Also Available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, and more! Licensed Shinto Priestess of the Konko Faith, Olivia Kimoto, calls in from Japan to talk about religion, spirits, and Shinto practice. https://www.livingwithkami.com/ — Time Stamps 00:00:40 Introduction 00:01:25 Opening Prayer 00:03:00 Welcome 00:11:00 Interview 01:58:00 Closing — Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/around-grandfather-fire/messageSuggest […]
AGF 112 – The Kami Bring Us Together
God
AGF 111 – Theism, Cults, and Journey Work
Also Available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, and more! Let’s talk about where Jim is on his path, and also answer some questions from listeners! – Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/around-grandfather-fire/message Suggest a topic or a guest: https://forms.gle/dYrQUpyE7VPDGnUP8 Our Patreon https://www.patreon.com/aroundgrandfatherfire Our Buy Me A Coffee https://www.buymeacoffee.com/agfpodcast — Copyright 2023 — […]
AGF 111 – Theism, Cults, and Journey Work
Patreon Poem/Prayer/Song 76: For Máni
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This request was made by Cunnian for Máni.
Oh blessed, beautiful, dancing God
Whose gray shirt gleams in the night
Hands that caress the shores and waters
Coursing the wax and wane of magic and megin
Hard-rider from Hati’s maw
Whose trails trace the path of reckoning
Graces the sky with His cargo
Crossing the clouds with the burden of His horses
Oh God Who is desired
Whose Face is sought with passion
By mortal and mána bjarnar
Shine and show love to those who are longing
Pale prophecy-shower
Whose wandering reveals wealth and wisdoms’ ways
Through the course of Your crossing
We schedule when to sew, strike, and seek
Oh dark and shining God
Son of Mundilfari and Brother of Sól
We seek You in moonlight and myrkr
To honor in sacrifice and song
Holy Máni
Patreon Poem/Prayer/Song 75: For the Nornir
If you want to submit a request for a prayer, poem, or song to be written to you privately or to be posted on this blog or my Patreon for a God, Ancestor, or spirit, sign up for the Ansuz and above level here on my Patreon.
This request was made by Cunian for The Nornir.
Urðr Who arranged the loom
Verðandi Who moves the sword
Skuld Who tightens the weave
Hail Nornir! Hail Nornir! Hail Nornir!
Urðr Who arranged the pattern
Verðandi Who brings in the rows
Skuld Who leaves thread at the end
Hail Nornir! Hail Nornir! Hail Nornir!
Urðr Who fastened the warp
Verðandi Who keeps an even tension
Skuld Who ties up the loose ends
Hail Nornir! Hail Nornir! Hail Nornir!
Urðr Who prepared the weft
Verðandi Who forms the patterns
Skuld Who trims the edges
Hail Nornir! Hail Nornir! Hail Nornir!
Ethics and Animism in Polytheism Part 3
So nine years ago (wow, where did the time go?) I began to write this post. Recently, Snow asked me where Part 3 was. It had been long enough that I could not remember if there was a Part 3. It was a bit of a surprise when I found this, with the first couple of paragraphs written.
In Ethics and Animism in Polytheism Part 2, I left off here:
When we light the Sacred Fire there are prayers and offerings made to Fire Itself, to the Gods of Fire, to the spirits of Fire, to the wood, to the landvaettir, Ancestors, and other spirits. The Gods, Ancestors, and spirits all deserve our respect, especially the Fire Itself since the Sacred Fire is the heart of the festival for three days it is on. We keep it day and night; to do otherwise is to extinguish the heart of the festival, and to insult the Fire, the Gods, Ancestors, and spirits we have asked to be with us in Its heat and light, to sit with us by it and to speak with us when They will. To extinguish It on purpose before it is time is to break our word that we will do all we can to keep It lit throughout the weekend. To throw litter in It is to treat the Sacred Fire as a garbage disposal, which is inhospitable to the communities the Fire represents, and inhospitable to the Fire Itself. To speak disrespectfully of the Fire is an insult to It and the community whose Fire It keeps as we keep It. To treat the heart of the festival, the spirit of Fire Itself, the particular Fire spirit that is the Fire with disrespect, is insulting to the Fire Itself, to each person connected to the Fire, to those who form the community that the Fire is the heart of, and to the Gods, Ancestors, spirits, and so on that have been called by and to the Sacred Fire. As with people, Fire too can be worked with when insulted, and amends can be made, but it is far easier and more respectful to not have to rectify insults and problems in the first place.
