Mythical

I just got done writing a narrative regarding spiritual ecology, but beyond that, it is a full philosophical treatise regarding Land-Based Traditional Paganism and Witchcraft, and the animistic principles that I have internalized over many years of my own experiences. It is found at the link below- on the cover page is an image of a full moon; click on it to enter.

Mythical: The Voice of the Land

The Tale of Thorkell and the Troll

I've written a tale for the enjoyment and entertainment of my readers- it's a short story, a classic monster-hunt of types, set in Mythical Iceland. It's called "The Tale of Thorkell and the Troll". It has everything that makes a saga good- famous warriors, hopeless situations, adversity, monsters, magic, witches, murders, conspiracy, love for family, and friendship. I hope you enjoy it.

The Tale of Thorkell and the Troll

The Culture of Reconstructionism and New Paganism

I've been involved in Pagan reconstructionism for over a decade now, and I have found it to be a useful and powerful outlet for my spiritual wants and needs. I've seen and heard many perspectives within the recon world, and even embraced many perspectives from time to time, before my heart settled on its present course. At the end of my day yesterday, I had to finally open a discussion with a dear friend of mine, a discussion about labels and reconstructionist perspectives.

I'm afraid that my work with the unseen world has done what it was intended to do: brought me into close contact with my inner life and the internal workings of the Fateful weave that I call my existence. My entire perspective on being a modern religious Pagan in the modern day is enormously different from that of others chiefly because I am not just a religious person- I am a mystic, a person who intentionally works with extra-ordinary states of consciousness, for the purposes of contacting extra-sensory reality and directly tapping its timeless sources of wisdom and healing. This is central to understanding who and what I am, though it is just one aspect of me.

And in the modern day, in the world of reconstructionist religions, this makes for a problem. I am typically not surrounded by people who perform the same task, who operate in the same way. I'm surrounded by people who usually go no further in their relationship with Gods or Spirits than lifting a horn for them and belching out a toast, before going back to talking about other things.
Even in the scholarly end of reconstructionism, dominated as it is by decidedly non-mystical types, many people try to deny that the ancient Indo-Europeans had spiritual specialists, of a type we might describe in modern language as "shamanic" or trance-using mystics, even though we know they did. In a hurry to distance themselves from the dreaded "new age", a lot of people who should damn well know better have put on intentional blinders to the presence of mystical traditions among our Ancestors.

But my letter today isn't about how blind some (most) recons are towards people who work in mystical ways today. I don't care about them, because I was long ago made aware of why they choose to ignore facts and embrace falsehoods- and sadly, I understand some aspects of their fear and frustration.

My letter today is about what a person can do when they realize that there's no label for them, no way of fully expressing in words what they "are". As a mystic, (and like mystics from all times and places) I often don't feel "in place", no matter where I am. Most people know me as the Seid-man, the Witch, and the Asatruar; those words are fine to me, and they express something important to me. All are correct when taken in context- but to me, they are just labels. And they mean different things to different people. There is a danger here.

For some Asatruar, for instance, "Seidmadhr" or Seid-man means that I am a possibly gay idiot drama-queen new ager who wants to play wicca within the context of Asatru. For some other Asatruar, it means that I use trances to do sorcery, for the good of the people I am working with. Big difference! One of these definitions is correct, the other, very wrong, at least from MY perspective.

Here's another example- for some people, "witch" means "baby-killing Satan worshiper who does black magic". For others, it means a goodness-and-light follower of the ancient God and Goddess of the old days". For others still, it means "a person who does sorcery, works with spirits, and seeks for odd corners of wisdom". Two of these definitions are incorrect from MY perspective; one of them is quite right.

Shall I continue? What about the example of "Asatru" or "Asatruar"? For some, this means that I am a horned-helmet wearing idiot neo-pagan who swills beer and thinks he's a viking. For others, it means a follower of a polytheistic faith born in the group-soul of the Germanic peoples. One of these definitions is correct; the other not.

Recently, I've grown tired of fighting the definition war. People, I have discovered, use labels as a means of force, a form of violence- even if they don't realize it, sometimes they still do it. To label someone gives you permission to force them into a "place", even if it is a place they don't belong, and even if it bears no relationship to reality- labels are all in our heads. But we live in a world of labels, and we wrong other people regularly by labeling them. We take our labels and assume that we know them, that we know what they stand for, when usually, we don't.

I'm aware of the many times I've done it, and I'm very aware of how much I've suffered in the label game. People want to know where you "belong", but as a mystic, I don't belong anywhere. No label exists that is sufficient for me- there ARE words that satisfy some aspects of who and what I am, but no single word fulfills the task.

That I am a vision-seer and mystic is only a small part of it- even people who have never had a vision in their lives are also impossible to label. Even the simplest person is still a magnificently complex being, if you know how to see them correctly, and labels don't really work for them as well- if anything, what makes a person "simple" is how easily and readily they accept labels for themselves from others.

Now, I'd like to stop this line of thinking for one second, and go into my next point, which will relate, of course. My next point is the culture of reconstructionism.

Reconstructionist Pagans spend a considerable amount of time looking back to ancient cultures to get their ideas about life, their framework for belief, and clues as to how to deal with life's moral and ethical issues. They do this in their (correct) belief that the Ancestors were very wise, and that their words and behaviors are worth paying attention to.

But where does this go? I know some recons who think that they are whatever ancient people they look back to, reborn in the modern day. In their minds, there is no real difference between them and the ancients- just a time-frame difference, and some annoying cultural realities that are different, but which they dream of changing.

I also know some recons that are very much aware of the fact that they are modern people, who are looking back to older cultural traditions for guidance. They don't think that they are ancient Celts or Germans or Greeks or Romans.

This brings up my idea of "Recon Culture". I am a reconstructionist Pagan, but I don't think that I am "exactly the same" as the Pagans of the past- indeed, how could I be? I am a modern person, subject to the same modern forces and understandings as everyone else in my cultural sphere. I have taken the initiative to re-examine my cultural assumptions in light of ancient cultural assumptions, but what does that make me? An American who really likes the past, or has a preference for ancient philosophies and beliefs? To this, I answer:

Recon Culture is it's own reality. It is its own culture- a religious culture- that exists in the modern day, and it is comprised of modern people who look to ancient models of culture and religion for guidance as to how to believe today, but also how to face life's trials. I am not just an American or a modern person who really digs the "old days"- I'm a reconstructionist, to use a label that I just got done complaining about. As often as labels hamper our understanding of each other, sometimes they help to understand.

At any rate, "Reconstructionist" means something specific. It's true there are many ancient cultures that recons look back to, and that means that there are many reconstructionist sub-cultures, but the over-arching label still means something.

And here we arrive at the next issue- reconstructionists, being human, allow themselves to fall prey to the dangers of labeling, every bit as much as the next person. Apparently, looking to the wisdom of the past doesn't grant anyone any immunity to the idiocy that sometimes follows along in the world of human efforts!

It is true that our Ancestors in the past were very devoted to the idea of their own cultures, their own tribal or social beliefs and customs. Some people say that our Ancestors weren't very "free" as we know the word, because they were so constrained by tribal custom and social duty. Personally, I disagree with these angles because they aren't taking into account a broader perspective, and (to me) emphasizing only the negative aspects of ancient societies.

What these cynics never point out is that ancient societies were very aware of one another, and traded and traveled and inter-married a considerable amount. Some of the biggest extremists in the Recon world- the so-called "tribalist" Recons who refuse to have anything to do with people who are "outside" their tribal boundaries, and who seek a "tribal" identity at all costs, even the cost of ignoring reality, really hate to hear this sort of talk.

But when you have temples of Isis in Britain, Viking gold showing up in Cairo, Egypt, Runes scrawled on pillars in Byzantium, tales and evidence of inter-marriage, exchange of Gods, and people from different cultures taking part in the worship of other people's cultural Gods, you simply can't justify your cultish, isolationist fear anymore- at least not by looking to the past for an example. There's plenty of idiocy in the modern day upon which you can base some dogma of separation and distrust upon, but not so much in the past.

Somehow, our Ancestors in the past managed to hold on to their own ways, their own Gods, but also live among other peoples who had other ways and other Gods, and not compromise their cultural identity, even when they traveled or adopted new Gods. Worshiping German and Celtic Gods didn't stop the Romans from being Roman; adopting Roman Gods didn't stop the Celtic people of Gaul and Britain from being what they were; the Greeks adopting Egyptian Gods or Goddesses didn't stop the Greeks from being Greeks. When the Romans picked up the idea of using soap from the Celtic peoples, they didn't stop being Romans. When the Gauls started drinking Roman wine, they didn't cease being Gauls.

I don't want to belabor this point; I just want to say it enough to tweak the misbegotten noses of the fools out there who have caused me so much trouble in my time among the Asatru.


Now the dreaded words have to come out- we are "new Pagans". Perhaps you believe that your soul is very old, and that you were Pagan before, long ago. Maybe you think that the elements of these bodies, and the elements of the world, are very ancient, and therefore, nothing is really "new". Points all taken. But your mind and personality, constructed as they are from modern influences, is new, and your decision to be a Pagan in a modern, non-Pagan culture, marks you as a new Pagan with a big job ahead.

Now, if you're smart, you chose to be a reconstructionist Pagan, and gained access to the greatest resources available to you, in understanding the Ancestors- history and scholarship. If you're not so smart, you'll make up some stuff (or buy into those who have made it up) and claim that those things are what the Ancestors really believed. Of course, you'll end up dis-satisfied, as the Truth has a way of making itself known.

Either way, whether you are the pink cotton candy new-ager, or the hard-core scholarly reconstructionist, you're a new Pagan. We may fancy ourselves THE Greeks or Celts or Norse from history, but we aren't; we're just their fans, their descendants, their admirers, in the modern day. We're their students, their apologists, the lovers of their literature, their sacred stories, and their religious aesthetics. That's what we are.

