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It's time to revisit the topic of Asatru kindreds in my local area because the last time I posted about it was before the pandemic. I often get emails from people looking for a kindred to join in my local area, the Las Vegas valley. I received another such email recently and here is my reply:

"My kindred, American Celebration Kindred, is almost ready to accept new members but not quite. Our main ritual house had a pest control problem this winter and we're waiting until it's bug free to resume holding rituals and get-togethers. We've been closed to new members since the first Covid lockdowns started but are hoping to resume accepting new members soon. American Celebration Kindred does both Asatru and American holidays. If you're interested, I'll let you know when we're ready to meet new members.

Butterflies mean different things in different traditions, but in modern heathen practice they are sacred to Sigyn. There is significant established group gnosis on this (see my paper in a previous issue of Witches & Pagans Magazine.) Today I want to talk about some recent personal gnosis, and also about saving the butterflies. 

It's my custom to serve afternoon tea, which usually means the ladies who live here have a visit and talk about normal house things. I also usually have my first sip for the goddesses of Asatru. If it's quiet, especially if there's a minute before everyone else shows up after I announce tea time, I often ask the goddesses if they have any messages or directions or advice for me, or how I'm doing (meaning how I'm doing with their work and things they care about.) Most of the time they don't have anything they want to say, but recently Sigyn asked me to remind my readers that what she wants above all is not symbols or sacrifices to her but actual physical butterflies living in the world.

I'll be participating in a round table discussion at the American Academy of Religion conference at UNLV in March. The title is History of Mystery: Pagans in Las Vegas. I plan to blog about the experience here, so stay tuned.

Next up on this post is my brief report about another author's article, with a link. After that I relate some of my recent personal gnosis.

The Heathen Visibility Project was gearing back up in the early part of the year, continuing last year's trend. We were making more photos of people again, after pausing while groups and gatherings were sidelined by the pandemic lockdowns. However, a monkeywrench was thrown in the works by the sudden appearance of so-called "AI" art, and art websites' widespread embrace of it. What is being called generative AI is not true artificial intelligence, but since that's the term that's most commonly used, I'll be calling it "AI" as well (while hoping any true AI out there knows I'm not talking about it.) It's really just ML, machine learning.

Creators have to decide if it is worth continuing to create and share their work when the net is flooded with computer generated swill. The garbage churned out by "AI" / ML programs fills up searches, social media feeds, host sites, and sales sites, while human-made works become harder to find. Worse, the "AI" art and writing are based on the human-made work, mostly without the creators' consent. Some "AI" art prompts generate art with recognizable models and celebrity faces and sometimes even the watermarks of the artists whose works were stolen to train the "AI" systems. It's discouraging.

At Pagan Pride Day 2023, I gave a speech about Asatru, signed my book Asatru: A Beginner's Guide to the Heathen Path, and conducted a Rainbow Season offering to Heimdall and a Blessing of the Veterans. It was a wonderful day, and I'm happy to relive it by sharing this report with you.

After 4 years, Las Vegas Pagan Pride Day returned! Just like last time in 2019, it was held on Veterans' Day in Paradise Park, and included a Veterans' Blessing. Last time the Rev. Selena Fox did the blessing. This time it was me. I am deeply honored to have been asked to do this. It was very fulfilling, and I had a great time at the ritual.

I wanted to honor the bear spirit this year. As long time readers of this blog may remember, Odin activated my bear to protect me from dangerous spirits. I wanted to honor my bear specifically and also the great bear spirit generally. My housemate also had a relationship with a bear spirit, and of course there are various gods and goddesses with bear forms, and I wanted to honor them as well. 

I happened to have an unusual opportunity to have access to fresh salmon through an online grocery outlet box company. I ordered enough for the whole kindred to have one small piece each during ritual. As it happened, a household with a lot of members had illness, and other households were otherwise unavailable, so we had an overly authentic Bear Day because only those who live here showed up and we ended up eating all the salmon, berries, and honey ourselves. Bear Day turned into Bear Weekend as we stuffed ourselves with salmon until I didn't want to see another fish until next year. I got way too in touch with my inner bear and was definitely ready to hibernate afterwards.

From kindred holidays to the return of my local Pagan Pride Day, I've had a lot of community experiences this autumn. It's been awesome and of course I am sharing my fun with my blog readers. 

American Celebration Kindred usually does our fall ritual as Rainbow Season, for two reasons. Firstly in honor of Heimdall, Tom's patron. Secondly, because we live in the Mojave Desert, where summer is the rainy season. After the rain comes the rainbow, so after the rainy season comes the rainbow season. This year we held Zisa Day in September and I did a Rainbow Season ritual at Pagan Pride Day in November. We'll probably return to doing our Rainbow Season ritual in September in other years, but we also try to do a least one or more new rituals each year. Last year my kindred's other gythia Amanda led Haustlong, a traditional autumn ritual, in September. This year we held Zisa Day.