Life, Chaos, and Tumblr

A couple of quick things…

1. I haven’t gone anywhere.  I am not going to stop writing.  Life has just been too busy to write the material I want to write at the level of quality I want to write it at:  My responsibilities include a two year old toddler and an eight year old grade-school age child, and those are the sorts of entities that just need to be prioritized over a lot of other things.  My current job has me working in group home environment with those who have IDD spectrum disorders seven days in a row…and while that comes with seven days off in a row, that means there are a lot of adult responsibilities that get shifted into that one week and time is at a premium.

While I know that my work is absolutely coated in spelling and grammar errors, that’s not the metric by which I am measuring quality typically: I want my content to be on point.  When I wrote about my thoughts on Folkism and Metagenetics?  A lot of research went into that, because I wanted to make sure that before I got critical I knew exactly what I was talking about.  When I offered my own ethical code in response to my issues with the NNV, I made sure that this was material that said something I could be proud of.  When I post something here, it’s very rare that it’s something I haven’t put a lot of time, research, and consideration into.  Perhaps in some of my earlier material, when I had absolutely no audience to speak of and the stakes (such as they were) felt non-existent, I was willing to be a little more careless.

That’s not where I am now; a lot of people have read my work, and a lot of people will probably to continue to read my work.  While I do try and improve my content in terms of it’s spelling and quality of form, it’s the quality of material that I’m just not really willing to budge on.  That could mean there will be very little in terms of content written for quite some time, and I don’t like that at all…but I’d rather write a small amount of amazing material then a decent volume of mediocre nonsense.

2. There is just a lot of nonsense happening all the time, and it makes it hard to know where to start: There is a bit that Lewis Black does where he talked about how it’s tough doing comedy when there is so much going on.  While I wouldn’t call my work here comedy, I will say that I feel like it’s tough talking about the affairs of the day in any sort of informed, timely matter when there is so much going on.

When Heathens United Against Racism fractured and broke apart, it was a lot to think about.  When the Black Lives Matter groups started getting criticism from a lot of pockets in Heathenry, there was even more going on.  All the while, there was the legal case involving Mark Stinson and that was also a lot to consider*.  When that case finally resolved, there was even more to consider.  All the while, the heads of the AFA and the Troth have hardly been silent, and many of there statements could have crafted entire volumes of commentaries, reflections, and musings.  How about that Icelandic temple that had to close its doors to the public because there were some American Heathens who just were unwilling to let Icelandic Heathen be able to practice their own faith without showing them how to do it “right”?  That was a can of worms too…

…and there is just so much going on that keeping track of it all feels almost impossible.  There is just so much to say, and not nearly enough hours in the day to say it all.  Combined with my time crunch, it’s made it hard to even know where to begin.  This is also to the side of all of the stuff I just want to write because it comes to mind and I think it would make an interesting point of discussion.

3. I am on Tumblr, and you might want to follow me there: If you actually like some of what I have to say?  You may want to follow me on Tumblr.  I have the ask feature enabled, so anyone with some random questions for me can feel free to send them my way.  The content I post/repost on there is a lot more of the “whatever is on my mind” and “this is neat/funny” varieties, so know that the topics are less “Heathen” and more “Harrison, who also happens to be Heathen”.

Interested parties should just check for me over at Tumblr.  While I am committed to keeping my material full of quality and research here, Tumblr is more or less for my opinions, so you’ll probably see a little more from me there.

That’s it for now.  Hopefully, I’ll be able to finish some articles soon and have something for you all to read before long.  In the mean time, just know that I’m still around….life is just busy!
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*Some may feel it cheap to talk about Stinson’s issues as if they were matters of public concern; I disagree with this suggestion.  Stinson took time out of his life to write/compile his views on Heathen ethics, put them together in a well edited and proofed PDF, and then placed them on a digital platform (JBK’s website) where they could be easily and rapidly distributed.  So when he makes an ethical blunder that directly relates to some of the very few Heathen values that almost everyone agrees upon?  The community as a whole gets to comment just as much on Stinson as Stinson was able to comment on the community.

Semi-Public Conversations: The Bar Exam

I find myself at a familiar bar.  If the bar has a name, I don’t particularly need to know it.  The address and part of town the bar is in are, similarly, inconsequential.  All I know is I’m not drinking anything with a kick; I don’t avoid alcohol all together, but it doesn’t always agree with me…so I usually don’t drink unless it is a special occasion.

Wait, is this a special occasion?  I doubt it somehow.

“Well, anything is a special occasion if you want it to be.” he says, reading my mind as he hops up onto the stool beside me.  “Haven’t seen you here for a while.”

“I would think you haven’t seen me much of anywhere at all.” I reply, somewhat gloomily, into my coffee.  Coffee, as a term, could be used loosely in this instance; the liquid in my cup was probably more milk than coffee.

“Feh,” he says dismissively, with a gesture to match, “You don’t need to see me for me to see you.  That’s not particularly complicated and you know better…so why submit to guilt that you don’t need?”

“Does anyone need guilt?”

He shrugs, “I’m not sure Catholics would be able to operate without it.”  A grin crosses his face as the words escape his lips.  He look at me as he takes a sip from a wine glass filled with an amber color liquid.

