I guess I should give fair warning and say outright that this is a post that is probably going to offend a few people.
But I can't not say this anymore. It's been eating at me and pissing me off for about a week now, ever since I saw the usual claims from Folkish Heathens that they somehow have a 'right' to decide who gets to be a Heathen based on ancestry and blood.
Now it's all well and good saying that you don't understand why someone that's not of Northern European ancestry would be interested in something that is as intrinsically linked to culture and reverence for ancestors as Heathenry is. I couldn't imagine ever being Santeria, I simply don't have those cultural/linguistic/ancestral links, or an inner calling to do the requisite work to join a community. I know people though, who are involved in Santeria without those cultural and ancestral links and who did do that work and find much fulfillment in those ways. Horses for courses.
But it's quite another to deny that people of different ancestries don't have a right, like you're some kind of appointed gatekeeper who gets to judge if each person is 'Northern European' enough to qualify.
And it's quite another when those people that feel they have the right to do this judging aren't even Northern Europeans.
Yep, you heard me. Being a whitey born in America with ancestors that were from Northern Europe doesn't make you Northern European. Not in the slightest. You're American.
And let's not even kid ourselves that it is somehow about ancestry and 'having the right blood'. How many people of colour have some European ancestry? I'll give you a clue – lots of them. Some of it from intermarriage, some of it because their ancestors also came from Europe and some because at some point, somewhere, some guy of Northern European ancestry thought he had the right to rape a woman because she wasn't white and he considered her to be nothing more than a domestic animal, to be used and abused as he wished.
Yes, let's not get away from that one, especially not if there are going to be 'race traitor' allegations being thrown around. According to the typical White Supremacist view of things, their own antecedents in terms of ideology would be the biggest and first 'race traitors' in America.
Another funny thing about claiming to follow the ways of ones ancestors and the 'wrongness' of blowing off the ways of one's ancestors for something new, is that the vast majority of modern Heathens have done just that by eschewing about a thousand or so years of ancestors and their Christian/Jewish ways for Heathenry.
And really, does this judgement ever really come down to having the magical number of drops of the 'right' kind of blood? Or the 'right' ancestors? No, let's not kid ourselves here either, it's about skin colour.
Regardless of the fact that that has FUCK all to do with any kind of historical Heathenry. Yes, Scandinavians did have slaves, but a Norwegian could just as easily take a Swede for a slave as an Irish person or someone of colour.
At the end of the day, 'folk' was defined by 'us' as opposed to 'not us'. Usually this was down to kith and kin, but entry in communities could be gained through proving oneself to the community, learning the community ways and taking them for one's own.
And here we come to perhaps the most polemic point of this entire post.
This using 'Northern European' as though it's just representative of just one set of beliefs, customs and traditions, has got to stop. Northern Europe is a varied place. We are not the same culture or peoples to be lumped into some kind of a monoculture because it fits the needs of Folkish Heathenry.
Also, unless you were born and raised in Northern Europe, you're not Northern European. You can enter into the culture at a later stage through becoming a part of a community, learning the language (if it's different), learning the customs and being accepted. You still wouldn't be Northern European, but you'd be a member of the community and a part of the culture – adopted if you will. If you were born on American soil, even to parents that came from Northern Europe, you're still American. You still grew up in one of the many American cultures (which btw isn't Northern European but I will concede that some still have certain aspects).
And you know what? There is FUCK all wrong with being an American and tackling Heathenry from an American POV. Hell, I'm loving the different Heathen cultures that are springing up in different parts of the US and the geographical differences and similarities that we're seeing coming up. That's great because generations of your American ancestors have given their blood, sweat and tears to give you what you have today, their bones lie in the land of your birth, now it's time for you to continue building on that and claim that birthright instead of trying to lay claims to things that simply aren't yours but were at one point. Americans are diverse people too...just something to think on.
In 874, a new land was settled and Heathen peoples figured out ways to still be Heathen in a land that was strange and had its own beings. They learned new ways of working, stopped looking towards Norway for anything but supplies and their worldview changed, they became distinctively Icelandic Heathens.
This is a great example for American Heathens to follow and be inspired by.
Oh and to the 'gatekeepers' in the American communities, the gate/s isn't/aren't yours, so piss off!!!
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Friday, May 6, 2011
Lancashire Moorland Fires
I'm upset. Not on a day to day level, but a deep down level, down to my core.
I grew up in a town on the foothills of the West Pennine Moors. From a young age, I've walked that boggy moorland, learned how to walk, where to walk, how to see where I'm going in the thickest of fog and I know all this sounds easy. It's easy to walk, right? One foot in front of the other, yeah? Not on this kind of moorland. It's a peat bog/moorland. The landscape alternates between quagmire and tussocks. You learn to move, to spring, to judge the grasses, the lay of the land. You learn to judge the clouds, the wind, the fog. You learn not only to survive but thrive and enjoy one of the most inhospitable and barren places on the earth. Not only that, but you crave it, it becomes a part of you. You want to see it, to be in those uplands, that wild, barren space and the only place in the whole wide world where you truly feel like you can breathe.
Now that area I love, those places, are burning and have been burning for the past seven days. It's peat, the fire doesn't extinguish easily -if they get it to extinguish. Sometimes peat fires can continue to burn underground, working their way through the underground peat layer, until some poor soul (or the ground becomes weak enough on its own) causes a fall in. Then oxygen meets smouldering peat, someone/something gets incinerated and a fire is sparked anew. Don't believe me? There are peat fires in Indonesia that have been smouldering since 1997. Sometimes fire services *can't* put peat out.
The average moorland fire is fast, very fast. Like orange, red and yellow tongues devouring entire masses of land at breakneck speed. When I was younger, I learned that if I were to be caught in a moorland fire, to put on all of my survival clothes (waterproofs), hoods up, to douse myself in my entire water supply and to dig into the land. Don't leave any skin/flammable surface undowsed and to just let it pass overhead. I know people who have done this. They've dowsed, dug in, survived and continued to walk the charred moor left in the wake. In spite of how easy they are to survive, I resolved never to get in one of those. The one time I nearly was, I ran as fast as I could to the nearest body of water.
But these fires aren't as quick, as surface. These fires are igniting the earth itself.
And I have an impending move to another continent coming up. One I am very apprehensive about. One of my biggest draws back to my homeland is that land. That barren highland where I feel like I can breathe. When I was younger and going through a lot of issues, that was where I laid my troubles. I'd walk until I wept and then I'd continue to walk until I'd found my peace and happiness again. I feel like it's been torn away from me. People are saying that it'll take about 30 years for it to be what it was again. I just wanted one more chance to walk those hills before I left again.No matter how far or how long I roam, that land is what I still crave. The place where land meets sky.
