#bioregional paganism

[lailoken]

Mother Death has paid us a visit again, with one of our old hens passing away in the night. Accordingly, we took her body out into the forest, where we laid her to rest in the embrace of a Nurse Stump and showered her with Bleeding Heart Flowers—a bioregional plant we have found quite useful as a Ghost Corn for the spirits of the dead.

[grimnirs-child]

New post on my longform blog about Doggerland, the lost land that now lies beneath the North Sea, and where I situate the realm of the Dead in my personal, localised practice. I talk about why I've been fascinated by Doggerland and the ancient Ancestors who lived there, and the impact it has on my heathenry.

Hail to gentle Helle, and hail to the Ancestors!

[midwestbramble]

Introduction

Hello, in the witchcraft community I go by River Bramble (she/her). This blog is just for me to post about my craft. I used to post a lot on Pagan and Witches Amino but found myself spending more time there than I should. So after about a year away from blogging I've decided to use my old home of tumblr for my blogging. I've missed it.

Here you will find posts on American Folkloric witchcraft and just my practice in general. It's very bioregional (I live in the Midwest region of the United States) and seasonal. If that sounds interesting to you, stick around! I'll be posting more soon!

[windvexer]

🤨 popculture paganism/magic is bioregional faith, but culture instead of nature

@jasper-pagan-witch yes or no

[bonesandbluebonnets]

About me

Howdy! I’m Marcy, a heathen witch from Texas. I’ve been a practicing witch since 2015. I’m a Leo sun, Scorpio moon, and Aries rising. My pronouns are she/her

My beliefs

While I mainly focus on the Norse pantheon, I’m looking deeper into the gods that my ancestors worshipped, specifically the Anglo-Saxons and Goths. I worship and honor the Aesir, Vanir, Jötun, along with their Anglo-Saxon/Goth counterparts. For me, my witchcraft is religious.

My craft

I’m eclectic with a strong focus on traditional witchcraft, bioregionalism, and spirit work! I use a lot of different techniques and items in my craft. My goal is to blend the practices of my ancestors with the land around me.

This is a safe place for all paths of paganism and witchcraft. I will not tolerate bigotry of any kind.

[boarhound]

was thinking about deer today and how they shed their antlers every year

[parsleysagerosemary-and-time]

Local Practice Series 1: Build a relationship with your land by investigating and investing in your region

I think one of the biggest and most important things you can do when beginning to localize your witchcraft or pagan practice is understanding your ecological region. Witches and pagans have an earth-based spirituality or practice. That means connecting with where you are on this earth, and how you integrate and embed yourself into that place. Part of that means being able to identify:

Indigenous flora (plants) and fauna (animals)

Interesting and important landforms and sites

Where indigenous flora, fauna, and landforms may be under threat

Ways you can protect and conserve your local region’s natural areas, landforms, and indigenous flora and fauna

That seems like a lot, right? And where do you start? How do you do any of that without getting overwhelmed? Same way you eat an elephant - one bite at a time.

Begin by identifying your local ecological region

Search for “Natural regions and subregions of [insert your state/county/province here]” in your favourite search engine, and you should get a number of links listed. Your best bet is through your state/county/provincial parks websites, because they should have some content about the regions they service. For instance, when looking for my region, Calgary, Alberta, I’ve found this super useful document:

Natural Regions and Subregions of Alberta: A Framework for Alberta’s Parks

It not only identifies the different regions and subregions, but the landforms present, common indigenous animals and vegetation, as well as rare or endangered animals that depend on the regional environment. These types of parks documents give a great overview of what kind of a ecological environment you live in, and all the highlights of them from a regional perspective. For where I live in Calgary, we’re part of the Alberta Grasslands region, specifically the Foothills fescue.

Additionally, consider downloading Seek by iNaturalist on your phone, which is a well-used and helpful app for identifying plants and animals in your region, and also gives suggestions of the types of flora and fauna you might encounter. It partners with the California Academy of Sciences, National Geographic, Our Planet: Netflix, and the World Wildlife Foundation. It provides challenges, allows you to note observations, provides achievements, and so forth! It’s a really handy app to have, in general. Credit for this one goes to another commenter on tumblr who referenced it on another localizing your practice post (I believe by @will-o-the-witch).

