I’m in the process of moving. Now that my doctorate is finally complete, there’s a lot less tying me to the physical environs of New Jersey. My lease is up at the end of this month, and while I haven’t yet secured a job and a permanent place to live, it’s time for me to […]
Read more "Baba Yaga Lied to Me (And That’s Okay)"Polytheistic worship involves cultivating relationships with deities, but those relationships are a lot of work. Here, I talk about the varying degrees of intimacy that might exist in a relationship of worship, the different kinds of relationship structures that polytheists might have, and why I don’t have the energy to worship lots of gods. The […]
Read more "Video: I’m a Bad Polytheist"For a little over three years now, I have had a devotional relationship with Baba Yaga. It’s been an intense, complicated, sometimes harrowing relationship; Baba Yaga is neither kind nor loving, and devotion to her has not been like a parent-child relationship nor even like the relationship between close friends. The message, rather has been, […]
Read more "Parting Ways with Baba Yaga"Lately, my Slavic polytheist practice has been feeling stagnant. Part of that is that I’ve been ridiculously overworked for the past two months (which is also why this blog has basically gone dark). I’ve been so busy that I’ve been neglecting religion, because at the end of each day I’m so exhausted that I can […]
Read more "Slavic Polytheism: Updating my Prayers"It’s been a while since I’ve written about my Slavic polytheist practice. That’s not because I’m not practicing! Things have just been on the quiet side. I still do regular devotionals (although I’d be lying if I said I kept up with a daily routine on that), I still have a relationship with Baba Yaga, […]
Read more "Slavic Polytheism: Ideas That Aren’t Part of my Practice Anymore"I haven’t written about it in a while, but longtime readers of the blog may remember that I have a devotional relationship with Baba Yaga. This is, nominally at least, part of my practice of Slavic polytheism, but in many ways it’s its own sort of thing. I hadn’t really anticipated forming this relationship, and […]
Read more "Baba Yaga and the Gods"Back in August, I began a devotional relationship with Baba Yaga. As a rule, this is something I don’t recommend to others. Baba Yaga doesn’t like people, and she especially does not like men. If you’re a woman, your chances of surviving an encounter with her are about 1 in 3. As a man, those […]
Read more "How to Survive an Encounter With Baba Yaga"I don’t work with Baba Yaga, or at least I haven’t in the past. As a general rule, she’s a fearsome figure, and she does not like men; I’ve always thought it was most prudent to give her a wide berth. But I recently had a profoundly moving encounter with her, which has changed the […]
Read more "A Visit to Baba Yaga"There’s nothing else like this deck, and I am so very excited about it. The Slavic Tarot is a self-published deck from artist M.A.I. Murray, available through Etsy. It adapts the structure of a traditional Tarot deck to incorporate figures from Slavic mythology and folk tales. The Major Arcana in this deck each depict a […]
Read more "A Review of the Slavic Tarot"This is part 3 of a post about my own practice of Slavic polytheism. Here, we get into the nitty-gritty of how I set up my shrine, how I do my daily devotional, what I do with my offerings, and the like. At the moment, half my things are in hibernation for the summer, so […]
Read more "Slavic Polytheism, Part 3: Spirits and Praxis"
Jack Chanek 