Monday, April 18, 2011
More on Gandr and the bare basics of Heathenry (IMO)
In my previous post, I talked about the gandr/gandus as being something akin to the hamr as opposed to being some kind of spirit helper in the neo-shamanic sense. Well, a rereading of Eldar Heid's paper 'Spinning Seidr' has shown me that I wasn't too far off the mark in this assessment. He however, most excitingly for me, links the gandr to spinning too!
My studies on gandr have been a gateway to this view. In several sources, gandr is a designation of such a mind-in-shape emissary that the seiðr performer could send forth. This is evident in the description of the Saami noaidi séance in Historia Norwegie (60–63), and is the most reasonable interpretation also in Fóstbrœðra saga (243), Þiðriks saga (303–04) and Þorsteins þáttr bœjarmagns (76). Several of the early eighteenth-century sources for Saami religion also support this view (Heide 2002:77ff). The word gandr is still in use in Norwegian and Icelandic, and modern Icelandic also has retained the derivative gondull, as göndull. Some of the meanings of these words connect them with spinning. In Modern Icelandic, göndull may mean ‘coarse yarn’ and other twisted items (Sigfús Blöndal 920:282). Gand in modern Northern Norwegian may mean ‘spinning top propelled by a string’ (Aasen 873:207), which closely resembles a spindle twirling on the floor (using a certain spinning technique). These or related meanings of gandr/gand and g ̨ndull/göndull probably existed in Old Norse, as there was not much contact between Northern Norway and Iceland after the Middle Ages.If so, the “spinning” or “twisting” meanings of gand/göndull suggest that the mind emissary that the seiðr performer could send forth could be conceived as something spun or spinning.
Source: Spinning Seidr
So yet again, we're back to spinning. It's perhaps worth noting that the type of spinning in this instance is the supported spindle, in which the spindle, rather than left to drop, is set spinning on a surface while the spinner drafts and spins the fibers before winding. Perhaps this link between the spindle touching the floor/earth and the act of turning creation of a 'mind emissary' is significant? This also makes me wonder if any of the current spinning supersitions about spinning clockwise or anticlockwise were known/had their roots in earlier magical practice involving spinning.
On another note, a friend of mine has recently decided that she's now a Heathen and this got me thinking about what I consider to be the basics and my personal golden rules of Heathenry.
For me, the Heathen worldview boils down to a few, very easy to understand key concepts.
DISCLAIMER: THIS IS JUST HOW I SEE IT, OTHERS *WILL* DISAGREE,THAT'S JUST THE WAY IT IS, WE'RE HEATHENS.
Firstly, the most important concept is that the Heathen worldview is WORLD-ACCEPTING. This can be quite difficult for us when we first become Heathens, because we generally grow up within world-rejecting religions, in which adherents are taught that salvation exists outside of the physical world. The physical world is bad and 'sinful'. Adherents are taught to care more about their souls than their physical bodies and more about what happens post-mortem than what happens in life.
In a world-accepting worldview, the here, the now and the mundane are what is important.In fact, there is no separation between mundane and 'spiritual'. We live in the now and we *cherish* our days on Midgard. From another POV, nothing is ever truly supernatural either. Everything is a part of this world, some things just happen to be largely unseen. All the same, it's natural and all fits into the hierarchy as we do. As an interesting sidenote - door courts used to be called to banish hauntings. The dead were considered to be under the rule of law just as much as the living lol.
Then there are the concepts of of innangard vs utangard, or in plain English, 'inner-yard' and 'outer-yard'. But what do we mean by these?
Basically, on a human level, your 'inner-yard' is your kith and kin. Those that you would bleed for and who would bleed for you. Their falls and failures hurt you and vice versa. The 'outer-yard' is basically everyone else. You have obligations to your inner-yard, to defend and do your best by, but absolutely none to the outer-yard, unless you choose to.
On a religious level, the inner-yard/outer-yard dichotomy can also be applied to religion itself. 'Religion' as a word and concept did not exist in Germanic languages before Christianity came. The word, 'Religion', is itself a loan word from Latin. There are no Germanic cognates. But what we do have are words referring to tribal custom (these words are Thew/Thau and Ewa) and that is entirely the point. There never was one, unified Heathenism. But many, as different and varied as the communities that practiced them. Yes, there were commonalities, but a person's 'religion' was basically the custom of his or her people/tribal group/community.
On another level, the 'inner-yard'/'outer-yard can refer to the cultivated land/human places vs the wild/liminal places. Neo-Paganism has the natural world as some kind of loving, non-harmful environment, full of beings that are just waiting to be your friend as you dance gaily through the fields while wearing green and being all floaty and spiritual. Nature isn't like that, nature can also harm and any cursory glance at folklore can tell you that not all beings that could be come across out there, are friendly (incidentally enough, in a few folktales, when people are being pursued by unfriendly beings from the wild, just the act of crossing back onto cultivated land can be enough to shake the pursuit).
Lastly, you have the importance of reciprocal relationships. The most succinct and beautiful expression of this concept that I've found is the phrase said at rituals at ECT (East Coast Thing):
From the Gods, to the Earth, to us. From us, to the Earth, to the Gods.
Ok, so it's not perfect in its explanation, but it's very, very poignant. Basically, as I mentioned in the part about world acceptance, we and the animals that can be seen are not the only things on this earth. As well as us, there are the wights (land-spirits) and the Gods. The wights can be like our neighbours, or people that we share our homes and land with. If we keep them happy, they'll keep us happy. We might find that nicer things happen to us, that plants grow well on our land and that we have happy homes to live in. If we don't, well...The wights are more immediate to us, as are our ancestors. On a day to day basis, the wights and ancestors are the unseen that Heathens interact with the most (be it an offering of a cup of ale, flowers, homemade bread etc). It's much rarer to go to the Gods (or at least it *should* be) and generally we go as a community.
If we ask for things, we have to pay for them. As the Havamal says, 'a gift deserves a gift'. And it'd better be a good enough gift for what you're asking too!
I've tried reading some of the Heathenry 101 books that are on the market, and the one thing that strikes me every time I pick one of these books up is just how much they complicate Heathenry. It's crazy!
When I first came to Heathenry, I spent much of my time being very, very confused by various explanations of different concepts that, in the end, on deeper examination, didn't really have anything to do with Heathenry in any kind of a historical sense. Reconstructionism has been a sanity saver for me. Concepts like 'the soul complex' or conflated ideas of wyrd and orlog do nothing to help the beginner and yet they're to be found in every, single Heathen 101 book.
This brings me to my two, personal, golden rules of Heathenry:
* Very few concepts are fixed. Heathenry is still in a state of flux and we're all still just trying to figure it out. What's accepted as a theory now, might not be in a few years.
