The Crafts: Wixes, Spells, and the Weaponized Placebo Effect

Yeah, I keep thinking of Saint Elmo. Patron of sailors, so at least it's relevant-ish...

 

Okay, he looks pretty cool, but I still maintain that Sedna is the best ocean deity.

 

No. It is Manannán. I am not in any way biased and am totally an objective source of information.

 

Though isn't Manannán technically the son of the sea, rather than the personification thereof? Though there's often that divide, it seems. The Norse traditions have a bunch of sea Gods and other beings. There's Ægir, who is the ocean Jötunn (giant) generally treated as a personification of the sea (and who throws the best parties), his goddess wife Rán, and their nine daughters. Then there's the Vanir seafaring god Njörðr, his sister/wife (possibly Nerthus), and their daughter Freyja also has connection to the sea. Which makes sense for a culture very linked to the sea, seafaring, fishing, and suchlike.

 

He is the son of the sea yes, though I count him as being in the general "ocean god" category. Not everyone in it is a personification. And he's just the best of the entire group because, duh, he just is. Have you seen his fog???? Though really I am just being a biased brat because I can.

 

You? I don't believe it.

(and actually, he's pretty damn cool; but a certain sea-bright-shining-one already has me).

 

Stumbles late into this conversation -

I feel it relevant to note, somehow, that most of the associations I have are drawn from fictional stuff. (Significant example: It is bad luck to break a spiderweb if you don't have to. Blame the combination of Vriska and xxxHolic for that one.) I've always felt that a lot of the themes in fictional stuff were more relevant to me than standard religions/mythologies.

 

@Starcrossedsky That makes a lot of sense. Standard religions/mythologies are also fictional stuff created with themes that felt relevant to the populations that spawned them.

I have some weird superstitions derived from fiction too. The one I most love: it's not good to finish a book and not immediately open another, because the time in which you have no unfinished stories is a time when you're open to the visit of death. This is a mixture of 100 Years of Solitude (in which one of the characters knows she'll only die when she finishes the mortar she's making, so she makes sure to always have a bit of it half-stitched until she's ready to go) and a very scary year of changes in my life in which I read 90 books and they protected me from facing emotional horrors that, at that point, could have actually put my life in jeopardy.

A bit of this ended up being carried onto other stuff, such as art and creation and work, so that "there is always more work to do" is something I tell myself to feel better when life gets hard.

 

Not quite religious, but a commentary on how the capital of my home country is never finished: there was is story about an old man from the lake next to the capital who came and asked the city guards whether the city was ready every once in a while. and they were supposed to say that it's not ready, because otherwise the old man will flood the city. and that is why it is never going to be finished. :P

So the unfinished stories thing makes perfect sense to me.

As to my personal stuff, well.

I've experienced enough serendipity and sheer ridiculous chance not to believe in magic or energy, so I do. I have been thinking about getting more decisively into it (it being weaponising placebo effects lol) soon considering the sudden life changes I've been through. I am glad there are people who believe.

 

When people are ill in the house I try to make sure milk doesn't leave the home. Or dairy in general really. Also there must always be milk out for Bríghid. More so than normal. Lights need to be kept on at all times even at night. I would keep a candle burning, but I can't so I make do with an electric candle instead. Bríghid is a master healer, after all. Best to try and keep on her good side when people are ill especially. At the very least she might help keep it from getting worse.

Bríghid also factors into regular offerings for the most part, and also during saining. Which is a sort of ritual blessing of the home? Setting up protections with water at the boundaries and entries of the home, basically.

 

One of the things I love about P.C. Hodgell's Kencyrath series is its treatment of religion, which is really one of the core themes of the novels. The protagonist is of a monotheistic people who hate their callous and largely absent, but powerful, God; a lot of the plot of the first book, God Stalk, involves her curiosity about other, polytheistic cultures, her experiments into determining how they work, and her gaining insights into how her own religion and God work as well.

Her own religion definitely has bits of the Hindu in its inspiration -- their God is triple-aspect, Creator-Preserver-Destroyer -- and a whole bunch of other stuff.

IIRC Hodgell said at one point on her Livejournal that fantasy fiction is her religion, which is a fascinating take :D

 

That sounds like a less secular version of my view, if that makes any sense at all.

 

It totally makes sense.

 

I am currently buzzing around waiting for Friday to come so I can order my fourth tarot deck. Guys I think I'm starting to Have a Problem.

#it's fucking gorgeous though #and also a great example of an art style I've always wanted to imitate #so like #I need it #and I need it now because it's limited edition #friday can't come soon enough

Also I need to make a new deck bag or three.

#I have one #which currently holds two decks #which actually makes it larger than what I want #grumble grumble sigh #my homestuck deck luckily came with an appropriately sized box so it's still in that

 

Only 4 is not a Tarot deck problem. When you have a bookshelf full and need to buy more furniture, then you have a problem.

 

It's a problem when your living situation is "how much shit can I stuff in this bag? that is what I have to live."

Like as a portion of my Stuff, four decks is equivalent to at least two or three shelves worth in a normal person's life.

 

Ah, then it maybe is. I forgot you were in that situation. The key is to have friends to foster-parent your tarot decks, I guess.

 

Also note that 2/3 of those I have were bought within the last two years and that I'm pretty much an art snob - the number of tarot decks that suit my aesthetic tastes that I haven't bought is currently one, not counting the one I'm about to buy.

(When you refuse Religious Tarots and Washed Out Fantasy Watercolor Tarots, your pickings become slim and limited to indie artists pretty quickly.)

 

I only own the Thoth deck. I dunno if that is on your list of religious tarots.

I am in serious need of buying Runes, tbh.

 

I actually keep meaning to look at Thoth decks because the variations interest me; the traditional one hits my aesthetic bluhs.

Aside from the Homestuck deck, I have this one (which was the first deck I got at like fourteen, don't judge) which is a little farther into Washed Out Fantasy Color Hell than I like but does have some dramatic color (eg the Queen of Swords used for the book cover) and this one which I originally bought as a replacement for the former when it got to be "I haven't seen the damn deck in four years it's lost in my closet somewhere" and I got to the I Really Need a Deck stage. This is the one I'm going to buy this weekend.