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 Wolves of Winter

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.

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.

Some of the Natives of this land weren't off mark about this either; to the Sioux, Waziah 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Urd's Vision

"Who knows the truth? Who can tell whence and how arose this universe? The Gods are later than its beginning: who knows therefore whence comes this creation? Only that God who sees in highest heaven; he only knows whence came this universe, and whether it was made or uncreated. He only knows, or perhaps he knows not."

-Rig Veda X

* * *

Urd, the chief Norn- the supreme "Fate weaver" of ancient and modern Heathen religions, may be loosely described in terms of a "being" or an entity, a nigh-incomprehensible entity whose name gives us the word "Wyrd", and whose power, along with her two lesser sisters, weaves the web of Wyrd.

The web they weave contains all possible realities; it contains all forces, all states, all conditions, and from it, arise all entities. In it, are sustained all entities. The term "Wyrd" can be used as the name of an entity, but also as the name of a process.

Today, as in the ancestral past (so far as we can tell) Wyrd was always understood more as a process. If the most ancient peoples, long previous to our historical ancestral cultures, saw Wyrd as an entity primarily, and saw all of the causal events of the world as the will of a supremely mysterious conscious entity, that we may never know. I am not against such a notion, of course; I have entertained it at times; and so long as people understand that there is more than one way to religiously or philosophically view this question, then it is an interesting perspective, to say the least.

I do view Urd herself as an entity, naturally; and, as with the other two Norns, Urd is of a great and incomprehensible nature. Is she the web of Wyrd itself? Or is the web of Wyrd something she and her sisters weave, and thus, apart from them?

I would answer that it depends on the situation, on the moment of examining the question. In one sense, Urd is Urd, The Norns are the Norns, and the Web of Wyrd is the Web of Wyrd. But in another sense, the notion of absolute "separation" is not sustainable, especially in a spiritual/interactional worldview of wholeness. A spiritual aesthetic of wholeness stops any absolute "separation" from existing, while leaving room for relative, perceptual separation, to allow for consciousness to exist and for linear experience, growth and learning and wisdom to exist.

I believe that the term "Urd" refers to an entity, but not an entity in the same manner that the Gods are entities, or human beings are entities. I believe that the Nornic reality is a non-corporeal reality beyond our ken, beyond our understanding. I can see that our mythological symbols and stories shed some indirect light on these vast and awe-filled realities, and I appreciate these gifts from the past.

I believe that Urd wove the web of Wyrd- and, indeed, perpetually weaves it- in line with a vision She had- a vast, deep, and mysterious experience on her part- and humans have a similar experience when they have what they call an "intuitive realization".

The personal reality of an intuitive realization is the closest we as humans may come to what I am discussing: and what I am discussing is nothing short of the deep reason why things "became" as they did, why things fall as they do, pass away as they do, and are regenerated as they always are. This is Urd's reality-vision, the reality-vision of Wyrd.

It may be speculation, but it is in line with what my soul tells me; for too long, people have wondered what "inspired" or "motivated" the "creator" to create; I don't believe in a "creator" in the typical sense, but beyond that, for me, nothing makes more sense than the idea that the ultimate "source" of things was motivated not by some hot and fierce idea, but by a cool, wordless intuition, a vision of unfathomable beauty or mystery. Perhaps not even the "creator" (to use more mainstream language) knows why it created, or what creation is- and what an idea! This is the birth of an organic way of seeing the highest speculative spiritual realities.

Each sentient being within the web of Wyrd which possesses the sort of consciousness which allows for high-level abstraction, reason, and self-awareness- from the mighty Gods to human beings- are called to emulate Wyrd, in a sense, by seeking a way of living that leads to creativity and to the discovery of their destiny, and the fulfillment of it.

How do we do know the right way to do this? All discrete parts of a web "emulate" the web, in a sense; they all partake of the web's whole nature; sentient beings "emulate Wyrd" through the same sacred visionary process or experience of intuition that existed/exists in the deep- they emulate Wyrd by seeking an intuitive vision of guidance.

By living their own vision, the Gods constructed the Worlds, defeated the malevolent powers, and helped to give rise to human beings and countless other living beings. By living our vision, as humans, we continued the work of Wyrd, the unfolding of things, as conscious co-creators with the Gods and Wyrd.

From the incomprehensible, down to the level of what we see everyday, conscious life and reality appears to be guided intuitively, through vision, through something sacred and sublime. We emulate Wyrd by seeking an intuitive vision for living, and living by what we experience.

The task of "creation"- or should I say "weaving"- is therefore ongoing, and it is a privilege that Gods and Human Beings should be able to take conscious part. There is no fulfillment for us if we do not. Subtle emanations of Wyrd- spirits- individual manifestations of the intangible realities- have also come into being, and some come into our lives, for many reasons.

There is a spiritual ecology here, for every part of this world has these subtle emanations attached to it- the "wights" of the ancestral lore. There are also wights or spirit-entities that seem to come from pure mystery, and play mysterious roles. There is no limit to their variety, or the helpful situations or dangers they can present, but the Wyrd-wise can seek the visionary guidance needed to deal with them successfully. The Gods can be a part of that precious schooling needed.

But in the end, it is each individual being and their own visionary intuition that forms the core of guidance. Our deaths are the arrival of another sort of vision, another chapter of guidance onward into the intangible realities, thus the "death-vision" becomes an important part of Wyrd.

We experience Wyrd typically in terms of process, interaction, and the synchronistic combination of forces that create the patterns of our lives. This is a part of Wyrd. But Wyrd as a sacred field of reality, containing all things, a fertile pool or pond or well of possibilities, is another aspect, another perspective. Wyrd as Weaver, as entity, is another.

We and the Gods are within Wyrd together, part of a greater vision of reality than we could comprehend- but which we participate in. May the Gods help us find the wisdom to participate well, as brave and honorable people, and as people who can open the intuitive eyes needed to know our way.

The Wyrd of Human Purpose

Nearly every religious person I know spends a good deal of time talking (and worrying) about the "purpose" of human life. For the first years of my life, I did spend a bit of time thinking about such things myself. Truthfully, I heard more about it than I thought about it- teachers and other respectable adults in my life were almost non-stop in their sharing of the many myths of human purpose.

It seems so logical, to quite a lot of people, that we should all have a "purpose". When I say "purpose", I'm really not talking about any individual sense of destiny. I'm talking about that general sense of "what humans are and what important challenges or choices we face". The best (and by far the most worn-out) example of a widespread myth of human purpose is found in the halls of Christianity: the myth of fall and redemption.

Humans, in this myth, are creations of a loving and all-powerful being. This being endowed humans with "free will" and, thanks to the exercise of this fine gift, all of mankind "fell from grace", into a state of sin and death- where we currently find ourselves. This situation is grim- we were created, as the story goes, to give unending praise to our generous creator. Now, we've made quite a botch of things, and suffer greatly, in need of redemption. Our kindly creator responded to our need and sent a perfect sacrifice in the form of his son, Jesus, and now, anyone who accepts the sacrifice can be assured redemption and eternal life... after this life is over, of course. Until then, you still have to suffer, just because.

