tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-363264532024-03-13T15:47:17.918-07:00The Journal of Hofstadr Hearth: The Life of a Heathen FamilyAlfarrinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16532701327343776837noreply@blogger.comBlogger117125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36326453.post-43838845735408613122012-09-20T16:27:00.003-07:002012-09-21T16:34:47.978-07:00The Feast of Ultimate Generosity: Re-Thinking the Blot in Modern Heathenry<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This short discussion on the blot, or the central form of religious sacrifice in modern Heathen belief and practice, represents a turning point or a "gravity shift" in how I personally have come to view and experience the blot. This turning point is a major one; as I will describe, it is a game changer in many ways, but chiefly in the way it has brought me from a "younger" perspective on blot to a manifestly older one. How we think of blot- what our motivations are, what metaphysics we believe are being acted out, how we conceptualize the Gods and their response to the blot- say a lot about us as modern Heathens, and it says a lot about how we conceptualize the Gods, as well.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />I will begin by making the radical-seeming, and probably controversial statement that I believe the "blot", as it is done by nearly all Heathens (with the possible exception of some Theodish folk) has some deep and troubling metaphysical problems. In a predictably symmetrical way, those problems reflect into issues regarding how many modern Heathens look at the world, the Gods, and one another. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">There is no point in wondering if it was originally an issue with how the blot came to be thought of and performed, which then transferred itself into the minds of people who participated in blots, or if the original issue was with the deeper assumptions of modern Heathen people, who reflected those things into the form of the blot. Instead, this issue describes a recursive circle where "blame" cannot be placed, and no single "source" of the trouble can be found in any quick fashion. And yet, from my perspective, there is a trouble.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Heathenry is proudly traditional, in many ways- like all organic and Ancestral religions, "tradition" is one part continuation of thinking and behavior patterns of the Ancestors themselves, even adjusted to the modern day, and one part freedom from rigidity and rote. The Ancestors changed over time; we have changed, and we continue to change. That's the nature of organic religion. It is believed that, so long as we maintain certain central aesthetics and activities, and maintain certain basic "ways of seeing the world", and our trademark insistence on personal liberty and hospitality, that we continue, on some level, what the Ancestors were channeling and experiencing. </span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />And there is a lot of truth to that, I think. But the issue I have with Blots as I understood them, and performed them for years, is that the metaphysical assumptions about the nature of the Gods, which are displayed in the standard "Blot" ritual, may not reflect the depth of the Ancestral experience of the Gods, going back to the deepest of Ancestral places.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">One very particular "way of thinking" about the Gods was prominent in every blot I took part in, either as blot-officiator, or participant; and that was the idea, so commonly held in many branches of the Heathen tree, that the Gods would feel the need to send us a "counter gift" to repay the Heathen faithful for their gift of the blot. Naturally, we hoped at various occasions for various "return gifts" from the Gods- even going so far as to state what we hoped for. </span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />On the surface, this seems not so troubling. After all, as Odin says in Havamal, "A gift ever asks for a gift". The keyword that I always used to explain this was "reciprocity". We would give, and so the Gods would give. They are honorable beings, after all; by definition, they are the source of the honor code that the Ancestors involved themselves with. The Gods are the divine exemplars of many of the human codes of behavior, like hospitality, and so forth. The Gods, we reasoned, would never fail to return a gift for a gift. Like two human families exchanging gifts to seal a friendship/alliance with one another, we felt we could and should do the same with the Godly families.</span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">* * *</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">But after long months and years of reflection, I finally discovered a passage from Paul Shepard's book "Coming Home to the Pleistocene" that encapsulated what had begun to trouble me about our Blot institution. He writes:</span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /><b>"The idea of sacrifice was given definition and vigor by pastoralists. In making sacrifice, a sacred grassy area, the seat of a god, was strewn with meat offerings, gifts being accompanied by songs, in which a priest announced what the gift-giver wanted, In India and Iran usually "cattle and sons." Such negotiation could only have occured with a god who was conceived as more or less like men- full of themselves and their power, trade-minded, with the attitude of bargainers in a recalcitrant world, utterly different in spirit from the gifting world of the people of the bear, elk, and salmon. A liturgy of sacrifice, generally seen as the posture of a humble supplicant, revealed a despirtualized natural world reduced to materials to be bargained. As it was practiced by the Indo-Iranian descendents of the Indo-Europeans, sacrifice was perceived as "a presentation that establishes a relation of reciprocity, calling forth a counter-gift in return." Meat that had been shared according to obligation and custom among Hunter/Gatherers became a kind of gift in the pastoral cultures in which there was constant maneuvering to obtain the favor of powerful lords."</b></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> (P. 115)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />And in this clear and powerful passage, Shepard reveals what I feel is a flaw in a lot of modern Heathen thinking, even my own once: we characterize the Gods as trade-minded beings like ourselves, and try to lure them into returning things to us in exchange for what we give them. It is certain, beyond a doubt, that both myself, and all the Heathens I ever knew were not *simply* trying to bargain- we also approached the seats of the Gods with real reverence and respect for them in our hearts. But a paradox is presented here, a paradox that I think splits the power of Blot in half. </span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />That paradox is the reverencing of a great Being or Beings for all their might, generosity, and hospitality- which none of us ever doubted- and then imagining that we had to bargain with them for things we wanted, over what amounts to some pieces of meat, bowls of honey, or a horn of ale. Why should we ever have doubted that such amazing powers- Ancient Beings who helped to shape the world itself through their adventures, breathed life into mankind, and worked so heroically to preserve the worlds from chaotic forces- should withhold their blessings from us, or need gifts before they themselves gave gifts in return? Is this really Godly behavior or thinking? Or is it human?</span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />Without realizing it, I, and many others, were continuing a particularly pastoral way of looking at the nature of the world and the Gods, which was based not on any truth about the Gods, but on the economic systems of ancient Pastoralism, and the realities of their lives then, in which bargaining was so prominent. The gifts of the Gods- ale, mead, meat, food, fresh water from springs, song, fertility, red, strong blood, fragrant herbs, our very human beings- these are not "materials" to be tossed around and bargained with as though they were a primitive form of currency; they are things to be thankful for, and shared in thanks, for no other reason than we feel grateful. And we should feel grateful. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Pastoralists in ancient times turned the sacredness of animals themselves- the divine others who share our world- into money and objects of possession. As Shepard points out in his book, this led to some very grim outcomes, including messianic religions, and ultimately to Christianity itself. To unthinkingly continue trying to bargain with the sacred and wyrd-woven parts of the world, in the halls of the Gods, continues an ominous and perhaps insulting practice to the deepest Sacred Powers- but that may just be the <i>Seidhmadr</i> in me coming out now.</span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">* * *<br />In a sense, I think Shepard, without meaning to, wrote a full manual of "Vanic" spirituality with his superb work "Coming Home to the Pleistocene"- for in it, he points out what the Heathen worshipers of the Vanir already know: that the earlier peoples, before pastoralism and agriculture (and therefore before the Indo-Europeans as history met them) believed that the Sacred Powers were utterly generous, and that they gave the gifts of life, food, game, fertility, wisdom, and pleasure in great abundance, without the need for bloody sacrifice or bargaining.</span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />When we deal with the Gods and sacrifice-institutions of the Indo-Europeans, we are dealing with "Aesiric" (as some put it) spirituality, the largely sky-based spirituality of the pastoral and horse-riding peoples. In that spirituality, sacrifice is prominent and always (as he showed) about bartering for favor and benefit, even while also including an element of respect for the very powerful divine guest or guests of honor at the blot-feasts. </span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />I see a need for a shift in essential thinking about blot. Blots were not simple gatherings were some people gathered around and killed an animal; they were actually full feasts- yes, animals often died in them, and were cooked, shared, and everyone took part. They were held in honor of Gods or Goddesses- but the honor wasn't focused on one action or set of actions; by simply traveling to attend a blot, people showed their respect for the Gods. By sitting at the feasting place, drinking, eating, talking, hearing the sacred songs or poems, all of that was in honor of the Mighty Gods.</span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />* * *<br />I believe very strongly that "asking the Gods" for this or that, and trying to bribe them with very nice gifts implies that they are too human-like. To an extent, the Gods are presented in some sources as having some human-like qualities, but in others, and when one examines the history, archaeology and anthropology that extends long before the historical periods we know so well, we see that knowledge of the Gods stems from some very ancient and even non-human experiences of the Natural world, and from stranger places still. It is one thing to 'experience' Thor in depictions of the red-bearded strong man with his hammer and goats, but something else to experience Him when one hears the thunder roar and feels the rain fall. I can say with assurance that one of these "ways of experiencing" came before the other. </span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />And when we consider that, we have to realize that some Edda-born tales of the Gods don't suffice to encapsulate the Gods as a whole, nor reveal the deep mystery of their Beings. In a way, I think we were minimizing the Gods with our metaphysical thinking about them before now- and even if we saw a larger picture for the Gods, saw and felt them deeper than the poetic and human-like depictions of them (which still reveal something of their nature), we still unconsciously continued to treat them like just another human (albeit a vastly more powerful and respected human) with our blot metaphysics.</span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />I work every day to experience the Unseen reality, to broaden and sharpen my senses to the hidden currents of Wyrd, and to hear the voices of Ancestors. This is a slow process, a very subtle process. What my heart begins to tell me, and has been straining to tell me for years, is that our real task with blots is to do nothing more than show our deep gratitude to the Gods and the Sacred Powers for their ceaseless gift-giving to mankind.</span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />They give all, and do all: Earth herself pours forth food endlessly, and waters; Thor protects mankind endlessly from countless unknown threats; Odin taught man culture, Runes, and inspires poetry and art and strategy, and even rides alongside the dead who fly the winds with him yearly. Frey and Freya and their great and generous family of Vanic divinities give life force and food and peace and good weather in abundance, and pour frith on human homesteads and communities, and on the communities of other beasts- all without being asked. This is part of who they are. Even the air that surrounds us everywhere, and sustains our life through breathing- does not Odin indwell the air and wind? Is this breath not a gift from him, too?</span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />The Gods aren't going to suddenly withhold their generous natures because some humans didn't do a sacrifice correctly, nor do I imagine they care if humans do sacrifices at all. For centuries, the vast majority of mankind have ignored them at the religious level, and even cast them aside like trash, upon converting to Christianity- and yet, I see them, feel them, experience them every day being generous and powerful and filling the world with good things, as though nothing really ever changed. They are Gods, after all; I doubt they get too tied up over temporary, shifting human politics. And we all know that, despite some new-agers reporting otherwise, they are not dependent on human worship. They are not dependent on our blots.</span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />But we do blots, and should do them, to say thank you, to give back because the Gods have given so much- a gift does, after all, call for a gift; but that's where I think it should end. When we do Blot for the Gods, the Blot is surely a gift, an honoring, but to think of it also as bargaining is a touch lame to imagine. Odin doesn't give "Sig" or Victory to communities because they pleased him at Sigrblot; he gives victory to good and noble people because he is the Sig-Father, and this is in his nature. It just so happens that "Good and noble people" should never fail to show their gratitude with blots. But it does not do to imagine that we "got something" out of the Gods because we bribed them somehow, or forced them to be reciprocal with us because we gave a gift to them. </span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />Did we find victory? Thank Odin! Did we make ourselves the sorts of people that a being like Odin would be proud to give victory to, with our long-held demonstrations of generosity, our ceaseless demonstrations that we are thankful and generous and thereby noble ourselves? Certainly. Did we do it just so the Gods would favor us? I hope not; generosity is its own reward, its own righteous beauty, fully in line with deep pylons of the Sacred in this fateful world. So we'll keep doing blots of thanksgiving (for indeed, I see no need for any other kind) and trust the Gods to be the Gods that the Ancestors loved and held in awe and trusted.</span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />The best way to assure that you will "get what you want or need" from the Gods is to manifest to them, in your everyday deeds and actions, and in your blots, a great heart of gratitude and reverence, and then to rest assured in knowing that they will continue to be the generous beings we know they are, and continue to bless us- for indeed, who among us can say that we have received nothing from the Gods? </span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />If you can sing or play music or write poetry, or if you can build or carve in wood, or bake bread, or if you command language with great skill, or if you can design things, create amazing strategies in tests or games, weave clothing, walk for miles on strong legs, or if you have the gift of creativity... or if you have healthy, happy children, great friends, or enough food to eat for the foreseeable future, or a solid roof over your head, you are already mightily blessed. The greatest of "askings" has already been granted you. And it was given freely, probably without you asking at all.</span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">* * *<br />Some ask me "But what if I have a sick child, and I want to blot Thor to drive away the spirit of the sickness that is bedeviling him? Can I not ask, over the blot feast and gifts, that Thor help with this?" I say "certainly- ask away, toast away, beg away, cry away, in public or in private. But I myself would never imagine that Thor was going to help your sick child simply because you brought rich gifts. I imagine he will help- have full confidence and trust that he will help, if he can- because he's Thor, a friend to man, and protector and supporter of noble people- and anyone who thinks to feast a God like Thor for help is already a noble person, in my book." </span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />I admit that some will be bothered by this, because it violates one of the central "hidden rules" of a lot of modern Heathenry- the Aesiric bias. This entire essay is, admittedly, "Vanic" in tone and in feeling, and even in origin, for it represents a shift in my metaphysical thinking from a "bargain and strategy" approach to blot, to an "overwhelming gratitude for generosity" approach, which sounds more at home in the pleasant fields of Vanaheim (and in pre-pastoral, pre-Indo European Europe) than in the more socially-stratified and competitive annals of Indo-European culture.</span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />But my fear is that we have been promulgating, even without meaning to, a de-spiritualized view of Nature itself, which is everywhere generous, always giving gifts to man, including the gift of his own Natural being. The Gods are part of the tapestry of Nature, Wyrd's weave, and it pulses and pounds with life and abundance. To feel so separate from that, to the point that we start bargaining with Gods that we come to think of as "Big Chieftains" or "Big Powerful Rich Guys" who will, like a human chief, give a gift back to us if we give one to them, represents a harmful evolution in human spiritual thinking, one that could only be possible when certain human cultures became distant from the "People of Bear, Elk, and Salmon", as Shepard put it- that is, away from the original human cultures that lived every day in the sheer generosity of Nature and the Gods, and didn't have social systems that were reduced to cut-throat bargaining or ritualized, complex gift-giving institutions that assured alliances and favors.</span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">* * *<br />From now on, when I blot, it will always be a gift giving to the Gods, not a scheme of obligation or strategy on my part all dressed up in Ancestral respect and piety, but a gift from a heart that desires to be as generous to them as they have been to me and mine. I will rest assured that the Gods and Sacred Powers will continue to be as kindly to me later as they have been before, and as they were to my Ancestors who knew them from every age. Why add anything else to this clean, organic, and demonstrably ancient metaphysic, to muddle the waters? Trust for the Gods becomes the keynote of a healthy relationship with them.</span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />It is good for a community to feel that they have re-affirmed kinship bonds with the Gods through blots and feasts, but even that represents a minor sense of paranoia- nothing can break our kinship bonds with the Gods and Sacred Powers, ever. The nature of that Fateful and vital bond is not something based on economics or "paying upkeep" or anything of the kind.</span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />But as noble and good people, being generous (and feasting for the Gods) should be done anyway, else we cannot really claim to be good and noble. It's not because we're trying to "get something" that we feast, but because we are something already that we feast.</span><br />
<br />Alfarrinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16532701327343776837noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36326453.post-72030539582016246692012-07-14T11:24:00.001-07:002012-07-14T15:49:39.005-07:00The Institution of Oathing and Oath-Taking in Modern Heathenry<br />
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Today, I thought I'd write some ponderings on the modern Pagan notion of
Oathing and Oath-taking. This might be of particular interest to my
Heathen friends, or anyone who religiously follows an Ancestral Path
native to Germania or Celtia- <span class="text_exposed_show">though the
institution of Oathing was Pan-European, and certainly found among the
Slavs, Greeks, and Romans as well. As with anything truly universal,
this topic may have something to say to those of you who practice
sorcerous paths of any sort, considering when we deal with oaths, we
deal with the deeper implications of using language to bind oneself (or
others) to certain actions or destinies. <br /> <br /> I'll start by
speaking to my Heathen friends who accept the institution of Oathing as a
central aspect of their lives, religiously and otherwise. I hate to say
"religiously and otherwise" because truly, Heathenry, or real
traditional Paganism generally, does not expect you or teach you to have
a life on the one hand, and a religion on the other. Life and religion
seamlessly blend together. As a modern traditional pagan- not a
neopagan, mind you- as a practitioner of a native ethnic European faith,
there is no sense that religion is held apart from everyday activities.
All things have what we now call a "religious" dimension. It's easier
to say that everything has a sacred dimension, and it must be called
forth in everything you do. As Marcus Aurelius said, "No human action is
well taken without reference to the divine."<br /> <br /> If you accept
this- and indeed, you can hardly call yourself a Pagan of any Ancestral
tradition if you do not- then immediately, your words and deeds become
more weighty. It's one thing for the degenerates of our world who think
that the divine or sacred is transcendent to the world to abuse their
words and deeds. It's another thing for those of us who think that the
sacred is intimately involved, here and now, always, to abuse words and
deeds. You are indeed "abusing" words and deeds if you consider them to
be "throw away" things, or even "mundane" things, and you place no real
attention or weight on them.<br /> <br /> Your every word or deed is a
fresh, new expression of your personal power, and by extension, your
Ancestral power, passed down to you from a very long line that reaches
back to Gods. A mortal these days may play games with words and deeds,
not understanding this. Those of you who do must give more attention to
all you say and do.<br /> <br /> This leads us to the before-mentioned
universal concept of Oathing. In a strange sense, we shouldn't need
oaths; the Ancestors shouldn't have needed them, and indeed, I doubt
they thought of them as we do now. What you say, should always mean
something, and what you do should be 100% in alignment with your will,
wisely measured, and everything you say and do should be something you
fully own, that you fully claim as your own- yours and your Ancestors,
for they share in everything you say and do, as well. <br /> <br /> If this
is the case, why Oath anything? It would appear on the surface that
Oathing is a way to add special weight or gravity to what should be
already weighty and serious words. To tell someone you'll do something
appears to be one thing; to make an Oath that you will seems more
intense, more pointed, more assured. <br /> <br /> When we understand that
Oaths in the past were seen as aspects of Wyrd or Fate, it begins to
make more sense. Naturally, nothing can be said to be "outside" of Wyrd
or Fate, so again, it starts to look strange- but to take an Oath is to
accept a burden of types, to involve more powers than just yourself and
your Ancestors. To "Oath" to a power (like a God or a community or
another person) is to call that power to witness your personal integrity
and the integrity of your power broadly speaking- even your Ancestors. <br /> <br />
To Oath to a God or Goddess, for instance, is to make a verbal
event-connection- itself a tangible power- with an immensely powerful
being, asking that divine person to witness your deed, and to add its
power to your own. This is a very "instant" form of a very old and very
hidden sorcery- most people who witness this can tell that this "power
adding" effect occurs- when people hear the oath being so made, it
immediately carries a sense of higher intensity which affects them. The
witnesses almost always immediately feel more assured that the oath will
be carried out, that it has become more in-depth, more intense, more trustworthy. This is
a profoundly mystical effect, from a very deep level, though most of us
today have little means of sensing these deep wheels turning. <br /> <br />
Many who experience this may try to explain it in purely "social"
terms. They may think "Hey, he believes in that power, so there's a much
higher likelihood now that he'll make good on that oath" or "He
wouldn't dare lose face in front of everyone now, having made an oath."
But it still goes deeper. Real power "moves" in accordance with these
words and living powers being called upon.<br /> <br /> If the oath is
broken, this diminishes the power of the oath-taker and that upon which
it was taken or sworn. This will very likely evoke the displeasure or
harmful tidings of the powers upon which the broken oath was taken, as
they, too, "lose" force in the situation. Those who hear of the broken
oath or see it broken, immediately feel the reduction of trust, of
faith, of face, and of respect. The oath-breaker from that point on is a
"Wolf of his word"- someone that uses words, but instead of increasing
the vital force of the words, instead of preserving the integrity of
power, diminishes them, eats the power like a greedy wolf.<br /> <br /> So,
this extends a touch further, on the subtle level, than just incurring
the wrath of a God to whom one swore an oath. This comes down to the
loss or gain of personal and Ancestral power. And the loss of this power
in this situation opens a person to more than just divine retribution,
or subtle retribution- it destroys their standing in a human group, a
group that the person is likely quite involved with. That human group is
another webwork of power that shares force with those involved, and is
increased and diminished on the backs of words and deeds of those
associated. <br /> <br /> The oath-breaker is not trusted, and without
trust, the members of a group are not willing to share power freely with
another. They assume a defensive posture around them, withholding
something very subtle and vital. In a sense, to lose trust with a
community, even if one is allowed to remain in the community, is to
suffer a subtle form of banishment.<br /> <br /> Sometimes I consider the
entire oathing system to be "everyman's sorcery"- though many may not
like the term "sorcery." But as I have pointed out, it is very much
power-manipulation, a game and even sometimes a gamble of power loss or
power gain. It involves complex matters like community and personal
trust, and integrity.<br /> <br /> To lose too much power to broken Oaths,
in the past, would and could (and did) spell the deaths or downfall of
those involved. The broken oath is an injury to power, both personal,
Ancestral, and community. No community which is in touch with these
realities at a conscious level will tolerate it too much- a person who
declines so far in trust can no longer remain; they may even eventually
inspire violence or coercive rejection. But on the personal level, the
loss of too much power means (eventually) the loss of vital force for
living, and that can spell doom, too. We see this happen today, though
we ordinarily don't see it deeply enough- people who "fall onto hard
times" through their own disastrous misdeeds, and ruined relationships,
often sink into depression and listlessness, and may either die at their
own hands, or simply fall into ill health that shortens their lives
greatly.<br /> <br /> Needless to say, at the level of power-interaction, we
are all dealing with real force, real power, whether we experience it
that way or not; our oaths are a form of magic that all can (and once
did) engage in. Sure, your words should have had the weight of your
integrity even when you weren't oathing, but to oath was to gather power
to your proclamation, to gather extra force to yourself for the
fulfillment of the oath, or the fulfillment of your will. And that is
why they were there. Socially speaking, Oaths were the only things the
Ancestors had to guarantee or at least maximize the predictability of
human behavior. It was social glue, a social binding, a customizable
bond that could be used where it was needed.<br /> <br /> For those of you
who are distant from the Pagan faiths, but deeply involved in Sorcerous
pursuits, don't imagine that your words spoken to powers in the Unseen
world behave all that differently from this. Even if no other human is
there to witness some oath of your own to a spiritual force or helper,
many Unseen eyes witness it, and power moves. Like anyone who makes
Oaths for any reason, you need to bear in mind how serious this is.