* When you get down to it, what we *know* of historical Heathenry is often devastatingly beautiful in its simplicity. In other words, if a concept is too complex, the chances are that it's probably a new-age invention.
My studies on gandr have been a gateway to this view. In several sources, gandr is a designation of such a mind-in-shape emissary that the seiðr performer could send forth. This is evident in the description of the Saami noaidi séance in Historia Norwegie (60–63), and is the most reasonable interpretation also in Fóstbrœðra saga (243), Þiðriks saga (303–04) and Þorsteins þáttr bœjarmagns (76). Several of the early eighteenth-century sources for Saami religion also support this view (Heide 2002:77ff). The word gandr is still in use in Norwegian and Icelandic, and modern Icelandic also has retained the derivative gondull, as göndull. Some of the meanings of these words connect them with spinning. In Modern Icelandic, göndull may mean ‘coarse yarn’ and other twisted items (Sigfús Blöndal 920:282). Gand in modern Northern Norwegian may mean ‘spinning top propelled by a string’ (Aasen 873:207), which closely resembles a spindle twirling on the floor (using a certain spinning technique). These or related meanings of gandr/gand and g ̨ndull/göndull probably existed in Old Norse, as there was not much contact between Northern Norway and Iceland after the Middle Ages.If so, the “spinning” or “twisting” meanings of gand/göndull suggest that the mind emissary that the seiðr performer could send forth could be conceived as something spun or spinning.
Source: Spinning Seidr
So yet again, we're back to spinning. It's perhaps worth noting that the type of spinning in this instance is the supported spindle, in which the spindle, rather than left to drop, is set spinning on a surface while the spinner drafts and spins the fibers before winding. Perhaps this link between the spindle touching the floor/earth and the act of turning creation of a 'mind emissary' is significant? This also makes me wonder if any of the current spinning supersitions about spinning clockwise or anticlockwise were known/had their roots in earlier magical practice involving spinning.
On another note, a friend of mine has recently decided that she's now a Heathen and this got me thinking about what I consider to be the basics and my personal golden rules of Heathenry.
For me, the Heathen worldview boils down to a few, very easy to understand key concepts.
DISCLAIMER: THIS IS JUST HOW I SEE IT, OTHERS *WILL* DISAGREE,THAT'S JUST THE WAY IT IS, WE'RE HEATHENS.
Firstly, the most important concept is that the Heathen worldview is WORLD-ACCEPTING. This can be quite difficult for us when we first become Heathens, because we generally grow up within world-rejecting religions, in which adherents are taught that salvation exists outside of the physical world. The physical world is bad and 'sinful'. Adherents are taught to care more about their souls than their physical bodies and more about what happens post-mortem than what happens in life.
In a world-accepting worldview, the here, the now and the mundane are what is important.In fact, there is no separation between mundane and 'spiritual'. We live in the now and we *cherish* our days on Midgard. From another POV, nothing is ever truly supernatural either. Everything is a part of this world, some things just happen to be largely unseen. All the same, it's natural and all fits into the hierarchy as we do. As an interesting sidenote - door courts used to be called to banish hauntings. The dead were considered to be under the rule of law just as much as the living lol.
Then there are the concepts of of innangard vs utangard, or in plain English, 'inner-yard' and 'outer-yard'. But what do we mean by these?
Basically, on a human level, your 'inner-yard' is your kith and kin. Those that you would bleed for and who would bleed for you. Their falls and failures hurt you and vice versa. The 'outer-yard' is basically everyone else. You have obligations to your inner-yard, to defend and do your best by, but absolutely none to the outer-yard, unless you choose to.
On a religious level, the inner-yard/outer-yard dichotomy can also be applied to religion itself. 'Religion' as a word and concept did not exist in Germanic languages before Christianity came. The word, 'Religion', is itself a loan word from Latin. There are no Germanic cognates. But what we do have are words referring to tribal custom (these words are Thew/Thau and Ewa) and that is entirely the point. There never was one, unified Heathenism. But many, as different and varied as the communities that practiced them. Yes, there were commonalities, but a person's 'religion' was basically the custom of his or her people/tribal group/community.
On another level, the 'inner-yard'/'outer-yard can refer to the cultivated land/human places vs the wild/liminal places. Neo-Paganism has the natural world as some kind of loving, non-harmful environment, full of beings that are just waiting to be your friend as you dance gaily through the fields while wearing green and being all floaty and spiritual. Nature isn't like that, nature can also harm and any cursory glance at folklore can tell you that not all beings that could be come across out there, are friendly (incidentally enough, in a few folktales, when people are being pursued by unfriendly beings from the wild, just the act of crossing back onto cultivated land can be enough to shake the pursuit).
Lastly, you have the importance of reciprocal relationships. The most succinct and beautiful expression of this concept that I've found is the phrase said at rituals at ECT (East Coast Thing):
From the Gods, to the Earth, to us. From us, to the Earth, to the Gods.
Ok, so it's not perfect in its explanation, but it's very, very poignant. Basically, as I mentioned in the part about world acceptance, we and the animals that can be seen are not the only things on this earth. As well as us, there are the wights (land-spirits) and the Gods. The wights can be like our neighbours, or people that we share our homes and land with. If we keep them happy, they'll keep us happy. We might find that nicer things happen to us, that plants grow well on our land and that we have happy homes to live in. If we don't, well...The wights are more immediate to us, as are our ancestors. On a day to day basis, the wights and ancestors are the unseen that Heathens interact with the most (be it an offering of a cup of ale, flowers, homemade bread etc). It's much rarer to go to the Gods (or at least it *should* be) and generally we go as a community.
If we ask for things, we have to pay for them. As the Havamal says, 'a gift deserves a gift'. And it'd better be a good enough gift for what you're asking too!
I've tried reading some of the Heathenry 101 books that are on the market, and the one thing that strikes me every time I pick one of these books up is just how much they complicate Heathenry. It's crazy!
When I first came to Heathenry, I spent much of my time being very, very confused by various explanations of different concepts that, in the end, on deeper examination, didn't really have anything to do with Heathenry in any kind of a historical sense. Reconstructionism has been a sanity saver for me. Concepts like 'the soul complex' or conflated ideas of wyrd and orlog do nothing to help the beginner and yet they're to be found in every, single Heathen 101 book.
This brings me to my two, personal, golden rules of Heathenry:
* Very few concepts are fixed. Heathenry is still in a state of flux and we're all still just trying to figure it out. What's accepted as a theory now, might not be in a few years.
* When you get down to it, what we *know* of historical Heathenry is often devastatingly beautiful in its simplicity. In other words, if a concept is too complex, the chances are that it's probably a new-age invention.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Gandr/Gandus, Horses Wolves and Trees.
