Nab

He’s sweating though it’s cold, the exertion from the digging winding him and keeping him warm. Tonight her name is ‘Phyllis Bagshaw’, and even though he knows her family will be upset when they find out, he can’t afford to care.

The voice in his head sees to that. An animalistic growl repeating the command to ‘DIG’ that he’d carried all day. At first, he’d tried to sleep through it, but it had been too loud, too distracting to him as he huddled in his shelter. Then he’d taken to running through the woods as fast as he could, as though he could leave the voice somewhere behind him. He’d known what it had meant too, where he was supposed to dig, and why; his dreams had seen to that. In the end he had simply sat, watching the trees watching him.

They had known, he could tell by the way they shifted around him in a weird mixture of nervousness and excitement. They knew whose forest they resided in, and although the birches often protested it, they knew there was nothing they could do; unless of course they picked up their roots and found somewhere new, and that could take YEARS.

So they stayed, just as snared as he was, equally prisoners to the horned one.

He’d been coming to these woods ever since he was a child, he knew the stories, and he’d seen the bloodstains of sacrifice painted on the rocks by the waterfall. He’d never dreamed he’d become one to put the stains there.

But one day in the dead month of February it had all changed.
He had been hiking alone when he first heard them – those steps, those steps that sounded both like hoof and foot fall all at the same time. Putting it down to his imagination, he’d carried on, ignoring the growing sense that he was being followed, and that somehow, the trees themselves were changing positions.

Not that *that* was a surprise, people had told stories about the trees on this hill for years. It wasn’t even told in the hushed tones of people that were afraid they’d be laughed at were their story heard by the wrong people – but openly. It was an accepted fact of life for them.

They’d never been known to harm anyone, but he didn’t know he could say the same about whatever was following him. Hurriedly making his way down the other side of the hill, he’d breathed a sigh of relief when he came to the tarn and the feeling vanished. Later that night on his way home, he’d taken the longer way round home – round the hill, unsure he wanted to go over it in the dark.

But the steps had followed him into his dreams that night.

Gradually, he began to think about the nab more, in the same way a smoker thinks about cigarettes, and became braver. When he went up the nab, he’d try to turn around quickly to catch the steps, or even run after them through the ever-moving trees. The more he chased them in the woods, the more he thought about them when he wasn’t there, and the more they became the soundtrack of his dreams.

Over time, his family became alien to him, and the entirety of his spare time was spent chasing the footsteps. Eventually, he’d simply stopped going home and just stayed there on the nab. Survival wasn’t an issue - he had his shelter, his supplies and his snares, and his days of near endless running had made him fitter than he’d ever been.

But for all his speed, he’d still never caught the steps.

One night though, while settling into his shelter, he’d heard a voice, the voice that came to plague him, “COME”, it had said, and he had. Making his way down the hill to the place with the blood stains, he was met by three men and the voice in his head fell suddenly silent.

“Who are you?”, he’d asked, almost afraid of their answer. Looking between themselves, the oldest had stepped forward, “You are the one he has chosen.”

As if by wordless cue, the men had circled him, drawing closer. “You are his priest.”, said Oldest. “You are the one who must dwell.”, said Not-So-Old. “You are the one who must sacrifice.”, said Youngest.

Confused, he’d looked wildly about him, at the men who circled, the trees that moved, and the darkness that held only hoof steps. He was losing his footing, disoriented by the charged atmosphere, “WHOSE PRIEST?!”, he’d cried out.

And then a chant had risen up, the steps were getting closer, and the man was unsure he wanted to catch them anymore. Breaking from his brothers, Oldest approached with his hand outstretched and palm open, his voice full of reverence as he spoke.

"HIS!”.

At the touch of hand to head, he’d fallen back, the men and trees fading as he lost consciousness, and his mind filling with images of a horned being with goat hooves. Now he knew who ‘he’ was, he’d finally caught the steps.

From that point onwards, he’d joined them at their rites, the blood of small animals staining his hands as much as theirs. He was their unholy ascetic, their wise madman, the possessed one that ran through the trees that move. He thought no more of his family, nor of the job he’d had, or the friends he used to meet in the pub. His world was now the trees and always the steps.