Words have a sacred dimension, they naturally have weight, just like
actions. Whether we realize that or not makes no difference; the weight,
the power is there. Be cautious what you say and what you do. There is
no sorcery, just like there is no wisdom, without a higher degree of
awareness, even of so-called "simple" things. <br /> <br /> <br /> And now,
one more related topic, I think, needs to be mused upon. Modern Heathens
and Pagans make a great deal out of Oaths. This reflects Ancient
custom, but I've noticed something troubling about the Oath institution
in the modern day. I've seen a lot of oaths made, and I've seen a lot of
oaths broken. People wonder at this- are we just weaker in the modern
day, at the level of integrity and power, than the Ancestors? The short
answer to that question is "yes, absolutely"- for too long, idealism has
taken our attention off this world and put our attention on
abstractions and delusions up in the sky. We have a strong sense that
this world and "worldly things" are not of "ultimate importance"- we
have a strong distinction between "mundane" and "sacred", which I do not
think reflects the Ancestral thinking on life.<br /> <br /> But it runs
deeper than that. We've just lost the high value that Pagan culture had
on oaths generally. We are out of touch with the subtle but very real
spiritual dangers of breaking oaths- we consider "consequences" to be
very tangible things, like people hating you or hurting you, or the loss
of property. We don't have a sense for interior consequences, for the
Unseen consequences of breaking our word. We should be afraid, truly, of
breaking our words we gave in the name of Unseen powers, as well as the
words we gave in the name of others who might be right here in this
sacred world- like a community, or our children, or our family. We
should be afraid because even if we don't see it immediately, we are
profoundly affected by it, in the short and long terms.<br /> <br /> We lack
the grasp of the subtle that the Ancestors had, in other words. This
would be my belief on the matter. But this goes one more layer deep- how
can we really trust anyone today, even ourselves, to make "Oaths" on
Gods, when we seldom meet the Gods anymore, in any conscious way?<br /> <br />
This is the real reason I wanted to write this today. It is not enough
to say one believes in Gods. Gods are not abstract notions to be
believed in, just as the Unseen world is not an abstract notion to
believe in. These powers are realities to be experienced. Until you have
experienced them, or until anyone has, there is no real possibility of a
true "Oath" being taken, in the binding sense that I mean. Until your
soul has touched the soul of what you are Oathing on, I see no real
possibility of the gravity, the intensity, moving and changing you and
it.<br /> <br /> Wear hammers or triskeles all day long; talk about the Gods
a lot, quote me their myths and sacred stories, but it means little to
me if you have not left the lot of us humans and walked into the
wilderness and, in the quiet of your mind and soul, let the divine
forces that you claim to worship come to you in a new way. Call it an
initiatory introduction if you like; the Ancestors got this easily; we
have to work a bit harder at this. We are surrounded by many walls that
they didn't have, which prevent us from meeting the Gods at the soul
level.<br /> <br /> I saw a blog today written by a well-meaning (and highly
talented) Heathen man, and while I loved his work, he wrote constantly
about the struggle he underwent to hold on to his "faith"- how he fell
away from Heathenry for long periods of time, felt pulled to other
expressions of Paganism, like Druidry or even Wicca- and he suffered a
great deal from this. He would not suffer if he had walked near the
Gods, or met them directly. The Gods don't "come to us" because we talk
like ancient Pagans, nor because we feel a draw to them and to the Old
Ways. We have to go to physically go to them, and that completes the
circle. <br /> <br /> Our Ancestors walked away from them, some for very bad
reasons, others because they had no choice. That power- that greatest
oath-breaking of all, which happened at a cultural level, affects us to
this day. Until we realize that, and understand the difficulty you will
face "up front" when you finally try to walk back into the Forest of
Paganism, you might just find yourself losing interest and not feeling
any real connection, after a point. <br /> <br /> This Pagan "religious"
life is not easy to get into; the price of admission, real admission, is
some sweat, some blood, some uncertainty, some inconvenience, and
facing the deep, dark silence inside your soul. You have to step away
from the madness that has no Gods (which anyone can experience just by
getting stuck in traffic) and step back to the lonely places of the
world and the soul where the Gods went to take shelter when the world
was broken so long ago by the seeds of madness.<br /> <br /> Do I look down
on those I know who made Oaths and broke them, or forgot about them? No,
not really. I am not lacking at my own failures on that level- when I
was much younger, I threw the word "Oath" around with the same shallow
lack of understanding of it that nearly everyone does. But that was
then; this is now. Now, I am "Oathable"- oath-able- because I understand
what I did not then. But the power is still unforgiving; it doesn't
matter what I understood or didn't understand. I can't undo what was
done. But I am certainly capable of a greater degree of awareness and
honor now, and that's worth a lot, too.</span></div>Alfarrinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16532701327343776837noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36326453.post-17332275367817282362012-06-25T17:51:00.000-07:002012-06-25T17:54:56.213-07:00The Sorcery of Culture: Some Words on Race, Culture, and Shared Values from a Heathen Perspective<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFWreAtT6eqC8edOOBpNxQvFApXJ8dE9auIWCJj1OMTfVrB4ItcnMq8hqUN2_d9AP3bMrAUEIhZYSofpV7tk5Dh_mWAaymlnVDTRBwmAyApRqGNY4H7WiAGLj62DY2b1puvpB0nQ/s1600/vikingback2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="175" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFWreAtT6eqC8edOOBpNxQvFApXJ8dE9auIWCJj1OMTfVrB4ItcnMq8hqUN2_d9AP3bMrAUEIhZYSofpV7tk5Dh_mWAaymlnVDTRBwmAyApRqGNY4H7WiAGLj62DY2b1puvpB0nQ/s320/vikingback2.jpg" width="320" /></a>
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<b>Racist?</b></div>
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Someone on another forum I was participating in made the suggestion that I was "racist." That person was clearly not enjoying one of the recent discussions I had started, and certainly won't be around here to receive this comment of mine, but I thought it brought up a topic which was worth some talking about.
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I could begin by saying how I wasn't racist, but that never really works, because all racist people say that. Instead of saying what I'm not, I thought I'd talk for a little while about what I am. I am both a sorcerer in the Heathen tradition, and a "culturalist", to use a term. Being a sorcerer, I see life a bit differently from most- I see threads of what can only be described as "magical" stuff everywhere, which sometimes gets called "trees" or "cars" or "clouds" or even "people." And these threads are hardly standing still; they appear to be about as stable as a fast moving river.
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How does a person hold onto the droplets of water in a fast moving river? You don't. You just find a way to enjoy the river for what it is. But we wouldn't be human if we didn't try to grab a few drops here and there, no matter how doomed the attempt might be. I might also say that we wouldn't be human if we didn't have the right to a few preferences here and there- and we all have our personal preferences and limitations.
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I have studied "race" and "culture" extensively. They are both droplets of water in the river of life. "Races" do not stay stable anymore than cultures do. "Race"- if such a thing exists at all- is closer to the serpent of life, the wordless and ancient genetics, the blood, the flesh of this world. There's no thinking involved in race; the body of a human, like the texture or color of stones, just happens to be what it is, naturally. "Culture", however, is a child of the human mind. We appear to have more influence over the shape of culture, even if we don't have full control over it, in any way. It changes too, in this web of strange powers that always influence everything else.
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When I decide to be human and make judgments about things in my experience, I find it more satisfying to judge other people based on something closer to the light of the mind and intention- that is, culture- and not race, which is unchosen by everyone, and, well, when compared to culture, a little boring. Culture shapes how people think, why they do many of the things they do, even how they dress, eat, and sleep. Culture is where the action is. Culture is a chess game; race is a blank board that you might possibly play chess on.
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So, I'm a culturalist- but this must necessarily build on my sorcerous vocation. For me, culture isn't just a collection of learned, shared behaviors, anchored by language, that "came into existence" based on ancient trial-and-error survival behaviors. It's something far deeper and more intentional than that.
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<b>A Sorcery of Great Might and Age</b>
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For me, culture is itself sorcery. Yes; when language gets involved (language itself is sound and word sorcery), and shared behaviors get involved, when groups of men and women get together and mingle their vital power together to affect the world collectively, you are seeing real sorcery, a massive, massive ritual of types, which comes to influence and involve their descendants, for countless ages to come. Culture is a massive group "spell" being cast, by groups of people, consciously and unconsciously, to affect this world to their benefit, and to express their souls here in the intersubjective sphere.
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To belong to a "culture" means a lot. The word "culture" has the word "cult" as its root- and members of the same cult, like members of the same culture, generally hold the same things to be valuable or sacred. That's what creates their true bond together; they are members of a value-sharing team.
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Culture and race are not the same. Culture can come to dominate racial groups. It always has; look at what Western culture has done in Asia. Look at what Roman culture did to the entire world- after a point, the average speaker of Latin wasn't native to Latium or Italia. It was just practically everyone around the "known" world. People possessed of African genetics were imported by force into the Americas, and today, their descendants don't speak African languages or practice African culture; they are as boring "American" as anyone else, speaking English, a Germanic language, putting presents under the Christmas tree like most people, trick-or-treating at Halloween like most people.
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Culture is stronger than race; culture is the identifying mark of the Ancestors, not their race. Genetic pools can be strong, compared to other groups; they can be weak, compared to other groups; but if a genetic line still exists today, it was clearly one of the strong ones from long ago, so I don't look around the world trying to judge the vital strength of genetics I run into. Instead, I judge the sorcerous strength of the culture I'm encountering. The proto-Indo Europeans, when they wandered out into the rest of the world, by migration or diffusion, vanished genetically, mingling their blood into the blood of native peoples everywhere they went. But their languages and their cultures were very powerful, and those things still exist in countless modern forms.
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If you speak English- if you're reading this now, guess what? Germanic culture, broadly speaking- the mighty sorcery of some ancient Germanic people- has joined with you, made you a part of it, regardless of your racial background. This doesn't mean that your non-Germanic Ancestors are banished or gone; it just means that you have a connection to the sorcery of the ancient Germanic people, the culture-sorcery that defines who and what they are. It means that you also have a share in their ancient religion, their ancient values, their ancient deeds. You have this language precisely because of some of their mighty deeds.
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<b>Not An Equal Opportunity Culturalist</b>
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And now, for the scandal: I don't value all cultures equally. Not me, personally. The religious culture of Christianity and Islam both meet with my strong disapproval, even though their sorcery has affected me in my life, and many of my Ancestors. I have looked, as best I can with my human eyes, and seen aspects of many other cultures I don't like, and I'm totally unafraid to say "I don't like those."
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I prefer to not be around people shaped by, and who behave strongly under the influence of rural American "redneck" cultures- which are the remains of the rural protestant cultures that came to grow up in the south of the United States. I prefer to not be around people shaped by, and who behave strongly under the influence of Urban "ghetto" cultures of American cities. I prefer to not be around "good old fashioned family values" Christian culture generally in the United States, or anywhere else.
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These are some of my preferences, and I have no shame over them. Again, I'm human, and entitled to a few preferences. I dislike how people act when they are under the influence of these cultures. No one's race has ever harmed me; flesh and blood didn't decide to persecute other people or be obnoxious; flesh and blood only ever sat there and felt sensations and motivated people to reproduce, and that's that.
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But people under the influence of culture have done many insane things. Certain cultural sorceries- and the persistent presence of those cultural patterns passed down from generation to generation- are foul, dangerous, and undesirable to me and to people like me. To call me a "racist", then, is not accurate; I am, at worst, an ethnocentrist, but I don't suffer from my ethnocentrism- I enjoy every moment of it.
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I have chosen to belong to an Ancestral culture that I was spiritually guided to be a part of, consciously. That culture comes with certain ways of seeing the world, certain key behaviors and ideas, and I embrace them. I'm actually quite proud of it. I'm not speaking as a sorcerer now, for real sorcery transcends most things; I'm speaking as a religious person, and a member of a subculture, in this case the modern Heathen movement. A person can have sorcery, but no religion; I happen to have both, and while they influence each other, they don't have to in every person.
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As a Heathen, I'm part of a subculture which is nested within a larger Western, predominantly Germanic cultural sphere, and this description is given to it because of the dominant language, mostly, but for a few other reasons as well. My true "heart culture", however, is not the mainstream one, but this smaller one that I occupy. And that culture is an excellent reflection of my values as a person, and it really fulfills my natural desire to connect to the Gods and Goddesses and sacred values that my Ancestors had before Christianity became so influential.
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But it is still a subculture, and it has walls. There are boundaries around every "culture", whether it is "sub" or not, and even though those boundaries are permeable (and the larger the culture, the more permeable the boundaries) they are still there. My religious subculture structures how I see many things, including other people. The reason why I dislike features of other cultures is partly due to my own cultural aesthetics. As a sorcerer, I pride myself on my ability to even look beyond the subcultural boundaries that I have accepted, when I need to- but I dwell within them, the rest of the time.
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<b>"If you wanna be down with the PFJ, you really have to hate the Romans..."</b>
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I've never met a single human being, taken a look at them, and said "you aren't like me. You can't be in my religious community." I don't owe anyone a free pass into my religious community. I'm not required to accept any and all who want to be in my community, and indeed, there's little to no reason why most people SHOULD want to be in it. I don't want to be in anyone elses.
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I have standards- we have standards- for who we'll unify our souls and our lives with at that level. If a person, any person, really accepts the religious cultural values and cultural beliefs and behaviors that we've accepted, and puts them to action in their lives, AND if that person lives near enough to me to interact with me and mine in person, and is a person of honor, that person will be accepted by me and those closest to me as a full member of our religious/subcultural community.
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If, however, a person does NOT do those things, and if I have no other social or familial bond to them, then I have no special duty to them, no special considerations put aside for them, outside of the most general sense of respect for their personal liberties and their basic human rights. At times when I meet those people (which is most people) in the online or offline public world and interact with them, I will "judge" them on their displayed merits, firstly, and on the cultural conditioning that I detect operating on them.
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I am not required, by anyone, by any God, by any Goddess, by any government, at any time, to "like" everyone, accept everyone, nor am I required to approve of all other cultures on the planet; that is not reality.
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If, to you, that makes me racist or evil, then have fun calling me names. What's really happening, however, is that I'm merely failing to live up to your universalist, culturally destructive paradigm that posits a real falsehood: the falsehood that humans are all the same, and that our differences should all be shed. I do not think shedding our differences would result in any positive outcome. It would merely homogenize the world into a flavorless mass of monoculture, and make all human beings prideless, shallow beings who would be easily controlled by very dark forces.
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I live a life of Ancestral piety, and that life calls for me to honor the Ancestors who, through acts of sorcery and wisdom so immense they could change the lives of billions of people and even change the lay of the land on this planet, laid down the "Ur-layers" that gave birth to this cultural stream that I belong to now. Their great magic affects, this very day, how I think, talk, eat, and act. It's incredible when you really think about it. And this honor for the Ancestors and the culture holds true no matter how much the culture may have changed or grown in the intervening ages- and you can bet it has. A fresh spirit still lives within it, and within me and everyone who is a part of it. This is not something that can be understood unless you've joined with others in experiencing it.
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I know noble people who come from many cultural backgrounds. Some even come from cultural backgrounds that I despise for various reasons. Some people just defy the curve, defy my expectations- which may not be 100% accurate expectations, after all. I'm still just human. I'm doing the best I can. Some people I meet don't seem to "fit in" anywhere, and I think even that has a strange sorcery to it.
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I will not just "give up" on cultural patterning, because I know it to be a sorcerous power, and I'm a sorcerer, who draws strength and inspiration from things like this. I like cultures that display the power to impact the world and people's lives in long-term positive ways; I dislike cultures that display the power to impact the world and people's lives in very negative ways. I like people who display nobility in their actions, and deep thought in their words; I dislike people who display ignoble behaviors and are morons.
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You might say that I'm being "overly simplistic" with my use of the term "culture", for every human can engage certain aspects of their birth culture, or not; every person may express it differently, or not- and that much is true; but broad cultural features and their history in this world are conventionally available to us for study, and we must make due with conventions at some time or another, else they'd cease to be conventions and become useless.
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But I would like to point out that above, I gave my formula for "judging" this way: "I will judge them (people I meet) on their displayed merits, firstly, and on the cultural conditioning that I detect operating on them." Meaning, I go by how individual people act and speak first, and look to general cultural realities secondly, if I look at all. Because honestly, I don't _have_ to make judgments about everyone I meet. Others might feel the need to judge every person they bump into; I don't. I only tend to do it when I feel like a person may be an influence on me or mine in some important way, or if I have to deal with them for any significant length of time.
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<b>The White Wash</b>
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One of the problems I face- and everyone like me faces- is that I'm "white" or predominantly Caucasian in ancestry, and I'm part of a broadly Western and Germanic culture, and I'm claiming to "be" something <i>other than Christian</i>. White people today just aren't allowed to claim strange or unusual things for themselves, without lots of other people reacting badly.
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White people, it seems, can't revert to their pre-Christian roots without allegations that "racism" must have motivated it, or without people getting alarmed about something or another. White people are expected to be the snooty beneficiaries of their world-conquering, culture-destroying butthole forebears, and to be completely without authentic spiritual roots, while everyone else on the planet gets to have "traditional culture" of some sort to belong to.
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When a white person or white people try to claim some portion of the real native spirituality that existed at the origin of Indo-European culture, whether it be Germanic or Celtic or Slavic or Greek or whatever, everyone assumes that they're doing it for reasons of scary nationalism, or to satisfy those natural "white race" fascist tendencies within them, or out of rebellion for Christianity- you have to be a skinhead, a violent, weird anti-Christian, or whatever. It's just taboo in the West for Westerners to have a true, deeper spiritual origin that they talk about, take pride in, or engage in. It's as though the whole world- within and without our societies- either wants to keep "whites" Christian, as though our Ancestral past never happened, or wants them to be spiritually bankrupt as atheists and materialists.
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It's the reputation: if some traditional culture somewhere gets destroyed, it's those white American or European bankers and capitalists who crushed the native people under their machines. White people are trouble; everyone knows it. When some white person points out that the situation might not be that simple, that "white" people are no easier to stereotype away, either historically or in the modern day, immediately there is an opposing storm of very real "reverse" racism- as though racism was only a white invention- and a <i>white wash</i>.
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I've seen people accuse white guys who were interested in Buddhism (itself a religion open to all human beings, without restriction) of being "cultural imperialists" out to "plunder" Buddhism, due to how disaffected they were by the shallow European-American culture that they belonged to. Whites can't explore the spiritual truths of the rest of the world without people shaking their heads and rolling their eyes about how pathetic it is.
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A white guy who sits under a tree and beats a drum for the spirit of the tree is "stealing" and "culturally appropriating" from some native non-white culture somewhere, acting fully "non-white"- even though his Ancestors once lived in deep communion with the spirits of trees. But we can't talk about that. The people and cultures of Old Europe were never "deep", never in touch. Or at least, that's what you'd be led to believe if you just listened to the way people talk.
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Maybe it's a function of "white man's guilt", or maybe something darker. One thing is certain: whatever caused it to come about, the situation here is unacceptable. All beings, human or otherwise, eventually return to their roots; the end is in the beginning. White people- people whose Ancestral cultural ties are strongest to Old Europe and the original Indo European cultures of Europe and Eurasia generally- are not exempt from this. The many social forces out there that attempt to stop the circle from becoming complete are doing it as a function of resentment or fear- this much I know.
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But "white" people must eventually take their place in the truth of their Ancestral cultural origins, or they'll never be able to do what the rest of the world has wanted them to do since they charged out of Europe under Christian banners and began screwing over native cultures around the world: meet the rest of the world with dignity, wisdom, and equanimity.
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<b>Discriminatory Me </b>
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It is not a crime for people to <i>not</i> be Heathen like me. I don't sit around chanting about belonging to a Master Race or anything like that. I don't believe in Master Races, but I do believe that some cultures are more powerful than others- for many cultures have been crushed and are now vanished to history after coming into conflict with others. I think the one I belong to is pretty smart, tough, and innovative- a world-changing culture, really- but then, there are others out there which are tough, smart, and innovative, too. I wish them well in the march through history that we are all taking.
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If I meet you and don't like you, you can trust that one of two things (or both) have happened: I've decided you were acting or speaking in ways that I dislike and find harmful, or I've sensed that your "cultural magic" (or the way you express that magic) conflicts with me and mine. You can be pretty sure that your race has nothing to do with it. It just so happens that most of the people who religiously bond with me are Caucasian or "white" like me, but this wasn't intentionally chosen on my part or theirs; it's just the way things fatefully worked out for me and for us. The ancient notion of Kinship, as understood by my Ancestors, was a religious and cultural association primarily, not chiefly a genetic one. This point cannot be over-emphasized.
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A possibility exists that any person alive now could be my "kin". But no requirement exists for me to accept everyone as though they were. My acceptance at that level comes from my perception of a person's values, cultural allegiances, words, and deeds. And indeed, what is the alternative? That I accept everyone into my family's life, without discrimination, with no knowledge of their quality or qualities? That's a fast way to destruction and stupidity. And though I can be destructive from time to time, like all humans can be, stupidity is not something I'm guilty of often at all.