Your Parks department in general will have a lot of great information about the land you live on and work with, even if you live in an urban environment, like me. For instance, I can find information for self-guided walking tours, guided walking tours, natural areas, parks, volunteer opportunities, events, and so forth, from my city’s parks department page. If you start nowhere else, start here. Visiting your local parks, exploring your city or town, engaging with the land through things like river and road-side clean-up - these are all ways to begin building a relationship with your community, and the land you live on and work with.

Your city, like mine, might have a terrible and labyrinthine website where it’s impossible to find individual pages through the site architecture, but google is your friend! Google “Wild animals in [insert the name of your city/town/]” and your search should result in at least a few pages which can provide more information. Your city or town’s parks department should also point out any animals of interest, and give information about them, as well as conservation information, and likely, helpful resources for living with those animals, ensuring your safety, or ensuring theirs! As an example, when I google for Calgary, I get this:

Wild animals in Calgary’s natural areas

Which is a great overview of the types of wildlife I can encounter in the city, and points me to something super cool -- bat conservation! Before I discovered this page, I had no idea that my region even supported a large number of bats! Now, I know that bat conservation is important and necessary. While it can be super overwhelming and lead to a lot of executive dysfunction/cognitive overload to try to protect all the ecological concerns, conserve all the landforms, flora, and fauna that need conservation, and engage in multiple volunteer opportunities, I want to tell you that it’s okay to just pick one. Even just reading about it or learning about it. Something that sparks your interest, something that’s manageable for you to do. In my area, for me, there are two things I’m super interested in, now that I’ve found out this information:

Volunteer riverside clean-up

Bat conservation (AKA building and setting up bat houses!)

I work a lot with the Bow, Elbow, and Sheep rivers. I walk their shores, I collect their stones, I swim in them, I use them as delivery mechanisms for spells and I call on their power, and the power of their genus loci (as opposed to the indigenous spirits, though I honour and awknowledge them when working with these rivers) for certain workings. Whenever I walk along them, I’ll pick up any trash I see, as an offering. Doing a more concerted riverside clean-up? Big offering! It’s a great way to show the spirits of place that you mean what you say, and that you’re someone they can trust with their power.

I love bats. I’ve always loved bats -- maybe it’s the witch in me. Discovering that bat conservation was relatively simple, also, was a wonderful thing! If I don’t have the energy, I can donate a small amount to a foundation (or a large amount), I can join a conservation society and pay membership fees, or I can make or buy a bat house and install one on my property. However, in anything, there may be snags, and you might need to come up with creative workarounds. For instance, I can’t install a bat house on my tiny apartment balcony. But I do know of a lovely park that has the right kind of environment to support a bat house, and a local community garden that would benefit from having one. Those are two opportunities to do even more good than putting a bat house on my balcony. So I took ten minutes and emailed - firs the city, to see if there was any chance I could get permission to install a bat house in the park, and second, the community garden, for the same.

Instead of just spiritually connecting with the rivers and with the bats, by localizing my practice and engaging in building a relationship with the rivers and the bat population, I’m actively connecting on intellectual and physical levels. I am honouring and offering to the spirits of the animals and the rivers. I’m investing in them, in hopes that with consistency, they will invest in me, too. What ecological region do you live in? What local indigenous plants and animals are you drawn to? What kind of conservation/volunteer/protection efforts are you considering (or are actively) engaging in? How have you built a relationship to the land you live on and work with? Let me know! I’d love to hear! xoxo, Delta

[liongoatsnake]

Spirituality As A Multiple

We have been pagan for over a decade and we rarely interact with out pagan community (local or online) due to how much our multiplicity and therainthropy effect and blur with our religion.