This is really where the rubber meets the road. You cannot treat the Gods as if. You cannot treat the Ancestors as if. You cannot treat the spirits as if. The as if is a defense against what truly considering the Gods, Ancestors, and spirits as real Beings unto Themselves would imply. That not only that They have agency, and in that agency is preference, but that there are right and wrong ways of understanding Them, interacting with Them, and being in relationship with Them.
The ethics of animism of and in polytheism ask us not only to consider those Beings we worship, venerate, and interact with. We must do well by Them. To do honor to Them is to do our best to understand Them on Their terms and act accordingly.
Animism in polytheism requires that each Being be treated with respect, in respect to Its Nature, Its Self. I would no more offer a white tail deer spirit a slab of venison than a leaf of grass to the landvaettir. Yet, to certain Ginnreginn, these would be quite acceptable offerings. The acceptability of these offerings, the honoring of giving them, and the good relationship gained in furthering connection through them, depends on the given Being at hand.
Polytheism must be lived; one cannot embrace ethics nor religion solely in the head. To be ethics rather than rules alone they must be lived. To be religion rather than reenactment or mental exercise, the polytheist must acknowledge the Gods as real, and worship Them. To acknowledge the Ancestors, and the spirits is to not only believe They are real, but to act on those beliefs and to hold Them in honor, and venerate, to worship Them.
Polytheism is a lived theology. It is a theology in which mere recognition that there are many Gods renders the person holding the position inhospitable as a polytheist. Hospitality is arguably the foremost of ethical considerations for polytheists. This hospitality exists in lived understanding, both in terms of the personal connections one has and the wider communities one exists in. This hospitality exists in relationship with the Ginnreginn through negotiated relationships, contracts, oaths, and other ties of relationship, such as as in ancestry, through blood relations, adoption, marriage, initiation, and a variety of possible spiritual bonds.
These considerations of hospitality extend not only to the Ginnreginn who we worship, it also extends to the community ties we may make, what things we may or may not accept in our lives, and even on to dietary choices. If a given God who one desires to worship requires adherance to a vegeterian diet, then to accept and follow that, to honor that requirement, is a form of hospitality that invites that God into one’s life through that choice. If a God one worships has been explicitly forbidden from worship in a given venue then, in order to be hospitable one must avoid that venue. This hospitality extends to the God, in that one would not honor one’s Gods by choosing to go to such a space which is actively hostile to Them, and to the community, by not bringing one’s relationship into a space where it is not desired. If such a choice is made with the Ginnreginn in mind/under the Ginnreginn’s guidance, then the community has extended hospitality to their own Ginnreginn and members through this exclusion. Through informing potential guests of venue rules, taboos, and the like, that community also extends hospitality to any visitors who may come into their space by allowing them to self-select whether they can or wish to be involved in that venue.
For good relationships with the Ginnreginn and one another to flourish requires hospitality. That hospitality, then, entails respect. That respect is grounded in ongoing acknowledgment of the personhood, agencies, needs, and desires of the parties in that relationship. That hospitality, then, entails reciprocity between those involved in the relationship. Whether the Being at hand is a blade of grass or a God, a Sacred Fire or a friend, while these ethics may apply in different ways and in different levels of coniderations like ritual protocol, many of these follow similar lines of thought.
Is this choice a hospitable one? Is it one that respects the Being before me? Is this choice one that honors the reciprocity between us? Does this action further good relations between us? Am I being a good guest/host? Am making amends when I fall short of that in a way that is done in respect and restores honor? Am I engaging in good reciprocity?
In my view polytheism, and the animism found within it, is lived based on the answers we receive from the Ginnreginn, and how we answer these kinds of questions.
Reflections on Norfolk Southern
We can clearly see a chain of causality between the decision of the Trump administration to gut Obama-era safety measures that were themselves watered down and then never reinstated by the Biden administration while stopping a strike in which these very concerns were raised.
It is not conspiratorial thinking to look at all of this and think “Someone is benefiting from this!”