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<br />Alfarrinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16532701327343776837noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36326453.post-24303158308147792122011-08-06T13:49:00.000-07:002011-08-07T01:00:55.203-07:00Heathen Cinema Movie Review: Valhalla Rising<br><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzZv2ZZlpvOpvRLUwE_9Gc3ZSb8l5k4OvM-o7b1g6AW1UOhZMhQ6NcuJbntIBe9pgZbF6eXiBimJT8x0P8Y10oh4jojTUQp0wzj_NfB-MpRtWpS2Y0D1W3Wwux003i3l1kycDGqA/s1600/Valhalla-Rising.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzZv2ZZlpvOpvRLUwE_9Gc3ZSb8l5k4OvM-o7b1g6AW1UOhZMhQ6NcuJbntIBe9pgZbF6eXiBimJT8x0P8Y10oh4jojTUQp0wzj_NfB-MpRtWpS2Y0D1W3Wwux003i3l1kycDGqA/s200/Valhalla-Rising.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5637849157460129906" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">For me, and for us, the idea of "Heathen cinema" and "Heathen film" is very important. Like it or not, both Heathens and non-Heathens draw a lot of conclusions about Heathenry, ancient and modern, from movies. We Heathens can be inspired by the right movie that presents the nobility in our Ancestors and in our religion (like "Beowulf and Grendel", starring Gerard Butler) or really uninspired by the wrong kind of movie. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The recent movie "Thor" increased people's attention to modern Heathenry, however slightly, and however strange that might seem, as the movie itself presented a full fantasy version of Valhalla and the Gods. Its presentation is only proper, as the movie was based on a sci-fi graphic novel, and not genuine Ancestral Lore. And yet, below the surface, symbols, characters, and events had a deep resonance with something very old in Indo-European culture, and thus in the deep layers of our own culture. Thor, like other movies, really has the potential to awaken something in people. Cinematic depictions of our Gods and myths, however indirect, show that these things are still alive in the collective mind-shadow of our common culture.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">So, I watched "Valhalla Rising" a few days ago. Thought I'd give a minor review on the movie, and tell you why I think it might be best avoided. (The picture above is "One Eye", the character in the movie played by Mads Mikkelsen)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I like Mads Mikkelsen a lot. But this role was almost an embarrassment for him for one important reason: his character- "One Eye"- has not a single speaking moment in the entire movie. In fact, the entire movie was a bit "light" on dialogue- and by light, I mean by the time you've watched the trailer which you can see </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQgoGccHJD4&feature=player_embedded"> here</a><span style="font-family:arial;">, you've heard _every_single_ line of dialogue in the movie. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Mads Mikkelsen- who is a very good actor, by the way- spends the entire movie visualizing odd things in his head, staring, and killing people in absurdly brutal ways- once, he bashes and cracks someone's skull open (exposing a little more brain every time he hits them) and another time, he disembowels someone in the most brutal manner ever seen on film. The rest of the time, he does absolutely nothing. And he says nothing. This is a gratuitous waste of talent.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The movie is independent, indie, artsy. Those sorts of movies can be some of the best you'll see- and often enough, they can be some of the worst. This movie moved and developed so slowly that it was like sliding to your death down a one light year long slip-n-slide greased with peanut butter. The movie's trailer claims that it is a "cracked meditation on war, religion, and nation building", but if that was part of the intent of this movie, I missed it totally. The only thing that punctuates the unfolding of the "story"- such that it was- were some outbursts of violence, which while pretty well done, do not save the movie as a whole.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The Heathen characters in the beginning of the movie suck. There is no second dimension to them; they sit around in (what I presume was) northern Scotland pit fighting human beings while staring, and barely having any reactions, before trading money, putting Mads Mikkelsen back into a cage, and then repeating the next day. The only good aspect about the Heathens is how the Heathen leader speaks a grim warning about the Christian presence in their land- his characterization of Christianity is likely very similar to what many historical Heathens thought of it, when they only heard of it from a distance.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The Christian characters (not surprisingly) suck; they are idiots who just kill people, stare at people to make sure they are Christian, too, and then get into a boat hoping to make it to the "Holy Land" to "fight for Jesus"- and end up floating to Greenland, where they spend a good bit of time looking for Jerusalem and their fellow Christians, and some Muslims to kill. They don't find them, of course; they find an unspoiled, beautiful land full of painted Native Americans who are about as happy to see them as the audience is happy to see the movie at this point.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Our hero, One-Eye, would appear to be an "Odinic" figure- he does, after all, have one eye, and he has psychic visions of the future, which he seems to follow, to get to the place he's supposed to be going (presumably). He's a brutal, dark killer, and he's weird- Odinic enough. The actual climax of the movie is when our intrepid but perilously off-course crusaders suddenly get the urge to climb a big hill in Greenland somewhere, and to the pound of an excited, heavy-metal soundtrack, they race up the hill... and find nothing at the top. That's it. Everyone dies. End of story.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Some of you are doubtlessly thinking that something deep's going on here. Was the point of the movie to illustrate how lost everyone really is, how strange life is, and how futile religious wars are? Or how futile things are, in general? I'd like to think so. But I have a suspicion that this is just me reading depth into the shallow end of the pool. Of course, maybe the fact that I had those thoughts at all proves that the movie did its job, and in fact, is a brilliant movie. Perhaps it suffered from budget issues; the trouble there is that I've seen some very great movies done on small budgets. What I think it suffered from was the inability of the writers to translate their vision to the audience's brains on the resources they had.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I strongly suggest that you don't watch it to make your mind up for yourself. Save the two hours for something else you've planned to do for a while. I'm dying of thirst for good Heathen-themed movies, and I usually make it a point to find a way to like them, no matter what. Somehow, I can't do that with this one. On the plus side, if you find yourself watching this movie, at least the scenery and settings are all amazingly beautiful. Just watching the landscape and some of the good costumes might be an okay exercise- for about 20 minutes. Two hours? That's quite a challenge.</span><br /><BR>Alfarrinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16532701327343776837noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36326453.post-1612129420992734922011-07-23T19:20:00.000-07:002011-07-23T19:35:20.279-07:00The Hammer Must Be Ready<br><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPjM8gE1283oLLSb5Y-bAST3S6TTUDzUOP8Y6ZDkTmFxJ73O8jQAMREasvoXuFJkOSw2azIbP3dIHrWmWxFqke7jNOQSF1Xg7QQ65fpkFnacVt_bwNdtZeS887BaThCmfLPzAmhg/s1600/ThorsHammer007.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPjM8gE1283oLLSb5Y-bAST3S6TTUDzUOP8Y6ZDkTmFxJ73O8jQAMREasvoXuFJkOSw2azIbP3dIHrWmWxFqke7jNOQSF1Xg7QQ65fpkFnacVt_bwNdtZeS887BaThCmfLPzAmhg/s200/ThorsHammer007.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5632738200903043634" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Once, and not as long ago as people want to think, the Norwegian people went about with axes and swords, and their villages had wooden statues of the Gods smeared red with blood at their centers, in low wooden buildings with heavy bronze and gold oath rings on tables before them. These were remarkable, tough people- with a society that was kinship oriented, held together by the ancient authority of oaths and bonds of ancestry, and fiercely independent. When they weren't scratching a living out of their harsh but beautiful land, they were exploring the world, raiding, trading, laying eyes on every corner of the known world. They even found their way to the New World long before Columbus did. This is a portrait of a hard-as-nails people, but also a people living in the traditional ways passed down to them by countless generations before.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">But the world changed- a new religion, and the collapse of a world-defining empire started the change. The power of self-sufficiency and the power to see to a community and a family's protection was taken away from these people- the ancient duty of defence and vengeance for wrongs was taken from people and given to a new conception of "God" and given to the King, far away, and the King's men. Axes and swords were blunted. The spirit of going viking was tossed onto the middenheap of history. Now, the grandchildren of these people live in what appears to be a fully peaceful, quiet, and laid-back secular and socialist state where firearms (the swords of the modern day) aren't really owned by common people, and the "king's men"- the police- don't even carry firearms on patrol in most places.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">But the King's Men took an hour and a half to reach 80 children that were being butchered by a lone maniac 48 hours ago. These quiet people are sitting by, shocked, and their King now declares that their homeostasis of peace and untroubled living will remain unchanged by this violent outburst. But I am left wondering if such an incident could have occured in Norway if it had never been rushed by force of conversion and cultural destruction 1000 years ago into the "new order" of the world. My friends in nations that are largely unarmed and peaceful may disagree, but I can't help wondering if people should ever be unarmed. An old Norwegian proverb says "A Knifeless man is a Lifeless man"- and a lot of hoary wisdom wrote that proverb.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">But more than all that, the Old Culture of that land and its Old Religion produced human beings- male and female- who were as sharp and as dangerous as sword-edges. Today, we may look upon the old ways as barbaric and even frightening, but again, I can't help but wonder if sometimes, the old ways are best. "Peace" as an ideal is fine and well, but a massive population of people who are so fully unprepared for violence, and so fully shocked by it, doesn't strike me as a really healthy population. We may, pursuant to our modernist dogmas, think that it's better for a population to be so shocked by violence, and to assume the peaceful best- but is that better?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">The new ways have made us all toothless in many important ways. It's true that politics in my country often makes me want to leave it, but I must say, I think the heavily-armed American population, a population which expects violence more often than not, and which has had to experience it quite a bit, compared to Norway, is an asset here. You might say that we just have more opportunities for mass shootings because of the availability of weapons- but with those opportunities come as many opportunities for non-maniacs with guns to stop maniacs with guns. And our police forces, in nearly every place, don't have trouble finding helicopters and boats when they need them.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">This ties into what was lost when the red, living statues of the Gods were torn down and cast themselves onto the middenheap of history. The thunder God's hammer was always in his hands, ready to smash evil when it invaded the peaceful hearts of communities, and his followers carried his sign on their chest- the hammer- the sign of vigilance. That the wicked powers could invade the order of the community or the world at any moment was known, and it was an eternal warning for the heart of man. And greatest was the glory for the man or woman who fought, killed, and even died when the invasion came. Maybe everyone can learn from those ideals.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">In times of tragedy like this, no words can make anything better. No words can stop grief, sound fitting, sound satisfying. I hope for blessings of strength on every family who had a beloved child taken from them by this insanity and wickedness. I hope that every child slain swiftly returns to their Ancestors, to rest among those who love them best. And I hope that the man who did this never looks upon the faces of his Ancestors, again.</span><br><br /><br>Alfarrinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16532701327343776837noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36326453.post-36563083331636999242011-06-18T21:27:00.001-07:002011-06-19T19:18:15.056-07:00The Season of Family and Hearth<br><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCO39-GLIQFRRqR8QBU68Xr0bVhAce20y92JZxy5dXXKBwSGgJg6is7dOkI8stQ0pCSiGh35BTnoB6Q5ZnU-FMouYdFrgt7dIZ-LMCav2ylAOHUQAqeDLcHFXcReo4MJa1pkKwXQ/s1600/sigilnewpost.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 278px; height: 250px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCO39-GLIQFRRqR8QBU68Xr0bVhAce20y92JZxy5dXXKBwSGgJg6is7dOkI8stQ0pCSiGh35BTnoB6Q5ZnU-FMouYdFrgt7dIZ-LMCav2ylAOHUQAqeDLcHFXcReo4MJa1pkKwXQ/s320/sigilnewpost.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5619792774748979986" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Dear friends: As you can see, I have decided to alter the course of my blog "Cauldron Born" and transform it into a journal and record of the various deeds and doings of my beloved family and my Heathen religious/cultural community- which are now exactly the same thing. It only makes sense that those who seek to really vivify and engage the Elder religious patterns of Hamingja within themselves should find their way to a family focus: the family- not the individual- was the central and basic unit of historical Heathen cultures, and it was the primary grouping which regularly experienced the majestic doings of the Gods and wights and the pervasive, transforming power of the Ancestors. It was within the family context that the religious experiences of the Heathen came to make sense and have the power they had. The family is the very root and seed of any greater community worth the name, and until family consciously achieves its own spiritual dimension, one really only has a collection of relatives.<br /><br />This online transition is taking a bit of time as I hammer out aesthetic transformations and the like, but it will be complete very soon. The good news (hopefully) for my readership is this- nothing really changes but the layout of this blog.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">What's really changed is me: I've learned to integrate family life- my wife, my children, and myself, and all of our deeds and sharings- with the Heathen spiritual life and worldview, forging a "Hearth", a Heathen family, the true heart of any later extended notion like "Kindred". <br /><br />With this powerful heart and soul focus, which is an unassailable sanctuary for a soul like mine, my writings on all aspects of modern Heathenry and the emergence of modern spiritual practices and beliefs nourished in the hamingja of historical Teutonic/Germanic and British Isles Paganism can continue as before, but now better and stronger. The new strength comes from the fact that I have around me the community that Wyrd wove for us in blood and flesh- the most direct and powerful expression of hamingja possible, persons joined together by Fate and by blood, and the love that is natural to them. </span> <span style="font-family:arial;">This new season of writings can also integrate my ongoing learning about Heathenry and Paganism and the evolution of my understandings, both on the scholarly level, and the level of daily life.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">We have taken the name "Hofstaðr"- which means "Sanctuary", because that is what we are for one another as a Heathen family- and what we pledge to be to all modern Heathens and heathen-friendly outsider Pagans who need refuge from a world that seldom understands the kinds of souls we are. If you can find us, we are here for you.<br /><br />The challenges that face families in today's world, and the challenges that face those who embrace an ethnic/religious subcultural identity such as "Heathen", are many. I will demonstrate, to the best of my ability, how our identity as Heathens, and our interactions with the Ancestors, the hamingja-Gods, with friends, the natural world, and with one another steers and guides us through those challenges. Included will be our failures as well as our triumphs (hopefully more triumphs than failures, though) and all of my deepest ponderings about what it means to be both human, and a Heathen today.<br /><br />The entire corpus of writings made by me over the years under the heading of "Cauldron Born" are still here, tucked away in this virtual library, and will always be there. I may refer back to them. I may discuss the ways I have come to diverge from the views I held years ago. Like any living being, I evolve in my understanding, and I'm rather proud to have such a record of my progress- the beauty of the journal, indeed!<br /><br /><br /></span>Alfarrinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16532701327343776837noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36326453.post-17673462606013546012011-06-09T19:15:00.000-07:002011-06-10T23:37:05.803-07:00Bringing Forth the Gods of My Kin<center><br /><img src="http://www.robinartisson.com/newart2.jpg" /></center><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;font-family:arial;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bringing Forth the Gods of My Kin:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">A Heathen perspective on the Hamingja, the Gods, Manifesting the Family Soul, and the “Problem of Other People in the World”</span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center; font-family: arial;">Copyright 2011 by Alfarrin<br /></div><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >The First Fire and the Hamingja</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">When I became Heathen in 1995, it was on the coat-tails of what still amounts to the most powerful blot and burnt offering to Odin I have ever attended. That pyre burned as the sun came up, and it was piled with food and precious, valuable personal offerings. We gathered, spoke our words, drank our mead, poured our mead for the Sacred Guest, and we never knew then what a powerful thing we had done until years later.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">At the time, I had no concept of what "Hamingja" was. Years later, I know it as one of the most crucial concepts and pylons which holds up the entire edifice of the organic and Ancestral tradition. Without a well-developed understanding of it, the soul of Heathenry remains obscure and distant. Without an understanding of it, your family and kin and friends are just people related to you by chance of birth or meeting, and related to you by genetics. With an understanding of it, a great divine reality opens itself up to view, a reality that both unifies, and makes particular; a reality that holds men and Gods, and every living thing, in its lasting grip. Hamingja is a reality that surges forth from the dense darkness of the ancient past, manifests in the deeds and persons of the present, and stands behind all things that come to pass.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">It sounds a lot like Fate, and it should; the Fate-women, those divine beings called "Disir" are part of Hamingja. They see to the fateful comings and goings in every person's life, especially those two supreme and fatefully-loaded times: birth, at which time the birth-runes are marked on the soul and life-force, and death, when the Fylgja-Dis departs and returns to take a man or woman to the beyond, to dwell in deeper unseen regions of this strange world, or onward to whatever place or condition their Fate may have in store for them. Hamingja and the maidens of Hamingja are tied up with the mysteries of causality, which are other aspects of Fate- or Wyrd, for those who know better.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Hamingja is luck-force, but it is not something so simple as some inherited determining factor that will influence a lucky lottery ticket or the possibility of a traffic accident for a person. It is the sum-total of all wealful and woeful deeds done in the family line before, and the power of countless incidents and happenings that have affected one's ancestors. It is the force of life itself, truly; always protean, always shape-shifting, and always surging forth, like a river.<br /><br />It moves through each person, and through each family, and through any grouping of persons that bond themselves together in any permanent or semi-permanent manner, sharing life and experience. Hamingja is there, and it does, among other things, determine "luck" as most people know it. But it does much more; it is much more.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">People who become Heathen to focus on the Gods are missing most of the point of the Old Heathen way- it wasn't focused on Gods primarily; it was focused on family, clan, deeds, and living daily life. It was focused on the implements of daily life- weapons, tools, treasures, boats, the beasts of daily life- cattle, horses, pigs, and the like. It was focused on relationships between men, between men and women, between groups. It was focused on the business of being human.<br /><br />What modern people don't understand is that all of these things were tied up with Hamingja, the subtle and ever-present force that could express itself in all those forms, particularly when relationships were established in a manner of holiness.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The Gods come forth from Hamingja, in the same way Ancestors do- a portion of a dead man or woman's life and power went forth into future generations through Hamingja, and so they could (and did) emerge both as newborn children, and as Ancestral spirits. The Gods, however, always stand behind the human Ancestors in the position of Godly Ancestors, responsible for the arising of mankind- and through this ancestral conduit, the Gods are here, now, with us.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">When my friend Grettir and I burned that sacrificial bonfire and drank our mead, we were joining Hamingja together, though at the time we only felt it- we didn't know it, consciously or intellectually. From our fire, from our joining, from our deeds, from that time, from that place, a God came forth. And the purpose of that fire wasn't just worship, it wasn't just to "give worth" to our Sacred Guest; it was for something that Grettir needed to aid his family. And within a day, his family was blessed with the fortune we had hoped for.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Hamingja- nothing could be more holy, because holiness, power, force, these things are waves that emerge from the river of Hamingja. No one walks through life alone, ever. This could not be so; in each person is a share of Hamingja from the family lines that converge in them, and inside them is a portion of the sum total of their Ancestors. Who they were, what they did, what they loved, what they fought for, what power they had, what insight they had, and in a way, even the Ancestors themselves: these things are inside<span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span>of </span>you and all people, physically and metaphysically, in <span style="font-style: italic;">every</span> iota of your flesh, blood, breath, and the immaterial aspects of yourself. No part of you can be apart from these Ancestral powers.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">And within you is also found the mysterious "residing" of the Godly beings. There, inside you, like Ancestral powers from a "further and deeper" time, they rest. In most people, they rest in an unexpressed, largely unconscious way. In the being of the nithing or in the wicked, whose Hamingja has become so blighted with weakness that the flame of their connection to humanity and the past burns low, the Gods and Ancestors cannot make a mead-hall or a home.<br /><br />But in most people, they are present, appearing to rest deeply in us. They are the sources of dreams you have and don't recall or understand. Their presence leads to that feeling of basic dignity, of conscious goodness and the desire for peace in you. They are the motivators to greatness, to risk, and all the powers that are quite strange and mystical in us, and which give impetus to imagination and industry. In those people who feel the urge- buried deep in Hamingja- to become Heathen again, to raise the banner of the Old Ways (not just the Old Gods) again, those powers wake up. They come forth.</span> <span style="font-family:arial;">Every line of Hamingja has its Gods, just as it has its Ancestors.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">One can never grasp the full impact of this awakening reality, this "coming forth", but one begins to experience it in all aspects of life- sleep, at times, becomes a portal of dreams about the Gods, and the Ancestors. Waking life becomes full of a strange yet familiar and subtle presence that a person might not have noticed before. Events take on new meaning. A new vitality starts to rise up. Inspirations arise.<br /><br />One becomes stronger, more energetic, more honorable, more motivated to greater things. One becomes less able to emotionally tolerate the unconscious, honorless antics of the hordes of mankind who express no strength of Hamingja, and yet, one goes forth again, alone if they must, to live better than what they have seen before. One begins to live closer in accord with the noble standards of the Ancestors who have become long forgotten in our forgetful, shallow, and materialistic world.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Hamingja can be in "things"- it doesn't need human breath and life; we humans have relationships that run very deep with many non-human powers, and even "things". The sacred tree of a grove, the sacred stone over the graves of the Ancestral dead, the sacred treasures made by our kin, infused with the Hamingja of their creativity, and passed down to us; the hall of drinking and feasting made holy by the gathering of a kindred or a family- in all these places and "things", Hamingja is found, filling, swirling, enlivening. Even in inspired songs and poems, Hamingja flashes forth. And in the combination of all these things, wed to human beings and the beasts around us, the Gods of our Ancestors can emerge.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">What Hamingja needs to really "come forth" as it did in the days of old is conscious awareness on our part, an awareness of what it is, and at times, who it is: when it manifests as a gathering of kin or friends, as a child, a wife, a husband, or even a beast made holy in the rites of the faith. When we know this, the quality of the mind changes, and with it, perceptions; we create a wide open field within ourselves for the manifestations of the fullness of Hamingja, for its fullness can come forth from any part, if the mind is well-prepared.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >The Gods, The Allfather, Blot, and True Family</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">And that is what the Gods really are- beings who know and express the Fullness of the World-Hamingja. Each of us, and our families, we are partial streams of it; they are the whole, or should I say, they have access to the whole. Odin, as we know, sacrifices "his self to his Self"- his lesser self to the greater Self, and that greater Self is nothing more or less than the whole of Hamingja.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Through his sacrifice, he has access now to the deep, bottomless resources and powers of everything. In a direct way, he is now present to everything, at every place, to every person. This doesn't make him some abstract figure only; he is both particulate, and whole, at the same time- he is the Odin of the sacred stories and myths, and he is simultaneously the “Allfather”, the divine consciousness of the whole of Hamingja that encompasses everything, and which fills us with the breath that we draw, a breath he breathed into man and woman back near to the beginnings of things.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">And in that wholeness, the other Gods are to be found, emerging as they will... and most importantly, emerging as we make them able, through our deeds and our understanding. Unlike the Christian faith, which presents humans as sinful, fallen, and helpless without divine grace, able to do nothing without the church and the god of the church except be condemned to hell, the Heathen way tells us that humans are literally <span style="font-style: italic;">capable of the Gods</span>, because we are all together in Hamingja. We are one through the combination of deeds, places, treasures, things, beasts, kindreds, families, emotions, songs, and our sacred histories- these things make us capable, at any time, of the Godly life and Godly activity.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">And when I say "Godly life" and "Godly activity", I am not speaking with cheap symbolic talk- I mean it literally, just as literally as I mean the Ancestral powers live in the being of each one of us.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Vilhelm Gronbech writes:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >"Between man and God there exists no difference of kind, but there is a vital distinction of degree, the Gods being the whole Hamingja, whereas men are only part. The boundary between Gods and men is permanent, but varying in place; it is shifted downwards when men go about on their daily rounds of business, and it may be pushed upwards when they assume their garments of holiness, or sally out in a body to fight or fish. Only in the blot is the boundary line obliterated, but then during the feast there are no men, because the Hamingja is all and in all. The divineness of men when in a state of holiness is revealed by the metaphors of poetry: when the warrior is called the God of the sword or the God of battle, the expression is nothing but a matter-of-fact description. This same reality appears in the naming of woman as the Goddess of trinkets, and still more significantly as the ale-Goddess, referring to her holy office in the drink offering."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">-Gronbech, Culture of the Teutons, Vol. 2</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">A person who understands what I have been saying, and what Gronbech has said perfectly, understands the essence of the Heathen way, both historical and modern. And Hamingja is the key to this most sacred understanding. It may be the key to unlocking the modern world's impasse, our loss of the real sacredness of the man, the woman, and of our deeds, the sacredness of our lands and our kin. It may be the thing that surges forth to spare us for a while longer, as we move into a future that becomes stripped more and more of sacredness and depth.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">When I stand with my family, dressed in my long white tunic and ceremonial tabard, wearing the sign of the Sunwheel (that equal-armed cross which symbolizes the life-spirit that all are a part of, and the golden sun that is the supreme symbol of life in the heavens) and when I am there in that manner, surrounded by my people, invoking the Gods, pouring mead and ale in blot, I am bringing forth the Gods. Those with me are doing it. Together, we are the Hamingja and we call forth the Gods and Ancestors in a way that we could never manage individually, even though we can and do experience the powers in an individual way, from time to time.<br /><br />In the mead and ale of blot, in the pouring, the drinking, the blessing and sprinkling, the division between "these humans out here" on the one hand, and the depths of Hamingja, the presence of the Ancestors, and the persons of the Gods on the other hand, is totally eradicated. Hamingja can, on these mighty occasions- and at others- express itself <span style="font-style: italic;">fully</span> among us.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I am the father of a family; my wife is the mother of a family. In our children lies the entire Hamingja-legacy of both our lines, and in us, the lines that came before us. In us gathers the whole family-soul to which our children belong, and in us gathers a tributary from the river of the families that gave us birth.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">In the persons of Mother and Father, of House-Dis and Hall-Warder, is found the entire spiritual family identity. In their children, the joined Hamingja surges forth anew- new (and very old) ancestral powers come to the forefront and empower human lives again. We are all united in this convergence of streams, in this joining of Hamingja. In my family, it takes on a specific identity- who we are, who we were, and who we will be. All of these things come together as one, in the present.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> Through my wife and I, the Ancestors watch over our children and join us in raising them and imparting wisdom and protection to them.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Even the "things" of the blot- the horn, the hammer, the hlautbowl, the hlautein, the white garment, the statues of Gods and Ancestors that might be used, the table, the flickering fires, in all these things Hamingja gathers, and from them it comes forth in union, as they are used together.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This is what we mean by "a holy occasion." It is holy because Hamingja comes forth into a new tangible, powerful expression, unique each time to that particular moment and place and gathering. These occasions- and these emergences of Hamingja- come forth because we decide to come together to make the occasion what it is. And the call for us to make that decision comes from the depths of Hamingja in the first place.<br /><br />It is a perfect circle, spread across time and space, self-contained, and singing with power. It gathers the persons it needs to itself, and in that true "Ring of Troth", the Gods make their appearance. The Gods are tasted, smelled, seen, felt; they are present, fully. Only those who have experienced this can really comprehend these words, but those who have know that they cannot fathom ever falling away from these expressions again. The emotions they bring forth stir something indescribable, but precious.