Scalyfreak vs Stir Crazy: Tales from the Bunker

[Scaly Freak]

10 minutes ago, sarakingdom said:

Are you certain? Because I've never felt more ready to join an island of promiscuous murder-pagans.

 

We're all rediscovering our inner dothraki right now, I think.

[Scaly Freak]

I forgot my update last night, so here we go:

 

 

1. Rest at the Bonfire

 

Morning routine:  Fully completed on Friday. For today, slept in for several hours and did everything except meditation and going to work (since I don't work on Saturdays). I have to mediate soon though.

 

End-of-Day routine: Went really well on Friday. Does not apply on Saturdays, so there's no need to wait until tonight for today's update.

 

2. Praise the Sun

 

The walk of course happened on my Friday lunch break. For today, I'm thinking I should go outside and do some yard maintenance to make both the front yard and the back yard nicer to be in, since we might be spending a lot of time there in the future.

 

3. Attribute Increase

 

Sunday/Tuesday/Thursday: I forgot to lift Friday evening. Ooops. No lifting scheduled for today.

 

4. It’s dangerous to go alone! Take this Jolly Cooperation.

 

Family: Send Easter greetings and discussed the merits of social distancing vs quarantine.

 

Socialize with these forums: Yes, today and yesterday.

 

Nerdfitness D&D: Still active and engaged. Obviously, since it's still in early stages.

 

Old friends: The FF7 remake is out. We have different opinions about this game.

 

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

1 hour ago, sarakingdom said:

 

TL;DR I think most holidays are basically secular and folk observation of seasonality, and the religious elements form around that rather than the other way around; we still have a ton of the non-religious, animist practice we've inherited. Get yourself some chocolate rabbits, a box of Peeps, and a nice bouquet of flowers, and then make a fancy "flowers and shit are finally blooming again" dinner. All perfectly traditional. Bam, that's Easter sorted.

This is exactly what happened. Christmas is even worse about this than easter. The date of Christ's birth was a huge controversy in early Christianity, and virtually no-one advocated for December 25th, which was a raucous Pagan party holiday. Also, Christians didn't really celebrate the birth of Christ. The only reason Christians celebrate the Birth of Christ on the day we do now was because some Bishop or other with a stick up his butt wanted to ruin the fun of the Pagans in 335 ad in Rome. Called it the day of Christ's birth and started working to Christian-ize it. 

 

The reason Easter's date changes from year to year is because it's based on the dates of Passover, which are based on a Lunar Calendar. And most of the traditions, other than going to church, associated with it were picked up along the way as Pagans became Christian.

[Harriet]

49 minutes ago, sarakingdom said:

 

Peeps are marshmallows roughly in the shape of baby chicks and covered in yellow sugar. They're a common traditional Easter candy in the US.

 

For rituals to show appreciation for nature, I think it's hard to beat the Easter egg hunt. I think we climbed over every tree, flower, and plant in the yard to find those things when we were kids.

 

Good idea!

 

49 minutes ago, sarakingdom said:

Are you certain? Because I've never felt more ready to join an island of promiscuous murder-pagans.

 

There's no coronavirus on the island of murder. Because no one ever leaves. And even if someone enters, cooking takes care of it. 

[WhiteGhost]

It seems to me that pretty much all of the religious holidays can easily be celebrated without including the religious aspects.  Christmas = Santa Clause and gift giving, Easter = Easter bunny and hunting for eggs, Haloween = cosplaying and mainlining candy, etc.

 

On the other hand, if you want completely secular holidays you could just go with the Chinese holiday calendar.  We have holidays for pretty much every seasonal event with all the religious aspects erased. 

[Mad Hatter]

I feel like rituals have become rather meaningless since I live on my own. But I do like chocolate.

[starsapart]

As a practicing pagan, I often laugh at the people who seem to think that things like Easter eggs or Christmas trees originated with Christianity. 🙃

 

I hope you had a great holiday regardless! How is the weather for going out? Our lovely spring ended abruptly yesterday to be replaced with snow, and it's making me blue.

[Scaly Freak]

11 minutes ago, starsapart said:

As a practicing pagan, I often laugh at the people who seem to think that things like Easter eggs or Christmas trees originated with Christianity. 🙃

 

 

What? Don't you know that the first painted Easter eggs in history were found in the tomb a few days later? He had to do something in there to pass the time during those three days.  😛 

[Harriet]

1 hour ago, starsapart said:

As a practicing pagan, I often laugh at the people who seem to think that things like Easter eggs or Christmas trees originated with Christianity. 🙃

 

 

I must know more. How do you practice? Where did you find the rituals etc? Do you practice alone, or with others? Please tell me everything.

[starsapart]

2 minutes ago, Harriet said:

I must know more. How do you practice? Where did you find the rituals etc? Do you practice alone, or with others? Please tell me everything.

 

I'll DM you so as not to clutter up this thread, hahahahaha.

[Mistr]

I'm glad you were able to have a ham for holiday dinner. We had ham (cooked last Wednesday) because it was on sale in anticipation of the holiday.

 

On 4/11/2020 at 10:22 AM, Harriet said:

I've lost the rituals we used to do as a family because I'm not a child any more, and Mr Harriet is a completely unsentimental atheist who doesn't care about traditional holidays (except insofar as they entail sweets). I wish there were some non-religious rituals (maybe pagan or animist) that I could borrow from to mark the times of year. I think it's nice to have some special occasions. Maybe I'll just meditate on the concepts of spring and renewal, and then eat some chocolate. 

