I don't often post about more esoteric items on this blog. For the most part, I'm very private when it comes to this stuff and far more comfortable talking about more 'tangible' subjects, at least with strangers, and especially on the internet.
However more recently, I've found myself participating in groups focused on Seidr and Shamanism (even though I don't practice Shamanism in any sense - traditional or Harner-style, of the word). I dunno, I just guess I miss not having people around that I could talk to about this stuff, and bounce ideas off (once an appropriate level of comfort has been reached, of course!). What I've found for the most part, however, has been a complete trainwreck. Seriously, it's no surprise that mainstream Heathen communities generally consider those involved in the more esoteric side of things to be absolutely batshit crazy. This blog post, controversial as it is, is going to look at what I consider some of the most damaging and ridiculous aspects of this type of group.
N.B: While I generally disagree with the use of the word 'shaman/ism' outside of an Evenk context, for ease of reference in this post, I will however use the term.
Shaman Sickness and the Wounded Healer Archetype
Shaman sickness is one thing that I've seen talked about a lot in these groups. I would even hazard a guess that the percentage of sick (either physically or mentally) people in these groups is far higher than in more mainstream groups. However, if this is the case, why could this be? Moreover, in many cases that I've seen, why is it that the same kind of resolution recorded in traditional societies that have forms of 'shamanism', don't also seem to occur in these people? Why is it, that in spite of their alleged 'shamanic' status, these sick stay sick?
Traditional accounts of 'Shaman sickness' tend to speak of it as being a way for the spirits not only to get the attention of the would-be Shaman, but an elder shaman who would then train the shaman. To quote the Circle of Tengerism website (http://www.tengerism.org/becoming_a_shaman.html):
"The near-death experience of the shaman’s sickness is very traumatic. The would-be shaman suffers both mentally and physically. This is how the spirits get the attention of not only the afflicted, but of the local shaman. When the elder shaman is called to help, they would recognize the shaman’s sickness and take the afflicted as a student.
This does not mean that everyone who has a near-death experience is a shaman. It means that some people who have one have the potential to become a shaman. Those with the potential are called butur. Butur means “cocoon” in Mongolian. To grow into a shaman, they must accept the calling and be recognized and trained by an elder shaman."
Similar can be said of the Korean Mudang (shaman), and the shinbyeong (spirit sickness) that they exhibit, with the cure being the naerim-gut (initiation).
In other words, they don't stay sick, the sickness is temporary, as opposed to chronic, serving only as a vehicle for bringing a person to Shamanic practice.
However, in this new age sewage world, rather than being this vehicle to bring someone to the spirits, people seem to delight in the 'Wounded Healer' archetype, completely misunderstanding the original intent behind Jung's archetype. The person doesn't remain sick, the person is not constantly wounded in the sense of continual sickness or being physically affected, instead, to quote Jung's colleague, Kerenyi, the Wounded Healer refers psychologically to the ability “to be at home in the darkness of suffering and there to find germs of light and recovery with which, as though by enchantment, to bring forth Asclepius, the sunlike healer.” In other words, those that have not already suffered, cannot heal as they cannot understand suffering. It doesn't mean that the person still suffers personally (except perhaps through memories and striving to help others). It is not some kind of beacon for sick people to gather round.
Moreover, physical feats have been recorded of Shamans in various cultures, especially during trance. There is also an inherent danger recognised in traditional forms of shamanism, be that the exposure to danger of attack from other shamans or spirits, or death from some of the entheogens used. This suggests to me that the Shaman in these societies needs to be physically, as well as spiritually healthy and strong. Aside from issues of race and culture, I would posit that many apparent Western shamans wouldn't be considered as colleagues by shamans from traditional groups, simply on the basis of physical and mental health.
In my view, this also is bourn out from a Heathen perspective in that a person who is unhael physically cannot be hael spiritually. It's haelu across the board - but I'll get into more detail on that in the section on discernment.
Scholarship
Another trend I've seen in these groups has been a disdain for any kind of scholarship with regards to Seidr or shamanism. Obviously, one cannot practice Seidr and Scholarship, they're apparently not inclusive of each other...
Oh yeah, says who?
I see the charge that we can't possibly know what the Seidrworkers of old ever did, that we have no information about Seidr, and that no one ever asked a Seidrworker. This is one of best cop outs EVAR.
Because as we all know, NO ONE has ever relearned an ancient skill based on the descriptions or paintings produced by non-practitioners. The Danish archer Lars Anderson of course never learned how to fire arrows at a speed that modern master archers previously thought impossible, through looking at old sources and experimenting:
Go Legolas, go!
No, it's far better to go off UPG and the work of some white guy that basically ripped off a load of different shamanisms based in different cultures, and then plugged them into a framework provided by early 20th century scholarship by people like that Romanian fascist Eliade.
And of course, in order to sell more courses and books, you need to make it as inclusive as possible, right? Can't tell entitled rich Westerners that they can't be part of something that looks cool because of reasons like culture, and such like.
Once again, to turn to the Circle of Tengerism site (something which was founded to try and educate and preserve the native traditions of Mongolian Shamanism):
"One should also note that shamanism cannot be separated from the culture that it serves. It is interwoven into every aspect of the life and world view of the people. To take it out of its cultural context robs it of its power and meaning."
And perhaps more ironically:
"If anyone claims they can make you a shaman in one weekend for a fee, you should think twice. If you were to walk into a martial arts equipment store and buy a black belt, this would not make you a black belt. There are no quick fixes. Beware of spiritual consumerism."
I would argue that recovering the practice of Seidr needs to be a threefold process that involves experimentation, UPG, and yes...study as well.
Discernment
Another curse of these boards seems to be the lack of discernment. Indeed, I would consider discernment to be a key skill for those involved in any occult activity - a skill that's as important as protection. And yet, it doesn't really seem to get much talk time.
There are so many angles to this topic too, it's really huge, and covers everything from discernment in more esoteric work (e.g questions like 'What does this entity project itself as vs what is it really?', or 'what is really going on here, is another practitioner pulling the wool over my eyes in order to make a claim?'), to discernment in the people you work with (e.g their motivations, their actual abilities, their knowledge basis, and their intentions).