There is a danger in getting sucked too far into some form of ancient "identity" that begins to conflict with your modern self; I've met far too many idiots in costume who really think that they are Norse or Viking Warriors, straight out of history, alive in the modern day. They import their own stupid ideas of racism and cultural superiority and graft these things directly onto the ancients, and assume that people have always believed they way they as modern people believe now. This is wrong; it is a caricature of the past, it is a crime and it's the worst sort of narcissistic immaturity imaginable.

I've met too many people who think that THEY are the "Romans" or the "Celts" now- quite absurd, when you think about it, on all counts; What does it mean to be "Germanic"? To be "Celtic"? With these two broad cultural definitions, there is no real way to know. These people in the past were countless tribal cultures, spread across the map-board; they went everywhere, mingled with everyone they encountered, and eventually vanished themselves from the pages of history, either through war or cultural change. What, are the Germans today "The real Germanics"? What about the Spanish, who live in a country that was founded largely by the Visigoths? Were the Visigoths not Germanic? What about the French, who live in a country founded by the Franks? Were the Franks not Germanic?

"Germanic" has little meaning, in the sense of "being Germanic". In RECON CULTURE, however, to be "Germanic" means to adore the cultural ideals that Asatru has studied and listed as "Noble"- the Nine Noble Virtues, and to adore your Germanic Ancestors, working hard not to disappoint them.

But what about the people who are more than just Germanic in Ancestry? Sadly, I know too many people who ignore 90% of their ancestry in favor of the 10% that had sufficiently Germanic sounding last names.

What about those pesky Celts? No culture has been more ransacked and dishonored by the forces of new-age marketing than Celtic- but what is "Celtic" culture? I've been to many of the Celtic lands. I can assure you, the people I spoke with all had this idea that THEY- and not the others, were the "real" Celts, and they were all quite different. The Irish and the Welsh were very different from one another, in a somewhat good-natured yet competitive way. Both were hospitable, but the Welsh were different, not as flamboyant or as "in your face" as the Irish that I encountered. Both lived on sacred Lands full of much mystical power; I could feel it. The blood in me could feel it, as I bear an ancestral connection to these places.

But what does it mean to be "Celtic"? What, is it that Hollywood-created "rebel" hard-drinking spirit, which thrives under the strain of mistreatment by evil empires and invaders? I hope not! That stereotype is a dry riverbed. Does "Celtic" mean that we all walk around wearing cheap Celtic knotwork Tide-dye clothes, and waving around copies of "The Mists of Avalon"? I REALLY hope not- give me "The Fields of Athenry" stereotypes any day over that! I hope being from some cool Irish place like Dublin isn't your claim to Celtic fame- the Vikings, after all, founded Dublin.

I could do this forever, just to point out that there may be general features of culture, like "Irish" or "Welsh" or "Scottish" that can be found, but "Celtic", no.

To be a Reconstructionist Celtic Pagan, however, is to look to certain strains of literature from Ireland and Britain, literature which is believed to stem from pre-Christian roots, and to look to the histories of these lands (these histories including Gaul), when seeking inspiration regarding religious practice and guidance for one's spiritual and moral worldview.

People take the term "Celtic Reconstructionist Pagan" or "Germanic Reconstructionist" and they see what they want to see- normally, they see "Celtic" or "Germanic", and they miss the "Reconstructionist" part.

I feel a great amount of love in my heart for the ancient world, and I imagine, sometimes, that maybe if I could find a time-machine and be transported back to that world, perhaps I'd find the religion to my liking, and some aspects of the culture to my liking. But I don't have any illusions about the hardships or the alien things that I would see and encounter. I may be of British, Irish, and Anglo-Saxon ancestry, but I am also a modern person, seeking to live as best I can in alignment with the ancient wisdom of those peoples. I'm not a "Celt" or a "Teuton"- I'm a modern man who reconstructs their ancient religions and worldviews, as best he can within a modern context. I may spiritually view myself as an heir of their great wisdom, and I may believe that my ancestral line, including this spirit, was once a part of their world, but there's one last thing that has to be said, has to be understood- I am also a part of this modern world. That qualifies everything, brings a needed perspective to this entire "Recon" enterprise.

I encounter people who can't see the "Reconstructionist" aspect of their culture, and only see the ancient cultures involved, and they really believe that they are THE Greeks, THE Romans, THE Celts, or what have you. They take the label, and immediately (hilariously) begin looking DOWN on other people for belonging to a reconstructionist faith that takes its inspiration from a culture that historically conquered their culture or had conflicts with them.

Yes- as amazing as it may sound, I know Celtic Recons who HATE Asatruar, probably thanks to Marion Zimmer Bradley and the recent movie "King Arthur" presenting the Anglo-Saxons as baby-devouring bloody barbarians bent on murdering every Briton they came across. That's not historically what happened, but there is an idea that the Germanic and Celtic Traditions have to be in conflict. This idea is fantasy, but it's a reality to many Recons.

I know many Asatru that believe anyone worshiping non-Germanic Gods is a traitor to Asatru- and yet, they talk till they are blue in the face about the importance of honoring one's Ancestors. Where does that leave people like me, (and there are many like me) who have mixed ancestry? Let's just come out and say it- EVERYONE has mixed ancestry, both now, and even in the past. What am I, a descendant of Ireland and Bernicia, to do? I worship the Gods of Asatru because it is part of my heritage, and because Asatru is a great Reconstructionist faith, with many resources and a large community.

But my wife is Irish; my daughter is named after the great Queen in the mound in County Sligo, and my family prays to the Gods of Ireland and Britain, too- in a fully Celtic Reconstructionist context. This isn't a new thing; Celtic and Germanic Gods have been prayed to together in many places, for a very long time. Roman and Celtic Gods and Roman and Germanic Gods were also prayed to together. Oh no! Ideas and labels of "purity" have just been flushed- except that those ideas were never based on reality.

"Asatru", according to some, means "True to the Gods"- but are people who pray to Zeus and Athena, or Brigid and Lugus, not "True to the Gods" as well? Just because the word "Asatru" may be in some Germanic language, that doesn't mean that the idea doesn't apply to many polytheists.

This is where labels come home to haunt us. I know that no label really serves to identify me perfectly, and I think this same thing can be said for everyone- we DO use labels, but how many of us really feel that the few labels we've chosen fully serve to explain us to ourselves or to the world? I feel sorry for the people who can label themselves perfectly- Oscar Wilde said "Only shallow people really know themselves".

My modern mystical vocation forces me to realize the truth about myself- I am a modern person who deals with trance-work and spiritual contact. In every culture of the human world, there have been people like me- and they have been called many things. I know what Pagan cultures I am ancestrally related to, and I proudly engage in the activity and method of Reconstruction, when it comes to guidance and religious practice. But I cannot label myself as just one thing or another, and expect to feel satisfied.

My dear friend told me something interesting last night- she told me that she prayed to the Gods of ancient Wales when operating in a formal context. But personally, in her own private religious life, she didn't use names at all- she merely communicated from the heart to those Gods or spirits that she desired contact with. I understand what she meant; even though I do use names in my private religious life, I think this idea of "Formality" is important- when I work with the Idavoll Kindred, on that formal level, we call upon the Gods of Asatru. When I work with my wife and daughter- my true family and deeper kindred- it is less formal, but still a formal level, and we pray with all earnestness to the Gods and Goddesses of Ireland and Britain.

As for me, privately, non-formally, well, that's the very best of me, and I save that one all for me.


It's more important for me to be a mystic, a seer and healer, than anything else. Of course, as an Ancestral pietist and a polytheist, I could never and will never ignore my Ancestors or what they believed. But I am not just them. My capacity for vision or mystical insight is something apart from my Ancestry; it is a universal quality of humankind that I express, not something tied to one culture. To Asatruar, I express it in the language they (sometimes) understand- Seidr. To those who are heavily invested in Irish or British Paganism, I call it Taibhsear, Druidry, Draiocht, whatever they need to hear to understand. To the Greeks, I may say "Iatromantis".

To someone from Dr. Michael Harner's foundation, I would say "Shamanic practitioner". Among my traditional Witch friends, who are by far the easiest to communicate with, I'm just Robin, that Witch and pain-in-the-ass of many. I enjoy Dr. Harner's description of Witchery as a descendant of the shamanic wisdom of old Europe, which is a definition that I happily subscribe to, for obvious reasons.

But I've become weary of labels. I use them because people expect them, but I don't use them with any real gravity. They are just so many words to me- what is real to me are the Gods, the spirits I have felt and seen, and the "other sight" that allows me to find guidance for my life, and healing for myself and others. How does a person label that? I have no choice at this point but to use the term "reconstructionist" for my religious label, but being of mixed ancestry and worship, many won't have me- which is, of course, fine; I wouldn't want to be a member of their narrow-minded clubs, anyway. So long as my family and friends are well, all is well.

But damn! Communication is hard, because everyone wants a label that they can look up in the dictionary or online, to figure out "who and what you are". I hope people will, one day, have the power to see through labels and realize that we read far too much into the labels we give other people, and into the labels they give themselves.

Recon Culture is useful insofar as it gives people a platform to build a relationship with the Gods, and helps them to be better people. But the issue has deeper angles, which will need to be explored by each in his or her own time. Until then, when people ask me "what I am", (meaning religiously) I have little choice but to tell them a polytheist- a person who worships the Gods and Goddesses of his ancestors from ancient Britain and Ireland. I am also a vision-seer, a shamanic healer and worker, but that's not something a person often gets around to asking, nor me telling.

