ModernTraditional.com exists to feature artists, musicians, chefs, and other content creators promoting their culture and peace, unity, and freedom for all humanity. I mostly showcase others, but here and there I post my own articles about my cultures and experiences.
The site began in 1996, but the website was launched in earnest around 1998. We got the domain around 2005. It started and remains an effort to provide education, instruction, and resources for people for whom being modern doesn’t mean being western or “conservative”, and definitely not colonized. Some of our cultures were already very forward and progressive, and some of those from cultures that weren’t require a different approach than westernizing. Our needs and aesthetics are different, and this is something to celebrate.
There was also a need to inform people about how to take on an aspect of a culture’s style without negative cultural appropriation. If folks were going to wear things, they should be taught why and how to wear things properly.
When the site was, we funded the site with Google Adsense, but this became a problem because the “targeted” ads were not targeted enough. We are happy to have advertisements for businesses that have things our viewers would want to buy. Our viewers are not interested though, in companies that seek to exploit ethnic insecurities based on racism, and advertise harmful products such as skin lightening creams. Just because some are religious or spiritual also doesn’t mean we’re interested in anyone’s cult, conspiracy theories, or “pray away the Gay” camps. So we stopped for awhile and relied on readers to fund us. This was not successful for reasons I’ll get into later.
Now that they’ve made some changes and we can at least filter problematic ads more easily by topic, we’re back on Adsense.
We also accept donations and Patreon sponsorships and hope to one day not need to show ads on the site. For now though, this is the way things have to be.
A few years ago, I had some health issues that needed tending to, so I didn’t have time to maintain the site. Now I’m disabled but not despairing, and handling the backlog of work and things I’d put off or deprioritized while I was seeing to my health.
During my “slow burn” time, and the comeback phase, I learned that I was returning to an internet that had dramatically changed. Aside of finding much of my original content downgraded in search, often ranking lower than sites that copied my material or at least my ideas, even bigger changes were coming. Most people had become overly dependent on centralized social media, which wasn’t so easy to adjust to, but so long as I was producing the best, most informative pages, it was all good. Now though, it’s all about who can pay, not who can produce.
Since I don’t get paid to do any of this, and donations haven’t been covering the costs of hosting, in February of 2024, unless we get a miracle, we are shifting back to our before blogging style, as increasingly, we are only really visible to a few people doing research. So it’s best that the site not be crowded with links to a bunch of people I don’t know, am not in any contact with, and don’t appreciate the effort. From now on, it’s all about who’s networking with me and articles providing information and guidance on cultures and cultural exchange.
So we’re not shutting down entirely. The site will remain as it is to avoid “link rot”, and so that our educational articles stay accessible. However, I no longer have the resources or time to devote to regularly finding or producing new content.
If this is a place you would like your content featured with some regularity you can pay us $10 per month each, to post links to your content. If we’ll be maintaining more than five of them, we will negotiate some reasonable amount. You shouldn’t have to pay for each and every link forever and ever. For $50 per month, we’ll “stalk” your profiles or site and post here or wherever in the network the topic fits every time you post anything new.
We don’t offer this on the main pages, and you have to get this far into the “about” to see this because this is not advertisement. You have to be posting content that we would have linked to back when we were looking for such things. We’re not interested in clickbait or junk articles that don’t really inform. Your content will be vetted for quality and accuracy.
So please bookmark this site, and have a look at Vodun.co.uk if you’re into African and diaspora spirituality. Visit us in the Fediverse, and while we’re rebuilding, it’s a good time to add your links so we can help promote your cultural sites.
Blessings and Ashé!
The ModernTraditional.com Network:
My personal homepage. There is some sensitive and adult topics there so be warned. This is where I write about my life and post articles having to do with technology, living in Israel, and all sorts of things. If you want to get to know me, this is where to start. You can continue to my video blog, Taueret.net
Videos, music, podcasts, events, and other content by people in Africa and the diaspora. I also post resources for content creators to help folks find good places to post and avoid the traps.
An online shrine and information about Orisha Aje Shaluga, the west African deity of currency and pigments.