 Part of our multiplicity is due to spirits walking in / long-term spirit possession, is a big basic example. A good chunk of the people in our body are deceased spirits. We often tease that fate took a look our multiplicity and went "they this one is prefect to be a home for spirits that don't need to pass onto the next life yet but need a body/place to be." Sometimes we find the spirits, sometimes they find us, ... and on rare occasions we've had a local nature spirit will come by and effectively say "take this one in."

 Some of the spirits in our body have an external anchor in the form of part of their remains being in our possession. This of course makes for from interesting dynamics: our bone casting set - every bone in there is a piece of someone's old body making divination even MORE of discussion just being one example.    

 Oh and how instead of a normal house guardian spirit, we ended up a spirit both attached himself to our system and a Smilodon replica skull in our living room and decided he liked spending more time out then in (maybe 80-20 split). So yeah, our house is spiritually guarded by a Smilodon dubbed Prowl.  

 Then there is how much spirit journeying or simply projecting has been turned on its head. Going of-body is easy as breathing, perhaps made easier because our phantom body isn't human and so doesn't "fit" anyway.  Everyone in our system who participates basically just uses every other participant as their spirit helper or guide. We got a natural little posse going on and already being animals in form and nature changes how the practice is experienced.

 And it doesn't help we intuitively fell into an animistic lifestyle. We never consciously learned to have out-of-body experiences, trance, or anything it all just started happening in our early teens. (Probably not helped by the fact some dissociative symptoms include non-spiritual out-of-body experiences, trace, etc.) There are relatively few beliefs and practices we've consciously adopted (mostly from our learning about the pre-Christian practices and beliefs two major contagious to our heritage. [W don't consider ourselves a reconstructionist or revivalist in the slightest, it has mostly just occurred subtlety and organically while trying to learn about our culture to know it.]    

 Oh seeing a ghost cat on the bed is like... a Monday. In fact going about everyday stuff is often met by at least one person projecting just because they can. So even people fronting have company 90% of the time.

 And while the spirits in our multiple system seem the naturals in projecting and such, even those who we know are alters can do it to. Heck, I'm probably in the alter camp and I'm usually the one rallying to get ready to pay homage to the local major spirits of place.

So yeah multiplicity and spirituality make each other complicated.  - Ocean Watcher

[thefateoftheswallow]

I found a norse paganism Kindred that has an interesting take on celebrating blots on Brazil, while keeping our Latin American context and adapting the land spirits to the ones we have here.

My interest is picked!

[wixamour-blog]

Hello everyone~ this is my shiny, new spirituality blog. 

I used to be active in the Tumblr pagan and witchcraft communities under the username Aulirowitch, but that was many moons ago. I’ve made the occasional post here and there from my personal account as well, but now that I’ve achieved my optimal work/life balance, I’ve decided it was time to run separate blogs again. 

I hope to reconnect with old friends and make new ones while I’m here. 

[desertwitchcraft]

This. This sums up most of my spiritual ethos and focus. It’s why I’m obsessed with desert plants, history, animals, and it’s why my practice is self-made and unlike any other existing tradition. (There are no books for desert witches!) Nature is holy to me, and the desert is my sacred home.

[hagoftheholler]

What is Folk Magic?

The modern term for it is folk magic, but the region I call home often refers to it as "the old ways" or "it is what it is". Many older folk practitioners don't really call it "magic" either. Some refer to it as healing arts; others refer to it as having "a gift". There are people who won't call folk magic "witchcraft", due to negative connotations. I'll get into that more later.

What is folk magic?

Folk magic, in simple terms, is a combination of bioregionalism, ancestral traditions, folklore, superstition and faith. Different regions will have their own folk magic, so don't expect all folk magic to look the same. It gets even more complicated when you start considering individual families. Different families have different traditions and beliefs. Folk magic is often tied into the culture of the region, and therefore intertwined with the peoples' everyday lives.

Is folk magic "witchcraft"?

The only answer I can give for this is that it depends on how the individual sees it. Personally, I think of folk magic and witchcraft as cousins... Not the same exactly, but they do share some similarities.