Now, I don't want to sound to flippant because I find that nearly all myths from ancient traditions have some value. But my point in writing out a short and somewhat irreverent outline of the Christian myth is to illustrate my original topic and point: for Christian people, life has a real and burningly important point: to submit to the redemptive powers of Christ and get spared from eternal death, or (worse yet) hell. Life's purpose is a high-tension race to redemption, an urgent quest to find the "right" redeemer, find the correct and narrow path, find the righteous way, and die in it.

And in the Christian myth, you only get one chance. No more, no less, no seconds or thirds, and (depending on which Christian you talk to) very little mercy for failure to comply with the rules as Christian churches teach them.

When I personally sit down to consider human life and purpose- and consider it I do, every day- I have little choice but to view it from the perspective of the worldview of Wyrd. This is not surprising; I am a Wyrd-worker, a Wyrd-knower, a Seidman and a Heathen mystic/philosopher of types. Given that I have all those labels weighting me down, I am entitled to a few biases and presuppositions about things. Furthermore, I am human, and just being human gives me a right to a few natural biases, chief of which is the right to consider life from a more compassionate, balanced, and (dare I say it?) realistic angle for human purpose, than the typical myth of fall and redemption.

You'll have to forgive me; maybe it's just the benighted little Heathen heart in me dragging me down to hell, but I can't bring myself to believe that all of this great and vast universe, and all of this great and vast variety of mind, emotion, and experience that we are all heirs to, can be reduced to such a simplistic and slanted myth as taught and believed by our Christian cousins. As appealing as such a fast and simple little story may be (to some) I can't believe that life is that simple, or that the universe really amounts to a simple little human-choice drama.

Let me take a little side-path here, and have a mini-rant about "belief" and "faith".

I don't just believe in the vast kindreds and hosts of wights and beings that fill this universe; I know them. I don't set my mind and heart-knowledge aside in the category of "belief", thus rendering it "one step less true" than other beliefs like "science" or what have you. I don't place my knowledge on the "belief" pedestal, thus introducing it to the endless attacks and debates and the constant moronic harping of the skeptical fools regarding the differences between "knowledge" and "faith" and what have you. I don't have faith in the Gods. I know the Gods. I know them because I, like you, live on the back of a Goddess and see her every day. She holds my house up, my hometown, my state, my country, and even has the oceans in big, deep indentions in her body.

So, seeing this Goddess every day, I don't have to have "faith" in her. I just have to treat her well and walk with respect on her back. Now, this gives a Heathen blackguard like myself a "one up" on my philosophical opponents in the many other "faiths" in this world- few can take me outside and introduce me to their God.

Now, back on track, and to my point: the universe is vast- all of its Nine Worlds are packed full of power, beings, wights, Gods, giants, and Wyrd the Mighty knows what else: and we humans are only a tiny part of this massive outplaying of many sentient and non-sentient forces. This is the worldview of the sorcerer: this is how sorcerous eyes see. This is the ultimate mystical vision of mental, physical, and spiritual plurality.

This is it: we are parts of the Web of Wyrd, a web without boundaries, as "large" as the universe, and infinite- without beginning or ending, forever full of every force interacting, changing, evolving, friction-tearing, communicating, trembling and weaving, spinning perpetually. In this vast web of forces, life arises, in many places, in many forms, some "physical" as we know the word, others not so, but no less alive or intelligent.

All these forces rely on one another, in some ways; all can communicate; most do communicate, though "communication" comes in many forms; All of this power- all of this vast power- you feel it every day that you live and walk and breathe. Set your mind just a bit to the side of Wyrd's weave, a little up, a little down, a little high, a little deep, and entire new vistas of reality open themselves to you.

It is to our benefit to know this reality of endless interaction, and interact well with the other beings that share this universe with us, beginning with the beings who share our planet. It is in our power to tremble the threads of Wyrd to wonderful or devastating effect. We humans may be a tiny group of players in a vast cosmos-scape of Wyrd, but we are no less important than any other part of the web. Without us, the web would not be complete, and therefore, the web would not be able to exist in wholeness. It would, in fact, cease to be, for it needs all of its parts. Wyrd is the ultimate vision of inclusiveness.

This is enough to outrage the fools in our modern world who love to belittle mankind and talk about how unimportant we are in the "grand scheme of things"- as though their blind little eyes, sometimes squinting through telescopes, oftentimes stuck in the pages of a Dawkins book- could really know what the true "grand scheme of things" entails! One does not discover the true depth of the "grand scheme of things" by looking at distant stars or measuring distances between galaxies. One discovers the grand scheme of things by looking within the mind and measuring how deep the Underworld really goes- which is, as they say, "all the way down".

Until you've taken into account the depth of emotion, mind, interaction, and the unutterable mysteries of sacred mythology, you've not even begun to dimension the grand scheme of things. Until you've seen into another world, and glimpsed the timelessness of spirit, there is no chance of understanding "the grand scheme of things".

The "grand scheme of things"! What a figure of speech! This, of course, brings me right back to where we started: the grand scheme of things, and the "human place" or purpose within it.

What does it mean to be a form of life, a human being, whose body-mind-spirit complex coalesced out of the many turnings of Wyrd, and was a child of so many forces? What does it mean to be one of this race, this species, this group we call "mankind"?

Are we stuck in a rat-race to get the right religion's stamp of approval on our souls, before Wyrd turns our bodies back into dust? Are we "here" to learn this or that secret about the universe, or to be kind to one another? Are we here because we ignorantly wandered here, under the power of delusion, to suffer through yet another lifetime, before moving on to another?

All fine questions. And while I feel the need now to suggest an answer (I wouldn't have made you wait this long for nothing!) I need to warn you that such answers seldom fall easily into letters and words. The sheer complexity of Wyrd prevents over-simplifications in anything, truth be told. And I don't want to over-simplify an answer to a question of this much importance, lest I fall into the error of the Christians or the Muslims.

Because goodness knows many great men have thought on this answer for thousands of years, and have given many great answers. Who am I compared to them? I'll be honest with you- and say what you probably already suspect- I'm not much compared to them. I'm not Plato or Augustine or Mohammed or Buddha.

I'm a man from the southern forests of a beautiful but suffering continent, an exile from his ancestors' homelands, who claims he can see visions and talk to spirits. I'm a Pagan in a Christian world, only surviving because times have changed, and the local church in these days can't send policemen to arrest and burn me.

