#Havamalwitches

I love my gods. And yes, it is no secret that Loki and his family are some of my closest.  We all have personal favorites or patrons.  No shame there.

So it doesn't matter if I have a community to worship with or not.  I'm going to keep doing what I am doing.  I'm still going to have regular blots and make fire offerings.  I'm still going to seek that connection that I finally have back after over a decade without it.

But it's heartbreaking to feel so much love for a god and His family who are vilified, and to be a person trying to exist inside a community that fears or hates what I love.

Then to add to that, the fact that I am a woman being a source of contention.  I don't appreciate snarky remarks about domesticity or traditionalism, or remarks about a woman's place or the feminine domain.  A woman's place is wherever the hell she wants it to be.  Be it warrior, farmer, fishing, or witchcraft.

Too many women whose gifts happen to fall in the domestic caretaker role are ignored, neglected, and treated like they are either invisible or have no value.  Much of it is unpaid work. Having a paycheck and the size of that paycheck is treated like the measure of a human being's value.  That's such bullshit.  Ask a kid whose mother has died, is she less missed or less loved because she stayed at home?

Both the left and the right need to understand this.

The right wants to recreate a world that existed over 1000 years ago.  One where getting drunk and killing each other was the norm.  Where women were property. I don't care if they had the keys, could control household spending, and sue for divorce.  They were still treated like property and access to them and their reproductive power was exclusively controlled by men. Men decided who their daughters married to the point where love poems could get a man exiled and killed.  This was not society protecting women, this was society protecting men's property and her virginity as her husband's future property.   Un-manliness included having a wife cheat on you. Men could do whatever the hell they wanted.

The vikings were not as feminist as many would want others to believe. It was not an ideal society.  Take the rose-tinted glasses off, Heathens.

I like my antibiotics, my clean clothes, and flea-free house.  I love that my child survived with medical care to her 6th year and counting  We were so confident of this future that we gave her a name at birth.

And the left vilifies SAHM like they have betrayed the feminist agenda.  They aren't "leaning in" and their voices don't matter. The left treats us as men's property just as much as the right does.  And well meaning allies won't even talk about sexism. The moment the conversation starts, they delete posts and shut down discussion, as if erasing and ignoring it could make it go away.

It is heartbreaking and depressing to find my faith again and then see that faith community acting like jerks.

I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing and look for like minded people.  Perhaps I can create my own little corner of sanity and acceptance.  Goodness knows the greater Asatru community has been depressingly trollish.