GreenAsSin
Newbie
I don't believe in a Bleak Horizon
Posts: 13
Pronouns: She/Her
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Post by GreenAsSin on Feb 25, 2015 21:12:18 GMT -6
I think this is the right board for this kind of thing. It didn't seem like it'd fit neatly anywhere else so here's hoping! So, there's some kind of wide spread event going on that's caught some attention around Tumblr, which a user named skadisman began calling Deerpocalypse. Basically it all started with a sudden, conspicuous influx of deer imagery both on- and offline right around Christmas and it hasn't quit yet. Once attention was brought to this event more and more people began chiming in with a similar experience an it wound up becoming a thing around Tumblr. Skadisman put together a pretty decent list of common themes seen in their personal Deerpocalypse that were also shared by some other people. It might be a bit out dated by this time but it's still a good list. The largest themes that I've noticed are the deer, kingship, and death. There are others on the list that I haven't personally picked up on and I'm sure there's more elements being seen in other people's personal 'pocalypses that haven't featured in skadisman's. There's multiple pantheons and cultures that seem to be involved. The deities that are most heavily involved that I've seen people pointing fingers at are Odin, Freyr, Loki, and Cernunnos. There seems to be quite a bit of blurring and uncertainty when it comes to correctly pinning certain aspects of the event on a certain deity and the group has been accused of mantle swapping and borrowing symbolism and such from each other to keep people guessing. Cernunnos was only relatively recently identified as the horned deity associated with all of the antlered imagery and a Tumblr user named Deuognaton made a very awesome, informative post about him and the different symbolism involved in Deerpocalypse. No one really seems to know why this event is happening and none of the deities involved appear to be willing to give anyone any kind of clear cut answers. I tried getting some answers for myself with my tarot cards about the reason behind this event and it all boiled down to "be patient". On top of the deer imagery some people are starting to get other animals invading their dashboards and popping up outside of the internet that seem to be involving themselves in Deerpocalypse somehow as well, myself included. On top of the deer my dash is being plagued by imagery of owls, ravens, wolves and foxes, and most recently snakes seem to be working their way in as well. I only work with Cernunnos and Loki and for me all of these animals link back to them somehow. With the exception of the owls. Me and a user called lokiwtf have both been seeing a large influx of owls and neither of us seems to have been able to figure out who is sending them or why yet. In general it seems to be agreed upon that these deities are using our dashboards and real life experiences to gain attention for themselves, but no one seems to be exactly sure why they're trying to get this attention. I figured this might be an interesting topic to discuss and speculate about. Is anyone else wrapped up in this odd event or noticing influxes of certain animals or imagery? Anyone have any thoughts on the matter? I'm not very good at problem solving or subtle clues but I'd like to see what other people might pick up.
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Post by Allec on Feb 25, 2015 23:33:46 GMT -6
I'm really glad you made this post Sin! I didn't know about the Deerpocalypse until Arrin (Deuognaton) made a post in response to it. Based on his post, I am falling in line with the belief that Cernunnos is tired of people Wiccanizing him and wants accurate followers. But that's just an outsider's perspective after reading one thing, so I could be wrong.
I do, though, wonder if any type of group think is going on? I notice deer on my dash board, for example, but I follow a blog to a Deer entity and a bunch of my GRP friends honor deer entities. So my dash isn't that random. (It'd be liking saying a "shark" entity was trying to get my attention through my dash, when I follow 5+ shark picture blogs haha.) Has anyone correlated the dash events with things happening in their normal lives? (Like if I started seeing more deer around town, I'd be thinking it's a sign of some sort since I never see deer.)
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ayaad
Newbie
Posts: 24
Pronouns: she/her
Religion: Mormon pagan
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Post by ayaad on Feb 26, 2015 12:48:19 GMT -6
Uh, anyone having the same experience with sharks? Because that is a thing that's been happening to me. It's really weird. It started in January, and I keep finding them. Asherah is an sea-related deity, but She has no particular shark associations that I'm aware of. I'm kind of tearing out my hair trying to figure out what's going on. I don't follow any blogs related to sharks, I don't think I've ever liked any shark-related posts, and I've never reblogged anything from a shark-related blog but they are everywhere. It's driving me up the wall.
