I have so many thoughts in my head these days and seemingly no outlet for them, as all of them pertain to things which most of the people around me respond with a particular expression I like to avoid. It’s that “OK, Tahni, I don’t really understand/know/care about what you’re talking about right now, but it would be rude to just walk away, so I’ll stare blankly at you and nod while thinking about something else” expression. The interweb can’t make that face at me (as far as I know - please don’t crush my hopes and dreams by proving me wrong) so I figure I’ll unleash it here.

I’ll start with this one: lyrics, language, and my relationship to them. I will start with musings on language, lyrics, and my relationship to those things.

So. Bob hund. Swedish rock. It’s been happening. Upon listening to bob hund’s English alter ego, Bergman Rock, I realized that something I’m not sure I have words happens…differently…when I listen to the same band in different languages.

I want to say I had a realization that I had missed the English, much like I had missed the English while I was valiantly attempting to read Harry Potter in Swedish (which was not a success) but “miss” isn’t entirely the right word. I haven’t been able to come up with a better word, though, so I guess we’ll go with it. The closest I can get to expressing this is to say that my relationship to the voice in English and the voice in Swedish is different - much like the experience of eating silky dark chocolate is different from gripping a mountain stone in the palm of your hand (what just happened? It’s the best I can do).

When I’m saying these things, of course, I’m not even talking about the words of the languages. What I’m talking about is the effect that the different words have on the voice of the singer (in my perception. The voice of the man singing the words seems to change from Swedish to English and with it my experience of the music changes. Here comes my nonsensical, best-I-can-do simile again: one experience is eating chocolate (English) and one is gripping stone (Swedish). Neither is better than the other, it’s just different experiences. Yes? Nonetheless, I do find myself craving more Bergman Rock music so I can have more of the chocolate experience to balance out my rock experience, and amidst all of this relatively pointless pondering I have realized that I feel less antagonistically towards my own native language.

I’m interested to see if this changes as I progress with the Swedish and understand more of the lyrics. Of course this means finding other Swedish artists who have sang a couple of songs in English so that I can determine if it’s actually a language thing or just a bob hund/Bergman Rock thing.

Fellow writerly, pagany folk! EHS has re-opened for summer soltice submissions! Last issue there was a bit of a shortage on the fiction and essays fronts, so anyone with some good fiction and essays to contribute should definitely do so to ensure that those genres are equally represented this summer. :)

Recently I’ve been experiencing some on-and-off insecurities about my writing - verypowerfulinsecurities which have, at times, made me think I should probably just walk away from it. I’m not experiencing one of those bouts right now. Nonetheless, this blog eased my mind about so much of my earlier writing (much of which I’ve deleted) and a lot of the current writings I’m struggling with. In short, Neil Gaimen inspires me to not quit. Which is why I want to share this with any other budding writers I may know. :)

porcelainette:

hornrimmed-glasses:

bunnika:

I seriously just had to teach my mother some basics of parenting.

Both photos are of my daughter in October, the first in 2011, the second in 2012.  I let her pick out her own clothes, shoes, haircuts, hair colors, anything superficial, really.  She’s too young to understand the permanence of piercings, so she doesn’t have any.  But hair grows, shoes get grown out of, clothes go threadbare.  These things don’t really matter—shouldn’t really matter—but anyone raising a gender-variant child knows the world isn’t that kind.

My daughter recently requested a haircut like mine.  A long flop on top, pixie-length fade on the back and sides.  She’s been bugging me for weeks to color her hair again, I just haven’t had the time.  But today she came to me with the same shyness she keeps developing when outside our home; she’s being pressured by peers and family to look “normal,” to grow her hair long and uncolored, to dress a certain way (she hates to match), to indulge in self-consciousness, and alter or not alter her appearance to gain the approval of others, and society at large.

THIS FUCKING INFURIATES ME.

I called my mother tonight, because my daughter had become shy again, and didn’t want to color her hair anymore, and she said it was because of what her Nana had said to her.  My mother told me we should get that spray-on Halloween hair colors, so it wouldn’t be so “permanent” and my daughter could be “normal” again to avoid being bullied.

IT IS NOT THE JOB OF THE VICTIM TO STOP BEING BULLIED.  IT IS THE BULLY’S JOB TO STOP BULLYING.

I know she gets teased sometimes, and we always talk about it.  She stays strong and confident, so long as she has the support of those around her.  But what that support falters, or pulls a 180, she’s left to crash.

She also gets teased for liking dinosaurs and not dolls.  She gets teased for preferring roughhousing to playing house.  She gets teased for liking Lightning McQueen and not Cinderella.  Where do we draw the line?

My mother thinks this is a “minor” thing, that it’s better to just blend in.  But it would plant the seed of doubt, it forms the foundation for queer kids staying in the closet, for disabled kids to feel worthless, for young girls accepting abusive partners.  This is not “minor,” it is fucking MAJOR, because this is my daughter’s foundation, and it will shape her life.

Support your fucking kids.  Let them be who they want to be, look how they want to look, and play how they want to play.  And make sure they know that you will love them no matter what.

marleetargaryen:

About seven years ago, all my friends my age got married. And about three years after that, they all started having babies, which set into motion the idea that eventually they’re gonna have to talk about sex to their kids. And that just freaks me out. I have cats—they were broken, but now they’re fixed—so I don’t have to worry about this. However, if I had the opportunity to suddenly be confronted by my son as a young man asking me for advice about sex… with girls… this is what I would say.