In other words, discernment is one of the most basic and important skills we can learn to protect ourselves - yet we often overlook it for things like a sense of belonging in a group.
Scholarship can also be very useful when it comes to discernment in a more esoteric sense. For example, your UPG says that the Morrigan is a kindly old grandmother that rides on a unicorn, but all the lore on the Morrigan says she's a battle goddess. Chances are, in cases like this, you're deluding yourself. You're not discerning between your own personal fantasies and genuine spiritual experience. This doesn't mean you're a terrible person, just your monkey brain got away on you and you need to work harder on more basic skills designed to harness the monkey brain.
You know, as opposed to having a temper tantrum that nothing is how you want it to be, and then blaming the 'inaccuracies' on 'those damn Christians'...again.
Other types of esoteric discernment are harder, and not really something that can be rendered in text. This is really where having a teacher of some kind would come in handy, and this leads us to perhaps the most important type of discernment of all - the discernment of people.
People involved in esoteric practices are often possessed of complex motivations, some of them are good, some not so good. For example, the 'teacher' of a friend basically used 'teaching Paganism' as an excuse for having sex at lots of different burial sites. These stories of people being taken advantage of are ten a-penny too. When it comes to people that you may end up working with on as intimate a level as esoteric work often demands, the need for discernment grows one hundred-fold. So, how can you tell the real 'teachers' from the fakes?
Here are my main questions when it comes to discerning people that would be good teachers:
* How are their lives? Messy? Productive? Is there growth in their lives or only decay? Are they healthy and robust, or are they constantly sick? Are they always having to 'fight spirits' or claiming to have been cursed over the most minor slights (real or imagined)? Generally speaking, good teachers have their lives in order, they're hael. Never follow an unhael teacher under the misguided belief that they are some kind of wounded healer, as we've already said, the wound doesn't continue, it's more of a reference point for helping to heal and build.
*How do they deal with disagreement? Do they cast the person they disagreed with out, or do they take the disagreement and respectfully continue to disagree? The reaction a person has to disagreements gives you a good clue to the egos involved, and whether or not they need validation from others to feel good. This need for validation and to be considered a great _____insert title here_____, may also point to a narcissistic personality. Pro-tip: These are to be avoided at all costs, because they often turn out to be worst abusers.
* How often do they employ 'Checksums' in their work? Be those Checksums from historical sources, or in terms of follow up/questioning of witnesses to different events. This can also go for a tendency to blame all things on spiritual causes and a lack of acceptance that 'shit happens', or even any kind of rational explanation.
*Have they ever claimed to speak for a god in order to tell people what to do (especially if what the 'god' is telling you to do is suspiciously what they themselves have tried to tell you)? If so, run like hell.
"Oh noes, someone I don't know on the internet said I'm not teh realz Seidrworkerz
Finally we come to the final thing I've seen on these groups - that of trying to discredit the abilities of those you disagree with. Of course, when ego is attacked, it's an easy fix - as good as claiming those you disagree with are really sekrit Christians in more mainstream Heathen groups.
And really, it's pathetic, it screams a level of butthurt and injured ego on the part of the accuser, that one almost has to feel sorry for. I mean, if your ego is so delicate that you need to try and remove a person completely from the equation because you can't deal with them being around, then you have issues. Moreover, what the hell is this need to be validated by strangers on the internet that have nothing to do with anything concrete in your life? It's ridiculous. If they don't contribute to your house, or your life (and you theirs), then why the hell should you care?
Really, why do they matter?
Simple answer: They shouldn't.
This rant from a random nameless person on the internet that you really probably shouldn't listen to was brought to you by the letters 'K' and 'X', and the numbers '3' and '9'.
Toodle pip!
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Saturday, August 3, 2013
OPEN HALLS PROJECT CALL TO ACTION
Open Halls Project Supporters! HEAR OUR CALL TO ACTION!!!!
Now that we have your attention.
The Open Halls Project is about to begin an endeavor, and we would appreciate any assistance and support that we can muster. Recently, the VA approved the Thor's Hammer as a headstone emblem. However, we still cannot choose Asatru or Heathen as our religious preference! We have attempted to process the request to add those terms, but CH(COL) Bryan Walker, of the Chief of Chaplains, has stated that the US Army and the DoD are preparing a new system that will allow philosophies and other religious preferences to be added more efficiently. However, his expected ETA for this change is 'several years.'
We've already processed this request twice, with the support of the Asatru Alliance and the Troth. That was over two years ago now and we are being told we will have to wait even longer. The OHP would like to initiate a letter writing campaign to our legislators, in the hopes that putting congressional pressure on the Department of the Army and the Department of Defense will have some positive effect. We specifically are calling on those who live in a district run by a member of either the House Armed Services Committee or the Senate Armed Services Committee. These are the folks that can really bring some political muscle to bear for us!
I've drafted a standardized form letter for folks to use, if you so desire. We have also been in communication with several of our allies, to help begin publicizing this action. We are hoping you will write to your Senators and to your Congressional representative, we have tried to be patient, and allow the system to work, but there is no need for us to wait several more years for our service members to have the ability to choose their religious preference on their official paperwork! We want to make sure that the religious needs of our service members are ensured and we hope that you will help us take action.
The form letter is posted as a link below.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/91wor6hgscuu79c/Draft%20Letter%20to%20Congress.docx">Form Letter
Please let us know of any interesting developments you hear about, by emailing us at heathenopenhalls@googlemail.com
Josh Heath - OHP
Now that we have your attention.
The Open Halls Project is about to begin an endeavor, and we would appreciate any assistance and support that we can muster. Recently, the VA approved the Thor's Hammer as a headstone emblem. However, we still cannot choose Asatru or Heathen as our religious preference! We have attempted to process the request to add those terms, but CH(COL) Bryan Walker, of the Chief of Chaplains, has stated that the US Army and the DoD are preparing a new system that will allow philosophies and other religious preferences to be added more efficiently. However, his expected ETA for this change is 'several years.'
