Kismet and Chaos

witterprompts:

“Maybe all I wanted was the truth. Have you considered that?”

“You can’t use your magic. That’s cheating and you know it!“ 

“Admit it. You have all this power and you can barely control it.”

“Try to contain your excitement, but I’m leaving. Yes, I know. You’ve been dreaming about this day.”

“You’re the one cultivating evil plants. I’m just here to make sure they don’t turn on you.”

“I had everything figured out and then- bam! It was gone. Just like that.”

rrojasandribbons:

In tackling the misconceptions surrounding Romani religious beliefs and their use, or misuse, within the Witchcraft, Wiccan, and Pagan communities, we often dance around the topic of authenticity. We are quick to inform the masses when this or that is not ours, but rarely offer up any knowledge regarding what things truly do come from us and our culture. 

It’s not that we are even remotely okay with the perpetual ignorance about Romani spiritual traditions, but rather that we have deemed ignorance to be a better option than the misuse or desecration of our religious traditions and icons. That information is not some national secret; it is out there if you know where to look. However, we aren’t exactly keen on sharing enough details of it to make it worth your while. 

However, one bit of Romanipe has seemingly escaped our grasp to become part of the realm of “common knowledge” about Romani people: Saint Sarah. You may know her better as “Sara la Kali”, “Kali Sara”, or “Sara e Kali”. She has many names, and is one of many similar, so-called “Black Madonnas” seen throughout Romani culture. She is reminiscent of ancient Vedic traditions, and represents not only our distant past, but also our ability to hide remnants of it in plain sight. 

Kali Sara’s rise to fame has triggered a new problem; the use of real Romani religious icons by non-Romani people in a non-Romani context. 

Since the days of Buckland and Leland, we have been fighting a rather unique battle against the misrepresentation of our cultural traditions. Our ability to mask our traditions with Christian words has come full circle. Romani people went from hiding Vedic customs under a veil of Christianity, to fighting the myth that we have no religion, to somehow becoming “witches” in the latter half of twentieth century, and presently being just Christian enough to justify the misuse of authentic religious traditions. 

So, who is “Sara la Kali” if not a Christian saint?

Keep reading

argumate:

I actually do have misgivings about dividing the world into sanitised services free from the horror of the insufficiently artistic nude figure and services based on 100% hardcore pornography, which is what you tend to get once you start enforcing the porn/not-porn divide; I mean there are obvious incentives at play but it does seem worth noting that a Tumblr user potentially could curate a personal experience that includes erotic elements without subjecting themselves to the seventeen varieties of digital chlamydia they would immediately contract on visiting PornHub, and that banning this will eliminate various forms of mildly playful or experimental sexuality, forcing everything and everyone into an strict all-or-nothing paradigm.