Reconstruction is a very, careful process, in which we have to be careful with everything. From the validity of the evidence we're presented with, to the way in which we interpret that evidence and how our interpretations of that evidence may be affected by long held ideas or beliefs about certain things that we've not yet been able to deconstruct.
I find myself in this interpretation quandary when it comes to looking at an old paper from the 2006 International Saga Conference entitled 'Riding the Tree' by an Yvonne S Bonnetain. In what seems to be an (admittedly on the author's part) attempt to put too much information and too many angles in too short a piece, a few points can be gleaned.
First of all is the emphasis on the role of the 'utangard' in magic and with reference to personages from the Eddas and sagas being linked to the 'utangard'. Examples of this that Bonnetain gives are:
1. Odin's speech in Harbardsliod
44.
Nam ec at mönnum
þeim inom aldrœnom,
er búa í heimis scógom.
(I learned from the people,
from the old ones,
who abide in the forests of the homeland).
45.
Þó gefr þú gott nafn dysiom,
er þú kallar þat heimis scóga.
(Neckel, 1983, 85)
(So you give the mounds of stone (over the dead) a good name,
by naming them forests of the homeland).
2.In Hyndluliod, Hyndla is referred to as 'forest dweller' in stanza 48.
This concept of the wild (green) world as the sort of gateway to the supernatural/unknown vs the man-ordered and cultivated world of the mundane is not a new one (for further exploration of the liminal character of the colour green,see Anna Zanchi's paper 'The Colour Green in Medieval Icelandic Literature: Natural, Supernatural, Symbolic?'). In the Eddas, we have the story of the trip to Utgard, in which the normal rules do not apply, nothing is as it seems and death is a character that seems too close for comfort. Fairy tales across Northern Europe, emphasise escape from supernatural entities (found in the natural world beyond the reach of cultivated land) by either jumping over a flowing body of water or by getting back onto cultivated (i.e 'taken') land. In many tales, Seidhworkers live in these liminal places, firmly cementing their characters as 'threshold' dwellers.
Other elements/places seem to play a role as ways across the 'threshold' too. From the vast array of bog offering finds, cultic places linked to various beings and folklore about water being an entry point into another world (i.e Grimm's story 'Mutter Holle') or a dwelling place for otherworldly beings, it would be a reasonable assumption to say that water was considered to be 'threshold'. In the Eddas, we have the examples of Odin and Skirnir having special horses that can withstand the journey through the 'vafrlogi' (wavering fire)to either Helheim or Jotunheim respectively. Not to mention the accounts of burning the dead. Possibly fire was also considered to be one of these threshold elements? Seen in this way, the thrice burning of Heid in the Voluspa must only have served to reinforce her status as one with mastery of the threshold (and her prowess as a witch) in the eyes of the Aesir.
Bonnetain then goes on to lightly touch on staffs and the possible symbolism/use of the staff for the Volva and then, interestingly, she mentions the Gandr. To quote Bonnetain herself:
It is also possible to understand gandr as a staff, which is attributed with phallic significance. Thus, göndull in Bósa saga (11) is used in the sense of ‘penis’. Accordingly, the term gandreið – by which we have another intersection of means of travel, seiðr and the other world – can also be read with a sexual undertone.4 The most extensive discourse on the connection between völur and seiðr, sexuality and gandir has been conducted by Neil Price (2002), to whose work I may only make reference in the framework of this presentation.
It is also notable in this context that this meaning variant of gandr is not reflected in translations of Jörmungandr and Vánargandr. On the contrary, here gandr is frequently translated as ‘monster’, which actually forestalls interpretation. Vánargandr is found only in Skáldskaparmál (23), in which Vánargandr is used as a synonym for Fenrir:
Hvernig skal kenna Loka? Svá, at kalla hann ... föður Vánargands, þat er Fenrisúlfr, ok Jörmungands, þat er Miðgarðsormr... (Guðni Jónsson, 1954, III, 126f.)
‘How shall Loki be called? So, that he may be called… father of Vánargandr, that is the Fenris wolf, and of Jörmungandr, that is the Midgard serpent...’).
Confirmation of the meaning ‘monster’ cannot be inferred from this passage, in which Vánargandr is used parallel to Jörmungandr.
Ursula Dronke (1997: 12ff.) translates gandr in Völuspá as ‘spirit’. With this, she follows the argument already put forward by Cleasby/Vigfússon (1874: 188) and Johan Fritzner (1877, 166-170) based on a well-known passage from the Historia Norvegiae. 5 Maybe such a gandr is also the reason for the switch between the first and third person singular on the part of the völva when referring to herself in the Völuspá (McKinnell, 2001, 394-417). Apart from the interpretation as two seers, one could also assume that there is a third figure in the form of a helpful spirit,6 comparable to the usage of gandr in Fóstbrœðra saga (9):
Víða hefi ek göndum rennt í nótt, ok em ek nú vís orðin þeira hluta, er ek vissa ekki áðr. (Björn Karel Þórólfsson and Guðni Jónsson, 1943, 234)
‘Far did I run with gandir into the night. Now I know things I knew not before.’
Cleasby/Vigfússon (1874: 188), too, had already point to the possibility of interpreting gandr in gandreið as a spirit. Moreover, attention is drawn to the meaning of ‘wolf’.
So far from reading that passage, the word gandr, can mean/or is linked to either 'staff', 'penis' (the penile aspect is further explored by Eldar Heide in his paper, 'Spinning and Seidr'), 'a spirit', 'wolf spirit'. Which is it to be? The author draws no conclusions in her paper, however in a paper by Clive Tolley, entitled 'The Historia Norwegiae as a Shamanic Source', we are given a translation of an excerpt from the Historia Norwegiae:
Moreover their intolerable paganism, and the amount of devilish superstition they practise in their magic, will seem credible to almost no one. For there are some of them who are venerated as prophets by the ignorant populace, since by means of an unclean spirit that they call a gandus they predict many things to many people, both as they are happening, and when delayed; and they draw desirable things to themselves from far off regions in a wondrous way, and amazingly, though themselves far away, they produce hidden treasures. By some chance while some Christians were sitting at the table amongst the Sámi for the sake of trade their hostess suddenly bowed over and died; hence the Christians mourned greatly, but were told by the Sámi, who were not at all distressed, that she was not dead but stolen away by the gandi of rivals, and they would soon get her back. Then a magician stretched out a cloth, under which he prepared himself for impious magic incantations, and with arms stretched up lifted a vessel like a tambourine, covered in diagrams of whales and deer with bridles and snow-shoes and even a ship with oars, vehicles which that devilish gandus uses to go across the depths of snow and slopes of mountains or the deep waters.