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Further concerning the Gods, Gronbech writes:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >"In their nature, combining the neutral state of power with personality, they (the Gods) evince no particular divine gift, for this is the nature of life in all its manifestations. They reside in the holy place and in the holy treasures, but they may at any moment come forth and reveal themselves to their friends either in dreams or in the light of day. As power or luck the Gods are in Old Norse called Radh, and Regin- Radh means "rede", or wisdom and will, the power of determining and powerful determinations; Regin simply expresses luck and power. In their personal aspect, the Gods are named Ases, or in southern dialects Anses. In shape the Gods are in some clans male, in other families and localities female; their manifestation as women is naturally founded in the fact that woman generally represented a higher form of holiness than the average man. The question whether the Gods did assume the shape of animals is scarcely to the point. True, the divine power of the Hamingja walked the fields in the herd and prominently in the holy heads of cattle that were consecrated and qualified to be leaders of their flock or mediums of blessing; and in the sacrificial hall the Godly strength filled the victim of the feast. "</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">One of the greatest blessings of the modern Heathen way is this: I have drunk and eaten at such a holy feast, and come to know the Gods. What great fortune- what great Hamingja- that I should have been born in these times, bereft of Ancestral Wisdom, and yet, still had the luck and joy to find my way to such a frithful table!</span><br /><br /><center><br /><img src="http://www.robinartisson.com/newart1.jpg" /></center><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Hamingja, Identity, and the Problem of Others</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">One of the most important truths that emerges into the minds of those who really understand these matters is this: we are not like “others.” There is an identity that comes from the deep layers of the world <span style="font-style: italic;">and</span> the unseen that we do not share with everyone else in some perfect homogenized vision of "equality".<br /><br />Other people, other families, other cultures- they do have their own lines and streams of Hamingja, and certainly those are a part of the whole. But we are not them, and they are not us, not on the level of particulars- that level that we must live on every day, according to Fate. In the experience and understanding I am discussing here, we come to know, in a very deep manner, “who we are”, as kin, as families, as cultures- but also even as individuals.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I am like no other; this way of Hamingja which expresses itself as me has never been seen before. But I am also not a “fully separate” being who can be made sense of- or have any true place or strength- without the broader context in which I am situated. I am also something and someone that emerges from the past, from the family, the Ancestors, my land, my life-situations, my children, friends, and allies- without this world, the Gods, all the powers that collect themselves together, my situation of life would never have been possible, and I make no sense apart from it all. This is the soul of the clan-understanding, the kindred understanding among the Ancients, and among people of honor now.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Some of the other people in this world still know their Hamingja in ways that we descendants of the Indo-Europeans have long forgotten, due to a millennia-long program on the part of the Church to erode our emotional and intuitive connection to our Ancestral beings and our Hamingja.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">There are peoples on the earth who still have connections that we largely lack- and when I say "we", I am not speaking of most true Heathens, as much as westerners generally. But in having those connections, they also have a strength we lack, at the cultural level. While we do not care much these days to defend our particular cultural contributions to the world, nor defend the honor of the great things we have done (both in pre-Christian and post-Christian times) in the name of some guilt or even "political correctness", other cultures surge forth with great pride in themselves, and an energy that we often seem to lack in the west.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">While we no longer protect our inner or outer borders from being washed away by a tide of humanity that cares nothing for our specific cultural needs, other cultures take painstaking steps to preserve their languages, histories, and even their own populations from excessive foreign influences.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">None of these things calls for some ridiculous militant solution or revolution. What will solve this problem at its core is a re-awakening of a sense for who we are- a sense that only comes from the emergence of Hamingja on the conscious level. We have a place in this world, as unique and important as anyone else, and our contributions have been legion, even crucial, to world civilization today. We have a right to be proud and to insist that our voice be equal to any other.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This brings me to the last point that I would like to cover, which is the "problem of others", if you will. While some would look at the world with rose-tinted lenses (or just with lenses painted opaque), those of us who can truly see and feel, can see and feel that this world is not as kindly as we would hope. It certainly never has been, and it is doubtful to what extent it will ever be, especially considering that competition and conflict is a Fateful part of the fabric from which this world is woven.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">While the Gods battle giantish forces for the preservation of the world, and we men and women battle (with the help of the Gods) the unbalanced powers in our own souls for the preservation of our bodies and minds and our families, there will always be battles in other places, too. Conflict as an aspect of reality was a thing that our Ancestors all over the Indo-European world accepted as given, as unalterable, and for good reason.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">And it is true that, in a previous World-age, our Heathen Ancestors, when faced with others, had to make choices about how to deal with these "others" they encountered. The ancients had to deal with other cultures and peoples in the few ways they really had available to them: if "others" were a threat, such as when others stood in a position of resource competition with them, they either had to <span style="font-style: italic;">incorporate</span> those others through establishing relationships and bonds of kinship with them, or they had to defeat them at the physical level, in battle, and absorb them or drive them away. When two peoples or cultures meet- two surges of Hamingja meet, two waves of the ocean of Hamingja; and then, absorption, incorporation, or conflict follows. At certain other times, they merely pass by one another, perhaps to meet again later.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">And this was the way it was, in the distant past- all of our families, distant clans, tribes- all of them, and their larger cultural context (what we today call "Germanic", with all its variations), and up to the level of the entire people, the whole "folk" (what we now call the "Indo Europeans")- they all rushed forth, in whole and in part, into this world, and they conquered as they went; they incorporated beasts, Gods, lands, other humans, other nations, towns, villages, stories, and treasures into their group Hamingja, thundering along as they went, over many ages. If they couldn't incorporate those things, they might be swept away by them instead!<br /><br />But still, in some form, they continued. Every group, race, tribe, or nation of man was like this, caught in the same drama of the age- moving through a world of hostility and strangeness, of friendship and conflict, and moving desperately down through the ages.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">But to what? To now. To this day, this very day. The sweeping drama of the past has come to reside in you, and in me. And there are still identities, powers and movements of fateful force buried deep in the Hamingja of each of us. And there is a Hamingja collected in our unifying culture (such that it is) and in our families, our subcultures, and in our friends groups, our kindreds, our sacred congregations, in our military units, in our armed forces as a whole, in our fraternities and brotherhoods, in our financial institutions, and it just never ends. It seems so large to us while we are within it, but it is even larger than we imagine. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">There are other cultures out there, still. Countless smaller tribes and cultures have been swallowed up by larger ones that exist today, and before that, they themselves had defeated and incorporated others. Hamingja is still present and accounted for- our defeated foes are still here with us, living through us. Those we made friends with, married into, and bonded with, they are here, too. Everyone's here. Nothing is lost, but much is forgotten.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">And now, what? Shall we continue trying to gain dominance over other cultures, over other people? Hamingja in every particulate or group wants to be dominant, truth be told- when it expresses itself in the patterns of culture, in tribal identities, in the patterns of sacredness, even in a single human body and mind, it wants strength, preservation, and honor. And it seeks it. It will scorn others and only be content when the others submit to it and call it superior, or when the others at least admit it as an equal, and when it admits the others as equals, and kinship is established there between them- kinship that comes with sacred obligations, and a sharing of Hamingja, such that both become stronger and better.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Does this mean that we can expect a culture war that will only end when one culture remains? Does this mean that peace between religions (to make another poignant example of group-Hamingjas that have caused so much conflict in our world) is impossible? Christianity and Islam won't be equal to any; they will have submission, they will change all others, and absorb them, destroying any traces of the former religions they encounter. Throughout their history, these religious ideologies have done just this. Islam still desires to do it with great energy. The zeal-laced spirit of Christianity has largely been lamed in the west, and now faces its accelerating extinction, its own Hamingja expended and weakened by too many underhanded and vicious deeds (a fate that awaits Islam one day, as well, Gods be thanked.)</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >The Surging Power in the Present Hamingja-Age</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">So how can we deal with other cultures, but also other religions? I will state only my own belief on this matter. I believe that the world-age, the <span style="font-style: italic;">Hamingja-age</span>, if you will, has changed. We are not living in Ancestral times, though we <span style="font-style: italic;">are</span> our Ancestors. The Hamingja that was then has moved down lines of life into us, and it is here, now. But other deeper changes in Fate have taken place, and the World Age is different.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">We humans have surged out to every border, in every land, and crossed every ocean. There are billions and billions of us now. Conquest is no longer a true working solution in such a world. Submission through violence costs too much now, and births too many dangers. Only what I have been calling "incorporation" can be the way forward- and I don't mean "joining forces" in this sense, as much as I mean recognizing that others simply have their place, and, insofar as they are not threatening to destroy all that we know is sacred, letting them be who they are.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Because the time has come wherein the Hamingja of the whole has reached a point it never could have been at before: we have all collectively embraced, on the mental level, a conception of the world that has never existed before, a world that is much smaller than our Ancestors thought, and now intimately connected and made tiny by the digital sorcery of this age. Hamingja itself surged forth from the primal beginning with no "goal" other than to be what it was- a whole- and to manifest a cascading exuberance of life and power.</span> <span style="font-family:arial;">And it has carried human minds and bodies to the limits of the world.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The circle of kindred and relationship was expanded by our Ancestors as they fought and pledged and explored through the world, a circle made larger and larger by the ancients, until it came to include plants, beasts, Gods, lands, and then other peoples. This is what Hamingja inclines towards- recognized relationship, and always towards a broadening of horizons until <span style="font-style: italic;">all </span>is encompassed, and all particulates know themselves as the whole- and yet, still exist as particulates made noble through the recognition.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Of course, relationships must be based on just principles; it is not possible to have a relationship with another person or being who means you the worst form of ill- but in most cases these days, these days in which moderation and compassion are possibilities more so than they were before, "relationship" can take on new dimensions.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">As much as it pleases the fiery and ancient souls in us to imagine fighting and destroying those we feel threaten us and our own ways, sadly, the World-Age now makes new demands on us, and the "others" out there can have any dangers they sometimes pose to us eliminated in ways that don't include traditional violence.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">With the inspiration and wit of the Hamingja and the Heathen group-soul, arguments, cleverness and intellect can stop enemies in their tracks these days (mentally, legally, socially, and even physically), and can even go further and change their minds and the minds of their children to be more sympathetic to our cause. All can come to see the sense in our notions of liberty and the importance of the uniqueness of identity. In this way, there are many ways to still win glory, and turn foes into allies- or at least banish foes to a safe distance that never need be crossed.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">It is true that sometimes physical confrontations are unavoidable, in places, occasions in which we must defend ourselves and our ways from those who cannot or will not understand who and what we are. At times like that, the Hamingja emerges in strength and it must be channeled in the oldest of ways to eliminate a threat, though always keeping in mind the need for justice in our acts. Every human being has a natural right to defend the Ancestral force inside them, which surges forth from the depths and manifests a sacred imperative to live and be well, free of the contempt or scheming of others. When conflicts come, between persons or even communities or nations- the stronger Hamingja will prevail, one way or another. This was a sacred truth known to the Ancestors.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Whatever the case may be, I am Heathen, and I know what the Hamingja in me looks like, who it is, what it is, and what it wants for me and mine. As father of a family, I speak for our Ancestors and the Disir that follow within us, and the Fylgja-Dis that follows within me. My voice is the voice of grandmothers and grandfathers long departed, so I choose to use it as honorably as I can. All Heathens in my world feel the need, the burning urge, to stand fast for the Ways of their Ancestors, and they will represent their Ancestors with every day and night of their present life. That must and will be, until the true end of all Ages, and the world-rebirth.<br /><br /><br /></span>Alfarrinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16532701327343776837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36326453.post-80322834972953238772010-12-06T11:18:00.000-08:002010-12-06T11:22:05.501-08:00The Yule-Wights Come Near<div style="text-align: center;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1xIn46EgYls6-A4g10xMcWK-RPSFvWMG9Pc-y1KdjEZN8Vmc4QsuLlnGOsQyfZWOS0tuRuexZm89AZMLe-tKcTjffQWiLS-bmnACaIaTmeR31pFeeIIK_Uc7CINXnuic02YuyzQ/s1600/YuleLog.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 185px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1xIn46EgYls6-A4g10xMcWK-RPSFvWMG9Pc-y1KdjEZN8Vmc4QsuLlnGOsQyfZWOS0tuRuexZm89AZMLe-tKcTjffQWiLS-bmnACaIaTmeR31pFeeIIK_Uc7CINXnuic02YuyzQ/s320/YuleLog.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5547651017769000178" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >In winter's rage</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >Seek the fire-keeper;</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >Woe in that time</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >To men and beasts</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >Though seeds hide</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >And later golden grow</span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family:arial;">* * *</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >We have washed ourselves clean in the birch-dales</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >And now stand in the hallowed place of the Yew;</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Before the doors of Sunna's house may Jolnir show Sig-</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Holy might from Heaven's Halls,</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Holy might and main from All-Giving Earth, </span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Drighten of Gods and Alfs impart peace.</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Grist to our houses, Frith to our joinings,</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >And Ljosalf-blessings on our farthest farings.</span><br /></div><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br /></span>Alfarrinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16532701327343776837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36326453.post-41932895252196666402010-12-03T09:31:00.000-08:002010-12-03T19:12:53.166-08:00The Manifesto of the Atheling<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj66cP2OYN7B3gJpcsboR3LI2CBoYpvo9UeIgb2arI_wZ-Xo6uRHaFoOYxBrGTwnopz95mcUEdNX6BG1MDGwX1xYMMqiyfKM40JpYThqQPeqQI3_MwkMNv_reDNFBXN4kKQp0M6xw/s1600/atheling.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 245px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj66cP2OYN7B3gJpcsboR3LI2CBoYpvo9UeIgb2arI_wZ-Xo6uRHaFoOYxBrGTwnopz95mcUEdNX6BG1MDGwX1xYMMqiyfKM40JpYThqQPeqQI3_MwkMNv_reDNFBXN4kKQp0M6xw/s320/atheling.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5546510135628408578" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This third draft of a Manifesto I'm writing, describing a code of living for the “Interior Elite” or the Athelings – is, in a sense, my attempt to rebirth a code of Master Morality for modern people. This work blends elements of the Perennial Tradition, primordial Pagan models of spiritual and symbolic worldview, and Classical virtue all mixed with a generous dash of Ancestral Traditionalism and Spiritual Ruralism- just perfect for (and quite expected from) a mind like mine. But I have a feeling that I'm not alone. This is for the true nobles.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">* * *</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The Manifesto of the Atheling</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Copyright © 2010 </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The "Interior Elite" or the "Aristocrats of the Soul"- those for whom we follow the lead of history and tradition and re-anoint with the princely title “Atheling"- are herein described. The term “Atheling” has, for this study and meditation on morality, been stripped of its old political associations (once it referred to the scion of any noble family) and is now given a more profound, internal, and universal meaning which speaks to moral and spiritual nobility.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">1. The Athelings of our world have three things in common: they all evidence a natural thoughtful introspection, a desire for the calm beauty and quiet simplicity of the rural landscape, and a natural disdain for degraded modernism. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2. Spiritual "Ruralism" is not a re-statement of the older notion that a life based on farming or agrarianism is morally superior to a life spent in the giant maws of our cities; it is, instead, a call to appreciate, preserve, and seek out whenever possible the only peace and serenity in the exterior world that can match and sooth the thirst for peace and serenity within- the peace found in the untamed, unspoiled, or prudently and respectfully modified countryside. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">3. Far from the crowds, the madness, the damnable noise, and the hosts of predatory minds warped violently by the poverty of aggregation, is found the only true refuge for the Atheling. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">4. The Atheling will always cultivate a mental and spiritual detachment from modernity, though they are forced by Fateful circumstances to dwell among its artifacts, and among the anonymous masses of its unthinking disciples. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">5. This detachment nourishes a dignified spirit; it partially soothes a soul forced to drink the bitter waters of the dull, uninspired aesthetics, the crimes of unrestrained capitalism, unrestrained collectivism, industrialism, and the stultifying social and religious choreography that all join together to define the spirit of the modern age.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">6. In the special detachment of the Atheling, the entire sublime field of experience, anciently interwoven with reason, creativity, and a taste for the mystical (that sacred reality beyond our rational understanding) is safely preserved from the shallow absurdity of materialism and the arrogance of the materialistic sciences. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">7. That divine creativity which alone can spare the soul from a painful famine and final death in the barren modern wasteland, is sheltered and flourishes in detachment from the clumsy grasping of the rude masses.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">8. For the true Athelings of our world, Nature is never judged to be mere “material” and “resource”; it is symbol and spirit, never separate from the living and enduring being of each person.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">9. The Atheling sits, unseen by the world, on a throne of highest dignity at the center of a kingdom of conscience. The noble man or woman always experiences two lives, a life of necessity in the outer world, and a life of eminence within.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">10. In the detachment of the Atheling, the stains of modernity cannot cling to his or her spotless garments; the sovereign will of the Atheling is not moved, though a billion voices together call for that will to bend. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">11. That sovereign will is instead freely given over to the dictates of the quiet and faultless conscience which moves and perceives with nature's all-encompassing fluidity, and that will is given freely to itself, draped in a cloak of creativity, crowned with the diadem of inspiration, and co-existing in serene trust with the ancestral and primordial wisdom that first established the foundations of the world, the foundations of excellence and heroism, and the foundations of a just social communion, so long ago. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">12. Coeval with the perennial patterning of human experience is the primordial wisdom that was the provenance of sacred mythology- those precious and timeless stories of Gods and Heroes that are keys to insight and truth for the discerning and aristocratic soul. In these things trust can be reliably placed.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">13. The Atheling is beholden to no modern judge, nor human spiritual authority; like all beings, he or she will only be finally and truly judged by the ancient voices and the enduring primordial spirit by which all things are rightly measured. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">14. The true Atheling does not stand out of any crowd, nor do they blend in; they are immune to the tyranny of the group-mind, the hysteria of mass unconsciousness, immune to the inducements or threats of the powerful few, and unmoved by the manipulations and power-games of the disempowered many. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">15. Passing trends do not obsess the Athelings; nationalism does not impress or impassion them, and wasteful, thoughtless living arouses only a just contempt which at any rate does not distract them from the path of sovereign will and the quest for truth. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">16. For the demonstrable good of society, the Athelings make sacrifices; the for the good of husband, wife, children, and dearest companions, they sacrifice even more. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">17. The saga in which the noble one will be remembered, their true fame, is in the flesh of offspring, in the memories of those dearest and closest, and the in the unfailing memory of the Godly world that remains invisible yet evergreen, even in this age wherein wisdom lies abandoned and is seldom found.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">18. The fear of pain and lust for pleasure alike are secondary concerns in any decision the Atheling makes; a noble bearing born of interiorized truth and the balanced, reasoned dictates of conscience accompany the Atheling’s will in any action. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">19. No action is well-taken without reference to the divine; the traditional origin of true human culture is the union of the human and godly worlds, and therefore the Atheling, as a bearer of the spirit of the true culture which shines behind the long descent of history, raises (through spontaneous and organic ritual) every intentional action of substance or potential gravity to the level of a sacred act. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">20. The fantasies of the noble man or woman contain more truth than the "facts" tossed about and cherished by the peasants of modernity. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">21. The interior spaces of the self- that unseen country free of the anguish of time’s decay, which forever borders the profound depths that are source to all persons and things- are the fields in which the Atheling plants the seeds of life, loyalty, affection, and highest aspiration to truth. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">22. That interior self, and the Godly spirit that dwells forever there, is the only justification Athelings need for any act of will; they never apologize for arising in might, or for seeking or seizing what they or their own need for life or for their flourishing.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">23. The Athelings are not strangers to acts of compassion; real nobility is also marked by fairness and compassion. Their occasions of compassion never come about under compulsion, nor are they condescending acts of pity, but freely chosen displays of solidarity with another soul that struggles. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">24. Athelings never apologize for strength or virtue. They never apologize for the outcomes of their own willed actions working in clear-sighted tandem with their conscience. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">25. Athelings never complain about powers and forces operating outside of their control in the body of nature, nor superior forces that no courage or ingenuity of man can tame or defeat; they simply and wisely endure the unavoidable outcomes of these things.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">26. Noble human beings never debase their humanity, their bodies, their souls, or their spirits by consenting to accept a degraded, guilt-ridden vision or understanding of those vessels of truth and virtue. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">27. What is most precious to the true noble is given to the deepest interior of the self, never to be lost again. That great interior realm is an impregnable fortress, safe from the assaults of the degenerate age, from the shallowness that masquerades as morality and righteousness in the outer regions, and from the greatest temptation of all- that seduction that would unseat from the throne of will and conscience he or she who rightly occupies it. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">28. The Atheling never feels guilt; they only feel shame for the times when they allowed their own sovereign will to be subverted and led away to the outcome of their own pain, displeasure, or harm, or the harm of others. In that shame, they re-master themselves, and wax mightier, to the accomplishment of the highest ideals.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">29. The Atheling dies- alone if need be- for this morality of strength and virtue which cannot, by its very nature, submit to the wills of lesser men or demons.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">* * *<br /><br /><br /></span>Alfarrinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16532701327343776837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36326453.post-18712665651121805652010-08-28T12:46:00.001-07:002010-08-29T09:16:14.038-07:00The Missionaries of Heathendom?<center><br /><img src="http://www.robinartisson.com/odinparch.jpg" /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;font-family:arial;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Missionaries of Heathendom?</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Our Present, Our Growth, and Our Possible Future</span><br /></div><br /></center><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >The "Fastest Growing' Religion?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Is Paganism of any sort, or all Paganisms out there together, the “fastest growing religion” in the West? There is much talk these days about the spread of Heathenry, and of Pagan religions in general. It goes without saying that there are more neo-Pagans of various stripes than traditional Heathens, <span style="font-style: italic;">Heathens</span> here meaning followers of the Asatru religion, or Theodism, or the like. But taken as a whole, does the (painfully) generalized "Pagan" movement really grow as dramatically as some claim?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The best answer I've heard was during a discussion on "The Wild Hunt". A rather insightful fellow there said <span style="font-weight: bold;">"The reason "the Pagan community" *seems* to be "gaining adherents" is because, in my opinion, there are no bounds that define what paganism is."</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">He is very right; when you get outside of the world of reconstructionism, of traditional ethnic and scholarly approaches to the Old Ways, you find yourself in a miasma of ill-defined, sometimes indefinable quasi-religious movements that all claim to be "Pagan".</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This is the new-age miasma that I am referring to, of course; the broad "movement" of various forms of badly watered-down Wicca and new-agery that anyone can begin claiming as their own "ancient tradition" after just reading a book or a website. These watery hodge-podges have all the usual Eastern new-age elements ("all the gods are one god", a belief in Hindu-like or Buddhist-like reincarnation, and usually a "Great Goddess" somewhere) and people who find, create, and maintain these beliefs tend to be young, very liberal, and quite dramatic.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">These people are seldom defined by who they are and what they believe, but in how flamboyant they can be and how in line with the liberal political agenda they are. They know more about chakras and the cabbala than the actual cultural stories of the Gods and Goddesses of Old Europe. They want to "draw down the moon" more than re-create the ancient and powerful ritual of sacrifice, in some form, to re-establish bonds of reciprocal giving with the living, individual Gods.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Whatever their failings may be, <span style="font-weight: bold;">they</span> are what the mainstream of the non-Heathen or non-Pagan public actually see; the eye of the media and the eye of the common man on the street encounters them far more often than they encounter serious traditional Heathens or reconstructionists. And, whether we like it or not, we Heathens get judged by the standards these new-agers set. This presents an issue worth considering, and getting back to.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >A Sad State of Affairs, Really</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I don't think that "Paganism" is growing so quickly- I think that, since anyone can claim to be Pagan at any time, and many do, it seems that way. But many of these "Pagans" drift away from their proclamations just as quickly as they make them. These people have, somewhere inside them, a desire for the Old Ways- I don't doubt that. But, finding no real focus, and finding only fads and passing fashion statements, that desire (lacking grounding) fades away.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">It's a sad state of affairs, really. I've often said that even the worst new-ager team is better than the best Christian or Muslim one, and I mean that (however painful or tedious I find them all). But the facts would seem to be clear, to any who observe trends of "growth"- we cannot count on the general "new age" world to reliably grow into anything of social consequence beyond what it has already become.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">It's done some interesting and important things- battles have been fought for constitutional rights on various issues, to Pagan symbols on grave stones, Pagan chaplains in the military, Pagan chaplains in Prison, Pagans in public office, and brave, bold men and women have taken these steps- and not all of them have been Heathen. The best and finest of the non-Heathen world are people with formidable spirits, and may Allfather and the Disir keep them safe and give them victory.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">But I still believe that we won't see much beyond what we've seen now, precisely because "Paganism", as it stands, means very little. Of course, it means something different to nearly every Pagan you ask, but in meaning so many things, it ultimately means little. It has little strength to establish itself as an entity of its own, with clear boundaries and some form of identity. It will remain as it is: small cults of personality and internet celebrities and some yearly conventions and festivals for the big stars to attend, a lot of mass-media paperbacks and renaissance festivals with booths selling pentacles and Willendorf Venus jewelry.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >The Dreaded Trap</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Should we be concerned about the "growth" of Heathenry? Or even "Paganism", in general? Should this be an issue of discussion? What are the theoretical benefits of creating a larger, more cohesive "Pagan" movement? Or even creating a centralized "Heathen" movement? More political representation? The exploding of "myths" about "us"? A solidification of "our" identity as a suffering minority faith, persecuted and here to fight for our rights? (That's the idea I get from most new-agers, though not from many Heathens, thank the Gods).