I'm a guy who fully admits to being phobic of air travel and public bathrooms. I have a nice (and alarmingly large) collection of University degrees behind my name, but I'm not particularly wealthy, and I've not managed to start an academy in Athens; I've been to lots of caves, but I've never had tight conversations with Archangels; I've sat under lots of trees in trances and meditated, but never found "enlightenment". I've written a lot of letters that pissed a lot of people off, but I've never been handed a sainthood for all my troubles. No, I don't stack up to the "great men" of philosophy and religious history.

There are lots of nasty names for people like me, and lots of pills that can be prescribed for people like me. You probably don't have any reason to trust me, and I wanted to be up-front about this. If you like what I am about to say, you'll have to accept it on your own terms, Caveat Emptor and all. I'm not a great sage from history, but I am very honest and unafraid to live my own path through life, regardless of what all the hostile little faces around me say.

I do communicate with spirits and have a capacity for spiritual vision that extends beyond the normal; the fire in me certainly is the delirious demon of the DSM-IV, but it is also the fire that has burned in a lot of muddy-bearded mystics on the side of a lot of forest roads in a lot of distant countries. And I'm strangely comfortable with it... except of course, when I'm not. On those days, I write long, rambling letters and post them on the internet somewhere.

So why listen to my answer (which I swear that I'm getting to?) Because you've read this far, you might as well. And because Wyrd the mighty has woven you here, just like She wove me typing these words right at this instant. We're together, you and I; we're inseparable. And you probably won't like what I'm about to say.

I would NEVER think to tell you "human life has no purpose; purpose is all constructed". I HATE it when people pull that cop-out. But they do have a point about the word "purpose" and its cousin-word "meaning". Everyone seems to have a different opinion or idea about what these words entail, in relation to human beings and our lives, anyway. Who's right?

The people who are "right" are likely the people who can (to a lesser or greater extent) separate themselves from pre-conceived notions born in culture and religion BEFORE they try to puzzle out the definitions or "meanings". But what's left when you step outside of cultural encapsulation?

The bare facts of Wyrd- of the system of linear AND non-linear causality- are left. The bare bones or threads of the universal tapestry. And here we are, all right where we've been woven. I can't say why I'm here, but I can say where I am and what I do here. I am in the southern forests; I'm in my house; I'm in my town; I'm in my profession. I'm in this world. What do I do? I think, I write, I read, I go into trances, I talk to people, I help to bring about therapeutic change within the systems of other people's lives; I love my family. I know where I am and what I'm doing.

I can't even begin to describe the chain of forces that came together to make such a being as myself, or which stands behind all the things I do. I can't describe those forces in their totality for you or for anyone else. I couldn't describe them for even the smallest grain of sand. But I know where (at least a few) grains of sand are, and what they do.

And I know what I hope- and what many others hope. And I know what people have done, and why I still do what ancient people- my ancestors- did. It's enough. It moves me through life with peace in my heart.

My answer is now forming, but it isn't enough; it's not complete yet.

Here we are, spinning in the web of Wyrd, you, me, everyone, everything. A point comes- I don't know when, or how, but a point comes when you find yourself wherever you happen to be, doing what you happen to be doing. A moment of clarity arises, for all of us. When you string those moments of awareness together long enough, use that fine memory of yours to create a personal story, a personal narrative of moments, (give yourself some chronology) then you have a "life", so-called. And there's your life, spinning out, and here is mine.

You knew this already. We can all get this far. But why did we get this fine clarity, this space of mind, these memories, this ability to string together moments, these hopes, these inclinations, these dreams?

They are Wyrd. Fate spun them out. Fate spun you out, and me. It may seem so self-willed, but in reality, it is quite mechanical. This is the universe, not that poor tiny thing you call "you", friend. What "you and I" really have is the precious chance to realize all this, and marvel at the amazing power of it all. At this moment, stop and look- smell the Wyrd Roses; how marvelous is all this greatness! The vast deep- the great sweep of timeless experience and causality- real eternity, all right now, in this moment of clarity.

Man, this is material enough for a smile, a headache, or yet another psychotic break. I'm not sure which. Or maybe it's just food for thought. Whatever it is, it brings me one step closer to my answer.

We are not here to find "redemption". There was no primordial error in Wyrd, nor among our first ancestors. We didn't "fall" from anywhere. We were always here, though this moment, this human moment, may be the first time we've ever consciously experienced things as human beings. We all think we were born, and are living, and dying, and yes, I think there's some truth to that. But I don't think that "birth-life-death" is the entire story. I don't want to venture too far into saying what I think the "entire" story might be, because as I have always said, Wyrd won't ever let us know the "entire" story; it's just too big.

And that should be a tip to us all: if it's too big for your minds, then you don't need to know the whole story to live well. So stop worrying about such abstract things, and deal with what you do know- where you are, and what you are doing. If you add a sense of wonder to those two things, you get a life of quality.

But is it our "purpose" to "get a life of quality"? I can say this: Wyrd didn't "plan" out our lives; Wyrd is not "predestination". Life isn't a planned-and-executed event; it is a perpetual motion of reality. That's us, spinning along, right now, like always.

A point comes when you have a chance to think about these things, in a very abstract way. I don't know how or why the point comes, but it comes- a space of mental clarity sort of "opens up" for you.

Maybe, if you haven't pulled your hair out by now from reading my thoughts, you're in that space as we communicate now. Maybe you like what I've said. Maybe you hate it. Maybe you don't understand it. Maybe you think you understand it too well. Maybe you think I'm trying to be too deep. Maybe you think this is shallow. Whatever. You think what you like- but think. Use the moment when it comes to you. We're human beings, beings that have an opportunity, a chance that comes many times in our long and perpetual existence, to think about things, to study this world, to come to many sorts of knowledge. We are, after all, "Homo Sapiens"- right?

We're forever parts of this web of life, this web of Wyrd, and for "most of our time" (not that time matters over-much when you escape from the boring limitations of basic perception) we haven't been very aware of the fact of our participation in the great sacred web. And yet, here we are, and always were, and always will be. Maybe we, for timeless ages, were hyper-conscious of our state; perhaps we were Hel-dark and unaware. But something changed, and here we are, as human beings. I have an idea about what changed; the pure spirit that is the seat of these thoughts- it was in Allfather, before he breathed it into human bodies, born of this earth. Now that spirit is part of the experience of a Human Being.

There's no purpose here, just opportunity. We can grow in awareness, gain in wisdom, or not. The universe won't end if we don't; we won't be punished by the Gods if we don't; all will be well- as it always was and always will be.

So the pressure's off. This life- our timeless existence in the weave of Wyrd- is, in my opinion, about exploration. There's no punishment for not exploring, although you can hardly help it; it's part of being woven through so many different situations and experiences. Of course, if you don't explore, you'll be unhappy, because the deepest longings within your mind and heart will always wish they had gone further, seen more, discovered more.

