The Two Trees: A Heathen's Take on the War Between Creationism and Evolution

We've all had a chance to see long and furious debates between the people who literally believe in religious and mythical stories regarding the origin of man and the world, and people who only accept scientific theories about the same. Certainly if you are an American, you've been embarrased like the rest of us by the medieval-style thinking and voting of the state of Kansas regarding the matter.

On one hand, we have the people who believe that their God literally created anatomically modern humans in the blink of an eye, and not so long ago. They believe that he created the world, and all the animals in it, in the space of seven days. On the other side, you have the scientific-minded crowd who believe that billions of years passed and a gradual process of evolution took place, straight from the primordial sludge, resulting eventually in all that you see around you, including your own mind and body.

In the "middle" of this somewhat silly debate are the theists and God-believers, like the Catholic church, who believe in what they call "theistic evolution"- the idea that God created everything using natural laws like evolution; they believe that evolution is not a blind, random, materialistic process, but a divinely created and guided process.

Heathenry gives us a creation myth, too. It talks at length about the origins of the world and of the first men and women. In fact, if you read our sacred stories, you'll see that Heathens- long before Christians- believed that an "intelligent designer" created the world, the green growing things, animals, other orders of life, and finally, human beings. Not unlike what Christians believe, the Heathen world-shaper- the Allfather himself- also breathed a sacred spirit into the first men and women, eternally binding them to himself as kin, and his brothers, who aided him in the creation of humans, even bestowed on them the form or image of the Gods.

If you study pre-Christian creation mythology, you see that this idea is nearly universal. It appears in the Enuma Elish, the Babylonian original upon which the account of Genesis is based. In the Enuma Elish, the Gods create human beings in their own image, and even set them up in a paradisal garden, called the Garden of Eridu. Though there were many Greek Myths of Creation, they all agree on one thing- either the Earth Mother herself gave birth to men and women, allowing them to spring up from the ground, or a Godly shaper (like Prometheus), working with clay and earth and other natural materials from the ground, shaped humans in the image of the Gods and gave them life.

The ancient Iranian human-origin myth has the first man and woman growing from the ground as a plant, before the creator calls them forth to be man and woman, bestows a soul on them, and bids them to multiply and increase themselves. The Egyptian potter-God created men and women on his wheel, true masterworks of his Godly creativity. Ivan Hudec gives a wonderful Slavic creation myth in which the clay-people receive the spirit of the Gods as a gift, to counter the dark forces of chaos that were stirring in their clay, and they become human beings.

The reason why I'm writing this letter is to give a response to the people who scoff at these myths as "superstition" and "nonsense". Heathen and Pagan mythology is deeper than the great oceans, and they contain much wisdom, all of which is readily available if people would read them with the sense of openness, humility, and wonder which they call for.

These sacred stories are records of experiences, living experiences that human beings had while in direct communion with Nature and the unseen world. There are timeless truths encoded in mythology, truths about the world and about men and women, who are each of them a full and complete manifestation of the world and offspring of the Gods who shaped it.

Must these myths conflict with science? I would say that it didn't matter if they did- the Mythical Truth is the Whole Truth. When I say that, what I mean is, the myth captures the essence of the reality- it captures the eternal pattern and meaning; in light of this, it need not capture the physical form. The physical process of human evolution is an important aspect of reality; in the natural processes that brought human beings into the shape they currently manifest, we see the completion of the "Mannaz" mystery. Humans, ever fated to be a part of this world, through natural processes came to be a part of it. That's a fact that all can see.

From this point of agreement, we have the perspective of the myth, and the perspective of modern empirical sciences. From the mythical dimension, a revelation about the truth of man's existence has come to us from the souls, minds and tongues of our ancestors. From the dimension of empirical thinking, which is very much a thing of this world, and which is only concerned with surface-level phenomenon, theories about how the physical process occured have been created.

Both are important, but considering the shifting and insubstantial nature of the physical world, I would say that the eternal pattern and truth revealed by the myth is by far the more important of the two, at least for true human understanding. When I say "true human understanding", I'm not talking about the sort of understanding that leads a person to be good at math, or helps them to understand how genes might evolve. I'm talking about spiritual understanding, the only kind of understanding that can lead humans to lasting peace and happiness. In spiritual understanding is found the underlying purpose and meaning of life which is necessary for any true happiness.

Now, I've given my opinion that the Mythical Truth is more important from the perspective of human spiritual understanding and peace. This does not mean that we should scoff at science or ignore the good theories that scientists have worked hard to come up with.

There are many uses for theories like evolution; understanding our biology better in the scientific sense of the word means that we can create better medical treatments and medicines, which will no doubt enhance the length (though not necessarily the quality) of our lives. And we all know how important it is to live a long time! Joking aside, I do think it is a blessing when Fate allots a person many long years- they have a chance to know generations of their family that they might not have known, and they get to see and experience many happy things, alongside the sorrowful things that we must all endure.

But length of life is not the same as quality of life. Quality of life, in the true sense, is a matter of how peaceful and happy a person is. And people are only at peace and truly happy when they know who and what they really are. People are only peaceful and happy when they know the whole truth about themselves as human beings, and how they relate to one another and this world. Finally, lasting peace and happiness comes from knowing the Gods and ancestors as true and living spiritual presences- every bit as "real" as we- and joining with them and their kin in this world, as one community.

If a person could live 30 years under the influence of such wholeness, that would be a quality life. In my never-so-humble opinion, it would certainly beat 80 years of living in a rat-race world where family bonds are broken, where materialistic science convinces us all that we are just decaying flesh randomly evolving in the service of selfish genetics, and war-mongering military-corporate-industrial complexes grind hundreds of human lives to dust on the news everyday for us. There's no quality in such a world; in that world, all that matters is what you can get before you die, other human beings be damned... except for those human beings that you keep around for your own selfish amusement or benefit.

Most believers in the theories of evolution believe that life's ultimate purpose is to pass on genetics, and to hope that you (and your population group) are "fit" enough endure the random mutations and changes that must occur to any grouping of beings. Well, as a Heathen mystic and believer in a deeper truth about things, I must disagree; life is not merely or ultimately a matter of transmission of genetics. In the minds of the eager believers in "hard core" evolution, it seems that one of the consequences of life is often confused with cause of life.

Let me now give a proper Heathen response, which I believe solves the seemingly endless conflict between the myths of the ancients and the myths of science.

The Heathen myths don’t discuss “evolution” as we know it now, with the same scientific language that some use now, but the ancient myths discuss the origins of mankind as being quite natural- and indeed, how could it be otherwise? Whatever appears, whatever comes to be, whatever exists, whether Gods, Goddesses, spirits, humans, trees, or stones, must be natural. "Natural", "born of nature", is a rather all-inclusive term in Heathenry. Sure, there are very natural and normal reaches of reality that humans have a very difficult time sensing or experiencing, but this doesn't make them "supernatural" in some way.

Most people fail to understand this simple fact, but it remains: "nature" isn't just "trees and water and stuff around us that we can see." Nature, in the broadest sense, is everything that exists. In my writings, I often use "Nature" and "Reality" as synonymous. In Heathen thinking, there are other "worlds" full of divine beings, and there is a difference between human beings and the Gods- but that doesn't make "other" worlds or the Gods into alien places and beings that "appear" in the natural world and exert some sort of "supernatural" influence over it.

If the Gods were truly and radically "above" nature as we normally experience it, truly separate in nature and power, there would be no way they could interact with it, or with us. If they were so alien and different, how could their substance have interacted with so-called "natural" substances, and thus, done as our stories tell us, and shaped us?

The answer to this problem is simpler than simple: the Gods are not alien nor distant nor "supernatural". They exist in a continuum of reality which is every bit as natural and normal as the world you are currently experiencing. They are part of the same web of Wyrd, the same web of life and power, that we are, and which all things are.

It is true that the unseen worlds are full of strange powers and wonders. It is true that when the normal human's mind has just a taste of the power of Wyrd or the power of the unseen, they often experience it as though it were the most supernatural, utterly alien thing they ever felt or saw. That is a consequence of the average human mind being unprepared for the utter intensity, power, and awe that this reality has in store. It has nothing to do with naive notions of "supernaturalism".

Like so many things in life, the answer to the debate between Evolution and Mythical Origins is found not on one side or the other, but between. Humans are creations of the Gods, but if you read the myths, you will see that it isn't that easy. I say that humans are "creations" of the Gods, but that doesn't mean that the Gods created us out of nothing.

This is the most important statement I can make- the Gods didn't create us out of nothing. Such an idea is absurd, and simply not in the realm of possibility. It has nothing to do with a lack of power on the parts of the Gods; the reason why they can't make something out of nothing is because "nothing" doesn't exist.

Even in the "Beginning", our Heathen myth tells us that there was a void, called Ginnungagap- which it describes as a "yawning gap", or chasm, which is precisely how some Greek myths describe it. The "yawning gap" from which all creation was to arise wasn't "nothing"- it was charged with the power of Wyrd, and in it slept all the potentials- the Mysteries- that were to arise. There was "something" from the very beginning, like a universal well of hidden seed-potentials, and now, as Fate has woven out, all of the worlds seen and unseen have appeared. Whether the universe is veiled in potential, or expressed in the nine worlds of Ygdrasil, "nothing" never exists. There's always "something" existing. The notion of "nothingness" cannot exist except as an abstract construction in human heads.

The Gods have their origin, just like everything else, from that primordial beginning, this well of being. The Gods, after shaping the worlds, shaped the first men and women. Notice I am saying "shaped"- not "created". The Gods didn't create the earth or the water or the materials from which all things were shaped; those things were there long before the Gods. Here's the great secret that resolves the war between theories of evolution and our myths: the Gods shaped pre-existing materials into all that you see.