Human and Spirit Ecology: Shamanic Cognition and a Movement Towards a Broader Vision of the Sacred System of Life

Earlier today, in the depths of trance-exploration, my helping spirit helped me to see some of the intricacies of our hidden existence. When I say "our", I am referring to all of us together as human beings who must exist within the context of a greater ecological system than we realize. When a person becomes aware of extra-sensory reality, they are given a glimpse of a greater context for our lives.

Most people believe in the unseen world in some form or fashion, but people- especially, I find, animists- have a heightened sense of awe for the mysterious nature of the unseen. It is always good to cultivate a sense of "unknowing"- there is wisdom in not having an answer for everything, and the wise have always known that the spiritual world (of which this world is a part) is a very mysterious thing, which evades our attempts to map it out or codify it.

The dynamism of the unseen world is not itself a mystery or a thing so hard to understand; it is a neat reflection of the dynamism that is at the heart of the system of life that we call "this world". Things seem to be changing all the time, and in the shifting web of forces that we call our lives, things seldom reliably stay the same for very long. Thus, the "wisdom of uncertainty" is a name given to the honest attitude that doesn't try over-much to explain how the world works, or how things "have to be" at any given moment. If anything, there is a great pleasure and peace in not having to know these things, and being comfortable with uncertainty.

Today, I was given to understand something of the nature of spiritual interactions. I thought I'd share what I discovered, so that others might be inspired to their own quest for insight.

I have long discussed the nature of systems, using the metaphor of a "web" of power- which I call Wyrd when working in the context of Asatru and Seidr- that connects and influences all things and beings in reality. In this world, we are all bound together by the web of life, the web of causality and recursion that shapes our every moment of experience. This web extends into the regions of extra-sensory reality; if anything, those parts of the web that we can intellectualize or see represent a very small part of its timeless and vast interactions.

Since we are indisputably parts of a web of connections, a web through which the sacred process of communication is made possible, then prayer, communion with the dead, conversations with humans and non-human sentient beings, all of these things are possible. It is impossible to see the far-reaching effects of our manipulations of the web, but our every word and deed does have far-reaching effects.

Awareness of this sort of "distantly echoing recursion" that is a part of our lives in the great web of reality is central to living life in a sacred manner, but also to living life in a sorcerous manner, if a person is so inclined and if they have been granted the power to comprehend and perform sorcery by allied spirits.

There is both an intimate connection for all living beings to one another, as well as a constant recursive, two-way power exchange; for humans, as for many beings, this power-exchange can be experienced in terms of communication, such as with human language. All power-exchanges are a form of communication, when you think about it; but not all communication has to be framed as humans do with their idea of language, and the reality of language. Language, as we know it, is one of the most magically powerful gifts that humans possess, and with it, we can call many things into conscious being.

But other orders of being, other forms of animate life, have "language", or a means of communication- what is different, I have learned, is that they don't create with their language in the way that humans can or very powerful spirits can, and they don't call other beings to the same height of conscious awareness that humans can. When humans communicate with the spirit of a tree, for instance, it knows itself immediately in the same way that humans know it- for the time of the communication, it is known and it knows itself, as a human knows him or herself.

This is a secret to the power of human language. In the great web of life, in the system of reality, communication and knowledge are inseparably linked.

Now, let me return to the basics of spiritual ecology as I know it- all are intimately connected and related, and all constantly experience recursive power exchange with the rest of the world, in many far-reaching ways, both conscious and unconscious. Becoming more conscious of our connections, and the ways in which we give and receive communication and power with the other organic and non-organic powers in the web of life is the chief goal of the spiritual quest, or the life of spiritual growth.

When a person is able (either through a rare act of natural will or by the help of an allied spirit) to pull back the animate power that makes up the very "stuff" of their awareness, and which makes up the pylons of their conscious experiences, and by pulling it back, separating it, at least a little, from the portals of sense, they experience something unique- if that animate, living power makes contact with the inner sense portals, shamanic cognition results. The unseen world, the subtle world, can be experienced.

Under the influence of my helping spirit, I have done this many times, and today, I came to understand something that I feel the need to communicate- I saw and understood, for a moment, how spiritual beings see and encounter us. When I say "us", I mean human beings.

The Unseen world may not have a linear or solid "geography" that can be mapped out, but it is a continuum of life. It does not seem to be limited by space in any manner, and how it appears to a person's inner senses seems to depend largely on the observer. It is hoped that the best and wisest observers will be those who have practiced emptying their own minds of expectations, so that they can, through a true act of supernatural skill, remove themselves as far as possible from the blinders of syntax and cultural assumption. Without this effort and skill, our experiences of the unseen can quickly become tainted by what we expect, and we may miss what is truly there.

Of course, what is there will never appear to us in any form other than communication and sense; even the inner senses have to give us inputs that are filtered, once we arrive back into ordinary cognition, by our habitual punctuation of syntax, language, and cultural assumption. The wisest are those who keep this fact in mind, and balance their reports of the unseen with a good deal of humility. Skill in communication is what is required here. One must be ready to admit that while they can't be 100% certain that they can communicate perfectly what they experienced, they will at least try to be a good, open-minded story-teller and try to help others to come to their own conclusions that are in line with the spirit of an experience- no pun intended!

Today, I was given a vision of a forest of human powers. What I mean by that is, I saw what we humans appear as to spiritual beings who are non-organic yet sentient living things, dwelling unseen among us, in a continuum that we may call "otherworldly" but which is still a part of reality undivided, a part of this web that we are all in.

I'd like to use the example of the forest that we've all seen- the trees, leaves, moss, and fungus that we've all experienced. Call to mind the last time you walked through the trees in a patch of woods or a forest. You remember the many trees all around, standing silently there. Of many different types, sizes, and shapes- and around them wandered many animals, birds and beasts. You too, were wandering around them. Some were the homes of animals. Some had fungus growing on them; others had rotted or were rotting. Some were the hiding places of beasts, some were young, some were old.

Whatever we humans are, we are certainly power. There is animate power within and beyond these organic forms that we label as our own. When we withdraw from the portals of sense, and see with the other eyes, we see other human beings as power, too. All over the world, humans are there, going about their daily business, and to a being with only the other sight, humanity would seem to be a great collection of individual powers, staggered all over the planet, surrounded by many other organic and non-organic powers. A forest of light and life might be another way of saying it.

Each human, whether or not they know it, has a spirit that surrounds him or her, and follows them quietly through life. Sometimes, as the Mystery of our existence would have it (call it Fate if you like) more than one spirit surrounds a person, and affects them in many ways. Some have no such spiritual protection, though they are never usually very well off. In that forest of light-forms, these spirits appear as beasts- many kinds of animal, and they inhabit the forest like you'd expect animals to inhabit a forest.

The difference here is that this isn't a worldly landscape; this is an otherworldly landscape, where the rules aren't quite the same; the spirit that looks like a deer can be living its life in the seeming "location" where the human-power of their partner dwells, and next to it, that of a shark or a lion or an otter- there is no strictly defined range of habitat like we see in this world.

But here is where I make the point that I learned- there is a habitat, but it is a human one. If you were to walk through the forest here, you'd come into the territories of certain animals, who keep others out. Some animals are afraid of others, or in competition with others, or preyed on, so they avoid each other. In the part of the forest which is densely populated with owls, for instance, you'd see fewer mice.

Humans occupy their own habitat in the unseen world, a habitat, a human region that is patrolled and peopled by their helping spirits, who mostly remain vigilant for our protection. In the larger ecology of the unseen world, there are many spiritual powers, all very natural, but some dangerous to humanity. These dangerous powers are largely prevented from straying into the human spiritual habitat by the guarding spirits that most of us go through our lives unconscious of. The more conscious we become of our helping spirit(s), the more capable they become of doing their job, and the healthier and happier and more secure we become.

But spirits, whatever they happen to be, just like the mice and owls of this world, have boundaries, relationships with one another, natural ecological relationships of the unseen world- and they avoid certain "places", compete with one another, and attract or repel one another, pursuant to natural ties of spiritual ecology and unseen interaction/recursion.

You recall the forest you walked through- some trees were ill, eaten by rot or fungus; some humans are, too, eaten by illness or disease. This is no different, in our human experience, as it is the forest; sometimes, harmful powers slip into the habitat of other organic powers, and spread their harm. Sometimes, a predator may slip into the habitat of another animal and kill them or hurt them; it is the same with spirits. What I am trying to get you to visualize, to see, is that the unseen world is a massive habitat, not unlike this world, with the same sorts of boundaries, territories, and relationships. It is all a system.

To spirits, we humans don't look like humans. We look like power. What does power look like? I can't tell you, even though I've seen it. The reason why I can't tell you is because all I can tell you is limited by my selection of words and my own assumptions- my experience was colored and is still colored by my own limitations as a human. I can use the term "light"- a great white luminescence, but what does that mean? That is how I punctuate the experience. There's certainly something there, but not being a non-human spirit, I can't say what they see. But I can say this- they don't see us as human men and women. They see us as they see us, and I was told that their way of experiencing us is not unlike how we experience trees when we walk through a forest- to them, we're still, vibrant perhaps, or mysterious.

This should help us to understand how seemingly evil or destructive spirits may not consider themselves to be so, anymore than we may not consider ourselves wicked when we cut down a tree or tear out a plant from the ground to get wood or to eat.

The real vision here, that you should try to cultivate, is this: we see trees standing about, still and living, but what is really there? In the same way that spirits do not see us as we see us, perhaps the spirits of trees do not at all experience themselves as the thing we call a "tree". I can pretty much guarantee you that they do not- when a human beings swings an axe at a tree, here in our "ordinary reality", the spirit of the tree does not experience it as such; but they do sense that something is hurting them, damaging them, in the same way that a human experiences sickness or pain from a tumor or an infection.