We've already processed this request twice, with the support of the Asatru Alliance and the Troth. That was over two years ago now and we are being told we will have to wait even longer. The OHP would like to initiate a letter writing campaign to our legislators, in the hopes that putting congressional pressure on the Department of the Army and the Department of Defense will have some positive effect. We specifically are calling on those who live in a district run by a member of either the House Armed Services Committee or the Senate Armed Services Committee. These are the folks that can really bring some political muscle to bear for us!
I've drafted a standardized form letter for folks to use, if you so desire. We have also been in communication with several of our allies, to help begin publicizing this action. We are hoping you will write to your Senators and to your Congressional representative, we have tried to be patient, and allow the system to work, but there is no need for us to wait several more years for our service members to have the ability to choose their religious preference on their official paperwork! We want to make sure that the religious needs of our service members are ensured and we hope that you will help us take action.
The form letter is posted as a link below.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/91wor6hgscuu79c/Draft%20Letter%20to%20Congress.docx">Form Letter
Please let us know of any interesting developments you hear about, by emailing us at heathenopenhalls@googlemail.com
Josh Heath - OHP
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Finding Common Ground With Ancestors
When it comes to the question of ancestors and ancestor worship, the modern Heathen is in a peculiar situation. On the one hand, we know from archaeological evidence and various laws prohibiting the worship of the dead, that people in the Heathen period worshipped their ancestors. However, on the other hand, judging by the frequently asked questions that tend to crop up on ancestor worship, it can be hard to figure out how to honour your mostly-Christian ancestors, and still be a Heathen.
Indeed, if we are to honour our ancestors, one thing that we all need to face is that large numbers of them might not approve of us walking away from their religion. In a lot of ways, this is no different from navigating that ground with living relatives, and I think there are very few modern Heathens that haven't had to do this. Admittedly, I have been very lucky with my family in this. My family has a peculiar heritage of its own in that large chunks of my father's family were Spiritualists, and claimed clairvoyancy or healing. Having grown up with my own slew of strange stories linked to that heritage, I don't doubt any of those claims. Now one thing about spiritualism is that dead family receives a type of reverence. There is the sense that they haven't really gone anywhere after death, and that they're all still just hanging out watching over you. Or at least that's the mindset I grew up with when I was a kid. So with this in mind, ancestor worship should be easy for someone from a family like mine, right?
Well, in my experience, this isn't always the case. For while they may have believed in things like talking to the dead, and healing, and magic to some degree, they also had very definite ideas on *how* to do those things, and what lines should never be crossed.
When I was a kid, I would learn these lessons during my many chats with my father either late at night, or when he and I were travelling the country in his truck. As my father was mostly a healer, his lessons were based in that, and were something that I struggled with. It wasn't the kind of energy exercises he would teach me, or the surprise psychometry tests, or the going into trance thing, but the idea that I would ever have the same knack for it. Moreover, I thought their stuff, the stuff from my family was more than a little batshit crazy. After all, Spiritualism has all this weird turn of the century stuff going on in it, and it all seemed far too love and light for what I thought I needed to learn for dealing with the things in my bedroom that made it hard to sleep at night.
Over the years, I got further and further away from the ways of my father's family, and this wasn't a bad thing, I am who I am, my dad is who he is, and they were who they were. However like with living family, a gulf can arise where you feel their disapproval as surely as if they'd called you and screamed at you down the phone. Things don't feel 'right', offerings don't seem to go down well, and there's this sense of loneliness that comes.
With the living, the grievances are aired, and if your family is anything like mine, we all shout at each other, and then we're back to business as usual five minutes later. However you can't really do that with the dead, and sometimes, it might even take years to figure out what's not going right. At this point, some might say that some form of divination should have been done, or a Ouija board cracked out...except my family were against those things. For them, the only 'divination' acceptable was 'spirit', Hell, I've seen a ouija board session go really really well, and then when I've tried to call my family forth, it's gone completely dead. Nothing, nada, zilch.
The breakthrough came last month when my husband hurt his back, and I got the crazy idea to try and heal it by using some of the old family tricks. Settling down with him laid before me, I went into trance and began to channel the energy through me as my father had taught me, but then came to a point where I wasn't quite sure what to do. In spite of the whole 'not really feeling my family too much for a while and especially since I came to America' thing, I called out of them all the same. What I wasn't ready for, was 'hearing' my grandmother say 'FINALLY SHE GETS IT!', and Josh complaining I was prodding him in the back even though my hands were inches away. After I was done, he said it actually felt better, and by the end of the day, he was fine again.
So healing, the act of restoring haelu, of manipulating haelu for good seems to be the thing, the common ground that both I as a Heathen, and they as my ancestors can stand on.
And I think that's the thing, when we have those disconnects, as with our living relatives that we disagree with, I think the only way forward is to try and find our common ground with those ancestors that we feel in our lives, be that common ground a love of car racing, or healing, or a love of fine malts!
Our Ancestral Shrine
Indeed, if we are to honour our ancestors, one thing that we all need to face is that large numbers of them might not approve of us walking away from their religion. In a lot of ways, this is no different from navigating that ground with living relatives, and I think there are very few modern Heathens that haven't had to do this. Admittedly, I have been very lucky with my family in this. My family has a peculiar heritage of its own in that large chunks of my father's family were Spiritualists, and claimed clairvoyancy or healing. Having grown up with my own slew of strange stories linked to that heritage, I don't doubt any of those claims. Now one thing about spiritualism is that dead family receives a type of reverence. There is the sense that they haven't really gone anywhere after death, and that they're all still just hanging out watching over you. Or at least that's the mindset I grew up with when I was a kid. So with this in mind, ancestor worship should be easy for someone from a family like mine, right?
Well, in my experience, this isn't always the case. For while they may have believed in things like talking to the dead, and healing, and magic to some degree, they also had very definite ideas on *how* to do those things, and what lines should never be crossed.
When I was a kid, I would learn these lessons during my many chats with my father either late at night, or when he and I were travelling the country in his truck. As my father was mostly a healer, his lessons were based in that, and were something that I struggled with. It wasn't the kind of energy exercises he would teach me, or the surprise psychometry tests, or the going into trance thing, but the idea that I would ever have the same knack for it. Moreover, I thought their stuff, the stuff from my family was more than a little batshit crazy. After all, Spiritualism has all this weird turn of the century stuff going on in it, and it all seemed far too love and light for what I thought I needed to learn for dealing with the things in my bedroom that made it hard to sleep at night.