It started as a space for information about finding alternative PPE such as masks for lip reading, and air filters, but ended up being about general pandemic survival. Covid is airborne. The next pandemic will come because this is part of Nature. Mask up, wash your hands, and be considerate.
Sacred recipes from African and diaspora spirituality as well as other traditions. It has a Kemetic feel because of the name and those of us contributing so far mostly being in Afro Scientific Spirituality, but we welcome all sorts of medicinal and devotional recipes.
Natural African hairstyling, braiding, and hair care. Learn to cornrow and about natural hairstyling at a professional level. Some time ago, braiding was under attack in the U.S. and people had to fight racist laws and systemic oppression geared towards making being Black and not wanting to put chemicals in our hair illegal. Since they wouldn’t teach about it in beauty schools, I taught about it online.
This is my attempt to help people find what they are looking for on the internet as the big search engines become more interested in pushing ads than information. It is a huge project, and I understand that I definitely can’t do this alone. Please help.
The homepage of our ile. Ile Baalat Teva is the only publicly accessible diaspora Vodun ile operating in Israel at the moment. We have many Israelis from Brazil and other areas who adhere to African and diaspora belief systems, but they are either individual or secretive. It’s not very socially convenient to be outside of any of the main monotheistic religions here. The few of us who can be or have little choice but to be out of the broom closet as magic practitioners and also adhere to African beliefs became the kind of central group to serve others who need to find supplies, a babalawo or iyanifa, or other connections and resources. We’re a sort of ile of “witches” even though as of Shango festival 2022, we are now officially termed traditional healers/helpers.
Information and news concerning maternal feminism and Africana womanism. This site is a sort of “line in the sand” to reclaim maternal feminism from the religious infiltrators and terfs who claim to be maternal feminists. Maternal feminism is and must be inclusive by definition because everyone is someone’s child.
“No one births themselves or buries themselves.” — Kongo proverb
This is my ministry site posing as a business site. It was a business maybe 10 years ago, but I got so busy with the ile that there was no way to continue that direction. Perhaps someday when I can be more consistent in crafting and take on more cases at a time, but that doesn’t seem to be my path. As it is, I mostly do readings and provide guidance, and take on spellwork only when it is a very important situation that I have specific approval and call to intervene in. I ended up with some cases the past few years that require maintenance, and these “repeat clients” have become more like parishoners I must attend to.
This is my Yoruba and diaspora pantheon focused site with information about the Orishas. It also covers African and diaspora spirituality in general, but this site is mainly Orisha centered. I thought it prudent to do this because Orisha, Isese, and Ifa is how most people in the English speaking world are introduced to African spirituality, and one of the first illusions that needs to break is uniformity. Africa is a huge continent with many cultures, and Yoruba is just one of them. So the ways that it is standard and the ways that is is unique both need some airtime, and people need to understand that it is a living system that did not die of colonialism. It’s for the same reason that I make Vodun.co.uk center Ewe, Togo, and Benin Vodun, and Zindoki.com centers Kongo and diaspora.
This site was born to house my beginning spiritual counselors’ course, but has grown into a news and information center for spiritual counselors. If you are a health care professional and also spiritual, or a mainly spiritual counselor who also trusts Nature and believes in scientific scrutiny, this is a good site to frequent.
This site is about African and diaspora spirituality, but centers more around Vodun in Togo, Benin, and Ghana in the Volta region. Like Orisha.me it has plenty of overlap into African spirituality in general, but Vodun is the center of it. Here I also post a lot of festival news for all sects and advice for webmasters and content creators in the African spiritual community.
This is my site about magic, what some may call “witchcraft”. I embrace the reclaiming of the term “witch” in the diaspora because it is personally empowering, though I understand why many don’t like it. I like it because in a world fighting and recovering from European colonialism, rebelling against the oppressive religions should be done with gusto and no illusions that one can ever possibly find validation in the oppressor. On this site, I help people to take those first steps away from the system of spiritual suppression.
This site centers Kongo and diaspora magic, recipes, and information about herbs used in those. It may seem less organized, but it is so well ingrained that much has endured colonialism and religious attempts at eradication. Some aspects of Kindoki are a bit too real for many, and this is not the site to delve into if you prefer more traditional practice. You have been warned.
