Sometimes a friend will say "PLEASE draw Felicity with a unico," and sometimes you just can't refuse! [ @lilaroxa you genius ]

To Worship a War Goddess in the Modern Era

This devotional writing is dedicated to the Great Queens, Na Morrígna, She who has called me to service. Inspired by a nightmare, this writing is offered to uphold an exchange. May these words aid not in teaching others how to think, but in learning to listen.

One thing since being called by the Morrigan that I’ve had difficulty resolving is the Morrigan’s being a war goddess in the age of the military industrial complex, where wars, especially on the part of the US and other imperialist nations, are fought not for sovereignty or “defense,” like so many USAmericans are raised to believe. Authors on the Morrigan agree war has changed since the days of her worship among the Celts, but none I’ve found talk about what it means to worship her in the face of wars fought for unjust causes and for profit, or the fact that veterans are made forgotten victims instead of honored warriors, or in watching the genocide of the Palestinian people, among other ongoing injustices worldwide. I worry that sovereignty for the Morrigan is equated with imperialism, colonialism, and white supremacy, especially given some personal history interacting with devotees who themselves hold such values. Surely, with just how sick the land and its people are thanks to poverty, climate change, etc., the current “sovereigns” in power do not have the Morrigan’s blessing?

I admit I do not have all the answers or all the vocabulary to speak as strongly as I feel on this topic. As only an Acolyte still forging my relationship with the Morrigan, I am in the process of learning what worship of a war goddess in the modern age looks like. The Morrigan and her care have changed since ancient times, and they should. Her being able to do so speaks to the power of what she represents and the needs of the communities who call on her. Her complexity only grows in the modern age, especially in the face of global economies and imperialism, and as her worship is taken beyond the bounds of her homelands. Thus, I am left wondering how to consider or work with her warlike aspects.

In folklore, the Morrigan is often an antagonist, appears to fight for the “wrong” side, and starts wars out of nowhere. Authors like Courtney Weber (2019) and Stephanie Woodfield (2021) mention that we do not know for what purpose she started wars in ancient times, but both urge that the concepts of war and violence are complex not just to the Morrigan but to humanity. The Morrigan, by her very nature and actions across even her seemingly mortal lifetimes, is a goddess in the grey areas who rejects false binaries between life and death or war and peace. She teaches us not to believe in things blindly or warns us against simple stances on complex subjects. Jewish Witch, devotee of the Morrigan, and staunch anti-Zionist Asa West (2014) says, “The Morrígan implores us not to glorify war or reject all armed conflict on principle, but rather to understand and work through humankind’s propensity towards violence.” I think to deny violence on principal, and especially to uncritically shame its use by others, is a shortsighted stance. I firmly believe in the necessity of violence to end violence. I believe that victims of state-sanctioned violence have a right to defend themselves. I believe that nonviolence has its place (this is the purpose of magick, after all, as well as the Morrigan’s and the Celts’ battle cries, so that enemies may be deterred from battle), but it cannot be the only way to peace when the tools and means to defend oneself are available and help ensure one’s right to life. In these ways, I feel that I understand the Morrigan better. She is not a goddess of war and violence to glorify it, but because it is a facet of our reality. If there are any gods to rule over war, I would want her to be one who understands all its facets, complexities, necessities, goals, and consequences, who mourns as well as celebrates, who seeks peace as its ultimate means, and knows that none of it is so simply defined or easily attained.

So how does the Morrigan fit into modern concepts of war, if we recognize violence as a both a reality and a necessity? To that end, I think it is important to look at the ways war has changed in modern times. To USAmericans and other global imperialist nations, wars are rarely if ever fought locally. Our views of war have become physically distanced as a result of deploying our people overseas, selling weapons to arm other peoples for us, and by employing technologies like drones for environmental terrorism. All this makes obliviousness to and normalization of war easier, contributing to willful ignorance to those impacted by the machinations of individuals who perpetuate and profit from it. As a result of the military industrial complex, I think the purposes of war get lost and even corrupted. I fear oversimplifying this discussion, but I find it important to at least describe how a world economy based on war not only distances us from the realities of war, but makes it easier to forget the different types of, ways that, and reasons for which wars have been and can be fought. Given how often the concept of sovereignty is debated in the Morrigan’s community, perhaps the concept of war requires it, too, because I refuse to believe in a god who would condone the actions of, incite the kinds of violence perpetrated by, or fight for a “side” like those of Israel and United States over the years.

In the modern age, I think the Morrigan incites the internal wars, too, both within the individual and within a country’s political climate through protests, demonstrations, political movements, and the like. These, too, are wars, where violence occurs and where it has shown to be necessary, though not the only armaments for change and peace. Wars for justice in the modern era are ones that have brought us concepts such as Restorative Justice, which seek not only to put an end to things like retributive justice and the concept of a carceral state, but improve the lives of even perpetrators of violence and harm. Woodfield (2021) says of the Morrigan that this is the true cost of peace:

“I could hear the Morrigan in my mind, saying, ‘The true price of invoking peace is that you bless even your enemies, so that all might be whole again.’ Because how you end a battle is sometimes far more important than how you began it in the first place. Or how you fought it […] [A]ll people will remember is how it ended. […] Peace really isn’t peaceful. It’s earned only when you are willing to fight for it.” (p. 67)

Peace doesn’t mean people aren’t held accountable—that’s among the ideas that Restorative Justice seeks to uphold. Peace means ensuring all involved parties learn, grow, and heal from the experience.