Over the years, I got further and further away from the ways of my father's family, and this wasn't a bad thing, I am who I am, my dad is who he is, and they were who they were. However like with living family, a gulf can arise where you feel their disapproval as surely as if they'd called you and screamed at you down the phone. Things don't feel 'right', offerings don't seem to go down well, and there's this sense of loneliness that comes.
With the living, the grievances are aired, and if your family is anything like mine, we all shout at each other, and then we're back to business as usual five minutes later. However you can't really do that with the dead, and sometimes, it might even take years to figure out what's not going right. At this point, some might say that some form of divination should have been done, or a Ouija board cracked out...except my family were against those things. For them, the only 'divination' acceptable was 'spirit', Hell, I've seen a ouija board session go really really well, and then when I've tried to call my family forth, it's gone completely dead. Nothing, nada, zilch.
The breakthrough came last month when my husband hurt his back, and I got the crazy idea to try and heal it by using some of the old family tricks. Settling down with him laid before me, I went into trance and began to channel the energy through me as my father had taught me, but then came to a point where I wasn't quite sure what to do. In spite of the whole 'not really feeling my family too much for a while and especially since I came to America' thing, I called out of them all the same. What I wasn't ready for, was 'hearing' my grandmother say 'FINALLY SHE GETS IT!', and Josh complaining I was prodding him in the back even though my hands were inches away. After I was done, he said it actually felt better, and by the end of the day, he was fine again.
So healing, the act of restoring haelu, of manipulating haelu for good seems to be the thing, the common ground that both I as a Heathen, and they as my ancestors can stand on.
And I think that's the thing, when we have those disconnects, as with our living relatives that we disagree with, I think the only way forward is to try and find our common ground with those ancestors that we feel in our lives, be that common ground a love of car racing, or healing, or a love of fine malts!
Our Ancestral ShrineMonday, May 6, 2013
The Rites of Spring
These past few weeks have been busy attending to what I can only describe as the 'rites of spring'. Spring is one of those times of the year that leaves me feeling conflicted. On the one hand, I love the life returning to the world, the new shoots, the warmth... the green. But on the other hand, I know that all the green comes with a price for me; namely that the green stuff often makes it hard for me to breathe.
Last year was hard, I was a new person in a new land that seemed to hate me. I know that's an illogical thought, but there were times when my asthma and allergies were so bad that I thought this land would be the death of me. I really didn't want to be here.
But this year has been different, I still have the allergies and asthma, but I don't feel quite so strange in this land, and I think a chunk of it is the garden. I don't think I'll ever get to the point where I can run again, or to the point where I was training for a 5k, but the simple acts of pottering in a garden, trying to grow food, and putting hands to dirt have been game changers for me. Our home at the moment isn't a forever home, but it's definitely a home as opposed to somewhere to lay our heads, and although it's still pretty strange and foreign to me at times, it's more of an adventure now to try and figure out what it all is.
This past couple of weeks have been one of working on a new god post, a birch post in honour of Frija. We found the wood for it in New Hampshire when we were visiting friends and in spite of having to largely improvise tools or work that bit harder to do certain tasks (like for example, using an axe and hammer instead of a chainsaw to trim it down), it's been very good experience. The biggest concern when doing any kind of carving for a holy object (at least for me), is that your work will not dishonour the deity you're attempting to honour. And it may seem kind of strange to be so detail-oriented for a post that is going to be veiled (I'm also embroidering her a veil because in our cultus, Frija is veiled and we are not to see her face), but again, it's about doing right by the deities you love, regardless of how many times you get 'bit' by your knives, gouges, and chisels. Once she's finished and ceremonially offered to/veiled, her face will not been seen again - except potentially at certain times of the year by members of the cultus. Along the line, I would also like to create a wain for her, but this is an ambitious project.
This time of the year seems perfect for this too, and there is something about this birthing a new statue at the same time as the world is coming back to life that seems particularly apt to me.
Last week/weekend, we celebrated Beltane, both at home and at a marvellous local Pagan festival which was as raucous and as fun as Beltane should be. For me though, the highlight of the weekend was our planting ritual that we had yesterday, and which I'm going to talk a little about because I don't think we do that enough - talk about the 'small' rituals of our lives. We all talk about the big rituals and the big blots we go to and participate in, but it's far rarer that we talk about the day to day honouring of our gods, ancestors and the local landwihts. And for me, that is the 'meat' of Heathenry. It's in the everyday, it's in how you see what you do when you're doing the most mundane of tasks, it's in how you try to make your lives/families/communities hael/more hael through your actions and it's the millions of small actions repeated over time that count far more than the occasional large acts. At least in my opinion, for the first is indicative of a lifestyle and worldview as opposed to a weekend activity choice.
For weeks, we've been preparing for our garden, getting the seeds, learning, and planning how we were going to do it. We'd had our tomatoes and herbs started indoors, and our potatoes planted before the last frost of the year. To say we were excited about the actual planting would be an understatement. But we really wanted to do something to honour the land, the Eorthan Modor, before we touched tool to earth to dig the plot, and so we decided on an adapted version of the Old English Aecerbot charm.
The actual charm is really quite complex, and has Christian overtones, but the idea of burying offerings in each corner of our growing land was one that felt very right to us and so our simplified version involved the blessing of eggs, apples and tobacco (eggs for new life/new starts, apples as an offering to our ancestors - common in our families, and tobacco for the spirits of this land), a blessing of our tools, and burying the offerings before digging the plot.
We began just before sunset, saying prayers of blessing over our offering items and the tools we would use to work the land with, and then processed to each corner where I had pre-dug a hole with a completely different spade than the ones we would continue to use. Adding the items to the hole, I then chanted a section of the 'Erce, Erce, Erce' refrain before we buried each carefully. Once this was complete, we grabbed our tools and began to dig and today we planted seeds.
A little blurry, but you get the idea!