I can say that I do think the Gods- who are fellow beings exploring this Web of Wyrd with us, though much wiser and powerful and more long-lived than we- have given us good advice on how to be happy and fulfilled during our explorations. Our explorations come at different times- the moments just come, and I don't really know how. But the mead of experience comes. Whenever the moments come, these precious times, the Gods are there to help and guide. So are our fellow wayfarers. Some beings are there to hurt. Some don't appear to care.

There's no time limit on your expeditions of exploration or learning. This does NOT mean that I believe "life is all about learning, and you learn lessons in each life"- no, I think that's a bit silly (though it's no more silly than what most people believe, and actually, a lot less hateful or harmful than some myths that were already under discussion) but I still think it's silly. I don't think we're all consciously "choosing" to be born here and live and explore. Wyrd is weaving this for us. We weren't here, it seems... and then, we were. We emerged from the web, consciously. And we began to make sense of it all. And so on we go.

This vision, this story of "exploration within complex causality and mystery" makes more sense to me than the "UP OR DOWN, SINNER" story. It seems to suit our environment- that of great timeless sacredness and complexity- better. It shows how so many explorations can lead to so many different experiences, conclusions, and places, without one being "the only right one". It just makes sense. Like Wyrd, this story is inclusive and not a little strange.


So, is there an end to this exploration? No. That might sound fearful or tiring, but as vast as this web of reality is, trust me- the vast spirit in you wouldn't have it any other way. In my vision, the beings who are honored to dwell in the worlds of the Gods are those valiant souls who cast themselves into the voids of uncertainty and the great task of life- with all its many dangers- without fear.

Those beings who come to rest in the deepest darkness of the Underworld are people who could be in the worlds of the Gods, if they weren't afraid or avoiding the exploration out of some personal weakness. Those who Fate has seen fit to place on the side of the mountain are us, in this middle-world, spiraling along our roads, which can go many places. The moments (which we call "roads") just come- they arise. I don't know from where they come, but I know where they can go.

So on we go.

Bear in mind, dear reader, that these are just words, models, ideas. Tools for the exploration. Be safe.

A Wyrd Way of Seeing: The Worldview of Wyrd as Primordial Cybernetics

The Spinning of the Nornir and the Ancient Worldview of Wyrd as Expressed in Terms of Modern Systems Theory



Heathenry's Most Precious Gift

The worldview of Wyrd- the Heathen name given to the web-like reality of interconnected and interacting forces of which all beings and phenomena are a part- is arguably the most enduring and important gift of Heathenry to this world.

Even though most people don't consider this perspective often, preferring instead to focus on Heathenry's adventurous spirit and straightforward moral code, or its preservation of the traditional religious culture of the ancient northern peoples, the very concept of Wyrd runs as deep as the ocean, and has the power to carry all people into a shared space of philosophical relevance, understanding, and communication. While our Gods and religious rites and values are not shared by all people, the understanding of Wyrd as a form of systemic thinking about reality is something that all people can (and should) understand.

Wyrd, as a primordial form of Systems theory, makes immediate demands on each individual who has the wit to grasp what an interactional worldview entails. The notion- so important to me- of "spiritual ecology" is born from the idea of interactionism- the belief that all things (seen or unseen) are directly and meaningfully connected, and that our way of interacting with the many other forces in this world has a direct and relevant impact on who and what we are at the moment, and what we become in “future” moments, as well as an impact on what the world is and what it becomes.

While "ecology" by itself conjures up notions of natural relationship or interaction in the visible world, "spiritual ecology" carries this system of interaction into the vast, unseen spaces of reality, in which the unseen but very real and sentient powers of spirits and Gods and departed Ancestors exist.

The worldview of Wyrd, in which all things are seen as intimately connected and interacting with one another on countless coarse and subtle levels, gives rise immediately to the "logic" that stands behind both communication and religion, on the basic level. I can talk about how we all dwell in an interactive reality, but the impact of that statement doesn't become real and strong until I point out that interaction is, in fact, another word for communication. Reality isn't just countless parts and forces interacting; reality is a great, ongoing field of communication. Human words being passed between two people are only one form of communication; so many other forms of communication exist.

Added to this, the reality we belong to will not allow us to exempt ourselves from the essential process of communication or interaction: one cannot not communicate with others; even attempting to ignore another or cease speaking to them is itself a very clear communication. Attempting to ignore reality and the demands of life, spirituality, duty, or what have you, is an act, a communication. Breathing is interaction; seeing is interaction; living is interaction.

It is an article of my own Heathen faith that sentient beings or entities exist who are "Wyrd Wise", who have a greater ability to be aware of the system of interacting powers in a broader way, thus giving them various levels of "omniscience". I call them "Gods", and feel that my Ancestors would have done the same, though any spirit or wight could achieve the skill and wisdom that placed them within the web of interactions with greater insight than other beings.

That our religious fainings, prayers, sacrifices and devotions "shake" or "tremble" the web of Wyrd, unavoidably causing a chain of interactions or communications to spread out into the vast and unseen spaces, such that it can be "heard" or experienced by our Gods, is also an article of my own faith- a faith that is based on the basic notion that every thought, feeling, word, or deed does not exist or arise alone within the amazing web of causality that is its mother and its final resting place.

All prayer is a communication with the being prayed to; all sacrifices are communications to the being or beings to whom the sacrifices are intended. As we will see soon, communication and interaction are never "one way"- the web of Wyrd and interaction is recursive; our thoughts, deeds, sacrifices and prayers are one half of a single communication to Gods or spirits that are "answered" on the "other half" of the system; "A gift demands a gift"- the Gods or spiritual powers reciprocate in many ways, the two most common ways being guidance through dreams or the creation of omens- meaningful events within our natural systems that communicate something of importance or need to us.

Our human lives are, indeed, a Wyrd arrangement of forces- forces interacting, sustaining one another, and at times destroying one another. From the cellular level of the body, up to the complex web of interactions that tie human societies together, countless forces interact to create our experience. We are not the ultimate authors of these forces; the web of forces is massive beyond our human reckoning, and ancient beyond the usual meaning of the word "ancient". A better word is "timeless"- this very reality, at the most essential and bare level, is not a "creation", not the creation of some superior being, with a definite beginning point and end-point, but a timeless web of interacting forces which has always existed and always will.

Without a web of power enlinking all things in reality, no communication would be possible. No change or evolution would be possible. No birth or death would be possible, and thus, nothing would exist as we know it or experience it. I should simplify this and say that experience would not be possible.


Primordial Morality

In all of the amazing ranges and reaches of human experience, we often find ourselves comparing our way of living and thinking to others, after the many "ways of being and experiencing" collide and interact with one another, sometimes to good impact, sometimes to disaster. Wyrd forces us to take seriously our deeds and way of thinking; it also forces us to consider the way others act and think, for the deeds, thoughts, tendencies, and beliefs of other people can and will affect us all, eventually.

Those who wish to fall into a sort of laziness regarding the lives of other people, in the name of a truly unrealistic sense of "non-involvement" or even "leaving others to their ways" will swiftly find the danger involved. History gives us many examples of how disastrous social movements and conflicts began in very distant lands, but had a way of spreading out and eventually consuming the entire globe in their power.