He’d never minded killing the animals, nor spreading their blood upon his and the faces of his congregation. He killed to eat anyway, but this, this was different.

This was someone’s family, a loved one.

But still, the horned one wouldn’t let him rest and so he’d acquiesced. He’d made the first trip home in months for a shovel and lantern, then headed to the town cemetery to do as commanded.

He’d been digging for hours when they found him, the cemetery becoming unusually light as his shovel hit coffin and the ghastly scene was illuminated by the headlights of police cars and flashlights. Phyllis Bagshaw would continue to rest in peace, while he would know no such thing as the voice screamed at him, telling him to kill, to take their bodies instead and finish the rite. But they were too many, and he was dragged off in cuffs, his final strand of sanity breaking and the three observers in the distance going completely unnoticed in his fugue state.

“What now?”, says Youngest. “Another must be found.”, says Not-So-Old, a pensive note in his voice.
Oldest simply smiles, “It’s ok, he has a son.”

Haelu...Revisited

For those of you that know me in meatspace, haelu is something I talk about a lot. Seeing as it's a concept that permeates my worldview, this is only to be expected. For me, the concept that physical health is tied to qualities that are traditionally thought of as being 'spiritual' (such as 'holiness', 'wholeness', and 'luck'), is powerful.

No, scratch that, it's revolutionary.

Now I'm not going to bother going into the evidence for the term 'haelu', I already did that here. Today I want to discuss the reservations that I've seen when it comes to haelu and just why it's such a revolutionary term in terms of worldview.

If you grew up in the West, unless you have been living in a hole in the ground and never interacted with anything but wolves, you grew up influenced by Judeo-Christian culture. At this point, I don't want to hear any of that 'Oh but I grew up Pagan' or 'My family isn't really religious so you're wrong!' rubbish. Because it is rubbish. Judeo-Christian worldview permeates *everything* in the West. When it comes to matters of 'religion', or indeed the very concept of 'religion', it's especially dominant. No more so than when it comes to the question of what a 'god' is. For most people, be they Christians, Heathens, or Pagans, the gods aren't a part of this world and the main event is after death.

In such a worldview, the physical becomes useless,even something to be despised or punished. It doesn't matter if we foul up the only Midgard we've got, because this world isn't important either, right? Mmkay?

Well no, not if you're a Heathen. The gods are just as much of a part of the world as we are, and then there are the various wights to take into consideration...this Midgard is great, and our holy places are very much on her soil.

Most people are cool with those concepts, at least from what I've found. Occasionally, you still see some mentions of such-and-such talking about 'roid-raging' their way into Valhalla or whatever, but on the whole, the revolutionary idea of world-acceptance is spreading.


But what of body-acceptance?

In our society, there is the pervasive idea that the spiritual deny their bodies, that the human body is like some dirt pile of sin - part of the dross to be left behind when a person finally moves on to that 'better place'. In the Middle Ages, those wishing to become more holy and get closer to god would beat and starve themselves. Members of groups such as the Opus Dei continue to practice such privations with the same goals, with their veneers of modernity veiling their bloody cilice-adorned thighs and whip-kissed backs.

'Haelu' is the opposite of this mentality. Haelu encourages you to look after your body, to make it as strong as you can, and not engage in the escapism that is the mentality of the dirty body and the otherworldly salvation. The holy is in caring for yourself. The holy is in enjoying and accepting your body instead of hating and rejecting it. It's not just some skin suit, it's one of the most precious things you own.

Now I'm not saying that everyone has to have perfect bodies and perfect health, or that physical issues render a person invisible to the gods and useless to a community. Between my late stage lyme disease, asthma, carpal tunnel, and fat ass, I'd be condemning myself were that the case. And we know they didn't condemn people in this way or they wouldn't have even bothered to try healing people or continuing to care for the weaker members of society. It's about striving as opposed to just saying 'Oh well, the spirit is far more important anyway...'. It's about accepting who you are, what your limitations are, and then working with them.

