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https://youtu.be/ZEw8c6TmzGg

Interesting, if true.

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More Books on Backlog

Hey, guys, I stopped by the book store before my date on Saturday and I bought two more books. I have, regrettably, not even began to read the Golden Bough yet, but alas; I added two more books to my backlog.

I bought Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil and Rousseau’s The Social Contract. The reason I bought these two books in particular is aside from books on paganism, history, and baseball I’m trying to acquire books that have important historical meaning, whether I agree with its contents or not.

At some point I plan to read and review all books mentioned here. But when will that be? Who the hell knows to be honest.

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I Have No Words

I know this video is a few years old, but this still breaks my heart. I absolutely cannot stomach this sort of destruction of ancient art and antiquities. Reading about Islamic extremist destroying artefacts, manuscripts, and art in North Africa in the middle east. The Mongols doing the same in Baghdad centuries ago. Christians destroying pagan temples, artefacts, and the like in Europe many centuries ago. The destruction of the library of Alexandria and many more examples of this happening elsewhere in time and in the world.

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Who Am I? What Am I?

For years I have been trying to discover what my heritage is. Where did my forebears come from? Where is my ancestrial homeland? After talking to my relatives my original speculation was this:

50% Polish 

25% Hungarian 

12.5% German 

6.25% Irish

3.125 English

3.125 French

Nothing too out of the realm of an American Midwesterner. I live in the “Polish Triangle”, which is if on a map you can make a triangle from Chicago, IL, Detroit, MI, and Cleveland, OH is where the majority of Polish-Americans live. In fact, Chicago is the largest concentration of Polish persons outside of Poland. And, of course, German, and the British Isles have a huge ancestral background due to the US being a former colony in the British Empire.

I was curious to find out what I actually am, and being that these figures were just my best hypothesize based on what I was told from members in my family, who’s recollections were a bit spotty. So I took an Ancestry DNA test.

There were a few things I thought may have shown up based on basic history skills. Being part Hungarian I figured there would central Asian in me. Being that Hungary was founded by the Huns. Being Eastern European as well maybe some Mongolian, as the Mongol Empire did stretch into Eastern Europe. Or some Arabic, or Turkish, due to the Ottoman Empire at one point spanning to Vienna.

Being Irish and English, I figured maybe there would be some Scandanavian due to the alleged Viking raids, plunders, and rape of the British Isles.

So, what did I get? Well, let's find out:

Needless to say, this was a bit of a shock. Where was the British Isles? Where was the French? Could the French in my bloodline actually be Germanic? Was my blood Frankish (German barbarians) and no Gaulic? Where was the central Asian? Why is there south Asian instead?

It seemed to clear up a bit after my father took one as well. Once his test was processed we were matched as “parent/child”, but he had DNA that I did not:

Father is yellow, I am blue, and green is shared. So while he does have Eastern European, Baltic, and Norweigen as well, its not as much as mine. Likewise, he was way more Germanic and Southern Asian. 

Where we have differences is that I have Sweedish blood, while he does not (obviously I received that from my mother), meanwhile, he was French, Greek and Balkins, Ireland and Scottland, and England, Wales and NW Europe. 

Obviously, since he is my father I have those things too. So why didn’t they appear on mine? DNA, apparently, is like any other traits you receive from your parents. It is no different than jawline, hair colour, eye colour, skin tone, ear shape, nose shape, length of limbs, etc. 

I am trying to get my sister to take one, and my mother as well. It’ll be very curious to see what they get and how I can apply it to my own research. 

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https://www.no-gods-no-masters.com

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The Golden Bough

Today in the post, I received The Golden Bough by James George Frazer. The Golden Bough was originally a collection of three books called The King of the Wood, Killing of God, and the Scapegoat. The version I purchased, however, is an abridgement of all three together.

The Golden Bough is, according to Grade Saver, an interesting book by James Frazer that compares and contrasts scientific and religious thoughts. With events such as fertility rates and human sacrifice being compared both religiously, and scientifically, The Golden Bough makes for a unique book.

His overall theory being that the human race has evolved from believing in magic, going to religious belief, and now in transition to scientific thought, Frazer discusses how old cultures acted in both scientific in religious manners. Human sacrifice, as one example, was a way to show appreciation to gods, but it may have scientifically been a way to kill someone without them questioning it, or to (as a race) promote survival of the fittest.

J.M.W. Turner, a renowned painter and thinker, painted a picture called Golden Bough, and this painting inspired many of the thoughts and ideas in Frazer's work. Of course, the titles of the two masterpieces are the same, but the painting was of a tree in a grove, growing day and night. Frazer says it reminded him of religious ceremonies in Nemi, which the painting looked like to him.

I was recommended this book by Varg Vikernes on his former YouTube channel the Thulean Perspective. Varg says The Golden Bough is a book that will “teach you more about Paganism than probably most, maybe all other, books written in English  by scholars on that topic [paganism].”

The collection is kind of long, just shy of 800 pages. So I will most likely review, or try to after I had read each of the three parts of it. I have been listening to an audiobook version of  The King of the Wood on Youtube at work all week by a very nice sounding British man. But I will restart at the beginning.

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The Pagan Origins of the Virgin Mary & the Resurrection

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A playlist for grey, cooling days where you smell distant smoke and wet earth, and the trees begin to sound like ghosts.