It is a natural outgrowth of profit at any cost. Safety measures and routine maintenance are routinely ignored or slashed to the barest minimum so profit soars. Norfolk Southern has made money in the billions of dollars in profit, a feat that most people will never get within a fraction of inside of their own lifetime, or indeed, in several lifetimes. This is intergenerational warfare by the worst actors in our human communities. These communities, mind you, most of these people will never visit, and if they do, will give the thinnest of lip service to.
This is the poisoning and provisioning, the colonization of the earth, sea, sky, and all that lies beneath them for the sake of numbers going up in someone’s portfolio. When the philosophical question of “To what end?” is asked, then folks look, wild-eyed, as though the person in question has proposed the end of the world. Which, in effect, is precisely what is being instigated by such questions. It puts to question that such a paradigm has any right to exist. That its reach is so devastating, so powerful, so crushing, that it has the ability to outright kill the ability of the land, the sea, and the sky to support life, and all in service to something so banal as to make someone’s stock prices rise, someone makes a little bit more money.
When the question “To what end?” is asked, it holds “Why?” within it.
Why are we working so damned hard when we have the ability to automate so much labor? Why are we working harder than generations before us and seeing none of the benefits? Why are we unable to afford food, clothing, shelter, the very basics that allow life to be lived, and further, the things that make life worth living? Why is healthcare, comprehensively including physical, mental, dental, eye, and any other aspect that affects our wellbeing, paywalled when we have the technology and means to provide it?
When these questions are interrogated it ends with the grim determination that the system has been uniquely arranged so a few benefit while the massive amounts of humanity have to work to afford to put food in their mouths, clothes on their backs, shelter over their heads, and beds to sleep on. It speaks directly to the inherent injustice in a system that requires everything of a person and gives just enough to keep them alive, at least, to a certain point. It points to the arrangement of white supremacist ideology as a hoodwink to use those deemed white to keep the other people in line, lest they unite and fight the systems together. It points to the arrangement of antisemitism, transphobia, homophobia, and others forms of extreme hate in this same bargain. You cannot ask why the system exists if you’re actively killing would-be allies because your inculcated ideology demands it. You cannot ask why when you have never been taught how to ask the very question of “Why?”
There is no good point to capitalism. There is no good point to the rampant destruction of nature, and us, who are part of it. There is no good to be had here when the result is our waters are unfit to drink or swim in, when our air is choked, when our lands are poisoned and cannot bear animals, insects, or plants. Capitalism itself is at odds with our future.
So, we do what we can, even as this system rages around us in its death throes working to be something better. To be better Ancestors. To live better with Jörð. To live well with our loved ones, our kin, our clan, our tribes, our communities, our descendants, and leave something better than we started with. We do what we are able, as we can, where we can. We live our best in goood Gebo with one another, with the Ginnreginn, and do our best tomorrow. Take hope from Ragnarök. Yggdrasil burns, yes, and yet, Líf and Lífþrasir emerge in life. The Ginnreginn survive and thrive after the Fire. The Worlds live on. Another, better cycle is possible. We may make it so. Let us weave and grow this new pattern in Urðr together with our Ginnreginn, and with each other.
Patreon Poem/Prayer/Song 73: For Eir
If you want to submit a request for a prayer, poem, or song to be written to you privately or to be posted on this blog or my Patreon for a God, Ancestor, or spirit, sign up for the Ansuz and above level here on my Patreon.
This request was made by Precious Fire for Eir. I felt called to make two prayers when I wrote this.
For the Teacher of Healers
The joining of bone to bone and flesh to flesh
The joining of herb and water
The joining of fire and words
You have taught healers Their Craft
The separation of flesh from flesh and body from body
The separation of splinter and skin
The separation of aches and sores
You have taught healers Their Craft
The creation of compound from compound and skin from skin
The creation of medicine and poison
The creation of healing and power
You have taught healers Their Craft
The teaching of health from health and sickness from sickness
The teaching of recovery and wholeness
The teaching of care and hope
You have taught healers Their Craft
Hail Eir, Holy Healer!
Prayer 2: For the Healers, Doctors, and Staff
Because You learned from Menglöð
You have taught how to learn
Because You have studied from Menglöð
You have taught how to study
Because You have apprenticed from Menglöð
You have taught how to apprentice
May the Healer, the Doctor, the Staff who work to heal
Be Blessed by Your example
With cunning and craft, skill and studiousness, wit and wisdom
May They do well by Your worthy example
Hail Eir!