We're hoping for potatoes, beans, carrots, squash, pumpkin, scallions, tomatoes and herbs. We're hoping to put good, hael food on our table instead of the crap that is sold at the store, what's more, we're hoping for yet another fulfilling tradition we can pass on to any children we have.
Potatoes
Happy Spring!
Last year was hard, I was a new person in a new land that seemed to hate me. I know that's an illogical thought, but there were times when my asthma and allergies were so bad that I thought this land would be the death of me. I really didn't want to be here.
But this year has been different, I still have the allergies and asthma, but I don't feel quite so strange in this land, and I think a chunk of it is the garden. I don't think I'll ever get to the point where I can run again, or to the point where I was training for a 5k, but the simple acts of pottering in a garden, trying to grow food, and putting hands to dirt have been game changers for me. Our home at the moment isn't a forever home, but it's definitely a home as opposed to somewhere to lay our heads, and although it's still pretty strange and foreign to me at times, it's more of an adventure now to try and figure out what it all is.
This past couple of weeks have been one of working on a new god post, a birch post in honour of Frija. We found the wood for it in New Hampshire when we were visiting friends and in spite of having to largely improvise tools or work that bit harder to do certain tasks (like for example, using an axe and hammer instead of a chainsaw to trim it down), it's been very good experience. The biggest concern when doing any kind of carving for a holy object (at least for me), is that your work will not dishonour the deity you're attempting to honour. And it may seem kind of strange to be so detail-oriented for a post that is going to be veiled (I'm also embroidering her a veil because in our cultus, Frija is veiled and we are not to see her face), but again, it's about doing right by the deities you love, regardless of how many times you get 'bit' by your knives, gouges, and chisels. Once she's finished and ceremonially offered to/veiled, her face will not been seen again - except potentially at certain times of the year by members of the cultus. Along the line, I would also like to create a wain for her, but this is an ambitious project.
This time of the year seems perfect for this too, and there is something about this birthing a new statue at the same time as the world is coming back to life that seems particularly apt to me.
Last week/weekend, we celebrated Beltane, both at home and at a marvellous local Pagan festival which was as raucous and as fun as Beltane should be. For me though, the highlight of the weekend was our planting ritual that we had yesterday, and which I'm going to talk a little about because I don't think we do that enough - talk about the 'small' rituals of our lives. We all talk about the big rituals and the big blots we go to and participate in, but it's far rarer that we talk about the day to day honouring of our gods, ancestors and the local landwihts. And for me, that is the 'meat' of Heathenry. It's in the everyday, it's in how you see what you do when you're doing the most mundane of tasks, it's in how you try to make your lives/families/communities hael/more hael through your actions and it's the millions of small actions repeated over time that count far more than the occasional large acts. At least in my opinion, for the first is indicative of a lifestyle and worldview as opposed to a weekend activity choice.
For weeks, we've been preparing for our garden, getting the seeds, learning, and planning how we were going to do it. We'd had our tomatoes and herbs started indoors, and our potatoes planted before the last frost of the year. To say we were excited about the actual planting would be an understatement. But we really wanted to do something to honour the land, the Eorthan Modor, before we touched tool to earth to dig the plot, and so we decided on an adapted version of the Old English Aecerbot charm.
The actual charm is really quite complex, and has Christian overtones, but the idea of burying offerings in each corner of our growing land was one that felt very right to us and so our simplified version involved the blessing of eggs, apples and tobacco (eggs for new life/new starts, apples as an offering to our ancestors - common in our families, and tobacco for the spirits of this land), a blessing of our tools, and burying the offerings before digging the plot.
We began just before sunset, saying prayers of blessing over our offering items and the tools we would use to work the land with, and then processed to each corner where I had pre-dug a hole with a completely different spade than the ones we would continue to use. Adding the items to the hole, I then chanted a section of the 'Erce, Erce, Erce' refrain before we buried each carefully. Once this was complete, we grabbed our tools and began to dig and today we planted seeds.
A little blurry, but you get the idea!
We're hoping for potatoes, beans, carrots, squash, pumpkin, scallions, tomatoes and herbs. We're hoping to put good, hael food on our table instead of the crap that is sold at the store, what's more, we're hoping for yet another fulfilling tradition we can pass on to any children we have.
Potatoes
Happy Spring!
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Pagans
I have a confession to make.
I have a LOT of Pagan friends, friends that I hold dear and value, friends that I've known for years. You see, I'm from that weird little island in the North sea where people drink a lot of tea, Druidses like Ed Prynn collect standing stones in their back yard, and Pagans and Heathens often hang out together.
Or at least they did when I was last living there.
But there is one wee bugbear I do have with some Pagans, and that's the assumption that Heathens are just a slightly different flavour of generic Paganism...or Paganism with Norse trappings. I don't blame these people, they're generally good people and a lot of the information out there about Heathenry from things like those Heathen 101-type books really don't do us any favours.
There are also certain assumptions within the Pagan community of what a Pagan is to contend with (note, this is all going to be UK-specific, or based in experiences with UK Pagan communities); for example, there's the assumption that everyone is a soft polytheist that worships 'The Goddess', or that all Pagans cast circles, or hell, even that the pentacle is a universal symbol!
These were all things that bugged me when I used to hang out with my Pagan friends in the UK, in all honesty it bugged them too, because just like Heathenry, Paganism is a vast and varied beast of a term that encompasses many different worldviews. One term we had for this was the 'wicca-borg', and note that I spell 'Wicca' with a small 'w' in that term! Which is yet again another UK differentiation...the practice of spelling lineaged Wicca with an uppercase 'W', and non-lineaged with a lower case. A far more derogatory term for the small 'w' wiccans is calling them an IRAB, which is an acronym for 'I read a book'. All this sounds quite nasty, but so is not having your differences respected, or even patronised for your differences!
And yes, that does happen! I've actually had the experience before now of being told that I wasn't as 'enlightened' as this particular individual because I'm a hard polytheist!
Moreover, it's not just we Heathens that feel this way or have these experiences, I know Hellenic Pagans and Tradcrafters that have had the same issues (using the term 'Tradcrafter' in the UK sense here, as opposed to the American usage of British Traditional Wicca). And talking of Wicca (note the upper case), I've had Gardnerian friends express dismay at the way that parts of their practice (as corrupted as those parts are so as to keep within the bounds of Craft oaths) have formed the basis for this ecumenical wicca-borg.
