There's something of the familiar here
'Homely' as we'd say where I'm from
It's a good word
Positive word
A word of bright fairy lights against a cold winter's night
Of warm homemade blankets against snow
Maybe it's the accent
The same as family dead and gone
The 'I'll love you and leave you's
and cups of 'Rosie Lee'
My Auntie Ada's voice superimposed on my own
I grew up in the North
But I had blood here
My dad's successor was shot at the tube station down the road
Family survived the blitz here
Lived here, grew here
Until the time came for them to go North
And then it was 'Never again, London!'
'Not even for a gold watch!'
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Health and Holiness
A couple of weeks ago, I was at a Sumbel with a local group.
One custom of the group when passing the horn from one person to the other, was the spoken exchange of 'Trink Heil' (drink hale) and 'Sei Heil' (be hale).
Unfortuantely, most people have only ever heard the word 'Heil' in reference to the nazis. Everyone has seen the old footage of Hitler and thousands of jackbooted followers giving their salute and shouting 'Sieg Heil!', but that's not all there is to this word. In fact, that does a great disservice to this word and the sacrality represented in those four, little letters.
'Heilen', the verb from which 'Heil' is derived in modern German is generally given the meaning of 'to cure', 'to heal', or is even found as 'das Heil', 'salvation'. 'Heil' can also be found in compound words such as 'Heilkunde'or 'medicine' and even 'Heilig' or 'holy. The word 'heil' can be traced back to Old High German (in which it can also mean 'safe'), after which there are two theorised proto-Germanic etymological origins of the word 'heil'.
1.
*Hailaz (parent to the OE word 'hāl' and the Frisian word ' hēl), meaning 'whole' and theoretically derived from the Proto-Indo European word *koylos, meaning 'healthy, intact, well-omened).
2.
*Hailan (parent to OE word 'hael' and ON word 'heill'), noun 'heil', meaning 'luck'.
If you look at the Anglo Saxon Magico-Medical charms, the focus is much more holistic than modern medicine tends to be. The focus is on whole-making, protecting, strengthening. A break in the 'scinn' (skin - sometimes referring to the physical skin but also potentially referring to an 'astral' skin similar to the ON concept of the 'hamr') could cause a person to lose 'hǽlu'. To lose 'hǽlu' invites sickness, which back then, was either conceived to be due to invasion from an outside force (such as 'flying venom' or 'elfshot'), something that subtracted from the 'wholeness' of the person (such as a supernatural creature that fed off them) or something that disturbed the balance of the body (also attributed to elves).
Of further interest in the Anglo Saxon worldview are words connected to 'hælu', such as:
hæle2 [] m (-þes/-þ, -as) man, hero [] m (-þes/-þ, -as) man, hero
So what kind of a picture can we build of the concept of health in (at least) Anglo Saxon Heathen culture (and possibly others)?
Hælu and its cognates were linked not only to 'health' and 'wholeness, but to 'safety', 'holy', 'luck' and 'salvation'.
What though, does this have to do with us as modern day Heathens?
In our modern day world, we often tend to think of physical health as being completely separate from anything remotely 'spiritual' (for want of a better word). We've all grown up in a culture that values this thing called the 'soul', often at the expense of the physical body. We grew up in a culture that is heavily based on a religion in which mortifying the flesh or putting it through hardship was considered an admirable spiritual endeavour. Something that is still practiced by Christian sects in various parts of the world. There's a disdain for the physical, it's considered worthless. Is it then really any wonder that so many of us have such little regard for our bodies?
We live in a culture in which most of the food we buy, barely passes for actually being food. Hot Pockets, microwave burritos, Hungry Man meals, frozen pizzas, Hamburger Helper and bread that is so pumped with fake nutrients and sugar, it should come with a health warning. What's even crazier is that this non-food that is sold as food, is actually cheaper than real food. For the first time in human history, the poorest people are actually the fattest!
On Heathen sites around the internet, I read a lot about people doing 'daily devotional practices', about them 'building a personal relationship with _(insert deity name here)_' and asking about things like 'growing spiritually'.
This is plug in and play spirituality.
It's time we started to look to the physical and get over this whole mentality of a spiritual/mundane dichotomy. As I've said in this blog before, Heathenry is world accepting. We are part of this world, our bodies are part of this world. There is no separation between our 'spirituality' and our physical bodies. If we really want to grow, we should not only endeavour to grow in our physical communities, but grow our bodies well too.
Now I'm not talking about weight here or having the perfect bodies or all Heathens looking like the Asgardians from the Thor comic. I'm talking health, strength and capability. Those should be our goals. Not only for ourselves but our communities as as we become stronger and increase our capabilities, we also increase our usefulness as members of our communities.