Nature, as a whole, is "always there". It doesn't need a creator. One of the greatest differences between Pre-Christian philosophies and mythologies and Christian thinking is that the Pagans didn't think that nature had a creator. They did think that various natural orders, worlds, and beings were shaped by the Gods, that the Gods had a role to play in how and why certain places and beings existed the way they did, but the Gods didn't create nature. Nature had no creator and it didn't need one. Nature was perpetual, eternal. Nature might have gone through cycles, but it was always there, and the circle of nature had no beginning or end. From nature, which was often enough deified itself, came the Gods, and through Godly creativity, through the Godly shaping of natural elements, came mankind, and many other living beings.

So the Gods are our elder kin in the most literal sense of the word; they "came to be" out of the body of nature before mankind did, and they played a role in "bringing us to be" in the form we are now in.

If you look at the Heathen creation myth, you see that the Allfather and his two brothers found the trunks of two trees on the shore of a primordial ocean, and from those genetic materials, they created the first men and women. Allfather and his brothers didn't create the earth or the seas; the primordial materials from which the earth was lifted and the seas were run- the body of the giant Ymir- was around before the Gods. The Gods, through their actions, saw to it that the primordial "natural body" of Ymir was "divided" and torn apart, and placed into the order that we call "the world".

This is why humans are part God, part Giant. The physical "stuff" of our bodies is born straight out of nature; our flesh and blood is the product of the body of a Giant. The Earth Mother, herself a giantess who came into existence after Ymir, gave birth to those two trees from which human beings were "shaped" by the Gods. She is as much our mother as the Allfather is our father, shaper, and teacher.

So there you have it- natural materials are subjected to Godly creativity, and humans came to be, as we are now. If you (for some reason) want to see this story through the lens of scientific materialism, you can think of the Gods as hidden realities of whatever natural processes guided the evolution of humans from very natural materials, materials that had coalesced in the oceans of the primordial planet earth.

In my way of seeing, these Heathen beliefs do not run contrary to evolution- the reality is that nature is constantly sending forth countless streams of life, and nature is constantly in flux, always changing, always adapting, growing, living, dying- and every form that Nature births is undergoing great change. That's how Wyrd, the interconnected web of life, works. Evolution is a scientific expression of the fact of change.

Humans, like every other creature or thing- were “born” from the web of Wyrd, the body of nature, from ground and the waters.

It took the Gods, nature’s earlier and very powerful children, to create the causes for humankind to arise- and to bestow a special gift on us: the gift of divine imagination and spirit. Allfather shaped those two trees- masses of living matter- into a human form; you could say that he (thinking metaphorically) “guided” the process of growth and Fate, helped shape the natural process, and bestowed Spirit onto the finished product, thus “shaping” humans into their finished form.

I don't personally know any Heathens who think that the Gods shaped the two trees into men and women in the space of a few seconds or minutes- and indeed, the element of "time" is left out of the myth completely. Maybe their godly spell of shaping took billions of years to be "completed"; who knows? That is up to the individual who reads the myth. The point here is that the myth doesn't express itself in temporal terms- it is truly timeless, and speaking not only about what we might describe in later ages as a "physical, temporal process", but also a timeless reality. Regardless of how long it took or what mechanics went into the process, the myth's point is made: humans owe their existence partly to Godly artifice. THAT is the great truth of the story, which helps us to understand the dignity and value of human life (and all life), and helps orient us towards those who are our great-grandparents and holy kin: the Gods.

It cannot be repeated enough- the Allfather, in common with all the other Gods, did not “make” humans out of nothing- Wyrd, expressing itself in natural processes, simply organically birthed all things, all primordial elements, and the Gods added some guidance and further shaping to that, to make perfect the world order. We, as parts of that world-order, happen to be fortunate recipients of Godly tampering; with our special Godly endowments, we too can come to know the mysteries, know the timeless, and come to be like the Gods. We can certainly shape our world and create like them, though to a different degree.

Evolution is a natural reality. All beings, including humans, are changing over time- everything changes. Humans are “children of Earth and Starry Heaven”, as the ancient Mysteries said- in other words, born BOTH of natural processes, and of Godly hands. But we were not “created” in the sense that Christians think humans were “created”- we were not created out of the clay of an earth which was itself "created out of nothing" by the power of some God. The idea of "Creatio ex Nihilo", or Creation out of nothing, a doctrine that Christianity dearly holds onto, is by far one of the greatest absurdities to be found in their beliefs.

Being mortals means that the “earthly” aspect of our nature has to continue to flow with nature- death is a reality; our earthy and watery bodies have to keep changing under the influence of natural forces- and die. But our “starry” nature, our Godly nature, (our spirit or the Gift of Odin) does not and cannot “die” utterly. It moves on to halls beyond this world at death, and moves on to another destiny in accord with Wyrd.

In much the same manner that you could “create” a statue by carving it out of stone, you could say the Gods “created” us; you don’t really “create” the statue except in the most poetic sense of the word- the reality is that a sculptor “shapes” his or her creation out of the materials that were already there, or which nature herself has birthed.

Heathenry would never deny the scientific realities of change, nor the fact that humans are made of earth, water, and elemental matter. But Heathenry (at least in my neck of the woods) does accept that the reality of human shaping, evolution, and existence, has an "inner" side, which we gain access to through sacred mythology. In that mythical truth, the whole truth is found.

Domestic Cults, Land Spirits, and the Worship of House-Wights

It has been my experience that the old Heathen faith doesn't really become strong and clear in the hearts and minds of people who follow its ways until they join with others. When you work with a family or a kindred, or other people of like mind and faith, you experience a more primal and essential layer of ancestral religion.

In older times, there was no way to separate the realities of tribe and kin from Troth or the Elder Faith. This is because human groups, from families to tribes, are a reflection of the natural and sacred manner that humans are supposed to live. We are not solitary beings; we all feel the urge to gather with others, to take shelter with others, to share our joys and sorrows with others. The sacrifices and religious observances of the Heathen past were done largely in groups, entire families or communities coming together to worship. The religion re-affirmed their bonds to one another, and to the Holy Kindreds who are also related to us, but who dwell unseen.

"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.

It's not enough to think "well, I can't see or hear these beings, and they don't seem to affect me, so I won't worry about them." They do affect you, and you do affect them. The more conscious you are of this fact, the more aware you can become of the impact of these subtle realities on you and your own life. In blindness of the reality of these living beings, you can harm them, and they can harm you and yours. In awareness of them, and with respect, they can be the source of many blessings and much luck.

If we accept that the Land itself is filled with Land Wights, beings who naturally dwell and live in their own "way of being" and mostly unseen by us, We have to accept that our homes, which sit on the Land, must be affected by them. And this brings us directly to a point which was most crucial and time-honored by our Ancestors: the reality of Domestic Cults and the Worship of House-Wights and House-Spirits.

When human beings raise their homes in a place, they are not the first beings on the scene- Land Wights have usually been there for much longer. All natural phenomenon are guarded by wights, or are they homes of wights- streams, rivers, trees, hills, mountains, and the like. To take trees from a forest to build your home in ancient times was a matter of propitiating the Wights of those trees, and only taking prudently, only what you needed. Some trees were seen as sacred to such powerful wights, that they simply weren't touched. The Elder tree is a good example of this; as late as the 19th century, rural English folk wouldn't touch a living Elder, and only take her wood that had fallen. In times when the Elder had to be cut, a folk-charm was said to it, a charm that is worth repeating because of its implications:

"Old Gal, Give me of thy wood,
And I shall give you of mine,
When I grow into a tree."


The Goddess or female wight of the Elder was told, in no uncertain terms, that if it gave its wood, the cutter would actually return the favor in the future, when he or she died, was buried, and then "grew into a tree". You can take this two ways- when we die, our life-force leaves us and re-enters into the body of nature. We do increase the growth of things with our spent and donated life-force, which goes back into the land and sky and air and waters. But there's another way of taking this, a deeper and more serious one. This is a contract, a binding contract, in which the cutter probably originally expected to take from the Elder, but to be reborn as a tree-wight himself- and then to give his own tree over, to repay the skuld or the life-debt.

Though it is a little-known secret, there is a way to fulfill this contract without having to become reborn into the forest as a Tree-Wight, a technique that exempts a person without breaking the oath. To take acorns or tree-seeds and bathe them in your own blood, and then breathe into them to fill them with your life force and finally to "name" them after yourself, and plant them in the forest, allows "you" to grow into a tree, thus fulfilling the deal. After this, you may not be Wyrded to have to be bound to the forest, post-mortem.

The reason why I brought this "Elder charm" up is because it demonstrates, from deep within the folk-tradition, the undefeatable and primal idea of "reciprocal exchange". Even the peasants of England in the late centuries understood that they were in a two-way relationship with the wights of the trees. What the wights did for them, they would do back. These people were not blind to their sacred duties to the world around them. Incidentally, by planting new trees in repayment, a person would be balancing the debt or skuld of taking. Either way, these people were not willing to take more than they were prepared to give back.

When a home is raised in a place, humans have to befriend the wights or spirits of that place, or they cannot live there with luck and certainty. Wights are capable of causing accidents, nightmares, bad luck, disease, and other mayhems against beings that they don't want near them. When a house is built and inhabited, the nearest wights of that place, assuming that they accept the new human inhabitants, have little choice but to see and explore the house that was built. They peer into the realities of human life, and watch. They feel the effects of the human settlement on themselves and on their existence.

One shouldn't assume that spirits or wights "see" us just like we see each other and our surroundings- they do dwell in another "way", but it's clear that what we do, think, and say affects them on some level, and that they perceive it in their own manner. I believe that basic, powerful forces like fire "appear" to wights similar to how it appears to us; perhaps they perceive it as a bright power of some kind, but I know they "see" it, because nearly all ancient rituals of Indo-European source require sacred fires of some kind. There is a notion that fires act as "beacons" for spiritual powers.