I'm not saying go out and start some crazy fitness regime that hurts you, or start a crash diet. Neither of those things are good for anyone. Start simply, try to appreciate your body for what it can do for you more than what it can't. The human body really is amazing, from the ears that allow us to experience the most exquisite sounds, to the eyes that show us beauty that the most top of the line cameras struggle to capture, to the nerve endings that let us experience pleasure and pain alike - it's amazing. Look at what you eat, try to eat clean for the most part, and don't get upset if you have the odd treats. And *move*. Be that movement walking, dancing, armchair exercises (if your mobility is limited), or even skipping down the street like a big kid - do it. Go jump those puddles when it rains, have water gun fights, or play with your dog in the yard.

Don't be afraid to enjoy and experience your body.

And most importantly, live *in* it.

Ancestors-In-Law

Marriage is a funny old thing, you (hopefully) get the guy/girl you love, a tasty cake, and years to figure out how it all goes together. However it isn't really like that, not for Heathens (or anyone else really), at least not when you think about it.

No, marriage isn't just about the couple involved in the marriage making their public declaration of union or whatever people say when they don't want to get married but live together anyway. It's not about a piece of paper that acts as a soopa doopa magickul doorway to tax breaks and being able to visit your loved ones in hospital.

You see, none of us really gets married for ourselves, but for our families and communities.

Yeah sure it's a big 'Hands off mah woman/man!' to everyone around you, that you're taking that step and formalising that commitment (something which should mean something), but you're also bringing two familial lines together and inheriting a whole new set of responsibilities.

Which can be unnerving, I mean we've all heard horror stories about those dreaded mother-in-laws, and I would be lying if there wasn't a period of adjustment that has to take place. It's all well and good that the couple are sympatico with each other, but (for the most part) your inlaws didn't pick you, and now they have to rearrange the family dynamic to accept the newcomer, or not.

The same goes for your spouse's ancestors. When you marry a person, you're becoming part of another entire line of people, stretching back to the beginning.

Lo do I see my father...

You're joining another tribe, you will be another entry in their genealogy (as well as your own). In years to come, people will look back on your name and include your story with those of your spouse's family (just as your spouse will with your family).

In Heathenry, we all talk about our ancestors, a lot of us have shrines to them and make offerings on a regular or semi-regular basis. A lot of us remember them in our prayers during every day activities, or call out their names in Sumbel. But how many of us do the same with our ancestral inlaws?

For a while I was reticent. I was always kind of convinced that my mother-in-law was pretty suspicious of me and didn't really like me much (a belief that was solidified by being 'attacked' by her old rocking chair a few times). However at some point, something changed. Without getting into the details, we seemed to come to an accord one day while I was sitting in her rocking chair, which left me with the strong impression that I should maybe offer apples to her and that those apples should be placed outside.

So I cut up the apples and took them out into the front garden, and stopped dead in my tracks.

Sitting there, in my front garden that goes onto the street, was a little wild rabbit. Quietly and carefully I walked to the tree where I wanted to leave the apples, placing the majority of them there, before scattering some nearer to the rabbit. The rabbit for its part, just stayed there. I left just as quietly as I came before coming back out to take a photo to show my husband when he got home.

Now a rabbit in the garden doesn't really seem much, or like an omen. After all, rabbits are everywhere, I mean, they breed like f****** rabbits! However, on our ancestor shrine, with the photo of my husband's mother, is a handmade felt rabbit that she stitched for my husband when he was a child. He's always had a soft spot for those furry little hoppers that goes beyond 'Aww they're so cute!' and has always resisted my attempts to buy rabbit meat and make rabbit curry. So, I took this to be an omen of sorts and now my offerings to her are chopped apples placed outside for the rabbit (or any other wildlife).

Since that day, she's felt very present to me, like she's keeping the things that lurk in our basement firmly down there and out of sight of her son. Not only that, but she's become something of a part of my more Seidr-related activities, the rocking chair that left me bleeding a few times, now my 'high seat'.

A year or so ago, I couldn't have imagined this, she was simply someone not to piss off, someone I wanted to reassure that I loved her son and would do my best to look after him. Now she's become a more immediate ally to a girl whose own ancestors lie far away over a vast ocean.

Ancestral Shores

On the day she came home, they’d been happy to see their daughter return. Communication had been difficult at times, sometimes even impossible. Like every child out adventuring out in the world, there were times when she simply hadn’t even remembered to check in, to let them know she was ok. But that was ok too, because she always did eventually. Full of life and happy to see home again even for the short time she’d be there before the next adventure.