You want to do something Heathen? Educate yourself about exercise and nutrition. Cook nourishing food for your families and friends. Gift nourishing food to people in your community that you care for and who might not be eating enough of what they need (I'm thinking mostly of older people here). Strengthen your bodies. Respect your bodies. Recognise the worth in your body and love it for what you can do with it. Enjoy your bodies. Make yourselves whole.
Waes thu hael!
Sources:
Leechcraft - Stephen Pollington
Woerterbuch der Indogermanischen Sprachen:
Dritter Teil: Wortschatz der Germanischen Spracheinheit - Fick, Falk & Torp
http://home.comcast.net/~modean52/oeme_dictionaries.htm
Bosworth and Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: http://bosworth.ff.cuni.cz/051517
One custom of the group when passing the horn from one person to the other, was the spoken exchange of 'Trink Heil' (drink hale) and 'Sei Heil' (be hale).
Unfortuantely, most people have only ever heard the word 'Heil' in reference to the nazis. Everyone has seen the old footage of Hitler and thousands of jackbooted followers giving their salute and shouting 'Sieg Heil!', but that's not all there is to this word. In fact, that does a great disservice to this word and the sacrality represented in those four, little letters.
'Heilen', the verb from which 'Heil' is derived in modern German is generally given the meaning of 'to cure', 'to heal', or is even found as 'das Heil', 'salvation'. 'Heil' can also be found in compound words such as 'Heilkunde'or 'medicine' and even 'Heilig' or 'holy. The word 'heil' can be traced back to Old High German (in which it can also mean 'safe'), after which there are two theorised proto-Germanic etymological origins of the word 'heil'.
1.
*Hailaz (parent to the OE word 'hāl' and the Frisian word ' hēl), meaning 'whole' and theoretically derived from the Proto-Indo European word *koylos, meaning 'healthy, intact, well-omened).
2.
*Hailan (parent to OE word 'hael' and ON word 'heill'), noun 'heil', meaning 'luck'.
If you look at the Anglo Saxon Magico-Medical charms, the focus is much more holistic than modern medicine tends to be. The focus is on whole-making, protecting, strengthening. A break in the 'scinn' (skin - sometimes referring to the physical skin but also potentially referring to an 'astral' skin similar to the ON concept of the 'hamr') could cause a person to lose 'hǽlu'. To lose 'hǽlu' invites sickness, which back then, was either conceived to be due to invasion from an outside force (such as 'flying venom' or 'elfshot'), something that subtracted from the 'wholeness' of the person (such as a supernatural creature that fed off them) or something that disturbed the balance of the body (also attributed to elves).
Of further interest in the Anglo Saxon worldview are words connected to 'hælu', such as:
hæle2 [] m (-þes/-þ, -as) man, hero [] m (-þes/-þ, -as) man, hero
So what kind of a picture can we build of the concept of health in (at least) Anglo Saxon Heathen culture (and possibly others)?
Hælu and its cognates were linked not only to 'health' and 'wholeness, but to 'safety', 'holy', 'luck' and 'salvation'.
What though, does this have to do with us as modern day Heathens?
In our modern day world, we often tend to think of physical health as being completely separate from anything remotely 'spiritual' (for want of a better word). We've all grown up in a culture that values this thing called the 'soul', often at the expense of the physical body. We grew up in a culture that is heavily based on a religion in which mortifying the flesh or putting it through hardship was considered an admirable spiritual endeavour. Something that is still practiced by Christian sects in various parts of the world. There's a disdain for the physical, it's considered worthless. Is it then really any wonder that so many of us have such little regard for our bodies?
We live in a culture in which most of the food we buy, barely passes for actually being food. Hot Pockets, microwave burritos, Hungry Man meals, frozen pizzas, Hamburger Helper and bread that is so pumped with fake nutrients and sugar, it should come with a health warning. What's even crazier is that this non-food that is sold as food, is actually cheaper than real food. For the first time in human history, the poorest people are actually the fattest!
On Heathen sites around the internet, I read a lot about people doing 'daily devotional practices', about them 'building a personal relationship with _(insert deity name here)_' and asking about things like 'growing spiritually'.
This is plug in and play spirituality.
It's time we started to look to the physical and get over this whole mentality of a spiritual/mundane dichotomy. As I've said in this blog before, Heathenry is world accepting. We are part of this world, our bodies are part of this world. There is no separation between our 'spirituality' and our physical bodies. If we really want to grow, we should not only endeavour to grow in our physical communities, but grow our bodies well too.
Now I'm not talking about weight here or having the perfect bodies or all Heathens looking like the Asgardians from the Thor comic. I'm talking health, strength and capability. Those should be our goals. Not only for ourselves but our communities as as we become stronger and increase our capabilities, we also increase our usefulness as members of our communities.
You want to do something Heathen? Educate yourself about exercise and nutrition. Cook nourishing food for your families and friends. Gift nourishing food to people in your community that you care for and who might not be eating enough of what they need (I'm thinking mostly of older people here). Strengthen your bodies. Respect your bodies. Recognise the worth in your body and love it for what you can do with it. Enjoy your bodies. Make yourselves whole.