The fact that our ancient ancestral culture was eventually all but wiped out by a tiny sect of renegade Roman and Hebrew religious fanatics in the Near East is a sufficient example for now. Understanding Wyrd forces us to realize that all events in our world are relevant to us, and carries us to the full meaning of the old saying "involvement is the primary duty of the wise".

When we think interactionally, we easily find our way into what I refer to as "primordial morality"- You begin wherever you happen to be, and you see yourself as a part of the social system that you are necessarily involved with- one's people, one's family, one's friends, and one's society. Those human groupings are necessarily involved with what we call the "natural" system of the world- the local water, land, forests, animals, and environment.

It's all one web of power; these distinctions are only made to illustrate a point, and made to satisfy the dualistic nature of language and human understanding. You can (usually) see who and what you rely upon, and who and what your people and your land rely upon.

Reliance is a very widespread notion within the systemic model of interactionism- in the web of Wyrd, we rely on countless powers and beings. Acting and thinking in such a manner as to ensure the safety and health of our community-systems and the natural systems upon which they rely is the greatest "commandment" of natural or primordial morality.

When we consider things in this manner, and examine the realities of life in the ancient world, we arrive immediately at the notion of "tribal" morality; people in ancient times had to live and act in ways that preserved the immediate concerns of family and people. In our modern times, in these times in which the world has perceptually "shrunk" and forced all human beings together into an unavoidable interactive wedlock, the seeds of a global morality are blooming.

This isn't a morality based on religious notions of "sin" or "God" or what have you- it is not a morality based on which culture is "superior" or "right" or "better"- it is a morality based on interactions that give rise to the common good of human beings and planet earth. Our own "good" is tied to the good of others- what any group of people do to the web of life, they do to all life. Our own survival- and the survival of our cultures- is also tied to others.


Wyrd, Reliance, Reverence, and Respect

The ancient idea of Wyrd and modern Cybernetics or Systems Theory are clearly related; they are, in fact, one and the same in their worldview and implications. It is a testament to the great wisdom of the past that modern and postmodern worldviews like Systems Theory effortlessly reflect and (in a way) give new life and usage to the older models.

In Wyrd, we understand a vision of connection and reliance that has implications far beyond the horizons of simple ecology or social life. In the vision of reliance and interaction, something else arises: a sense of reverence for the forces and beings upon which we rely, and a sense of respect. The truth of inter-connectedness gives us the single greatest vision of kinship that we can have: all beings are, truthfully and fully "kin" to one another. The natural reverence that arises when we understand our reliance on many other powers and beings is the origin of primordial and animistic religion, in the deepest sense of the word.

I have always thought that the modern-day "kindred" or congregation of Asatruar occupies two places in our religious understanding and experience: firstly, it is the immediate group of people with whom we mingle our own Hamingja and Wyrd, for the purposes of allegiance, mutual support, friendship, and honor to the Ancestors and Gods. Secondly, the kindred becomes a small and local working model of the frithful and respectful, supportive way we should approach the many other communities of beings in any world.

We celebrate our larger connection to the many beings of the many worlds through our participation in the kindred's activities: the same can be said of successful families in any other capacity. We celebrate a righteous and wholesome manner of moral and ethical living when we successfully work and live alongside the kindred.




The Norns by Frowe Minahild



Wyrd Lays Down Layers and Spins In Accordance

In the thinking of the Ancestors, the primordial "layers" of interaction- those established at the dawn of the current world-order, were called Orlog. The web of Wyrd, the reality of timeless interaction, has no beginning or end, but an perceptual order for experience does arise within the web of Wyrd- captured in the Ancestral myths as the "shaping" of the Nine Worlds by the Allfather and his Brothers.

In a sense, mythology as a whole represents the best attempt on the part of humanity to give a name to the mysterious processes that are rightly called "fateful" and "divine", and which structure so much of our experience, from the deepest level. Mythology and Wyrd are tied together, solidly, for all mythical statements (like any other sort of statement) are "Wyrd statements"- attempts to capture the essence of some aspect of this vast reality.

Orlog is a name given to the "primordial layers" of causality and interaction that came together at the perceptual "beginning" of the processes that would lead to this experience we have of our "world" and our "lives"- and Orlog is what truthfully decides the shape of things present and to come.

It does not "decide" like a man or woman may "decide" what to eat at night; what I mean to say is that the arrangement of primordial forces and their interplay are the deciding factor as to what "new conditions" arise, and from the point of the "new" conditions, further present-moment conditions arise, all following along with the necessities dictated by previous conditions.

From the past, then, rises the present. "Future" as a division of time or experience, has no place in this worldview; Our ideas about the past, and our hopes or fears for the future, are both parts of the present, and found nowhere else. The forces that did correlate and interact in the past, and which we have some dim record of in memory, lay their own weight and direction on the weaving of the new present experience. To know "what is" can give a perceptive enough mind a good idea of "what was", and to know what was, can give the wise a good idea of what must be, either now or in the mental construct we call "future".

Wyrd's way of seeing doesn't deal with mystical visions of a future that has not yet arisen; prophecy in the tradition of Wyrd deals with strong, deep interaction with the realities of the present, and a deeply held knowledge of the past.

The Orlog of this universe, of the current "way of experiencing" that we call "our world", was established perceptually long ago, and our world, in common with all Nine Worlds, has a fated end, a Wyrded Doom, in line with what must come to pass based on Orlog's lay. Each part of the system of our world has a similar doom or fate, again, based on Orlog as a whole, but also on that "balance of causes and realities" that exist on every family line, on every living creature, and on every form arisen from interaction. When we focus on "beginnings and endings" in this way, we are already removing ourselves one step from the Wyrd-reality of acausality and non-linear thinking, and this is certainly a concern.

The simple and hard truth is that "truth" for humans must be expressed in symbols and language- communication between most people is a very haphazard thing, especially considering the depths to which "communication" truly runs. At times, linear models can communicate something of essence, but more often than not, they are harmful to our deeper causes of wisdom. I can discuss the arising and falling away of the Nine Worlds in terms of a linear storyline, but this is not a "whole" truth regarding these things. If a person can remember that a story is just a story, a communication that is attempting to pass along some lesser or greater insight, then they can engage stories without being too trapped by them.

That the world-order certainly exists (or should I say, that it appears to our experience, as conditions arise) is without a doubt. But conditions perceptually come and go, change and spin out. It is a convenience for us to link these arisen conditions together with stories that give them a sense of coherence and meaning, but again, this convenience should never become a stumbling block, and need not become so to the wise.