And it is why that I believe the Morrigan revels in these grey areas of the definitions of and purposes for war. All authors agree the Morrigan is a peace-bringer as much as she is a war-maker. Those who analyze her mythologies will tell you she wages the wars she does specifically to bring about the kind peace she ushers at the end of the Battles of Moytura. Perhaps the true reasons of the wars mentioned in the mythologies are lost to time or have been romanticized for the purposes of a good story, but there are still lessons to be learned there, I think, for the Morrigan’s faithful.

I am personally drawn to the myth of Macha Mong Ruad, who, in defeating Dithorba’s sons, did not kill them, but charged them with constructing her fort, Emain Macha. Rather than killing those men, she reintegrated them into society, she gave them work, and she presumably treated them well so that they could complete that work. I see that work being a form of justice as they took part in the construction of safety and peace against which they had originally rallied out of selfishness and disrespect for Macha’s sovereignty and gender identity. I imagine they most definitely were outcasts among Macha’s people henceforth. Her people even question why she spared the men in the first place. Shame is a necessary for accountability to take place, and it is sadly something perpetrators of violence and injustice avoid or refuse to let themselves feel, because oppressors can only ever imagine the violence they commit being done unto them. Macha’s decision was an important one for her to make so that not only was peace maintained and her power demonstrated, but also so Dithorba’s sons could be given time to learn the lessons of their transgressions and experience all facets of accountability, including shame.

Peace is a war, too, as we try to heal and restore others to health and happiness, give even our enemies the space not just to learn from and internalize the lessons we have sought to teach them through war, but now ensure that they thrive because of it. Revenge on and eradication of our enemies is what we have been taught war is in the modern era, but I prefer to entertain the notion that that is not what it should be. I would love to reach an era where international wars are fought differently, where machines of violence are eradicated, and where the struggle is spent learning to empathize, learning to negotiate, and learning to wish wellness upon even the people who have hurt us. Revenge and retaliation distract us from and become easy ways out of the harder, healthier work. Thus, we must work to get there, which in this day and age means making use of the tools available to us in order to secure not only our survival and victories, but our abilities to thrive afterwards.

I like to think the Morrigan knows all this, too, and this is what she wants. If she didn’t before, then maybe she knows now as her worshippers have found her across all corners of the globe and as she has grown and changed with them. I think it is important to remember that faith and spirituality are ecologies: there are things gods can do that mortals cannot, and there are things mortals can do that gods cannot, so they rely on one another. I think that ecology includes the negotiations for change and growth, if we are all living and continually changing aspects of nature. Change is good, change is expected. It is a war goddess like the Morrigan, whose changes are near constant, I would trust with the domain of war. May we all, in the face of war both just and unjust, learn to grow, change, and heal together just as fervently as we fight.

neil keeps a secret candy stash under his bed bc he's obsessed w candy and welton doesnt let them have fun. he keeps all of his and todd's favorites in there. neil loves fruity and sour candy (his favorite is skittles) and todd likes chocolate candy (snickers). they go downtown every couple weeks to restock it because neil is a candy vacuum. todd usually takes a month to finish his.

Being unemployed and out of school in your early 20s is so weird. like I'm free I'm trapped time isn't real but neither is bedtime I'm making food from scratch I'm sweating over the price of groceries I'm entirely outside the rhythm of humanity while only now starting to see how it works. I'm living I'm dying I'm holding together my mental health with duct tape and one nice thing a person said to me 5 months ago I am running out of shredded cheese. yknow?

Gonna steadily (re)post art in bulk fried in Glaze.

did you know that what eventually became Rohan was at some point conceived of as "Horserland"? delightful

my tbr just keeps growing oh my god

Hey kit I’m hoping it’s okay to ask is there any updates on vow breaker?

no worries at all!! Vowbreaker is chugging along I actually have 1.5k that I’m pretty proud of for this chapter that will be about ~6-7k

I’ve had a hard time finishing these lately or focusing on any one project which means I have 6 Google docs open and about 1-2k on multiple projects (lslm, t&t, an actual 5k fic for sugar daddy anakin au, a wing fic, Vowbreaker, an actual fic for cheating au, and actual fic for smithsonian au, etc)

the fic idea in my head: ok so it's about righteous anger and wanting more from your life than what you're given, more than what you're forced into, it's about grieving the life you never got to live and all the things you shouldn't have had to go through and letting that grief burn in your heart for however long it wants to stay, it's about biting the hand that beats you, letting yourself be vitriolic because fuck, you do deserve better than this, because you didn't deserve the things that happened to you, because you're human and goddamn it that means something --

the fic when i open gdocs:

i feel like everybody hates me, but especially those who i look up to...i feel like a little kid again...looking up to those who only look down upon me, instead of picking me up and embracing me.

She really doesn't want to be admitting that this whole game has been taking a bigger toll on her than she claims to be... She doesn't want others to get a hint on that.

At least her district mate seems trustworthy enough. We'll see after this night...

i haaate writing texts to people i barely talk to who also happen to not be Online people like. what version of myself am i allowed to be here

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final nanowrimo wrapup post btw!! 

i was hoping to make 75k this year but ended up flaking out the past couple of days b/c of migraines, but redo still managed to scrape by as my longest nano ever (about a hundred words up on psd) :’) i firmly believe that the amount of plot covered here should only amount to ~35-40k at the absolute most, though, and i’m really looking forward to trimming it down in the first round of editing. but i’m also really looking forward to continuing into next month, partly because i didn’t make it to any of the 3 stopping points i was aiming for (the actual end of the first arc, the end of the court scene, or the argument at the town) but also partly because i’ve been having so much fun writing this!

and the last paragraph(s) of the month, for posterity:

good night (for now) to the most fun nano i’ve written in a long time ^v^)b

love u guys :)

didn't even get to do my ironing :-(