“With or without the ‘U’?” I ask with a smirk that I don’t quite feel, but I can’t quite stop.

“Both!” he says, and the chuckle bleeds into his words a bit.

“So you’re trying to tell me that my lack of spirituality isn’t a problem?”

“When did I say that?  Of course it’s a problem!” he retorts, his tone now a bit more acidic, “Shame and guilt aren’t going to get a lick of anything done however.  Pondering is all well and good, but an excess is just putting a boat on dry land and wondering why you aren’t getting anywhere.” A hand that edges between gentle and firm slaps the back of my head.  “You know that…but you aren’t acting on it.  That is a problem.”

I pause.  “So you aren’t offended?”

“A bit, just not by any ‘attendance’ issues.”  he says, in a tone that suggests irritation, but doesn’t quite commit.

“Okay, than by what?”

He turns on his stool after setting the cup down.  The look is firm, though not unkind.  “You’re back tracking.  You’re writing less.  Your praying less.  You center is, ironically, anywhere but you actual center.  You can do better than this…and you’re not.  Ennui isn’t the problem…it’s when you roll over to it and accept it.  That is…that’s offensive.  That’s distasteful.” he faces forward.  “Pray or do not pray…your heart and soul cast that nature of your devotion even when your thoughts do not.  It bothers you far more when you fail; when you do nothing about that is when it begins to bother me.”

“Seems like an easy system to abuse.” I quip.  He gives me a look.

“Try it.” he replies, in an extremely even tone.

I clear my throat a bit.  “I’m not intending to…I just.” I pause, collecting my words.  He sips at the mead absently.  The sentiment is hard to even put to thought, much less to language.

“This…is still new territory to you.  I get that.  You’re learning how to sort your thoughts, your heart, and your soul in entirely new directions.  Your entire being, for that matter.  The discoveries aren’t exclusively spiritual; they’re coming from every corner of your identity.” he swirls the drink in its glass absently as he speaks. “There is nothing wrong with that.  Any of that.  There isn’t even anything truly wrong with being unable to understand it all of the time…especially at this point.  However…what is wrong is being satisfied with how unsatisfied you feel.”

I nod, absently.  I sip my coffee, and then look at the ceiling.  “It’s just hard balancing out everything…coming to a proper understanding of things…”

He shrugs.  “Let me help with that.” he says, casually, “What are the issues?”

“Well, where does working for a better more inclusive Heathenry stop being spiritual and start being selfish?”

He looks at me.  “When you start doing it for yourself and your own reputation you idiot.”

I pause.  “That was a dumb question.”, I concede.

“It won’t make my top ten, but it’s closer than you’d probably be happy with” he says with a thin smile.

“Okay…what happens if I write too much about subjects of social justice?”

He sighs.  “Why on Earth are you pretending you’d give a shit about any of their stupid opinions…anyone who would actually be bothered by that isn’t someone you’re apt to care about.”

I pause again.  “Top ten?”

His expression is blank, but his eyes are dancing at some private joke. “Stop taking yourself so damn seriously…it’s preventing you from doing anything worth being serious about.”

I nod to myself.  It’s the best advice I’ve gotten in quite a while, but I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at that.

He finishes the glass and stands up to leave. “I’ve got work to do…and so do you.” he says simply.

I pause.  “Then…where are you going?” I ask.

He turns around to look back at me.  My smile is still rough around the edges, but it’s not so forced as it was before.  He grins. “See…now was that so difficult to grasp?”

A Crisis of Faith and/or Social Justice

One of the things I’ve had trouble with is deciding upon the tone of my blog. It’s probably been at the center of a lot of my writer’s block, and definitely been a certain creator of stress when it comes to what and how I write.

I care a lot about justice, equality, social responsibility. All the same, that’s not what I started this blog; originally it was just a big mash up of whatever I was thinking about at the time, slowly turning into a collection of worked filled with both my thoughts on spirituality and a lot of spelling errors. I gained a larger readership then I ever expected, which led to a personalized mandate to be worth the time of reading. So every time I end up talking about spirituality less in favor of social justice issues, I’m not completely comfortable with it.

Not, to make myself totally clear, because I’m afraid of the questions such discussions raise. I am no stranger to dialogue based turbulence, and I’m completely comfortable with that familiarity. I have my own personal gnosis regarding uncomfortable truths and how they intersect with veneration of Loki. To that end, letting a question go unresolved because the truth involved might rock a boat borders on sacrilege. Oh there is a time to make the point and a time to lay the groundwork, but just ignoring the situation and hoping it goes away is selfish, stupid, and just plain backwards to me.

I called Meta-genetics a personal gnosis at best because, sacred cow or not, that’s the truth of it; it’s not a science. I will be honest and tell you all that I agonized on how to write that text, but I did it because I was sure that it was important and I was sure that not addressing that problem would burn me far worse. It would bother me worse to just passively sit by while people used the presence of melanin as a way to judge someone’s spirituality. That was a Heathen matter close to my heart. I did it before, I’ll do it again. No shame. No issues.