Waes thu hael!
Sources:
Leechcraft - Stephen Pollington
Woerterbuch der Indogermanischen Sprachen:
Dritter Teil: Wortschatz der Germanischen Spracheinheit - Fick, Falk & Torp
http://home.comcast.net/~modean52/oeme_dictionaries.htm
Bosworth and Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: http://bosworth.ff.cuni.cz/051517
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Germany
I arrived here on the 1st of June, 2008.
I'd fallen in love with a soldier in Korea less than a year before and we'd decided to stay together by both going to Germany. Germany was our hope for two people from different worlds to stay together.
When I arrived, I was homeless, jobless and hoping for enough luck to not only survive but thrive. I had money that I'd saved in Korea, but the won to the euro is a huge leap in terms of how far your money will get you and soon, I was almost out of money too. To complicate matters, my then fiance, was scheduled to be deployed in August.
For the first month, I stayed in a tent, lined up job interviews in various places and then attended them, dictionary in hand.
Things started to get desperate but somehow, in the first week in July, I got offers for two different jobs and found a room in an apartment that I could afford.
I worked hard and so did my fiance and at some point, we started to consider marrying sooner than we'd wanted. On the 6th of August 2008, we tied the knot in a small ceremony without family and about two weeks later I saw him off to war.
To this day, it upsets me to think about that night and how it felt to say goodbye and not know if I'd see the man I love ever again.
For a year, I worked hard, resolved to grow roses from the shit I was being given and try to make my husband proud of me. I taught in about four different cities, travelled, moved house alone and tried to make a home.
I made friends, great friends that somehow brightened this time.
Around the 20th of August, I welcomed him home and we started out life together.
On the 4th of December 2009,our respective families and those true friends travelled to Denmark, to witness my husband and I marry in a Heathen wedding. The lady that introduced us in Korea performed the ceremony and an online friend that happened to live on the same island as we had our wedding became a real life friend too. It was beautiful. A couple of days later, we went on our honeymoon, travelling through Denmark and Sweden.
Now we're packing up to leave Germany and begin the next stage of our life together. Another land, another way of life.
We have had the best of times and the worst of times here in Germany, but this place feels like home to me, or the nearest thing now that I feel like a tourist when I go back to my own country.
Germans are in some ways very similar to the English, a little more skeptical by nature (unless what they're being told is in some course that they've paid for - like the 'therapy' session I used to spy on through a window in Erlangen in which people would dance round a stick in the middle of the room while banging on drums). They have a wonderful sense of humour, don't offer friendship in a fake way and I love the way the Franconians talk.
No matter how far I travel from Germany, I think my idea of heaven will now always be sitting in a beer garden, in the middle of a forest, on a hill, surrounded by elderly Franconians and enjoying spectacular beer and Schaeuferle.
I have 23 days left here.
This last weekend, we were honoured to spend Herbstfest with a local hearth by the name of Bilskirnir and attended a very moving offrung in the woods before returning to feast and sumbel. Today, my husband and I climbed the Neubuerg for the last time while we're here and made offrung there too.
Time is running out and in some ways, I'm trying to grasp onto what I can, like the sleeping dog that clings to the rug that's being pulled from underneath him. In other ways, I *know* that the next stage of life lies over the sea, in the New World and to some degree I embrace it.
So, this is to Germany, a land I love and hope to return to one day.
I'd fallen in love with a soldier in Korea less than a year before and we'd decided to stay together by both going to Germany. Germany was our hope for two people from different worlds to stay together.
When I arrived, I was homeless, jobless and hoping for enough luck to not only survive but thrive. I had money that I'd saved in Korea, but the won to the euro is a huge leap in terms of how far your money will get you and soon, I was almost out of money too. To complicate matters, my then fiance, was scheduled to be deployed in August.
For the first month, I stayed in a tent, lined up job interviews in various places and then attended them, dictionary in hand.
Things started to get desperate but somehow, in the first week in July, I got offers for two different jobs and found a room in an apartment that I could afford.
I worked hard and so did my fiance and at some point, we started to consider marrying sooner than we'd wanted. On the 6th of August 2008, we tied the knot in a small ceremony without family and about two weeks later I saw him off to war.
To this day, it upsets me to think about that night and how it felt to say goodbye and not know if I'd see the man I love ever again.
For a year, I worked hard, resolved to grow roses from the shit I was being given and try to make my husband proud of me. I taught in about four different cities, travelled, moved house alone and tried to make a home.
I made friends, great friends that somehow brightened this time.
Around the 20th of August, I welcomed him home and we started out life together.