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Happy Mabon

Hey, guys, as you may have noticed today is the first day of autumn. It is the “fall equinox” which means it’s the slow, painful start of the dark season. Days are getting shorter and winter is coming.

I loathe winter and the cold. But the upside for me is that I absolutely love the autumn and Halloween aesthetic. Not to mention the overcast skies, golden leaves, pumpkins, cool weather, football, soups, chilli, and so forth.

But under all that we need to remember that today is also Mabon. Mabon is the pagan holiday of the equinox. You can find more here via the Celtic Connection.

Like I’ve always said, European Paganism, history, culture, or tradition isn’t any better or worse than any other culture. That’s just simply ignorant and egocentric. But it’s important to understand and learn the history and lore of our ancestors.

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“It's Not Capitalism”

Varg is 100% spot on here. 

A deregulated economy and a truly free market lead to corporatist oligarchy like we have here in the USA. Anarcho-Communism can never be truly obtained because human nature would never allow it.

That’s why I believe in Social Democracy. Social Democracy is a perfect middle ground. You still the innovation and competition of capitalism, but regulations to keep the banks, big business, the military-industrial complex, private-prison complex, big pharma, and the like at bay while protecting the working class, the poor, consumers, and the environment. 

If you deregulate the economy too much, it's all too easy for the 1% to buy off politicians, lobby for their own special interests. Poor people are grafted with their jobs being outsourced, stagnant wages, criminally high prices of prescription drugs and medical procedures, the environment will be polluted and natural resources will be burned at unsustainable levels. Basically what has become of the USA. 

I don’t think you need to scrap capitalism, but it definitely needs to be reformed. 

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American Pride

I don't have much pride in this country anymore, haven't for years now (way before Trump came around, but I'll get to him later). Is there pride in having a government bought off by big business, Wallstreet, the banks and military industrial complex? Is there pride in have concentration camps on our border? Is there pride in having never-ending wars and supporting the genocide of the Palestinians by supporting Isreal? Is there pride in being the worlds largest prison population? We have a President who thinks he's above the law, profits of the presidency, illegally received help to win the election, obstructed justice, appointed a rapist to the supreme court, who works with a party who only cares for the aforementioned big business, Wallstreet, the banks and military industrial complex and private prisons. Nah, brah. No pride at all.

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Hog’s Pudding (Part 1)

There are many ways to embrace your own, or learn about someone else’s, culture. You could always read some of their best literature, listen to their folk music, or my favourite: try their food. Like Andrew Zimmern always says, and I’m paraphrasing since I can’t find the exact quote, you best learn someone else’s culture by eating.

A few weeks back we acquired a meat mincer and a sausage stuffer. Today I thought I would honour some of my English heritage, as little as it is, and make a classic English sausage: hog’s pudding. Hog’s pudding is from the southwestern part of England. It’s a typical pork sausage filled with various spices, fillers, and fat.

Across the pond “pudding’ doesn’t mean what it means in Canada and the U.S.A. Here pudding is a custard-like dessert usually flavoured vanilla or chocolate and either eaten alone or put into various cakes, doughnuts, and various pastries. In the British Isles, pudding can mean a variety of things, such as sausages/bangers (black pudding, white pudding, etc), Yorkshire pudding, Christmas pudding (similar to Fruitcake in Canada and the US), and many much more.

The reason this is split into parts is that this is my maiden voyage on the HMS Sausage Making. Yes, it is my first sausage I am attempting to make, so I’m doing live updates. Future salumi posts will be one post.

Ingredients: 

500G/1.21LBS of Lean Pork

100g/3.5oz of fat*

150g/1.3 cups of filler**

2 tsp of salt

2 tsp of pepper

1/2 tsp of mace

1/2 tsp of nutmeg

1tsp of thyme

1/8tsp of cayenne

*usually back fat from a pig, you can also use bacon, jowl bacon, or suet

**filler is usually breadcrumbs, cooked oats, cooked rice, or rusk

Here are your ingredients: diced pork, cooked rice, spice rub.

Run your meat and fat through your mincer, I recommend cubing them both first.

Add in your rice and spice mix and then give it a good mix, either by hand or by a mixer.

If you’re being hasty you can go ahead and stuff it now, but you should let it sit overnight in the fridge, wrapped up, then re-run through the mincer just to make sure everything is blended in back together.

I plan on doing that tomorrow and I will post an update.

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Happy Bourdain Day

Today, the 25th of June 2019 is the first Bourdain Day. Bourdain Day as a memorial to the late Anthony Bourdain. Today wasn’t the anniversary of the death, no Bourdain killed himself in Kaysersberg, France, the 8th of June 2018. Today is his birthday. 

In memoriam of Anthony Bourdain, I’m just doing a short write up on what his influence to me was. About 2010 or 2011 I came across an episode of No Reservations on Travel Channel. To say the least, I was hooked. I was already a huge fan of his culinary college and fellow Travel Channel show host Andrew Zimmern.

I remember travelling to Chicago in 2012 eating at some restaurant in Chicago, probably Gino’s Pizza or something akin to that and thinking: “I’m basically a less classy Anthony Bourdain as I was shoving the pizza down my throat.”

Bourdain is one of many to inspire me to cook, try new, and “bizarre foods”. But despite a crowded field of inspiration, he was probably the second most influential after Andrew Zimmern.

There were many reasons to love the man. His personality, his charm, his humour, his passion, and his humanism. Rest in peace, Tony. We all miss you.