He chanted a long time and jumped about with this piece of equipment, but then was laid flat on the ground, black all over like an Ethiopian, and foaming from the mouth as if wearing a bit. His stomach was ripped open and with the loudest roaring ever he gave up the ghost. Then they consulted the other one who was versed in magic about what had happened to them both. He performed his job in a similar way but not with the same outcome – for the hostess rose up hale – and indicated that the deceased sorcerer had perished by the following sort of accident: his gandus, transformed into the shape of a water beast, had by ill luck struck against an enemy’s gandus changed into sharpened stakes as it was rushing across a lake, for the stakes lying set up in the depths of that same lake had pierced his stomach, as appeared on the dead magician at home.
In this passage, we meet the term 'Gandus', which, according to a comment made by John McKinnell (2003: 115) who works from the perspective of Norse (rather than shamanic) scholarship: ‘This passage probably represents Norse beliefs about Saami magic rather than the reality of it, for the word gandr does not exist in the Saami language.’
Now this is one key area where any examination of Seidh becomes tricky.We know from various sources, that there were (or it was believed that there were) cultural exchanges when it came to Seidr. There is mention of 'Lappish' characters or characters that spent time among the Sami, learning their witchcraft (Queen Gunnhildr being the best known example here). However there is, to my mind, a HUGE sticking point in then applying aspects of what we know of Sami worldview to Seidh. For starters, we have a lot of evidence that the Sami are/were dualist in belief, but we have no definitive evidence that the Norse were. Thomas Du Bois does a great job of examining the intercultural dimensions of the Seidh sceance from Erik the Red's saga, however the whole issue is far from clear.
We also have to remember that while the term 'Gandus' is included in the above quote from the Historia, it was written very much post conversion (and dualist), and so the events that are described (if real), would have been written from that POV. However there is one point that I find interesting and worth further investigation:
*In the ON sources, the gandus is potentially a kind of spirit helper or not dissimilar to ( or even the same as?!) the hamr . Could it then be possible that travelling with your 'gandr' might not refer to having something to travel with, but a means for your hamr to travel by? Hence the link with wolves and horses as being potential shapes to shift your hamr into?
* In the account from the Historia, the drawings on the drum are interpreted by the Christians as being 'vehicles' by which the gandus can travel. It would be interesting to read a Sami interpretation of drum symbols and just what the 'gandus' could have been referring to from a Sami POV.
And this is where my quandary lies when it comes to interpretation. I'm non-dualist. Seidr in the actual lore-based sense makes absolutely NO sense to me from a dualist perspective. Because of this, I'm very aware that I'm always looking for ways to interpret evidence from a non-dualist perspective and I worry that sometimes that's not the right way to go and that I may just be as 'guilty' as I consider others to be in the Seidr-community.
So, no conclusions, just more reading....anyone anything to add/new directions to go in to all of that 'written too late at night' posting?
Edit
I've just been reminded of Gna's horse, Hofvarpnir and its ability to 'fly' through the air and run on the sea. Gylfaginning 35:
The fourteenth is Gná: her Frigg sends into divers lands on her errands; she has that horse which runs over sky and sea and is called Hoof-Tosser. Once when she was riding, certain of the Vanir saw her course in the air; then one spake:
What flieth there? | What fareth there,
Or glideth in the air?
She made answer:
I fly not, | though I fare
And in the air glide
On Hoof-Tosser, | him that Hamskerpir
Gat with Gardrofa.
Links
'Riding the Tree'
'The Colour Green in Medieval Icelandic Literature: Natural, Supernatural, Symbolic?'
'The Historia Norwegiae as a Shamanic Source
I find myself in this interpretation quandary when it comes to looking at an old paper from the 2006 International Saga Conference entitled 'Riding the Tree' by an Yvonne S Bonnetain. In what seems to be an (admittedly on the author's part) attempt to put too much information and too many angles in too short a piece, a few points can be gleaned.
First of all is the emphasis on the role of the 'utangard' in magic and with reference to personages from the Eddas and sagas being linked to the 'utangard'. Examples of this that Bonnetain gives are:
1. Odin's speech in Harbardsliod
44.
Nam ec at mönnum
þeim inom aldrœnom,
er búa í heimis scógom.
(I learned from the people,
from the old ones,
who abide in the forests of the homeland).
45.
Þó gefr þú gott nafn dysiom,
er þú kallar þat heimis scóga.
(Neckel, 1983, 85)
(So you give the mounds of stone (over the dead) a good name,
by naming them forests of the homeland).
2.In Hyndluliod, Hyndla is referred to as 'forest dweller' in stanza 48.
This concept of the wild (green) world as the sort of gateway to the supernatural/unknown vs the man-ordered and cultivated world of the mundane is not a new one (for further exploration of the liminal character of the colour green,see Anna Zanchi's paper 'The Colour Green in Medieval Icelandic Literature: Natural, Supernatural, Symbolic?'). In the Eddas, we have the story of the trip to Utgard, in which the normal rules do not apply, nothing is as it seems and death is a character that seems too close for comfort. Fairy tales across Northern Europe, emphasise escape from supernatural entities (found in the natural world beyond the reach of cultivated land) by either jumping over a flowing body of water or by getting back onto cultivated (i.e 'taken') land. In many tales, Seidhworkers live in these liminal places, firmly cementing their characters as 'threshold' dwellers.
Other elements/places seem to play a role as ways across the 'threshold' too. From the vast array of bog offering finds, cultic places linked to various beings and folklore about water being an entry point into another world (i.e Grimm's story 'Mutter Holle') or a dwelling place for otherworldly beings, it would be a reasonable assumption to say that water was considered to be 'threshold'. In the Eddas, we have the examples of Odin and Skirnir having special horses that can withstand the journey through the 'vafrlogi' (wavering fire)to either Helheim or Jotunheim respectively. Not to mention the accounts of burning the dead. Possibly fire was also considered to be one of these threshold elements? Seen in this way, the thrice burning of Heid in the Voluspa must only have served to reinforce her status as one with mastery of the threshold (and her prowess as a witch) in the eyes of the Aesir.
Bonnetain then goes on to lightly touch on staffs and the possible symbolism/use of the staff for the Volva and then, interestingly, she mentions the Gandr. To quote Bonnetain herself:
It is also possible to understand gandr as a staff, which is attributed with phallic significance. Thus, göndull in Bósa saga (11) is used in the sense of ‘penis’. Accordingly, the term gandreið – by which we have another intersection of means of travel, seiðr and the other world – can also be read with a sexual undertone.4 The most extensive discourse on the connection between völur and seiðr, sexuality and gandir has been conducted by Neil Price (2002), to whose work I may only make reference in the framework of this presentation.