On the 4th of December 2009,our respective families and those true friends travelled to Denmark, to witness my husband and I marry in a Heathen wedding. The lady that introduced us in Korea performed the ceremony and an online friend that happened to live on the same island as we had our wedding became a real life friend too. It was beautiful. A couple of days later, we went on our honeymoon, travelling through Denmark and Sweden.
Now we're packing up to leave Germany and begin the next stage of our life together. Another land, another way of life.
We have had the best of times and the worst of times here in Germany, but this place feels like home to me, or the nearest thing now that I feel like a tourist when I go back to my own country.
Germans are in some ways very similar to the English, a little more skeptical by nature (unless what they're being told is in some course that they've paid for - like the 'therapy' session I used to spy on through a window in Erlangen in which people would dance round a stick in the middle of the room while banging on drums). They have a wonderful sense of humour, don't offer friendship in a fake way and I love the way the Franconians talk.
No matter how far I travel from Germany, I think my idea of heaven will now always be sitting in a beer garden, in the middle of a forest, on a hill, surrounded by elderly Franconians and enjoying spectacular beer and Schaeuferle.
I have 23 days left here.
This last weekend, we were honoured to spend Herbstfest with a local hearth by the name of Bilskirnir and attended a very moving offrung in the woods before returning to feast and sumbel. Today, my husband and I climbed the Neubuerg for the last time while we're here and made offrung there too.
Time is running out and in some ways, I'm trying to grasp onto what I can, like the sleeping dog that clings to the rug that's being pulled from underneath him. In other ways, I *know* that the next stage of life lies over the sea, in the New World and to some degree I embrace it.
So, this is to Germany, a land I love and hope to return to one day.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
On Susan B Anthony and UPG
A couple of days ago, I read a blog post entitled 'Prayer, Indigeny and Conquest' by Galina Krasskova ( To be found here ). To summarise for those of you that don't wish to read it, Ms Krasskova contends that modern Heathens focusing on lore is a form of fetishism. That we should look more to our ancestors and reclaim what monotheism has taken from us. She even goes as far as to say:
Now I have my issues with monotheism, I'm not going to deny that but did you just see what she did in that quote?!
And for someone that claims to value and respect her ancestors, she sure shows a hell of a lot of disdain for the generations of them that were monotheists and found comfort in that.
Let me tell you a story that my father told me about his mother when she was dying.
When my grandmother went, she'd battled a life of sickness, starting from the TB that she'd had while pregnant with my father to the blindness and then cancer she'd contracted later in life. During her final days, she was so upset due to an altercation that had occurred with a priest that had told her she'd go to hell because she'd not been to church or donated to the plate. My grandfather had kicked the guy out on his arse, but my grandmother was still very upset. So he went out and bought her a gold cross, then took it to another priest and asked him to bless it for his wife - which the priest did. My grandmother took a lot of comfort from that cross, the blessing and the act of love that my grandfather had performed in doing that for her, in bringing her that comfort. That cross sits on my ancestral shrine, along with her wedding ring and a photo of her and her husband that loved her so completely to the end.
My grandparents were Christians, the generations before that were also Christians, but you know what? So fucking what?! They're family and that comes first before anything or everything else. I really don't understand this whole anger against Christian ancestors because they didn't have the faith that you would prefer them to have had. We'd be angry if someone told us that we couldn't be Heathens and that we had to have certain beliefs, how the hell is this any different?!
Why be divisive against family because of something as daft as religion? I really hate to pull this one too, because this has got to be breaking some kind of internet 'law', but being divisive against family is totally a Christian thing.
To (allegedly) quote that carpenter from Galilee:
Really? Are we Heathens going to ignore all Frith and allow, what I would say is the the true cost of Christianity, to continue taking its toll?
As for the lore, I would probably be classed as someone that 'fetishises' the lore due to my refusal to spew UPG wherever I go on the internet. I know a lot of Heathens that also refuse to participate in this. Does that mean that they don't have connections beyond their study of the lore or experiences or UPG?
Does it hell!
It means that for most of the people I know at least (and myself included in this), UPG is PRIVATE and personal business. Spewing it everywhere looking for points in the apparent yet unspoken 'who has the greatest relationship with (insert deity here)' contest cheapens it.
I would talk UPG with a trusted friend, but I wouldn't tell anyone and everyone like it's really that important and that they all *need* to know this stuff like it's some kind of a universal revelation.
As Susan B Anthony quote once wrote:
For much as these people would like to imagine that those gloried ancestors (you know, the ones that never knew the 'taint' of Christianity), would accept them for all their shenanigans, I think were they to somehow invent a time machine and go back in time, those self same ancestors would think them insane and either give them a wide berth or sink them in a bog.
And for all the insistence that we 'fetishise' lore, they really aren't getting it either.