Where my hesitation comes in is that I’m not certain what to say or do when the issues I see are only tangentially related to modern Heathenry or less. While the people who scornfully respond with “this isn’t a Heathen issue” can really go fornicate with their own dang selves*, I’m also not trying to stuff anything down anyone’s throat. I’m a spiritualist first, and I’ve tried to make my blog a reflection of that. I feel dishonest when I lead with social justice over Heathenry, because that was never my goal.

Let’s also not forget that the social justice community hardly needs another white, heterosexual, cisgendered male to tell people the way things work in this world. I am not ashamed of those aspects, just as I’m not ashamed of being right-handed or a baritone, but there are too many people listening to people like me talking about the inequality suffered by people who are nothing like me. I’d say that I have a knack for expressing social justice issues more often then not, but I prefer coming into help other people express themselves.

I like it when other people get the chance to use their own voice to talk about their problems, while I play goalie for them.

So, if there seems to be a lack of a “social justice content” at any point? That is somewhat purposeful. It does not imply I don’t care, have shifted my focus from that work, or because I’ve had a personal change in priorities. When the subject
is firmly in a Heathen wheelhouse and I feel I have something meaningful to say about it, I’ll say it.

I’m still trying to wrap my head around how the founder of the AFA could come out in support of PEGIDA**, and expect to be taken seriously when he gets offended over contentions of racism**.  I am absolutely dumbfounded how the Covenant of the Goddess could take an issue with the phrase “Black Lives Matter”, and not get why that’s insensitive at best and frog-chewing stupidity at the worst***.  They only thing that has kept me from weighing in on that stuff at length has just been my work schedule, parenting, and this nagging feeling that I’m not balancing things properly.

So allow me to throw that last one over board; when I have the time to speak…you’ll hear me.
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*By the by, any person who has EVER venerated Tyr in a direct fashion and wants to say that over reaches over law enforcement upon any person is not a Heathen issue? That person might want to take some time to make a long term comparison between their ass and a hole in the ground before they pass judgements about what any person declares as a Heathen issue.

**Short Version: When an organization is blaming all of society’s ills on fragments of a single religion, and the founder of that organization cosplays as Hitler as “a joke”?  That’s a problem.  When they have signs at protests that beg Vladamir “Kill the Gays for Being” Putin to “save them”,  that’s another problem.  Comparisons that utilize Nazis are no longer hyperbolic and/or lazy; they’re apt and on point.  You just can’t tell me an organization’s aims are peaceful when their prayers are held at the altars of genocide.

***: Short Version: Yes, all lives are supposed to matter…but when POCs can be shot on flimsy, false, or non-existent pretenses by law enforcement figures who never suffer consequences for their actions?  That’s a problem.  They’re not saying “Black Lives Matter More Than Yours”…they’re saying “Black Lives Matter Just As Much As Yours And It Would Be Nice If American Society Started Acting Like They Got That.”  It’s not complicated.

Change of Pace (also Time Travelers)

I don’t talk about my personal life on here for a lot for a number of reasons, but the foremost is that it isn’t why most of my reader’s are coming here.  I’m sure you are all glad that I’m happily married to my wonderful wife, that I have a wonderful seven-year old/2nd grade girl, a wonderful one-year old bouncing baby girl, and a wonderfully supportive family…but that awesome family wasn’t what I started writing about.  They definitely inspire me to follow me dreams and pursue my passions (of which writing is one), but…that’s just not the focus du jour here.  I got my readership from talking about Heathenry, spirituality, philosophy, ethics, and devotional practice.  As such, that’s what I try to focus on.

Awesome is hard to depict, but I think this historic marker for a time traveler comes close.

That being said, my life is about to become more busy, complex, and awesome…and I want to share that awesomeness.  It also effects that devotional meme I’ve been working on, so we’re sort of on topic here any how.

Wife* and I have had to live with my parents for about the last year.  That bouncing baby girl was a blessing of the unexpected variety, which had thrown a wrench into our long term plans; Wife ended up having to take a leave of absence from college due to the difficulty of the pregnancy, as Peanut was apparently a Thai Kick Boxer in a previous life.  Three or four months later, I had a knee injury that complicated our plans even more.  A worker’s compensation claim resulted, leaving us both out of job when that wasn’t what either of us wanted.  My parents had a Mother-Daughter house, so we moved the three and a half of us in that empty space.  It’s been cramped, but it’s been necessary.  My family has a tradition of looking out after each other, and it’s a tradition that my parents and extended family have followed above and beyond the call of duty.  In either case, Peanut was born, Wife started recovering, Munchkin started getting into the routines of her new school district, and we started rebuilding a long-term plan.

That plan was that Wife would work and I would stay home with the kids; her work record and schooling were both superior to mine, so she looked like she’d be the one likely to command the best wage.  While I am intelligent and articulate and generally awesome, my resume revealed a work history in the bowels of retail and food.  Those pay wages would cover the cost of gas, child care, and absolute nothing else, so that clearly wasn’t a step in the right direction.  So, instead, we were going to get her into a groove at her job, get me some night classes for things I already knew how to do so I could prove to potential employers that I knew how to do them, and that I’d get a decent job of my own.  We figured we’d be out on our own in a three to five years.  Not the most desired time frame, but one we could work with.