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Post by Allec on Feb 26, 2015 18:07:08 GMT -6
IF you follow me on Tumblr, than I could solely be responsible for it haha. I reblog a lot of shark imagery Otherwise...yes, that is weird o.o
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veritywhitethorn
Junior Member
Posts: 60
Pronouns: She/her
Religion: Celtic polytheist
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Post by veritywhitethorn on Feb 28, 2015 5:19:02 GMT -6
I have not personally been involved in the deerpocalypse but I follow a few people (including lokiwtf and skadisman) who have been caught up in it. It's been interesting to watch from the sidelines, if puzzling. I tend to get quite a lot of deer and ravens on my dash anyway, because I just happen to follow quite a large number of nature/pagan/witchy blogs and, well, you can't so much as breathe without tripping over deer and Ravens if that's the kind of thing you're into, heh. So Occam's razor applies in my case. I have been REALLY interested into the information about Cernunnos that has been going around; it's nice to have access to some sound stuff instead of the Wiccan version with which I've been familiar up til now.
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Post by saintfelicity on Feb 28, 2015 10:39:09 GMT -6
^ Same here! I purposely collect a lot of deer-related imagery for Flidais, so my dash is usually pretty full of it.
Similar to Allec I wonder how much of it might turn self-perpetuating, but it sounds like there's something to at least the beginning! I'd also be curious to hear any off-Tumblr stories, too.
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GreenAsSin
Newbie
I don't believe in a Bleak Horizon
Posts: 13
Pronouns: She/Her
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Post by GreenAsSin on Feb 28, 2015 18:42:24 GMT -6
Finding imagery corresponding to Deerpocalypse offline seems to be a fairly important part of the event to some people. Not everyone is having offline influences, but the event is kind of catering itself to the people involved. Some people may only be getting one or the other because it's the best way to catch their attention. It could spread to both on- and offline depending on the person, or it may remain concentrated to one platform.
For me the event is happening both online and off. I'm having owls and ravens popping up in my dreams. The imagery is practically saturating television right now. I don't think I've managed more than a day or two watching tv without a deer, owl, or to a lesser extent a raven or fox popping up in a show somewhere. Deer have been pretty scarce since the snow started falling but they popped up in my back yard almost as soon as I started browsing tags for Loki on Tumblr. I've had people with relating patterns in their clothing approaching me at work, which I can't remember happening more than once or twice in the past. It's just everywhere, man.
And the thing is I didn't start really noticing it until I reached out to Cernunnos the first time. Originally I took it as a sign that he was letting me know he was willing to work with me but since then it's sort of blown up into something bigger.
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Skywalker
Newbie
Posts: 17
Pronouns: They but I don't really mind he or she either
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Post by Skywalker on Mar 2, 2015 0:08:54 GMT -6
I seem to have been left out of the Deerpocalypse. I only recently figured out what it was. If anything, I've got less deer than usual. I'm just a few miles down the road from tons of deer and even when I'm more in the area, I haven't really seen any since the beginning of October. I have had a little bit of other animals popping up. Somme corvid and snake stuff, but I love corvids and work with snakes so can't say that it's anything out of the ordinary. Except that thing where the crows and Blue Jays seemed to have teamed up for the purpose of making a ton of noise. The only one that was actually unusual was a random burst of Paridae-related things for about a week.
I tried asking Loki about it since some people say he's involved but seems like it's more of a Cernunnos thing from what I've read about it. Either way, Loki hasn't been helpful.
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Ciar Lionheart
Junior Member
And I love you like a mountain.