I would like to turn now to what modern Wyrd-knowers have said about Wyrd. These perspectives are born in an ancient perspective which has (understandably) unfolded into the modern day in new ways, but in ways that still maintain the basic logic of interactionism. These people speak, in their own ways, for the most important wisdom of our shared past- the wisdom born from seeing the world as an inter-connected series of forces, a series from which we cannot meaningfully separate ourselves.


The Words of the Wyrd-Knowers

William Bainbridge, of the Troth organization, had many important things to say regarding Wyrd, which he describes as the "central mystery" of Heathenry. In his essay "The Ego and Heathenism", he writes:


"...Approaching this view of human life from a Heathen religious standpoint, I find it both very difficult and unrewarding to fit this complex understanding of the individual into some fixed theory, diagram, moral lesson or comprehensive program of self-improvement. Life simply is too complicated to be meaningfully explained by such things, and in any event, does not work precisely the same way for each of us, since the balance of significant causes is probably different for each of us.

What is the same for all of us is the process of working out old causes and adding new ones, and also the web of causation that ties us all together in many and profound ways, some of which we can understand and some of which remain mysteries approached only through myth and metaphor. Each of us was created by a multitude of causes, each will ultimately be destroyed and dissipated by a multitude of causes, and in the space in-between, each will be constantly transformed by a multitude of causes. While it is tempting to identify with one or a few of them, and cling to them as to a seemingly sturdy raft caught in turbulent waters, to do so is fundamentally inconsistent with the way things--the way we--really are. The raft, after all, will break up in the end, and the only resolution that promises any stability is for us to understand once and for all that we and the waters are, at bottom, not separate things.

Understanding ourselves in light of Wyrd, as patterns within the universal web of life and destiny, removes barriers that too often stand in the way of our arriving at the gratitude that impels us to give thanks. To get there, we must give up what we will inevitably lose anyway, and reach beyond ourselves to grasp what is, in fact, the true essence of ourselves.

it is not enough to give thanks for the innate rightness of life; one should go farther, and participate in that rightness, strive to carry it forward. How that further obligation seems to me to work itself out in religious practice and personal conduct, though, is not much expressed either in the lore or in modern Heathen thought, and although I believe I have arrived at my conclusions through following a relatively traditional understanding of Wyrd out to its logical consequences, I also believe I have gone out on this particular limb about as far as I intend to for now, at least in public.

Be that as it may, I would close with the suggestion that Wyrd, not gods or ethics, might actually be the central mystery of Heathen religion; but one does not drink from her well for free, and having drunk, cannot become again the person one was beforehand."


Mr. Bainbridge brings us to the doorstep of one of the most contentious and important topics in any worldview: the ego and the nature of "self". When we do as Mr. Bainbridge has done, and as the worldview of Wyrd requires us to do, and when we cease holding the perspective of "self" as a static, "independent" entity, and instead see "self" for what it is- a dynamic process, created and sustained by interaction, totally interacting with countless other powers in a neverending existence of communication and change, then amazing new vistas of wisdom open up to us. What we call "we" and the web of Wyrd which is the totality of the forces that give rise to the processes of our minds and bodies, cannot meaningfully be separated.

"We" are, in reality, parts of the web of life that can experience themselves as though they were separate from the whole, but, in final analysis, we are not ultimately separate. This is not to suggest (as so many others have done) that "we" ought to be struggling to lose "ourselves" into a sea of undifferentiated "Wyrd stuff"- such a proposition is absurd.

The truth is that even the sense of "self" as "thing apart" that we all experience is an important part of the outplay of forces, a fateful part of the way things are and ought to be- we are intended to understand our experience of self with wisdom, with Wyrd-wisdom, not destroy our experience in favor of a "singularity" or a "loss of self" into the "great totality". The fullest joy of living in this world is found in a wise appraisal or clear vision of our inseparable and timeless participation in the natural system of Wyrd.


Brian Bates, a foremost Wyrd-knowing sage in our modern day, writes (through the words of his Seidman Wulf) in his essential work "The Way of Wyrd":

"The patterns of Wyrd far exceed the tiny horizons of the ordinary person, for he is capable of seeing only short spans of time. Your eyes break up the course of life into tiny segments and label them as separate entities. The eyes of a sorcerer do not have this false focus. Life is comprised of waterfalls, rapids, eddies and whirlpools, but they are all part of the same watercourse. For me, life and death flow together as aspects of one river. For you, life is like a series of unconnected rain puddles and death comes when the sun dries them all up."


Understanding the deepest implications of Wyrd lead us beyond the myths of "life" and "death", as most people understand them today. The deep web of subtle forces that coalesced to give rise to mankind- to the minds and bodies of men and women- do not cease when a man or woman's body ceases to function. What we call "death" certainly includes (what seems to us to be) a change in how certain forces interact- but these interactions do not go "all the way down", as they say; "death" cannot thwart life for the simple reason that it is the totality of Wyrd's countless interacting forces that are the seat of mind and life. The true roots of life, like the roots of the World Tree itself, are so deep that not even the wisest know where they run.

Wyrd requires a new understanding of what "life" really is- and with it, the reality of that mystery we call "mind". Mind is not a field of awareness generated by a brain, which vanishes when the brain vanishes; mind relies on a complex web of forces to exist, and the coarse, obvious features of "mind" that we can observe empirically- like the coarse, obvious features of life that we can observe- are not the full story of "mind" or "life". In a very real sense, we cannot know the full story of anything- To know the fullness of forces and powers that give rise to anything like an idea or a dream, or the fullness of interactions and powers which give rise to an oak-leaf, a bird, a human, or a God, is simply not in our power.

We can say this with assurance: mind is immanent within the system of Wyrd. "Mind" as we experience it is the offspring of many forces and conditions, and always changing as its environment changes. Mind and its environment are not truly separate things- perception or experience of environment relies on mind as much as mind relies on environment. This "reciprocation" or recursive, constant arising of "mind" and "environment" leads us to the conclusion that so long as the system of Wyrd exists- and indeed, it will always exist because existence itself is nothing other than Wyrd/interaction, environment and experience will also exist.

And it is precisely this ongoing reality of experience that we find what we call "ourselves" within- though we have a very unwise habit of defining "ourselves" as "outside observers" to experience, without ever realizing that we are each inseparable parts of the neverending river of experience, which amounts to interactional immortality. It flies against our language-born logic to say it, but the "experiencer" of something is not a substance apart; if it were so, experience could not be had, by virtue of the "apartness".

There is the whole matrix of experience, which we divide, using linguistics, into a "person having" an experience, and the experience itself. Experience and experiencers are all the same watercourse, just like life and death, and thus, life and death cease to be a true concern to the wise. When one is freed from constant fear of death, the true business of living can begin- wisdom becomes the primary concern of life, the wisdom to live well and fully.