Well, than that plan imploded in the best way possible.  A friend of the family was trying to sell a house within walking distance of my parent’s house.  We had helped her flip the property and set it up, so we had gotten to know her and she had gotten to know us.  When she heard my wife had secured a job, she offered to work with us so that Wife and me could purchase it.  Very suddenly we had a house on the horizon, one we knew the complete history of, one being sold under fair market price, and was within walking distance of my children’s grandparents and every building within the school district.  Said children’s grandparents are willing to co-sign the mortgage so that we can get better rates, I’m a first time home buyer which means tax credits and better rates, and none of this requires us to change school districts again.  So all I need is a job…any job…and two paychecks later we’ll be able to close a mortgage.  Wife and I are, suddenly, time traveling two to four years in the future.  Without a time machine.

Though if you’d like to buy us a Tardis for a housewarming gift, we’d certainly wouldn’t have a problem with that…

That’s pretty much a grand slam right there**.

Needless to say, that means a job search has become priority one.  It’s also, quite possibly, priorities two through seven as well. Making sure the kids are being taken care of, looking for things to E-Bay to help subsidize the down payment, taking more freelance work so we can subsidize the down payment, looking for working appliances of various sorts, and a dozen other things are high on the list as well.  As a result, a lot of personal work has to slide to the back-burner***…and right now the devotional meme has got to be one of those things.  I’m boosting my devotional work in my day to day life and, for now, that will have to be enough.

That’s not to say the project is cancelled; it’s being postponed.  As soon as my schedule normalizes a bit, I’ll be announcing a start date.  It’ll probably go from daily to weekly however, as I’ll have a work schedule to contend with at that point as well.  In either case, for those wondering why all the radio silence?  That’s the reason.  It’s an awesome reason mind you, but it is still a very involved and time consuming reason.

In the mean time, I’ll be writing whatever I can whenever my schedule offers me the opportunity.  I have been pecking at some material here and there; I’ve just been too busy to polish it to the point where I’m happy enough with it to put it up for the world to see.

In either case, anyone wishing to send us good wishes/prayers/energy or what have you is more than welcome and invited to do so.  I’d also like to take a moment to thank the Gods, Goddess, my ancestors, and whatever wights have helped us here or will be helping us.  My thanks especially to Loki, who has help me keep my oars in the water, no matter how chaotic and turbulent that water.

I’d like to also thank any of my close, personal friends who don’t avoid me in the coming weeks in spite of the fact that I am very likely to ask for their help in moving. 😉

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*I never use the names of my Wife and/or kids on here.  Aside of maintaining a veil of privacy for my family…well, there are a number of people in the Heathen and Pagan communities who have shown that they have some pretty fundamentalist perspective and poor impulse control.  The more insulation between them and my family, the better.  On here I call the baby “Peanut” and the seven year old “Munchkin”.  I call my wife, “Wife”.  Presume her to be amazing, awesome, and wise beyond her years.  Also, sexy.

**The reader may choose whether to view this as a Grand Slam in the sense of Baseball or in the sense of Denny’s breakfast menu.  Whichever one you like better.

***It was also my intention to take part in NaNoWriMo, which also looks highly unlikely due to the same circumstances.

Heathen Ethics, Part 8: Your Ancestors, My Ancestors

An idea struck me earlier today, and ever since that moment it has been struggling to eat it’s way out of my brain.  So, let’s get it out so we can look it!

While those who embrace Folkism and those who reject Folkism disagree on a lot of things, there are a handful of things that both schools of thought agree on.  One of them is the importance of ancestry and one’s own ancestors.  It forms a philosophical backbone for just about every flavor of Heathenry, and even the most pro-synchretic, non-Folkish Norse Polytheist in the world is going to look at a Heathen cross-eyed if they declare ancestor veneration/worship to be optional or (even worse) irrelevant.  It’s one of the most primal conceits of our faith, regardless of denomination, and it’s importance cannot be overstated.

It is not as widely acknowledged, but certainly not thought of as contentious, that all people should learn about, embrace, and venerate their ancestral roots regardless of whether those people are Heathen or not.  Ancestry is sacred, and not just when one is Heathen.  While there are those who feel that a lack of Germanic, Icelandic, Scandinavian, and/or Norwegian ancestry bars one from making a meaningful spiritual connection to the worship practices and Gods of those cultures, only those who truly count themselves as racist would malign the ancestry of another.

And now I get to the original idea that has persisted all day; if the above is true, wouldn’t it follow that racial slurs of any kind are the worst sort of speech that a true Heathen may utter?  This is not simply some permutation of a so-called “political correct agenda”*; this is an idea born of serious consideration and thought

To insult, malign, or demean the ancestry of another is to insult every father and mother within their line.  It is to castigate there ancestry by it’s nature and by no other standard than it’s mere existence.  It is showing contempt for a person’s heritage that to suggest, regardless of ancestral deeds or merit, that it is lesser just for not being your own.  That’s the closest thing to Heathen blasphemy that I can conceive of.

