Reflections on Sand Talk

Following the recommendation of Rune Hjarnø Rasmussen I picked up Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World ny Tyson Yunkaporta a while back. These are my immediate reflections and thoughts on finishing it.

It took me some time to work through. Part of that was the material is dense in what it brought up for me to think and reflect on. Another is that I was consistently making notes because Yunkaporta’s style brings those thoughts up and trying to catch them can be hard. I may go back through the book sometime down the road and not take notes and just experience the book. However, each time I engaged with it I felt like a dozen little threads of thought erupt with each chapter so I wanted to wrangle at least some of those thoughts.

Something I really appreciate about the book is that its yarns are not simple, straightforward, or easily able to be bullet pointed -except when they are. I kept coming back with every story thinking on the stories that infuse my own life -that of the Nordic Gods, my Ancestors, and the vaettir. The stories of the place I live, and the names and stories of the Beings who lived here long before my Ancestors. Like the stories that infuse his life and understanding I found relating to his stories and yarns through my own.

Yunkaporta asks us to take some heavy, deep, and equally light-hearded and amused looks at ourselves. In doing this, in embracing his way of speaking/writing, and reflecting as I yarned through the book with him, I found a lot of affirmation in my own path as a Heathen, from the way I understand how it unfolds in worldview and the direction it goes. It was also cool to see different cross-currents in thought and direction between our worldviews.

For starters just the concept of yarning as a way of co-creating, co-weaving, if you will, knowledge and understanding, has so many implications for a path where weaving and carving is an active and ongoing co-creative process with the Ginnreginn. Urðr is definitely reflected in yarning. What Yunkaporta calls a yarn between people we might also call a saga or even þing. Yarning and sharing a saga or sitting down to a þing is a co-creative and collaborative working that has certainly changed through time and yet has remained similar enough that we can recognize it today.

The process of encoding meaning through carving, umpan, we call rísta. It is to carve. Umpan is also used to mean writing, now, and rísta easily fits this as well. Much as with umpan, rísta brings the symbolic language to bear to bring and communicate meaning, and to change the carver and who observes and interacts with the carving.

Like the symbols he and the us-twos have brought forward, the Runes are living symbols, because, as with the Aboriginal symbols, the Runes are vaettir.

Much like our own experiences as Heathens, the Aboriginals do not just bring in new ways of understanding or doing things without vetting them. For them, as noted in p62 regarding the ceremony to “open” that first headstone, shaped by multiple Elders and family members, incorporating older elements of the traditional mourning process that had fallen into disuse. The demotic is not a sudden acceptance or made on a whim, arbitrarily. Likewise, we do not just change how we do things. We weigh it against established lore, divination, and what makes sense for us to do with where and when we are, and what obligations and needs we have.

Something that Yunkaporta and the various folks who have contributed to the yarns in the book come to again and again is that we need to move into societies of transition. Our communities do need to share knowledge while maintaining their own unique systems grounded in the diverse landscapes they care for. That is what I and others in my Kindred and tribe are working to do. It is what we are doing at Crossing Hedgerows Sanctuary and Farm. We US Pagans and polytheists are in development of these societies now.

He hits this especially hard here:

“I have previously talked about civilized cultures losing collective memory and having to struggle for thousands of years to gain full maturity and knowledge again, unless they have assistance. But that assistance does not take the form of somebody passing on cultural content and ecological wisdom. The assistance I’m talking about comes from sharing patterns of knowledge and ways of thinking that will help trigger the ancestral knowledge hidden inside. The assistance people need is not in learning about Aboriginal Knowledge but in remembering their own.” pp 144

Yes, absolutely this. I consider Runework, seiðr, spá, taufr, and other such things to be part of it as much as hearth cultus, Ancestral veneration, worship of and communication with with the Ginnreginn, and spiritwork. This is ongoing work: relationship-building, knowledge-building, spirit-building we are doing with the Ginnreginn, and part of doing that is building good relationships with the lands we live on and in.

Heathens here in the US once operated primarily from the locus of ‘if it is not written down it did not exist’, and it is a blessing this is changing. More, Heathens are taking inspiration and understanding of the lore as a jumping off point and perhaps a map, but we, we Heathens and the Ginnreginn, are the arbiters of our relationship together. This includes the world around us. We are coming out of the supremacy of the pen and printer and into the full appreciation of all our faculties.

