Rules

https://preview.redd.it/a8mv2877f4yd1.jpg?width=1846&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ace930270b7c4e4f67b42f934beb34564696a985

My first ever Dziady/Forefather's Eve that I decided to celebrate and make this humble altar and give an offering to our ancestors. (Food is being prepared)
Thank you u/Farkaniy for the help!

Hello everybody,

I'm thinking to honor my forefathers in the upcoming Dziady but I'm unsure what is best to do(since I haven't done it before), how and if it's a good idea in my personal case at all. So I will be glad and grateful to hear your advices/suggestions/opinions about it.

I'm a newbie so I might be mistaken in some things I'm writing here(apologies for that in advance) and my knowledges based more on culture than faith/religion.

Since I'm unable to come back to my country/place of origin(currently are in western Europe) and perhaps there won't be ever such a chance in the future, I can't visit my ancestors at their burial places. Neither can I go to any place they had been during their lifetime.
So I was thinking to do it simply at my current living place. To prepare some food, lit some candles, open the window and spend the evening like that. And here the questions come:

1. People might probably celebrate halloween here. With possible loud music/noises/singing which might be heard through the walls. Is it a problem if they are outside or they are my neighbours(but they are not in my room/living space)?

2. What should/can I do with food which was left to stay over night? Eat it? Throw it away?

3. For how long should the window remain opened? And for how long candles remain lit?

4. Is there any particular amount of time essential to spend with the souls of my family(till midnight/till morning/any time else)? At what time it's better to go to sleep?

5. I'm completely alone here so here will be nobody from my family(alive) to talk with. What should I do? I thought to eat a little bit and then just to sit in silence. It would be fine for me but what about the souls? I don't really know what to say and I'm not a talkative person so it's kinda complicated : |

6. Will the souls of my family be able to visit me here, at completely different peace of our world?

7. The whole my kin from my mother's line are strong zealous christians at least in 6 generations(I don't know further) and so was I raised. My father's parents were atheists and that's all I know(since my father doesn't know his grandparents himself). And here I have some doubts. I don't really have any problems with people having different opinion about paganism or christianity but I do care about my family. And least of all I want to anger, disrespect, upset or disappoint them (since many of them would expect from me a different approach). And I also don't want to cause any possible harm to them. On the other hand christians do quite same things which was probably directly adopted from slavic native faith(I think?). (The difference is only in praying for dead, eating food instead of letting it to stay over night and doing it during daytime).

- Is there any sense to do it in christianized way(I mean praying) in order to honor my kin?

- Or it is all a bad idea and it's better to just not participate in Dziady at all and join only those events which are not about the dead?

8. Who else can possibly join me this night besides my family's souls? Can it be souls of ancestors I don't know? Or anyone else?

9. Does my emotional state matter? Should I be cautious about anything else?

Thank you in advance!

I am fairy new to this , so I don't know a lot but ever since I was young (5) the goddes marzans name gave me a lot of comfort and a feeling of safety . I would like to worship her but I don't how to start.

Greetings, everyone! I’m new here and happy to have come across this community of new and experienced Slavic pagans! I live in New England and have studied traditional Slavic sorcery for a number of years now, via an online school based in Archangel in today’s subarctic Russia — the land of the Pomórs, to which my own roots bind me. Today we celebrate one of the special dates dedicated to Goddess Makosh — a wonderful opportunity to come in her presence while the ancestral spirits are still with us this week… Many of us did home rituals for Mother Makosh this morning — and so did I. And what a joy it is to speak the Old Words of praise. No ritual is exactly the same as any other — but when it goes well, what unmistakable peace and compassion we can feel when Makosh is near… Wishing you all joy on this special day!

Greetings fellow followers of Rodnovery. I have been a lacksidasical Pagan for a good 25-30 years, but I would like to delve more into my Slavic ancestry and ancestral practice. I had an amazing vision (I am SO not the type to have visions!) about 10 years ago when I was at a CUUPS service for Samhain. I glanced up at the nearly full moon and blinked three times, and I saw a different woman's face every time I blinked. I knew all those women were my ancestors.

I am not much interested in the gods and spirits of Slavic paganism, but I am very interested in people's experiences of Slavic ancestor worship. I want to develop my own practices, but I do not want to appropriate other cultures' ancestor worship practices (for example, I don't want to just lean into Dios de Los Muertos, even though the movie Coco looked really awesome and I could totally get behind the concept of an ofrenda, because I am not Latina and I do not want to steal someone else's practice).

SO! Long-winded way of asking if anyone has any suggestions for how to make my ancestor worship more Slavic?

My ancestry is Slovak with a little bit of Ukrainian, so I am more interested in West Slavic practices rather than Russian.