Each person’s ancestry is something sacred.  Which is a pretty amazing thing; each of us have the sacredness of our own family line.  No matter how weak or sickly the most recent branches of our tree may have become, there is a point where it pulls back into a mighty and stout root that reaches back further than recorded history can fathom.  To spread bile towards the the ancestry of another, even in passing, is to stain one’s own sacredness.   Imagine how hard it would be for an outsider, looking upon your words and deeds, to truly believe in the hollowedness you purport to hold ancestry within when another’s can be casually and callously dismissed.  Also, think what it must say of your own assessment of your ancestors if you need to malign those of another person; if you truly think you ancestry is great, you need never speak ill of the roots of another.

Ancestry, if sacred, is always sacred.  When it’s my ancestors.  Your ancestors.  Their ancestors.  Anyone’s ancestors.  Everyone’s ancestors.

In so many mystical traditions, we affirm that words have power.  If so, remember the words you say of another; they reflect more of you than of the other.

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*I do have an agenda, mind you.  It’s just that it’s “Drink coffee”, “Don’t Run out of Coffee”, and “Anyone who hurts my family should be missing ribs and/or spleens”.

EDIT 3/25/2014: I have a bad habit of leaving questions in my essays where they don’t really fit most of the time.  At the suggestion of my wife(my better half by far), I’ve polished those sentences so they read more clearly and easily.  The meaning is the same; it just reads and flows a bit easier.

Uncomfortable Truths: The Sacred Vice Delusion

Ah…Google Image Search…again we dance this dance…

There are always a lot of discussions being had about divine patrons.  People ask a lot about how to find theirs, how to determine if you’re just imagining things, how to approach a deity you suspect might be expressing interest in you, what sort of offerings to make, and so forth.

What I find funny is that most people who do have a patron of some sort and have had time to sort this sort of thing out aren’t any more in the know than the people asking the questions; they’re just more used to being confused and trying to figure things out.

Absent for the list of conversational topics, however, is about how someone with a patron should act.  This is unfortunate, as there seems to be a rather large percentage of Heathens, Asatruar, Vanatruar, Rokkatruar who believe acting like an asshole is not just acceptable, but an unalienable privileged that no one has the right to question.  That, of course, is a load of bollocks so I’m somewhat surprised not many people don’t address this more often.

So let’s start up the dialogue!  First point of business: expresseing unchecked character flaws is not a form of piety.

This sounds pretty basic, but we’ve all seen example of this mentality in action.  For example, I’ve seen Thorsmen say that having their patron means they get to act like idiots, bullies, and brutes.*  We’ve all seen the Lokifolk who use their patron as an excuse to have absolutely no sense nor concept of proper etiquette except when they feel like.**  I’ve found a fair share of those who sites following Tyr as a reason to be an unforgiving blight on their communities, and I cannot be alone in this.  The trends become easy to spot after a while;  I haven’t personally encountered one, but I’m fairly certain that there are Odinspeople who act as if infidelity isn’t just forgivable but a divine mandate.

No.  No.  No.  You don’t just insult the community with that nonsense, you insult our Gods as well.  Grow up, and accept responsibility for your own person.

Not that I don’t understand the thought process.  You follow your patron.  You may meditate upon him or her.  Perhaps you partake of psychotropic drugs while doing nothing but considering them.  You may even be someone who has the capacity to act as a horse for a divine presence and you have brought them into your own person.***   As such, it may be easy to mistake your own personal failings as the thumbprint of your Gods and, wow, wouldn’t that be such a relief!  To be able to find divinity in the lowest, most loathsome parts of yourself and to find that they have a more meaningful purpose than you might have otherwise suspected.

The thing is, you don’t need to be an entitled prick with delusions of grandeur in order to find beauty in such things; the beauty is already there.  Overcome those failings, and there is even more beauty to be found.  You don’t need to use your religion and piety as a scapegoat; just be a better person.  It’s that simple.

No matter what you may want to believe, your bad behaviors belong to you and no one else.  No amount of divine patronage will magically transform vices into virtues unless that vice is actually conquered.  The Gods are creatures exclusively defined by their vices and, in many myths, those poor actions made a whole lot of sense in context to the moment.   Even if we disregard that most of the myths showed the Gods doing specific things for very specific reasons, thus making the context totally different and incomparable to 95% of the circumstances you are likely to ever face in your life?  We still are left with a belief system that turns so many of our Gods into bizarre caricatures that belong in a bad cartoon, rather than upon an altar.

Need an example?  Go read the myths that have Thor in them; he wasn’t stupid.  He was brash and impatient, but Thor was canny and clever as well.  He never went alone if he knew he needed backup, he knew to check his anger and rage when he was unquestionably unmatched, and he displayed an extremely keen sense of when was the best time to charge in and knock in some heads.  Loki did things other than sling insults, Tyr is just as much about personal sacrifice as he is justice, and there is much more to Odin than “I am in your base, sleeping with your womens.”  To be plain about it, if you’ve reduced any of the Gods to a few token aspects, you should probably go back and examine your religious and devotional practices.

So…just as soon as you have your hand bitten off by a wolf to save a large number of your friends and family? Then you can walk around acting like a huge, entitled jerk. Not before.