While the younger generations who practice folk magic might call themselves "folk witches", I've found that some older generations don't particularly like being called witches. There is a negative sort of connotation with the term "witch" in some places.

I can't speak for all folk magic, but the region I call home doesn't really use the term "witch" often. I imagine other places may have similar views. Folk practitioners and other people with a gift would use their abilities to help their community. If a person with a gift used their abilities to harm the community, they were referred to as a witch. Younger generations don't think of the term "witch", as a negative one quite as much... but the history is still there.

Is folk magic a closed practice?

I can't give a definite answer for this one because there are so many variations of folk magic in so many areas of the world. I can't speak for all of them. I will say that, in some regions, folk magic is a dying practice. Many do feel the need to protect it and keep outsiders from tampering with it. If you are going to take up folk magic, don't just cherry pick small aspects from it or twist it into something completely different. Embrace the culture and the traditions as they are.

If folk magic does catch your attention, I would suggest asking yourself the following questions before attempting to actively practice it.

Why do I want to learn and practice this?

Do I have any connections to the region? Were you born in that region, currently live in that region or can find evidence that your ancestors are from that region?

Am I willing to be open minded when learning about this folk magic?

Am I willing to fully embrace the culture the folk magic comes from and learn about the history of that region?

Is folk magic pagan or new age magic?

No, folk magic is not pagan or new age magic. Folk magic goes back for centuries, and for many variations of folk magic Christianity is heavily tied into it. That doesn't mean that you have to be Christian to practice folk magic, though. You can be pagan or whatever else, but if the folk magic has Christian aspects tied to it then you will need to be accepting of it.

That being said, if you are the type of person to think that Christians can't practice magic or despise the Christian religion, then a lot of folk magic probably isn't for you.

How can I start learning folk magic?

The best way to learn folk magic is by speaking with practitioners directly. More specifically, the practitioners born and raised with it. As I have mentioned before, one part of folk magic is ancestral traditions. There are people who come from families that have been practicing these traditions for generations. They will be the best people to talk to, if they are willing to open up to you. Don't be angry if they aren't willing to teach you, though, because some people do prefer to keep their traditions within the family.

Books are another option, but you'll need to do a little research on the author before you buy books. Make sure the person is a valid source. Check to see if they are from the region the folk magic originates from, if they were taught by another practitioner or if they have any family ties to it.

Learn the history of the region. This is more important than you think. Folk magic is often tied into the culture of the region, and therefore tied into the history. Folk practitioners in the old days were healers, midwives and significant community members. Their traditions and superstitions helped them survive and gave them hope.

The last piece of advice I've got for you is to embrace the culture and traditions. Preserve them and let them become a natural part of your life. Don't just cherry pick small aspects of folk magic and twist them. That doesn't help the folk practices that are dying out.

[spiralhouseshop]

New in the Portland Button Works and PBW Zine Distro and PBW Witch Shop 10 August 2021

We've had some annoying website issues lately and I think we are just now getting everything under control and all the bugs chased out. These are the newest books in the shop!

We are partnering with out friend and brilliant artist and friend that helps me with the witch shop, @lemonbalmgirl to carry some of her copper-plated art and jewelery in the catalog. Check it out at Moonflower Alchemy

We are sponsoring SASS Witch Con! It's this week and the first conventions for Secular, Atheist, Agnostic, Skeptical and Science based witches. They just posted a full schedule of awesome panels and talks. Tickets are available until Thursday night!

NEW!

Acéphale (1936–1939) by Georges Bataille et. al.

"In 1936, at the height of the anti-fascist struggle, French Surrealist Georges Bataille and his closest friends took leave of the revolutionary milieu to form a fanatically religious secret society under the symbol of the acéphale – a headless figure clutching a fiery heart and a sacrificial knife. Their conspiracy was to achieve headlessness at every level: the headless society, the human being freed from reason, the defeat of the three-headed monster of Fascism-Christianity-Socialism, the ecstatic rupture of the Dionsyian frenzy, and the literal beheading of Bataille himself. This is their journal, fully (re)translated and compiled in English for the first time."