There are reasons why we Heathens tend to get on well with Wiccans as opposed to wiccans. Part of it is the years of study they put in, but another part is the awareness of group to group differences. Wiccans get that we don't see things the same and they often enjoy talking about and debating those differences.
And that's what it comes down to at the end of the day, acknowledging and respecting our differences while finding the common ground we do have and partying heartily on it!
We Heathens are hard polytheists, for us it's disrespectful to consider our gods to be aspects, but I'm cool with you doing that in your practice because it is your practice and I'm cool with other people having different traditions and beliefs.
We Heathens don't generally cast circles, but there is some literature out there from the older generation of Heathens that was admittedly far more influenced by Wicca/wicca than we tend to be now that feature something called the 'Hammer Rite'. Most Heathens don't cast a circle (except for groups that have been around for years and for whom it's become traditional), for example some of us walk the boundary of the area we're working in with flame while singing a chant, and that boundary doesn't have to be a circle, it can be any shape!
We Heathens have a myriad of symbols but the pentacle isn't one of them, nor does it have any meaning to us.
We also don't believe in reincarnation...well a minority of people do, but they're a minority and it's not a widely held belief.
But most importantly, there is no such thing as 'we' Heathens and I've been very naughty to write using the term 'we Heathens'as we have neither orthodoxy nor orthopraxy and each group varies from the next. Each group of Heathens has its own culture, its own ways of worship, its own worldview when it comes to how the gods are seen, what role the gods play, the etiquette that should be observed around a Ve/Weoh/shrine,its own rules and its own traditions. Unfortunately these differences aren't always respected within Heathenry, but things are changing, more Heathens are actually asking each other what their ways are are and respecting the difference as opposed to just assuming that because person A is a 'Heathen', they're the same.
To me, this is a very positive change, and a direction that I hope Pagan communities are also moving in. We don't all have to be the same to stand shoulder to shoulder as allies, and our common ground is quite a large and fertile patch. It's one that is seeded with friendship and marriage, it's one that knows the same pressures of living in a larger society that can be downright hostile to us, it's one that appreciates the value of good friends and good times, and it's one that I've personally missed since moving over here.
So I'll be getting my Beltane on at a local festival, which I know...isn't considered particularly Heathen, but this Heathen is from that island in the North sea that drinks entirely too much tea, and that has Beltane celebrations all over.
I'm sure they won't set literally everything on fire like they do back home, but I'm sure it'll be a load of fun all the same :).
I have a LOT of Pagan friends, friends that I hold dear and value, friends that I've known for years. You see, I'm from that weird little island in the North sea where people drink a lot of tea, Druidses like Ed Prynn collect standing stones in their back yard, and Pagans and Heathens often hang out together.
Or at least they did when I was last living there.
But there is one wee bugbear I do have with some Pagans, and that's the assumption that Heathens are just a slightly different flavour of generic Paganism...or Paganism with Norse trappings. I don't blame these people, they're generally good people and a lot of the information out there about Heathenry from things like those Heathen 101-type books really don't do us any favours.
There are also certain assumptions within the Pagan community of what a Pagan is to contend with (note, this is all going to be UK-specific, or based in experiences with UK Pagan communities); for example, there's the assumption that everyone is a soft polytheist that worships 'The Goddess', or that all Pagans cast circles, or hell, even that the pentacle is a universal symbol!
These were all things that bugged me when I used to hang out with my Pagan friends in the UK, in all honesty it bugged them too, because just like Heathenry, Paganism is a vast and varied beast of a term that encompasses many different worldviews. One term we had for this was the 'wicca-borg', and note that I spell 'Wicca' with a small 'w' in that term! Which is yet again another UK differentiation...the practice of spelling lineaged Wicca with an uppercase 'W', and non-lineaged with a lower case. A far more derogatory term for the small 'w' wiccans is calling them an IRAB, which is an acronym for 'I read a book'. All this sounds quite nasty, but so is not having your differences respected, or even patronised for your differences!
And yes, that does happen! I've actually had the experience before now of being told that I wasn't as 'enlightened' as this particular individual because I'm a hard polytheist!
Moreover, it's not just we Heathens that feel this way or have these experiences, I know Hellenic Pagans and Tradcrafters that have had the same issues (using the term 'Tradcrafter' in the UK sense here, as opposed to the American usage of British Traditional Wicca). And talking of Wicca (note the upper case), I've had Gardnerian friends express dismay at the way that parts of their practice (as corrupted as those parts are so as to keep within the bounds of Craft oaths) have formed the basis for this ecumenical wicca-borg.
There are reasons why we Heathens tend to get on well with Wiccans as opposed to wiccans. Part of it is the years of study they put in, but another part is the awareness of group to group differences. Wiccans get that we don't see things the same and they often enjoy talking about and debating those differences.
And that's what it comes down to at the end of the day, acknowledging and respecting our differences while finding the common ground we do have and partying heartily on it!
We Heathens are hard polytheists, for us it's disrespectful to consider our gods to be aspects, but I'm cool with you doing that in your practice because it is your practice and I'm cool with other people having different traditions and beliefs.
We Heathens don't generally cast circles, but there is some literature out there from the older generation of Heathens that was admittedly far more influenced by Wicca/wicca than we tend to be now that feature something called the 'Hammer Rite'. Most Heathens don't cast a circle (except for groups that have been around for years and for whom it's become traditional), for example some of us walk the boundary of the area we're working in with flame while singing a chant, and that boundary doesn't have to be a circle, it can be any shape!
We Heathens have a myriad of symbols but the pentacle isn't one of them, nor does it have any meaning to us.
We also don't believe in reincarnation...well a minority of people do, but they're a minority and it's not a widely held belief.