If you worship the Gods, and you find a spark within your soul that leads you to follow one more so than the rest?  Treasure it.  It is beautiful, sacred, and meaningful.  It can and will change your life.

Until you loose your hand, your lips, or an eye in the process of following that path, however?  You have no business treating your poor social habits as divine mandate.  You are no better, nor any worse, than anyone else…and it’s not our job to put up with your bullshit because you have an ardent need to feel petty and special.

To put it another way, having a patron isn’t about you; it’s about them.

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*Not that they say it in this exact manner but, let’s be honest, that is what they’re saying.

*I give the anti-Lokean crowd a decent amount of flak…but hey!  If any of you are reading this, know that we have this much in common: Lokeans who act like having Loki as a patron is an excuse to act like a boorish jerk-off whenever they feel like it are just as irritating to us as they are to you.  Let the healing commence.

**Than again, if you have that sort of capacity?  I probably don’t have to tell you that piety isn’t a permission slip for behaving like a tool.

Life as a Spiritual Autistic: Learning to Pick Up the Phone

I never really prayed much growing up, and the result is that the action used to feel as natural to me as a putting on a tuxedo feels natural to a fish.  In more recent months and days, however, I’ve crossed a decent amount of internal distance in regards to my personal practice .  Not nearly enough, in my opinion, to see if other people would be interested in hearing about it…but it’s being developed and that is what counts.  It’s been tricky for me, as I grew up in  a fairly blank theological world.  Oh sure, Jesus got mentioned around Christmas.  We also had prayers at Thanksgiving.  Most years, however, 360 out of 365.25 days occurred without religion having any more impact than I chose for it to have.  While this sort of upbringing made it easy for me to understand and consider theological matters objectively, it made it pretty difficult to pursue these subjects personally if that makes any sense.  For example, I can analyze why having a negative, hardline stands in regards to Loki worship is pretty weak logic sauce.  Actually doing the worship, however, was another thing.

What occurs to me is that I’m probably not alone in my lack of experience in engaging the divine.  It’s usually not very useful asking for help here, either; everyone around you is either just as lost as you are, or they have been doing spiritual work for so long that their advice doesn’t really help.  If

Before I continue, let me say the follow: I am a novice.  I don’t know much.  I know, however, that I don’t know much.  Many people have forgotten what it’s like to not have an idea of what they’re doing, for one reason or another.  I offer my perspective not as an authority on the subject, but as an authority on what it feels like to be overwhelmed, confused, and unsure of how to proceed.  The mileage of the reader, of course, may vary.

So, how do you learn to “pick up the phone” and connect with the divine?  Honestly, I’m not really certain there is a way to concretely explain it.  I know how I started getting on the right track, but that doesn’t mean it’ll do a single snot ball of good for anyone else.  I suppose this is the first thing to keep in mind; no method is the “right” method.  If someone tells you that all spirituality is achieved through meditation?  They’re blowing smoke out of their ass.  There is no one path to anything in life, least of all to divinity.

If meditation works for you, use it.  If you find it’s a waste of time and you fall asleep, pack that shit in.  Find other methods and techniques.  I find music works wonders.  Not long elaborate pieces of classical music, but mindless dubstep, trance, and remixes.  Stuff that is uncanny often works the best, with remixed video game music being the best for me.  If I need to refocus myself quickly, I grab some head phones, listen to 2~5 minutes of redundant techno or overplayed Skrillex.  Suddenly, my mind is clear in a manner that could not be achieved with ten thousand jewels within ten thousand lotuses*.

Music doesn’t work?  Then dance.  Or read.  Or fuck.  Perform martial arts drill, or maybe count coins.  Shuffle cards.  Find something you can do that doesn’t require thought in that traditional sense.  Something that doesn’t need your conscious mind to participate.  Drawing, games of chance, games of skill, running, writing.  Anything.  Find a talent within yourself that you can align with; one where you’re rational thinking mind isn’t needed.  Where you can ride your thought, instead of steering them.

Make your spiritual exploration personal, in any way you can.  This is not a realm of thought where there is a fundamental understand by which all people succeed.  This is not mathematical in nature, and there is no addition you need to master before you can grasp multiplication.  Everything is viewed, exclusively, through your own lens.

One last tip; don’t stress things, successful or not.  If you can’t manage to reach a meditative state no matter what you do?  Keep trying new things, or take a break.  People imply that you are some how lesser because of your abilities/methods?  Let them go fuck themselves.  This is your spiritual practice; not theirs.

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*”Om mani padme hum“, translates to “Hail to the Jewel in the Lotus” and is where we get so many people chanting “Om” from.

A Lack of Revelations

I wish that I could take credit for the brilliance that is this joke. Alas, I cannot.  I would credit it them if I knew who they were.

One of the things I constantly bang on about in relation to the various Norse-spectrum faiths is that we aren’t a revealed religion. This is a very simple statement, one with profound implications in regards to religion and devotional practice.  The thing is, however, that these differences might not be obvious to the average person or lay worshiper; religious nomenclature is a bit of a specialized niche, so even the presumption of basic comprehension can be a little bit overly optimistic.  So let’s quick take a look on what the word “revealed” means in terms of religion, and why the ability to exclude is profound and meaningful.