</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">There is a reason that even the "liberal" media doesn't take Paganism of any stripe seriously- because they can't codify it, present it in a way that the average red-blooded American can understand on the news, and because a lot of the "pagans" today have to take silly-sounding names, dress in tie-dyed Celtic knotwork robes, and make a spectacle of themselves on television or Youtube that is immature by <span style="font-style: italic;">any</span> measure of maturity that I can personally think of.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Beyond maturity, it's undignified. These people are definitely trying to express something spiritual and important to them, but cut off from the needed <span style="font-weight: bold;">education</span> on what the real old ways were about, their "new old ways" are nothing short of embarrassing.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I can say that it would be nice to have more political protection/representation, and more friendly portrayals in media. It would be nice if the positive and useful perspectives that the Heathen way actually contains could reach the people outside of Heathendom- I believe many problematic social issues could be addressed by giving Indo-European rooted cultures in the modern day (and the people of Indo-European descent, whether genetic or cultural descent), a sense of heritage and pride in the accomplishments of their <span style="font-style: italic;">true</span> Ancestors.<br /><br />People cut off from their past and their source cannot truly flourish, nor find real purpose in this world. Perhaps the "cultural stagnation" that we've seen for centuries has a deeper origin than most people imagine!<br /><br />We all know how much the world could benefit from people today adopting a spiritual-ecological approach to nature, and the ancient religions often experienced the sacred in terms of the natural world, so there is a natural advantage there, too. For most Pagans of any stripe, becoming "Pagan" is a return to seeing this world as <span style="font-style: italic;">ensouled</span>, or full of spirits, or Gods; and that sort of reverence for nature is a powerful basis for dealing wisely with the environment.<br /><br />I think that nothing but good can come from people respecting the Old Gods, for I have seen their might, kindness, and wisdom in my own life.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">But how would Heathens- or even the non-Heathen pagans- go about introducing these things about themselves and their religion to the world, without falling into the dreaded trap of "evangelicalism"? Even neo-Pagans don't tend to be this narcissistic or this far gone- <span style="font-style: italic;">even they</span> don't want to be going door to door playing the "knock knock, ever heard about the Great Goddess?" game. And Heathens, with very, very few exceptions, aren't actively seeking members in that manner. At most, Heathens will put some posts on the internet in various places advertising their community, with a polite invitation for "interested" people to come by for a beer or a blot.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Don't Look Down on Small Teams</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The New-agers are, generally speaking, more willing to accept flashy personalities to speak on their behalf: they have a small corps of best-selling new-age authors with high dollar websites, busy blogs, and a lot of "public rituals" done at conventions and spiritual merchandising gatherings. But Heathens?<br /><br />The few umbrella organizations of Heathens (and the oldest) that boast across-state lines members are still quite small, and aside from crossing paths with media every now and then when some issue related to racism comes up, or helping local prison wardens to "understand" Asatru among the inmates, these (sometimes very honorable) men and women cannot speak for the Heathen movement as a whole. They never have, and never will.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This is not a rebuke of those men and women; it's just an observation on the nature of Heathenry.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">So how are we going to "grow"? Do we need to? Speaking directly to Heathens now, I must say, even the "big boy" Heathen organizations are still small- splinter small- compared to even a moderate-sized Methodist church in any American town. The membership in the "big boy" Heathen organizations tend to be more quality- more faithful, more tied to the heart and spirit of Heathenry, but they don't surge in numbers.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> Are their members all the sires and matriarchs of huge families of new Heathen children? No, not really. Even their Heathen children (like my own) <span style="font-style: italic;">may </span>find Christianity one day, thanks to a boyfriend or girlfriend or husband and wife, and leave the Old Ways, due to the miracle of "love".</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">We all know it. The movement is beautiful, powerful, the Gods are real, and powerful- but the movement, as much power as it has, does not have fire for rapid (or even steady) growth.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> I'd like it to, actually; as I said, I think it could help this world and many people in many ways. But Fate has the final word on these matters.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">As things stand, it seems Fatefully allotted for us- for all of us, Heathen or otherwise- that we will see our population of adherents remain about where it is now, for many years or generations to come. Hey- it's not all bad; Christianity was also once a tiny movement of a few people gathering here and there in backwater Roman towns, and alleys in big cities, or on their couches in their homes, and after 300 or so years of that, they managed to subvert politics and bring about the greatest social change in the history of the West.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">So, I don't mean to be down on a small movement. Maybe it's time to admit that we are still young; even if we feel the ancient power of our ways, and even if we feel very old in spirit, at times, we're young as a reborn, revived movement in the Christian West.<br /><br />How can we not feel ancient?</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> Our ways are as old as human culture, and yet, our ways and Gods and symbols and religious impulses are alien to the eyes of people who see us- people whose own Ancestors once did and believed much the same things as we modern Heathens do now. It's a strange amnesia, a strange denial, a strange lack of memory. It's also a perilous loss of wisdom, and a crime against honor, to see the Ancestors' ways so forgotten, sometimes butchered, and even mocked, in some circles.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" ></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >No Fire Burns Forever</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">But the impulse to believe in the Old Ways is (clearly) still here- in each one of us. We didn't choose to have it, and it isn't going anywhere. It was always here. But where will it lead? Who can say?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I can say this, with some certainty- as people become more and more disaffected with Christianity, they will seek alternatives. This is the destiny of organized, revealed religions- they begin on a flimsy basis, and thus, have no destiny which is worthwhile. Take Christianity, as an example: it began in a desperate, grasping need for a "savior" to come and fix the poor, lost, helpless humans- it began and <span style="font-style: italic;">still begins</span> in a desperate need for "love", for holiness, for an identity to hold on to, and to have manufactured certainties that life doesn't tend to offer people. They needed to know the "truth" about things... and didn't want to go through the many difficulties that the truth requires before she will unveil herself. They preferred to have a book and other people just tell them the answer.<br /><br />And Christians back in the day (as well as now) settled for their quick answers, no matter how harmful or absurd those answers were. This dim psychology only knows one thing: it's better to believe <span style="font-style: italic;">something</span>, anything, than to be uncertain. There is a deadly pride here that will not allow some people to just admit that they <span style="font-style: italic;">don't know</span> the answers to every question life poses, and that no one does.<br /><br />Then, after 16-17 centuries or so, the fire of the initial massive burst of zeal finally blazed out. It ends in the same place it began: in uncertainty, fear, and in need for something to hold on to.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Truth be known, the fires of Christianity blazed out long ago- centuries ago- only rote tradition and custom has kept it going this long. This is why "revivals" are always being attempted by the most hysterical of Christians- always that killing need to "revive" the corpse. And the answer is always disappointment and silence and guilt after the revival fire dies out, which it always does.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Islam's turn is coming soon, and even sooner, now that they have encountered the marvels of Western culture, which invalidates their worldview in countless ways, and introduces them to different ways of thinking and living, more liberated ways. Even the false prophet's ravings must go back to the same silence they emerged from, as the world cycles and discards yet another religious movement. They come and they go, forever.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">So, as these revealed religions come crashing down, their adherents look around with a "what now?" look on their faces. If we are there, presenting a mature front, with a solid basis for what we believe, born in the world's oldest truths and spiritual beliefs, we may see our numbers begin to grow. Half of what keeps people from really being open-minded about modern Heathenry or Paganism is the disapproval of Christian society for these things- fear of disapproval from family, community, friends, and the like. When our society no longer accords religious groups major air-time, and when the voices screaming for ten commandment tablets in all government buildings and (christian) prayers in school all go quiet, that pressure will be gone.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >The Only Missionaries We Need</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Wow! Doesn't that sound like a vulture's approach! Wait till their corpse goes silent, then start picking the meat off! It may seem that way, but it is not. Organic religions like Heathenry, and even the well-meaning attempts at Paganism on behalf of the new-age kids, are not vulture religions; they are the ancient land and sky that these revealed monotheistic religions have been throwing their 17 century-long fit upon. When the temper tantrum of the revealed religions finally calms down, when they lose their breath, and vanish, as they must, land and sky will remain.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Land and sky welcome any to come home to them again, they give all, take all, and give again, without moving even a bit from where they were. Natural peace and sanity is always possible. What shall we do in the meantime? Make Heathen missionary teams? No. But making a more serious and mature presentation of ourselves in public is a must. Insisting on boundaries between ourselves and the Non-Heathen who lack the needed maturity, insight, education, and depth of spirit to be a credit to the revival of ancient European religions in the modern day is also a must.<br /><br />Every person who finally gets fed up with the ephemeral promises of organized religions, and the politics, and the madness, drifts on seas of uncertainty for a while, seeking better horizons, greener lands. And Heathenry is certainly a good, green country, full of rest for those whom the Gods still watch over, even though generations of their families before unconsciously fell into ignorance about the Gods.<br /><br />In this age of rapid information sharing, we can reach people in incredible ways- but not necessarily "missionary" ways; by simply and honestly presenting a spiritual maturity and extolling the dignity of the Ancestral Way to the public, we can attract precisely the sorts of people that will be a credit to us. In a sense, the only "missionaries" we need to help our cause are Christian missionaries- the more people they insult, badger, use fear-tactics on, and in general harass with their nonsense, the more appealing non-Christian religions will seem to the discerning.<br /><br />And we should seem more appealing, because we aren't insane. We're doing what the Ancestors were doing before the religious hysteria of revealed, organized religions spread like wildfire through Europe, and subverted the sanity that was before. But fires burn out, always. Let it be, Gods, let it be. Let the old growth forests return, and let us have peace in their dark, sheltering boughs.<br /><br /><br /></span>Alfarrinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16532701327343776837noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36326453.post-61652159743107523492010-02-17T14:54:00.000-08:002010-02-17T15:01:08.550-08:00Were the Viking attacks self-defense against Christianity?<span style="font-family:arial;"><center><br /><img src="http://www.robinartisson.com/vikrage.jpg" /></center><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;">I found an excellent article, linked below, outlining a profound new perspective on the Viking raids on Christian settlements and monasteries during the Viking era:</span><br /><br /><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://medievalnews.blogspot.com/2010/01/viking-attacks-on-europe-were-self.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" onmousedown="'UntrustedLink.bootstrap($(this),"><span>http://medievalnews.blogsp</span><wbr><span class="word_break"></span><span>ot.com/2010/01/viking-atta</span><wbr><span class="word_break"></span><span>cks-on-europe-were-self.ht</span><wbr><span class="word_break"></span>ml</a><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">"A new theory about what drove the Vikings to raid Western Europe in the late eight and ninth centuries has been published. It suggests that the Vikings in Denmark were reacting to a threat from the Carolingian ruler Charlemagne, who was seeking to destroy their society and impose Christianity on them.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> The theory was put forward by Robert Ferguson in an article for the December 2009 issue of </span><i style="font-family: arial;">BBC History Magazine</i><span style="font-family:arial;">. His book, </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.amazon.com/Hammer-Cross-New-History-Vikings/dp/0713997885?ie=UTF8&tag=medievalistsn-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">The Hammer and the Cross: A New History of the Vikings</a><img alt="" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=medievalistsn-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0713997885" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; font-family: arial;" border="0" width="1" height="1" /><span style="font-family:arial;">, was also published in November.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> Starting in the 790s, Viking ships began raiding throughout Western Europe and the British Isles, often targeting monasteries. Ferguson points out that peaceful contacts between the Norse peoples and Christian societies, such as trading with each other. He therefore asks why did the Viking attacks begin when they did?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> But with the accession of Charlemagne in 771, the Carolingians began to implement a new program of converting their pagan and neighbors and promoting Christianity. Charlemagne launched numerous invasions of the Saxon peoples led by Widukind.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> In a podcast interview, Ferguson adds the goals of Charlemagne were to force the Saxons "to abandon their culture, political system, beliefs and everything, and make them part Christians and part of his empire."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> Ferguson notes an episode of "ethnic-cleansing:" when, in 782, Charlemangne's armies forcibly baptised and then executed 4,500 Saxon captives at Verden, a town close to Denmark. The Danes would have been well aware of what was happening with the Saxons anyways, as Widukind was married to sister of the Danish king, Sigfrid, and often took refuge in Denmark to escape the Carolingians.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> Considering the situation, Ferguson writes, "Should the Vikings simply wait for Charlemagne's armies to arrive and set about the task? Or should they fight to defend their culture?"</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> But the Norse could not fight the Carolingian military directly - instead they went after soft-targets, such as monasteries, which were symbols of the growing Christian encroachment. Ferguson says, "everything points to a hatred that goes beyond just robbers who just wanted money."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> The article goes on to describe these early Viking attacks, and how their raids expanded throughout Europe, with Viking kingdoms developing on the British Isles and elsewhere. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> Several other explanations have been put forward for Viking violence, such as innovations in shipbuilding which encouraged piracy, and overpopulation in Scandinavia, which forced many of its people to leave their homeland in search of fortune.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> The article, "The Vikings: Why did their violent raids begin?" is in the December 2009 issue of </span><i style="font-family: arial;">BBC History Magazine</i><span style="font-family:arial;">."</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span>Alfarrinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16532701327343776837noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36326453.post-23966817380909554782010-02-14T12:53:00.000-08:002010-08-29T16:36:47.406-07:00I'm a Heathen, Not a New Ager<span style="font-family:arial;"><center><br /><img src="http://www.robinartisson.com/blrav.jpg" /></center><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I wrote a list of twenty salient facts about Heathens that separate the majority of them from the mainstream of the "new age" movement. You can see it here:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><a href="http://www.robinartisson.com/hnna.html">I'm a Heathen, Not a New Ager</a></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br /></span>Alfarrinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16532701327343776837noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36326453.post-64225654412323833992010-02-06T00:57:00.000-08:002010-02-06T01:03:08.811-08:00Blot to Odin<center style="font-family: arial;"><br /><img src="http://www.robinartisson.com/wodanstat.jpg" /><br /><br /><i style="font-weight: bold;">Hear me, Wild Hunt's Grim Lord, Wish-Father Wandering,<br />Warg-master, Wolf in Timber Howling,<br />Wooer of Gunnlod, two ravens following!<br />Odin, High Lord of the Ancestral Host,<br />Fare in secret to my fire-lit hall,<br />Come to your honored seat,<br />And receive your cup of holy mead.</i><br /></center><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">* * *</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This short article contains a form for modern Blots or sacrifices, close to the custom of Blot as it is done in the Idavoll Kindred, but also (I think) representative of most "general" Heathen Blots. It's good for poetic usage as well as a general inspirational model. The Blot itself is for the Sig-Father and Warg-Father, Odin, but the form can be extended for use in Bloting other wights.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Click Here to see it:</span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.robinartisson.com/odinblot.html"> Blot to Odin</a><br /><br />Alfarrinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16532701327343776837noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36326453.post-8103008622756808972009-12-13T18:28:00.000-08:002009-12-14T12:23:29.696-08:00My Song of Glory for the Heathens<span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><center><img src="http://www.robinartisson.com/hofstead2.jpg" /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><b>"Hail the troth-found folk of the heath</b></span><b style="font-family: arial;"><br />Great fame for their struggles borne!<br />Limbs of doughty kin answer their need,<br />The love of Gods and Disir their meed.<br />Great is the wisdom of Herjan's song,<br />Blessed with luck all who know it<br />Blessed with hap all who keep it;<br />Their joy-fires are lit behind the holt<br />Their fain toasts go on in secret.</b><span style="font-family:arial;">"</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">* * *</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></center></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This song of glory is written for the Ásatrúar who fill the heaths and forests and hills of our wide land, and any land beyond the sea. In the new Pagan era, those of the Heathen troth are many, but many more are silent, living their lives with quiet patience and sometimes quite alone. They read the Eddas and stories of old, keep faith and troth with the Old Man and with mighty Red-Beard, with The Lord of Alfheim and with his Amber-eyed sister, the Dis of the Vanir-folk. They raise toasts at high Midsummer and feel the approach of the Ancestral Host at Midwinter, and the blood of their blots spill a thousand times unheard, every moon that passes. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Listen to my song further- praise the hidden folk, the people of the Heath, the silent throng of Heathens who do not entertain the public eye or discourse, but who are the steadfast body of the faithful. It was people of the land that gave them a name and voice again, a man named Sveinbjörn who farmed the ground and composed poetry, on an island in a cold ocean; it was mothers and fathers and children that came to answer the call first. We stand on the backs of heroes, all of us; heroes not for well-praised books of meticulously researched lore nor vain attention-mongering, but heroes for simple faith and courage and respect for the true faith of their ancestors. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Heathens of this world, raising horns with hope, Where so many have forgotten, you remember. Where so many abandon the many for the one, you know the many and have their ear. Where so many surrender to despair or apathy, you maintain a fire of life and wonder inside your hearts. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The end is in the beginning; the shape of conception is the shape of the end. Where many other Pagan organizations were born in the stew of reactionary politics and faddish obsessions, <b>Ásatrú</b>, the great and indigenous faith of the North, was born in plowed earth, poetry, hardy souls, bravery, fields of snow, crashing waves, and glowing fire. It was born in the minds of people whose love was the finding of herbs to address illness, speaking with land-wights, and respect for the lore of old. They didn't set out to parade vulgar campaigns of change in the world; they never set out to shock the values of non-Heathens in their lands, they never set out to make foes of other faiths (though prejudices were sure to be born from others) they set out to set their souls at ease amid the pleasures of ancestral wisdom and belonging. Give a person that peace, and all else will follow.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This is the Ur-Law that all Heathens can proudly claim as their origin. This is the Wyrd woven for us by the heroes of our way. This is why all who claim the creed of the Heathens, in all its many forms, stand apart from other Pagans of our world; our strong numbers are quiet more than loud, thoughtful more than foolhardy, satisfied more than seeking, as Allfather bade them be. Like the land and the land-wights that we call kin and friend, we are as enduring as the stones. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The modern Pagan stream that thrusts itself upon the stage of the world will rise and fall on tides of amazing wonders and baleful failures, like all whirling powers of men. It will inspire and enrage, it will mesmerize and shock, and it will finally settle down to embers and fade, to change its shape to a new form for the times to come. The Heathens that belong to their own world, a deeper world, a thewful world, will gaze from silence. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">My song of glory is for the lasting people, the faithful ones, the worshipers of Thor, slayer of evil, Odin, Master of Sorcery, for Frey, Guardian of the loaves of plenty, Freya, first in beauty, for Frigg, patient spinner from the fen-halls, for Heimdall, sharp-eyed watcher and protector, and for all the folk who give rightful worship to the Sacred Hosts. You are the dignity of the new Pagan era. What you believe is the ancient treasure sought by so many that was unearthed by hearts and minds, not picks and shovels. The faithless could not silence the Ancestral voices for long; here they are raised again.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">What your voices say, as little as they may be heard, is the secret hope of every Pagan heart that beats this day. Few are called to the Troth-halls, but all long for the dignity and seriousness that is the religion of your everyday lives. To every Heathen that raises a toast alone, I say "you are kin of mine, we are kin together with the hosts of awe." To every kindred and hearth that passes a horn in the faith, I say "hail and might to you all- where your hlaut-bowls are spilled, there falls the greatest treasure man still possesses, true kinship." We are scattered, so unknown to most, but potent and unshakable. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">May the kin of Odin endure, as they have for so long, to be the future of our new Pagan world! May those loved by the God of Thunder be safe! May those beloved of Frigg come to good ends, woven with the love of a Mother who is nurse to all the blessed young. Hail Ásatrú! Health and Blessings to the Heathens All!</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span>Alfarrinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16532701327343776837noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36326453.post-49836617276229323102009-12-12T14:46:00.000-08:002009-12-12T14:49:14.344-08:00End of an Era: The Heathen Eschatology<center><br /><img src="http://www.robinartisson.com/eagleflight.jpg" /></center><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Secularism has lamed Christian powers in the west. In the east, Islam is vomiting out its last pile of envy and spite, and soon, the forces of secularism and materialism will overwhelm even the bastions of Islam. It is inevitable, like the snows of Winter in the rafters of the world. It grows colder, colder, slowly, until the ice forms. No man or institution can stop it. None can halt the march of the ages, the weaving of Fate.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Israel, always a tiny group of people, have broken their strength through absorption into hateful populations that only gave them death and persecution, and have emerged as tiny enclaves of hopeful and socially active people who have finally had enough- like their Ancestors, they want to be left alone to keep their covenants and drink their kosher wines. With great joy, I can give the descendants of Israel the greatest compliment I accord to any monotheists: they've never tried to ram their God down my throat. I wish them well as the world continues to swallow them, too.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The age of religious absolutism is drawing closed. And it is a great time to be a human being, I must say. Now, as with any age, the forces of the previous age are resentful, and in their final, threadbare little stands of desperation, they kill, maim, grow desperate, make immense asses out of themselves on the stage of the world, but people no longer really care. I hate the twin forces of materialism and secularism, but I must say- blunt, freezing little tools that they are, they have a use.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Could Fate have woven these soul-numbing little terrors for a reason? It seems to me that they arise to address a fundamental imbalance in the human soul. If you force immense populations of people into the dark places of radicalism and insane religiosity, which certainly has happened to everyone in the last 2000 years, it seems that you exhaust the energy of the soul, and the deeper wisdom which was always there finally has to reassert itself. That deeper wisdom knows that all this insanity was a divergence from the Truth about man and this world. Like all wisdom, it is quiet and deeply immovable. You can plaster nonsense over it, but you can never really remove it.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">When the fires of absolutism and fanaticism and false promises fade, only that wisdom is left, cool among the embers. The promises of the monotheistic West have failed; they have been shown to be empty, as empty as the "peace through submission" battle cry of the Muslim East. Only the dazed scions of Israel remain, blinking through the ashes, wondering just how in the HELL their Ancestral religion and God could ever have inspired movements like Christianity and Islam.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Well, those movements did more than just persecute them; those movements spread across the map like a black oil-slick, butchering non-Abrahamic, indigenous faiths everywhere, replacing the dignity of wisdom and Ancestral religion with the wicked crescent and the stark oppression of the cross. Gone was the diversity inherent in the human spirit, replaced with churches and mosques, all straining to fit everyone into the same creed. If there was ever a dark age, it was this one.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The Wolf-Age always surprises me. Of all the Nine Ages of the World, it appears to have the most room for shock and awe, for surprise, and for heroism. In the face of a Sauron-like flooding of Middle Earth, in which free peoples were locked in chains, a few lights of resistance and wisdom remained burning. And now, those lights, kept burning from long ago, have set fire to the dried out wood of the human spirit that was choked into silence and drought. The fire can't be controlled.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><center>* * *</center><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;">Even inside the largest dark age of the world, a new era is being born. And it is glorious to behold. There's something infuriating about watching the poor, empty, raging reactions of the former powers, but also something blissfully pleasurable. By the time you have to wail as loud as they do, you can be sure that their cause is dead and unrecoverable.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">But that leaves us with new challenges. Once these failed experiments from the past die out, and die out they will, will the new powers be able to return to some semblance of sustainability and humanity? I can almost assure you that naked secularism, bolstered by the forces of atheism and materialism, can't do it. They are, in their own way, just as lethal as the insanity we had before. But I look at it this way- we can die under the wails of prayers and crusaders and deluded idiots, or under the syringes of doctors who think we are all just big science experiments, and societies that just sit around staring. I'll take the second way.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Or better yet, I'll create my own third way. I'll die like I lived, with the fire I feel burning in me, rejecting all of these hateful degeneracies and laughing my way to the Allfather's hall. He alone knows what truth was lost, and he alone knew why it had to happen. He alone waits for the few who remain true to the way of wisdom to burn out like stars fallen into a tar-like soup of apathy and falsehood. And those few will be called Allfather's Own; they will stand with him when the final forces of destruction come to smother all that remains of the resplendent, beautiful world that we have taken advantage of and besmirched with our pride and our willful ignorance.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Demon Materialism, Demon Despair, Demon Atheism, Demon Consumerism, blunt little blades of ice and oblivion! How I hate you. But no other weapons would have sufficed to cut the throats of the dark religious powers that held our world hostage. Your task is done. I should thank you. But I know that, in some ways, my throat may be next. Just as well. Something was going to destroy me from the day I was born. If you think you can do it, well, you know where to find me!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">May the Hammer of the Gods continue to strike and crush those who smother the human spirit. May it turn on the giantish powers of modernity that have delivered us from one evil, only to threaten us with a new one. Let the great ice come, the great fires, and let all that we know and love freeze and burn to dust and ash. That too, has to happen.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">But in the midst of it, let the fortunate few know the great joy of truth! If the final hurrah of the world must be this way, let's make the best of it. It's what the Gods would do, and what the Vala tells us they will do. How divine- to keep the hearth fire burning bright with joy, while the tide of darkness rises. If you are beginning to feel annoyed, dismayed, angry, scornful, or dismissive of my words, you are already feeling what I am saying, more than just reading. And that's good. May the Hammer of the Gods protect you, too, whoever you are.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The Doom of the Powers is coming. Whatever was good in this world will sleep in the deep places of the tree, safe from the destroying fires. Hel will give up her dead and all of the lost of this world, and they will see what the Vala has seen- new rivers pouring through new virgin wilderness, and the eagle flying again, swooping to catch fish anew. She has seen a new heavens and a new earth, and the Mighty Gods coming to their assembly again. She has foreseen it, because she has seen it many times, in my worlds before this one.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">All worlds must in time be stained with darkness, but all worlds must undergo their purification and rebirth, too. A person is like that as well; each of us will be renewed. Glorious freedom! On those green fields and under that new sun- who will be the daughter of the sun currently above us- I look forward to speaking with you again.<br /><br /><br /></span>Alfarrinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16532701327343776837noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36326453.post-7992574265850401232009-12-10T16:03:00.000-08:002009-12-10T16:25:03.996-08:00Who Really Abandoned their Duty to the Truth?<span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><center><img src="http://www.robinartisson.com/christianlove.jpg" /></center></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This is a five minute long video of a Catholic Priest, Father Robert Barron, and his comments on the "Danger of Turning Religion into a Toy".</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KrkU-XsNbU">The Danger of Turning Religion into a Toy</a></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This is my response to him and his short talk.</span><br /><br /><Center>* * *</center><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This man has life and spirit, I can see that. But he also has the typical Christian narrow focus.