We may not "see" a wicked or destructive spirit sucking the life from the power that we are, over in the cognitive state we call "non-ordinary reality", but we experience tiredness and sickness. We don’t often get sick, but then, sickness- causing spirits don’t usually have a chance to intrude far into our spiritual habitat as humans; we have good protectors, and only those whose protectors have failed or been lost are truly vulnerable to constant sickness or accident.

Natural disasters in ecology in this world can cause a place to become depopulated; in the spirit, this is also true- natural and unseen disasters or disturbances can dis-empower human beings and even places. In the same way we must be careful with how we behave around and within ecological systems in this world, we must be as cautious with the spirit. In the same way we can heal damaged ecological systems in this world, we can heal them in the spirit, if we have the ability to experience those extra-ordinary states. The shaman or mystic, that person devoted to developing and utilizing extra-ordinary cognition, is the person that must be employed in this capacity, and this is a sacred vocation of healing and help.

When the ancients discussed all life as a community of relationship, all of this is central to understanding what they were saying- we may think of trees as still lumps of wood, huge plants, and we may consider them living things, but we do not consider the hidden "other" lives of trees, anymore than wicked spirits or other spirits may consider or know about our "other lives" as human beings- all they "see" is the affect or the presence of our living power over in their unseen world. Maybe some spirits don't consider us people at all, or care about us, anymore than many people care about trees. There certainly seem to be some careless or hateful spirits out there. Some spirits may not even know what we are.

Of course, I call spirits wicked or careless based on my own human preferences- how dare they not recognize our humanity and our uniqueness! How dare we not recognize the same among the trees, or animals, or the spirits unseen? These are all good things to consider, when we consider the mysteries of sacred ecology.

What is good to remember is that sickness is not always some evil attack against us, the work of vicious monsters; it is easy for a sick person to think of things that way, because he or she feels their very self to be threatened or to be in misery, but spirits that can cause misery among humans often do not realize what they are doing, or don’t think about it at all- in the same way that a fungus doesn’t sit around and make evil plots to attack and rot an oak tree. They simply live according to their own ecology, and that’s that. In the system, some powers damage others; this is true in this world and in the other world.

When I looked into the unseen, I could see that my own helping spirit would not allow some harmful spirit to invade what seemed to be the "place" where my power "resided". The same went for the "place" of my home, my family, or anyone elses- in communities, human powers are clustered and often very safe- so fear not. But the more unconscious humans become of their helping spirits, and the more unconscious humans are of their intimate connection to things, and to the exchange of power that is part and parcel of our existence, the more we name into reality our own destruction, and allow ourselves to be victimized by spiritual powers that we would not otherwise want "near" us or our loved ones.

Spiritual protection is the issue that I discussed with my helping spirit- he showed me how a place could be made safe, but most places where people live, fortunately, are already kept safe by other powers. But sometimes, spiritual "wards" of safety are required, and the art of creating them is not difficult. It is a matter of being able to empower physical items in such a manner that they take on a new and specific form of reality that even things in the unseen can experience. Such a thing is a useful skill to have.

In the future, please consider the vastness of spiritual ecology; we owe a great debt to awareness, for we have forgotten so much about our true place in things.

Long Feast of the Einherjar

Around this time of year, most Asatru Kindreds and the solo Asatruar out there celebrate a modern feast that we variously call "Einherjar" or the "Long Feast of the Einherjar" or something to that effect. It's a formal occassion by which the Einherjar, the heroic dead, are honored. The heroic dead are those who, by virtue of their bravery or sense of duty, made the sacrifice of their own lives in battle, both in the past, and in this age of the world.

This sort of talk raises some eyebrows. Are we bloodthirsty Heathens off glorifying violence, as everyone thinks we do? "Surely", (so speak the ill-informed) "your ancestors were a bloodthirsty lot who glorified deaths in battle, telling warriors that they'd feast with Odin and get served drinks and pork roast by beautiful maidens. Does that not incite people to kill and die recklessly?"

I don't need to cover the pointless debate about whose ancestors were "more violent" than others. In the past, as in the present, violence was and is a part of human life, and Asatru isn't the only religion that teaches of a happy afterlife for the brave and the noble. But this sacred time of year in which the Einherjar- the slain heroes- are honored, isn't a time to reflect on violence, but on bravery and nobility in the face of struggle.

The sacred stories tell us that the battle-slain were taken by Valkyries- feminine spirits who serve Allfather as his handmaidens and servants- and brought to Valhalla, the "Hall of the Slain". There, they feasted in the long feast with Allfather and the Gods, given a neverending supply of mead, ale, and pork. They sported in combat training all day, and by night, had healed for another round of drinking and feasting. They continued in this warrior's heaven until the Doom of the world itself- Ragnarok, the Judgment of the Powers, and they had the final honor of joining the Gods in the final battle in which they and the Gods all die, going out in their final blaze of glory. Then the worlds fall apart under the weight of the victorious wicked powers, to await its own regeneration and a new beginning.

What a story! What an idea of an afterlife! We usually don't know what to make of it in the modern world, but I think there's more to it than meets the eye. At first glance, it seems a simple warrior's paradise, and to some extent, there's a lot of that going on here. To begin with, this vision of Valhalla belongs to a late period in Germanic Heathen history- the Viking period- which was also the last period of active Heathen religion before the Interregnum. This vision of Valhalla is also found only in Icelandic Heathen literature.

This isn't to say that other Germanic Heathens from other time periods didn't have some idea of a Warrior's paradise out there for warriors who died bravely; only that we can't be sure. You'd have to be a fool to imagine that ideas like Valhalla just appeared out of nowhere; surely there was a long precedent for it, for in organic and traditional religions, things seldom happen randomly or quickly.

But what we can be certain that the Germanic family of human beings was very massive and not uniform. They have ages of history behind them, and organic religions undergo natural evolutions. We know that Odhinn- Valhall's great Father- was not always the chief God of the Germanic people, but he has occupied that title and respect for a very long time. Did Tiwaz or Tyr, the Great Shining Lord of the Sky himself, once sit at the feasting table in a heavenly realm for warriors? It seems likely, given what we know of the beliefs of related peoples in their own veneration of Tiwaz, who always had the characteristics of a warrior.

It really doesn't matter- all this talk is just talk. What we can be sure of is that some of our Heathen ancestors believed that Odhinn- or the Gods- honored the glorious dead, and the bravery that it took to be a career fighter and risk your life all the time was a sign that you were worthy to stand with the Gods at the end of time, when the Doom of the world was finally shown and done with. At the last battle- an unwinnable battle- the forces that support life and consciousness stand heroically, showing that even in certain defeat, they stand for what they stand for, against the powers of darkness and oblivion. Such heroism in the face of certain doom is the single most powerful statement of devotion and nobility that can be shown, in any world, in any time.

I personally don't believe that death while fighting is enough to win the honor of "Einherjar". People can be fighting for destructive, greedy reasons- and thus, spreading violence for decidedly evil ends. This sort of behavior isn't Godly, nor worth a Godly welcome. We know that the Eddas said that even the battle-slain had to pass through Hel, the Underworld, to face their own judgment, before being lifted to their reward in the enclosure of the Gods. What they had with them was the Valkyrie, to be their advocate in that dark place. The dead, it was thought, did not and could not speak for themselves- it was their luck-force, their Hamingja, and in the case of the glorious dead, the Valkyrie, who spoke on their behalf, showing all in the judgment-ring the quality of that person.

I don't think that a viking, raping and pillaging his way across some land, who drew his sword to enter some homestead on some farm with the full intention of raping the women inside, would be considered an "Einherjar" if the farmer who lived there lucked up and killed him with a pitchfork. But I do think that noble men and women, defending their land or people, or serving honorably under a war-leader whose goals were at least in part motivated by the good of their people, would certainly be honored in the afterlife if they were slain in their duties.

Of course, I can't say. Wyrd is strange, and judgment- the true measure of a man or woman- is far from certain to mortals, based as it is on so many hidden factors. Only the Gods and spirits who can see in a more complete way- those who can see the Well of Wyrd- can know for sure what destiny awaits the dead of this world. But I can say with confidence that living a life of murder and rape probably won't line you up for a glorious afterlife.

Who are the Einherjar of our present day? Who were they in the distant past? They are those men and women who devote themselves to the way of the warrior. And what is that? Is a warrior a person who lives by a sword, and practices fighting and killing? That's one function of a warrior, to be certain.

But it's my opinion that "warrior" and "warfare" goes far deeper. In a way, all of life is a battlefield, and all of us are called to struggle, whether we want to or not, and whether we realize this fact or not. The world is a battlefield, where the forces of order and chaos clash daily- both in fields of battle with actual weapons, and in the field of the human mind and soul, where greedy and selfish urges rise up to overwhelm our innate sense of goodness, bravery, and self-sacrifice.

I think that anyone from the modern day who devotes their life to fighting against greed, selfishness and corruption, is a warrior. These can be lawyers who fight with greedy corporations, or activists who fight against financial imperialism on the parts of greedy nations. These can be people who struggle against environmental destruction, or people who fight for equal rights for others. It can be a policeman or policewoman who risks their life daily to support the safety of society. It can even be a Buddhist monk, struggling in contemplation against the dark forces in his own mind and spirit. These struggles are reflections of deeper cosmic struggles, and they are no less dangerous- people are murdered or die everyday because they stood on one side of a struggle that was over greed, money and politics.

I think those brave souls are equally honored by the Gods, and are Einherjar.

The more traditional warrior is present in our modern day- and they deserve great honors. They are our veterans, who, in the name of duty, expose themselves to danger on a daily basis, and who live through terrible ordeals. Maybe you are like me, and you don't agree with the current war in Iraq. It may be the case that the United States is fighting for a lost cause there, under false pretexts for war. But men and women are there, fighting and dying, not because someone is holding a gun to their heads, but because they volunteered, and because it is their duty.