Reconstructionists take a multi-disciplined approach, we look at lore, yes, but we also look at archaeological finds, outsider views of that society, laws, legal documents, contracts etc. We look at what life was like for people back then to see if what is spoken about in the lore and what is commonly believed was practical or would have tallied with their worldview.
We *care* enough about those ancestors to give them the respect of trying to figure out what they actually did as opposed to relying on some unverifiable, alleged, spiritual experience with an impossible-to-track ancestor that in all probability is really just a brain fart or wish fulfilment. Now don't get me wrong, I have strange things happen to me all the time, but you have to show a level of scepticism and stay anchored or you lose all grip on any kind of reality. If you have some kind of experience like that and research bears it out later, that's awesome. That takes your UPG from the 'Probable Brain Fart That's Interesting To Ponder' category and into the 'Way More Interesting' category.
If you really want to reclaim your indigeny, try showing it and your ancestors some real respect first!
"You come from a tribe, from something that is so much bigger and you want to trade it away for lore, lore not even written by people who practiced their ancestral traditions? From lore written by collaborators? That lore is not designed to bring you to any reality or connection. It is a product of the corporate machine. It’s a product of soul sickness and spirit sadness. We have eaten the poison of our conquerors and in some sad sort of Stockholm syndrome, we continue to deny ourselves the only antidote that matters: ancestral connection, connections with our Gods, direct experience, and a reclamation of our own indigeny. In other words, our birthright. It’s time we all wake up."
Now I have my issues with monotheism, I'm not going to deny that but did you just see what she did in that quote?!
And for someone that claims to value and respect her ancestors, she sure shows a hell of a lot of disdain for the generations of them that were monotheists and found comfort in that.
Let me tell you a story that my father told me about his mother when she was dying.
When my grandmother went, she'd battled a life of sickness, starting from the TB that she'd had while pregnant with my father to the blindness and then cancer she'd contracted later in life. During her final days, she was so upset due to an altercation that had occurred with a priest that had told her she'd go to hell because she'd not been to church or donated to the plate. My grandfather had kicked the guy out on his arse, but my grandmother was still very upset. So he went out and bought her a gold cross, then took it to another priest and asked him to bless it for his wife - which the priest did. My grandmother took a lot of comfort from that cross, the blessing and the act of love that my grandfather had performed in doing that for her, in bringing her that comfort. That cross sits on my ancestral shrine, along with her wedding ring and a photo of her and her husband that loved her so completely to the end.
My grandparents were Christians, the generations before that were also Christians, but you know what? So fucking what?! They're family and that comes first before anything or everything else. I really don't understand this whole anger against Christian ancestors because they didn't have the faith that you would prefer them to have had. We'd be angry if someone told us that we couldn't be Heathens and that we had to have certain beliefs, how the hell is this any different?!
Why be divisive against family because of something as daft as religion? I really hate to pull this one too, because this has got to be breaking some kind of internet 'law', but being divisive against family is totally a Christian thing.
To (allegedly) quote that carpenter from Galilee:
“Do not think that I came to bring peace on Earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household. He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:34-39 NASB)
Really? Are we Heathens going to ignore all Frith and allow, what I would say is the the true cost of Christianity, to continue taking its toll?
As for the lore, I would probably be classed as someone that 'fetishises' the lore due to my refusal to spew UPG wherever I go on the internet. I know a lot of Heathens that also refuse to participate in this. Does that mean that they don't have connections beyond their study of the lore or experiences or UPG?
Does it hell!
It means that for most of the people I know at least (and myself included in this), UPG is PRIVATE and personal business. Spewing it everywhere looking for points in the apparent yet unspoken 'who has the greatest relationship with (insert deity here)' contest cheapens it.
I would talk UPG with a trusted friend, but I wouldn't tell anyone and everyone like it's really that important and that they all *need* to know this stuff like it's some kind of a universal revelation.
As Susan B Anthony quote once wrote:
"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires."
For much as these people would like to imagine that those gloried ancestors (you know, the ones that never knew the 'taint' of Christianity), would accept them for all their shenanigans, I think were they to somehow invent a time machine and go back in time, those self same ancestors would think them insane and either give them a wide berth or sink them in a bog.
And for all the insistence that we 'fetishise' lore, they really aren't getting it either.
Reconstructionists take a multi-disciplined approach, we look at lore, yes, but we also look at archaeological finds, outsider views of that society, laws, legal documents, contracts etc. We look at what life was like for people back then to see if what is spoken about in the lore and what is commonly believed was practical or would have tallied with their worldview.
We *care* enough about those ancestors to give them the respect of trying to figure out what they actually did as opposed to relying on some unverifiable, alleged, spiritual experience with an impossible-to-track ancestor that in all probability is really just a brain fart or wish fulfilment. Now don't get me wrong, I have strange things happen to me all the time, but you have to show a level of scepticism and stay anchored or you lose all grip on any kind of reality. If you have some kind of experience like that and research bears it out later, that's awesome. That takes your UPG from the 'Probable Brain Fart That's Interesting To Ponder' category and into the 'Way More Interesting' category.