It is also notable in this context that this meaning variant of gandr is not reflected in translations of Jörmungandr and Vánargandr. On the contrary, here gandr is frequently translated as ‘monster’, which actually forestalls interpretation. Vánargandr is found only in Skáldskaparmál (23), in which Vánargandr is used as a synonym for Fenrir:
Hvernig skal kenna Loka? Svá, at kalla hann ... föður Vánargands, þat er Fenrisúlfr, ok Jörmungands, þat er Miðgarðsormr... (Guðni Jónsson, 1954, III, 126f.)
‘How shall Loki be called? So, that he may be called… father of Vánargandr, that is the Fenris wolf, and of Jörmungandr, that is the Midgard serpent...’).
Confirmation of the meaning ‘monster’ cannot be inferred from this passage, in which Vánargandr is used parallel to Jörmungandr.
Ursula Dronke (1997: 12ff.) translates gandr in Völuspá as ‘spirit’. With this, she follows the argument already put forward by Cleasby/Vigfússon (1874: 188) and Johan Fritzner (1877, 166-170) based on a well-known passage from the Historia Norvegiae. 5 Maybe such a gandr is also the reason for the switch between the first and third person singular on the part of the völva when referring to herself in the Völuspá (McKinnell, 2001, 394-417). Apart from the interpretation as two seers, one could also assume that there is a third figure in the form of a helpful spirit,6 comparable to the usage of gandr in Fóstbrœðra saga (9):
Víða hefi ek göndum rennt í nótt, ok em ek nú vís orðin þeira hluta, er ek vissa ekki áðr. (Björn Karel Þórólfsson and Guðni Jónsson, 1943, 234)
‘Far did I run with gandir into the night. Now I know things I knew not before.’
Cleasby/Vigfússon (1874: 188), too, had already point to the possibility of interpreting gandr in gandreið as a spirit. Moreover, attention is drawn to the meaning of ‘wolf’.
So far from reading that passage, the word gandr, can mean/or is linked to either 'staff', 'penis' (the penile aspect is further explored by Eldar Heide in his paper, 'Spinning and Seidr'), 'a spirit', 'wolf spirit'. Which is it to be? The author draws no conclusions in her paper, however in a paper by Clive Tolley, entitled 'The Historia Norwegiae as a Shamanic Source', we are given a translation of an excerpt from the Historia Norwegiae:
Moreover their intolerable paganism, and the amount of devilish superstition they practise in their magic, will seem credible to almost no one. For there are some of them who are venerated as prophets by the ignorant populace, since by means of an unclean spirit that they call a gandus they predict many things to many people, both as they are happening, and when delayed; and they draw desirable things to themselves from far off regions in a wondrous way, and amazingly, though themselves far away, they produce hidden treasures. By some chance while some Christians were sitting at the table amongst the Sámi for the sake of trade their hostess suddenly bowed over and died; hence the Christians mourned greatly, but were told by the Sámi, who were not at all distressed, that she was not dead but stolen away by the gandi of rivals, and they would soon get her back. Then a magician stretched out a cloth, under which he prepared himself for impious magic incantations, and with arms stretched up lifted a vessel like a tambourine, covered in diagrams of whales and deer with bridles and snow-shoes and even a ship with oars, vehicles which that devilish gandus uses to go across the depths of snow and slopes of mountains or the deep waters.
He chanted a long time and jumped about with this piece of equipment, but then was laid flat on the ground, black all over like an Ethiopian, and foaming from the mouth as if wearing a bit. His stomach was ripped open and with the loudest roaring ever he gave up the ghost. Then they consulted the other one who was versed in magic about what had happened to them both. He performed his job in a similar way but not with the same outcome – for the hostess rose up hale – and indicated that the deceased sorcerer had perished by the following sort of accident: his gandus, transformed into the shape of a water beast, had by ill luck struck against an enemy’s gandus changed into sharpened stakes as it was rushing across a lake, for the stakes lying set up in the depths of that same lake had pierced his stomach, as appeared on the dead magician at home.
In this passage, we meet the term 'Gandus', which, according to a comment made by John McKinnell (2003: 115) who works from the perspective of Norse (rather than shamanic) scholarship: ‘This passage probably represents Norse beliefs about Saami magic rather than the reality of it, for the word gandr does not exist in the Saami language.’
Now this is one key area where any examination of Seidh becomes tricky.We know from various sources, that there were (or it was believed that there were) cultural exchanges when it came to Seidr. There is mention of 'Lappish' characters or characters that spent time among the Sami, learning their witchcraft (Queen Gunnhildr being the best known example here). However there is, to my mind, a HUGE sticking point in then applying aspects of what we know of Sami worldview to Seidh. For starters, we have a lot of evidence that the Sami are/were dualist in belief, but we have no definitive evidence that the Norse were. Thomas Du Bois does a great job of examining the intercultural dimensions of the Seidh sceance from Erik the Red's saga, however the whole issue is far from clear.
We also have to remember that while the term 'Gandus' is included in the above quote from the Historia, it was written very much post conversion (and dualist), and so the events that are described (if real), would have been written from that POV. However there is one point that I find interesting and worth further investigation:
*In the ON sources, the gandus is potentially a kind of spirit helper or not dissimilar to ( or even the same as?!) the hamr . Could it then be possible that travelling with your 'gandr' might not refer to having something to travel with, but a means for your hamr to travel by? Hence the link with wolves and horses as being potential shapes to shift your hamr into?
* In the account from the Historia, the drawings on the drum are interpreted by the Christians as being 'vehicles' by which the gandus can travel. It would be interesting to read a Sami interpretation of drum symbols and just what the 'gandus' could have been referring to from a Sami POV.
And this is where my quandary lies when it comes to interpretation. I'm non-dualist. Seidr in the actual lore-based sense makes absolutely NO sense to me from a dualist perspective. Because of this, I'm very aware that I'm always looking for ways to interpret evidence from a non-dualist perspective and I worry that sometimes that's not the right way to go and that I may just be as 'guilty' as I consider others to be in the Seidr-community.
So, no conclusions, just more reading....anyone anything to add/new directions to go in to all of that 'written too late at night' posting?
Edit
I've just been reminded of Gna's horse, Hofvarpnir and its ability to 'fly' through the air and run on the sea. Gylfaginning 35:
The fourteenth is Gná: her Frigg sends into divers lands on her errands; she has that horse which runs over sky and sea and is called Hoof-Tosser. Once when she was riding, certain of the Vanir saw her course in the air; then one spake:
What flieth there? | What fareth there,
Or glideth in the air?
She made answer:
I fly not, | though I fare
And in the air glide
On Hoof-Tosser, | him that Hamskerpir
Gat with Gardrofa.
Links
'Riding the Tree'
'The Colour Green in Medieval Icelandic Literature: Natural, Supernatural, Symbolic?'