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">He begins with the assumption- which he takes as solid, literal truth- that humans are "hardwired" for "God"- and, in the place of God, he uses synonyms like "Truth", "Beauty", and "Good". That's very Neoplatonic of him, and I wouldn't mind that so much, except that the Pissed off God of Israel is not "Truth", "Beauty" and "Good". The God of Israel, which this man means when he says "God", is a being, an entity, not abstract universal qualities like "Truth", "Beauty", and "Good". <br /><br />A being, an entity that gives laws and has a will and gets pissed off and floods the world to destroy sinners, is not a "quality". An entity- even a God- cannot simultaneously be a quality like "Truth", anymore than I can be a person and simultaneously a "happiness" or a "peace". It's like suggesting a square can be round. It's not possible. We're conflating qualities or aspects of reality that cannot merge without absurdity.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Now, let's drop the ancient Hebrew superstitions out of the equation, and give up on their hopelessly inane tribal theism. Let's give the priest, for one moment, the conclusion that "God" equates with "Truth" and "Beauty" and "Good". Now, we have something closer to the old notion of the Greek Philosophers, a notion of "The Good", or the "God of the Philosophers" as my professors once said- something distinct from the Hebrew "God of Revelations".</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Let's say that the priest is correct and humans are indeed "hardwired" for finding the Truth, beauty, and the Good. His Christianity swoops in once more and prohibits him from allowing that people can discover Truth, Beauty, and Good in any way other than adherence to and agreement with his own dogmatic principles and beliefs. You can have "sorta" Truth, but it ain't "Ultimate Truth" unless you're proclaiming your faith in Jesus Christ, and (ideally) attending his church.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">That's bosh. That's malarkey. Truth, Beauty, and Good are universal qualities that have countless manifestations in human lives, and a presence in all places, in all ages, worldwide. These qualities do not cluster exclusively around a single recent religion's triumphalist and exclusivist claims and mythologies. These revealed religions that want to stake total claim on Truth don't want to share, (it would certainly be financial bad business for them to share) but fortunately for us, their claims mean nothing. Truth was here long before them and will be here when their malignant organizations are washed away to dust by the tide of time.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">But my critique of this man's message goes a bit further. I agree with him on some things that he says- people who give up on the natural quest for Truth and Goodness and assume the "who cares" stance that characterizes so many of the lost and degenerate of our age DO harm their souls- on this, the priest and I are in total agreement. He's also correct to say that people who repress this urge for wholeness and truth feel those repressed aspects of the soul "re-emerge" in harmful, twisted form.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">But there's an issue here. He says that people who put aside "God" and the search for "God" see that repression re-emerge as addiction, or a lust for power, or what have you. He goes on to say that these things will never be enough, and indeed, I agree with him again. But how in the world does a person "have" God? Is he suggesting that the search for God actually ends, and that some blessed people have "found" God, and now, don't have addictions or lust for power, or lust generally, and none of the other false, shallow fixations that characterize so many people?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Precisely where are these saintly, happy people? I've known countless Christians, and they aren't all sitting around blissfully happy, "With" God, in lieu of all those other sorry alternatives that the poor unenlightened masses have.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This man talks a good talk about the benefits of "having" God in lieu of the shallow alternatives, but I've yet to meet anyone that appears to have seized on this holy state. EVERY Christian I've ever known- including pastors and priests- had one or more of the following: addictions, annoying personalities, troubles, rudeness, judgmentalism, depression, questions and doubts, greed, lust for power, pride, ego run amok, and any of the other issues that characterize Human Beings. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">And, ironically, I don't truly hold these things against them- they are humans. But they are humans who make fabulous claims of having achieved some wonderful state above others, by virtue of their amazing Christian Truth. But it's bosh. Their own lives and minds and appearances don't verify their claims. All they really seem to have is a strong certainty that somehow, they "have" God, due to their "faith" or adherence to the dogmas and teachings of religion. Even when they can't "understand" God fully, or when things are hard for them, they have this "faith" that they've still achieved some great leap towards the Truth that others have not- but which others need to.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">You'll forgive me for saying what's obvious to most, but I don't buy their claims, or his. Nothing I have experienced thus so far, and nothing I have read about Christian history and its impact on this world, leads me to believe that these people have a profound Truth that the rest of us lack.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">They DO, however, have a disturbing and unwise story that they espouse, an aggressively evangelistic story of monotheism, anthropocentrism, human exceptionalism, triumphalism, elitism, and absurd, unqualified eternalism that many of us lack, but which most of us have already seen through on a philosophical level.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">When I see things like this, it makes me appreciate how wise my Ancestors were, and why the organic Heathen religion is so important and relevant today: it can spare us from this particular brand of madness.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The "Truth" is not a colossal idea or set of doctrines that describe how the universe works to people, and the "Truth" is not a single monolithic idea or even a being; the "Truth" is not hidden, despite how the Philosophers and later the Monotheists want to present it that way (the better to position themselves to be able to "reveal" to others how to find it, thus winning a great measure of pride, fame, and money for themselves). The "Truth" reveals itself from moment to moment through every day of our lives, in every experience.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">To hunt, to shelter from cold and heat, to raise children, to grow food, protect your loved ones, create art, build buildings, explore, compose poetry, make music, seek excellence in your crafts - all of these human pursuits are the Truth about what we are. We come to know the Truth about man and this world by experiencing it, not having it taught to us with hopelessly absurd metaphysical claims that can't be verified until we've died. Truth about human life never hid from us; we became convinced that it was hidden because we sadly allowed ourselves to believe a story that told us that we were flawed and lost.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">We became, like spoiled children, unwilling to accept that the most obvious things could be our Truth. We wanted angels with trumpets and eternal bliss, not the simple pleasures of life, the love of family and kin, the great joy of surviving and thriving in this world. No longer content to be humans, we have to be Gods ourselves, or eternal spirits living in heaven. The absurdity of these things have poisoned our history for 2000 years, and poisoned our societies, our world, and threatened our survival. May the Gods guide the new generations of Heathens on the right course!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">May we never forget what happened the last time Christians were given the power to "teach their Truth" to people who were brave enough to resist it:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><b>Snorri Sturluson in the saga of St. Olaf chapter 73, describes the brutal process of Christianisation in Norway: “…those who did not give up paganism were banished, with others he (Saint Olaf) cut off their hands or their feet or extirpated their eyes, others he ordered hanged or decapitated, but did not leave unpunished any of those who did not want to serve God (…) he afflicted them with great punishments (…) He gave them clerks and instituted some in the districts.”</b></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span>Alfarrinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16532701327343776837noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36326453.post-38032380566485938312009-12-09T15:55:00.001-08:002009-12-09T18:20:06.816-08:00Indigenous Paganism and New Religious Movements<span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><center><img src="http://www.robinartisson.com/oldvillage.jpg" /></center></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Is the general term "Pagan" on the verge of a redefinition?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">At the "Parliament of the World's Religions", some new and somewhat exciting/controversial statements were made by some of the persons who attended in the name of "Pagans" worldwide.<br /><br />Let me begin by saying that I don't believe anyone or any small group of people can sufficiently and adequately "represent" Pagans worldwide. These people who appeared on the behalf of Pagans were not elected to go, or any such thing. Even if someone could "represent" Wiccans or other New-Age spiritual movements, Asatru and other such religions- which are always painfully lumped in with the rest- would certainly not be represented at all.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I'm pleased to report that, despite this strange and unsatisfactory state of affairs, that one of the Pagan attendees, Andras Corban-Arthen, made a very positive and somewhat profound statement about religious identity and classifications for modern Pagans. What he said is worth being reprinted here, and I shall do so by quoting online journalist and Pagan parliament attendee Ed Hubbard:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">* * *</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">"...So the term Pagan itself is being redefined from this old Christian based definition. Part of the Teaching of Traditions series, created with the help of Pagan Trustees, describes Paganism as follows: “Paganism” is a collective term that most aptly defines <b>Indigenous cultures of pre-Christian Europe, the Celtic and Germanic Tribes, The Balts, The Scandinavians, The Basques, The Slavs and many others.</b></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The first Pagan presentation of the Parliament helped begin this change of identity and was called “People Call Us Pagans-The European Indigenous Traditions”, by PWR Trustees Angie Buchanan, Andras Arthen, and Phyllis Curott. The opening of the description is as follows: As the World confronts environmental devastation, we are beginning to appreciate the wisdom of Indigenous peoples who have lived thousands of years in sustainable harmony and spiritual connection with the Earth. After hundreds of years of suppression, most Westerners have forgotten that their ancestors once shared this wisdom as the Indigenous traditions of Europe. *</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This concept of Paganism as being based deeply in European Indigenous Traditions has fascinated and found ground among American, European and Australian members of the Parliament. It helps move Paganism from being a New Religious Movement to an Indigenous tradition, and offers many more opportunities to reach out at the parliament.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">As described by Andras Corban-Arthen most forms of modern Paganism <b>can be described as part of the New Religious Movements as they were formed in the 20th century, yet there are several Pagan ethnic traditions that have survived Christianization.</b> One such example is Romuva of Lithuania. It is these <b>ethnic traditions that fit better into the description of Indigenous traditions, instead of New Religious Movements.</b> It allows Pagans to be part of both New Religious Movements and also recognized as part of the Indigenous traditions. By accepting that Pagan Traditions are indigenous to Europe, then individuals must take another look and it presents them with a different paradigm of what Pagan stands for.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Further, Andras Corban-Arthen points out that Wicca, for example, <b>cannot be seen as an indigenous Pagan faith practice and is instead a modern syncretic movement.</b> Under this description Wicca therefore would not fall under the definition of Pagan, and would be squarely a New Religious Movement, while British Traditional Witchcraft could be considered a Pagan and Indigenous faith tradition. "</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">* * *</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">My hat off to Andras' bravery! The blast-back from Wiccans and others who do not fall under the heading of "indigenous" has already begun, and promises to be a raging debate for a long time to come. Here is my take on the entire topic of who is and is not "indigenous", and why the term "indigenous" is so important:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The only reason anyone gets worked up over "indigenous" is because they think that people saying "we belong to an indigenous faith" are trying to claim some legitimacy over others. But as a person who belongs to the indigenous faith of the Germanic people of Europe, I am not using the term with that intent. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Despite the attempts on the part of some peoples to try and stake an exclusive claim to the word, "Indigenous" is defined simply as <b>"originating in and characteristic of a particular region or country"</b>- and it also means "<b>inherent</b>" or "<b>innate</b>". Asatru did originate in the Northern regions of Europe, and it is characteristic of what pre-Christian Europeans of those regions were doing. Further, we believe it to be the inherent, innate religion of people of Northern European extraction. That's all. That's what it means, and I reject as political manipulation any other attempt to give this term "indigenous" any other meaning. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Wicca originated in England, but cannot be said to be "characteristic" of anything that historical Pagans or witches in England were doing before it, as the structure, while workable and sufficient, is new, pioneered by Gardner and other contemporary occult groups. I don't doubt Wicca's power or efficacy in the lives of the people who believe in it, and Wiccans are certainly allies to all Pagans today in the struggle for recognition. Also, Wiccans, insofar as they pray to Pagan Gods, ARE "Pagan", as I see no further definition for "pagan" needed beyond "People who believe in and/or worship Pagan Gods and Goddesses." </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">What qualifies as "Pagan" has been debated a long time; for the longest time, anyone who wasn't a member of an Abrahamic religion was classified as Pagan, but Native Americans, Buddhists, and others are offended by the word, for their own reasons. Now, it seems to be used for European non-Abrahamic faiths, and that's fine by me. I don't mind it at all. But the "indigenous" distinction is important to me, because all Pagans/New Religions cannot and must not be lumped together as a whole. That would be insulting to the truth about them all- different varieties of Pagan have different histories, different worldviews, different focus, and these things are very, very important to their thoughtful membership. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">If we want an intellectually honest appraisal of the situation, we have to cease the lumping and start studying the great variety that we've all inherited.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I would like to end by saying that it's sad that such a distinction and conversation never happened in the mainstream of the Pagan community until unelected "representatives" of the "Pagan" world went to a parliament of world religions and brought it up. But however it had to come about, the conversation is now out and ongoing.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span>Alfarrinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16532701327343776837noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36326453.post-78607360420348751022009-12-08T18:22:00.000-08:002009-12-08T18:42:30.891-08:00The Wolves of Winter<center><br /><img src="http://www.robinartisson.com/wwolf1.jpg" /></center><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">When the weather turns lethal, you have no choice but to be smarter and tougher. It's 18 degrees outside right now, with snow as far as the eye can see- and more snow and ice-rain expected tomorrow. I'm excited. This weather makes you turn inward, and then makes you turn back and push against the powers that be- it makes you assert your will, makes you realize how unimportant so many of the things we get worked up over really are. Before this winter is over, -10 to -25 degrees is possible. All that stands between me and death is burning oil, wooden walls, the fellowship of my household warm bodies, and our own creativity. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The Ancestors were hard and tough, largely I think because they had to compete with other humans in bloody combat, but also because they had the cold to teach them. The Ancestors didn't have any illusions about the cold: it was a manifestation of Wyrd, of power from another world- the world of Niflheim, Ice-Home. It was the breath of Giants; a life-killing force that could and would overwhelm the world if contrary forces didn't balance it out. Luckily, contrary forces do exist.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Some of the Natives of this land weren't off mark about this either; to the Sioux, </span><i style="font-family: arial;">Waziah</i><span style="font-family:arial;"> the Giant lived in the north and blanketed the world with white snow and cold- but that cold was a purifying power. It helped people, as much as it presented a danger. And that's part and parcel of organic wisdom; the contrary forces in nature had a place and a purpose that served all beings as well as hindering them at times. Part of living a happy life was to integrate these two poles of every power.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The Goddess Sunna has followed her track away to the distance, leaving this land I'm in now in the grip of cold powers. She'll come back, but until she does, the wolf-wights roam this place, eaters of the living and the dead. Frost giants don't tread here, else we'd all be frozen into blocks, but their breath and their awe-full distant presence now shrouds us in ice. Matter slows down; the wind now bites, and even sounds are swallowed in the sucking darkness. I've never "heard" such a silence as what exists on top of this snow at night.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">It reminds us why the Godly work of creation is so precious- without warmth, creativity, technology, intelligence, artifice, artistry, and willpower, we'd all vanish into this darkness. In this time, your humanness stands out in sharp contrast to the gaping maw of raw nature, when she assumes her giantish face of cold. You find out more about yourself. And in the primal ice crystal-filled night space, Jolnir- Odin, the Yule-Father- rides his horse across the broad sky. His wisdom is like this darkness, because it was born in darkness. He can celebrate the sunny side of life alongside the frozen side, because he knows both sides of his being. May we all learn from his example and embrace the cold alongside the blessings of spring. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">People have seen my winter side; they have seen the dismal depths to which my person can be driven. And people have seen my summer side, the caring person who is capable of much loyalty and compassion. I am two-faced and two-natured, like Allfather. I offer a cup of mead to my ice-blue Other Self. In the heat of the deep south, my other self was confused; it emerged in irksome, troublesome ways. Here it can run and play on brilliant white fields of virgin snow. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The wights of this winter won't overcome me and mine because a wolf lives in us that is just as strong- pure, savage, resentful wolves of will. This cold will discover a will-force in us that will make it rage in impotence at our inventiveness and undaunted drive. If this winter is cold and hard, we will be colder and harder. The next time some lame problem crosses my path, it will pale in comparison to the devouring cold. What the Gods have placed in us is an undying light that shines through extremes of cold or heat. We are undefeatable.<br /><br /></span>Alfarrinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16532701327343776837noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36326453.post-56247706709393087442009-12-03T22:11:00.000-08:002009-12-04T08:59:16.274-08:00The Season of Memory<span style="font-family:arial;"><center><br /><img src="http://www.robinartisson.com/yulewindow.jpg" /></center></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><i>A Heathen Sorcerer's Walk Through the Sacred Season of the Yuletide</i></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><center>* * *</center></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">There is snow falling, and a bright, large moon riding across the sky between great continents of cloud. When a man stands outside on the dark ground, on pale fields of snow glowing in moonlight, it's like standing in a dream. Shadows are never more black, and moonlight never more radiant, than when it becomes trapped in web-works of ice and shines out in a pale radiance. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The most powerful part of any walk in the winter night, to me, is the sight of houses from a distance- they are dark, too, but their windows glow in the most inviting orange and gold hue. Each of them is a warm center of life, their walls holding back the life-withering cold and ice. In a sea of freezing power, these ships of glowing life drift in place- seen from the shadowed sky, they would make the dark landscape seem aglow with golden stars.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">All around me, in the village, in the woods, in the countryside, are islands of golden warmth, each of them the hearth of a family surviving another winter. Human life is persistent; its allies in the struggle for life are likewise persistent- fire, masonry, beams of wood, stone, and ingenious contraptions of wire and pipe that bring water and electricity in through the worst storms. We are enduring beings. We have endured countless winters.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">From one window, a cat peers out at me. That tabby-colored cat sits in pure bliss, legs tucked under his furry chest, eyes narrowed into that tranquil meditative relaxation that cats seem to specialize in. The cat dozes in the warmth, totally unconcerned about the falling flakes of ice and snow that cascade down in front of its face just inches on the other side of glass. How many other cats, throughout the ages, have sheltered next to the warm fires of their masters in this time? That cat is a fellow traveler through time and history with me. I'm glad to see him so warm.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">There are candles and wreathes and colored lights dancing about in places. The Winter Solstice time is here, and in the middle of all this frozen desolation, people are preparing to celebrate something as old as humanity itself. Most don't have any clue how far back it goes- most wouldn't think of it as going back before the birthday of Jesus, but these same people drag trees into their homes in this season, keeping alive a Heathen tree worship that certainly pre-dated the Nazarene by a great distance in time. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The name given to the supposed Galilean miracle-worker- "Christ"- has come to dominate what people in the west call this season of ancient power- Christmas- and the "advent" so awaited by the traditional faithful is nothing more than the appearance of this miraculous child. But older names for this time lurk below the surface, known to all who "Toll the ancient Yuletide carol."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><center>* * *</center></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">When I stand in the cold and dark of the Yuletide, I always become introspective about the vastness of history and the chasm of eternity that yawns behind it. This time of year, more than most, sends my mind and imagination on a journey through the story of the West. That story begins in places that most people would shrug off as fiction more than fact, but fact it is- every bit of it. If you could have seen it, you would see more golden circles of fire glowing on snow under the veil of night- because ages ago, in the coldest and most distant of places, that's where the ancestors lived and held back the cold and dark. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">They had tents, lodges, roundhouses, and villages, all glowing with healthy blazes that were beacons of survival in the frost-gripped world. They wandered a world that was not conveniently mapped out for them or easy to conceive of by whirling a plastic globe around. To the north was mountain; the east, forest; to the west rolling hills and valleys, and south, more forest, stretching as far as the eye could see. The life-giving flow of a river cut through nearby, and the Goddess of that river provided much for them. What was beyond what the eye could see? They didn't know. They would discover what; they were brave and always on the move. Where did the river come from? Who were the other people, the strangers, stalking through the forests south? </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The ice and snow that blanketed their world, it was not just the predictable result of a meteorologists' report; it was magical power. It was the footprints of giants, the breath of giants, covering the world with their brutal power. It was power from a world of ice which lay far beyond, and the one day, they knew, the powers of light and life would shift and banish those cold powers, at least for a time. There was a struggle in the cosmos about them, which paralleled their struggle right here in the village or camp- to enclose themselves with safe circles of fire and strong men and women, safe in the sacred enclosure of kin.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">There was nothing in the world that didn't hold some fascination, for all of it was mystical or magical power of a kind. For these people, the presence of something mystical or magical wasn't such a shock; they lived in a world full of Gods, a world full of powers. Some powers were human and animal; others were immensely greater. All were part of a web of power which excluded nothing. There were magical treasures, things humans could create or obtain, which granted safety or skill or power to their owners or their groups. There were places of power in the landscape to be found, the work of previous hands, either lost groups of human beings or perhaps the Giants themselves.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">It sounds like high fantasy, but it is reality, plain and simple. This is our origin. Not just these people or their technologies, but their worldviews- their belief in the awesome sacred powers which surrounded them. When we forget these people, or consign them to a realm of fantasy, we forget so much about who we are. For who we are is partly determined by who we were- and in fact, I might say, the very best parts of us owe so much to who we were. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">If we want to know where we are "going", as a culture, as massive groups of people whose bloodlines run back to those distant times, we have to look back to the ancients, for the clues to our final destination are found in our beginnings. The end is always present at the beginning, and the beginning at the end, because life and causality finally and ultimately describes a great circle of power. We aren't in an "open ended" universe, and we never were. We are enclosed in power and destiny, though it is a vision so massive as to seem quite bottomless to the person who lacks the poetic vision to really look.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">My journey continues, through more dark trees and snow-covered fields, down the course of great rivers, to a southern sea that encloses the reaches of many glittering ancient civilizations. People here placed stone upon stone and raised monuments of awesome power. Here, they raised temples and gleaming cities by the water-lanes of commerce. Here, they forged ideas of philosophy that transcended their own concerns and attempted to embrace the entirety of things. Here, the Gods still lived and still joined with mortal men in the great work of destiny. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><center>* * *</center></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">For countless generations, these societies- so different from the people of the Northern fires, and yet, so similar in other ways- wore out their Fated time, and achieved reaches of glory which have still not been matched by our vain modern day. Something of the old mysticism from time's first human dawn still lived in these ancient cities and cyclopean temples. Among the Romans, the great reign of king Saturn the Sower was commemorated in the darkness of December; the rites and celebrations of the Saturnalia were simultaneous to the joyous birth of the Persian savior Mithras. Life wasn't just enduring; it was being reborn, a new golden age was being celebrated, at the deep of winter.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">These rites were half civilized and half barbaric- at times wild, orgiastic, yet solemn and profound at other times. Don't mistake me- the barbarism was found in the solemnity, not the celebration, for only people out of touch with the sacredness of the wild ever innovate the technologies and social systems that truly harm this world. But the ancient struggle of the wild and the structured pranced on in its mesmerizing leaps then, as it does now. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">These Pagan people are my Ancestors, and yours. They are who we were, and in so many ways still are. I embrace them, all of them, and I love them. I appreciate their wisdom, their aesthetics, and I know their hopes in dreams by having a long look at my own. Without these great and brave people, nothing we have now would exist; not this language, this computer that I am staring at as I type, not our social values of democracy and humanitarianism, of liberty and scientific inquiry, our spirit of philosophy and our very souls. The very glass I lifted to toast with tonight, under a fresh sprig of mistletoe, was raised first by the Northern people from whom I gain this flesh and blood. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">My journey has to take a dark turn now; the ragged ruins of the world around me still have some of the old wisdom glowing in them, like heat and light in the embers that remain after a majestic building is burned down. And the edifice of the ancient world's true life <i>was</i> burned down by fear and ignorance. Let us never forget the awful power of these twin forces- ever more devastating than any modern nuclear weapon, more pervasive than any political unrest. The precious Gods that once wandered with the Ancestors through the same snow that is under my feet, and who were once praised in temples of great majesty, were once abandoned by Kings and people of power, and gradually, by the commoners that followed them. Not everyone left the Gods behind, but many did, and soon, it was the sword that assured that only one way of believing would be allowed.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This shift wasn't simple, nor fast, nor did it reflect only a drama in the human mind; the world fell to ruins around it. Rome was undermined by it; Rome burned to the ground over it. The next fifteen hundred years are called "Dark Ages"- and not for no reason. The lamps of Greek learning were dark. Civilization's order collapsed. Literacy was lost. Ancient cultural arts and achievements were lost. The great spirit of the Northern folk was torn from the land itself and crowded into dirty villages and towns and cities, and into churches, whose harsh bells drove the spirits of the land away in disgust and fear. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">There was no more magic to be found in the landscape or the mountains or in the worlds of Gods; that magic was categorized as satanic trickery and a snare of diabolism. No longer could the sun or moon or stars, or wells or groves of trees be a merging point for human souls to enjoy their connection with the sacred All; now, Popes wrote documents containing the penalties for those who enjoyed these ages-old activities.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><center>* * *</center></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">When I look at the crosses on the church buildings near me, I see the cruelty of these ages staring back at me. I see the cross of ignorance, which has crucified countless people of my blood and of the same legacy as me. I see the old solar Gods, blazing out from their own ancient crosses, and even bloody dead Gods from Pagan times who emerged from their own deaths to the great joy of their followers, now sunk low while Jesus reigns from on high, morally pure, ready to judge the quick and the dead. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I see the continuation of the most distant and degenerate form of Roman Paganism in those churches. I see great hopes for eternal happiness, and I see despair. I see ages of ancient power echoing in the cross, that old power forming a great austere background of force that informs the entire edifice of Christianity, but which is ignored fully by the faithful themselves. That power, they reason, is God; that power is the Holy Spirit. A rather simplistic final product for so many centuries of hope and fear, of blood and conquest, of dead Gods and risen Gods, of decadent Roman courts and of dark incense-filled temples and churches covered with colorful mosaics. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Christians have never been free of the Saturnian Pagan Yuletide. Their savior gained a birthday on the winter solstice, taking for his company an ancient cavalcade of divine figures; Christians were latecomers to the ancient power of the season. But they joined, and added a new dimension to it. That dimension is, to me, the least of all; it is the least wise, the least compelling, and the most superficial. But it is the most pronounced, today- especially when you walk through the snowy village in your head, like I am now. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I see the nativity scene, complete with big plastic camels poking up with their humps out of the snow. Camels in the snow- Semitic shepherds and Persian astrologers huddled around a plastic manger, covered in snow, in a northern forest, in the front yard of a family whose surname is "Bachmeier"- as Teutonic a surname as you can get. There you have it. While the sacred Yule-season of their ancestors is glowing in power around them, the Bachmeiers place faded plastic statues of Near-Eastern goat herders and Persians and camels in their yard, and pray to an ancient Hebrew man, and the ancient God of Israel- who was never worshiped in a Yule or a Saturnalia.