If you really want to reclaim your indigeny, try showing it and your ancestors some real respect first!
Sunday, July 17, 2011
When Reconstruction Diverges From The Personal
Generally speaking, Reconstructing a worldview often reminds me of a toolkit, in which all the parts are missing. You have the plastic moulds in the box to show you roughly what tools went there, or their basic shape, but you don't really have a clue about that tool until you find it. Each piece of worldview discovered is a new tool, that can be then used to build new things.
However sometimes, you come across a tool that you can't, for some reason, use. Kind of like when a left-handed person tries to use right-handed scissors. So you must adapt the tool a little, or maybe more than one tool can fit there?
I've come to that point with my musings on the afterlife. In terms of the sources, it makes massive sense that people were non-dualist and world accepting. However, while I am absolutely world accepting and am very much concerned with what is in this world, I've come to this large sticking point of what happens after death. When I was growing up in my nominally Church of England family, I was told that after death, we all end up back with family that had passed on. We have tales of family members that saw already deceased family while on their deathbeds. The whole thing seems natural to me, that people who were tightly knit with their kith and kin in life, would also perceive it to be the case post mortem too.
This reminds me of the account of Radbod of Frisia who refused to convert to Christianity after being told that his non-Christian ancestors would be burning in Hell and that he'd rather be in Hell with his ancestors than in Heaven without. I wonder how much Christian influence is in the concept of going to your family after death if at all. Maybe for some Heathenisms, there was a 'different shaped tool' when it comes to the afterlife part of the puzzle? I don't know.
However the idea of going with family fits both my own family tradition and what feels right in my heart. Don't ask me about soul parts and stuff, because I don't know. I haven't a clue really. I still think the 'soul matrix' is a pile of crap that was invented by people no earlier than the 70s. Do I believe in something other than the physical body? Yes. Would I call it a soul? No, not in the same way. Could I explain that further? Not at all.
But you know what? I'm perfectly comfortable with that.
However sometimes, you come across a tool that you can't, for some reason, use. Kind of like when a left-handed person tries to use right-handed scissors. So you must adapt the tool a little, or maybe more than one tool can fit there?
I've come to that point with my musings on the afterlife. In terms of the sources, it makes massive sense that people were non-dualist and world accepting. However, while I am absolutely world accepting and am very much concerned with what is in this world, I've come to this large sticking point of what happens after death. When I was growing up in my nominally Church of England family, I was told that after death, we all end up back with family that had passed on. We have tales of family members that saw already deceased family while on their deathbeds. The whole thing seems natural to me, that people who were tightly knit with their kith and kin in life, would also perceive it to be the case post mortem too.
This reminds me of the account of Radbod of Frisia who refused to convert to Christianity after being told that his non-Christian ancestors would be burning in Hell and that he'd rather be in Hell with his ancestors than in Heaven without. I wonder how much Christian influence is in the concept of going to your family after death if at all. Maybe for some Heathenisms, there was a 'different shaped tool' when it comes to the afterlife part of the puzzle? I don't know.
However the idea of going with family fits both my own family tradition and what feels right in my heart. Don't ask me about soul parts and stuff, because I don't know. I haven't a clue really. I still think the 'soul matrix' is a pile of crap that was invented by people no earlier than the 70s. Do I believe in something other than the physical body? Yes. Would I call it a soul? No, not in the same way. Could I explain that further? Not at all.
But you know what? I'm perfectly comfortable with that.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
'Northern European'
I guess I should give fair warning and say outright that this is a post that is probably going to offend a few people.
But I can't not say this anymore. It's been eating at me and pissing me off for about a week now, ever since I saw the usual claims from Folkish Heathens that they somehow have a 'right' to decide who gets to be a Heathen based on ancestry and blood.
Now it's all well and good saying that you don't understand why someone that's not of Northern European ancestry would be interested in something that is as intrinsically linked to culture and reverence for ancestors as Heathenry is. I couldn't imagine ever being Santeria, I simply don't have those cultural/linguistic/ancestral links, or an inner calling to do the requisite work to join a community. I know people though, who are involved in Santeria without those cultural and ancestral links and who did do that work and find much fulfillment in those ways. Horses for courses.
But it's quite another to deny that people of different ancestries don't have a right, like you're some kind of appointed gatekeeper who gets to judge if each person is 'Northern European' enough to qualify.
And it's quite another when those people that feel they have the right to do this judging aren't even Northern Europeans.
Yep, you heard me. Being a whitey born in America with ancestors that were from Northern Europe doesn't make you Northern European. Not in the slightest. You're American.