'The Historia Norwegiae as a Shamanic Source
Monday, March 7, 2011
Frau Holle Teich
It's probably no surprise to those of you that read this blog that I love the process of reconstruction. Because I do. The oft-cited argument for reconstructionism, is that of Christopher Parkening and his study of medieval tapestries in order to better reconstruct lute playing in a more efficient manner. As reconstructionists, there's often the assumption that it's just all an academic exercise or that we're trying to make like it's 699AD or something. This is simply not true.
Most reconstructionists, are the most respectful and genuine Heathens with the 'faith' aspects of Heathenry that I know.
In a conversation with a recon friend last night, we discussed the whole respect thing and if a lot of people that fall under the Heathen banner actually believe or are using it as some form of self-help. It sounds harsh, but hear me out. The world was not a nice place back then, life was harsh and it's no surprise that the gods themselves could be harsh too. And yet, as a modern Heathen, it's so common to come across people that talk about having personal relationships with deity in a really 'chummy' way. Occasionally people will make jokes/not-jokes about Odin screwing people over but I often wonder if the sentiment behind it is real. If there is any real fear there. Some folks seem to be of the opinion that the gods are at their beck and call, to do anything they want in exchange for the burning of a cheap joss stick or splashing mead on the ground. Again, to me, this shows a lack of real respect or belief. A recon is more prepared to give the best they can or even shed blood. Not because a book says so, or because it was 'how it was done back then', but because they believe in that exchange of gifts. This doesn't mean to say that I don't think others don't have any real belief, just that I think as a movement, we've got a hell of a long way to go.
It's perhaps to be expected though, we all mostly come to Heathenry from a faith that emphasises its adherents having a 'personal relationship' with Jesus and that demands adherence to certain rules in exchange for whatever. For us, it's about the gifting process. A gift for a gift.
This conversation with my friend about real respect was timely because on Saturday, I got a kick up the arse.
Ever since taking up handspinning, I've been interested in spindle lore and as I live in Bavaria, this led to looking into Perchta. Then I found a folktale from my local area about Frau Hulle (translated in an earlier post in this blog) and the interest in all things Holle grew from there. A friend recommended a book by a chap called Garden Stone. His book, 'Goettin Holle' is impressive (and I would recommend it to anyone reading this - there's an English translation coming soon), I really like his approach. The first chapter is a little like a guidebook and encourages people to travel to the places that are linked with Frau Holle. Other chapters cover plants associated with her in folklore, an impressive collection of folklore and sayings about Holle and much more.
Last Saturday, we decided to take a trip to a place called the Frau Holle Teich. It's a pond, with a small piece of land at one end with a statue of Frau Holle on it. According to the local lore, it's a place where people have been offering to Holle for years. So, deciding to make this into an adventure for our small family, my husband and I packed the dog into the car and set off for the Meissner-Kaufunger Wald area of Hessen. In total, we drove for around six to seven hours on Saturday. When we arrived there, we parked up at the side of the road (where google maps told us to - hubby had his iphone) and walked up the hill. Well, what we thought would be short, turned out to be a slightly longer trek up hill and down icy paths. Still, the scenery was absolutely beautiful, really really gorgeous. When we finally made it to the Teich, it was stunning. The Teich was completely frozen over, and the statue looked ethereal in the middle of it all. Especially with the way the warm air was hitting the icy ground and producing this lovely, white mist.
We walked around the pond to get closer to the statue and I realised that I didn't have an offering. So I decided to offer one of my silver pendants and so after a bit of deliberation with the husband and determining that the pond was frozen enough to walk on, I walked over to the statue to place my offering.
It.was.terrifying.
Not the ice walk, although I wasn't happy about that - ponds rarely freeze enough in Britain to walk on and so it's drummed into your head from being small that you don't walk on iced up lakes/ponds/rivers. No, it was the sense of presence around that statue. I found myself bowing my head deferentially as I buried my offering in the snow and ice at the foot of the statue, hoping that in the melt, mud and spring rains, it would find its way into the Teich itself. In my 30 years, I have never felt that mixture of fear/awe that I got when I stood before her statue.
Once I made my offering, I left quickly across the ice, as I touched solid ground again, I realised I'd heard something on my way over, this strange sound that my husband hadn't heard at all. We stood on the banks of the Teich a little and this gorgeous sunshine burst out from behind the trees and it was definitely a sense of 'offering accepted'. My husband and I kissed in what was now the bright sunlight before thanking Frau Holle and making our way back to the car.
Once we left the Teich, we realised that google maps had really led us wrong and that had we just driven another kilometer down the road, we would have been parked right outside the Teich.
Still, we didn't mind and spent most of that kilometer walk along the road back to the car laughing our heads off about it.
So yes, the talk I had with my friend was timely, because that brush with Frau Holle has definitely changed my views somewhat on a level I'm still trying to sort out.
Most reconstructionists, are the most respectful and genuine Heathens with the 'faith' aspects of Heathenry that I know.
In a conversation with a recon friend last night, we discussed the whole respect thing and if a lot of people that fall under the Heathen banner actually believe or are using it as some form of self-help. It sounds harsh, but hear me out. The world was not a nice place back then, life was harsh and it's no surprise that the gods themselves could be harsh too. And yet, as a modern Heathen, it's so common to come across people that talk about having personal relationships with deity in a really 'chummy' way. Occasionally people will make jokes/not-jokes about Odin screwing people over but I often wonder if the sentiment behind it is real. If there is any real fear there. Some folks seem to be of the opinion that the gods are at their beck and call, to do anything they want in exchange for the burning of a cheap joss stick or splashing mead on the ground. Again, to me, this shows a lack of real respect or belief. A recon is more prepared to give the best they can or even shed blood. Not because a book says so, or because it was 'how it was done back then', but because they believe in that exchange of gifts. This doesn't mean to say that I don't think others don't have any real belief, just that I think as a movement, we've got a hell of a long way to go.
It's perhaps to be expected though, we all mostly come to Heathenry from a faith that emphasises its adherents having a 'personal relationship' with Jesus and that demands adherence to certain rules in exchange for whatever. For us, it's about the gifting process. A gift for a gift.
This conversation with my friend about real respect was timely because on Saturday, I got a kick up the arse.
Ever since taking up handspinning, I've been interested in spindle lore and as I live in Bavaria, this led to looking into Perchta. Then I found a folktale from my local area about Frau Hulle (translated in an earlier post in this blog) and the interest in all things Holle grew from there. A friend recommended a book by a chap called Garden Stone. His book, 'Goettin Holle' is impressive (and I would recommend it to anyone reading this - there's an English translation coming soon), I really like his approach. The first chapter is a little like a guidebook and encourages people to travel to the places that are linked with Frau Holle. Other chapters cover plants associated with her in folklore, an impressive collection of folklore and sayings about Holle and much more.
