Zalktis - I am not a hater

The Anti-Defamation League has a list of symbols used in hate speech.  Unfortunately, Zalktis is on this list.  I should not have been surprised.  But I was very upset and saddened.  I am also disappointed by those who make horror movies based on pagan themes.  I remind myself that animism has been around for thousands of years so it was a belief system held by both good people and bad... rather like Islam and Christianity.  Personally I refuse hate.

So, the Anti-Defamation League lists Zalktis as “wolf’s angel”, also known as “double haken” (double hook).  They do not seem to know it’s real name or meaning - Zalktis is the snake, typically the good snake who inspires awe but not fear.  My friend [P.R.W.] says that pagans did not worship snakes, any more than Christians worshiped bread and wine.  These things were special, holy, a link to God...

I have no information why it was called wolf’s angel.  Could it be that as pychopomp, the snake was more dangerous than the wolf?  I suspect that they spent a lot of time thinking about the greatest beast in the forest.  I need to explain the lion images in heraldry.  And what if there had been some belief that as a snake may take away life, it may also give life?  This is a very vague guess, but some of the old pictures of dragons focus on the dragon’s mouth - looks like the gate of Mara/ gate between life and death...

...

Ducks and Fruit Baskets

hoping to develop a whole theory, a grand unified theory about European pagans.

Today, I learned that several pagan symbols are listed as hateful white supremacist symbols.  I knew that I was researching something awfully close to the swastika.  But now I know that it’s worse than I thought.  Maybe I can come up with money for a donation to the anti-defamation league.  I’m glad they are keeping track of hate symbols.

My first thought was that the symbols are still sacred.  But I could just give up using the symbols - I don’t want to be anywhere near the haters.  Maybe that first thought was me crossing over from researcher to believer.  No, maybe not.

One time I said, “folk dancing is pagan.” on a public discussion group.  One person was really shocked.  I suspect that people who consider themselves pagan today have no idea - lots of things are left out of Wicca.  If they only knew how many ducks and fruit baskets there are in pagan art!

I’m not too good at expressing myself here.  But what I am saying is that, I think there is a set of ideas that tie together pretty much everything European.  All the things that did not previously make sense...  mythical beasts, fruit baskets, wind mills, sacred islands, snakes, and the Blessed Virgin Mary, circus and carnival, and the Baroque & Rococco styles...  Muletta, mermaids, what a jumble, what a mess!

Extant

extant

I was reading the book, The Lore and Language of Children.  I noticed a section about the winter solstice tradition of “Burying the Wren.”  - The wren, the wren, though he be small, his family is great...

I picked up the idea that the Otherside (afterlife) is a mirror world, everything is reversed.  I think I saw that recently on Magpie’s Facebook page: “ the place from where it is impossible to return in the same form.”

Suppose, they were expecting the wren to come back?  From the smallest bird dying, to the greatest bird being reborn?  The greatest bird might be the Firebird.  I will go take a closer look at the Firebird stories.  -And the Firebird in Russian Embroideries, wood carvings, paintings...

I was thinking about the word, extant.  I’m looking at thousands of photos of folk art on Pinterest.  I’m hoping to figure out what people believed by looking at their art.  This is my theme: Pagans Hidden in Plain Sight.  If we can assume that many of the old pieces of folk art were made with a pagan mindset - I notice, I said assume here.  Everything I’m doing seems to hang on that assumption.  Well, if that’s so, then we can see folkart as a source for recreating the pagan worldview.

Because I’m not interested in esoteric stuff (I had to look it up, esoteric means limited to a small group of people) - I want an understanding of what was widely believed in animist, pre-Christian societies.  Pre-Islamic also.  So, extant means remaining, found, surviving from long ago.  The ideas of a people remain in their art long after they are gone.

I found that the Willies occur frequently next to pictures of dragons.  And dragons seem to be female.  I started to wonder if dragons and Firebird might be the same thing.  I found pictures that seemed to link lions and unicorns to pagan ideas.  Heraldry seems to be loaded with pagan symbols.  Unicorns, I’m convinced are male...  There is a lot to discover in the folkart, but needed a key to open it all.  E.W. Barber’s book, The Dancing Goddesses, was my key.

Just a few seeds

I think I know why the polka has dots: they are seeds.  So far, I have NOT found anyone who agrees with me.  Am I crazy?

Yes, but I’m taking my medicine faithfully.