And let's not even kid ourselves that it is somehow about ancestry and 'having the right blood'. How many people of colour have some European ancestry? I'll give you a clue – lots of them. Some of it from intermarriage, some of it because their ancestors also came from Europe and some because at some point, somewhere, some guy of Northern European ancestry thought he had the right to rape a woman because she wasn't white and he considered her to be nothing more than a domestic animal, to be used and abused as he wished.
Yes, let's not get away from that one, especially not if there are going to be 'race traitor' allegations being thrown around. According to the typical White Supremacist view of things, their own antecedents in terms of ideology would be the biggest and first 'race traitors' in America.
Another funny thing about claiming to follow the ways of ones ancestors and the 'wrongness' of blowing off the ways of one's ancestors for something new, is that the vast majority of modern Heathens have done just that by eschewing about a thousand or so years of ancestors and their Christian/Jewish ways for Heathenry.
And really, does this judgement ever really come down to having the magical number of drops of the 'right' kind of blood? Or the 'right' ancestors? No, let's not kid ourselves here either, it's about skin colour.
Regardless of the fact that that has FUCK all to do with any kind of historical Heathenry. Yes, Scandinavians did have slaves, but a Norwegian could just as easily take a Swede for a slave as an Irish person or someone of colour.
At the end of the day, 'folk' was defined by 'us' as opposed to 'not us'. Usually this was down to kith and kin, but entry in communities could be gained through proving oneself to the community, learning the community ways and taking them for one's own.
And here we come to perhaps the most polemic point of this entire post.
This using 'Northern European' as though it's just representative of just one set of beliefs, customs and traditions, has got to stop. Northern Europe is a varied place. We are not the same culture or peoples to be lumped into some kind of a monoculture because it fits the needs of Folkish Heathenry.
Also, unless you were born and raised in Northern Europe, you're not Northern European. You can enter into the culture at a later stage through becoming a part of a community, learning the language (if it's different), learning the customs and being accepted. You still wouldn't be Northern European, but you'd be a member of the community and a part of the culture – adopted if you will. If you were born on American soil, even to parents that came from Northern Europe, you're still American. You still grew up in one of the many American cultures (which btw isn't Northern European but I will concede that some still have certain aspects).
And you know what? There is FUCK all wrong with being an American and tackling Heathenry from an American POV. Hell, I'm loving the different Heathen cultures that are springing up in different parts of the US and the geographical differences and similarities that we're seeing coming up. That's great because generations of your American ancestors have given their blood, sweat and tears to give you what you have today, their bones lie in the land of your birth, now it's time for you to continue building on that and claim that birthright instead of trying to lay claims to things that simply aren't yours but were at one point. Americans are diverse people too...just something to think on.
In 874, a new land was settled and Heathen peoples figured out ways to still be Heathen in a land that was strange and had its own beings. They learned new ways of working, stopped looking towards Norway for anything but supplies and their worldview changed, they became distinctively Icelandic Heathens.
This is a great example for American Heathens to follow and be inspired by.
Oh and to the 'gatekeepers' in the American communities, the gate/s isn't/aren't yours, so piss off!!!
But I can't not say this anymore. It's been eating at me and pissing me off for about a week now, ever since I saw the usual claims from Folkish Heathens that they somehow have a 'right' to decide who gets to be a Heathen based on ancestry and blood.
Now it's all well and good saying that you don't understand why someone that's not of Northern European ancestry would be interested in something that is as intrinsically linked to culture and reverence for ancestors as Heathenry is. I couldn't imagine ever being Santeria, I simply don't have those cultural/linguistic/ancestral links, or an inner calling to do the requisite work to join a community. I know people though, who are involved in Santeria without those cultural and ancestral links and who did do that work and find much fulfillment in those ways. Horses for courses.
But it's quite another to deny that people of different ancestries don't have a right, like you're some kind of appointed gatekeeper who gets to judge if each person is 'Northern European' enough to qualify.
And it's quite another when those people that feel they have the right to do this judging aren't even Northern Europeans.
Yep, you heard me. Being a whitey born in America with ancestors that were from Northern Europe doesn't make you Northern European. Not in the slightest. You're American.
And let's not even kid ourselves that it is somehow about ancestry and 'having the right blood'. How many people of colour have some European ancestry? I'll give you a clue – lots of them. Some of it from intermarriage, some of it because their ancestors also came from Europe and some because at some point, somewhere, some guy of Northern European ancestry thought he had the right to rape a woman because she wasn't white and he considered her to be nothing more than a domestic animal, to be used and abused as he wished.
Yes, let's not get away from that one, especially not if there are going to be 'race traitor' allegations being thrown around. According to the typical White Supremacist view of things, their own antecedents in terms of ideology would be the biggest and first 'race traitors' in America.
Another funny thing about claiming to follow the ways of ones ancestors and the 'wrongness' of blowing off the ways of one's ancestors for something new, is that the vast majority of modern Heathens have done just that by eschewing about a thousand or so years of ancestors and their Christian/Jewish ways for Heathenry.