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Does Father Bachmeier know about Sigurd and Sigrdrifa, or Arminius? Does he know about Jolnir or the Disir of this time? Does he know what the "Weihnachten" really stands for? Or does he really sit around singing about Angels and Bethlehem and Jerusalem? We have truly lost our souls when a person even needs to ask these sorts of questions. We have lost our true senses. Thank the Gods for remaining with us through these dark times. Gods, we are coming home- but excuse us; some of us have lost the way. They'll take a little longer getting there. We know you understand, and remain with us anyway.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><center>* * *</center></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">There is something about the West- our great spirit, our great contribution to the world- which is tied into our theism. We've always believed in Gods. Recently, we've betrayed the living Gods for the spiteful Monotheism of the ancient Hebrews, but as I said before- just wait. The end is in the beginning. The Gods are not gone, nor done with us, nor we with them. We are going through a painful growing phase. We are the ones that changed, and not so long ago, all things considered. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">But something around us isn't changing. This snow- this night- it is the same. Night is night, in any age. Her darkness has touched the face of every human being that has ever lived. The same water that fell as ice onto the ancients melted and rose again to freeze again and fall onto me, now. Nature, majestic Nature, She is forever young and forever ancient. She is something we all have in common. She has seen many religions come and go, many civilizations rise and fall. She is common grave-mound and tomb to us all, and to all things. She is common mother to us all. Want a truly enduring religion? Worship her. In her is the essence of all religions arisen before or arisen recently. She is the true Godhead of creation and destruction. In her, all things come to pass. In her, all things are made new.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">We Westerners are "Godists" if there ever were any. While the highest philosophical ponderings of the East lead people away from God or Gods, we hang on to our "big man in the sky". I hang on to my ancestors' "big men and women in the sky and under the earth", but that's just me and a few others like me. And I am, of course, risking the comical here- the Gods aren't men and women. Something about the spirit of the West is found in theism, found in our own belief that one day, we have to journey beyond this world to face a mystery. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">For some, that mystery is in judgment. They will die and cross the final veil hoping for their heavenly retirement plans to be cashed in, and fearing that perhaps they won't be. It will be for the judge to say, after all. For others, that "final" mystery is another long journey to be back again at the beginning, and among the people of the beginning- the ancestors. And from there? Who can say? </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">But I can say one thing- the dead are not gone, not taken from this world, and nor is there an escape from the world. The supreme selfishness, the supreme lack of wisdom of any religion would be in how it teaches escapism of the soul or spirit. I will be dead and yet alive in the land, in the rivers, in the mounds, in the sky, in the winds. I know this, because I've seen it. I will be present to this collection of sacred powers then for the same reason I am now- because there is no other place to be. In the enclosure of life, of power, this is it. See the snow with your earthly eyes; see the trees; when you are dead, and seeing in a new way, they will still be there and so will you, though how it will seem to you then, only the dead can know.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><center>* * *</center></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I'm walking now, in my head, remembering a real walk through snow; I know that my journey is ongoing and won't end, ever. I'm moving through the forest now like the ancestors, and remembering them in the season of memory, the great Yule season. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">While my Christian neighbors are singing happy birthday to Jesus, I will be sitting around a fire with the Ancestresses, with the Yule-father and his host, with my family and with the giants of the great cold. A collection of sacred kindreds is precisely what this season is- along with any other season, truth be known. But this sublime cold and dark cracks open a special kind of perception for those who can brave it long enough. In this darkness, we can really go back to the beginning. And we must go back to the beginning if we want to complete our circle and be whole.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">My Yule-wish for all of Europe's sons and daughters- and truly, anyone else- is this: do not live on the "timeline" of the soteriologist- live in the natural circle of power which no God can create. This world did not "begin" one day at the whim of a creator, and will not "end" just as quickly; it is not an arrow-shot story with a single conclusion, but a woven circularity of eternity that has no ending. I want you all to be whole, complete, and joyful.<br /><br />Your completion is not found in Judeo-christian triumphalist religious fictions, but in this very snow, this very world, in the spirits of those who came before you and who believed in the Gods. Do not isolate yourself behind the walls of churches; let the world become your temple, as it was for your ancestors. Reject the lies of human exceptionalism, and take your place as equal kin to the land and the wild beasts and the Gods. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Understand that the womb is the most sacred thing, and that our Greatest Grandmothers are the beings to whom we owe all of this. If you discover a religion blaming women for the downfall of the world, or crushing women underfoot- commanding them to subservience or silence- reject it as an enemy of the common sacred life that we all share.<br /><br />Our ancestor-women were not weak women, second to men: they were women of power; seeresses, valkyries, spear-disir, women who ruled as queens, women who raised children in brutal and dangerous circumstances, who held the keys to our homes and hearths, and who remembered our sacred stories and passed down rare wisdom through many generations. They wove the threads of our Fates as certainly as they wove the sails on the ships that carried our ancestors to glory and renown, or as certainly as they wove the linens and wools that our people wore to survive in the cold and weather. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">As dark irony would have it, even the Abrahamic barbarians owe their entire existence to the women they accuse of mothering sin and death, and whom they punish for leading men astray to sin with lust. For the women in those faiths, trapped without choice, or simply ignorant of the great legacy to which they belong, I wish for freedom and justice.<br /><br />For those women outside of that bondage, I wish them the strength to remain outside of it, and raise strong daughters and sons like themselves, to make our new Pagan future a great one. May the strength of our woman-kind make us whole and strong, now, as always.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span>Alfarrinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16532701327343776837noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36326453.post-4941142066630704132009-11-08T17:17:00.001-08:002009-11-08T17:21:31.145-08:00A Short and Concise Introduction to Ásatrú<center><br /><img src="http://www.robinartisson.com/russianpriest.jpg" /></center><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I wrote a very short introduction to the Ásatrú faith for all who are interested in learning more about it. It is part of a general information portal about Ásatrú and Heathenry that I am putting together. It can be found </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.robinartisson.com/asatru.html"><b>here.</b></a><br /><br />Alfarrinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16532701327343776837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36326453.post-40602545890718422532009-10-04T15:12:00.000-07:002009-10-04T16:58:15.549-07:00Faining-Galdor for the World of Wyrd<span style="font-family:arial;"><center><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><img src="http://www.robinartisson.com/wyrdhawk.jpg" /></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></center></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Hail, entire beam-work of the ancient roof of the sky; </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Hail, Wyrd-spirit that penetratest from sky to earth, </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">From bright-homes above to dark-homes below, </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">And from the broad, plowed earth </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Even into the midst of the Nine Worlds, </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">To the uttermost bounds of Ice-Hel.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Hail, Nornic spirit that fills me and shakest me...</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">That which shakes the branches of the Needle-Ash</span>,<br /><span style="font-family:arial;">That which moved the great cow and the father of giants.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Hail, beginning and end of irremovable Nature: </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Hail thou whose weaving moves the fire and rime,</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The iron and stones, the winds and salty waters, </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Those elements which untiringly render service </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">To the rightful order of All.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Hail, brightly shining Sun of Life, </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Whose radiance gladly gifts warmth to all, </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Hail, Moon shining from the night-roads </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">With a white face of fickle brilliance; </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Hail all weal-wights of wind and sky,</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Hail hap-wights of earth and rushing stream.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Hail great, great incomprehensible web of Wyrd, </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Essence of the worlds, formed in a circle.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Hail to you, spinning and twisting in the unseen, </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Having the form of water, of earth, of fire, </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Of wind, of light, of darkness, of beast, God and man, </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Star-glittering, damp-fiery-cold spirit.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />As you be forever whole, we will fain know our wholeness.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br /></span>Alfarrinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16532701327343776837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36326453.post-18373985850425906542009-10-01T16:39:00.000-07:002009-10-01T21:17:28.019-07:00The War for the West<span style="font-family:arial;"><center><br /><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:85%;" ><img src="http://www.robinartisson.com/heroes.jpg" /></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></center></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:78%;" >PHOTO: A gang of patriarchal white racists from "<span style="font-weight: bold;">The Lord of the Rings</span>"</span><br /></div><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Are you ready? Strap in.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><b>Racist Anti-Racists call Lord of the Rings "Too Eurocentric"</b></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Here we go again- another case of me always being the last to know some things. Last night, I got a message through one of the many groups I belong to, which discussed the famous "Southern Poverty Law Center"- a group in Alabama that claims to be a "watchdog" for "hate groups."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">In reality, as I have long known, but only now feel the need to say, the group itself is staffed from the top levels down by racist "anti-racist" African-Americans (formerly called "blacks" before the current tide of political correctness hit us.)<br /><br />There was a time when I thought maybe the SPLC was doing some sort of good work as a watchdog organization- but as time has passed, I have become aware that their guiding ideology is nothing more than hatred of anything that casts Europeans or European-Americans (once called "whites" before the current tide of political correctness hit us) in a positive light, or celebrates the European and Western cultural values that have made our civilization as great as it is.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">And the SPLC has rankled my last nerve by linking to an article that vilifies the Lord of the Rings trilogy- the recent hit movies made by Pete Jackson, based on J.R.R. Tolkien's great works- as "<b>eurocentric</b>", "<b>patriarchal</b>" and <b>racist</b>. They didn't do this recently; the article was written as the final movie in the trilogy was in theaters- but I didn't become aware of it until now. And well, when anger hits you, there's no time like the present!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">In the past, I'd take a lot of crap without speaking up- the pervasive miasma of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_guilt">"White Man's Guilt"</a> affected me like it affected most white males, owing to the programming I received at the hands of the media and the American radical left. But times, they are-a-changin', and they've been changing. My eyes are open now to what is happening in my life in a way they haven't been before.<br /><br />This doesn't mean that I'm ready to start goose-stepping, but I am ready to say what I feel needs to be said, despite the fallout that may occur when the knuckle-dragging politically-correct morons catch a small wind of my rant.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><b>Tolkien's Legacy</b></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Let me start by saying that J.R.R. Tolkien's work was an amazing body of literature, winner of dozens of prestigious awards and declared by many in national polls to be the greatest work of fiction of the twentieth century. Although Tolkien was a devout Catholic, his knowledge of Old English and Anglo-Saxon literature and the mythologies of the Germanic peoples of Europe was profound (he was a philologist and professor, after all) and his work drew on some of the most enduring mythical and spiritual aesthetics that inform European civilization. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">It is my complaint that his Christianity led him to create a world and worldview in which an over-simplistic and unqualified dualistic vision of "good vs. evil" exists (which in Tolkien almost always equates with "beautiful vs. ugly") instead of the more authentic Heathen worldview which underlies the mythologies- one where Gods and Giants do struggle against one another, representing forces of order and chaos, but with a clear notion that both sides are necessary to the cosmic wholeness and unfolding.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">But we can overlook much when we look at the way Professor Tolkien's work regenerated so much latent power and imagination that was locked in the soul of the West! Thanks to his work, the entire field and genre of High Fantasy was born- bringing fresh imagination and enjoyment of its sacred realms to countless people.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">To be fair, Tolkien's work has always had a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reception_of_J._R._R._Tolkien">bumpy reception</a>- but the article linked by the SPLC crosses the line in a rather absurd way, in my view.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><b>The Pale Patriarchal Penis People Strike Again</b></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The article that inspired this response of mine was written by Andrea Lewis, a San Francisco based writer, who decided that the final installment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy- "<b>The Return of the King</b>" needed to be called "<b>The Return of the Patriarchy.</b>"<br /><br />I couldn't find the original article at "tolerance.org"- the laughable name of the SPLC website- (their search feature really sucks) but I was able to find it easily enough through a Google search at another "tolerance" related website <a href="http://www.mbadiversity.com/magazine/archives/000051.html">here</a>.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">What problems did Ms. Lewis have with the movie? What could have inspired the SPLC to link to her? I'll let her speak for herself:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><b>"The "Rings" films are like promotional ads for those tired old race and gender paradigms that were all the rage back in author J.R.R. Tolkien's day. Almost all of the heroes of the series are manly men who are whiter than white. They are frequently framed in halos of blinding bright light and exude a heavenly aura of all that is Eurocentric and good. Who but these courageous Anglo-Saxon souls can save Middle Earth from the dark and evil forces of the world?"</b></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">...Because you know, we can't have anything that seems too white or "Anglo-Saxon" being portrayed as heroic. Why, we'd be pushing a harmful "Heroic White Guy Stereotype"! And the last thing we want young white males today seeing is a movie that might put it in their heads that they, too, can be heroes, fighting for good causes, being self-sacrificing and brave. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Could those "old race and gender paradigms" have a role in why Western culture survived and succeeded as well as it did? I believe that anyone who digs deep enough- and isn't a devoted ideological and racist enemy of European-born cultures- will see that similar "paradigms of race and gender" have existed across the globe; the idea that other "races" were of lesser value or equality did not begin or end with European cultures- that attitude is found, historically, in Asia, Native America, and Africa, too, throughout all ages.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The notion of "gender roles" has seen a lot of variance, but again, Europe wasn't the only place women were expected (in many areas) to take on motherly roles, and to avoid fighting. Tolkien wasn't being racist when he wrote the world of Middle-Earth the way he did; he was being true to an authentic historical tradition, to add realism to his setting.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Ms. Lewis apparently takes the "war on white" so seriously that even white hair is a problem:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><b>"On the good side, even the mighty wizard Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen) is sanitized and transformed from the weed-smoking, rather dingy figure we first meet in the "The Fellowship of the Ring," into Gandalf the White, who, by the time of "Return of the King," has become a powerful military leader complete with pure white hair and an Eisenhower attitude."</b></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">It's amusing to me that a man like Eisenhower, who risked his life leading armies to help overthrow a true racist menace like <b>NAZI GERMANY</b>, has a name that is now used by an ethnic woman as a slur. And it's especially amusing that Gandalf should be a more appealing character to her when he was "dingy and weed-smoking." </span><span style="font-family:arial;">White characters that are too clean-cut are a menace!</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><b>...But the Rainbow Coalition is Here To Save the Day</b></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Ms. Lewis continues her racist manifesto/movie critique by introducing us to a movie and a trilogy that she does enjoy: <span style="font-weight: bold;">The Matrix</span>. Since this is the best part of her article, I'll have to let her explain why she likes it so much more:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><b>"Say what you will about the convoluted storyline of the "Matrix" trilogy. At least those films give women and people of color some characters they can relate to.</b></span><b><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">From its earliest scenes, "The Matrix" flips mainstream Hollywood's minority representation manual on its head. A multi-cultural group of hackers dressed in black leather and sporting funky hairdos are our heroes; Secret Service-type "agents" in suits and ties are the bad guys. Neo, the trilogies' central figure, is played by mixed-race actor Keanu Reeves. His savior and mentor is Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), a powerful leader who also happens to be a black man. The wisest figure in "The Matrix" is The Oracle, a warm and witty African American woman. The films are also infused with a strong sense of Asian style and culture, exemplified by the character Seraph (Collin Chou), the Oracle's protector, who is both a martial arts expert and Buddhist meditation practitioner.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">...Most of the really bad guys in "The Matrix" are Eurotrash, including the very snobby Merovingian (Lambert Wilson) with his French accent, the dread-locked, very British albino twins (Neil and Adrian Rayment) and the Oracle's evil counterpart, The Architect, (Helmut Bakaitis), a rather stuffy and pompous white guy with white beard and white suit who reeks of imperialism."</span></b><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The message is clear: so long as the villains are all white, and the heroes are black or multi-racial, we have a real festival of wholesome goodness on our hands! And it always helps to have a smooth Asian theme, to take the edge off of that oppressive Western feel.<br /><br />From top to bottom, this woman makes it clear that any positive portrayal of Europeans or white people is not desirable. Black actors were cast in movies early in the 20th century and often totally presented as caricatures of real black people, and presented as oafish or undereducated or criminal, or just servants of whites- and I'm willing to bet that Ms. Lewis has screeched about the deeply ingrained racism of this fact somewhere in her other writings. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Apparently, the hate-card doesn't have two sides in Ms. Lewis' mind. If I had to guess, I'd guess that she believes that the historical wrongs of European and American cultures against other races and cultures now gives those others permission to engage in the same rampant racism and discrimination right back, to "balance the scales a bit".</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Unfortunately for her, and for all of the racists like her, it doesn't work that way.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Ms. Lewis spends a good deal of time complaining that Lord of the Rings presented few strong female characters, and praising the Matrix for presenting lots of hot female ass-kickers- and I noticed that a woman's race is unimportant. She praises Carrie-Anne Moss (Trinity) for her role as a strong woman, even though Carrie-Anne Moss is certainly "whiter than white."<br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Lewis' war, it seems, is not just on white men, but on "patriarchy"- a catch term used to criticize deep patterns in European-born cultures these days, but which is a cultural feature found all over the world- very strongly in Asia, and also in Africa, where it has existed from the earliest of days.</span></span> <span style="font-family:arial;">I'm not saying that "patriarchy is perfect"- but I am saying that the issue isn't so one-sided as radicals like to present, particularly not when they have their own agenda beneath it all.</span> <span style="font-family:arial;">That agenda- held consciously and even unconsciously- is <i>power</i>- the same motivation they claim to hate in the "patriarchy."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><b>The Will To Power</b></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">People reading me may wonder if I'm being a touch unfair. I don't see anything wrong with women or people of different ethnicities desiring to see strong, positive presentations of their own "kind". But must these presentations also accompany dismal presentations of other cultures or ethnicities? Why is the praise of one forever conflated with the detriment of another? </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I think Nietzsche said it best when he discussed the "will to power" inside of cultures and even races- and individuals. When one person or group is repressed, their natural human will to power is not repressed; it simply seeks a new outlet. The capacity in human beings to twist and bend realities to suit their expression of power is amazing- our entire sense of "morality" in the west, he believed, was about that will to power emerging in ways that seem paradoxical. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I can't go into that here, but I can say with near metaphysical certainty that these "politically correct" movements are not movements that have everyone's best interests at heart. They have a certain, select group's best interests at heart- and that group is not the mainstream.<br /><br />That group is the rag-tag union of all people who don't have the numbers and historical power to match the powerful mainstream, and their cries for "tolerance" (which are almost always a joke, bearing in mind their own personal intolerance) and their cries of "racism" and "insensitivity" are not as purely innocent as they seem. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">These people are just as power-hungry and desirous of expressing their own personal power as the mainstream; they are every bit as racist and culturally elitist as the mainstream. There are no "good guys" in this game, just people who are better or worse at manipulating politics and opinions, stuck amid many people who are being marginalized for the crime of belonging to a majority group.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Why am I even making such a big deal out of this woman's article? Because an organization with the size and political power of the Southern Poverty Law Center linked to her and held her article up as representative of what sort of ideological thinking motivates them. The SPLC made this opinion piece into a piece of support for their perspectives and worldview, and that's when it came to my attention. And this is just the last in a long line of crap I've seen them pull, all in the name of "tolerance".</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Their "tolerant world" has no place for white males like me.</span> When I do well in life, it's not because I went to school and worked for years to get the good grades and advanced education I got- it's because I am riding on the back of the white male patriarchy that hands me the world. When a person from a non-white ethnicity does well, gets out and works, it's because they had drive, ambition, and bravery to face the deep hatred that the "man" has for them.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">But no one handed me anything; I worked hard. Despite what these people think, there is no "white people club" out there, where all whites secretly share a bond of help and brotherhood. People with "white" skin have stood in my way on every level, in the pursuit of my goals. I'm just more competition for them, and for everyone.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><b>World Culture War II</b></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">A deeper issue emerges here: what they call "culture war". That phrase means many things to many people, but now, I know what it means to me. Western culture- the culture designed and shaped by Europeans, in large part- is now marked for destruction, by forces outside of it, and by forces that are within it.<br /><br />The forces that want to destroy it are not heroic avengers of "past wrongs"- they are not great "equalizers"- they are following the <span style="font-weight: bold;">same blind urge to power</span> that the "European villains" once followed to succeed as well as they did. </span><span style="font-family:arial;">They just aren't as good at it, outwardly, as Europeans were historically, so their tactics have intuitively evolved to continue the fight in a new form.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">It's all the same thing- the justifications have just changed. There's a new tune of justification, a new battle-hymn, wrapped in notes of resilient sadness and the long-suffering "nobility" of the "downtrodden." The hymn sounds different, but it seeks to establish an empire all the same.<br /><br />Some of the forces that now stalk the legacy of the West justify their assault in religious terms- they wish to replace the "Godless, satanic" West with true religion. The instruments are different, but the song remains the same.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">In the same manner that the Pagan cultures of our Ancestors were undermined by forces from outside, but also by traitor converts from within, Western culture is being degraded in the same manner.<br /><br />For me, this is <span style="font-weight: bold;">not at all a racial issue</span>- it is a <span style="font-weight: bold;">cultural</span> one. The people who still want to see this situation in terms of “race” are usually part of the problem. This is about something far greater than race- it’s about cultures of liberty versus cultures of tyranny, and both of those cultures contain many people of many different racial backgrounds.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >The Old Crusaders went East; the New Crusaders come West</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The force that threatens Western culture from the outside in these days is <span style="font-weight: bold;">Islam</span>; the forces that are within are people like Ms. Lewis, and the SPLC, and all of the radical left who, while enjoying the liberties that a bunch of dead white men bequeathed to them, seek to destroy the entire edifice, to replace it with one where they have power and authority. And their justification for this cultural genocide? The history of wrongs inflicted by some Westerners on others in the past.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">When I was in my first year of college, I read "<span style="font-weight: bold;">Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali</span>", the story of a king of Mali who had to journey across his land fighting against evil sorcerers and monsters, to regain his birthright. I really loved the book- in the (very African-African) hero Sundiata, I saw the nobility of the Hero archetype from many cultures. Race was never a consideration for me. I found the same thing when I read the Iliad, and when I read other books that contained eternal visions of heroes. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">It never would have occurred to me to criticize the Epic of Sundiata because it was too "Afro-centric." Sundiata's "manliness" never offended me or bothered me. I didn't think of Sundiata in my head as "blacker than black" and make some leap to this being a bad thing. Why? Because I love the hero, whatever his color- he represents the wall of safety that stands between his people (or her people, for there are female heroes from even early mythologies) and the cultural destruction of their people. </span><span style="font-family:arial;">Because the book "Sundiata", like the "Iliad" or "Lord of the Rings" isn't about race. It's about culture and cultural conflict.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The political correct-o's will say that I'm an enfranchised white male who has only reaped the rewards of Western white culture, and never had to endure its negative backlash. But they'd be doing precisely what they accuse "racists" of doing- <span style="font-weight: bold;">judging me by my appearance</span>.<br /><br />Some of ancestors- Irish and Sicilian- endured the scorn of Americans when they came to this country. The Irish particularly were mistreated, and died poor, overworked, and malnourished in many places. No one denies that Western societies (in common with all human societies) have historically contained elements of unfairness and inequality, or that they continue to do so, in ways.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">But we are <b>more than our history</b>, and we always have been more than our history. Western culture cannot be measured solely on the basis of what some government policies at some times have been.<br /><br />In the day and age where an African-American man sits on the throne of the President, we have to consider that Western culture contains more than just a difficult human history- it contains VALUES that are crucial to the survival of liberty in this world. It always contained those values, for they could not have emerged from nowhere, and they didn't just emerge during recent civil rights movements.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><b>Thank the Pagans for Liberty</b></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The days of the Greeks and Romans, and the Celtic and Germanic peoples gave us a few things that some might consider important: democracy, government by the representatives of the people, pluralism and cultural/religious tolerance as a social cornerstone, the root of humanism, limitations on the powers of kings, trial by jury, and (in the case of the Northern Europeans) a woman's right to divorce her husband at will. A few other pesky things like the origins of natural and physical sciences come to mind- as well as the medical profession. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The age of Christian rulers and the power of the Church was a setback- women did lose the liberties they had enjoyed before in many societies- they lost many freedoms, and I think it's fair to say that the sciences (especially medical science) did take quite a vacation because of the Church. Tolerance for other religions was also shot to nothing.<br /><br />But that age- that <span style="font-weight: bold;">dark age</span> which was directly created and maintained by Christianity (despite what some want to claim) didn't last- it ended, and a rebirth happened: a rebirth of the same values and spirit of liberty and seeking inquiry that made Europe great originally.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">And these values are still with us- even the dark power of organized religion couldn't destroy them or stamp them out for good, and the fringe lunatic protestants that flowed from the church (many of whom today still oppose science and pluralistic tolerance) can't stop them.