I think that human emotions must "appear" to wights in ways, and affect their own emotional states, in much the same way the emotional states of other humans affect ours. When we damage the environment in which wights dwell, folklore clearly states that they perceive the damage, and react badly. In the Ballad of Tam Lin, Janet is able to summon Tam Lin by destroying plant life in the area he haunts- Tam Lin was forced to come to the site of the violation and appear.

At any rate, in most cases, over time, the wights "bond" with the house and the people who live there, becoming house wights. In Germanic countries, they were called Husinga or (individually) a Husing, a tomt, tompt, or tomtekarl. Some say that the spirits that live in the lands around the house were called tatermen, and were symbolized by little straw dolls or poppets made to be their magical images. The "scarecrow" idea is linked to this by some.

When people come to a place, so do their ancestral wights and powers, who also affect the native wights. If the wights have accepted this arrangement, they begin to work actively in the lives of the people who belong to that settlement or home. If the wights do not accept it, troubles begin.

Before I move into discussing the realities of domestic cults to wights, I should say a few words about human relationships to Land Wights and other spirits. In the grand scheme of things, we can easily see how the Gods themselves are on the "top" of the Tree of reality- the mightiest wights themselves dwell in their own worlds, and travel through this one often. In the web of Wyrd, the Gods are also affected by humans, and they affect us. We are all of us- Godly wight, land wight, or human- in the same great web of interactive reality.

All of the Nine Worlds have wights that inhabit them- numberless wights and intelligences and sentient beings. That means that this world, and this Land upon which we live, also has wights, as I have said. As a side-note, human beings are also considered "wights", but for the purposes of this conversation I am using the term "wight" to refer to beings unseen.

Wights may have powers or abilities that humans lack, and some ancient land wights can be very powerful or wise. But overall, land wights occupy a similar "place" in the grand scheme of things to human beings. They are not as powerful as Gods, and though they may live a long time, I do not think that they remain around forever. I know that the wight of an ancient tree will have been there as long as the tree lives, but after the death of its home, the wight moves on to a new kind of existence, perhaps attaching itself to a newly growing tree. The point is that wights have their own "cycles of life" similar to humans, though some seem to be very ancient.

Land wights and house wights are kin to humans, in many ways. They are another population of sentient beings that share our world, and we spring from the same source, the same web of life. The same Gods that preside over the human world also act as "chief powers" over the wights of any world. The Allfather who bestowed spirit and shape on the first humans also shaped the existence of land wights.

There is more than one reason why we should seek positive relationships with wights. Sure, they can make our lives miserable, and harm us if we anger them or refuse to acknowledge them, but fear is not the true basis of our relationship. When two beings of any kind interact, they affect one another. When humans drink in sacrifices with the Gods, for instance, we take something of their Godly essence into ourselves, thus increasing our spiritual power, and the Gods merge with us in a mysterious manner, and are likewise affected by us. The benefit to humans is immense- we are increased because the spiritual force of the Gods is so much greater than ours, and the Gods gain an experience of us that communicates something to them.

When a land wight or a house wight "communes" with humans in such a way, it too, is seemingly increased or benefited. It gains some insight or some gift from the communion. Whatever it is that Land Wights "receive" from interacting with humans, I know that they seek it out, come to appreciate it, and to desire it. Humans who commune with them literally allow them to experience the world in the way humans experience it, and so I suppose the wights gain new perspectives that allow them to grow in their own mysterious ways. I know that humans benefit as well, from friendship with the wights.

At heart, the entire point of communion with wights is recognition. We have a duty to recognize these beings, to affirm their existence, and tell them that we know them and accept them. We have a duty to ask them to accept us- this is a sacred reciprocal exchange between the world that is seen and the unseen world. It is a noble form of respect on the parts of humans for their unseen fellows. It is a demonstration, on the parts of humans, that they recognize that they are not alone in this world, and that this world does not belong only to them. It is the heart and soul of sacred ecology.

Earlier, I talked about how the Old Religions could not be separated from group observance, and how they lived as an inseparable part of family and clan or tribal life. It is true that Asatru or Heathenry really becomes a powerful reality in your life when you stand with others and worship. Even if it was powerful before, when you worshipped alone, it becomes a hundred times that with others. This is because human life and human spirituality is always a matter of relationship between humans, and between humans and non-humans, including spirits and Gods. This relationship is the very core of the Old Faiths.

To this I must now add that there is another "level" of experience, and that is the level of the Domestic Cult. A tribe may live in a land, and their worship brings together all the people and re-affirms their bond with the powers of that land and with each other. In just this manner, a family is like a tribe, and the family's home is like their land. The home is the sacred stead of the family, its "Odal Enclosure", the sacred, enclosed space in which the ancestral powers of the family are allowed to dwell and make new life, and experience frith or harmonious belonging. The family is a small reflection of the greater group of mankind, and the home is a reflection of the homeland.

Thus, all homes are sacred. They are sacred enclosures, just like a Hof or a Sacrifice-Stead in which worship takes place is sacred. And like the world "outside" the home has its own powers, the home's inner world has powers, powers that the dwellers in the home must befriend, recognize, and worship.

In ancient times, the sacredness of a family's living space was a universally held concept. All Indo-European societies took this very seriously, from Celtia and Germania down to Greece and Rome. The religious observances that took place daily in the home were led mostly by the male head of the family in Rome, who was called Paterfamilias and who was essentially the "Pontifex Maximus" or the High Priest of his family's religious life. Outside of the home, in the City of Rome itself, there was a Pontifex Maximus who presided over the cult-rites that were done on behalf of all the people of the city, but in the home, in that microcosm, the father of the family was priest.

This same pattern seems to have been found in all Indo European societies. In Germanic society, a chieftain or local elder was the leader of community rites, but in the home, a member of the family led everyone in religious rites. It's just as likely that women headed these rites in the home as men, considering the immense power that the Huswyf, the Husfrowe or the Housewife had over the house in Germanic society. She did, after all, hold the keys to the house, and could decide who was welcome there and who wasn't.

The Domestic Cult- the sacred rites done for the wights who dwell in each home or living space, is a necessary thing to establish if you are a Heathen and you have your own home. Like communal religion, worship and respect for the house-spirit is a basic tenet of ancient and modern Heathenry. The worship given to Land Wights and House Wights is partly the same, yet partly different from the worship given to the Gods. Bear in mind that "worship" really means "to give worth to"- you can communicate to any wight how worthy you believe it to be, and that counts as "worship". When you have a strong and steady relationship with your house spirit, you can trust that your house will be safer and more harmonious than it was before, and it will receive many blessings.

House wights, since time immemorial, have been worshipped with offerings of food and drink. They have also been worshipped around a central place in the home, usually the hearth. Whatever space or room is your "main" room, the place where you spend most of your time, or the "center" of your house, is the proper place for honoring house wights. There's no reason to wonder whether or not your house "has" a house wight- if your house was built long before you got there, it has one or more. They dwelled in the land on or near the building site, and after a point, were attracted there and set up their own homes, co-existing with the space occupied by the house.

* * *

When we look to folklore for guidance, we see many vibrant images and powerful stories of the human relationship with the spirits of their homes. The stories of the spirits called "brownies" from England, Scotland, and Northwestern Europe are clear manifestations in lore of wights that entered into relationships with humans, and worked for them in their homes and on their farms, in exchange for gifts of food and recognition. As a bit of trivia, the fact that the little brown cakes that we call "brownies" are called "brownies" in the first place is because of these spirits- the little cakes and bowls of milk left out at night to feed the house-spirit actually took on the name of the spirit- a brownie.

With linguistic variation, "brownie" becomes "bodach" in the Scottish Highlands, and "fenodoree" on the Isle of Man, and all refer to house guardian spirits. Fairy-type folklore can teach us something important about the human relationship to these beings. If offended, these beings became "boggarts", and became harmful to the human inhabitants of their places of dwelling. This is likely a reflection of the idea that wights can be harmful if offended or not appeased. Brownies specialized in doing house-work and protecting the home, and milk was typically left out for them, as well as bread or cakes- but there was an almost universal warning included. Brownies could never be offered a reward for its services or its labors on behalf of the home.

If they were offered a reward, they would usually flee or become harmful. This taboo seems odd, but the old folklore says that these beings were too free-spirited to be "bound" to humans through the acceptance of payment. It seems that they would accept praise and they would take the offerings left out, but if the humans said "Take this in exchange for what you have done for us", the spirit balked at the bond that accepting such a gift would entail.

Our own lore says it clearly: "A gift demands a gift". There is a bond created between two people who give gifts to each other. There is an expectation that follows this sacred act. The house-spirit desires communion, recognition and participation with human beings, but it doesn't desire to be bound as a servant. It is enough to leave gifts for the wight or spirit, which it will accept, and to thank the spirit through recognizing its presence and praising its good deeds for the home, but to offer it a reward for this is something that the wise should not do. The offerings of food and milk given to the house-wight are not a "reward" any more than a blot or sacrifice to the Gods or Ancestors is a reward to them for being Gods or Ancestors. It is an expression of connection with them, a ritual of recognition and communion.

As an aside, the one offered reward that drove house-spirits away more than any other was clothing. To offer a brownie or house-spirit clothing as a reward would drive it way, infallibly. It is also worth noting that brownies and other types of house-guardians and spirits hate Christian religious symbols. I don't expect my fellow Heathens to have such things in their houses, but those who do can be certain that the house-wights have long since departed.


I will close this letter with an account of my personal experiences with house-wights. My family recently moved into an extraordinary new place, and while conversing with my Fylgja the other day, she informed me that we had not fulfilled our duties to the house-wight fast enough. She affirmed that we indeed had a spirit in our house, and that my wife and child were in danger from it, because it was not yet honored by us. Accidents had happened, before, minor things, but accidents nonetheless. That very day, another accident occured, and I realized that I had to move a bit faster than I was planning.