A revealed religion is one where the practices were defined by holy people and/or prophets who revealed the word and will of their God(s) to the world.  The most recognizable ones are, of course, Christianity and Islam.   Jesus, his disciples, Mohammad, Moses, Abraham, John Smith, and others are all examples of religious leaders who were, in essence, the revealers of their faith.

Heathenry (or whatever you call it), is not a revealed religion. We have no text, code, or doctrine delivered to us from an Odinic prophet or oracle. We have no body of written work which firmly defines our faith or constructs ethical boundaries, myths, and cosmology.  We have no reason to believe that such a work of literature exists, and no reason to attempt to craft one in order to ensure “authentic practice”.

So what are the Poetic and Prose Eddas?  Simply put, they are a collection of stories and legends, as transcribed by Christian historians, both clergy and laity. There is general consensus that the myths and legends were altered and modified to fit the mythic biases and beliefs of their transcribers. Further these accounts did not take place in a time where impartiality was valued; this was an era where the victor writing history was not seen as a bad thing, but rather a privilege of power.  This isn’t to cast them away as useless; while they are not pure truths, they are truths after a fashion.  They provide anthropological and etymological fingerprints that we can use to trace legacies and saga that would have otherwise been life.  The issue is that many people treat these as the pure extraction of our ancestral paths.

To take a page from Buddhism, they are not the moon.  A finger pointing to it however?  They can be, so long as we are put them in the proper place.

A Bard, A Viking, and a Red Mage walk into a bar. The bard turns to the other two and says, “Hey! Looks like a party in here!”

Our religion really can’t be defined by texts.  Every text we have was written by those with a bias that was defined by another faith and, unless we can speak the language they were originally written in, translated by a scholar or academic with their own biases in regards to that translation. The texts are, to be plain, a horrid source to use in isolation.  The aforementioned sciences of anthropology and etymology, by contrast, are a much more viable tool. These academic realms provide us the capacity to look at the few heirlooms our ancestors had that could not be changed at the whim of a few literate men.  Ancient artifacts, language, and reverse engineered looks at modern day cultures give us things that the lore just cannot do in of itself.

Naturally, it’s also important to be balanced in ones approach to these methods. For example, people are quick to state that there is no evidence for Loki worship.  If we want to state this with any strength, we must force ourselves to ask the appropriate opposite questions.  For example,  is there any evidence that it was a cultural or theological taboo? How much evidence do we have to identify and reveal the existence and terms of the worship of other Gods and Goddesses within the pantheon?  When looking through broken historical remnants, the lack of proof either way simply proves that you don’t have enough information to craft a hardline stance, and than display the stance as the way of our ancestors.

Also we must recognize that our religion is a living breathing thing; all true religious are. Catholicism has gotten over the “sin” of usury, and the Mormon faith has retracted some of it’s racial stances.  Wicca has splintered into a virtually limitless number of sects, with many of these denominations differing only slightly. Religions are not static, though we must be somewhat comforted by the process of viewing them in this manner.  The thing is that theology, religion, and spirituality are not truly about our own comfort, almost by definition.

When people talk about this thing or that being “against the Aesir” or an act of “treason against the Gods”, it must be remembered that these aren’t concepts that appear to be entirely native to our faith.  This is conjecture on my part, but I feel that the only truly treason action against the Gods is to cease in their worship or to use them as tools for your own agendas.

Just my two cents.

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* Also, potentially false.  I’ve heard more than once that most of the continental German sources have yet to be translated into English, accounting for why American Heathenry is largely unaware of them.

If the Gods are Gods…

You’ll find divine inspiration in the damnedest places, if you’ll forgive the mild pun there.  Some countless years ago I found it in my parent’s living room, in the form of the tail end of the movie, “Kingdom of Heaven”.  It had been portrayed as a movie being aboute the crusades and the rightiousness of Christanity, though research has revealed it might not have been so clear cut.  I may have to come back to this movie and watch it in it’s entirety, as it seems to have an underlying dialogue that discuss faith and religion as a whole.

In either case, one line spoken by Bloom near the very end of the film forever changed how I view the divine.  Finding a video of the quote has proven impossible, as it’s hard to put in “Kingdom of Heaven” into a Google search without hitting a sea of proselytizing.  The general setup, however, is easy enough to recall; Orland Bloom’s character (Balian) and another are surveying their recently slain.  They are attempting to hold Jerusalem within the political hands of Christendom, and it is proving to be quite costly.  Hundreds lay day, preparing for a funeral pyre.  The second man turns to Balian and says that the funeral pyre will condemn the souls of the men before them; a Christian burial rite had not been performed, and committing to the men to the pyre without it would doom the souls of all those on the battlefield.  Dead crusaders are just about as hygienic as you would expect however, so not burning their bodies would condemn the living.

Balian looks around the scene, thinks for a moment, and responds with: “If we do not burn these bodies, we will all be dead of disease in three days. God will understand, my lord. And if he doesn’t, then he is not God and we need not worry.”

Hunh.