<br /><br />As a culture- we westerners- we believe in Liberty. Our women aren't placed under long drapes of cloth, not able to feel the sun or wind in their hair. Our women aren't socially (or actually) killed when they have sex outside of wedlock, or just happen to be raped without enough witnesses to prove that they weren't being "immoral". </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Our women don't have to have their brothers or fathers to escort them around in public. Our women can drive cars. They can own businesses, property, and go to school as much and as long as they like. We aren't jailed for having pictures of naked women, or executed by hanging in public squares for being homosexual.<br /><br />We don't slice people's hands off for stealing, nor do we execute women for "witchcraft". Thanks to the Chrisitan phase of our history, we once did some idiot things, but we outgrew it- we evolved- we had a cultural and secular “enlightenment” that Islamic culture is yet to have.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">We can all state our opinions in public. We can have any religion we want, or no religion. We can read whatever we want, write whatever we want. Our leaders have massive checks and balances on their power, and our political offices change hands constantly, to stop any one person or group from getting power and keeping it. Policies that we don't like can be voted down, or voted out within a few years time. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><b>Shock Speech</b></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><b>THIS</b> is what the West has done for the world- it has stood for, and achieved, liberty. Liberty, like Justice, is a high-level virtue and dream that must be fought for, and it is a powerful struggle to maintain it. But we've done it. And every Westerner has a right to be proud- whether you can claim the founding fathers of the Western world as your genetic ancestors OR your cultural ancestors (or both) they are still your Forefathers, and their legacy is yours, too. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">But Islamic culture would, at a moment's notice, see this all wiped away. I say "Islamic culture" because even in the so-called "liberal" Islamic nations, some or all of the horrors I listed above are prominent. This isn't just over-generalization. The political correct-o's love to say "Islam" and "Radical Islam", as though there was a difference- but all Islam is radical, when compared to the secular and liberty-loving West. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Muslim radicals are not the "fringe" of Islam. When most Americans hear of disasters in Muslim countries, they are appalled. Our government always offers aid. When 9/11 happened, Muslims worldwide danced in the streets- as a surprising spokesman will mention at the end of this article. Some people will try to qualify what I am saying here as hate speech, but it is far beyond such a simplistic thing. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">It's shock speech; it's the shock that everyone should feel when they realize that Western culture is facing a foe, a fierce and determined cultural foe that does not share its belief in liberty, and the West isn't doing too well right now- partly because we've had our "white heroes" taken from us, and seen those same heroes called "racist" or "patriarchal". Tolkien's "Heroes of the West" are not just fixtures from his stories. They are an almost prophetic call to stand up for what the West means, before it is lost.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">We need to stop allowing people to be shamed and insulted just because their forefathers were white and successful. This is not "racism"- this is my culturally-ingrained sense of pride and fairness talking. This is me demanding that I be treated for my own merits, not just the fact that I am a descendant of these great men.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">There is no shame being a part of Western culture, and especially no shame in being genetically related to the people who originally created it. They made a luminous light for the whole world, and without them, this world would not be what it is. The value of liberty would not exist as it does now.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><b>Gimli Speaks</b></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">John Rhys-Davies, the actor who played "Gimli" in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, risked his career to speak out against the threat posed by Islamic culture to the liberty-loving West. He was very brave to do so, and very right. I end this rant/article by quoting him, for he says it best.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><b>"I BELIEVE in racial equality not racial discrimination. All I was commenting on was that there are cultural changes taking place in Europe that I consider to be unacceptable. The fact that a minister of the French government has to fly to Cairo to talk with one of the religious heads in one of the mosques to get his approval for a ban on headscarves can be seen in two ways. One, is how wonderfully culturally sensitive. The other, it seems to give an authority to a wholly unelected figure well outside Europe's jurisdiction.</b></span><b><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I am really proud to be living in a society that accepts women as our equals, that accepts civilized discourse that allows people to hold different opinions without coming to any act of violence.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Here in America when that earthquake happened in Iran the reaction of everyone I knew was horror and dismay, the reaction of everyone when they heard that the old woman had been brought out alive long after they thought there was anyone there was absolute awe at the extraordinary capacity of the human spirit to survive. Contrast that with people jumping up and down and clapping at the 9/11 disaster in certain countries.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I don't think that Western society is opposed to Islamic society at all. I think a very important part of Islamic society is opposed to Western society. It is time that ordinary Muslims stood up to be counted.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">...When we are prepared to overlook certain things because we don't want to rock the boat, this is wrong. The greatest act of racism is to expect that other people will not behave according to your values and standards. Yes, I am for dead, (traditional) white male culture. It's pretty damn good, pretty damn marvelous, pretty wonderful. That's not to exclude other cultures, but it's not to diminish mine."<b></b></span><b><br /><br /></b></b>Alfarrinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16532701327343776837noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36326453.post-82109778244886819112009-09-30T16:13:00.001-07:002009-09-30T17:36:47.175-07:00Ule's Farmstead<span style="font-family:arial;">Good day, sacred kindreds all:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I am helping a friend and kinsman to get through the process that we call "Heathen Formation"- the Idavoll Kindred's term for the process of being inducted into Heathen culture and gaining knowledge and insight into our way, before being formally inducted into a community of Heathens.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">To help him, I've created another blog called "Ule's Farmstead". I mention it here because some of you may care to view the "perspective essays" that I am writing for him, as his Redesman or Advice-man, during this time of formation. You may consider it a full intro course into the basics of Asatru, as I know it and we know it.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The blog is here: <a href="http://ulesfarmstead.blogspot.com/">Ule's Farmstead</a></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">And currently, two essays are up- one is about "Being True to the Gods" (that's the first one) and the most recent one is called "Faining: Righting and Rowning."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I hope all who are interested get some use out of them.</span> <span style="font-family: arial;">I'm going to keep making posts here, too, of course. But a lot of my Heathen writing time will be going to the Farmstead for the next few months.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Raise the Horns!</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span>Alfarrinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16532701327343776837noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36326453.post-25223940684968540152009-07-27T18:00:00.000-07:002009-09-28T21:33:24.765-07:00Pagans of Principle: The Path of Heathen High-Mindedness<center><br /><img src="http://www.robinartisson.com/sunwhee.jpg" /><br /></center><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">A while back, I shared a link to a story about revivalist Polytheists in Greece who were enduring the unsurprising scorn of the Greek Orthodox Church. A quote from that story is with me today- a Bishop of the Orthodox Church mentioned that a "few" of the Pagans were "Pagans of principle"- his words. The rest, he said, were more involved in the recension of the Old Ways for (basically) pageantry and pedantics.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Over a thousand years of being the undisputed masters of the spiritual destiny of the West has made most Christians of any stripe very condescending; this is nowhere more apparent than in the way most devoted Christians automatically assume that one cannot be </span><i style="font-family: arial;">truly</i><span style="font-family:arial;"> and perfectly principled and moral (or even truly at peace) without Christianity. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I don't have to tell most of my readers this; they've likely already experienced this attitude in people firsthand. But what the Bishop said inspired me today; I've been thinking about what it truly means to be a "Pagan of principle", and I've been just as inspired by how the Heathen path as I know it allows modern people to be just that- truly principled people- with what I feel is the most historically grounded, realistic, and visceral "code of morality" out there today.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Most Asatruar follow some variant of what they call the "nine noble virtues"- and many times blessed be these virtues, and all who take them as friends and guides to everyday life! Those who do, without a doubt, are good, honest, courageous people motivated by noble goals. When one examines (along with the many great authors and researchers who have examined) the seeds of historical reality to see what the authentic Heathen "code for living" was, one gains quite a reward. The nine noble virtues- in their many forms- serve well to approximate it, particularly in the universal insistence on guest-friendliness and loyalty to kin.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">But I've thought long and hard on the "root" of the nine noble virtues, and the roots of the honor and social codes of the Ancestors; it is easy to see, if one is prepared to see, how the true origin of our Ancestors' behaviors in life-situations is the ancient and powerful notion of </span><i style="font-family: arial;">High Mindedness</i><span style="font-family:arial;">.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Let there be no doubt or obscurity on the matter: our Ancestors, and therefore all of us, are the People of the Sun. We are the descendants of the Ir-men, the people of the Tyr-pillar, the people of the Great Tree, the people who sprang from the blood of humans and the spiritual power of Gods. The solar disc- the glaring eye of Odhinn's triumphant Eagle, represents the victory of consciousness over the dim and dark powers that would drag all order and beauty down to Ur-chaos.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">While we live, we live with the consciousness of the Gods in us. After we die, the Godly form bestowed on us by Allfather and his brothers, guided by the light we have preserved in this life, lives on. No greatness or nobility is ever truly lost. While we live, we are in possession of a precious gift, the most ennobling and precious gift that any wight or sentient being can have.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">And it is this gift- this solar consciousness which has within it the entire conscious pattern of the Nine Worlds, and the possibility of unfolding into a direct and complete consciousness of wholeness- which is the best power any being can boast of having. It is this </span><i style="font-family: arial;">light of Gods and Men</i><span style="font-family:arial;"> that gives rise to the notion of "High Mindedness"- the true human being, the true "Heathen of principle" is beholden to nothing but the highest principle in the Raidho-order of reality: the principle of </span><i style="font-family: arial;">constructive and beautifying cooperation and preservation</i><span style="font-family:arial;">.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">It is stitched in the weave of Fate that we human beings were meant to apply our Godly consciousness, our minds, to the path of cooperation with one another, as the Gods cooperate to create and maintain and defend the great work of the Nine Worlds. There is no room for doubt here; we are creators like the Gods, by virtue of our gifts, and furthermore, our gift is not for us alone, but something that can and must be shared- the human "high mind" of solar-awareness is meant to protect and beautify this world, our lives, the lives of others, and to preserve what is good.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Co-creativity and Co-operation are part and parcel of the same mystery. No society worth the name ever arose on the merits of one man or woman; no society ever thrived or survived on anything other than high-minded cooperation and preservation. We have an enormous creative power and potential, and few understand that this luminous field of possibility, smoldering inside of most, but illuminating others, is the radiant presence of Allfather's spirit, which is the spirit of the Gods. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">You feel it when you sense and appreciate beauty; it is why we feel so at peace when we arrange our homes in tidy ways, with beautiful, meaningful things displayed proudly, and welcome guests in. It is why we strive to build our lives around beautiful displays of nature, and neat, safe neighborhoods. It is why we create and appreciate art, music, poetry, and the like.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">People talk much of "proof" for the existence of Gods or the Godly spirit, but no person who has experienced the power of creativity and orderly, beautiful aesthetics need worry over such proof. One moves in the current of Man's Fate and moves towards Man's highest intended destiny when one appreciates the beautiful things in this world and in other people. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">People sometimes ask me why the "animals" (meaning "non-human living creatures") don't have this "high mindedness"- and accuse me of being "anthropocentric"; and to those people, these days I answer: </span><i style="font-family: arial;">they</i><span style="font-family:arial;"> have it because </span><i style="font-family: arial;">we</i><span style="font-family:arial;"> have it, and we humans are </span><i style="font-family: arial;">natural consecrators</i><span style="font-family:arial;">: we can consecrate non-human living beings, bless them, share with them, preserve and protect them, all because of our gift. We are in a web of connection and interaction- the divine light burst through fully consciously in us; it now flows from place to place and fills the web. The question becomes: will you become a willing channel?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">We were meant to share our power, our special abilities. To beautify this world, preserve its many lives and forces, and live in harmony, in balance with it and with one another. When we violate this innate, Fateful directive, we see the emergence of the ugly, the destructive, and the perilous. We see and feel the difference. We know the face of the vicious wicked; we know it all too well. Only the insane can't see it and recognize it for what it is. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">If there was a definition of "insanity" that I could accept, it would come down to this simple but profound thing: it would include those who have lost (or never had) the ability to sense and feel the difference between what is ennobling and what is degrading; between what is truly, spiritually healthy and what is baneful. What I am discussing is a feeling, something deep inside that guides and shelters and protects. Something innate guides the healthy people of this world away from the violating powers and the scourge of the horrid and perilous; something makes most people naturally resist the shackles of the unjust and the oppressive. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I love to think of the powerful values of the Ancestors: to have open generosity and undaunted courage; to be steadfast in friendship and uncompromising in enmity when facing the destructive and the ugly; to be faithful to kin, to one's lord, and faithful in love- to have family pride and pride in the Ancestors, keeping Troth with the sacred powers... such high-minded values rest within the ancient Teutonic belief in inexorable Fate, and the need to endure the needful and unavoidable challenges that will arise to any who stands for such high and noble values.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">As I said, for me, all of these values go back to "High Mindedness"- which means to climb the rays of Odhinn's Sun-like mind and to come to understand the nature of one's own internal illumination, and to realize that we can rise above the destructiveness and greed and peril that characterizes the state of Nature's raw, red talons and which characterizes the state of the Thursic powers that still course through the deep places of the world and the cosmos. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">We humans are the blossoms of the MANNAZ mystery, the vessels of </span><i style="font-family: arial;">and</i><span style="font-family:arial;"> participants in the work of the Gods in our own world, with a duty to spread the light of the possibilities of the High Mind to all things. We begin with ourselves, celebrating the victory of light in us, and from there, we radiate it like the sun radiates light to all the world. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This is what freedom is: to be free of the darkness of the Thursic worlds is to be free of the selfishness that would prevent us from being generous; to be free of the unconscious drives to destroy and dominate that would prevent us from being loyal to friends and self-sacrificing for the family and community; to be free of the ignorance that prevents us from seeing ourselves as parts of a greater whole, and part of an ancestral line, allowing us to see with wisdom how the Web of Wyrd contains us all and to be proud of the greater story of which we are a part. The solar mind of the great Eagle of Odhinn has given this freedom.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">We can be merciful; we are free from the unforgiving law of the talon unless we have no other recourse to it for the good of all. We can be compassionate; we can be thoughtful; we can be open-minded to many sides of many issues, weighing with wisdom the merits of what confronts us in life; we can be patient and we can be better than the bulk of those who seek only insipid self-glorification and wealth at any cost. We can see entire societies in this world based on fear, not high-mindedness; it is an eternal truth that </span><i style="font-family: arial;">fear is the polar opposite of the solar-minded attitude</i><span style="font-family:arial;">. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">We see entire societies based on fear of sexuality and prudish, (sometimes violent) unthinking adherence to the words of dead scriptures; we see entire societies where the value of human life- especially female human life- has all but been lost. The way of high-mindedness is the way of life's value. Life is the seat of the solar force; it is the "high seat" of every possibility of beauty and power- and thus, no "tradition", no matter how venerable, can justify the wanton destruction of life, injustice, or the imprisonment and mistreatment of entire genders or types of people. Those who fight against these sorts of injustices fight with the righteous wrath of the Aesir- they are the true spiritual princes and spear-disir of our times.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">A person who can be free in this High-Minded way of being, and increase and preserve the beauty and harmony of this world, that person is the most principled human- none can claim to be more so. And none will have a more honored seat in the Halls of the Gods when the Fate of death finally sends them to the Hel-way and then to the Doom-ring. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I do not offer promises of reward in the afterlife as some incentive; the Ancestors did not, and I do not- I offer only the truth that each person who engages the High-Mindedness that is Man's greatest gift will make him or herself into a sun in this life, and that light will shine beyond the boundaries of this life, because that is what suns and stars do. Those who remain in darkness will have only the darkness of the self when death closes their eyes and all other lights have failed.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This is not "reward for services rendered or obedience tendered"- this is "prepare your destiny now through your nobility- or lack thereof." No white Christ will let you off the hook for your own darkness- and no true "life of principle" is possible for those who have not taken full responsibility for their own light. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">For those who imagine our Ancestors to have been violent, brutish people who allowed only warriors fallen in the act of battle to go to Odhinn's drinking hall, think again: it is well proven- at least to my satisfaction- that the ancient Heathens believed that men who were slain in combat and who died with the bloodstains of atrocity on their hands did not merit Valhalla. Those interested further in this point should see Rydberg's "Teutonic Mythology" for more information and evidence. Now, as in the distant past, the heavens are reserved for the stars- light for the light, and darkness for the darkness.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">May the Ginnregin keep you all very safe. Let your minds join Odhinn's great victory, and be one of the heroes who helps keep the world safe until the end of Worlds.</span><br /><br /><i style="font-family: arial;"><b>Follow unwaveringly the course of Raidho-beauty and Wunjo-life.<br /><br /><br /></b></i>Alfarrinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16532701327343776837noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36326453.post-85695922676481815032009-07-05T16:22:00.000-07:002009-07-05T19:13:18.104-07:00The Endless Land and the Fallen Age<center><br /><img src="http://www.robinartisson.com/barbed12.jpg"><br /></center><br />The far north is calling, but I can't be there yet. Any journey worth the taking is long and burdensome. I have dropped sail, however, and with my family and Gods aside me, we have begun the long trek. <br /><br />Our journey takes us through here, a landscape of endless forests and farmsteads fallen into half-abandonment and half-decay. This is the lay of our times: there was a dream once, that was America; all over the land, people gathered together in communities and believed that the dream would last forever, but it didn't. Their dreams were invested in their children, and those dreams, for the most part, grew up and left the tiny woods and broad fields on the side of the endless roads for cities and other destinations. <br /><br />With the young gone, only the old were left to watch the world change, and change it did. entire hidden and downtrodden populations of people, once marginalized, gained their rights to a new freedom. The local networks of favoritism and nepotism died and broke apart and retired. Money changed in value, and then changed again. Services once needed were replaced by new technologies. Industries once prominent faded away. Now, boarded up homes and shadows alone remain, and I'm right in the middle of it all, lodging in a forest surrounded by neglect and sparsely populated dirt roads peopled by strangers.<br /><br />The woods are wild; once, they were tamed by people on all sides. Once, goats ate the grass and low branches here; now, a tangle is everywhere. Once, cats climbed the rafters of the hand-made and raised wooden sheds and garages, but now, loose hunting dogs have killed them all. The goats vanished away, along with the chickens that were either killed by wild animals or their human masters, who could no longer afford to feed them. The chicken coops and roosts are rotted away and vine-covered. The fish pond has sunk into a murk, and goodness knows what lives in it now. The fence lines have vanished in huge gaps, and tangles of barbed wire are rolled up and rusted under ten year leaf piles.<br /><br />But owls are here- and always have been. This lost region of forest was once named after the hooting owls that were prominent, and they have remained constant. They comfort me when they court and hunt at night. Something of my power hunts and courts with them. Their freedom and persistence is something of my own freedom.<br /><br />It is a deplorable fate that made my road pass through here, but when the current waxing moon is full, and fades away, and waxes again to half, I will be gone, gone nearly to roof of the world. I have seen the mountains and forests that await there, in vision as well as with my own eyes. I have seen the snow and rivers, and felt the powers beckoning. I go with some risk behind me, but such as me and mine live in the hands of Wyrd and we fear no risk.<br /><br />There are wights here, and they always have been here. They have grown wild themselves, alien to human beings, for the centuries of neglect that they have endured. They strike out and slay animals themselves at times. It is they that helped to bring waste to this community; all who ignore the spiritual powers that dwell in a place cannot expect to see their own families and legacies thrive in that place. On the hum of the hex-bridge, the mystery of the Helgrind, the mother of mysteries, I have dropped down and seen the landscape itself become only the crust covering a deeper power, and seen the wights moving across it. <br /><br />Vaguely human shaped, I've seen them walking through the thick growth. I've seen how the falling buildings here have become haunted by them, as well as how the activities once carried out by people here have summoned powers- they are all creeping along unseen: they are grist and saw-meal; goat-hide and turned earth; blackened mound and holly edge, stone and sturdy beam, oak bark and pine-sap, resin fire and clay wight. <br /><br />I have cut a small Ve-ditch in the earth, on cleared earth amid a grove of trees, to set apart a hallowed place for sacrifices. I have left a small way in opening to the east, and will fill the ditch with sacred spring water. When I sacrifice, it will be to these wild wights first, not so much for their friendship, but so that they will be satisfied to leave me and mine in peace, while we live and worship in their virid tangle, their pine-straw littered patch of thick wood. Then, my greatest grandfather Ing and his family will be given sacrifices, along with the high Thunderer, and of course The Master of Spirits and Sorcery- and always alongside the Disir and the mothers, and Earth, that greatest of mothers.<br /><br />I have much to sacrifice for. Most people think of sacrifice in dim terms in these Godsless days, only framing it in Judeo-Christian terms, but our ancestral notion- ever more ancient- is far more sublime. It was the slaying- the sacrifice- of a great being- the mother/father of giants- at the dawn of the universe that made all things around me possible- from wights to the trees to the earth and sky: sacrifice is more than just the making holy of an offering, before it is slain and shared; sacrifice is about the creation of a new order. When I drag the bronze sacrificing knife crowned by a rough-hewn human head over the horn, symbolizing the slain ox of old, and fill a hlaut-bowl full of the dark ale that symbolizes blood, I am doing more than making a symbolic act of death and sharing; I am making a real act of creation, and it has power.<br /><br />What the sacrifice blood touches is made new, in accordance with the will of the sacrificer. What place is sprinkled, what people and beings are sprinkled, they are made new. I want and need many things to be made new in my life, and the ancients have given me and mine a way to achieve that regeneration. Here, in the wight-haunted ruin of a tiny hamlet, as far from "civilization" as most people want to ever be, I will enact rites of timeless power. <br /><br />Curse the "axial age" sages who decided that the ways of the ancestors were no longer "good enough" for the people- the axial age was the downfall of humanity, not the birth of a new humanity. From that cursed time came the scourge of Zoroastrianism, and from it, Judaism, with her two thrice-more accursed offspring Christianity and Islam. From it came Aristotle and Plato, who destroyed the true mystical and polytheistic heritage of Southern Europe, with their condescending "re-reading" and "reinterpretations" of the sacred myths of their people, and their scorn for the "superstitions", which were in fact luminous truths that their minds could not grasp. Our Greek cousins gave us the roots of the devastating "rationalism" that led to unqualified skepticism, atheism and corruption, and left many vulnerable to the rot of Christian missionaries.<br /><br />In the east, world-hating religions arose, religions teaching how the world was suffering, fallen, and "transcendence" was needed, or the death of "ego", and the overcoming of desires, passions, and bodily hungers. From east to west the stink spread; in all these places, women were marginalized, packed into harems, under veils, and forced into submission and silence. Women were blamed for sin and death, and for being the seductresses that held men back from virtue. <br /><br />The great civilizations of the pre-axial age accorded women their proper, sacred, and equal place; my own ancestors, I am proud to say, were such people. But the axial age was the turning of humans against the world and against women, out of fear and disgust and sorrow. They say humans in this era had become more aware of their mortality and frailty than ever before; from this fear was born what we call "religion" today.<br /><br />The five regions that gave us the axial age- Iran, Greece, Palestine, India, and China, really did a fine job wrecking the world for the rest of us to be born later- but that is how curses work. They echo down through the generations of man like screams echo through canyons. By the time these screams fade, I fear, the ruin of the world will be upon us. <br /><br />Why humanity waited until this particular "axial" period (800-200 BCE) to "break" and start turning like madmen against the primordial sanity of their ancestors, I don't know. But it did happen. It was a sign of the coming of the Wolf Age, the waning of the world. I have never succumbed to the madness; something strong in me- the love of the Hamingja-maiden who follows me through this life- sheltered me. <br /><br />My senses were never lost; never did the wildness of nature or the spectacle of violence and death turn my stomach in fear and weaken my spirit. I am not afraid of death; as a living man, I am a part of this world, as a dead man, I will be part of it in another, more mysterious way, and I look forward to it. What sacredness now surrounds me is what always was and always will be, in countless forms. This is my life and my afterlife, and that is as Fate has woven. My Gods expected humans not to fear death, and anyone who knows the sacredness of nature and this world cannot fear death.<br /><br />I lament the ruin wrought by the axial age madness, and it is more in focus for me now as I sit in a forest of waned hopes, dreams, and ruins. But a Wyrd-worker like me doesn't lament it long. Like the afternoon that falls high sun-tide, it had to happen. We can't change the world back, but each individual one of us can still live in the peace and sanity of the pre-axial age, in fellowship with the Gods and spirits. There is no greater peace, despite what the world-haters may say. <br /><br />They claim that the axial-age religions and philosophies taught a revolutionary notion that people needed to "find truth" within themselves and break free of calcified traditions; they claim that the axial age was the birth-time of real virtue, as people finally reached a point where they had to look "within" to find compassion and virtue- but this is nonsense. <br /><br />Virtue has always existed, and the terms "within" and "without" are shallow distinctions. There is no true "within" and "without"- all of the weave of Wyrd is one. Whatever you believe you are finding "within" yourself, is really a part of the whole, a part of this world, just as much "outside" you as it is perceptually "inside", and the same goes for whatever you believe is "outside" you. Humans started playing with their minds in new ways during the axial age, but virtue was not born. It is where it always was, in the wholeness. It lives as we live, as much a part of us and this world as anything else, for all time. The axial age was not an upward evolution; it was a disaster.<br /><br />The world didn't have a spiritual revolution; humans had a narcissistic attack of "inwardness", mingled with potent fear and confusion, and we have all burned for it. The way people "found" truth and virtue before the axial age has an advantage over the new narcissism: it didn't destroy the world and hate women, and it didn't birth monstrous, judgmental, institutionalized religions that have corrupted society all the way to the level of government and spawned wars and destructive technologies beyond number. <br /><br />They have crushed the remnants of the primal world, and taken a big shite on traditional wisdom, calling it (just like the Greek atheists) "superstition" and "marginal knowledge". They turned the word "myth" into a thing of stupidity and shame, but this is all only their perception. It is their curse. And it drinks the blood from us all.<br /><br />I reject fully all of the "religions" and "spiritual paths" that teach that this world is bad or unsatisfactory; that men or women are corrupt, naturally and innately, on any level; that men or women must deny the body and senses to "rise above" earthly things, or any of that hogwash. <br /><br />I reject fully any notion that people must shelter in some concept called "reason" or "rationality" in the face of obscurity and uncertainty and I further reject the notion that traditional pre-axial religions were superstitious, brutal savage attempts to grasp reality with made-up stories and bloody rites. This world and this existence is far beyond anything we can understand or believe, and the day the world-hating idiots recognize that, is the day that we may have a chance to breathe clean air until we all die. This story isn't over, and now, people are beginning to realize it. We can't lead the world back to sanity, but individual sanity is still a possibility.<br /><br />Our cousins in Russia have heard the call as well, it seems:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31749463/ns/world_news-msnbc_wire_services/">Russian Pagans joyfully worship while the Orthodox Christians get pissed off</a> <br /><br />May Kupalo and Yarilo bless them powerfully. May old Volos be there as well, to shelter and protect them, with Perun alongside him. Welcome back, cousins. We are few but we are strong.<br /><BR>Alfarrinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16532701327343776837noreply@blogger.com4