Before my hearth, I put out one of the small cakes that my wife had baked a few days before, and a bowl of milk, and using the Algiz-galdor, I induced a condition by which I could communicate with wights. I walked around the house, calling to the house-wight, and asked it to come to the hearth so that I could honor it. I didn't have to wait long; its tangible otherworldly presence was hanging over my mantle and fireplace very quickly. I gave it the offerings, and told it who we were, my family and I, and I recognized it as existing as the first inhabitant of this place, this home that means so much to us.

I told it that we would always dedicate any occassion of house-cleaning to it; this is very important, because house-wights folklorically seem to really love it when mortals keep neat houses, and clean house. This goes back to the idea of the "Ryta" or the "Right Order" of the cosmos being reflected even in our living places. I told it that we would leave out these offerings pretty regularly, and asked that it protect us and our home. I concluded by invoking the Gods, and, through my own mind and body, mediating the blessings of the High Thunderer and the All-Father onto the spirit of the house. They too, can receive blessings.

The simple act of meaningfully placing out offerings of milk and cakes is by itself a powerful act, and enough to please wights. My wife, later that day, placed out some cookies for it. Later, those offerings were gathered and carried to the tree behind our house, where we lay out all offerings to return into the ground. This formal act of "establishment" was successful- I could tell that the house-wight was pleased, and the atmosphere of the house has been quite lighter and more pleased ever since.

The Death of Innocents: Heathen Consolation in the Face of Tragedy

I've had quite a heavy heart ever since I heard of the killings on the campus of Virginia Tech. Such a tragedy forces everyone to reconsider everything they think about the world and this life. As a father who loves his own child more than anything in the world, I see the faces of my own daughter in the faces of those slain in this senseless massacre.

I'm a man of faith, and a Godi to my own family and religious community. I'm a Seid-worker who searches the depths of his soul and the horizons of this world for meaning. Despite what anyone says, faith is never an easy road to walk through life. You may be very comfortable with what you believe; you may spend a lot of money or time on it; you may show your devotion in a dozen ways, but faith- real faith- is not easy.

I believe, like my ancestors before me, that we are all descendants of the Allfather, and his family of Gods. I believe that we are also sprung from great natural powers, like the great Earth below us. I believe that the bonds of family, kin, and community should be foremost in our lives, because I don't think that human spirituality, morality, or ethics actually become real things until we fulfill them on behalf of those we love. Heathenry becomes a deep part of us when we look into the eyes of the people that we are experiencing it with, and living it with.

Still, at the end of the day, our modern world presents us with many distractions and reasons to doubt our own minds. Are we living well? Are we worthy of this life? Are we fulfilling our potentials? I have faith that a person lives well who lives honestly and who lives as much as they can for others. I have faith that we are worthy to be where we are, because Wyrd or Fate spun us onto these paths, for a reason. I have faith that we encounter what we need to encounter to bring our potentials to perfect fruition. Despite the difficulties that people of faith must encounter, I think that these difficulties are challenges that will make us stronger, and eventually whole.

I can't even begin to imagine what it must be like to lose a child in such a cruel way. To think that a hallowed place of learning could be violated with innocent blood; to think that people- the sons and daughters of parents just like me- could want to better themselves through education, and be sitting in a classroom, only to meet their deaths.

There's no words that can block the rushing river of grief that now wends its way through the lives of countless people, and no words that can make the rest of us feel safe with regard to our own children and our own family members. More than that, no religious belief will make us feel 100% about these events.

I can tell you what I believe, but it won't matter; they are just words. I could say that the man who did this was consumed by the natural and dangerous forces lurking in all of us; I can say that his feeling of alienation and his mental illnesses combined to break him free of the bonds of decency, affection, sanity, and love, and sent him rushing out to collide with the holy life-houses of other people, destroying them as he went. Like the giants who will one day destroy the world, giantish powers in this wretched man destroyed 32 worlds- 32 people- and finally himself.

What comfort does the Heathen faith offer us? What reason does it give for things like this happening? There are many reasons, but even the best-explained reason won't stop the grief. Still I am compelled to state what I must say: when we lose connection with one another, when we lose Frith, when people have a hard time finding the "place where they belong", these sorts of atrocities can happen.

In Frith, in good, rightful union with your family, friends, the Gods, and the land beneath you, you are safe. You have immense power for living, and a neverending source of sanity. I have a family that I love and who love me back. I have friends and a religious community that extend the same affection. Daily I have love, acceptance, and a sense of "being in place" re-affirmed, in many ways. In this great peace, I can easily grasp the value of human life, the value of friendship, and the value of religion.

The dangerous forces that live in me cannot overwhelm the Godly walls built in me, and maintained through this peace. The Gods are daily invited into my life to keep this peace holy and strong; the walls in me that protect my own mind and life are made red and fresh with the pourings from sacrifices, and the Gods live here. If you belong to a Kindred, or if you have a powerful relationship with the Gods, you have the same sort of protection, the same sort of stability. What's important to keep in mind is that anyone can have these things- Frith is possible for any person who can open themselves up to others and be unafraid to love and be loyal.

What did the murderer of these innocents have? It's clear from what has been announced that he was practically friendless, isolated, and troubled. I already know that he was not Asatru, not true to the Gods, nor consciously in their fellowship. He was an open, unprotected field, an unwarded home, an unguarded keep. Terrible powers were allowed to multiply and place their own cruel, oafish thrones and tables up in the hall of his inner self. With no support from friends or from spiritual powers, he had no place to go, no help to fall back onto, when the pains and defeats of life pressed down on him.

Many people in his situation would just take their own lives. But deep in us lurk forces that are infintely more savage than that. Fiery things of rage made plunder of his sanity and sent him to destruction, dragging down innocents with him. He couldn't see other lives as valuable; he was no father, so he could never have seen what I have seen- the vision of love in the face of a child, and the realization that this same love has been seen in the face of every child by other parents.

So the tragedy was woven, and it came to pass. This is the Wolf-Age, the last age of the world. Such sad things are to be expected, and doubly so in a world that has forsaken bonds of kindred and community, in exchange for the selfish life of the "new individual", who lives for nothing but himself and his own gain.

What comfort can my own faith offer me and to all people (for indeed, all are affected by this tragedy)? The comfort of knowing that what is good, noble, and dear will never be lost forever. 32 innocent souls are now walking the ghost-roads, the hel-way into the deep, restful realm below. Across the dividing line between life and death, I think they will rejoin with those who have gone before. I think that when this age is over, and a new age begins, they will live again. The Underworld of the dead may be a fearful subject to many, but in reality, it is the repository of all our hopes. There, safe in that deep place, rest the seeds of nobility, valor, and hope for a new world. In the web of Wyrd, nothing is ever lost.

We must not allow the news of this horror to go unheeded- we have to let it remind us to guard against our own corruption. We have to let it remind us to cherish our days and nights with our families and loved ones, because they can be slain at any time. Only our bonds of honor, trust, and love can build a bridge over death, and help us to never lose them. But that's also a matter of faith- and faith is a test in and of itself.

Can you trust the ancients? Do you trust that they knew what they were talking about? Balder the Beautiful was sent cruelly to the Underworld, in the prime of his long life, young and cherished. I've seen 32 Balders fall and go below, and I've seen many families, many parents, weeping and raging like Odin and Frigg wept and raged for their son. I've also heard the Seeress tell of a new world that will come when this one passes away, in which Balder rises again, returns from the deeps of the Underworld, to be in the daylight of the world again, and to be among his kin. I think the ancients were onto something with this; I don't think they made it up out of idleness, nor because they were just trying to comfort themselves.

Go watch the world die in winter, and then see the same myth take place when the green returns. It's okay to weep; the Gods themselves wept, bitterly. That's another necessary part of our lives and our Fate. Our ancestors had no problem telling stories of wights as Mighty as the Allfather and his Wife going through the pain of loss- emotion is not merely a human attribute. All beings in the nine worlds must feel pain and joy. What makes the Gods divine is their great wisdom in the face of pain and joy. We can have some of that wisdom, if we have faith that the story of our lives extends beyond the boundaries of life and death as we see them.

It's not hard to have Faith in the existence of the Gods themselves, or even spirits, when you experience them daily; but its harder to have faith, sometimes, with the idea that life is, ultimately, on the side of life. But that's just the faith I have. If I'm wrong, then I won't be around to regret it after I meet my own death, and I'll live a life of joy in the meantime. I invite everyone to do the same.

May the Allfather bless the slain and appear to them now in whatever form they need to see, to guide them to a restful place across the dividing line between this world and the other worlds. May they have peace, and new life one day.

Fate

Would you live backwards in time? That's not possible. How many events and layers of action have come before you, resulting in all that you see and think and feel? You don't ever lift your hand or speak a word without those previous things influencing you. You have to go forward, and you are forever a product of the ancient, immense, and awesome matrix that the ancients called the "fateful layers" of motion and action that pre-exist you.

Nothing that you feel that you "create" or "decide" on this day is unique to this day; its true beginning was ages ago; you acted as a final piece of the chain of causation that allowed it to come to be. And this process isn't merely linear; countless other forces, all existing at the same time as any "chain of causality" that you may identify, also exert their influence. You may want to consider these creations and decisions that you experience to be "yours", but in reality, they belong to the whole world, and to Fate.

A woman picked up a full spindle, and holding on to the end of the thread, she let it fall. It fell and spun quickly as it unravelled.

Her decision to pick it up and drop it, that is like the great layers of Fate that have come before all actions. The whirring of that spindle, and the unwinding thread, that is the motion of the seasons and all of the mighty activities of nature. Without She who held the spindle originally, the spindle and thread would not be spinning. Nothing is apart from the great motion of all reality, and the hand of the weaver, and her mysterious intentions, stands behind it all.