Shades of Faith: Minority Voices in Paganism

"Shades of Faith: Minority Voices in Paganism is an anthology that encompasses the voices and experiences of minorities within the Pagan community and addresses some of the challenges, stereotyping, frustrations, talents, history and beauties of being different within the racial constructs of typical Pagan or Wiccan groups. Often the associations of the roots of Paganism have pushed assumptions that worshippers of Paganism are strictly Caucasian."

Verdant Gnosis: Cultivating the Green Path, Volume 5

"Verdant Gnosis brings together international authorities on the Green Way, ranging from plant alchemists, shamanic herb-masters, to bioregional animists. The edition explains how to communicate deeply with the mysterious intelligence of the plant kingdom, breaking down the barriers of anthropocentric thinking that separate humanity from nature."

Supernatural Tarot Deck and Guidebook

Supernatural Tarot? Ok. I know. What a cheezy show, right? I kinda love it though and I also really enjoy the feeling of this deck and how it related to the show and the characters. Charlie as The Sun? Come on!

Treasury of Folklore - Seas and Rivers: Sirens, Selkies and Ghost Ships

"Folklore of the seas and rivers has a resonance in cultures all over the world. Watery hopes, fears and dreams are shared by all peoples where rivers flow and waves crash. This fascinating book covers English sailor superstitions and shape-shifting pink dolphins of the Amazon, Scylla and Charybdis, the many guises of Mami Wata, the tale of the Yoruba River spirit, the water horses of the Scottish lochs, the infamous mystery of the Bermuda Triangle, and much more."

Rituals & Declarations - Volume 2, Issue 2 - Spring 2021

Rituals & Declarations is a beautiful comp zine from the UK with a literal book spine and a figurative spine of weirdness, curiosity, found truths, folklore, community, and art.

Cunning Folk - The Water Issue and the Re-Enchantment Issue

A beautifully illustrated theme based UK compilation magazine about magic, mythology, folklore, the occult and celebrating the unseen mystery around is.

[the-netjeru-are-in-festival]

About this page

Em hotep! For the lack of space to have a proper altar, I decided to make this tumblr blog as a virtual temple for the Netjeru, with the occasional participation of other gods.

If you want to make an offering, just reblog or like a post related to the deity, which you can find in the deity list. Asks are nice!

I'm a Remetj at KO but I consider myself a Kemetic syncretic polytheist and a local animist. What is a Kemetic syncretic polytheist? It's someone who follows an Ancient Egyptian orthopraxy with a focus on the Netjeru but also adopts other deities and worldviews (like local animism in my case). My rationale is: since there's no unbroken continuity between today's Kemetism and the ancient one, and that paganism is not an exclusivist faith in the sense that its forbidden to adopt other deities, all we have left is the orthopraxy. I go as far as to say that if your main gods are Kemetic and you follow a Kemetic way of worshipping deities, then you are a Kemetist. This is not revolutionary, that's just how paganism works really. However, I like to remind people of that because a lot us (myself included until recently) have this mindset where you must follow THIS certain religion in the PUREST way possible, and that's just not accurate. Polytheism is syncretic and eclectic by nature, I just happen to have a Kemetic approach. Being historically informed is crucial but that's just the beginning.

I mainly focus on the New Kingdom, because of its cosmopolitanism and New Solar Theology, the Third Intermediate Period, for its eclecticism and foreign influence and later periods because I wanted to continue where the religion left off. I'm also highly inspired by the contributions the Nubians made to the religion. In general, I look for wisdom in all periods of Ancient Egypt.

My bioregional animism is influenced by Kemetism, Wathanism and local folklore and folk religion. I'm also a Buddha fanboy.

If you are from Brazil, I'd like to talk to you, please send me a message.

Follows are welcome but not necessary.

