Voltie
— she/her
Posted 4 years ago ( 2021/03/12 15:59:06 )
@Nephila: Shiva devotee stories are typically more entertaining than ones involving other deities. My dad told me other stories; in one, a hunter/forager asks sages how he's supposed to worship a Shiva linga. They tell him pour water over it, and offer flowers and food. To transport all of that in one go he holds the water in his mouth, fruit in one hand, meat in the other. Then he goes to the linga, spits out the water on it, then drops the flowers and puts the meat in front of it. The sages are all scandalised and then Shiva basically tells them, "I don't care." Shiva's got a 'you do you' attitude 
I think most of our male gods, in paintings or depictions, would look kind of androgynous to western eyes lol. 'Jolly drunk and Super Angry' is spot on for depictions of western men in paintings this stuff is pretty revealing about what a culture thinks of divine masculinity to be like. Shiva does get angry and open his third eye, but even that doesn't look like any western men portraits.
So one of the goddesses I'm particularly drawn to is Kali, and when I heard Alana Fairchild was making a Kali oracle I got excited. But then I looked at pictures of the cards, and while 'objectively' the art is beautiful, Kali was drawn way too much the way Western women who are considered attractive are drawn: tall and voluptuous and leanly muscular. Even her facial features were made attractive by Western standards. Indian women don't commonly look like that and I've seen many Kali shrines; never have I seen her body sculpted like that. The artist is a Western artist so I was disappointed but not surprised.
thank you uwu