What happens eventually? The spindle is freed, and comes to rest. The thread is all released, and the spindle is pristine and bare. Should the owner of the spindle choose, she could pick it all up, re-wind the thread around the spindle, and let it fall again. Or if she likes, she could leave it as it lies. The point is freedom- her strange intentions were followed by necessary motions, the desperate spinning led gradually to freedom.

Perhaps a tiny spider on the spindle felt the motion and came to wonder at its situation- perhaps it came to identify itself in terms of spinning, of changing, of rushing motion, all from the spindle and thread unwinding.

The spider couldn't stop the spinning; it may have felt helpless. It couldn't understand what had caused the spinning in the first place, and it may have felt wonder and fear. However, no matter what it felt, freedom was inevitable.

Unable to explain or control its situation, yet doomed to the culmination of freedom- we could learn a lot from that spider on the spindle.

So don't live backwards in time. The Ancient Layers of Fate have long ago put themselves in place- She put them in place, She wove them there. From them, all things have arisen. Things arising and falling away, it's just the spin of necessity. You aren't really separate from that spin- accept this, and you accept your place in the great weave of things. Do not seek for false freedom in things born of the spin; your thoughts and feelings and actions are parts of a greater whole, and while they inevitably move towards the consummation of the weave of Fate, they are not in and of themselves free to ignore the spin nor act against it.

The freedom you want is not some freedom of choice or motion, but a realization of what is real in you, and an understanding of the meaning of all these things you experience. Everyone eventually gets around to asking the deepest of questions- what is my life? What is Fate? Do I choose things or do choices simply happen through me?

Why do you think this is? Because the system of Fate is unravelling, and at one point, the parts of it which think and which are aware- such as human beings- all must ask those things. The growth of awareness, of curiosity, of introspection and "looking within", is a sign of the approach of freedom, of the approaching end of this cycle of spinning. When awareness grows more pure and learns to look within itself, the weave is getting threadbare.

At this point, do not think that you can fail- you need no "freedom of choice" to reach the final and true freedom. If you seek to do what you cannot do, that is, to exempt yourself from the great weaving that is the ground of your being, and award yourself with powers of "free and independant choice" that you do not and cannot have, you will blind yourself to what is real.

You will trade in the mountain of fullness and wisdom for a tiny stone, and you will worship the stone and all the grandiose powers you attribute to it, instead of joining consciously with the cool, dark eternity of the mountain. Join with the mountain, and you will discover that "things are not happening to you" or even "around you"- you will find that things are you happening.

"Things", such as events, decisions, choices, storms, accidents, inventions, wonders, dreams- all are reality itself happening; they are Fate occuring, and you are not at all separate from that great and holy occurence. How could you be? Your true "self", your true "body", they are larger and more involved with what you have called "the world" than you could ever imagine. Give yourself to your Self, and see.

But perhaps that's still not enough for you. You don't want that; you want to be in charge of your own little part of reality, all outside of Fate's grasp. You and the little stone you love so much can take on the whole world, or ignore it if you want, and you don't need or want some big force influencing you!

When you look again, later, you will see that the stone has turned to sand, or a drop of water, and vanished. The mountain, however, will always be there, and was even below your feet while you held your stone. The freedom you want is only found in understanding this.

One day, in the darkness and light of the great culmination of the world, you will understand it; you will be it. but you needn't wait till the culmination to understand or to merge with the great mystery of Fate's spinning- you can understand and join it here and now. Why should you? Because peace follows this understanding and this wise union.

One day, this world will be unwoven, this world and every other. What will happen then? I will tell you: She will pick up the thread and spindle, and set it spinning again. If you waited too long and let the truth finally find you at the end of all things, She'll send you spinning again. If you were wise to her mysteries before the spinning was up, then no spinning can ever daze you again.

The Creation Vision of the Heathens

Our ancestors saw a vision of the arising of the creator from the darkest of beginnings.

In the massive and infinite void of Ginnungagap, that sublime and ancient mystery that was the open space of all potential, timelessly charged with the root-powers of Wyrd, consciousness and form, there arose the first giant life-powers, and the shape of the cow Audhumla. From Audhumla's udders flowed the hot streams of life-sustaining milk that nourished the primal life-forms, and from her ceaselessly activity of exploration and motion arose the bright face of the first God.

Light filled the darkness of the beginning from his face and body, and his marriage to maidens who arose from the first living beings brought forth his grandsons: Odin, Vili, and Ve. In that primordial trinity, we see the six eyes and six hands of the creator-spirit, the Allfather; we see the shape of He who was the penultimate embodiment of the creative power of Wyrd.

At the hands of the Allfather and his brothers was the primal mass of living matter divided and arranged into the many worlds; at their will the plants grew, waters flowed, mountains were raised, clouds went to fill the airs, and many wights knew their birth. Their greatest act of creation was in their shaping of mankind: as Wyrd moved them, they bestowed their beauty, hue, vitality, and spirit onto the first men and women, who were given form from the primal forms of two trees which were growing in the first world. From the earth, the primal, giant goddess earth below, did they grow. Into the creative hands of the Allfather and his brothers did they pass, to arise as mankind. From two divine sources do all human beings descend, and this true heritage is central to understanding the dignity of the human being.

This creation, this world, and all others, are acts of majesty, acts of creativity, rooted in the provedential unfolding of Wyrd, established in the Ur-Law, the primordial layers of reality, and executed in manifestation by the six hands of the bright trinity of the Gods.

In this final age of the world, the beauty of the creation, the profound arising of eternal Wyrd, is not dimmed. It is still there for those who understand the sacred dimension of nature and reality. In this age of spiritual dullness, humans witlessly fall into patterns of belief that cause a certain blindness to the sacred. Many have come to accept lesser myths that have long ago lost their power to awaken the human mind to the sacredness of life; others have accepted the mechanical, cold and empirical explanations of scientists who are themselves blind to the sacred. If this final age can be said to be in a state of degeneration, it is only in the minds of humans that this degeneracy is found, in the forgetful and dull condition of mind that reveals the faded vision that people miscall their lives.

For so long we have wandered amid trees and grasses, winds and rains, all without feeling and perceiving the sacredness of those events. For too long we have been taught to look upon the forces of nature as "mundane", "things of the world", and lacking in sacred dimension, when the truth is this: these things manifest the sacred in the most tangible way.

The eyes of human beings have searched the distant heavens seeking a hint of a faraway paradise, without seeing the sacredness spread out before them, and the divine spirit living inside them.

Can we re-awaken this awareness of the sacred? If one person can, surely everyone can- but will they? Has Wyrd the mighty, the weaving of Fate, ordained that we should? While I cannot say for certain, I feel that perhaps the answer is no. In the last age of the world, the vision of sacredness may be only for a few. But I do know what all can do- all can realize that life must be sacred, by reason of their ability to know the value they place on their own lives and the lives of their loved ones. We can still appreciate the regenerative power of nature that we all feel, when we go for long walks amid forests or streams, or when we see a scene that evokes a reaction of awe from deep within, like a burning sunset or a gem-like moon in the night.

What humans need more than anything is a sense of companionship and relationship with one another, and with the natural world, such that they comprehend their duties to their fellow man and the common bulk of life, alongside which they forever walk. That sense of relationship can and should extend beyond what can easily be seen, and into the reaches of the other worlds, where our first and greatest ancestors dwell and watch over us- Odin and his brothers, and all the sacred kindreds, are still alive and well, carrying out the timeless work that Wyrd has ordained for them. They still feel care and love for the descendants of the first humans that they bestowed their holy gifts upon, for those gifts have been passed down to each of us.

We must learn to recognize their godly work in Nature, and understand that they are preparing for the consummation of the age. All that they do, all their preparations involve us and all that live. We are partners in this work, whether we intend to be or not. The Gods do care for mankind; they care for all life, for they are not independant of life- their Fate is tied to ours, as ours is tied to theirs. This is the teaching of sacred ecology, and the vision of the Heathens.

The message is a simple one: Do not fear. You have a task, a sacred purpose, and you are not walking alone in the web of Wyrd. You are of Godly ancestry, and you will take your place in this world, and the world that is to come, for Wyrd holds all fast to a purpose. In the interim, before Fate is revealed fully, you are experiencing the numinous life that was passed down to you from the Gods through your ancestors. Enjoy it; recognize it; celebrate it; protect it, and protect others. This is the universal call to sacred participation in Wyrd that is the birthright of each human being.

Jesus, Buddha, and Asatru: A Comparison

In the modern world, isolation is not a luxury that anyone can afford anymore. To be honest, I don't think "isolation" is something that you can find, no matter where you look- if we believe in Wyrd, then we must admit that there's no such thing as isolation- no matter where you live, where you go, what you think or do, you affect the world, and are in turn affected by it. No man or woman is an island. We can dream of the "good old days" when our ancestors lived off on their own lonely stretches of coast or their own forests, safe with one another, helping to support one another, and living in the peace and frith of our communal ideal, but such a dream may only exist in our heads. In the "old days", people were no less bound up in each other's fate and well-being as they are now.

Even people living distantly from one another affected one another; they still do. The noble men and women who left the politics on the Scandinavian mainland for the peace of Iceland's shores found that they couldn't leave the mainland behind at all- eventually, politics and religious conversion from the mainland found them.

Since we do not and cannot live in isolation, we have to be aware of what other people in the world think and believe. Their thoughts and beliefs will affect us, just as ours will affect them. Comparative religion and religious dialogue is good for this- it helps us to situate other people in our heads, helps us to understand what they think, and by comparison and contrast, we get a clearer picture of what we think. I'm sure they get the same gift of clarity from the contrast.

