Grimoire

As you might have seen above, religion and spirituality is quite complex for me! I have always been fascinated by the subject, despite a rocky introduction to religion (I was raised initially in a very strict sect of Christianity, which my parents later left when I came out as transgender). Theology in particular interests me; I think the diversity of beliefs explaining existence and life is one of humanity's greatest strengths.

I collect a lot of resources on religion for that reason, so here I'll link some related to my practice.

• Hellenion - a religious organization dedicated to the revival and practice of Hellenic polytheism
• Skald's Keep - explorations in Norse heathenry
• The Longship - a beginner's guide to heathenry
• The Accessible Heathenry Project - aims to make public domain texts on Heathenry available to the people with reading disabilities, and to those who learn more effectively by listening than reading
• Lārhūs Fyrnsida - resources for the specific regional tradition of Anglo-Saxon Heathenry
• Dr. Jackson Crawford's YouTube channel - a university professor, published author, and specialist in Old Norse who regularly uploads YouTube videos that cover a wide range of topics pertaining to the ancient, pre-Christian peoples of Scandinavia and Iceland
• Study Buddhism - an extensive source of Buddhist teachings

Below I'll talk a little bit more about my religion and spirituality.

I found Hellenismos shortly after leaving Christianity, and practiced for a few years. My partner is a Norse heathen, so when I met her, I pretty much just added that to my practice. I mainly work with Ares, Aphrodite, and Odin.

Fun fact: I perceive Ares and Aphrodite as parental figures in a way, and every time I got a tarot reading done by someone else who is unaware of this, at some point they always went, "You know, I feel like Ares and Aphrodite see you as their child of sorts." I don't work with Them as often anymore, but I still hold a special place in my heart for Them.

Sometimes in polytheism you'll have periods of time where you work more with a certain God, and periods of time where you work more with another God - this is perfectly fine and normal. Ares and Aphrodite specifically supported me during a transition into adulthood where I felt incredibly alone, but now that I'm not struggling as much, our relationship has changed.

My relationship with Odin is more like that of a mentor and a mentee. When I do tarot readings, it's often to ask Him for wisdom or clarification on what I need to do next. The Hanged Man tarot card shows up a lot when He's around (in the myths, Odin hung Himself from the world tree, Yggdrasil, pierced Himself with His spear, and peered into the Well of Urd below for nine days and nine nights in order to gain the wisdom of the runes).

Practicing Hellenismos and heathenry at the same time is pretty interesting, because Hellenismos feels much more formal, if that makes any sense? In Hellenismos, it's common to wash your hands to purify yourself before making offerings to the Theoi (Gods) or performing rituals in Their honor, but in heathenry, while I usually do wash my hands before making offerings to Odin (He seems to like coffee in particular in my experience), it doesn't seem that it matters quite as much.

Then there's witchcraft, which you'll learn more about my relationship with throughout the rest of this page.

I mostly practice divination with tarot cards. My deck is the Cosmic Slumber Tarot by Tille Walden (I told you dreams were important in my craft earlier).

If you're interested in learning tarot, Labyrinthos' list of tarot card meanings is a good place to start.

A sigil, for those of you unfamiliar with the term, is a type of symbol used in magic. The modern usage usually refers to sigils used in chaos magic specifically, which are symbols meant to represent a desired outcome.

Often, sigils are created by writing an intention, then selecting certain letters from this statement and rearranging them in all sorts of ways to create the symbol. There is no one correct way to do this. Next, the sigil is charged in some way - I won't list all the possibilities for that here because there are a lot of different ways to do this sort of thing in magic. Personally, I like meditation, visualization, stuff like that. Then you leave the sigil be. According to some, it's best if you push all memory of the sigil into your subconscious, in fact, and I find that my experience lines up with this. Then again, I have memory issues, so I forget about most of my sigils shortly after making them. Some also believe that sigils may need to be recharged every so often (if the type of work you're trying to accomplish is ongoing or a long-term goal), usually using the same method used to charge them originally.

This post by grey-sorcery on Tumblr gives a great overview of the process of making a sigil.

Personally, I like to make sigils using an online tool called Sigil Engine and then save the images on my PC, each with the intention as their filename. They then get used as my desktop wallpapers (I often have it set up to cycle through the images from one folder).

There are also people who creates sigils and share them with others to use, Sigils By Strange is a great source for this and even has a Ko-fi where they take sigil requests (though they don't seem to be active as of September 14, 2023).

I've included a sigil below as both an example and a neat bonus for anyone visiting this page who wants it. The intention I set for this is "Anyone who downloads this sigil is blessed with good fortune." If you don't want this sigil's effects, don't worry, it won't do anything. This is also an example of how it's good to be specific with your intentions. Much like how some people prefer that others don't pray for them, there are probably some people who prefer that others don't make sigils for them. By choosing my specific wording, I'm basically ensuring that people have a say in whether or not they use this sigil.

I could have still been even more specific: what kind of good fortune, and in what timeframe?

Sigils also can't accomplish everything (like saying you become a millionaire this week is most likely not going to work), but they can make some processes easier, especially if you're also using non-magical ways of reaching the goal.