One: Buy condoms. Buy them and keep them with you at all times, and use them before you are asked to use them. And use them every time. The peace of mind you allow your partner will free her to be vulnerable with you, and that, my son, is exactly what sex is about. Condoms are sexy. In fact, call buying condoms foreplay. (Footnote: If you are too embarrassed to buy condoms, you are not ready to have sex.)

Two: Kissing is not merely foreplay. Spend entire evenings making out on the couch while fully clothed. Believe me, dry-humping rocks.

Three: Sex is not just about friction. It’s about emotion. Stop trying to find her clitoris and find her heart. Because then she’ll help you find her clitoris.

Four: If you really wanna know how to please a woman, ask her how she masturbates. Then do that. A lot. If she claims she doesn’t masturbate, offer to take her shopping for a vibrator so you can both learn the vocabulary of her body together.

Five: Don’t put anything in her butthole you wouldn’t want in your own. (Footnote: Try a pinky finger, it’s kinda awesome.)

Six: When you go down on her—and you will go down on her, and if you are my son, you will be amazing at it—tell her how good she tastes. Stop in the middle and kiss her deeply so she knows how good she tastes. Do the same when she goes down on you.

Seven: A simple Google search will yield 1,327 euphemisms for male masturbation, yet only 23 for female masturbation. If guys spent less time jacking off and more time jilling off, this world would be a happier place.

Eight: Everything you need to know about the importance of the clitoris is in the movie Star Wars. You are Luke Skywalker piloting your penis-shaped X-Wing Fighter deep inside her trench. Remember: seventy percent of all Death Stars cannot be blown up through penetration of the trench alone. It must be through focused contact with that little exhaust port at the top of the trench. Otherwise, any explosions you experience will be merely Hollywood special effects.

Nine: Just because you come doesn’t mean she has, so don’t you dare come before her. Focus completely on your partner. Don’t worry about gettin’ yours, you’re a guy. You always get yours. Your job is to make sure she’s gettin’ hers.

Ten: If sex with your partner lasts no longer than this poem, you are not making love. You are masturbating with her body instead of your hand. Shame on you. Go back to step one. You’ve got a lot of learning to do.

Love, Dad.

The new issue of Eternal Haunted Summer is now live! This is the review I wrote of a book called ‘Elves in Anglo Saxon England’ for this issue. I haven’t had a chance yet to read the poetry and stories, but when I do I’ll be sure to share!

pagansexual:

A cover of Mikal the Ram’s (RIP) ‘Loki’s Song’, sung by yours truly.

…Loki insisted.

createourownlight:

I’ve never asked anyone to reblog anything before, and I probably won’t again. But I am now - because this matters.

The Steubenville rape victim, when offered money for her legal expenses or counselling, asked that people donated to a shelter for abused women and…

sweetdreamr:

Loki’s not a dick to his wives. I mean, I’m sure he has his moments (we all do in a relationship of pretty much any kind lol), but if I read *one* more story wherein Loki is abusive, in any way, shape or form to Glut, Angrboda, or Sigyn, I am going to….uh…well, I have a cold, so I’ll probably just…

Being in the very early stages of attempting for the hundredth to time to write a children’s story, this time with the characters being Loki’s daughter Eisa and Einmyria, I was bumbling about the interwebs to see if there was anything I had missed regarding mythology revolving around them and people’s UPG about them.

Instead I stumbled upon this and thought that it was good.

Gotta admit, my experience with Marvel and Thor and the Avengers is really limited to the movies and was only instigated by the fact that they just kept cropping up while I was doing some preliminary on line Loki research. I’m sure that what ever stories and depictions they have in their comics probably had an effect, but I think there is also probably a pretty good dose of people just generally having a bad impression of Loki. Hell, I had a bad impression of Loki initially. It’s why I put up such a fuss when it first occurred to me that he had taken some interest in me, for whatever reason.

I never really thought that Loki was abusive, but I had it in my mind that he wasn’t particularly good to Sigyn (the only wife I was aware of at that early stage). I don’t even know why. I had gotten it into my head at some point that Loki was the Norse equivalent of the Christian Satan and I remember hearing somewhere that the Joker was partially inspired by Loki (I have no idea where I heard that, I just know that it happened and I’ve seen no evidence that this is true anywhere) and if you inspire the Joker, you’ve gotta be bad, right?

Well, as I have done more research and had more personal experience I’ve discovered that pretty much every single one of those notions are false. A lot of people hold pretty tightly onto them, though, and a lot of them are people who ought to know better. I’ve seen a lot of people in the pagan community sneering at Loki as some sort of equivalent of Satan without seeming to realize that that has no place on a spiritual path that (I would hope) recognizes that nothing which occurs in nature is inherently evil (that is not to say that people can’t do evil deeds - but I’m not in the mood to philosophize).

Besides that, the surviving lore was written down, post-conversion, by Christians. The Christian influence is so glaringly obvious in the texts that I really am very baffled that so many people continue to argue that it is somehow pure and/or the only thing to live Nordic influenced spirituality by. The point of this being: Christianity has to have a good vs. evil dynamic. It doesn’t work without it (well, it would, and it would probably be way cooler, but it would decrease the power structure of the church so I guess we’re not gonna do that). Loki and his ilk are easy characters to cast as “evil,” considering that they don’t easily fit within the “good” box as constructed by Christian worldview.

That said, when you have such pervasive ideas floating around the ethosphere, making their way into your brain, you might jump to conclusions. That was my experience. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were a common one.