For this article, I wanted to compare three religions- Christianity, Buddhism, and Asatru. The real point of this article is to demonstrate the clear differences between two of the world's largest "revealed" religions (Christianity and Buddhism) and Asatru, which is an organic faith that lacks any historical founder. It is interesting to note the "organic" seeming elements of Buddhism and how there are clear "marks" of similarity between Buddhism and Asatru- but this can't be surprising, considering Buddha himself grew up in a Polytheistic and animistic Brahmanic religious world, among Vedic peoples who were of Indo-European extraction like our ancestors in Northern Europe.

Buddha certainly would have known of the Thunder-God who slew giant monsters and defended the world with his powerful thunder-weapon; he simply wouldn't have called him "Thor" or "Thonoraz"- he would have called him "Indra". As a side note, one of Indra's names- PARJANYA, comes from the same Proto-root "PERKWAWNOS", which refers to the "divine striker"- we get our word "percussion" from this root, and the names "PERKUNAS" and "PERKONS", and PYERUN, names by which the Thunder-God was known in Northern and Eastern Europe, also come from that root. The ancient idea of the Thunder-God fighting and killing a world-threatening dragon or serpent (such as Thor fighting the Midgard Serpent) is captured in Indra's mythical defeat of a great dragon. Interestingly, all of these Thunder Gods had the oak tree as their sacred tree, and the clearly related Proto Indo-European root word *PERKWU means "oak".

Buddha may not have died a worshipper of the Gods, for he gave up worshipping them after his "enlightenment", but he was born a worshipper, born among the warrior caste to a noble family who worshipped the same Gods that the Indo-European peoples across the map worshipped.

Buddhism and Asatru have little in common on the moral level, but it is a fact that Buddhism was the brainchild of a man who was of the Arya people, a cousin Indo-European people who invaded and settled in Northern India.

Buddhism's metaphysical structure still has undeniable Indo-European mystical elements- aside from the existence of Gods in the various Buddhist heavens, (Indra, the Thunder God, is still believed to be a "Dharma protector" or a protector of Buddhism today- yes, in Buddhist belief, the Thunder God actually converted to Buddhism!) the Buddhist cosmology has a "sacred mountain" (Mount Meru) that stands at the center of the cosmos or world, with hells or underworlds at its roots, heavens on its top, and the "continents" that make up this world of humans and animals around its middle. This is easily compared to other related Indo-European ideas of a "cosmic axis", such as the World-Tree of our own ancestors.

As many of the ancient Indo-Europeans believed in the possibility of rebirth, so the Vedic Arya peoples certainly came to believe it, and Buddha believed it. Buddha pretty much departed from most of the other "central" tenets and worldview-features of his people, however. His religion and philosophy was centered around a path of great introspection and meditation, and had world-renouncing or the monastic life as an important ideal. He ditched any notion of "duty" to caste or clan or kin, and instead taught detatchment from such "vain" social ideas.

He also taught complete non-violence, which was a luxury our ancestors in Europe simply couldn't afford. Nor could they (or would they) give up their duties to their clan and kin, or do as Buddha did and decide that the Gods weren't worth praying to.

Though Buddha himself believed Gods existed, he didn't think they could help humans achieve enlightenment or lasting happiness, so it wasn't required that any Buddhist disciple believe in them. To this day, many Buddhists are non-theists, agnostics, or atheists of various stripes, and many people are attracted to Buddhism today because it doesn't require them to believe in a God or Gods.

Now I shall compare these three religions. Asatru is my specialty, so I am able to give a few more details on it, though I think my characterization of the stances of these three faiths is more than adequate. Naturally, I think that Asatru has a better balance of beliefs than either Christianity or Buddhism.

Asatru gives us a grounding in the fellowship of our fellow man, in ancestral troth with the Gods, and in the sacredness of this world, where Christianity carries a disbelief in the Gods and a palpable dislike of this world on its shoulders, and Buddhism is a bit abstract and undefined when called on to name a clear position on these matters of substance.

Asatru gives a social, religious, and mythical structure that doesn't go too far into invading people's natural freedom and creativity, like Christianity's structure certainly does, while Buddhism seems to wander as far from "structures" of thinking as it can. Asatru shares a vision of the interdependance of all things, like Buddhism does, but Buddhism fails to offer back a solid basis for human belief and life, preferring to refrain from such speech and stay with "emptiness".

This all goes back to Buddhism's lack of belief in any sort of "inherent" existance for anything, and its skeptical need to refrain from commenting on things. For many people, that's a comfort. In the most esoteric strains of Asatruar speculation- strains not agreed upon at all (or even recognized) by all Asatruar, there is something to be said for the ultimate essence of humans and other beings existing "free" from everyday labels or limitations- but this is far from an everyday focus for Asatru, as I am sure it was not for the ancestors.

Lack of inherent existence is a fine enough idea, deep enough for esotericists, but most Asatruar need more, and we aren't afraid of the fact of our belief. Maybe (if you're Buddhist) you'll think this is a sign that we are part of the "unwashed, unenlightened masses"- Barbarians in the typical sense of the word. You'd be wrong, but this isn't the place to explain why. I can only quote a great mystic from Germania's later centuries, who said it all with a simple quote that captures the spirit of our cause:

"The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it."

Now on to our comparisons.


The Cross, the Prayer-Wheel, and the Hammer

Jesus was a theist; Buddha an agnostic. Asatruar are polytheists. Jesus believed humans were creatures of God; Buddha did not speculate, and Asatruar believe that all humans are descendants of the Gods.

Jesus taught of a single world corrupted by sin, which is passing away soon to be perfected by God; Buddha taught that the natural world was neutral and indifferent to such labels as "fallen" and "sinful", and that all forces were naturally arisen without the need for any creator, and dependant on one another. Asatru accepts an animistic vision of life in which all powers and forces in existance, animate or inanimate, are sacred and interdependant on one another, and dwelling in a great "web" of relationship through which they affect one another. The outcomes and effects of the forces combining in this web is referred to as "Wyrd", and it is a very central religious and philosophical concept.

Jesus taught the reality of sin against a holy God; Buddha taught a method--the Four Noble Truths/Eightfold Path--to free people of the experience of suffering in this world. Asatru teaches of an over-arching sacred cosmic order that mankind has a place in, an order within which mankind finds his place and a duty or purpose to fulfill. violating that order and failing in those duties, which includes a universal duty to help preserve the safety and well-being of society and of fellow men and women, is wrong or evil action.

Jesus taught resurrection; Buddha taught repeated rebirth (and a way to escape it). Asatru teaches, in common with all Indo-European Paganism, of rest in various "worlds" beyond this one for the dead, including an Underworld where most of the dead go, and a belief that after the current universe-order comes to an end, it will be regenerated and all of the dead will be born again into the new world, to live again. A few spiritually adept, brave, or insightful people find another fate after death, which some believe puts them in a condition of either freedom from these cycles of life, death, and regeneration with the cosmos, or in a state of higher conscious participation with that cycle.

Many Asatruar also believe that the spiritual power and other qualities of a person can be reborn among their descendants, and some ancient lore suggests that certain people are reborn themselves, to live many times within the same universal cycle.

Jesus called people to follow him to find forgiveness and eternal life. Buddha gave the Dharma, refused worship, and never claimed any knowledge of God. He instead offered nirvana (the "blowing out" or extinguishing of delusions that caused attachment, craving, and suffering). Asatru offers the goal of "Frith", which is a powerful sense of lasting peace which comes from discovering "one's place" or "where one belongs", among friends, family, kin, and within the body of nature itself. This ideal requires that people make effort for the good of those to whom they belong, for the land upon which they live, and to endure all things that Wyrd or Fate deals out to them with courage as far as they are able. There are no rewards promised either in this world or the afterlife for virtuous behavior; virtue is seen as its own reward to the noble person.

For Jesus, eternal life is earned through accepting one's sinful nature, asking for forgiveness, and leading an exemplary life following his example as best one can; for Buddhists, Awakening or Enlightenment is the "highest Good" for people, and leads to a lasting state of happiness, though it is a very difficult thing to attain; for Asatruar, the perpetual existence of the "soul" or a "person" is assumed, as the spirit of each being is a natural and perpetual part of the cosmos itself, like any other natural force. The "highest good" for most Asatruar is finding one's place and finding reciprocal peace and happiness with family and kin, which includes the Gods (who are seen as kin) and spirits that live in the natural environment near human beings.

There are esoteric aspects of Asatru, and paths within it which claim that mystical insights can transform a person's spirit, "sacrificing the lesser self to the greater Self" and winning for that person a new and mysterious condition of divine or perpetual being, but these and other related ideas belong to specific esoteric guilds, cults, subcultures, or mystical societies within Asatru, and is not something that most Asatruar concern themselves with.

Those who deal with the mystical or esoteric elements of Asatru might make the claim that the mystical attainments they believe in represent a hidden "highest good" for people, but few would make the claim that all people will be able to achieve these things, whereas Jesus taught that all could be saved, and Buddha's way was for all people, and could lead to enlightenment and happiness for any who accepted his teachings and sincerely practiced.

Feeling and Seeing Wyrd: The Intimate Returning

In Brian Bates' book "The Way of Wyrd", the Seidman Wulf tells his pupil Wat Brand something that can't be repeated enough. He says:

"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."


Brian Bates, speaking through his fictional character Wulf, reveals with this simple and beautiful passage one of the keys to unlocking the majesty of Wyrd. Many people seek for a "magical" cure for the false focus that their eyes keep throughout life; they seek some "sudden stroke" that will shock them into a new state of awareness, or a quick-and-easy method. Others assume that they can never "see" the world in a genuine, new way, and despair. They stop trying, and assume that the vision of Wyrd is something that only other people can have.

Both are wrong. There's no "quick" shortcut to Wyrd-vision, but pretty much anyone can see as Wulf describes above, if they are willing to make effort and lay aside what they think they know for just a moment, and accept possibilities that they have for so long mentally written off as unlikely or undesirable.