And they are real heroes, whether they die in battle or not. They are brave, and our ancestors thought of the quality of bravery as the gold of the human spirit.

The Veterans of past wars are also in need of praise- think of World War II, where the world had to fight against one of the greatest evils the world had ever seen- Nazi Germany. My own Grandfather proudly participated in that great and holy struggle, and he stormed the beaches at Normandy, facing death at every step.

It was not Fated that I should ever know my Grandfather to be able to ask him questions about his war experiences, for he died when I was very young, but I wish I could speak to him. I wish I could honor him in person. He and his fellow soldiers- just boys from small towns all over America, and all over the rest of the world- saved this planet from an evil regime that needed to be defeated. They were far from their homes and their loved ones, but they fought bravely and won.

They are Einherjar. The word "Einherjar" means "one-harrier"- or, to translate more poetically, "army of one". It refers to a ferociously skillful fighter. For me, the struggle of life extends from battlefields, to the private corners of the minds and hearts of every human being, and this struggle requires bravery and skill if a person is to be successful. Good warriors defeat their enemies on the battlefield, but other fighters are the fighters who struggle to win the lonely battle of the self. And the bravest of warriors sometimes die fighting- but their deaths aren't their end. They go on to experience the Long Feast in the company of the Gods and the heroes of old, and they join the Gods in making the final and best display of goodness, there at the end of all things.

But they die knowing that their deaths are their final and best testament to all they believed in- and we Heathens know that when the worlds are reborn, what was good and noble in the previous world will live again. Nothing worthwhile is ever forgotten or lost for good.

So, in honor of this Feast of the Einherjar, I give my deepest salute of honor and gratitude to the victorious dead, veterans in the past and present who were dragged down to death in battle, but also to the victorious fighters of all kinds, who struggle everyday. Long live the fighters!

Keep the Hallows in Halloween

I had a wonderful night last night, giving out tons of candy to kids who were happily scurrying from door to door in my neighborhood, all in costumes. I was in costume too; I had an 18th century highwayman's coat on, with a tricorn hat, and I had our jack-o-lantern burning, grinning, and glowing in the darkness on our front porch. I had the obligatory candles burning along the railings, too- a perfect touch. We had a lot of ghouls, fairies and goblins this year- they wiped us out quick, making me go across the yard to my neighbor's house to do some trick-or-treating of my own, to get extra candy for the kids.

I love Halloween. It is my favorite holiday; I love the spirit of fall and autumn which Halloween captures in a very ancient and curious way- the way of guizing and masquerading, both of which are ancient customs in Britain and Europe, no doubt going back to Pagan times. And this fact- that they are rooted in Heathenry- is what makes them so cool, and so timeless. The name "Halloween" means "Hallowed Eve"- and the sacredness of that night is nothing but a reflection of the sacredness of the season all around it.

This holiday follows our Asatru Winter Nights festivities, and coincides with the start of November, when the adherents of the Celtic native paths draw in for their Samhain celebrations. For our crafty Celts, Samhain's dark season is very similar to our Yule; the dissolution of the order of the world (and the order of the year) into the pre-creational chaos that preceded it. At such a strange time, which all European Pagans felt and enshrined in some manner, anything is truly possible- and spirits awaken to the time as well, including the spirits of the Ancestral dead.

Some can be dangerous; others are yearning to be with their living relatives here and now. The custom of dressing up in frightening costumes is the simplest and most ancient form of sympathetic magic- humans become like ghouls and spirits themselves. In this manner, the boundaries between the living and the dead are crossed; they are permeable and confused. In their masks and costumes, whether in older times or now, the dangerous spirits cannot tell humans apart from other spirits- or at least, this was the hope.

Where I come from, everyday is Halloween; I'm a member of a re-enactment troupe, and I just love masks and costumes anyway. There is something shamanic, something spiritual about the change of identity that occurs when a person dresses up, takes on a mask, and for a moment, tries on that new personality. It reminds us that we are not just what we appear- or perhaps, we ARE what we appear, and appearances can be changed; they are deceitful.

At heart, the Hallows season is about going into winter with all precautions taken, with bonds renewed between people, and with a lot of revelry and fun. Life and fun in the face of a dark time of cold and death- THAT is the spirit of Hallows. For those of us who engage the unseen reality on a deeper level, Hallows is equally as sacred for the opportunity it affords us to experience extra-sensory reality in a deeper manner.

I am always (as you might imagine) disgusted by the fundamentalist Christian attack on Halloween: around here, these types are in deep denial, and try to change the name from "Halloween" to "Fall Festival". All the pinhead churches around here have "Fall Festival" signs on them, in attempts to get parents to bring kids there instead of bringing them trick-or-treating. It is well known that all the bullshit stories about kids being "poisoned" by "satanists" with contaminated Halloween candy were debunked by federal investigations; they were lies started by the same religious idiots who want to stop people from enjoying themselves at this time of year in a non-Christian way.

They whine and complain endlessly about how "Pagan" Halloween is- because to them, in their narrow, black-and-white worlds, it's all "satanism". I'm so tired of hearing these idiots preach these ridiculous ideas, pregnant with their own ignorance, misinformation, and fear.

As a proud modern Pagan, I love Halloween, and I think that Halloween (along with the Yuletide season) are the greatest and best survivals of the Pagan spirit into the modern day- and see how timeless they are! See how persistent! Nothing these fear-mongers can do will ever change what people feel in these times. Paganism wasn't evil; it wasn't the devil's way. It was and is the first way, the natural way of the Land and the Gods. It is the way of traditions far older than Christianity. There is no evil in it; the evil is all in the fear and ignorance of these Christians.

We Pagans and Heathens in the modern day belong to ethnic religious traditions that have a right to be seen, heard, and accepted, every bit as much as faiths like Shinto or Buddhism or Hinduism are seen and accepted. People criticizing Halloween or Easter (or whatever traditional holiday) as "rooted in Paganism"- as though "Paganism" was a bad thing- are insulting our religious traditions, and being hateful while doing it. They are also showing an enormous amount of ignorance about the Ancestral past.

It's so acceptable for them to do it, but when we stand up for our right to be accepted and not considered "satanists" while pursuing our Ancestral and non-mainstream religious preferences, we are further subject to their baseless attacks, and our calls for a level playing field fall on deaf ears.

I'm not the sort that sits by and suffers in the name of "tolerance" or "being better than the Christians". Lines have to be drawn, and people have to make a stand at some point- I can assure you that Buddhists or Hindus would make a stand if their sacred times and days were being attacked in such a manner, or if their holy past and the roots of their cultures were being called "satanic". In some places, they have fought back. If we don't stand up for this, we cannot say that we truly love or believe in what we say we believe.

From this point on, I will campaign to have Christmas called "Winter Festival". They want to keep the Christ in Christmas? I don't believe in their Christ and I don't want him in my schools or around my kids, so I think "Winter Festival" is a better thing to call Christmas.

I'm going to ignore 1700 years of Christian tradition because I don't like the sinister forces and negative histories that swirl around their religion, and because I can just do that; they can do it to Halloween, and we can do it to Christmas.

See how that works? It's marvelous. We don't have to walk on eggshells around the absurd and propagandistic religious sensibilities of Christians. How sickening that these people rage against their own Ancestral roots, both directly and indirectly! How dismal that they cannot face their own fears and see how deep the well of life really runs!

As for Halloween, let's try and keep the Hallows in the season. Encourage everyone to take their kids, in costume, trick-or-treating. Have fun with it. Celebrate. Go to costume parties. Remember that these modern revels are just dim reflections of ancient revels, but that the spirit of those ancient feasts and parties is still very much alive. Enjoy yourself! This life- even at its dark moments- is to be celebrated. Not all celebrations are goofy parties; sometimes they are moving or rapturous for other reasons.

There's no need to fear the unknown; death- one of the themes of this numinous season- is something that we all end up coming to terms with, in this world or the next. One of the best ways to do that is to ghoul yourself up and have a stiff drink. Might as well enjoy these realities of your life, because if you can't find a way to enjoy life and accept its Fated end, living it will be a thankless chore.

Approaching the Gods Anew: Organic Religious Traditions and the Journey Beyond Mythology

Asatru, like all reconstructionist religions, greatly treasures the myths, sagas, and folktales which are the central written repositories of its Ancestral lore. In the Eddas and Sagas we discover countless valuable examples of how the Ancestors worshiped, handled the hard situations that arise in everyday life, and how they situated themselves in this world. The Eddas and Sagas are especially valuable to us because their source-country, Iceland, not only remained Heathen till the year 1000 CE, but was always proud of its Heathen past. Because of this pride in Ancestry, the wise Icelanders didn't feel the need to adulterate their forefathers' myths and stories by removing things that were "too Pagan", and they didn't feel the need to enmesh Christian values and ideals into these stories. As a result, we have relatively uncut examples of myths and tales that communicate to us the essence of an important stream of the Heathen religious and cultural past.

When we study the mythical themes in the Eddas, we can gain a very vivid image of who and what the Gods were to the men and women of a late period in Heathen history. While the Eddas do not speak to the entirety of the vast sweep of time in which the Germanic people were Pagan, they do present us with a directly descended organic result of countless generations of Heathenry. It is equally important to remember that the Germanic peoples were never "one" people as much as a very large grouping of tribes that were related linguistically and culturally- but variation always existed, and it still exists. This variation extended to religion. It is well known that the many continental Germanic peoples did not originally worship Odhinn as the "highest God", as much as they did Tiwaz or Tyr, and in other places, Thonoraz or Thor. These "sky" Gods, Gods of strength, martial ability, justice, light, and weather were the original "high Gods" of the Indo-European peoples as a whole.