But most importantly, there is no such thing as 'we' Heathens and I've been very naughty to write using the term 'we Heathens'as we have neither orthodoxy nor orthopraxy and each group varies from the next. Each group of Heathens has its own culture, its own ways of worship, its own worldview when it comes to how the gods are seen, what role the gods play, the etiquette that should be observed around a Ve/Weoh/shrine,its own rules and its own traditions. Unfortunately these differences aren't always respected within Heathenry, but things are changing, more Heathens are actually asking each other what their ways are are and respecting the difference as opposed to just assuming that because person A is a 'Heathen', they're the same.
To me, this is a very positive change, and a direction that I hope Pagan communities are also moving in. We don't all have to be the same to stand shoulder to shoulder as allies, and our common ground is quite a large and fertile patch. It's one that is seeded with friendship and marriage, it's one that knows the same pressures of living in a larger society that can be downright hostile to us, it's one that appreciates the value of good friends and good times, and it's one that I've personally missed since moving over here.
So I'll be getting my Beltane on at a local festival, which I know...isn't considered particularly Heathen, but this Heathen is from that island in the North sea that drinks entirely too much tea, and that has Beltane celebrations all over.
I'm sure they won't set literally everything on fire like they do back home, but I'm sure it'll be a load of fun all the same :).
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Disposable People
So guess who's bringing the polemic again?
Over the past few weeks, I've been musing over the nature of community, and more specifically how modern Heathen communities function.
Even *more* specifically, I've been paying special attention to how communities deal with those among their number that are different, or contrary to the general sidu of the community.
Generally speaking, most Heathen communities strive to work on the basis that they're a group of people who are vaguely co-religionists, that also share common values. We often talk about only allowing 'people of quality' into the community, like the community we're talking about is some fancy schmancy gated community in some posh into which no riff-raff shall be admitted.
The reality is that we're actually many separate individuals, couples and groups that are separated by distance. We generally spend more time with those closest to us geographically, but our interactions with the rest of the community are far fewer; perhaps a yearly Thing.
But then there's the internet..
Oh boy, and does it cause trouble!
In person, we can see the person we're talking to, we can see their facial expressions, and body language. We can't just pretend that it's a name on a screen and 'not a real person'. In other words we're far less likely to be dicks to each other, because in person, the consequences for being dicks are far more immediate (not to mention unpleasant!).
But the majority of Heathen interaction - even among established communities - tends to take place online.
This isn't automatically a bad thing, but I think it's been harmful in some ways.
Ladies and Gentleman, I give you the concept of the 'Disposable Person'.
So what is the 'Disposable Person'?
We Heathens are community animals, we're also animals to whom reputation and worth mean so much. This isn't a bad thing - after all, it's our way of protecting ourselves against people coming in that would harm the wider community - our way of weeding out the monstrous.
However, have we lost sight of what 'monstrous' really is? Moreover, is this causing us more damage in the long run?
If you spend time around any community, you'll find that some people seem to have far more of a leeway than others, and that a trait that's considered to be far too negative for inclusion in the community in one person is completely overlooked in another. Communities are full of contradictions like that - it's only natural - we're humans, we network, and we're always more likely to overlook when our friends fuck up than people we barely know.
Two traits in particular, which seem to make a person more likely to become one of these 'disposable' people are being anything resembling a Seidr-worker, or being a 'Lokean'.
People that first come to a community claiming to be Seidr workers or discussing related topics tend to be treated in a far more guarded way than those that don't, and will probably find it much harder to even get into a community in the long run. I get it, it can be annoying being told how someone can do all this magic woo woo when you haven't even got a clue what type of person they are in more concrete terms. But often times, people that do this are just *so* damn excited to come across others that might have even the slightest idea of what they're on about. We all want to belong, we all want community, and if people can't find that community with decent folk, then sooner or later the chances are that they'll find it with folk considered to be far less scrupulous and become part of a larger problem. Ironically, more often than not, in the communities that hold the reputations for being more against Seidr, some of the most prominent members are Seidr workers themselves! So what gives? Is it a case of 'Witch Positions Filled: currently not accepting applications from newcomers!'? Or is it just that those people became a part of the community in a time when the pendulum of opinion was slightly less on the 'anti' side of things?
Even worse than being a Seidrworker though, is being a 'Lokean'.
The more I think about the term 'Lokean', the more it annoys the shit out of me. It's an almost henotheistic term (putting aside debates about Loki's alleged godhood for a moment), it implies that Loki is your personal Jesus as opposed to a god you also offer to, or even predominantly offer to. It's like drawing a big fat line between yourself and everyone else, then putting up neon lights with 'LOOK AT ME, I'M DIFFERENT' on them.
Now I'm not saying that if you worship Loki, that you should hide it, that you should crawl into a hole and just disappear - not at all. It's just...is that the entire point of your Heathenry; being a 'Lokean'?
And this is a great point, all of us, both in community and out, 'Lokean' or not, focus on the point of difference rather than commonalities.
Common ground is a great thing, common ground can be built upon, whereas just drawing some big-ass dividing line between two camps does nothing but cause trouble and eventually persecution complexes among the smaller of the two groups. Sooner or later that persecution almost becomes the identifier of the smaller group, their rallying cry, and the romance of the underdog is gained.
When we deal with people that say that they offer to Loki, the instant reactions ranging from long explanations of why people shouldn't offer to Loki, to expletives, are really not helpful. They do nothing for any of us. It is not the place for us to tell others what they do in their own homes. At Things we host, yes, we can stipulate which deities and practices are within keeping with the sidu of the Thing, but we can't tell others what they do in their own halls.
And really, when it comes down to it, should we judge them for their Loki worship before their deeds?
I know a few people that offer to Loki back in Europe, they're friends, and I daresay some of you reading this blog will know some of them too. You'd also probably stand at blot with them and may even call them 'kin'. You know them to be good people, you know that their deeds speak for themselves.
I would love to see a day when the 'Loki thing' is a non-issue. I would love to see someone introduce themselves either in meatspace or online as someone that offers to Loki, and it to be met with something as casual as 'yeah Loki? Not my thing, dude...now kite flying, now you're talking!' . I would love to see those that offer to Loki accepting when it's not someone else's thing and I would love to see people looking for common ground and getting to know each other as people. Mostly, I would love to see certain groups that exploit the lack of acceptance of those that worship Loki lose members, eventually lose popularity and that underdog martyr mystique, and eventually disappear - no longer relevant to anything or anyone.
