The Feast of Ultimate Generosity: Re-Thinking the Blot in Modern Heathenry

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

* * *
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:

"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." (P. 115)

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.

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?

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. 

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 Seidhmadr in me coming out now.

* * *
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.

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.

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.

* * *
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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

* * *
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."

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.

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.

* * *
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.

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.

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.

Bringing Forth the Gods of My Kin

Bringing Forth the Gods of My Kin:

A Heathen perspective on the Hamingja, the Gods, Manifesting the Family Soul, and the “Problem of Other People in the World”

Copyright 2011 by Alfarrin

The First Fire and the Hamingja

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 of you and all people, physically and metaphysically, in every iota of your flesh, blood, breath, and the immaterial aspects of yourself. No part of you can be apart from these Ancestral powers.

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.

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. Every line of Hamingja has its Gods, just as it has its Ancestors.

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.

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.

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.

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.


The Gods, The Allfather, Blot, and True Family

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.

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.

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 capable of the Gods, 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.

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.

Vilhelm Gronbech writes:

"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."

-Gronbech, Culture of the Teutons, Vol. 2


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.

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.

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 fully among us.

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.

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. Through my wife and I, the Ancestors watch over our children and join us in raising them and imparting wisdom and protection to them.

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.

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.

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.

Further concerning the Gods, Gronbech writes:

"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. "


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!





Hamingja, Identity, and the Problem of Others

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 and the unseen that we do not share with everyone else in some perfect homogenized vision of "equality".

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 incorporate 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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.)


The Surging Power in the Present Hamingja-Age

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 Hamingja-age, if you will, has changed. We are not living in Ancestral times, though we are 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.

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.

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. And it has carried human minds and bodies to the limits of the world.

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 all is encompassed, and all particulates know themselves as the whole- and yet, still exist as particulates made noble through the recognition.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Missionaries of Heathendom?

The Missionaries of Heathendom?
Our Present, Our Growth, and Our Possible Future

The "Fastest Growing' Religion?

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, Heathens 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?

The best answer I've heard was during a discussion on "The Wild Hunt". A rather insightful fellow there said "The reason "the Pagan community" *seems* to be "gaining adherents" is because, in my opinion, there are no bounds that define what paganism is."

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".

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.

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.

Whatever their failings may be, they 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.

A Sad State of Affairs, Really

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Dreaded Trap

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).

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 any measure of maturity that I can personally think of.

Beyond maturity, it's undignified. These people are definitely trying to express something spiritual and important to them, but cut off from the needed education on what the real old ways were about, their "new old ways" are nothing short of embarrassing.

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 true Ancestors.

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!

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 ensouled, or full of spirits, or Gods; and that sort of reverence for nature is a powerful basis for dealing wisely with the environment.

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.

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- even they 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.

Don't Look Down on Small Teams

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?

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.

This is not a rebuke of those men and women; it's just an observation on the nature of Heathenry.

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. 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) may 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".

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. 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.

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.

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.

How can we not feel ancient? 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.

No Fire Burns Forever

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?

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 still begins 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.

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 something, anything, than to be uncertain. There is a deadly pride here that will not allow some people to just admit that they don't know the answers to every question life poses, and that no one does.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Only Missionaries We Need

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I'm a Heathen, Not a New Ager

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:

I'm a Heathen, Not a New Ager

Blot to Odin

Hear me, Wild Hunt's Grim Lord, Wish-Father Wandering,
Warg-master, Wolf in Timber Howling,
Wooer of Gunnlod, two ravens following!
Odin, High Lord of the Ancestral Host,
Fare in secret to my fire-lit hall,
Come to your honored seat,
And receive your cup of holy mead.

* * *

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.

Click Here to see it: Blot to Odin

My Song of Glory for the Heathens

"Hail the troth-found folk of the heath
Great fame for their struggles borne!
Limbs of doughty kin answer their need,
The love of Gods and Disir their meed.
Great is the wisdom of Herjan's song,
Blessed with luck all who know it
Blessed with hap all who keep it;
Their joy-fires are lit behind the holt
Their fain toasts go on in secret."

* * *

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.

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.

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.

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, Ásatrú, 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

End of an Era: The Heathen Eschatology

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

Indigenous Paganism and New Religious Movements

Is the general term "Pagan" on the verge of a redefinition?

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.

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.

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:

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"...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 Indigenous cultures of pre-Christian Europe, the Celtic and Germanic Tribes, The Balts, The Scandinavians, The Basques, The Slavs and many others.

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. *

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.

As described by Andras Corban-Arthen most forms of modern Paganism 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. One such example is Romuva of Lithuania. It is these ethnic traditions that fit better into the description of Indigenous traditions, instead of New Religious Movements. 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.

Further, Andras Corban-Arthen points out that Wicca, for example, cannot be seen as an indigenous Pagan faith practice and is instead a modern syncretic movement. 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. "

* * *

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:

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.

Despite the attempts on the part of some peoples to try and stake an exclusive claim to the word, "Indigenous" is defined simply as "originating in and characteristic of a particular region or country"- and it also means "inherent" or "innate". 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.

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."

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.

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.

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.