This time though, things were different. When she’d arrived this time, they’d worried as she coughed, a dark shadow falling on her chest like never before. Watching her struggle to climb hills and moors that she’d climbed hundreds of times before with ease, they felt only sadness. But she always was a stubborn one and she’d carried on walking uphill regardless. They’d gone with her to see the doctor a week or so later, her coughing…no asthma had gotten so bad.

“I remember how bad that was for me”, Violet had said, “Marvellous what they can do nowadays with medicine.” Lillian had simply stroked their granddaughter’s forehead as she breathed the in nebulizer and her breathing stabilized.

Eventually though, she’d gone again, got onto the plane with her husband and left.

And after a few hours they couldn’t feel her anymore.

Late at night, when most people are comfortably ensconced inside, they would meet on the beach, the sometimes stormy Irish sea before them. Something about that direction, that place made them feel ever so slightly closer to her, their errant family member. Sometimes Lew would make comments like “She gets that from me, you know!”, and his sister and wife would slap him on the shoulder and tell him not to be so daft, and that he’d never literally disappeared before.

One of those nights, when the surf was up and they could almost hear what sounded like her voice on the wind, James came to the conclusion that this not being able to hear her thing had to have something to do with the sea and then the ocean beyond that. After all, she *couldn’t* be in Ireland, they’d know. They had family and blood there. At one point, Peter had even stood on the opposite shore and called to them that she absolutely wasn’t there. Thanking him, they’d engaged in a bit of banter before going back to keep an eye on the rest of the family.

It was finally when William was sitting next to his son, in the living room of 35 Primrose street that he’d heard Val say something about her being in America. It all made sense to them now, but still they missed her.

“It’s probably best if you go to Southport when the tide’s up” said Ken, he still wasn’t comfortable in his new role in the family, but he was doing well even though it hurt him to see his wife still so sad. “Take it easy, son. These things take time.”, his dad had said. He knew better than most how it was to go through that kind of separation, and Ken had always been the kind of big brother to take his responsibilities to his siblings very seriously.

So it was that they came to be sitting there on the beach during what was a horrible storm (for those that could still feel that kind of thing), straining their ears and trying to hear their long-lost daughter, they sat. They had all but given up, when they finally heard it, her voice weak on the winds.

It was their names in prayer, asking them to do their best to find her.

And right then and there, they decided that if the wind could find a way, so could they.

Ylfig

Recently, as part of the research for my book on Seidr, I've been reading Alaric Hall's book 'Elves in Anglo Saxon England: Matters of Belief, Health, Gender, and Identity'. The work is a very thorough, scholarly piece, that very much reminds me of Erika Timm's 'Frau Holle, Frau Percht, und verwandte Gestalten' in terms of the level of detail that the scholar devotes to the source material, the methodology for dealing with the source material and also even how the information is presented.

As an almost-preface to this post, I'm very aware of the potentially controversial nature of this information, especially given how some groups use practices which may be construed as being similar to what this term appears to suggest. However, I do ask that you continue to read to the end before replying as I will be attaching a rather large caveat which wasn't addressed by Alaric Hall in his book, nor was it within the scope of the work.

The discussion of the term 'Ylfig' is to be found from p148 - 154, and just to give some background on the chapter in question, there is a lot of discussion on the roles of Aelfe in magic, how 'elves' were often cited as 'ailment' when a person was believed to be suffering from magical attack (especially when localised internal torso pains or mental delusions were concerned), and how magic-workers were also credited with getting their power from the elves in some sources.

This naturally led to discussion of the word 'Ylfig', there are few attestations to 'Ylfig, in two different sources from two different time periods: Aldhelm's 'Prosa de virginitate' from the end of the 7th century (relatively shortly after conversion, which occured definitively from 655CE), and a manuscript known as 'Harley 3376' that dates back to the 11th century.

Hall starts off by comparing a similar word, 'gydig', which survives to this day as the modern word 'giddy', the 'gyd' element pertained to 'god' and the word was used as a gloss for the Latin word 'lymphaticus', meaning 'diabolically possessed'. The word's primary meanings into the Middle English period were 'insane, crazy, possessed by a devil'. So, as a result, the broad meaning for 'gydig' was 'engaged with a god'.