It was a later time that the cult of Odhinn grew to a position of power, at least in northern lands. I understand that Odhinn was not a "newcomer"- his primordial presence can be tracked a good ways into history, but his ascendancy as the God of the ruling class was a relatively new cultural change in some places. Thor and Frey always remained the Gods of the "common man", even in Iceland, the country that gave us the Eddas in the first place. It so happens that the class of rulers and princes in Scandinavia (from whence came the Icelanders) had accepted the kingly cult of Odhinn, as had the intelligentsia embodied by skalds and sorcerers. Odhinn's position as God of War also gave him power in the warrior class, and they etch the politics of any nation with their swords and spears.

I have no doubt that Odhinn's presence has always been among the Germanic peoples, as it was among all peoples, for he is the shaper of the Nine Worlds and the gifter of mankind with beauty, sacredness, and inspiration. But the secret presence of this uncanny shaper does not ensure that he will be recognized and worshiped by all peoples equally- it only makes a large measure of sense that originally, the primordial peoples of the world would look to the most obvious powers- Great Sky and Earth- for their seed-pantheons. It would take many ages for mankind to evolve culturally and mentally enough to understand what qualities are truly the "kingly" qualities- that of cleverness, cunning, wisdom, and creativity. These qualities always trump strength and force, and without them, strength and force are misguided and unreliable. That a certain God should come to the forefront in human communities at some time later, when the realities of human life have changed, is in no manner a mystery or a scandal. It's just the nature of organic, healthy human religion that such a shift is possible.

There are some people out there who are bothered by the notion that human mythologies- such as the Indo European myths- are clearly influenced by human cultural changes and politics. It's humorous that such a thing would be of concern in the modern day, where the "bible", itself a 100% obvious product of human culture and human politics, holds such sway, but these people have a point that should be addressed- did humans just make all these myths up? Are the Eddaic myths just reflections of values and ideas that Scandinavian princes forced into place to honor the Gods that they felt upheld their authority?

I'm going to cover some new and somewhat unsettling ground, but I think it's high time that someone came out and said these things. Many of my fellow Asatruar have already considered what I am about to say, and the wisest of them were not bothered by it at all. Here goes:

The Gods are not confined to what we know about them owing to what mythology has survived to us in the present day. The Gods were never confined to the cultural stories told about them, in any era of history, and they are not so confined today. It may sound scandalous to some, but things with the Gods are never so simple.

I will develop this idea greatly, and cast some light on what sorts of perspectives we are forced to take when we understand what mythology is, and where it came from.

Let me start by saying something else that may bother some people- we don't know who or what the Gods really are. The Gods are certainly real; our ancestors certainly knew them and experienced them in many ways. The myths that our ancestors created to capture something of their experience with the Gods is valuable because it tells us, in many direct and indirect ways, something about the character and personality of the Gods and Goddesses. But however sacred they are, the myths are not the Gods. The myths do not tell us everything about the Gods. The myths that we have- and our collection of myths from the past is far from complete- are only snapshots of moments in human history in which humans told stories and shared them, regarding important mysterious events of Godly and otherworldly contact.

The myths do not tell us everything about the Gods; they don't even tell us most things. They tell us enough to approach the Gods in certain ways, ways that are similar to how our ancestors at one time did, but the myths are not "sacred scripture, exhaustive and complete" in the way that some people think the Bible or the Koran is.

For modern Heathens, as with ancient Heathens, our relationship to the Gods, and our understanding of them, cannot be limited by partial historical records or even by collections of myths from one time period or another. While it is true the myths present the valuable starting point that we need, and they present the context in which we must try to understand the Gods and Ancestral religion, they are not balls and chains of dogma that weight us down. This goes for all myths that all reconstructionists of any stripe may use.

There is a tendency for modern people to try and "type" the Gods. To an extent, this is unavoidable, because the reality is that not all Gods or Goddesses take an active role in all human activities. But there is a tendency to go further, and oversimplify the Gods and Goddesses, forcing them into neat categories of activity that never actually existed in the past. Victorian scholars loved to try this, forcing all pantheons to fit into their chart telling who was the "war god" and who was the "sun god" and so forth. When you really study the myths and lore of Gods and Goddesses, however, you see that such over-simple categorizations are not realistic.

The God Frey, for instance, was a God associated with fertility, but also with the life-giving powers of the sun and weather- but he was also a God of martial prowess and war, as well as peace. He was a king in Alfheim, the land given to him as a "tooth-gift", and lord of the burial mound or the Howe, and the Alfar or Elves in Alfheim- themselves related to the spirits of the dead, or the mound-dead. This God was a bringer of fruitfulness, an Earth-related God with hallowing powers, a God of Kingship and ancestor to the house of the Ynglings, and with his title "The Shining One", even a God of light and the sky. How can you try and pigeonhole Frey? It cannot be done. The same can be said for so many other Gods and Goddesses- things are not simple with them. These great spirits, these mysterious beings, are magnificently and broadly spread throughout the web of Wyrd, influencing many things and capable of being approached and known in many ways.

I would like to turn now to one of my favorite scholars of Heathen History: H.R. Ellis Davidson. In her essential book "Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe", she discusses the Scandinavian and Celtic Gods and the realities of Godly mythology in a very clear and penetrating way. Speaking of the myths of the Gods and organic traditions, she says:

"Gods and Goddesses appear in popular mythologies in a fossilized and static form. From the way in which they behave in various tales, often simplified in their turn, they are assumed to be deities of certain fixed types. As to which these types are, this depends on the prevailing theories about early religion.

However (when approaching the variety of presentations in mythologies) we are dealing here with many different levels of belief, and also with confused traditions, which may have been worked on by earlier antiquarians long before modern scholars began their reconstructions. Tales and poems about the Gods may also have been influenced by outside traditions and suffered considerable changes by the time they came to be recorded.

We cannot hope to get evidence at first hand, and even if we could, it is all too likely that we would find it confused and contradictory. Men are capable of holding concepts about the supernatural world which, from our modern viewpoint, seem to be opposed to one another, but which nevertheless worked reasonably satisfactorily for them. As long as traditions were passed on orally, those which no longer fitted could be given up while those which could develop along with changing ways of life were retained.

Once recorded, however, new confusions were created as it became essential to make a choice between the old and the new. Yet while all this must be borne in mind, it hardly justifies a refusal to search for an overall picture of the Gods of the Celtic and Germanic tradition from such evidence as is available. There is, after all, a considerable amount of information, complex and uneven though it may be...

There is no doubt that ideas about the Gods were constantly fluid and changing. Traditions and customs are remoulded along with changing ways of life, as is abundantly clear from the study of folklore, where recent work has highlighted the difficulties encountered in defining popular beliefs and drawing conclusions about them from oral tradition."


I will give more quotes from Davidson, but at this point, I felt the need to stop and point out the essence of her statement: oral traditions and organic traditions are fluid and dynamic. This is because the nature of the Gods and the Otherworld, in common with the nature of every living being, is fluid and dynamic. Living beings, like living wisdom, partake of a healthy chain of adaptions and adjustments, whenever the demands of Fate and life make their presence known. In this web of Wyrd, ever-changing and interactional, there is little or no room for people who wish to "codify" things, call them "truths", and expect them to remain so.

This is not an invitation to fall into the trap of relativism. The value of human life, the worthiness of the Gods, the nobility of heroism, the need for reciprocal respect between humans and the world they live in, these things (and other things) are unquestionably good and worthwhile, regardless of the many changes and life-situations that humans will find themselves in, or the situations the Gods may find themselves in, or the situations a hero may find him or herself in. It just so happens that a certain flexibility of mind must accompany all of our efforts towards being noble and wise- what is good and noble in these Nine Worlds will remain so, even if the forms and situations through which we know them as good and noble must undergo constant changes and transformations.

Flexibility in thinking and behaving is strength; it is the power to adapt and overcome. Without it, neither wisdom nor victory is possible. Having this sort of flexibility of thinking and behaving is not the same as saying "give up on your ancestral traditions"- it is saying "understand the context in which your traditions are embedded, and don't over-calcify the Ancestors, nor the ways in which they experienced the world and came to know the truths that they discovered."

Truly throwing away all that we know about tradition in the name of flexibility would be a travesty, but ignoring the demands made by the shifting web of Wyrd, ignoring the demands that Nature herself puts on us to adapt in the name of some "set-in-stone" cultural ideal that probably never existed in the past, is equally as bad. A person has to balance their need for certainty (which contains in itself the dangerous seed of dogma) with wisdom's request that we live our lives the best we can, never allowing the blindness of inflexibility to paralyze us mentally or spiritually.

In some way, this is the central conflict faced by reconstructionists today- balancing the need to revive an organic tradition of spirituality from within ourselves, which includes a personal and ongoing experience of the Gods and the Otherworld, with the need to respect what we do know about the Ancestral past and to situate ourselves, as wisely as we can, within the context of the same.

It is obvious to everyone who has ever really practiced a reconstructionist religion that simply reading books is not enough. It is not enough to read a description of a God from some scholar's book, and grab a horn and fill it with ale, and drink to the God.

The spiritual awareness we seek, the experience of the sacred tradition of the Ancestral past, does not begin until a person gets out of books and engages the Gods actively in their lives. There is an "open space" of types, between the life of the modern Heathen and the mystery of the Gods or other spiritual powers- and in that space, which is impossible to pin down, impossible to explain, and hard to imagine, a spiritual meeting takes place, a meeting that can hardly be explained or described to another who didn't experience it.