Patreon Poem/Prayer/Song 71: For Tyr
If you want to submit a request for a prayer, poem, or song to be written to you privately or to be posted on this blog or my Patreon for a God, Ancestor, or spirit, sign up for the Ansuz and above level here on my Patreon.
This request was made by Emi for Tyr.
Flames lick the sky, Muspel burning bright
The hoary frost loosing the river’s run
Ýmir’s blood bloomed behind You
Your Name brings victory, twice signed on spear and sword
So too the Brothers’ blades were bloodied
Red-marked Runes wrought Their ruin
When the waters receded, rede You gave
Foundations were placed, great posts dug deep
Hófs and walls rose resolute
In council You sat among the Æsir
Your wisdom was worked in law and war
Blessing the holmgang rite and law-rock
Fierce and hungering was the Wolf whelp
By Your hands was He raised on red meat
Loving devotion to the Dire Wolf
When Fenris grew fear could not find You
Though His fangs grew long and maw mighty
You persevered in Your compassion and care
True You stayed to Your Son
Oathing hand given for the biting bind
Tears to the treachery
You teach the truths of legality and loyalty
To each test You bless with bravery
When choice is razor and rock
Yours is wisdom’s edge sliced in stone
Relentless, Your strop hones the hearty
Who seek Your guidance and gift
Týr is the name of surety and severity
Whose echo calls the weapon worthy in war
Who forges mind and magic in Fire and cools them by Ice
Patreon Poem/Prayer/Song 70: For Freyr Victorious
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This request was made by Maleck for Freyr, returning victorious from the Mound.
The roads of Hel are known to me
Over the Bridge and through forest and field
I walk with the knowledge of ancient paths
Tread by my blood-soaked feet
The ways between are trod in silence
Vitality in each step, and life springing forth
I walk and life returns in my steps from Death
Antler swaying on a cord at my side
Helheim’s lands roll up to the frozen ground
Ice stretches beyond the horizons and snow blankets all
I walk and little mosses grace my passing
Steam cleansing my warming corpse
Fire graces my bare chest and plants warm kisses
Nerves and sinew stretch and reach and sigh
I walk and ashes cling to my steps
My fingers grace dark wood that breathes new life
The noiseless yawn moves the air
Potential and nothing settle peace in my heart and mind
I walk between a roiling river and the liminal breath
My path winding about the current’s course
The deep dark earth welcomes my journey
Singing picks and voices accompany my torchlit steps
I walk by and see the forges and yards of mighty crafters
Passing, my gaze full of witness to glory and might
Forests line the mouth’s exit
Silvery voices welcome me home and bid me stay
I walk in silence, refusal spoken in my stride
My hof’s door left open for my return
Trackless woods and deep valleys invite me
Animals saunter and monsters track my way
I walk without fear among the Jötnar home
For my gifts bring peace and life to Them as well
Fields of wheat wave in greeting to me
Orchards and lakes and sagging bushes thank my passing
I walk in fertile places that I have renewed
My birthplace heralds my passage and bids me return
The peaks of homes kiss the clouds and the walls open their arms
Work and war clash around my ears, familiar calls ring out
I walk unbound in the halls and gaze upon the seeing seat
Memories follow me on the rainbow road
The expanse of Jörð invites me, finally
The blood-stained sickle gripped in my wet-eyed wife’s hand
I walk and lie in the mound She has made and breathe
Reborn and victorious I rise again
Patreon Topic 69: On Priesthood
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From Maleck comes this topic:
“Your experiences specifically with priesthood, what it means and how it has worked for you.”
Before I dig into this I think defining terms is a pretty necessary thing. Every time I have talked at length, even in polytheist, animist, and Pagan spaces, folks tend to mistake priesthood for clergyhood. I have spent time in previous posts on priesthood exploring this in depth. However, I think our recent in-person conversation illustrate the differences well, and briefly to boot: Priests face the Gods while clergy face the people. The needs and requirements of being a priest are different even if a person ends up having to wear both hats or more in service to their community.
Since I understand priesthood as facing the Gods and serving Them, my experience of being a priest for both Óðinn and Anpu reflect this.