Posts: 89
Pronouns: Ey/Em or He/Him
Religion: Irish Polytheist
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Post by Ciar Lionheart on Mar 3, 2015 2:53:35 GMT -6
I haven't really experienced anything to do with the Deerpocalypse event myself. I've barely even noticed the periphery of it, since I don't really follow many generalized pagan blogs (just my friends' blogs who happen to also be pagan, for the most part). I've noticed seeing deer on my dash lately, but not significantly more than normal, and I think the only reason I'm noticing them is because I'm aware that Deerpocalypse is happening to other people. I have no real input on it myself, but it's really interesting to know that this is something that's happening to a number of people in the community, and I'm eager to see where it ends up taking you all.
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harpinghawke
Newbie
Posts: 43
Pronouns: ze/zir
Religion: Dedicant of Cernunnos, Road Witch
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Post by harpinghawke on Mar 3, 2015 11:24:58 GMT -6
Ouroboros seems to be a big player on my end. Hmmmmm.
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atlene
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Religion: Brythonic-leaning
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Post by atlene on Mar 8, 2015 4:59:01 GMT -6
This thread actually gave me the kick I needed to register for an account.
I too feel like I have been experiencing the 'Deerpocalypse'. I actually laughed so hard with relief when I discovered that it was actually a thing . The weird part for me though, is that I seem to be on the other side of the world from any others experiencing this.
It started around November for me, which is Spring here, and has lasted all through the Summer, and the posts I've seen on tumblr seem to believe it's tied to the Autumn/Winter... Also, there are absolutely NO DEER anywhere in Western Australia (so in my case, its really not a coincidence) and most of it has been happening offline for me. I've had multiple dreams either involving stags or antlers since this started. A few years ago, stag imagery was a very popular art motif around here, but I hadn't seen it for a long time until, suddenly, a whole lot of it pops up again.
I've not noticed much on the kingship side of things, but death and transformation seem to keep coming up for me. I recently lost my cat, who'd been with me for 10 years and his death has brought about a lot of change or thoughts of change.
Cernunnos, Maponos and Gwyn ap Nudd are the three entities I'm suspicious of at the moment. I can't figure out, in my case, which of those three might be behind this, because I associate all of them with stags/antlers.
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harpinghawke
Newbie
Posts: 43
Pronouns: ze/zir
Religion: Dedicant of Cernunnos, Road Witch
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Post by harpinghawke on Mar 13, 2015 8:53:48 GMT -6
Cernunnos, Maponos and Gwyn ap Nudd are the three entities I'm suspicious of at the moment. I can't figure out, in my case, which of those three might be behind this, because I associate all of them with stags/antlers. There's an essay that a user on tumblr wrote (with citations and everything) tying Cernunnos to the deerpocalypse. When I get to a place where the internet isn't regulated, I'll post a link.
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wickedlittlecritta
Full Member
A tempest in a teacup
Posts: 169
Pronouns: she/her
Religion: Gaelic polytheist
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Post by wickedlittlecritta on Mar 13, 2015 16:10:55 GMT -6
Cernunnos, Maponos and Gwyn ap Nudd are the three entities I'm suspicious of at the moment. I can't figure out, in my case, which of those three might be behind this, because I associate all of them with stags/antlers. There's an essay that a user on tumblr wrote (with citations and everything) tying Cernunnos to the deerpocalypse. When I get to a place where the internet isn't regulated, I'll post a link. That's the one Allec mentioned by dewognatos. It is rad: dewognatos.tumblr.com/post/111933933140/i-was-asked-for-my-opinion-please-dont-hate
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atlene
Newbie
Posts: 6
Pronouns: She/Her
Religion: Brythonic-leaning
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Post by atlene on Mar 13, 2015 18:52:40 GMT -6
Thanks for the link! I've actually already read it. It was that post that made me aware that the Deerpocalypse was a thing and I wasn't the only one having weird deer feelings.
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wickedlittlecritta
Full Member
A tempest in a teacup
Posts: 169
Pronouns: she/her
Religion: Gaelic polytheist
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Post by wickedlittlecritta on Mar 13, 2015 19:13:05 GMT -6
I didn't realize Deerpocalypse was a thing until I saw that post, lol. No deer recruitment for me.
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