I decided to wear a necklace with a kolovrat, but I’m a bit worried that people might misinterpret it. The necklace features a sun within a circle, and in the center of the sun is a kolovrat. Due to some people’s strange associations, I chose this design rather than a larger, standalone kolovrat.

When my friends and family saw the kolovrat for the first time, they immediately associated it with the Nazi swastika, which really scared me. I don’t want this symbol to provoke negative reactions.

Has anyone here had unpleasant experiences while wearing a kolovrat? How did people react to it? I’m curious how others deal with potential misunderstandings surrounding this symbol and whether I should expect negative comments from people.

I really hope this isn't a stupid question, but I really hope someone could help me answer this.

I've worshipped Aphrodite the past week as ive been seeing signs of her and feeling her presence around me. She helps me love myself more and I have a small altar dedicated to her. As I am Russian, I really feel the need to reconnect to my slavic pagan roots and have been interested in, for example, Veles, Makosh, Mara, and I am researching as good as I can and I wanna start worshipping them soon and having a dedicated altar. As far as I know, Lada is the Goddess of Love (IF Not, please correct me) in slavic paganism and I would love to keep a Love Goddess around my practise and I just don't know what to do. I don't see myself that well mixing two belief systems so I was thinking of fully entering the world of slavic paganism, but I feel kinda bad if I were to leave her behind. I just don't know what to do. I do divination as well but I don't know how and what I would ask/tell her. I guess I am a little clueless here and would love to hear from another perspective, on what you would do I guess. Thanks so much!

Hey everyone! I'm new to reddit so I hope I'm doing this right. Basically, I'm reconnecting with my roots as I am Russian. I've gotten into slavic paganism and I'm thinking of getting a tattoo for my birthday in march next year, maybe earlier, but I really want it to be something to contribute to my slavic/rodnovery/pagan roots. It will be my first tattoo and I want it to be something minimalistic. Maybe like a protection symbol? I want it on my wrist or on my arm and I can't really find anything that would fit ig. I don't necessarily want something dedicated to a specific deity but rather something more slavic/rodnovery - ish. If not in form of a tattoo, maybe as a necklace or something. I am not sure yet, but I am definitely leaning towards tattoo.
I hope you can understand what I'm talking about and can help me! I'd be really happy :)

Hey, I wanted to share my dream with you, one of those dreams where you wake up feeling peaceful and comforted.

I dreamed that I entered Nawia. A girl greeted me there, and she seemed very warm and calm. I have a feeling she might have been Mokosh. She led me into this incredible world, which was full of colors, nature, mountains, lakes, forests, and countless animals. Everything felt so peaceful and harmonious. I asked her if my family and my dog were there, to which she replied, “Of course, they are.” There was so much joy and peace in that moment, like everything I could ever wish for was right there within reach. She even mentioned that there were flying balloons you could travel in.

Together, we went to a lake where there were some ruins. I swam over, hoping to discover something interesting, but instead, I was attacked by a fish. I fought it off, and then a few other animals that emerged from the water attacked me as well, but Mokosh just stood there, watching. Even so, I didn’t feel afraid – it felt more like just another challenge in this beautiful world.

In that dream, I felt happy that I had gone to Nawia, not to the Christian heaven. It felt like this place was more “mine,” full of peace and nature, which has left me with a lot to think about, because sometimes I still have doubts about my religion.

I decided to create this world in Dall-E.

https://files.fm/u/pwd9ub88j9

Recently I've felt called to Veles and been shown reminders and signs of him. I want to worship him correctly but this is really overwhelming. Recently my life has been utter shit and I've lost my faith but these signs of Veles have given my faith back but it also means I'm a bit overwhelmed and don't really know what I'm doing. I have another friend who worships the Greek pantheon and they gave me a few pointers like using a pendulum and stuff to ask things I'm not sure about but now I feel like I'm going insane trying to figure out what it's saying. I've been setting a candle for Veles and even unintentionally gave him an offering a few hours before I figured to worship him and realised what the signs were, since then I've just been reading up on him and learning new things but when it comes to actual worship I'm stumped and scared to do anything incase I upset him or do something ridiculously stupid by accident. I'm also.. not very intune with my intuition and stuff like that, should I do a tarot reading? Tea leaf reading? Any other kind of divination? Should I leave it alone??? I'm really stumped I'd love any help or knowledge.

I come from a partially Ukrainian background but do not have a very close relationship with my heritage. I've wanted to get into Rodnovery/Ukrainian paganism for so long but I do not know where to start or what resources to use. Can anyone help?

Edit: I am fully willing to learn under the guidance of someone else if possible!! I feel a strong calling towards this and want to learn the old ways.

From an old pattern, available at allslavic.etsy.com.