The main obstacle people face when trying to actualize the vision of Wyrd in their own lives are the stories they have learned to tell themselves about this reality we share. These stories often tell us how "time" is a great power that moves in one direction only, a great and straight arrow or "timeline", comprised of seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, and years which are all absolutely separate and self-existing entities.

This is the myth of time, and I don't mean "myth" in the good sense of the word. This is a story born of half-wisdom which fractures the human mind's ability to feel and see the reality of Wyrd for what it is.

The truth is deeper, but people resist it: there are no seconds and minutes, no hours, days, nor any other division of time, apart from your mind. These names we give to something as silent and omnipresent as what we call "the passage of time" are just that- names.

If you sit still and stop letting yourself think thoughts, stop the ceaseless chatter in your head, the insistent tendency in your mind that leads you to immediately drop labels onto everything, you will discover something important- in that silent space that you may enter, you will see that "time" as you know it ceases to be. If you can hold onto this silence, what you call "past" and "present" will become what they are- the same thing, two labels you once put on an indivisible reality.

Thinking about "time" in terms of seconds and minutes and days and years is just a story we tell ourselves. I'm not saying that if you forget all that you know about seconds and minutes and days that you'll stop aging or the seasons will stop turning. No, those things will always occur; what I'm saying is that measuring "time" with words and labels and ideas of "units of duration" is a human story, and it has a danger.

We humans are forgetful creatures; we invent many things that make our lives easier, or which help us to understand our world in certain ways, then, after a time, we forget that we were the inventors of these things- they become such a normal and well-used part of our lives, that we take them for granted, almost as though they were always there.

In many cases, our creations become our masters, and the oppress us. This is a consequence of forgetfulness- you can see how this works at night in your sleep. Sometimes, you'll dream a very bad dream, a disturbing dream which distresses you greatly. When you wake up, and realize it was a dream, you will feel a great sense of relief. What few people stop to realize is that they were just victimized by the great forgetfulness that marks the reality of many dreams. Often, we are not aware that we are dreaming; we forget our "outer" life and enter into an "inner" life in the dream, which we completely believe is the full reality of our lives.

How strange! Your non-dream life is totally forgotten, completely and utterly, and the dream seems as though it is all that is real, and you feel that you've always simply been there. When terrible things happen in the dream, they impact you greatly; you feel pain, terror, panic, trauma. The relief that follows upon waking is incredible.

Many things in our waking life are not a bit different from this. We often become the sources of our own grief by setting into motion many forces and powers that come back later to haunt us, but we've forgotten what we did so long ago, and so we feel victimized. An old saying goes "it is the doom of men that they forget."

We are each victimized by the ideas that our ancestors so long ago developed about what we call "time". We take for granted that the forward march of seconds and minutes is shooting along, taking our lives from us one second at a time, bringing us closer to inevitable death. But we're wrong. Life's not linear, as much as it may appear that way to the eyes that keep false focus. Life is a great and infinite continuum that is spiralling; it isn't straight, it's round, like the motion of the seasons.

All of our endings are at the beginning, and beginnings are at the end. Look closer at your life. We don't "become" different beings when we grow or mature; we are the same being, moving through a single transformative flow of force. We may think very differently at different stages in our development, and even act differently, but "we" are one ongoing event. Life doesn't begin or end, it is one flow. We are free to divide it up however we like, but our divisions aren't absolute. They are merely relative to our way of thinking. Don't be in such a hurry to decide that your "birth" was the beginning of your life- you have always lived, always existed as a part of the web of Wyrd, and you always will.

Look again. The events of your life aren't scattered across a broad horizon; they all come together here and now. The past is part of the present, it isn't a thing that exists somehow "before" the present. How can powers exist in some "before" state? Such a state doesn't exist. The past is with us now, in the present. That's how it affects the shape of things "now".

This is how we begin to see the web of Wyrd, see and feel the reality that is "more real than real"- we can now begin to strike at the very depths of "what binds us together".

The other day, a good friend called me. She was looking for advice, relationship-type advice. She's a woman in love with a man, but that man and she aren't currently together in a relationship. They were before, but circumstances have placed them apart temporarily, and in the arms of others. But she dreams, nightly, about this man that she loves, and as is the case with many people, she called me for advice. For some reason, most people break down and contact me when their problems become so great than they invade their dream-worlds- and this is fine. When we begin dreaming about things, it is a sign that they have penetrated our inner-lives and our inner worlds to a deep level. The territory of dreams is another working world, another stage of systems and relationships for the Wyrd-wise, so seeking a Wyrd-worker for help at this point is a good move.

When we talked, I looked with my inner senses and saw the web of Wyrd that she and I were just two seemingly separate parts of- and I told her my advice, based on that. My advice was a simple statement of the truth of Wyrd: nothing is accidental. The fact that she decided to call me at that moment, along with the words that came to me to tell her at that moment in the conversation are not random things- they are tied together simultaneously in Wyrd. The power that urged her to call me and what I was telling her as we talked, they were all threads in the glittering and unseen immensity of Wyrd, all acting on both of us.

But there's more. She and I met at a rennaisance fair in Texas. I saw myself again looking at her for the first time, all those years ago, and I saw her in my mind in the many ways I've seen her in various times and places since then. I saw her sitting with her boyfriends, saw her talking to her parents, saw her leaving to go to University, saw her meeting my friends, and I saw how all these things were tied together, my life and hers, the lives of the people in life and my life.

I saw further- I saw the many times and places in which my friends and I prepared to go to that fair, and our excitement at the prospect. I saw all those days of preparation, going back 13 years, long before I ever knew this friend existed. Those days of preparation, the powers that motivated us to want to go to the fair, were tied intimately to my eventual meeting with my friend. If I could have seen with eyes of Wyrd then, I would have seen the face of my friend as an inseparable thing from the excitement I was feeling about travelling to the fair.

I saw even further- I saw myself seeing television shows as a child, and reading kid's books that kindled in me a lifetime love for things medieval and rennaisance. Those forces led me to desire to attend the rennaisance fair in my first year at university, which led to countless expenditures of money and time and travel, and much excitement among many friends of mine. My attendance led to me meeting her.

That meeting led to our friendship, and to her learning about my religion and spirituality, and that led to her calling me when she had these problems and needed advice. Things she and I had done and discussed throughout our friendship influenced her in many of the decisions she made on her own, regarding who she dated and what sorts of relationships she got into. Things I learned from her shaped how I thought and acted in some places.

I could literally sense and feel the invisible "threads" that bound us tightly together, ignoring what we normally call "time" and "space". She and I- and you and I, for you are threaded to me and my experiences just by reading this- and ALL of us, all humans, are bound tightly together in Wyrd. We all affect one another.

I saw my friend and I's past, and I saw how all our days and the events we shared arose in Wyrd. It's not a disconnected series of events; it's a river-course of power and causality, one river, not many puddles. It's a single web of Wyrd, mighty and majestic, in which these many "events" seem to arise as "separate" entities. But they aren't separate.

I told her to pay attention to the totality of her experience- really pay attention to the dreams, and what she was feeling at that moment, and to what I was saying, for these things are all appearances of Wyrd, tiny and momentary manifestations of reality that our minds are scrambling to grasp, hindered in doing so by our lack of wisdom as human beings, our lack of sight. It was no accident that she decided to call me just then, nor that she dreamed what she dreamed, nor that she and her love should be apart, nor that she should have met me. What is it all saying? It's speaking very clearly: it is literally revealing Wyrd to her in full sensory reality. We have to LOOK. We have to put aside our mental chatter and let the intutive messages from Wyrd arise, let the feelings arise, and really see. There is no greater guidance.

So she looked, and I hope she saw- I hope she saw the truth that is always available to her- You won't have peace without telling him how much you love him. This man that you are with now is a good man, but he is not meant to be yours forever; this is a side road that rejoins the main road very soon. You won't have peace until you see him again. Then you will be able to move past him, as you grow and see the world new, for he is not to be yours forever, either. You're young, new at this. There's a lot of this life-thread left. He's your age, but he's even younger, and his confusion won't end for many years.

Yes, the truth is, we must be honest to our convictions and feelings, no matter what. Being honest to how we feel is never wrong; if it somehow hurts others, this is a matter of their inability to accept the honesty offered by another, not a problem on the part of the person being honest. If more people were honest and true to themselves, well, the world would be different indeed. It may be difficult, but honesty is the best road, the road of peace.

If we examine our experiences from this perspective of systems, from this perspective of totality, we can begin to see a larger picture operating, which can contain the keys we need to unlock our enigmas. This is how you begin to "see" Wyrd- pick a starting point in your own web, and see how you relate to it, and how you came to know it, and all the forces and events that connect to it and surround it and you like a web. You can do this with people, with places, or anything. Then, endeavor to understand that these events and forces are NOT separate, nor gone- they are all here and now, still. They are all arising here and now, in the web. If you let yourself carry this exercise out to its great conclusion, you will find yourself in some startling places, and privy to a perspective that might truly help you.

How can we do this? How do we begin to see broader? The path starts here with us, in us. It can begin nowhere else. It begins with the foremost "rule" of soothsaying and Wyrd-seeing: If you know the past correctly and clearly, you can know the future correctly and clearly.

I saw a lot of this friend and I's past, but that past isn't gone. It's here, now. It's exerting so much influence on everything that's happening, here and now. She and I won't ever be apart, and, dear reader, neither will you and I.

I was able to allow my intuition to speak to me, to allow knowledge of things to come to arise in me, where concerns my friend and her situation. I saw- and still see- the dissolution of her current relationship, and her actions to come. It's not very easy, and it takes a lifetime of practice with "going open", and letting your memory reveal to you how connected you really are to so many other people and forces, before you can begin "seeing", with some certainty, the likely events that are to arise.

