Genderfluid Elven otherkin. Panromantic Demisexual.
Norse Pagan/Heathen. Kitchen witch.
My pronouns are ze/zir. If you want to argue with me about the validity of any portion of my identity, don't. I'll just ignore you, so I'm saving you the time. Everything here is more or less UPG unless otherwise stated.
13 Things your Metaphysical Shop Will not Tell You:
(Written in the spirit of Reader’s Digest Magazine’s “13 things” )
1. I am happy to let you vent about how difficult it is for you to live in the broom closet or your long and wonderful story about how you discovered your particular tradition, but please, keep certain things to yourself. I don’t need to know about the details—intimate or otherwise—of your relationships, and other personal information. I am happy to recommend remedies for a medical problem, but do you really want to share every gross symptom with someone you have just met?
2. Even if my Trad honors the Threefold Law, and I refuse to do any spell work that violates it, I will probably sell you the ingredients for one that does so that you can do it yourself (and a book to go with them if I can). Your Karma is your own responsibility.
3. If you ask me which of the psychic readers in my shop “is the best” or which I will recommend, I will most likely send you to the one with the shortest wait. This is especially true at psychic fairs and in tourist seasons when we are very crowded. I never want to openly show favoritism in front of the other readers. However, if you come on a quiet day, I will probably push the reader I like best and prefer to go to myself just a little harder than the others.
4. If I say something has been blessed or solarized (left out under the sun or moon for a length of time) then it probably has. However this is not necessarily the quality you should be looking for. It is nice that the sage we sell was gathered under the full moon but it may have also been sitting on our shelves for 6 months. If freshness is a priority for you ask about that. If you worry about whether your crystals have been died or if they are gently mined, ask about that. You can always solarize or bless them yourself later without jacking up the price.
5. The difference between a Pagan Shop and New Age shop really is a few decimal places.
6. For the price of a psychic reading, you can probably buy everything you need to learn and practice yourself.
7. We love the overenthusiastic customers who have just discovered their path. Do not feel like a dork when you come into our shop bright-eyed and full of questions. You remind us of how excited we were when we started out.
8. Our favorite customers are kids ages 3-11 from non-magickal backgrounds. They ask the best questions, and we love showing them crystals and magick wands. It makes my day to show someone that there is indeed magick in the world. Kids under 3 give me a heart attack though because I am just waiting for them to try to eat a polished stone or knock over my fragile Goddess statues.
9. Our psychic reader is not Dr. House. She can give you her best guess as to what is wrong with you medically based on the reading, but ALWAYS CONSULT A DOCTOR.
`10. This goes for herbal remedies and healing work as well. It should be done alongside the work of a professional doctor. Many herbs can interact with your medication. This does not mean that we do not believe in healing, only that your condition should be monitored by a trained professional.
11. We sell a wide variety of books to cater to all interests, but that doesn’t mean they are the best. We are all still wondering why “The Astrology of Great Gay Sex” was written by a woman.
12. Please, Please, Please ask us if you would like to lead an event or class. We would absolutely love it.
13. There are no dumb questions (though sometimes there are strange ones). Never be afraid to ask about something. We run these shops because we love the metaphysical and love sharing our paths and knowledge with others. Hang around and you may end up with an impromptu class on crystal healing, pendulum work, or anything else you are interested in. And if you are looking for a group or a temple to join, ask us. Chances are we know where most of the local ones are and can help you find one suited to you. Many shops even have an open temple attached to them.
NUMBER 6, yo.
My girlfriend and I want to open a shop someday. There isn’t one here—the nearest one is either a two hour drive in one direction or three hours in the other. This post is good info for when we start looking around for what we should be doing.
Watching a programme on OWN
about psychics. It’s an episode of Beyond Belief. I really have no idea why I’m watching it, or why I’ve watched nearly all of it now, because it has succeeded in offending me and annoying me several dozen times thus far.
Oh well.
It’s interesting, honestly, because I like watching how sensationalised perfectly mundane things can be. And how hardcore some people can be about disproving things that don’t fit in with their strictly scientific worldview. I mean, yeah, I do believe that there are people out there who are frauds, who are scamming people, who are taking advantage of others. But going on a crusade to prove that there is no such thing as being psychic because of a few rotten apples (who probably actually aren’t psychic in the first place)? Yeah. That bugs me. That, to me, doesn’t look so much like you want to help others by “protecting” them—it looks like you’re an asshat, at that point.
Could just be me.
Not sure why I’m posting about it at all, except that it doesn’t sit well with me, and I probably should just turn it off before another episode of this show comes on.
On Names
I’ve been thinking a lot about writing this post, and I’m not really sure exactly what direction to take it, because I have a handful of things I want to talk about. I think first, I want to talk about labelling and names being slightly more formal labels, and second, I want to talk about the power of names and about True Names (the way I understand them). I’ll try and keep it to those two subjects.