To turn now to Ylfig, the earliest reference (and gloss) of the term comes from verses 697-698 of Aldhelm's 'Prosa', in which we see 'Ylfig' , (along with the Latin gloss 'garritor') as an OE gloss for the Latin word 'comitialis'. Generally speaking, we would now translate 'comitialis' as meaning 'epileptic', however we need to remember that our conception of epilepsy is far different from that held in 7th century England (or indeed the rest of Europe). The word 'comitialis' is an obscure word, one that has only been found in very rare instance and so Hall is pretty certain that Aldhelm took this word from Isidore of Seville's 'Etymologiae'. The entry in the Etymologiae, not only gives us the word 'comitialis', but a greater conception of how epilepsy would have been seen:

" is caused by the melancholic humour - how often it may have overflowed and been redirected to the brain. This is caused passio (suffering) and caduca (epileptic falling), because the epileptic suffers convulsions. These indeed the common people call lunatici (those made mad by the moon), because the attack of demons follows them according to the course of the moon. So also larvatici. That is also comitalian sickness, which is more significant and of divine origin/to do with divination, by which those who fall are gripped. It has such power that a healthy person collapses and froths. However comitialis is so used among the pagans, when it had happened to anyone on the day of the Comitia (assembly for electing Roman magistrates), the comitia were broken up. But the usual day of the Comitia among the Romans was during the Calends of January."

Just a footnote here before continuing, Bede gives the date for Mother's Night as being the Calends of January (24/25 December).

Given this gloss and the conception of epilepsy given above, on pages 150 -151 Hall reasons that "Ylfig must then denote some altered state of mind...We may set this alongside its pairing with the Latin gloss 'garritor'. This word is even more unusual than 'comitialis', but is a transparent deverbative formation from 'garrio' ("I chatter, babble, prate"), meaning 'babbler'. More precise connotations of this word as it was understood in Anglo-Latin, however, are suggested by chapter 44 of the Prosa de virginitate, which mentions 'a pithonibus et aruspicibus uana falsitatis deleramenta garrientibus' ('empty gibberish of falsity from garrientes prophetesses and soothsayers') suggesting that the root of garritor had (pejorative) connotations of prophetic speech."

To turn to Harley 3376, we have the entry:

"Fanaticus .i. minister templi" with the further following information "futura praecinens . I ylfig"

Roughly translated, the first section is 'Fanaticus i.e Priest of the temple' and the second section is 'one fortelling things to come, or ylfig'. In this entry, 'futura praecinens' and 'ylfig' are glossing 'fanaticus',

Hall takes these glosses, plus the meaning of the similarly constructed word 'gydig' to mean that 'ylfig' means in a very rough sense 'engaged with elves', for the purpose of divination. He also finds further support in an account from a related culture: the tale of the wasting sickness of Cu Chulainn. In this story, Cu Chulainn is afflicted by fae people who beat him while in a state that is perceived to be something resembling an epileptic fit by human observers (who see him writhing senseless on the ground). At one point, one of these observers goes to wake him, but is stopped with the words "Do not disturb him, it is a vision that he sees." Upon waking, Cu Chulainn recites a piece of perceptual wisdom that was uncharacteristic of himself at that time. This tradition of elf/fae-gotten wisdom is something that persisted into accounts from witchtrials with both the Orkney witch Elspeth Roach and Agnes Hancock of Somerset claiming power from the elves or fae (not to mention Issobel Gowdie's detailed and fantastical tales of interactions with the elves or the conceivably elf/smith-gotten arrows of the Haegtessan in 'Wid Faerstice').

The idea of being possessed by elves might sound quite funny to our ears, especially given the cartoonish image that elves have been reduced to in our society. They're either seen as cute typically green-wearing pointy-eared people that live in forests with their elf families living their little elf lives, OR, they're seen more like the elves from Tolkein's works, aloof otherworldly living in complete harmony with nature but sometimes also warlike. What Hall does in the earlier chapters is clear up these misconceptions quite neatly. To summarize some pretty extensive scholarship, elves can be considered to be:

* All male - female elves didn't appear in earlier sources, in fact, the word for elf was artificially feminised (according to Hall, I wouldn't know, I'm understanding more OE now, but I'm nowhere near his level) and there is no cognate for the OE word for female elf in ON.
* Considered to be otherworldly, yet firmly belonging to the 'non-monstrous' category of the otherworldly beings.
* Could refer to either people with qualities considered to be elf-like/people believed to have some elf-ancestry/the 'Vanir' ('Alfar' and 'Vanir' are sometimes used interchangeably and so share partial synonymy)/ localised gods.
*Beautiful, 'white', and even shining - all qualities considered 'unmanly' by the 'in-group' of mainstream human civilisation in that area and era - but that was cool, because you know...they were elves, powerful, respected and often badass warriors in spite of being very pretty.

Now if 'Ylfig' really indicated 'possessory' practices among the pre-Christian Anglo-Saxons, then there are some very real ramifications for modern day heathens. We have all railed at and mocked those that engage in 'horsing rituals', claiming them to be out of our worldview, some of those groups that have practiced those rituals have themselves, very definitely crossed over into the 'monstrous' category. After all, it's a very powerful thing to claim a god is speaking through you, and once you have consolidated the belief in your followers that that is indeed occurring, then it's all too easy to use that as a tool for control.

There are also very real issues in terms of just what would be meant by 'possession' in a society with a worldview so vastly different from our own. We know what 'possession' means in our society (a complete displacement/suppression of the possessed's soul), but we live in a society that is heavily influenced by dualistic ideas. Soul and body are easily separated, detachable for your ease and comfort. However we don't know if pre-Christian Germanic peoples considered there to be a soul. The only thing we could really solidly use as a gloss here is the 'hamr'.

From various accounts of 'mara'(in which the Seidr worker actually becomes the mara to inflict the harm on the victim) and Seidr's mind altering/influence applications, we have quite a strong case that people believed it possible that a person could be influenced 'supernaturally' by outside forces. We often see the argument that people never come across gods, because if you met a god, it'd be in the physical world, however if people believed that people could send their hamr forth in ways that were not only visible to others, but interactive, why would we not credit gods such as Odin (who was said to be skilled in Seidr), or goddesses like Freyja with the same?

Now I'm not advocating either way here, this is just a summary of the arguments presented in the book and the possible ramifications of that information. Either way, I figured it would make a good conversation topic :).

The Newtown Shooting

Generally speaking, I don't get sucked up in these big events. Sure, I feel bad for the people concerned and wish them nothing but comfort and support from their families and communities, but I'm not going to lie, a lot of the time these occurrences are distant from me. However yesterday, a man walked into a school in the next state over from where I live and shot children. Around twenty families yesterday said goodbye to their kids yesterday morning, not knowing that that goodbye would be their last. Yesterday, I saw friends on Facebook torturing themselves over the decision whether they should pull their kids/siblings from school for the rest of the day. I saw parents that couldn't stop crying because their minds were tormented by the 'every parents' worst nightmare' scenario that was happening to a bunch of parents right then and there. For them, it was all too easy to imagine their own kids not coming home and they held them all the more tighter last night. Grateful and glad that they weren't those parents and that their kids weren't the ones. I'm not a parent. As much as I would very much love to be, that hasn't yet happened for my husband and I. I can't understand it on the same level as parents can, and in honesty, I could quite easily put it down to a psycho being a psycho. An unfortunate event, but random all the same. That was until a friend of mine said that his friend's kids were at that school and they didn't know if they were ok or not. It was a friend of a friend whose kid was there, not even the kid of a friend, but it was enough. Suddenly I found myself in tears, those six degrees of separation were closer than they usually are, and I was lighting candles and praying that these children I didn't know and had never met would turn up ok. A little later in the day, on a Facebook group, a group member talked about how her co-worker was waiting to hear if her kids were ok, they were at that school. I don't really know this lady at all, but the group is a pretty private one, and one in which a lot of us have shared a lot of intimate details. I added these children to my prayers. Prayer in heathenry is a weird old thing, there's a lot of baggage with something like 'prayer', although it's not just specific to Christianity, and for a moment or two I felt lost at what to pray. In spiritualism, at least as my family has practiced it, there is a belief that we go to our family when we die. That the family members that that already passed come to fetch us and that it's with them that our afterlife lies. I don't know how historically Heathen this is. A lot of people quote the whole store of Radbod the Frisian to back this point of view up in Heathenry, but I frankly don't care. When I die, I want to go to my ancestors. I want to be with my family and I want the links forged between my family and that of my husband's to last after death. My ideal would be us all living in a Hobbiton-type place in the afterlife. Nothing particularly spectacular, just together and contented. That's all, I guess I'm a simple soul. When praying for others, it's hard to pray in a way that isn't imposing your will upon that of those deceased, but a lot of people, Heathen or not, believe (or at least hope) that they'll meet with family after death. And so, for the past day or two, my prayer has been simply this: 'May their ancestors hold them and keep them until their parents and siblings join them.' Thankfully my friend's friend's kids were ok, but sadly, the lady from my facebook group didn't have such good news to report. Her co-worker's son was one of the murdered - a grim reminder that real life isn't like the movies and that a lot of the time, no amount of hoping and praying can save a person. Real life very rarely comes with a happy ending. I don't know what it is to be a parent, but my heart breaks for those parents all the same, just as it did for the parents of the Beslan massacre years ago. Yesterday my prayer was: ' May their ancestors hold them and keep them until their parents and siblings join them.' Today I add: 'May their families be surrounded by loving people and strong communities that support and comfort them.'

