Introductions or Whatever
I wasn't planning on doing this, but it has been a nagging thought for some time that there just isn't enough heathen content out there. More recently, it was pointed out to me that there is even less female driven heathen content. I vaguely have been thinking of starting a podcast, but the timing for me is just poor to take on a project of that magnitude. So maybe that will happen sometime, or maybe it won't. For now I am starting this blog. I will post when I feel like it, and not on a schedule. Get over it. Also, don't bother to try to friend me on Facebook. I keep my friend list under 300 very intentionally. I will make a page on Facebook, and you can follow that if you want. No idea how much I will update it.
So this post is mostly going to be a bit of a rant, and some housekeeping.
I am going to state this very plainly right here that I absolutely support Declaration 127. I am not signed on there under my name or the name of this blog, but the kindred I associate with is signed on there and I don't see the point of signing again under another name. But again, I absolutely am a supporter. As some have already pointed out the declaration did not go far enough. I will not tolerate any sort of racism, sexism, or any such intolerance on this blog or on any pages run by myself elsewhere. If you are an intolerant person please leave now and don't come back.
So that is the housekeeping bit, which leads me into my rant. We should not be judging people we don't know on if they did or did not sign onto Declaration 127. You can't possibly know if they have signed onto it, for starters. Like I stated above, my kindred is signed onto it. I have not personally signed on again. Many people may be signed onto it this way and we wouldn't know. Further, it is not our job as the online heathen community to police who does and does not sign onto the declaration and why or why not. If you don't personally know the person in question, butt out. Online community is not tribe. Do not publicly shame someone who you don't know. They could have good reasons for their actions that you know nothing about. If they don't then that is up to their tribe to point out their faults, and not us.
This is in no way me being an apologist for people with questionable ideologies on the internet. Don't be a racist. Don't be a sexist. Try to be the best version of yourself always. There are definitely times when inaction is an action, and we need to recognize that. You can definitely tell a person that you think what they are or are not doing is not ethical. Please do. But publicly shaming someone for not signing onto a flawed declaration is a bit ludicrous. Them signing something doesn't really prove much about their ideology either way to be honest. People lie all the time. People can say they support something just to improve their image and be completely insincere.
I am also not saying to never point out when someone in the community is wrong. Just be courteous. Try to approach them first and see if you can work out something that way. People might not realize they are off base. Maybe they are buying into some conspiracy theory they found online. Maybe they just haven't done enough research on a topic before publicly talking about it. Hey, none of us are perfect. Most of us probably have believed some misinformation we read somewhere, at least briefly.
Of course there are also times when we can publicly call out against an individual. A recent example would be QAnon Shaman. He isn't a heathen, but he sure made a mess of the image of heathenry with his ridiculousness. (That Rolling Stone article really did not help either.) So absolutely we can call out against an individual like that without directly approaching them, because they clearly aren't going to care if they drag the name of heathenry through the mud, so what is the point?! Even in this example though, we must be mindful. We can denounce QAnon guy and say he isn't heathen, but we all know (or should) that there are people who call themselves heathen who have those exact same ideologies.
It is crazy sometimes. We are a reconstructionist religion, and yet our more recent history goes unmentioned all too often. There are racists in heathenry. They did not steal our symbols. Really, they had them first. I know that makes a lot of you uncomfortable. And sure, we can say the elder heathens had the symbols before them, and in most cases that is true. But the white nationalist element of heathenry then started adopting them, and then we took them (back?) from them. We should continue to take them back too, as much as we can. Obviously, some symbols are too far gone by now, but there are many we can still fight for. I am not going to get into which because there is a ton of content out there on this topic already and I am getting derailed. My point is, we cannot ignore the unpleasant underbelly of heathenry. We can't say "heathens don't believe that" but we can certainly say, "not in my heathenry!"
The problem really is who has the voice. Who is getting content out there? Who is most vocal? Are they saying what we want the world to know about heathenry? If not, well... we are the only ones who can change that. We have to be proactive. We have to put out the messages ourselves, that we want to be seen. So there we are, this is why this blog exists. And I am sure some more of my posts will be rants like this, but some will be researched and structured as well. If that interests you, buckle up. It will be a trip.
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Just a quick edit:
I was complaining that there was not anything better than Declaration 127, but now there is! Beofeld from Wind in the Worldtree penned a new Declaration of Deeds that covers more territory than Declaration 127. While it is not perfect, it is a very definite improvement. You can check it out here:
https://declarationofdeeds.wordpress.com/
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Accessibility edit:
This is the Wyrd Thing Podcast that inspired me to make inclusive content.
