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Introduction to Animal Familiars
True witches and shamans have familiar spirits – we just do – whether we like it or not. Some have animal, plant, mineral, or ancestral spirit guides/ helpers/ allies/ familiars, and some have one or more of each, but in this article I will be talking specifically of animal familiars. Most modern Pagans believe you can only have an animal familiar and that it’s a real animal you go to the store and purchase or to a shelter and adopt. Another misconception is that your familiar is your “totem” and of course due to this there are the armchair reading Pagans who say you cannot have a totem if you are from non-Native descent, that’s culture theft, haha so there! Well, they’re wrong too and I’ll explain why, but first I must define Animism and Totemism.
Nice blog post overall (featuring some art by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
moonvoice) on the topic of how various animal helping spirits (to me a "familiar" is something different from this) are different from family-line totems and, briefly, just what they do, though I wonder on what basis she is making the statement that "... [one of] the differences [between "layperson" and a shaman or witch] being: the layperson’s is an ordinary animal found in nature and the shaman has at least one supernatural creature or being as a familiar".
Hallowmas 2009 and Debunking "Eight Sabbats in a Year and a Day"
Best understood together, I think. The former isn't really a post about the Sabbat per se, but more on the topic of ritual calendars and dating of Pagan holy days. Solstices and equinoxes are fixed; the "cross-quarter" days between (plus the "extra day" falling after the winter solstice) are not, and these are the five days out of time that a 365-day in 360-degree zodiac would call for; this doesn't line up with a 13-month calendar with 28 days per month, and oh by the way, such would not be a "lunar" calendar because lunations can vary quite a bit in length and there aren't always 13 of them in a year. Interesting stuff, anyway.
True witches and shamans have familiar spirits – we just do – whether we like it or not. Some have animal, plant, mineral, or ancestral spirit guides/ helpers/ allies/ familiars, and some have one or more of each, but in this article I will be talking specifically of animal familiars. Most modern Pagans believe you can only have an animal familiar and that it’s a real animal you go to the store and purchase or to a shelter and adopt. Another misconception is that your familiar is your “totem” and of course due to this there are the armchair reading Pagans who say you cannot have a totem if you are from non-Native descent, that’s culture theft, haha so there! Well, they’re wrong too and I’ll explain why, but first I must define Animism and Totemism.
Nice blog post overall (featuring some art by
moonvoice) on the topic of how various animal helping spirits (to me a "familiar" is something different from this) are different from family-line totems and, briefly, just what they do, though I wonder on what basis she is making the statement that "... [one of] the differences [between "layperson" and a shaman or witch] being: the layperson’s is an ordinary animal found in nature and the shaman has at least one supernatural creature or being as a familiar".Hallowmas 2009 and Debunking "Eight Sabbats in a Year and a Day"
Best understood together, I think. The former isn't really a post about the Sabbat per se, but more on the topic of ritual calendars and dating of Pagan holy days. Solstices and equinoxes are fixed; the "cross-quarter" days between (plus the "extra day" falling after the winter solstice) are not, and these are the five days out of time that a 365-day in 360-degree zodiac would call for; this doesn't line up with a 13-month calendar with 28 days per month, and oh by the way, such would not be a "lunar" calendar because lunations can vary quite a bit in length and there aren't always 13 of them in a year. Interesting stuff, anyway.