In that meeting, a person finds a religious identity, and finds a direction which belongs to them alone, but which can be harmoniously blended with others who share in that person's family or religious community in many positive ways. To get into this "space" where the Gods can be met, or the Ancestors can be met, a person has to stop imagining that they know beforehand what they will see or experience. They have to bear in mind what the Ancestors said, but they must also bear in mind that the lore of the Ancestors, so crucial to us today, was not put there to exempt a person from their own experience. Ancestral lore has not exempted any person from the duty to find their own experience of the Gods and of life.

A person has to approach the Gods and the spiritual powers with an open mind, a frame of reference that is flexible and receptive. To give up on so many things that give us certainty and to trust in the Gods and Ancestors is difficult, but it is the only way to really get into the "space" I have been describing. The lore that you have read will always be there for you, to support you, and to supply you with a context and a way of understanding your experiences, but it cannot live your spiritual life for you.

There's no need for worry here- the Gods and Ancestors know their own, and when you make the leap into the "open space", they will be there. They will situate you and you will engage them, and from that point, whenever and wherever it comes, you have the spiritual experience-base that allows Heathens to avoid the trap of "faith in the unprovable" which is so common in monotheistic religions. Heathens don't "believe" in the Gods and Ancestors even though they can't see them; Heathens know their Gods and Ancestors. Heathens experience them in many ways. Heathens who experienced them before left us many sacred tales and wisdom-packed stories; from that, we can know that our search is not unique to us, and many men and women before us have succeeded, to their great joy and satisfaction.

The question of "which Gods?" will doubtlessly come up- which Gods will meet you? Should you want to meet any in particular? Returning now to Davidson, she says, regarding the Gods and the organic traditions of the past:

"The Celtic and Germanic peoples worshiped a number of Gods through the centuries. There were many changes in their way of life, and much movement of peoples over a wide area of Europe, so that their religion could hardly be expected to remain static. Although there were priests and teachers to pass on the old traditions, there were no sacred books to establish a main outline of myths which might be used as a final court of appeal. They had come into contact with many cultures before they finally accepted (or were forced to accept) the teaching of the Christian church and abandoned their early religious practices, and one powerful influence was the sophisticated culture of the Roman Empire which in the end they helped to overthrow.

Much of our knowledge of their Gods comes from altars and inscriptions to native deities which have been identified with Roman Gods, given Roman names, and depicted in anthropomorphic form in accordance with Roman custom and style. While Roman religion in its turn was not static, there was a strong tendency to organize and rationalize supernatural figures, fitting them into an elaborate scheme in which each was responsible for some special department in life.

Our familiarity with this way of viewing the Gods has led to the assumption that Germanic and Celtic deities must be specialized ones also. As Marie Sjoestedt pointed out: "When we are tackling a strange mythology, we seek instinctively an Olympus where the Gods abide, an Erebus, kingdom of the dead, a hierarchy of the Gods, specialized as patrons of war, of the arts, or love. And, seeking them, we do not fail to find them."

She goes on to point out the lack of definite functions to differentiate the Celtic Gods. The most powerful deities were characteristic tribal ones, presiding over many aspects of life, such as fertility, craftsmanship, battle, law, and magic. She felt that it is not possible to find a "common Celtic" period in mythology, with clearly defined central deities: "What we know of the decentralized character of society among the Celts and of the local and anarchical character of their mythology excludes that hypothesis."

This has to be borne in mind when approaching the myths, and no doubt much of the same can be said of the Gods of the Germanic peoples. Odin, Thor, and Freyr were many-sided Gods. Odin may have reigned supreme over the battlefield, but also possessed special skills such as poetry, oratory, divination, and the secret of gaining wealth, while he was an expert in the magical arts and had entry into the Underworld realm of the dead. Thor was the god bearing the thunderbolt, defender of the Aesir and of mankind, yet also had power over the fertility of the earth, while he assisted travelers and protected the homes, laws, and boundaries of men. Freyr was one of the fertility Gods, yet seems to have been regarded as a war God by the Swedes, who placed his symbols on armor and weapons.

No one of these three possessed sole dominion over the sky, the earth, or the underworld. Odin rode through the sky as well as under the earth; Freyr was associated with the sun but also was a power within the burial mound; Thor had dominion over storms and winds, but his hammer could protect worshipers in the grave.

However the character of each God is recognizable, and the choice of one as a divine protector was likely to depend on the kind of life a man led. Kings and warriors turned to Odin; those holding land and responsibility were likely to select Thor as their friend; those who wished for luck in hunting, rearing of beasts, cultivation of land, and the bringing up of healthy children would seek help from the Vanir."

Sjoestedt's quote above, given by Ellis, is powerful- we WILL see what we want to see, when we bring our own assumptions to any mythology that we study. This is important because I've seen too many people butcher the mythologies of the Northern people with their half-baked assumptions about the way the Godly world or the Unseen World works. The Unseen world is primarily a mystery to us, even if it is a perfectly natural aspect of human life and the structure of the world.

Davidson does the best job I've read of reminding us that our Ancestors' Gods were not things sliced up with cookie-cutter shapes and served in some rational, structured way to their followers. The Ancestral approach to the Gods is one of experience and engagement, which takes us beyond our expectations of structure and rationality. In this manner, the Gods can be truly present to each and every moment in time, or person who seeks them; by not fitting into some narrow theory or theology, they are infinitely able to be real to us, and to affect the world.

This brings me to my final point: Ancestral myths. What can we make of those? Some of the myths we read in the Eddas (and I should point out here that "myth", to me, in no manner implies something that is "made up") present a pretty structured view of the Gods and how they created the world. We know that the Eddas come from one time period, late in Iceland, so what should we conclude from this? Davidson writes:

"The Gods as represented in surviving literatures form a group, and there are no indications of an earlier concept of one supreme deity. The Germans and Scandinavians worshiped the Gods as a company at their regular feasts, although a toast might be drunk or a sacrifice offered to one particular deity. Two or three are mentioned together in such oath formulae or curses as have come down to us. In Eddic and Skaldic poetry two or three of the Gods have adventures together, while they are pictured in larger companies feasting together or meeting to decide on judgments at the Thing. Voluspa, admittedly composed somewhat late in the pre-Christian period, gives a confident picture of the Gods as a group at the beginning of time, establishing order, making objects of fine workmanship, and setting up buildings.

As we have been reminded, it would be foolish to reject such testimony out of hand, and the creation of a pantheon in Asgard cannot be due to Snorri, although he may have added a few details to regularize the vague and often confused relationships between various deities, as when he makes Odin the father of Thor. The Gods are also seen as established in families, with sons who play a small but significant part in the myths, and are married to Goddesses who appear to come from the Vanir, and are said to be daughters of giants.

...The idea of a company of Gods is supported by the language of the poems. Regin is used of the Gods, in general, although it may have referred originally to the chief Gods, those in particular who possessed power over the fates of men. A similar Gothic term ragin is used to mean "counsel" or "decision" and the word is found in the German Heliand with the meaning of "divine power". In the Hakonarmal, composed in the tenth century, the dead king Hakon is welcomed to Valhalla by "all the council and the powers" (rad oll ok regin).

...The conception of a divine company of Gods seems to have been well established among the Germans by the time of Tacitus. In his Germania he mentions Mercury and Mars, the "Supreme God" of the Semnones, who may have been Tiwaz, twin Gods known as the Alcis, the divine ancestor Tvisto, and the Goddesses Isis and Nerthus. He refers to the Gods in the plural, reporting that men believed they should not be confined within walls or portrayed in human likeness, and that they could communicate by means of sacred horses and other methods. Similarly, Julius Ceasar insists on a plurality of deities among the Celts in the last century BC."


Many sources tell us that the Gods were many, and they help us to understand who and what the people of their time believed about the Gods, but one thing stands out clearly: as Davidson said in the beginning, these accounts are snapshots, fossilized in time, of a "way of knowing" that was current to those times. We can and should take these things into account, but we can't forget that people in those times "rounded out" their understandings of the Gods in many ways that were relevant to the needs of their people and their lives. Snorri certainly comes to mind here.

Here is the essence of the message I am trying to communicate in this essay: The Gods are real; they are the Gods, long-lived and mighty, forever protectors of the world; but reports of the past, and even sacred myths, are only starting points to discovering who and what they are.

Yes, it is likely that Thor was the chief God of the Germanic peoples in many areas, for many centuries, and it is likewise that Tiwaz or Tyr was the chief God of many others. It is true that people all over the Germanic world didn't always believe that Odhinn was the chief and ruler of Gods- this is a later evolution of Germanic religion, though to see modern Asatru, you'd never guess that.

The reason why this is okay is because the Gods don't care how we understand them, so long as we recognize them and seek their company and friendship. The Gods DO understand how mortal politics, cultural evolution, and the sweep of Fate and history can bring many people to think many things about them, and they do not place those things before the simple truth of their own existence and the need mortals have for them, nor do the Gods (who seem to be more broad-minded than mortals) care whether or not we think this-or-that God is the son of this-or-that God.

They do care about us as mortals, because they protect our world from destructive powers, and they are our kin, for we are all sprung from the massive web of Wyrd, and the myths also present a notion of direct Ancestral connection, as well. The Gods concern themselves with us as family, and again, this sort of bond goes far beyond some insignificant point of shifting cultural theology.

At one time, people may not have believed that Thor was the son of Odin. In another place, that idea was evolved. I have defended this evolution in understanding Odhinn as a natural evolution that had to occur as people came to more awareness of the power of cunning and wisdom, and how such things were the true power behind rulership and thrones.

Either way, people's changing understanding of the Gods and the relationships between them is secondary to the reality of the Gods and the ability of humans to have relationships with them. That's that. We Heathens don't have "bibles" in our Eddas; we have books presenting some sacred understandings of some people who lived some hundreds of years ago- it's good to have their understandings, and we are just as capable now of basing a reconstructed religion off it.