NETJERU LIST:

Amun

Anuket

Apedemak

Banebdjedet

Bast (Bastet)

Bes

Djehuty (Thoth)

Geb

Heru (Horus)

Hethert (Hathor)

Iah

Khepri

Khonsu

Nebthet (Nephthys)

Netjeri

Netjeru (general offering)

Ra/Re

Renenutet

Sekhmet

Serqet

Seshat

Set/Sutekh

Shu

Sobek

Taweret

Wadjet

Wesir (Osiris)

[thelaceyarchives]

Sarah Anne Lawless’ Masterpost of Rescued Blog Posts

Obviously not all of her posts are here, I’ve just saved the ones I thought were of more interest to me and others. These posts (except for one not rescued by me) are made private for legal reasons. I might update if specific blogs are requested.

Note: the links will not work on the Tumblr app. You must visualize them either through the desktop or your phone’s web browser. If still a link isn’t working, let me know.

2009 How to Create a Genius Loci Profile The Man in Black Nicnevin Ancestor Worship in Modern Witchcraft

2010 Darkness is Good for You? Divisions of Witchcraft Walking Between Worlds What Makes One a Witch? The Ethics of Malevolence Hedgecrossing Ritual Disclaimer of a Traditional Witch On Circle Casting and the World Tree The Religion of Trees Is Witchcraft Shamanism? On Shapeshifting: A History and Guide for Shifters Introduction to Animal Familiars The Seer’s Reading List Ancestor Altars and Rituals

2011 How to Use a Stang Quotes on PNW Shamanism: Initiation and Spirits Plants Can Be Witches Too Cosmogeny of an Animistic Mystic Weep for the Forests of Death The Importance of Maintaining a Healthy Level of Skepticism (scorpion--witch) How to Make Pagan Holy Water

2012 Land Guardianship How to See in the Dark

2013 Medea’s Ritual of the Mandrake Pantry Folk Magic

2014 Love Spells The Witch and the Wild The Song of the Land: Bioregional Animism

2015 Banishing, Depossessing, and Devouring The Curse Collection Consecration and Desecration For Fear of Flying Catching and Binding Spirits Six Herbs for Spirit Work Introduction to Traditional Witchcraft

2016 Animism at the Dinner Table: Part 1 Animism at the Dinner Table: Part 2

2017 Everything You Need to Know About Animism: Part 1 Everything You Need to Know About Animism: Part 2

[liongoatsnake]

🌻 Magic, Spirituality & Religious Ask Game 🌻

1

Part of the "Magic, Spirituality & Religious Ask Game"

"What kind of practitioner do you identify as?"

Labels we use to describe our practice (or more accurately parts of our practice) include:

pagan,

hard polythiest,

animist,

Benandante – refers to a group of people whose practices are of revivalist/reconstructionist interest to us. The conglomeration of both benandante and similar groups that once existed across Europe into a revivialist pagan practice is something we have taken to calling the “European Shapeshifting Agrarian Visionary Tradition." The core similar beliefs and practices of these groups relate to leaving body (out-of-body experience) while taking the shape of a nonhuman animal around certain times of the year with the intent of making sure the fertility of the surrounding land was upheld for the year.

Ozark folk magician – folk magic that grew in the rural parts of the Ozark Mountains in the United States.  

Spirit Keeper – the practice that focuses on the of interaction with specific spirits on a regular basis and forging a companionship/relationship with them. In our case, we tongue-in-cheek refer to our body as a “spiritual animal sanctuary” given how the spirits of nonhuman animal dead seem to be drawn to us.

Bioregional animist – a focus on reverence for spirits (animism) that relate to a specific area and all that can be found within a region one lives in (a bioregion). Our focus relates to the bioregion our system lives in which consists of the Arkansas Valley which is located in the Ozark Ouachita-Appalachian Forests. Spirits of Place of special reverence includes the Arkansas River and the Lower Boston mountains.

Bone thrower – a type of divination that consists of a dropping a handful of small animal bones onto a mat and “reading” them based on how they fell. Our own technique is entirely unique to us and was created by trail and error over a decade.   

Pop culture pagan – certain people in our system with fictional origins have beliefs and practices that are inspired by the religious beliefs found in their “source.”

~ Cavern-Risen (female, wolf/werewolf)