Enjoy My Cultural-xtianity Annoyance Poll For Today. Plz Behave In The Notes.

enjoy my cultural-xtianity annoyance poll for today. plz behave in the notes.

I avoid writing the word "christ" where possible bc I am jewish and using the word that indicates Jesus is the moshiach and possibly devine is, for me, a form of idolatry. thanks.

Are fedoras really that bad?

YES YES THEY ARE

Something that I first applied to working with children, and have applied in a limited form to working with adults: you don't need to tell someone when they read your instructions wrong. Sometimes it's enough to point out what they did right and then whatever they didn't do? You ask them to do it in more precise words, and you make it sound like it's a new request. Remarkable how fast things get done this way.

what are some good resources for heathenry then?

(especially when it comes to freya’s and odin ecstatic genre of magic? have been interested in these aspects for a while but i never got around to researching norse topics)

When it comes to beginner's resources, a lot of the work of removing fascist influences in Heathenry is being done on blogs. Some that I highly recommend are Skald's Keep (@skaldish here on Tumblr) and North of Annwn (@north-of-annwn here on Tumblr -- currently on hiatus, I believe? but has a backlog of great resources). Skald's Keep is Norse Heathenry, North of Annwn is run by a Norse Heathen but also posts about other topics. If you're interested in Anglo-Saxon Heathenry, there's Lārhūs Fyrnsida -- this is a newer to me resource, but so far it seems legit and it's helpful for illustrating how different Germanic cultures were from each other.

If you're looking for books I absolutely recommend The Way of Fire And Ice by Ryan Smith. It's an introduction to radical Norse paganism and is the only Heathenry 101 book I've found that explicitly talks about how to recognize fascist dog whistles. I've taken some of Ryan's seidr classes and he is truly a delight and is very knowledgeable. I truly recommend anything associated with Fire and Ice Heathenry, which you can access on the site On Black Wings.

For more of a history/anthropology view of Norse culture, there are some great resources on YouTube. Jackson Crawford's channel is excellent for myth-busting, historical context, and explaining Old Norse language and literature (his translations of the Eddas are also top tier). The Welsh Viking is a delight who talks about more granular aspects of Old Norse social life and has several excellent videos disputing white supremacist appropriations of Norse symbols. I've had limited online interactions with Jimmy of TWV, and he seems genuinely delightful.

The ecstatic magic you're referring to is called seidr, and I've only recently found resources I can recommend for learning about it. Ryan Smith teaches classes on seidr, some of which I have taken and highly recommend. He also has a book on seidr coming out next year. The book Elves, Witches, & Gods by Cat Heath is an excellent resource, but it does require you to have a firm grounding in Heathen basics, and it does mix Old English and Old Norse traditions. Diana Paxson's book The Way of the Oracle is genuinely helpful and leans heavily into the ecstatic trance aspects, but is not without its issues. (See my previous notes on Paxson here.)