Third Culture Heathens

Recently when reading a political article about why Americans don't 'get' Obama, I came across a concept that has provided food for thought ever since. Generally speaking, the term 'third culture' tends to refer to the kids of people that are living in a place that is not native to them for the purpose of work and then either move to another country or back to their 'native' land. These kids don't belong fully to either culture, neither the culture of their parents, nor the culture of the lands where they lived and grew. They're either 'too____' or 'not enough____' to be considered part of either of the cultures they've been exposed to. Instead they straddle the worlds, often having perspectives that are at best, out of synch with, or at worst, completely incomprehensible to those around them. Although I grew up very much a part of Northern English culture, over the years and throughout my travels, I've become something else. I'm English, but increasingly I'm finding my own culture becoming foreign to me. Every time I go back to visit, the places I grew up in seem a little more foreign, yet still strangely familiar all at the same time. With each visit, I feel a little more foreign in my own land. I know where I'm going, I understand the dialect, I know the places like the back of my own hand, but it's almost as though I've seen them in a dream before rather than lived in them. That sense of belonging that I used to have when I went home is almost gone now. But it's not like I gain familiarity with the place I now live. I don't feel anymore belonging, I'm still too foreign for that. And so I cling to what was once familiar, trying to stop the last remnants from slipping away, drinking my tea, making meat pies, speaking dialect at home, and taking every opportunity to talk about home as I can. Yet all the while the voice I use for the outside world is one that is more in line with this 'third culture' identity I've gained, and occasionally a fake American accent so I can get a takeaway place to understand me speaking my own language on the phone. That's not the only conundrum in the cultural puzzle that I've become either, my residences in Korea, France, Spain, Portugal and Germany have marked me just as strongly. Spoken German still holds a sense of familiarity and 'home' for me that I can't shake. Food eaten with chopsticks still seems to be my preference and I don't think I'll ever be able to stop bowing or handing things over with my right hand as a sign of politeness and respect. My hands do half of my talking now, although I never grew up that way. The ways in which my travel has changed me from that girl from Northern England are many, some subtle and some not so subtle. I've become 'third culture'. While it's one thing to recognise that you're 'third culture', it can get quite weird as a 'third culture' Heathen. As Heathens, we're more aware of things like land, culture, folklore, and ancestry. In fact, a lot of us draw our Heathenry from those things. However what of those of us that don't have that same sense of belonging? I don't know, I don't have any answers. I make my offerings, I try to learn the land here as I learn the culture and that god-awful accent I use when ordering takeout on the phone, and I get by. I do more than get by though, over the years I've made some fantastic Heathen friends here, so at least I have community, good people to serve as an introduction and who I'm honoured to call friends, but the rest...yeah, that's probably something I'll be musing on for a while. This isn't a sad post, I don't regret my travels for one moment, I'd do it all again in a heartbeat. I've gained so much from my experiences and have hopefully set another layer in my family that will make it easier for others to follow in my steps. This post is just a musing.