Sometimes, when we feel "bad" things are going to arise, we ignore it. This is a very human thing to do- we want to take refuge in our own self-doubt; we'd rather think "maybe I'm just wrong, after all, this Wyrd-web is immense and there's plenty of room for error on my part" than to admit that negative outcomes are inescapably going to arise. Even I've fallen victim to this form of denial at times. A point comes when you must stop looking to Wyrd for comfort, and only look to it for truth. And then, you must learn to find comfort in truth, for we must believe, as Heathens, that Wyrd weaves out for the greater good- all that comes to pass is moving the world to its consummation, and to the rebirth and regeneration of all things.

In this sense, you must never be afraid to let go of things- for we know, thanks to our holy myths and lores, that what is good and noble will never be lost forever. In the world that is to come, Hel opens and gives up her dead, all of the noble heroes and ideas and hopes and dreams that had fallen into her darkness, and they come into the light of day again.


I was asked recently if I "sought to transcend this world". This is a common enough question, as much modern Paganism, in line with western misunderstandings of eastern thinking, draws a strong division between "this world" and some other world or worlds that are often considered to be "better" than this one.

As a Wyrd-worker, I can assure all of you that other worlds aren't necessarily any better than this one. Other worlds still have individual beings in them, and even non-human beings have quests, emotions, problems, intrigues, and dis-satisfactions, too. If you have peace with yourself here, you'll have it in any other world. If you don't have it here, being in other worlds won't change that. Wisdom can make a bright and sunny place out of the darkest corners of any world, and this is something you can always rely on.

If we look at the reality of Wyrd, we see that ideas of "transcendence", of "rising above" this world and escaping all the "troubles" here are fundamentally flawed- because there's no way to "transcend" this world.

Why? Because we aren't "in" a world; we are a world. We don't "come into" this world at birth, nor do we "leave" this world at death- we transformed from a deeper part of this world into a human life at birth, and at death we transition back into the world in a new way: into the "Hel" way for most of us, but others attain different conditions. But all those "worlds" or conditions are part of the same reality; they are all parts of the web of Wyrd.

The division between "self" and "world" is merely perceptual- it isn't absolute. The world is not something that is temporary, and which we eventually overcome; it is eternally a part of who and what we are. It too, is part of the web of Wyrd, and we are all tied together by it.

Understanding the nature of the perceptual division that blinds so many people, trapping them in the false idea that they are "cut off" from the world that they perceive as "around" them, is the point of our lives. It's the supreme attainment of Wyrd-Wisdom.

It is the gateway of all wisdom, actually. Once you overcome that perceptual division, you no longer feel isolated, afraid, vulnerable, or alienated. You are at peace, and in a perpetual awareness of your relationship to all forms and beings, and you never feel "lost" again, or "far from home", because this world and this body, indivisible, all that is seen and unseen, IS your one and only home.

If this very Pagan ideal of "reunion with reality through overcoming faulty perception" is a "transcendence" ideal (and some crudely try to describe it that way) then there you have it. I don't consider it "transcendence". I consider it "intimate returning", coming home from a journey that you only ever took in your head. It's waking up from a dream that you had forgotten was a dream.

O God of Earth and Altar

"O God of earth and altar,
Bow down and hear our cry:
Our earthly rulers falter,
Our people drift and die.
The walls of gold entomb us,
The swords of scorn divide;
Take not thy thunder from us,
But take away our pride."

-Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936)
* * *

This hymn/prayer/poem is by a very gifted man, who happens to be one of the few Christians from history that I respect. I've always been partial to this particular poem, especially this verse from it, because I've always felt that it expressed a very universal longing and message.

This prayer could be prayed by Heathens, if you look at it from another angle- who is the "God of Earth and Altar"? Chesterton meant his God, the God of christianity. But Heathens also had "Gods of Earth and Altar"- and how interesting that the God in this prayer is asked not to take his "thunder" from mankind. Thunder? Perhaps Chesterton meant "thunder" in the sense of just sheer power and blessing, but it goes without saying that the Thunderer, the Thunder-God of the Heathens, was also asked for the same sorts of blessings- blessings of rain for crops, protection from destructive and evil powers, and for the protection of families and tribes. The thunder that was heard rumbling in the sky by Heathens was associated with just those things- fertility, protection, and sheer power.

The Thunder God *THONORAZ (Donar, Thunor, Thor, Taranis, etc) was always captured in what myths we have today as the strongest of the Gods, and he was very much a celestial figure, a dweller in the Gard or Enclosure-World of the Gods above. The equal-armed cross, the fire-cross, the swastika, and other similar symbols were symbols of that God's power, the perpetual order of the turning power of the sky, and these symbols are found carved on the oldest of monuments from the Stone Age. The Thunder God is inescapably tied to the earth because of his "marriage" with it, his life-giving rain, and fertilizing lightning.

You can even see how the "cross" has never left the human consciousness as a symbol of power and holiness, even as lately as hollywood- vampires and evil creatures are so often repelled by crosses, in much the same way wicked giants and wights were dispersed by Thonoraz's great hammer and the burning equal-armed solar and sky-crosses associated with him.

This prayer has other dimensions that speak to universal themes in mankind's experience: the desire for a just world, for good rulers and social justice. The God of this prayer is told "our earthly rulers falter, our people drift and die." Even though Christian rulers certainly faltered, the fact of injustice and careless leaders isn't unique to christianity. We can certainly see our earthly rulers faltering today, everyday in the news. We have seen the needless loss of life in many countries, including our own.

To turn to the Gods with our fears and hopes and desires is an activity as old as mankind, and there is a beauty in it. A Fateful and natural bond exists between humans and the Holy Kindreds of the many worlds, and if the Gods are kin to us- which the Lore certainly tells us they are- then we are well within our rights to ask them for help, to discuss our hopes and fears and dreams with them, as we would a cousin, a father, a mother, an uncle, or our friends.

There is, of course, a danger that some people will abuse the bond that exists between mankind and the Gods- that they will look to the Gods only when they have a need. Christians are certainly not exempt from this tendency. We would abuse the Gods in the same way that we would abuse kin or friends if we only spoke to them, sacrificed to them, or approached them when we needed something. Part of the religious life in the Heathen sense of the word is an ongoing relationship with the Holy Kindreds which is similar in almost every respect to the ongoing relationship you have with your human family and friends.

Because "kinship" and "family" is what this is all about. It's also one of the defining factors of humanity, a source of our greatest strength. We are kin to one another, and to the Gods, and all of our kin deserve our company and friendship outside of any idea of what they may or may not do for us.

It's just joyful and peaceful to lift up your eyes and prayers to the Gods, and to look all around and below to see and feel the Godly powers that exist in those places, too. Pure religious bliss isn't hard to come by- it's as easy as walking in the woods and fields and letting yourself be open to the powers all around you.

"The walls of gold entomb us, the swords of scorn divide..." What a powerful line! We may not have literal walls of gold in our houses, but most of us aren't doing poorly- we have all that we need, and sometimes, that can be a tomb. It traps us in a false sense of security that leads us to neglect the awareness we need to have of our dependance on other people and on the Gods.

But this goes even further- walls of gold- or should I say money- are the prison in which the moral life of our world currently languishes. The war in Iraq is about money; those of us who have lost loved ones to that war are sentenced to a prison of grief that is built out of money.

And the swords of scorn- yes, they divide us all. From the forces that divide families and friends, to the forces that divide societies, we all have the capacity to allow our anger, grief, and scorn to divide us from our fellow man. But the Gods intend for human society to work together for a common good, and scorn for our fellows is not just dangerous, it's ungodly. Those who allow that scorn to run wild or who allow selfish, unreasoning scorn to dominate their thinking are doing the work of the giantish forces, the eternal enemies of the Gods, who exist to break down the order of the world.

Chesterton ends this verse with the answer to the problem: he feels that pride- NOT pride in the positive sense, like pride for your loved ones or ancestors or accomplishments, but pride as the power that refuses to allow us to admit our mistakes and refuses to allow us to compromise with others- is the villain.

This sort of pride is based on selfishness, which is the single worst trait that a man or woman can have, from the perspective of a tribe or a society, and it's the worst trait that a man or woman can have from the perspective of Wyrd; we are all part of the web of power that is life and reality. What we do affects the entire web, and we are affected by it. To think only of the good of the self, or to ignore the necessity of reciprocal compromise, is a path to ruin.

Can a God take away the pride of mankind? Chesterton, a christian, may have said "yes". Of course he would; in his belief, there's nothing his "God" can't do. But the truth of these matters is different for a Heathen. The Gods can't take away our pride; they can't be moral people for us, or force us to be good people. They can only set an example for us, which they certainly do with their tireless efforts on behalf of the good of the world-order. Our duty to live up as best we can to that example is what we have.

Despite the failures of people to live up to our duties at times, the Gods aren't going anywhere. There's just nowhere else to go; reality doesn't have "exit" doors. We are parts of reality- this reality, the only one there is- and so are they.

We are all parts of the Web of Wyrd, and there's no leaving that web, through life or death. The Thunderer won't take his blessings from people; despite the fact that our societies in the west once had kings who betrayed their ancestors and broke Troth with the Gods, and who passed laws which forbade the worship of the Gods, leading to a modern world in which most people now are unware of the Gods, the Gods are still with us. We are their kin, and I've always believed that the Gods understand Wyrd or Fate better than we- they understand the dark situations that have befallen us, and even if most of us never worship them again, they will continue their work on our behalf, and will protect us until the end.

Any modern Heathen who has stood in a holy stead and offered a right blot or sacrifice, or drank in a rightful and powerful Symbel, already knows that the Gods are still there. Their many blessings still pour through the body of nature for us and for all living beings. Humans may (through dark turns of events and because of dark powers) get far from the truth about the Gods and the truth about themselves, but the truth will- like the Gods- never abandon us.