Eric Wodening, in his superb essay "The Web of Wyrd", writes:

"By far the most familiar icon for the process of wyrd is the configuration of the World Tree, Yggdrasill, and Wyrd's Well. There is good reason for this, as the iconography of the Well and the Tree fit the upward and outward action of the past as it shapes the present quite well. Yet the process of wyrd also suggests another activity, that of spinning and weaving. This comparison has had very little written about it, and even Bauschatz, in his nominal work The Well and the Tree, barely touches upon it. Still, the view of the Wyrd Sisters (ON Nornir) as spinners and weavers has much to offer heathens.

The name Wyrd itself derives ultimately from the Indo-European root *uert-, "to turn, to spin, to rotate." This in itself brings to mind the image of spinning thread and, in fact, MHG wirtel, spindle, distaff, and wheel come from the same root. The relationship between Wyrd and weaving, however, goes beyond simple etymologies. An Old English source links Wyrd directly with the activity of spinning. Wyrd, then, was viewed as the spinner of orlog. This view appears in Beowulf as well, where the end of Beowulf's life is spoken of as a thread being cut.

It is unknown whether the Germanic peoples borrowed the idea of the Wyrd Sisters as weavers from the Classical Parcae or if it evolved from the general background of the Indo-European cultural complex. There are valid arguments on both sides. The very fact that the elder heathen applied spinning and weaving as a metaphor for the process of wyrd should lend it some importance to modern heathen.

Some modern heathen believe that one of the aspects of wyrd is the interconnectivity of all things, but only one scholar, Brian Bates, has written anything on the subject. According to Bates every event is connected to all others much like the crosshatching of a spider's web. Anyone who has looked at a piece of cloth under a microscope knows it is not unlike a spider's web, so it should come as no surprise that Bates also makes comparisons to woven cloth.

In light of the loom model, Bates's comparisons appear very well grounded. Consider, each action is represented as a strand within one of the warp threads. The warp threads are interlaced with the woof threads (influences from the past?). Each action, then, is interconnected to all others through the influence exerted by the past.

That all events are interconnected has more implications that it would appear on the surface. For instance, if each man's life is represented by a thread, and every thread is connected to the others through the web of Wyrd, then each man's life is interconnected with the lives of all other men.

Not just human life would be interconnected through the web, but all other forms of life as well. In the past several decades a new science, ecology, has been developed to study the interrelationships between various forms of life. While it evolved independently of heathendom, many of ecology's conclusions are remarkably close to the concept of Wyrd's web. All life is regarded as being interdependent upon each other, in one vast, biological network, and the slightest change in that network can upset its over all balance. In terms of Wyrd's web, such activities as cutting down the South American rain forests qualify as a "bad weave" which can weaken the over all strength of the web."


If only Mr. Wodening had encountered the science of Systems theory, before he wrote this fine essay of his! He would have probably written an entire book by now on the parallels between Wyrd and the modern science of Systems theory. Still, his comparison with Ecology is quite apt- and it follows on the heels of what I have been writing thus far in this essay. We are, (whether we would be or not) parts of an ecological vision of reality, parts of a system, interacting and inter-effective parts. It is a web, a weave, and it is sacred. It does bring us into communion (and communication!) with all other beings who live.


The Wyrd of Community Systems

A few words should be said about Wyrd and its implications for the psychic and physical center of human life: the community or the communal living situation that we all must come to terms with, whether it be expressed in terms of a family, a tribe, a clan, a city, or a nation. A while back, I wrote the following passage in an essay:


"Community" did not begin as a band of scared primitive individuals that grouped together in ancient times to help protect themselves from other humans or predators; the community is not some evolutionary accident nor behavior driven solely by analysis of benefit. Community is sacred, a reflection of the sacred order which is inscribed in the souls of human beings. The Mystery of MANNAZ or Man- meaning all Mankind- is a mystery that arises not as an individual but as many men and women, and they are bound together naturally by unbreakable bonds of affection, power, and kinship.

Each person alive depends so much on others- from our parents at the beginning of our lives, to the men and women who grow our food, prepare it, and sell it; the men and women who train to be doctors, healers, therapists, soldiers and protectors; the men and women that we marry and love and who support us emotionally, and help us to create the future generations of this world. In some way, the web of human relationships and support is a perfect model of Wyrd- each person affects so many other people, and is in turn affected by them. Without the other people in the world, we could not be here, living and thriving. From our interactions, new people arise, and others die away. Between us, love and joy and sorrow arise.

The Old Ways ask us to extend that web of relationship to new dimensions- more subtle dimensions. These "subtle dimensions" of which I speak are the unseen reaches of this world, and the other worlds. Living alongside us in this world are unseen wights, sentient beings who exist in what can be conceived of as their own continuum of life. The Land upon which we walk and depend contains boundless depths of being, and the Landvaettir or Land Wights are one example of unseen sentient beings who dwell alongside us, though few people take the time to appreciate or consider them.

People wonder at the "point" or "purpose" for belief in such beings. To this, it must be said that life and mind are not gifts that humans alone possess, nor is reality as simple as what appears to our eyes. The bulk of life that we can see is just a tiny amount of life, compared to the life that dwells in the vast reaches of reality. The web of Wyrd is a vastness that cannot be comprehended. Within it are places, spaces, "dimensions of reality" and "ways of being" that are every bit as natural as the one "slice of life" that human beings experience. And Wyrd being what it is, the entire continuum of Wyrd, the entire web- including all unseen realities- affects the rest of the web. That means that numberless unseen powers affect us every day of our lives, and we affect them in return.

The Wyrd-wise have always known this, and they have always worked to become conscious of the affects the unseen world and its inhabitants have on us, and just as importantly, they have worked to be aware of what affects we have in return."







Wyrd Ways: Some Propositions Regarding the Ancient Systemic and Interactive Vision of Reality

I am going to list a few propositions about how Wyrd "works", at least based on the perceptions of those who have studied the nature of natural systemic interaction, and the perceptions of those who have looked at the system of life from other angles of investigation- angles that took them out of the neat and tidy "linear" and "divided" models that are so popular today, and so tainted by materialism- and into regions of holistic wisdom.


-The Wyrd way of seeing denies that linear causality is an ultimate reality; Wyrd is holistic, non-linear and acausal. That people tend to perceive in linear ways is a function of limited perception and not some "objective" reality. That "limited perceptions" should exist is not evidence of some "flaw" in Wyrd or in human beings- such things are another part of Wyrd, with a sacred role and purpose.

-The Wyrd way of seeing focuses on patterns, processes, and relationships, not "matter" and "material". "Matter" is itself just a name given to a seemingly stable moment in a long process of interaction and change.

-Wyrd is inclusive and mysterious, even with respect to what we label as "individuals" and "observers"- Wyrd cannot be observed from the "outside" because all observers are part of the Web of Wyrd and cannot be separated from it. The full range of Wyrd's many interactions are therefore hidden from the limited perspective of any person.

-Wyrd, as a universal system of interactions, was not begun or created by any being; it is the ongoing dynamic activity of reality. Any actor that we identify as a "being", whether human, animal, spirit, God or Goddess, originally arose and continually arises from the many interactions of the web of Wyrd.