Today, I was waiting a long time.  I noticed that the birch trees were moving in the breeze.  The leaves flap just like quaking aspen.  It looked like the birches were dancing.  So, here is my list of reasons why the birch is a magic tree:  [Love your food] birch syrup, birch beer, edible cambium, possibly edible leaves - early spring only,  [Gift of fire] birch bark for fire starting, bark that moves when it burns, logs for warmth,  [Rebirth] birches regrow when they are cut down, first trees to appear after a forest fire/ old field succession,  [Sacred grove] birches may be planted in patterns, bent, and woven together.  Almost forgot to add: birch switches symbolize life, and they are used for fragrance in the sauna.

I’m frustrated to see another magazine publishing knitting patterns that refer to the Selbu Rose - the Auseklis, without any mention of its pagan meaning.  How can I be the only one to see it?  I should have written a letter to the Atlantic Monthly last year.  They did a Christmas article about the Auseklis, which they called a “snowflake” Wrong!  Their article traced the history back to the mid 1800’s and stopped without any mention of the Auseklis motif earlier history.  Maybe it’s too dangerous to mention that in very old folk art, the Auseklis is often beside the swastika.  I think I wrote about this already - I will not use the swastika, for obvious reasons.

Seeds — if you know to look for them, there are seeds everywhere in folk art.  Think of pomegranates in Turkish art, symbols of fullness and life.  Seeds are abundance, fertility, a happy future.

I wish I could write a little more clearly.  I would like to show everyone a simple, down-to-earth, not esoteric paganism based on only European art.  I met somebody who walked the Camino de Santiago, she told me that she saw animism in Galicia.  This suggests that I’m on the right track.  I can’t find much other help right now.  Seems that the people who know the answers do not speak English, so I will have to learn a new language to do my research...

Zalktis and the butter S cookies

Zalktis, the symbol of the good snake

I found an old German cookbook with a recipe for “butter S cookies”.  In a quick online search, I found S cookies from Germany, Italy, Greece, and somewhere in the Middle East.  People say that in ancient times, snake were not hated - I don’t know.  I’m saying that the cookies were snake cookies, and they fit into a pattern of pagan thought.

I have almost no information about this.

But I do suspect that during World War II, people in Germany still knew about Zalktis.  It’s an ugly truth that the Nazis used the Zalktis symbol for their most horrible military guys.  I’m having nothing to do with that repulsive business.

Anyway, what does butter have to do with snakes?  I found an Italian cookie company whose name seems to mean, “butter s”: Esselunga.  Is it because a snake will move like oil pouring...?  Another horrible thought- what if we cooked a snake, would it be oily?  I’d guess not (and maybe I don’t want to know.)

So, if the letter S represents a snake, could that be part of the reason why people may have once seen writing as magical?  Did they really believe that writing has power?  I met women who chose not to read & write, I think they were very devout Muslims...  Do the other letters of the alphabet have hidden origins?

Once I had a garter snake that I kept in a glass tank.  It was not exactly a pet snake, more like a guest.  I tried keeping a salamander in the same tank.  Unfortunately one guest ate the other guest.  So, I decided that it was difficult to feed the garter snake (who would not eat unless the food moved) and I let the snake go.  But before I let it go, I picked it (her?) up to have a good look.  So, the garter snake got musk all over my hand, and the smell was really really bad.  Ever since that time, I’ve been wondering if snake musk could be a source of hormones or other useful chemicals?

Auseklis charms and reality

Train of thought- I was telling my husband that I want to dye all the pink stuff (left overs from making pussy hats and other resistance items) to turn it brown.  From pink to shades of cinnamon, cocoa, and mahogany - dark browns.  Then the 2nd dye pot will be for light brown - sepia, tea, tan- lightly antiqued so that my quilt will look old.  I am waiting for a day when I can have the windows open, maybe today.

So, this quilt has been waiting for me to finish it a long time.  I really need to make something.  I got a job that I like but it’s not creative.  After almost 3 months of steady work, I’m starting to feel the loss of my textile arts = it’s summer and I don’t have time to knit, sew, or weave.  Too busy.  But I always make time for thinking about it.  Recently I’ve been thinking about this quilt because I learned that it has a meaning.  The stars on the quilt are not random decorations, not just pretty.

