a devotee of So-and-So?" Both age-answers would be true, whether you're honest to intuitive experience (skew younger) or honest to a practical commitment (skew older). In my opinion, anyway.

But the accuser took that and bandied it about sort of, The Lies When Will They End??!? Aren't you secretly middle aged and pervertedly deceiving younger people into believing you to be an age peer for perverted reasons???

Yeah. Facepalms. It came with such conviction, too, that they'd presented solid logical evidence for deception. I considered it a leap to a conclusion based on malice (presume the target embodies the worst that the internet has to offer and gather evidence to support that presumption no matter how specious) and ablism (not everyone has the spoons to manually change the age number on the profiles of all online accounts, most rarely logged into—and that inconsistency, too, was leveled against the accused.)

edited 14th Mar '17 11:17:18 AM by Faemon

Not to disrupt or anything, but anyone read American Heathens by Jennifer Snook? Can anyone recommend it(or perhaps the contrary)?

I haven't, but poking around Google, it looks like she knows her stuff and her book's got a lot of followings in the heathen/Nordic circles.

edited 14th Mar '17 6:51:16 PM by Sharysa