What it means to be a polytheist priest is that you are a servant of a God or many Gods. In my case, I am an independent Heathen priest of Óðinn and an independent Kemetic priest of Anpu. I specify my independence for two reasons: one, most of my experiences of being called to and engaging in priesthood for these Gods is modern and two, disconnected from any mainstream polytheist religions that hold priesthood or clergy status with these Gods. Due to my background, my experiences and practices will likely differ from those who are in more mainstream religious practices. I was brought into these Gods’ service through direct experience and guidance by Their hands, and much of my journey in service with and to Them reflects this. While I have had Elders and such over the years, they have come and gone and much of the Work I engage in for my Gods remains regardless of this coming or going of the people in my life.
For me, this service to Óðinn as a priest has been to make cultus to Him, to teach others how to serve Him, and to engage with the mysteries He shares with me and the spiritual Work He assigns to me. It is working with and understanding the Runes as vaettir, and working with Them in magic. Much of my work over time of being a priest of His has merged with my work as a spiritworker. The bright line between my work as a priest and a spiritworker is that my work as a priest is, primarily, to and for Him. My work as a spiritworker, by contrast, tends to be connective between folks and the Ginnreginn, whether that is making prayers here on my blog, or doing Rune or spiritual consultation.
While the line between being a priest and being a spiritworker is fairly bright at times, there is also a lot of overlap between the two. Many of my acts of service beginning in my priestly service to Óðinn have brought me into spiritwork. Nowadays is there much of a difference?
I think the big difference is that my service as a priest and the focus of that role belongs to Óðinn alone. My work as a spiritworker may involve Him, and involve cultus to/with Him, but it is not solely for Him. Much of my spiritwork is connective for/to others, and much of my work as a spiritworker is in service to building connection, relationship, and/or spiritual consultation and spiritual troubleshooting with a variety of Ginnreginn. Some of these Ginnreginn, that is, Gods, Ancestors, and vaettir, may not be part of my regular cultus at all. Many of the Ginnreginn I have made prayers for are not part of my hearth cultus or any of the specialized cultus I personally hold, yet that is part of my service as a spiritworker.
My priesthood with both Óðinn and Anpu may have spiritual skills that include spiritwork components, such as divination, hamfara (faring forth in my hamr or second skin), and/or the construction taufr or amulets, but these are not solely spiritworker skills. The skills certainly stack with each other quite well, even having similar if not the same utility to the user. In many ways being a priest it is far less demanding in its requirements than being a spiritworker. While the time I have devoted to studying the Runes has been involved, and likewise developing spiritual skills such as hamfara, there are less demands on my time by Him in my priest role than there is when I serve others as a a spiritworker. The focus of the skills and their provenance differ, though, from priest to spiritworker. Even if I worked with no physical human beings and only had a community of vaettir, spirits, to work with/for, I still understand the difference is my service as a priest and that of a spiritworker is my priest role’s focus belongs to Óðinn alone.
Much of my work as a priest to Anpu has dropped away over the years. When Óðinn hit my life Anpu intentionally backed away. Much of the intense Work I did with Anpu, including tending His shrine weekly, traveling in spirit to with Him and doing Work He assigned me, and ongoing work with the Dead either stopped or changed forms in my more primary Heathen path and relationship with Óðinn that had come to the fore. My aesthetics changed along with it. I traded in white muslin cloth ritual robes for linen, wool, and fur ritual clothes. I traded in mostly copper and bronze ritual tools for iron and steel ritual tools. Whereas I had few ritual weapons in my priesthood to Anpu, I have many with Óðinn, some of which are shared with my spiritwork. Another large difference is in how my priesthoods are expressed. Anpu’s priesthood was highly regimented and often I encountered it in a strict ritual space, including ritual cleanliness requirements. While I do encounter Óðinn in regimented ritual space, and do keep myself ritually clean, it is not as exacting as Anpu’s, and much of Óðinn’s priesthood is like an ongoing experience where He walks beside me. While both Gods have emphasized ritual protocol of varying kinds over the year, the way They have done so is very different to one another.
In my experience being an independent priest of Óðinn is fulfilling work in and of itself. What I do regularly in service to Him is relatively straightforward: namely I perform cultus, which includes making offerings and prayers to Him. I keep oaths and obligations to Him. I perform other spiritual work as He brings it to me to be done. Sometimes this overlaps with my spiritworker role, and sometimes it does not. The work of a priest is service to and for Him.
Sarenth Odinsson 