Last Saturday, we decided to take a trip to a place called the Frau Holle Teich. It's a pond, with a small piece of land at one end with a statue of Frau Holle on it. According to the local lore, it's a place where people have been offering to Holle for years. So, deciding to make this into an adventure for our small family, my husband and I packed the dog into the car and set off for the Meissner-Kaufunger Wald area of Hessen. In total, we drove for around six to seven hours on Saturday. When we arrived there, we parked up at the side of the road (where google maps told us to - hubby had his iphone) and walked up the hill. Well, what we thought would be short, turned out to be a slightly longer trek up hill and down icy paths. Still, the scenery was absolutely beautiful, really really gorgeous. When we finally made it to the Teich, it was stunning. The Teich was completely frozen over, and the statue looked ethereal in the middle of it all. Especially with the way the warm air was hitting the icy ground and producing this lovely, white mist.
We walked around the pond to get closer to the statue and I realised that I didn't have an offering. So I decided to offer one of my silver pendants and so after a bit of deliberation with the husband and determining that the pond was frozen enough to walk on, I walked over to the statue to place my offering.
It.was.terrifying.
Not the ice walk, although I wasn't happy about that - ponds rarely freeze enough in Britain to walk on and so it's drummed into your head from being small that you don't walk on iced up lakes/ponds/rivers. No, it was the sense of presence around that statue. I found myself bowing my head deferentially as I buried my offering in the snow and ice at the foot of the statue, hoping that in the melt, mud and spring rains, it would find its way into the Teich itself. In my 30 years, I have never felt that mixture of fear/awe that I got when I stood before her statue.
Once I made my offering, I left quickly across the ice, as I touched solid ground again, I realised I'd heard something on my way over, this strange sound that my husband hadn't heard at all. We stood on the banks of the Teich a little and this gorgeous sunshine burst out from behind the trees and it was definitely a sense of 'offering accepted'. My husband and I kissed in what was now the bright sunlight before thanking Frau Holle and making our way back to the car.
Once we left the Teich, we realised that google maps had really led us wrong and that had we just driven another kilometer down the road, we would have been parked right outside the Teich.
Still, we didn't mind and spent most of that kilometer walk along the road back to the car laughing our heads off about it.
So yes, the talk I had with my friend was timely, because that brush with Frau Holle has definitely changed my views somewhat on a level I'm still trying to sort out.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Envy
I'm envious.
For weeks, I've been looking at certain people that I really shouldn't be envious of and finding myself a little envious of them.
If you know what I'm talking about and you're still reading, I'll explain why.
There are a couple of reasons, first of all, they have people with the same focus that they can talk to, I'm not talking about the sicko stuff, but the weird stuff that can get a person ostracised from mainstream community. Of course, they have found a community of weird people where they can talk about weird stuff but still...on some level I wish I had that. I used to be more open about this stuff, but increasingly I don't feel able to talk about this anymore. It's a lonely place to be in.
Secondly, they don't ever seem to question their sanity. I do, all the damn time. I know that maybe makes me sane(r) and maybe that's a good thing, but I wish I had the freedom of truly not giving a fuck about that. I hate the questioning that comes a day after something messed up happening and that feeling like the world has somehow pulled the carpet out from underneath me and that everything is somehow less 'real'. Paradoxically, I hate having witnesses even more, because most of the time, I convince myself that nothing really happened and if there are witnesses, I can't do that.
So yeah...
For weeks, I've been looking at certain people that I really shouldn't be envious of and finding myself a little envious of them.
If you know what I'm talking about and you're still reading, I'll explain why.
There are a couple of reasons, first of all, they have people with the same focus that they can talk to, I'm not talking about the sicko stuff, but the weird stuff that can get a person ostracised from mainstream community. Of course, they have found a community of weird people where they can talk about weird stuff but still...on some level I wish I had that. I used to be more open about this stuff, but increasingly I don't feel able to talk about this anymore. It's a lonely place to be in.
Secondly, they don't ever seem to question their sanity. I do, all the damn time. I know that maybe makes me sane(r) and maybe that's a good thing, but I wish I had the freedom of truly not giving a fuck about that. I hate the questioning that comes a day after something messed up happening and that feeling like the world has somehow pulled the carpet out from underneath me and that everything is somehow less 'real'. Paradoxically, I hate having witnesses even more, because most of the time, I convince myself that nothing really happened and if there are witnesses, I can't do that.
So yeah...
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Law and Spirituality
I had a dream last night (staring Odin) that was pretty interesting. Now I'm not saying that this was Odin or that I'm Odin's little snowflake, because I'm not. My brain simply churns things over when I dream and makes connections that I don't see when I'm awake.
My husband, Odin and I were going from court to court to court, all at different levels (as you do...). From a 'door court' to a modern high court, to a magistrates court and again and again, we were told that 'this is how it must work with the Holy Powers too'.
When I woke up this morning, I couldn't help but consider the role of law in Heathen society, how they considered law to apply to the living as well as the dead (as evidenced by the 'door courts' held to resolve hauntings in properties) and the possible parallels between how we conduct ritual, how court was conducted and also how we view/deal with gods in the equation.
Heathen society was 'world accepting' in that a person wasn't looking for some otherworldly salvation or goal. Spiritual growth wasn't about getting closer to a deity, it was about community and growing in your community. So surely it would make sense that one of the ways in which a person could do that was through the Allthing ? How he or she represented herself at the Thing would invariably affect how his or her community would see him/her and ergo the amount of regard that person was given.
However it does also bring up what we as Heathens should consider to be the law and, in line with another debate that's occurring at the moment, what do we do when we feel it's violated.
Discuss?
My husband, Odin and I were going from court to court to court, all at different levels (as you do...). From a 'door court' to a modern high court, to a magistrates court and again and again, we were told that 'this is how it must work with the Holy Powers too'.
When I woke up this morning, I couldn't help but consider the role of law in Heathen society, how they considered law to apply to the living as well as the dead (as evidenced by the 'door courts' held to resolve hauntings in properties) and the possible parallels between how we conduct ritual, how court was conducted and also how we view/deal with gods in the equation.
Heathen society was 'world accepting' in that a person wasn't looking for some otherworldly salvation or goal. Spiritual growth wasn't about getting closer to a deity, it was about community and growing in your community. So surely it would make sense that one of the ways in which a person could do that was through the Allthing ? How he or she represented herself at the Thing would invariably affect how his or her community would see him/her and ergo the amount of regard that person was given.
However it does also bring up what we as Heathens should consider to be the law and, in line with another debate that's occurring at the moment, what do we do when we feel it's violated.
Discuss?
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