And really, does this judgement ever really come down to having the magical number of drops of the 'right' kind of blood? Or the 'right' ancestors? No, let's not kid ourselves here either, it's about skin colour.
Regardless of the fact that that has FUCK all to do with any kind of historical Heathenry. Yes, Scandinavians did have slaves, but a Norwegian could just as easily take a Swede for a slave as an Irish person or someone of colour.
At the end of the day, 'folk' was defined by 'us' as opposed to 'not us'. Usually this was down to kith and kin, but entry in communities could be gained through proving oneself to the community, learning the community ways and taking them for one's own.
And here we come to perhaps the most polemic point of this entire post.
This using 'Northern European' as though it's just representative of just one set of beliefs, customs and traditions, has got to stop. Northern Europe is a varied place. We are not the same culture or peoples to be lumped into some kind of a monoculture because it fits the needs of Folkish Heathenry.
Also, unless you were born and raised in Northern Europe, you're not Northern European. You can enter into the culture at a later stage through becoming a part of a community, learning the language (if it's different), learning the customs and being accepted. You still wouldn't be Northern European, but you'd be a member of the community and a part of the culture – adopted if you will. If you were born on American soil, even to parents that came from Northern Europe, you're still American. You still grew up in one of the many American cultures (which btw isn't Northern European but I will concede that some still have certain aspects).
And you know what? There is FUCK all wrong with being an American and tackling Heathenry from an American POV. Hell, I'm loving the different Heathen cultures that are springing up in different parts of the US and the geographical differences and similarities that we're seeing coming up. That's great because generations of your American ancestors have given their blood, sweat and tears to give you what you have today, their bones lie in the land of your birth, now it's time for you to continue building on that and claim that birthright instead of trying to lay claims to things that simply aren't yours but were at one point. Americans are diverse people too...just something to think on.
In 874, a new land was settled and Heathen peoples figured out ways to still be Heathen in a land that was strange and had its own beings. They learned new ways of working, stopped looking towards Norway for anything but supplies and their worldview changed, they became distinctively Icelandic Heathens.
This is a great example for American Heathens to follow and be inspired by.
Oh and to the 'gatekeepers' in the American communities, the gate/s isn't/aren't yours, so piss off!!!
Friday, May 6, 2011
Lancashire Moorland Fires
I'm upset. Not on a day to day level, but a deep down level, down to my core.
I grew up in a town on the foothills of the West Pennine Moors. From a young age, I've walked that boggy moorland, learned how to walk, where to walk, how to see where I'm going in the thickest of fog and I know all this sounds easy. It's easy to walk, right? One foot in front of the other, yeah? Not on this kind of moorland. It's a peat bog/moorland. The landscape alternates between quagmire and tussocks. You learn to move, to spring, to judge the grasses, the lay of the land. You learn to judge the clouds, the wind, the fog. You learn not only to survive but thrive and enjoy one of the most inhospitable and barren places on the earth. Not only that, but you crave it, it becomes a part of you. You want to see it, to be in those uplands, that wild, barren space and the only place in the whole wide world where you truly feel like you can breathe.
Now that area I love, those places, are burning and have been burning for the past seven days. It's peat, the fire doesn't extinguish easily -if they get it to extinguish. Sometimes peat fires can continue to burn underground, working their way through the underground peat layer, until some poor soul (or the ground becomes weak enough on its own) causes a fall in. Then oxygen meets smouldering peat, someone/something gets incinerated and a fire is sparked anew. Don't believe me? There are peat fires in Indonesia that have been smouldering since 1997. Sometimes fire services *can't* put peat out.
The average moorland fire is fast, very fast. Like orange, red and yellow tongues devouring entire masses of land at breakneck speed. When I was younger, I learned that if I were to be caught in a moorland fire, to put on all of my survival clothes (waterproofs), hoods up, to douse myself in my entire water supply and to dig into the land. Don't leave any skin/flammable surface undowsed and to just let it pass overhead. I know people who have done this. They've dowsed, dug in, survived and continued to walk the charred moor left in the wake. In spite of how easy they are to survive, I resolved never to get in one of those. The one time I nearly was, I ran as fast as I could to the nearest body of water.
But these fires aren't as quick, as surface. These fires are igniting the earth itself.
And I have an impending move to another continent coming up. One I am very apprehensive about. One of my biggest draws back to my homeland is that land. That barren highland where I feel like I can breathe. When I was younger and going through a lot of issues, that was where I laid my troubles. I'd walk until I wept and then I'd continue to walk until I'd found my peace and happiness again. I feel like it's been torn away from me. People are saying that it'll take about 30 years for it to be what it was again. I just wanted one more chance to walk those hills before I left again.No matter how far or how long I roam, that land is what I still crave. The place where land meets sky.
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