But we go seriously wrong if we think that the Eddas (or any presentation of mythology) are "true, unalterable, and beyond question." A person can have a religious relationship with Odhinn, or Thor, or any God or Goddess fully in isolation from any mythical understanding of them- knowing the God or Goddesses' name, having an experience of them from the inside, engaging them with your heart and mind, toasting them and sacrificing to them will be as sufficient now as it was centuries ago. What the Ancestors had that many of us don't is a community that gave a context to these sacred activities and shared them in unique cultural ways; today, Kindreds and congregations of Asatruar can still experience that, when they worship the Gods and Ancestors together.

I'd like to end this by pointing out that I, personally, do have my own ideas, based on the Eddas and other sources, about how the Godly family of the Aesir and the Vanir are related to one another- a theological family tree, as it were. But I recognize that these understandings of mine, and of the Eddaic writers, are just that- our understandings of the mysteries of the Gods themselves, and that there's a hel of a lot more about the Gods that we don't know. Building such an understanding of the Gods as I have is a way of honoring my Ancestors, primarily; when it comes to straight theological thinking, I'll be the first to admit that the primordial Gods are mysterious and hard to understand, and their relationship with humanity goes so far back, that all of our mythical ideas and understandings of them are reflections of reflections, passed down to us through immense ages of time.

For me, it is far more important that I pray and sacrifice to the Gods than it is that I get my "facts of relationship based on the Eddas" right. I think the Gods must agree, considering the many blessings and great luck that has been poured out into my life. They'll be here for us all as long as we approach them with open minds and hearts, and with full knowledge that they are both real, and the worthy protectors and helpers of mankind.

Are we not simply living and doing what our ancestors always have done? We are born here in our world, we hear tales from the past, learn of the Gods from Ancestral lore, and we take those learnings and we integrate them into our lives as best we can, bearing in mind the needs and realities of our modern day. This is a "theology of everyday life", as opposed to some "theology of the book"- our ancestors were not burdened by scriptures, and neither are we. Getting out of books and into personal engagement with life and the Gods is what we are meant to do.

Traitor in Charge

Bobby Jindal has just won my state's gubernatorial race (I'm in Louisiana for those of you who don't know or who don't know Bobby Jindal). I must say, I'm not surprised by this outcome, but I am disappointed. Bobby Jindal is a staunchly conservative republican, which is an unusual thing for a Louisiana governor to be, but he's more than just a conservative jackass. He's a traitor.

The son of Indian immigrants, Jindal is a convert to Catholicism. His own people's Gods and his ancestors have been cast off by this serpent, who has changed his skin to blend in with his surroundings and the people around him, to further his greedy quest for power.

He has (unsuccessfully) pawed at the governor's office before, like a lusty schoolboy clawing at his prom date's dress; I personally don't trust people that desire to be career politicians, and who seek new and more powerful political offices every year. Jindal's been a ladder-climbing opportunist ever since he got into the political life. And he's been absurdly open about his "I'm trying way too hard to seem white" conservative beliefs.

When I lived in New Orleans, I heard Jindal speaking- and what did he speak about? How the basis for our society was the moral code of the Ten Commandments, and how we need copies of the Ten Commandments in all courthouses and government buildings. Beyond just being a traitor to his own ancestral culture, he is (like most christians) incapable of dealing with the fact that diversity exists in this land, and we aren't all christian. Lovely.

I would like to categorically state this: It is my belief that our new governor (a Gods-cursed convert), beyond his basic conservative priggishness, has no clue how to deal fairly with a secular and diverse constituency. Wouldn't be the first time in the history of the land that we've been subjected to a moralizing idiot, and sadly, it probably won't be the last.

It's sad to see a traitor win the governor's race who is essentially riding on the idea of the people's dissatisfaction with the failures of the previous governor. And it's even sadder to think that our new governor proudly boasts of being a personal friend of George W. Bush, the supreme oil-soaked conservative evil, and the lame duck president of all lame duck presidents. Jindal is also an avid supporter of the oil war in Iraq.

I pray that the Gods and the Fates curse Bobby Jindal's governorship and send him troubles that he cannot address, so that he can fail in some ignominious way. May he never know real peace or happiness, until he sees and renounces the savage ignorance he supports and helps to force onto others. In his own death, may his people's Gods and his own ancestors remember his treachery, and let him stumble on the way beyond.

Do They Ever Wonder?

Yahoo! News put out an interesting article about a new discovery at a Neolithic site near Damascus of a wall painting that seems curiously modern. The painting is an abstract series of rectangles, all done in red, white, and black, which looks exactly like certain strains of modern art- you can see it here:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071011/en_nm/syria_painting_dc

The article goes on to discuss Neolithic life at this particular settlement. It says:

"This site is one of several Neolithic villages in modern day Syria and southern Turkey. They seem to have communicated with each other and had peaceful exchange," Coqueugniot said.

Syria's other Neolithic sites have yielded finds on display at the National Museum in Damascus, such as a 74 cm limestone obelisk of a bird, a colorful stone bracelet and a tiny statue of a mother goddess."

While I was reading this, I had to stop and ask myself: Do these archaeologists ever stop and wonder? Let's forget about ancient Bauhaus-looking art for a moment, and consider the vast amounts of artifacts of ancient life that we've pulled from the Earth- do the people who uncover these precious records of the ancients ever stop to consider the ancients for who they were, compared to who we have become?

As most everyone knows by now, I believe that monotheism is its own form of scourge, an intentional and harmful "turning away" from the spiritual wisdom of the past. I don't just believe in the Gods; I know them, and have known them in my life. I know them this very day. If I were digging up a neolithic settlement, and I uncovered statues of their mother Goddesses or their other Gods, I would feel an instant connection with these ancient people. I would respect them and their Gods, and smile to remember the last time I prayed to the Gods of my own people, and to the Goddess I consider mother to us all- the Earth Goddess herself. I feel connected to the great history that is the true story of us all.

But what of Christian, Muslim, or Jewish archaeologists? What of the monotheists who will read this article, and barely make a passing note of the discovery of the statues of the Mother Goddess there in Syria (or anywhere else on Earth)?

With few exceptions, and based on what we all know about the religious psychology of monotheism, they'd look at these religious images of the ancient world and scoff. They dig these things up, and the moment it registers on them that they may have a religious image, they immediately think just as they have been programmed- they think it's just an "idol", a cheap leftover of a "primitive" time when people were ignorantly worshiping "false" Gods.

In what has to be one of the greatest prideful tragedies of human history, large and aggressive religions have arisen that really and truly believe that they alone have the "truth" of things divine, where thousands and thousands of years of humans before them- including their own ancestors- were perilously wrong.

These people cannot look at the past for what it is: the sacred record of the human story. They cannot see the Gods of old, that so many of their own great grandparents prayed to and loved, and see anything other than "idols" and "false gods". These monotheists know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they are far spiritually wiser than those poor deluded ancients ever could have been.

And that is a great tragedy. Do these people ever wonder? Do they see the vast sweep of history before them, and see that far, far more people have believed in the Gods, than ever believed in their lonely idea of God? Do they see how recent and young their monotheistic nonsense is, compared to the vast influence and presence of polytheism, which was natural to ever historical human tribe or nation at one time?

Do they ever wonder if their own religion is the falsehood, a radical and forced deviation from the true course of human spiritual history, a historically-captured political contrivance that destroyed countless other ancient religious groups and cultures in the name of power-hungry men and money?

Can they appreciate the difference between primordial organic religious traditions, themselves reflections of ages-old truths native to the souls of human beings evolved from eons of human contact with one another and the natural world, and the contrived, rigid developments of revealed religions?

The silent faces of those "Mother Goddess" statues stare at them from the sacred soil where they have lain undisturbed for thousands of years. The faces of Gods and ancestors stare mute at them from graves, paintings, and urns. They all say "See us; you cannot ignore us; we are real, we lived, and we are the seeds and roots to which you owe everything. You may believe that we were primitives or deluded, but it is not we who have succumbed to delusion. It is you. You are not our judges; we are yours."

But these words, heard clearly by those of us who have seen a larger and deeper picture of human history and spirituality, will never be heard by people who cannot have the basic humility and broader perspective that wisdom requires.

I can't help but ask if archaeologists particularly wonder at all of the many treasures of human culture that they unearth, and ever compare their own modern lives and ways of thinking to the great story of history. Do they ever wonder at how we have arrived where we have, considering how radically different we are from those in the past?

If ancient polytheists had unearthed neolithic ruins and found statues of the Gods, they would have respected those statues for what they are- direct evidence of other humans like themselves who experienced the reality of the Gods. They would have had an innate respect for the religious impulses in the people who made them. They probably would have religiously enshrined those ancient images. For them, it would have been a connection to the sacred realities of the past, a sacred tradition that for them was still a reality.

But what is it to us? Just artifacts of a past that seems alien, a "primitive" time, and the only enshrinement these ancient images will get (if they are lucky) is a museum shelf, where people (mostly monotheists) will look at them as though they were just stones, carved or painted by poor ignorants who never had a chance to "know Jesus", or poor ignorants who lived in the "days of wildness" before the Prophet restored the "truth" to the world. To be certain, some monotheists will take the art or the history they are seeing in ways that may resemble appreciation, but the deepest and most important appreciation will always be lost on them- the appreciation of spiritual power.

This is the dimming of wisdom from human hearts and eyes. In the world of monotheism, everything except what they want to believe is a waste, a sham, a ruin, a primitive remain, a wickedness, a foolishness. Even the wisdom of wise men (read: the men that their prophets couldn't defeat in debates) is minimized and excoriated. It is as if a great and formless darkness has settled over our world, and in it, humans have succumbed to a dullness from which there is no awakening.