I would love to see us stop treating others as 'Disposable People'.
Over the past few weeks, I've been musing over the nature of community, and more specifically how modern Heathen communities function.
Even *more* specifically, I've been paying special attention to how communities deal with those among their number that are different, or contrary to the general sidu of the community.
Generally speaking, most Heathen communities strive to work on the basis that they're a group of people who are vaguely co-religionists, that also share common values. We often talk about only allowing 'people of quality' into the community, like the community we're talking about is some fancy schmancy gated community in some posh into which no riff-raff shall be admitted.
The reality is that we're actually many separate individuals, couples and groups that are separated by distance. We generally spend more time with those closest to us geographically, but our interactions with the rest of the community are far fewer; perhaps a yearly Thing.
But then there's the internet..
Oh boy, and does it cause trouble!
In person, we can see the person we're talking to, we can see their facial expressions, and body language. We can't just pretend that it's a name on a screen and 'not a real person'. In other words we're far less likely to be dicks to each other, because in person, the consequences for being dicks are far more immediate (not to mention unpleasant!).
But the majority of Heathen interaction - even among established communities - tends to take place online.
This isn't automatically a bad thing, but I think it's been harmful in some ways.
Ladies and Gentleman, I give you the concept of the 'Disposable Person'.
So what is the 'Disposable Person'?
We Heathens are community animals, we're also animals to whom reputation and worth mean so much. This isn't a bad thing - after all, it's our way of protecting ourselves against people coming in that would harm the wider community - our way of weeding out the monstrous.
However, have we lost sight of what 'monstrous' really is? Moreover, is this causing us more damage in the long run?
If you spend time around any community, you'll find that some people seem to have far more of a leeway than others, and that a trait that's considered to be far too negative for inclusion in the community in one person is completely overlooked in another. Communities are full of contradictions like that - it's only natural - we're humans, we network, and we're always more likely to overlook when our friends fuck up than people we barely know.
Two traits in particular, which seem to make a person more likely to become one of these 'disposable' people are being anything resembling a Seidr-worker, or being a 'Lokean'.
People that first come to a community claiming to be Seidr workers or discussing related topics tend to be treated in a far more guarded way than those that don't, and will probably find it much harder to even get into a community in the long run. I get it, it can be annoying being told how someone can do all this magic woo woo when you haven't even got a clue what type of person they are in more concrete terms. But often times, people that do this are just *so* damn excited to come across others that might have even the slightest idea of what they're on about. We all want to belong, we all want community, and if people can't find that community with decent folk, then sooner or later the chances are that they'll find it with folk considered to be far less scrupulous and become part of a larger problem. Ironically, more often than not, in the communities that hold the reputations for being more against Seidr, some of the most prominent members are Seidr workers themselves! So what gives? Is it a case of 'Witch Positions Filled: currently not accepting applications from newcomers!'? Or is it just that those people became a part of the community in a time when the pendulum of opinion was slightly less on the 'anti' side of things?
Even worse than being a Seidrworker though, is being a 'Lokean'.
The more I think about the term 'Lokean', the more it annoys the shit out of me. It's an almost henotheistic term (putting aside debates about Loki's alleged godhood for a moment), it implies that Loki is your personal Jesus as opposed to a god you also offer to, or even predominantly offer to. It's like drawing a big fat line between yourself and everyone else, then putting up neon lights with 'LOOK AT ME, I'M DIFFERENT' on them.
Now I'm not saying that if you worship Loki, that you should hide it, that you should crawl into a hole and just disappear - not at all. It's just...is that the entire point of your Heathenry; being a 'Lokean'?
And this is a great point, all of us, both in community and out, 'Lokean' or not, focus on the point of difference rather than commonalities.
Common ground is a great thing, common ground can be built upon, whereas just drawing some big-ass dividing line between two camps does nothing but cause trouble and eventually persecution complexes among the smaller of the two groups. Sooner or later that persecution almost becomes the identifier of the smaller group, their rallying cry, and the romance of the underdog is gained.
When we deal with people that say that they offer to Loki, the instant reactions ranging from long explanations of why people shouldn't offer to Loki, to expletives, are really not helpful. They do nothing for any of us. It is not the place for us to tell others what they do in their own homes. At Things we host, yes, we can stipulate which deities and practices are within keeping with the sidu of the Thing, but we can't tell others what they do in their own halls.
And really, when it comes down to it, should we judge them for their Loki worship before their deeds?
I know a few people that offer to Loki back in Europe, they're friends, and I daresay some of you reading this blog will know some of them too. You'd also probably stand at blot with them and may even call them 'kin'. You know them to be good people, you know that their deeds speak for themselves.
I would love to see a day when the 'Loki thing' is a non-issue. I would love to see someone introduce themselves either in meatspace or online as someone that offers to Loki, and it to be met with something as casual as 'yeah Loki? Not my thing, dude...now kite flying, now you're talking!' . I would love to see those that offer to Loki accepting when it's not someone else's thing and I would love to see people looking for common ground and getting to know each other as people. Mostly, I would love to see certain groups that exploit the lack of acceptance of those that worship Loki lose members, eventually lose popularity and that underdog martyr mystique, and eventually disappear - no longer relevant to anything or anyone.
I would love to see us stop treating others as 'Disposable People'.
Friday, March 22, 2013
A Writer's Prayer To The Allfather
Oski they call you
Wish-bringer
Os
Mouth, father of all language
His word-hoard unending
His skill, endless
Words come to life
their meanings he moulds well
Inspiration flows swift and clear
Though from a cool spring
Under the world-tree
Refreshing
A shock to the mind that quickens the heart
Inspire me wielder of words
Guide me, lord of language
Help me always find
Words to move the hardest heart and reach the toughest mind
Wish-bringer
Os
Mouth, father of all language
His word-hoard unending
His skill, endless
Words come to life
their meanings he moulds well
Inspiration flows swift and clear
Though from a cool spring
Under the world-tree
Refreshing
A shock to the mind that quickens the heart
Inspire me wielder of words
Guide me, lord of language
Help me always find
Words to move the hardest heart and reach the toughest mind
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