Now that should be more of a revelation for Catholicism and Christianity than it should be for me; the idea that a perfect God can operate on His/Her/Its own terms, rather than exclusively through what is expressed in a selectively interpreted religious text written by human men who are flawed, isn’t really a big deal to anything within the non-Abrahamic spectrum.  To be honest, most of us seem to find the idea of perfect God/Goddess somewhat confusing, especially once you read the myths that any particular religion has surrounding it.  Still, I was somewhat taken aback by this line.  I have considered it countless time since I’ve heard it, and I’d say that it was fundamental to shaping the way by which I regard the world.

In a single moment, I realized that most religious arguments were just something I didn’t need to engage in;  none of us do, truth be told.  No matter what the terms of a theistic argument are, regardless of the stakes of that argument, there is something critical we may be missing.   If the Gods are the Gods, than it’s their place to decide what does or does not offend them.  They have the capacity to either direct their faithful to sort things out or or they’ll do it themselves.  Look at the lore surrounding any divine being.  Does Odin strike you as an entity who really needs you to speak on His behalf because, gosh darnit, He sure would hate to impose!

Yeah, me neither.  He strikes me more as the sort of being that will strike you over the head, repeatedly, until shit gets done.  Maybe even a little big after shit gets done, just for good measure.

When I think of Loki, I don’t feel that I am considering an entity that gives a lemon scented fuck about whether someone venerates him or not.  While it irritates me that there is a vast number of American Heathens who present him as Norse Satan in a religion that doesn’t need such a role filled, I also have faith that he will go where he is going to go.  It doesn’t matter if you acknowledge Him whilst drinking from a bull’s horn filled with fermented honey or not; Loki is Loki, and believing in Him means believing His existence is greater than any condemnation that Midgard can produce.

I have gotten a little bit of praise for being even tempered in my discourse, and it mostly comes back to this; you can’t insult me by attacking my beliefs.  The only thing you can malign is the respect I have for you and your opinion, as my faith can’t be damaged by the pettiness, ignorance, and/or hubris of others.  When you try to take down my religion, you are only displaying that you worry for your own.

After all, if you truly believe what you believe?  Why does anything I say mean anything to you at all?  If you think Loki is Norse Satan?  Pft, why do you care about a single word that comes out of my mouth or is typed by my hand?  Stating what I believe does not mean I am attacking what you believe.  If you think it does, that says far more about you than it does about me.

This is how faith works for me; I use my mind just as much as my heart.  I have love and respect for these forces I venerate, yet I view my opinions of them through an intellectual lens as well as an emotional one  The Gods I worship are strong, capable, and powerful; if they need me to tell someone where they can stick it, I have full faith that I’ll get the memo.  If they don’t care, however, I have no reason to care either.

This must be true, I feel, or they are not Gods…in which case, I would have nothing to worry about anyway.

Meh, or why Otherkin don’t really bother me

While looking through my Facebook feed today, I saw more then a few mentions of modern Pagans confusing pop culture for a pantheon.  There was a lot of understandable outrage and consternation.  For my part, I can’t even begin to concern myself with it; to be honest, I was more then a little surprised that anyone reacts to this at all.  Isn’t this sort of a defecto state?  Every religion has it’s camps.  Some get the message, and some pervert it; it’s a pretty standard model.  There is, of course, another school of thought…one where you are grind  your faith into a fine powder, and snort it through a straw made of  frozen bonkers.  Sometimes they think they’re the reincarnated son of Red XIII and Nina Williams, and sometimes they have a UPG that Thor is a Klingon.  In either case, I pretty much always assume that these people are around somewhere.

I try not to worry about it, honestly.

I came up into Paganism by dealing with mall rats, stoners, and the spiritually dyslexic on internet forums.   I envy most of the spiritual stories my friends tell me.  Some have tales of youthful dreams, filled with compelling, deeply personal gnosis.  Others will tell me of how the gods saved them from their own self destruction.  How I learned my spiritual dos and don’ts was from people who swore that they were reincarnated aliens from the planet Alpha Centari.  This is not a humorous jest or colorful exaggeration; this was a thing I was told on multiple occasions.  I was also told that the mall was their spaceship.  I also met several covens worth of half-vampires.  Also; the God Chronos.

I can get you all an autograph if you’d like.

So people who are aping at spirituality but taking a wrong turn at WatDaFuq Lane?  This is a phenomenon that I am more then familiar with.  I understand the offense they cause some, but I’ve seen too many of their ilk to really be able to care.  They never cause as much damage as people worry that they will, and the only personal pain I suffered was free times and (in case) one of them stealing fifty bucks out of my wallet.

Apparently, Chronos needed cigarettes and whiskey that night.

My Lokean friend has put forth that maybe some of these people have looked upon the divine and didn’t know how to handle it; that’s as good as suggestion as any I’ve heard.  There is, of course, people who make such claims for attention; I’ve got nothing to say about them, as saying anything just feeds them.

This too shall pass.  The Marvel movies (and similar materials) are doing the same thing that World of Darkness, The Crow, and the rise of Llywellyn publications did back in the mid-nineties.   We’re going to get a bunch of mad fools in here, but when isn’t that the case?  To be honest, I can’t tell much of a functional difference between Thorsmen who act like Klingons and a man who worships Klingon-Thor.  To me, this is just another strain of a familiar disease.