 

My grandmother used to make little bird's nests out of chocolate fudge and corn flakes, then put chocolate eggs in them and a Peep on top. All the spring, no religion to be found. She also made rosettes (a type of deep-fried cookie) using the butterfly mold. That same mold made bats at Halloween. 

 

My current family is all actively non-Christian. We celebrate winter solstice. Tonight I am going out hunting half-price Lindt rabbits in honor of the season.

[starsapart]

9 minutes ago, Mistr said:

My current family is all actively non-Christian. We celebrate winter solstice. Tonight I am going out hunting half-price Lindt rabbits in honor of the season.

 

This sounds a lot like my life.

[miss_marissa]

4 hours ago, Scalyfreak said:

 

What? Don't you know that the first painted Easter eggs in history were found in the tomb a few days later? He had to do something in there to pass the time during those three days.  😛 

 

I hope I have the ability to paint eggs when I'm dead

[Harriet]

2 hours ago, Mistr said:

My current family is all actively non-Christian. We celebrate winter solstice. Tonight I am going out hunting half-price Lindt rabbits in honor of the season.

 

Rabbits makes sense   What do you do at Christmas time? (Sorry scaly... I'm totally derailing, I know... I just need to interrogate these non-Christians about their rituals)

[Sloth the Enduring]

As a practicing pagan, I often laugh at the people who seem to think that things like Easter eggs or Christmas trees originated with Christianity. [emoji854]
 
I hope you had a great holiday regardless! How is the weather for going out? Our lovely spring ended abruptly yesterday to be replaced with snow, and it's making me blue.

Just out of curiosity, is this a Russian tradition that was secretly kept or a reawakening? As I’m being nosy and you don’t know me, feel free to ignore this as it is a personal question.

[Mad Hatter]

9 hours ago, Harriet said:

I must know more. How do you practice? Where did you find the rituals etc? Do you practice alone, or with others? Please tell me everything.

Setting things on fire is a common practice in Nordic pagan rituals. And it's fun.

[starsapart]

14 hours ago, Sloth the Enduring said:

Just out of curiosity, is this a Russian tradition that was secretly kept or a reawakening? As I’m being nosy and you don’t know me, feel free to ignore this as it is a personal question.

 

 

I think you're asking if my family raised me pagan? No, they didn't, although there are a lot of Russian pagan practices that still exist in the everyday culture in a secularized fashion that I maintained and in some cases expanded on in my practice. My parents were typical Soviet intellectuals, i.e. they did not raise me with religion at all, aside from the invitation to explore whatever interested me. Interestingly, they came from families with very different religious traditions (my mother's family is Eastern Orthodox, while my father's family is Jewish), so quite possibly the lack of religion in the house was intended to keep the peace. 😆 Anyway, I came to identify as pagan as an adult after a whole lot of research prompted by the fact that I was deeply dissatisfied with the "traditional" religious options presented to me.

[Scaly Freak]

15 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Setting things on fire is a common practice in Nordic pagan rituals. And it's fun.

 

I find myself getting nostalgic for Valborgsmässafton around this time every spring... partly for the fires, but also for all the singing that is done everywhere around the bonfires all night long. It really feels like officially closing out the winter season and moving on to new beginnings, and there's something very uplifting and comforting about that.  

 

Nostalgia:

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

[starsapart]

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I love the Swedish choral tradition in general, the video is great! I'm going to leave it running in the background and enjoy the music.

[h3r0]

I have no idea what that is but I like it! 

[Harriet]

Ooh, lovely singing. 

[Scaly Freak]

Quick challenge goals update. No updates on weekends, since they are not workdays.

 

1. Rest at the Bonfire

 

Morning routine:  I continue to remember the phone charger. This is promising.

 

End-of-Day routine: Completed all parts except turning off the work computer, since it was running updates. Turned off all monitors though.

 

2. Praise the Sun

 

Walked with Happy Sidekick on lunch break again. 

 

3. Attribute Increase

 

Sunday/Tuesday/Thursday: Lifted this evening, and did many dead bugs. I have now learned that if I do lots of dead bugs early in the workout, the one-leg deadlifts become a lot more difficult and painful. Lesson learned. The dead bugs will be done last next time.

 

4. It’s dangerous to go alone! Take this Jolly Cooperation.

 

Family: Lots of Easter texting with everyone.

 

Socialize with these forums: Somehow managed not to be overwhelmed by the amount of posts that greeted me this afternoon.

 

Nerdfitness D&D: Finally had an opportunity to let my character complain IC about the actions of the rest of the group. 😛 

 

Old friends: Commiserated with the Wisconsin voters.

[Mad Hatter]

12 hours ago, starsapart said:

Anyway, I came to identify as pagan as an adult after a whole lot of research prompted by the fact that I was deeply dissatisfied with the "traditional" religious options presented to me

Curious, but what triggered the search for a religious option in the first place?

[Harriet]

10 hours ago, Scalyfreak said:

Sunday/Tuesday/Thursday: Lifted this evening, and did many dead bugs. I have now learned that if I do lots of dead bugs early in the workout, the one-leg deadlifts become a lot more difficult and painful. Lesson learned. The dead bugs will be done last next time.

 

Yay for lifting and walking! And yay that the routines continue to help. What were you doing for deadlifts? You don't have bars at home, right? Dumbbells?

[Scaly Freak]

18 minutes ago, Harriet said:

 

Yay for lifting and walking! And yay that the routines continue to help. What were you doing for deadlifts? You don't have bars at home, right? Dumbbells?

 

One single dumbbell, and then I stand on one leg.