This may not make a whole lot of sense to anyone but me. But if you’re curious about my views, read on.
Scientists do not trust what is intuitively obvious, because intuitively obvious gets you nowhere. That the Earth is flat was once obvious. I mean, really obvious; obvious! Go out in a flat field and take a look: Is it round or flat? Don’t listen to me; go prove it to yourself. That heavier bodies fall faster than light ones was once obvious. That blood‐sucking leeches cure disease was once obvious. That some people are naturally and by divine right slaves was once obvious. That the Earth is at the center of the universe was once obvious. You’re skeptical? Go out, take a look: Stars rise in the east, set in the west; here we are, stationary (do you feel the Earth whirling?); we see them going around us. We are at the center; they go around us.
The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what’s true. We have a method, and that method helps us to reach not absolute truth, only asymptotic approaches to the truth ‐‐ never there, just closer and closer, always finding vast new oceans of undiscovered possibilities.
(via jiggit)
The Christo-centric things atheists say against religion bug me
Like talking against an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent being as if that’s the only way any deity can be. Uh, yeah, I don’t believe in any deity like that. Some do, not everyone does. The Christian God is not the be-all, end-all of theism.
I don’t think when Atheists have Christ and Christian-centric conversations, it’s exclusionary—it’s because the most problematic and conversation-worthy religions are the Abrahamic religions, including Christianity. They are also BY FAR the most popular religions and the ones that have the most negative impact (and most impact in general) on society. Atheists who live in America have the most exposure to Christianity and therefore are more inclined to discuss it.
We may think that things like homeopathic medicine, spirituality, and superstition are silly, and they definitely can and have cause harm (especially when it comes to medicine), but they are not the biggest concern when it comes to discussing theism or religion in general and thus are often not included in conversations about how harmful religion can be.
It actually IS brought up often in the Atheist community—just not as often. Niel deGrasse Tyson has some wonderful points on how he thinks non-Abrahamic spirituality and superstition is harmful to society, and I highly recommend reading some of his stuff and watching videos of him.
It’s one thing to see them say “Christianity is XYZ etc”, but when they’re like “RELIGION IS RIDICULOUS BECAUSE OMNISCIENCE IS” it’s just eyeroll worthy because religion isn’t limited to omniscient deities. I don’t really see how it’s not exclusionary even if there is reason behind it. Never talking about cultural views of sexuality in the context of asexuals is exclusionary even though it’s due to a relatively low population of asexuals, so arguments involving “EVERYONE WANTS SEX” are incredibly pathetic in my eyes because there’s the giant gaping hole of “Yeah, no not everyone does”.
It’s also still allowed to bother me, even if there’s a reason to it. I understand the reasoning, I still think it’s ridiculous. “No God can exist because nothing can be omnipotent and omniscient” is one thing I’ve seen but then “Uh, what about the Gods who aren’t either?”. The entire argument falls apart due to their limited POV.
A lot of what bugs me is the fact that, to most Atheists I’ve ever talked to (and according to even some major Atheist websites I’ve checked out), religion = Christianity. The two terms are virtually interchangeable to Atheists. (Sometimes religion = Abrahamic religions, but for the most part, even if Judaism is included in the conversation, Islam is left out.)
Not that I have as much of a problem with Atheists not directly stomping on my religion, but it’s more the fact that this paints a picture of a bigger problem—that my religion is often erased from conversations, period. Religion always seems to equal Christianity in conversations that aren’t specifically about non-Abrahamic religions.
I definitely understand the fact that Abrahamic religions (especially Christianity) are the most harmful, but that has less to do with whether or not a person believes in a deity and more to do with the fact that Christianity as an organisation/whatever you want to call it tends to have quite a large number of followers who conveniently forget about all that love-thy-neighbour stuff. I have a lot of feelings about Atheism in general. But I’ve been a Christian, I’ve been an Atheist, and now I’m a Pagan, and what I’ve learned from all of this is that it’s not the belief that causes the problems, it’s the believers. That’ll happen with at least a handful of people in any group, be it religious or not, and with some groups, it somehow ends up that the majority hold problematic viewpoints that are supported by the group’s leaders, not by the religion in and of itself.
It’s too late for me to be trying to discuss this; I feel like I’m tying myself in knots and not conveying my point clearly.
In related news, I hate the fact that I’m now morbidly curious about Neil deGrasse Tyson’s views on spirituality. I shouldn’t look up the videos, because I love that guy and I don’t want to be upset if he directly disagrees with my worldview, but…hell, it happens more often than not anyway, so I might as well, because I’m curious as to what he has to say and I respect the guy. Oh well.