Auseklis - my quilt is covered in Morning Star motifs.  The eight pointed star has many names: Selbu Rose, Norwegian Star, etc.  But I’ve discovered that it’s an ancient pagan symbol that means Venus, the morning star... and by extension it can mean the future, days to come, and hope for new life.  It always means life, all the symbols mean life in one way or another.  Even the swastika meant life, but my husband’s family is Jewish so I can not imagine using a swastika in my artwork.  Unfortunately, I’ve noticed that the Auseklis is closely linked to the swastika in folk art, especially in the oldest pieces.  My guess is that in ancient thought the Auseklis is both dawn and birth.  You may have heard of the gates of dawn?  Venus, being the brightest star, should be the last star you see before sun rise, although I have not checked on that (lately I’ve not been and early riser, but now I’ve got a good reason to try getting up early.)

Well, there is also the gates of Mara, which are the gates of birth - the way children come into this world from their mother’s belly.  The gates of Mara (spirit of water) are seen in every picture of the Mother of All, Berehynia (my name!) = the part of the picture that looks like bent knees / legs up / birth, with water or vines below.  The picture is a charm bring you life, good fortune, fertility, and success.  These charms are always layered (more layers, more symbolism, more charm magic) and they are always meant to appear as if they are coming toward you, even if the design is quite flat, so I’m telling you what once must have seemed obvious to the people who made the folk art.  They never wrote it down - they thought everybody knew this stuff.  Many of them may have been unable to read and write, their cultures were mostly oral.  I have had to rediscover the ideas with difficulty.  In my part of the world, nobody knows what was meant by the old symbols.  I feel isolated and I need to share what I’ve figured out.

I want to teach people my views on what the old beliefs were.  But I’m not certain whether it’s correct what I’m saying.  I’m trying to get an overview of the old European cultures from before Christianity existed.  I want to tie it all together, get the big picture.  If I’m right, it will change the way people understand lots of things.  Change all of art history for one thing.  It might change how people understand the mess we are in, the roots of the environmental disaster slowly unfolding now.

So, as I see it, folk belief was like Shinto, a belief in reality with some myths.  All the lovely fairy tales and myth were extra, but the core beliefs were in reality, things you can observe.  I think in the old days, people were just as down to earth as we are now.  I continue to do my pagan research as if I were an anthropologist, an outsider, an observer.  I might become a pagan if it were mainly a belief in reality, so you may say that I am finding what I want to find.  But don’t worry, I’m trying to do a good job of it, carefully rediscovering whatever thought lies behind the Auseklis and related symbols.

-Virginia Miller, in Campton, New Hampshire, on 24 July 2019.

May Day is snake day

New ideas for May Day 2019:
- Saint James is Ogun in Haitian Voudou.  I found this in the novel, Masters of the Dew.  It needs further research, keeping in mind that Santiago de Compostella is dedicated to Saint James.
How does the name, James get translated into Iago? And into Jacob?

-news article on the BBC about a town in Italy that has a snake festival on May 1st every year.  They have a procession with a statute of a saint draped in snakes.  I read the article thinking that this smells strongly of a pre-Christian tradition.  Warning, all the photos in the article show garter snakes.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48132701

-Thanks to Patricia Robin Woodruff, I learned what is a bucranium.  Such a delight!  I’ve been wondering what those things are for a long time.  Bucranium: the image of an ox head carved on buildings, often with garlands.  It’s very ancient.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucranium

-See also:  Oscilla, little faces hung up near Lares on holidays to represent each person who lived there.  Pilae, dolls made of wool, similar to Oscilla.  I have lots of wool, and there is a rock nearby that I call, “Larry” because it seems to have a smiling face.  So I might try making some pilae.  This does not mean I believe in anything.  For me, it’s all about connecting with something very ancient.

[See also:  Lares, protective spirits sometimes described as household gods.  Lares statutes were placed outside villages like watchmen.  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lares  ]

Saint Sidwell

I find this Wikipedia page highly entertaining.  I’ve found a Saint who could represent the last ear of corn at harvest time.  If you like finding blends of paganism and Christianity, you will like this too.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Sidwell

I think she was once known as Sitha (not sure where I found that name, but I was reading about Bidwell Priory yesterday - almost certainly a site of pre Christian female religion).  I went into a daydream about Sitha -> Cynthia -> Cinderella.  Certainly my daydreams do not count as decent research.  But it’s intriguing to think that these names might be connected.

Saint Sidwell is pictured with a scythe.  In her story, her evil stepmother ordered reapers to cut off her head with a scythe.  How much more pagan can it get?  It’s pretty obvious to me that she represents that last special grain at the end of the harvest, the one you save for next year’s seed...


...