-All parts of the web of Wyrd recursively affect one another, no matter how distant they seem- "recursive relationship" means that each part has some affect on the other parts, and vice versa. The seeds of a primordial "morality of interaction" is found in this unavoidable fact of Wyrd reality.

-The interactions of Wyrd not only give rise to all beings and phenomenon, but sustain them moment to moment, in whatever form they exist in the moment.

-"Control" cannot be found in the system of Wyrd, nor in any subsystem that we can experience and label, up to and including what we call "our own lives". Control in Wyrd is radically diffuse, and based on the interaction of countless parts. We experience things we call "choices" and "decisions" but we are not ultimately the sole and only controllers of why these things arise nor where they end up. This unavoidable consequence of any complex system of interactions has led directly to the conflict between philosophical ideas of "Fate" and "Free Will", however misunderstood these terms usually are.


Wyrd and Positive Fatalism

I am what I call a "positive Fatalist"- I do not believe in absolute or ultimate free will. I do not believe that my Heathen ancestors did, either, and I have written quite extensively on the topic. Positive Fatalism is a consequence of understanding the Wyrd-reality of interaction; it means accepting Fate or Destiny as a reality, and realizing that there is a complex order in the outplay of things- what you are, what you feel, and what you do is not ultimately in your "control", and in a sense, everything happens for a reason. The Norns or the Fate-weavers fix our dooms for us.

To make such a statement relies heavily on a sort of "faith" born in the Wyrd-worldview; with so many complex systems and sub-systems of force and interaction existing, and with the power of these things influencing us, we cannot begin to guess at every angle of the truth of our existence. Anyone who claims to know the full truth about "what's going on" in life is certainly suffering from a deadly species of vanity.

Part of the trouble with the entire notion of "free will" and "self control" is this: with so many complex, ancient, and timeless forces pre-existing "us", our entire cognitive structure and matrix of self is influenced in a pre-conscious manner, long before we build our current sense of self-identity, and long before we begin to perceptually make "our choices" in life. In a way, my notion of "Fate being in charge" is a blanket notion that puts the human being (in his or her typically limited definition) secondary to the great weave of forces that gives rise to him or her, and makes the man or woman subject to this cosmos of Wyrd.

It could not be otherwise; we are all woven by the same system. Instead of being vain and assuming that we are each powerful enough to "separate" ourselves from the weave of Wyrd, and "create" uninfluenced and independent expressions of will, apart from Wyrd's weave, I believe we should be realistic and realize that our thoughts, deeds, and actions are influenced by countless powers, and truthfully, they cannot be separated from those powers.

Now, I call my belief "positive Fatalism" because I don't think this belief means that you should sit back and do nothing with your life- in fact, I think we have all been Fated to feel as though we DO have free will, and even the belief in destiny doesn't stop us from struggling with our destiny, most of the time. The Northern European people, in their own legends, sagas, and the like, didn't sit back while the world trampled them; they fought hard- and yet, they still believed in Fate or destiny, in a very grim sort of way. Their beliefs even said that the Gods themselves had to face a dark Fate one day. They had no illusions about how hard life was.

Yet, they lived life to the fullest, thankful for the gift of life and for the gifts of the Gods, and they didn't make apologies for being the best they could be. They didn't sit back and accept substandard situations; they explored, fought, conquered, and composed majestic songs and poems. These strange contradictory things fly to the heart of the Indo-European belief in Fate, which isn't as simple as most people want to make it out.

Most people today strongly believe in "free will", but I don't believe that it can exist as they say, because we are all parts of a great and immense system of life and causality. If you look at even a simple system, you can see that the idea of "control" cannot be found anywhere within it, because all parts of a system affect the others. Control is largely an illusion. What I mean to say by this is that we are all parts of a system, and we react to the many forces that affect us, and we affect the system, too. When you have a system in which the parts all affect one another, you can't find where the ultimate "cause" of things is.

For example, you may build a fire when it gets cold outside, but can you say that you made the decision alone to build the fire? It seems that conditions arose in the natural world that led to you making the decision to make a fire to keep warm. If those conditions had not arisen, you would not have felt the need for the fire, and would not have made a decision to build one. If the conditions weren't there, you wouldn't have made the decision- so can your decision belong only to you? Can it be a thing separate from those conditions in the world around, conditions that you didn't choose to be there? The answer is no.

So we can look at this system and ask "where was the decision ultimately made?" Was it in the cold weather, the conditions that made it cold, or the human who responded to those things? The decision is not in one place or the other- the decision arose in the system, because of the system. The decision is not the full "property" of the human actor in the system.

That's how the weave of Wyrd seems to work, at least from a limited perspective- decisions appear through the various parts of the system, but they don't belong fully to any one part. Anyone who thinks they are making decisions apart from the world around them, is being very limited in how they perceive the reality of things. We are not isolated from the weave of Wyrd; we are parts of it.

We can say that "we" had an idea, but the seeds of "your" ideas were sown long ago in the combinations and interactions of many powers that pre-existed "you". This is Wyrd, the weave of causality and reality, and we are all parts of it. What we call our actions are not fully "ours"- it is more realistic to say that the universe itself is working through us, rather than to say that we are separate from the universe, and working "inside" it somehow.

The belief in "free will" requires people to believe that they are very separate from the natural world, and it is a belief which is central to Christianity- early Christians often scorned Pagan beliefs in Fate, and bragged that their God was not beholden to any "fate". To believe in Fate is to put yourself directly back in the genuine stream of pre-Christian thinking.

To believe in "Free Will" is, in final analysis, to make the bold (and untenable) announcement that each human being is a miniature "First Cause", capable in and of themselves of creating "new" strands of Wyrd, capable of changing the essential nature of the cosmos, capable of creation and action completely independent of the many other forces that create the web of causality in which we are all inseparably suspended, and which we cannot remove ourselves from. Such a belief in this sort of "free will" is not a part of a genuine understanding of Wyrd.

If a person bears all these things in mind, their entire worldview changes; they approach life in a fearless way, realizing their kinship to all powers that exist. They realize that things must work in a certain way, and there's no need to worry yourself over things that are outside of your control, and indeed, many things that people usually do worry about are far outside of their control.

Positive Fatalism asks us to be as good as we can be, to be brave and honorable, but not to be so foolish as to think that we are separate from the world, or not affected by it. It's a very "Wyrd" way of seeing; positive Fatalism is "world concern" as much as it is "self concern". It also asks us to endure whatever befalls us with acceptance and fortitude, but never to settle for bad situations if we think it's possible to do better.

Even if we are Fated to fail at our efforts, that really doesn't matter- our desires and efforts must be expressed, and these are the things which (in a certain manner) make us "who we are" to others, and which decide how we will be remembered. It's better to die trying for a better world than to succeed at maintaining a mediocre world.