I’ve been feeling Her call to me. I think I’m going to officially start working with Her. Any ideas?

I am quite new on my journey into Slavic Paganism. When trying to research Slavic Paganism online or watch videos about it on YouTube, I often have come across commentators who will say something along the lines of, "modern pagans are just 'LARPING'" (live action role playing). Or they will say something like, "there's hardly anything known about pre Christian Slavic Paganism as they didn't have a writing system". "Everything has been forgotten, and everything rodnovers do now is made up and completely inaccurate". So on and so forth.

When I come across these comments I get quite annoyed. My opinion is that even if lots has been forgotten, at least some things still remain. Even if some things may be unknown, or we are doing some things different from how it was done in the pre Christian times, so what?

I believe that even if Slavic Paganism had still existed fully and completely to this day, there still would probably be lots of changes and "evolutions" in regards to some rituals, practices, etc. As literally every religion/belief system that still exists from antiquity has gone through changes and divisions (look how many Christian sects there are with their differing beliefs)

So in conclusion, we may not be following certain things exactly as our pre Christian ancestors did, and yes, lots has been lost due to centuries of Christian oppression/suppression. But even if some things may appear to doubters as "made up" in a sense, I just consider it like a hyper-evolution to make up for all the centuries of Slavic Paganism being stunted from growing naturally. I do not intend to say we have been making up stuff out of thin air. From what I've seen, neo-paganism has been doing its best to find and follow what is known, and making educated guesses where needed. And to me that is amazing.

Thanks for your time!

My understanding is that those who died young, or those that lived dishonorable lives become "impure deceased" and can become malevolent causing issues for the living family/community.

Is there any way to prevent this? Gods forbid it, but if something happened to a family member I'd be distraught thinking they are not at peace. (Or is there a way to bring them to peace and benevolence?) Thank you for your time.

I'm someone who's always struggled with my beliefs. I was raised Ukraine Orthodox Catholic after my family left a different church due to the priest being...well weird to say the least.

After a while of hearing hate spewed towards communities and all the likes I had the realization that the religion was no longer for me. I've kept some of my beliefs in my spirituality from that; I treat the Earth/Nature like she's a goddess and do my best to do my part to take care of her.

I practiced Nordic paganism for a while but never found my solace and comfort I've been craving. I'm Slavic (Slovakian, Polish, and Ukrainian) and never realized this was a thing till I saw someone in a tiktok section say about Dziady being similar (not the same) as Dio De Los Muertos and it was comforting to them. It looks comforting being able to find peace during this holiday. The chance to feel the presence of my loved ones again sounds very nice, so I want to practice what my ancestors would've all those years ago.

If anyone has any advice or knows what I should look into to start this journey of healing and peace for myself I'd really appreciate it.

My apologies if outsiders aren't welcome here. Hopefully I won't stay one for long.

Hello,

I am trying to reconnect with my heritage because I'm pretty disconnected. I've been largely taking the academic route to understanding ancient practices, but I was considering doing something more emotional and spiritual for Zaduszki/Dziady, but since I've never done it, not sure how to do it correctly.

There's some information out there but not much. I was considering hosting a dinner for guests and setting out a plate of food and chair at the dinner table for the souls and maybe a comb, water, and towel. I have heard youre supposed to leave a door or window open to invite in the souls as well. I also considered putting a candle on the table because fire helps to guide the departed and wards away darkness, but there's a few things I am not sure about.

For instance, since you're supposed to leave the food out overnight for souls to visit, I don't know if the candle is a good idea to stay lit both for fire reasons and because I wouldn't want someone to overstay their welcome. Same for the open door/window.

What do people normally do for this holiday, or what would be a good way to handle this?

Hi, im living in the united states but have a majority of my heritage from slavic regions, specifically poland and russia. im curious about slavic peganism but did not want to step into any closed practices. i do not have any ancestors that are practicing that i can bring questions to so i figured maybe someone here could help me out.

attached is my 23 and me section about my european heritage. im looking into information online but wanted to get it from differing sources incase someone is being deceptive. i also am looking for any book recommendations in english.

thank you in advance

New to exploring rodnovery, and wondering if there are any groups in the greater chicago area? If so, I’d appreciate getting connected.

Hello! A while ago i had a experience with a deity that I believe is from Slavic paganism. When i felt the presence of the deity I had a very specific feeling that was like:

i can win every war, Everything is a war and i can win it all, i dont lose a war, i just win it in a different way, etc…

can you guys help me?? I‘d appreciate if yes, take care And tysm!!!

My altar for the equinox 🍁🍎🌾

Hello, I would like to know if there are ritual formats to help me start praying for a deity, because I would like to find a deity of dawn or light.