He says “Kinship-mind is a way of improving and preserving memory in relationships with others. If you learn something with or from another person, this knowledge now sits in the relationship between you. You can access the memory of it best if you are together, but if you are separated you can recall the knowledge by picturing the other person or calling out their name. This way of thinking and remembering is not limited to relationships with people.” pp148-149

This immediately reminds me of Odin’s interactions with and ongoing relationship with Mimir, Saga, Loki, and other Gods. He maintains ongoing relationships with each, drawing wisdom and being the way through which inspiration reaches us through His interaction with Them. If Odin is the Utterer and Inspirer, then it is through Wisdom (Mimir), Stories (Saga), Creativity (Loki), Knowledge (Vafþrúðnir; His Name means “Mighty Weaver”) and so on.

“In Aboriginal worldviews, relationships are paramount in knowledge transmission. There can be no exchange or dialogue until the protocols of establishing relationships have taken place. Who are you? Where are you from? Where are you going? What is your true purpose here? Where does the knowledge you carry come from, and who shared it with you? What are the applications and potential impacts of this knowledge on this place? What impacts has it had on other places? What other knolwedge is it related to? Who are you to be saying these things?” pp149

It is worth pointing out that most of those Odin meets with regularly are relatives or closely related to Him in some way. Mimir is His Uncle, Saga His Wife’s Handmaiden, Lok His Blood-Brother, and Vafþrúðnir while not directly related is one He seeks to test His knowledge and mettle against.

“In our world nothing can be known or even exist unless it is in relation to other things. Critically, those things that are connected are less important than the forces of connection between them. We exist to form these relationships, which make up the energy that holds creation together. When knowledge is patterned within these forces of connection, it is sustainable over deep time.” p149-150.

Yes, and this is true of the Ginnreginn, the Runevaettir, and Urðr Itself. It is true of ourselves and our relationships with one another. It is true of ourselves and our relationship to this world.

There are five different ways in the Aboriginal way of thinking in his yarn (pp 150-152):

Kinship-mind.

Story-mind.

Dreaming-mind.

Ancestor-mind.

Pattern-mind.

He advises in pp 173 to come up with our own words for these.

“They are not capitalized because I don’t want them to become buzzwords absorbed into the marketplace. There are no trademarks in this knowledge. It is not specific to any single cultural group; instead, it belongs to everyone. You should come up with your own words for these ways of thinking if you decide to use them. You should alter them to match your own local environment and culture. This is all open-source knowledge, so use it like Linux software to build what you need to build for a sustainable life. If you want to do this you can use the symbol and your hand now to work through a logic sequence that will help you understand holism and enable you to come to Turtle story later on.

He goes on to yarn at length about how we can develop ways of knowing, understanding, co-creating. The entire book is this exploration. It encourages the reviving, embracing, and developing of our worldview. It encourages us to embrace old and new ways of understanding and knowledge. It encourages us to bring our relationship to the Ginnreginn and so, the World we inhabit and the Worlds around us, to the fore. In living in this way, he puts forward, we can save the World.

I found Sand Talk hopeful, insightful, and utterly useful for anyone willing to sit and yarn with Tyson Yunkaporta for a while. It is well worth the time. It is my hope that more Heathens, Nordic Pagans, and Nordic animists embrace this more holistic, and integrated way of being.

Patreon Topic 40: Developing Culture

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From Leslie comes this topic:

“Developing culture.”

Developing culture starts with relationships. Meaning builds on meaning. Developing a Heathen culture starts with a polytheist worldview within which is an animist one at its base. The whole world is alive; the whole world is relatable. There are more worlds than this one; those worlds are relatable too. So are each and every Being within Them.

We have a Creation Story, myths, and legends however well or poorly preserved, within the Eddas. What I think is key, with all of our information whether derived from archaeology or especially the written sources, is that we are by-and-large dealing with an oral culture. I think this is also the future of Heathen cultures. Not that writing will not be important; it will, if for no other reason than we are part of a literate overculture which places a (sometimes disproportionately) high value on the written word. Rather, what is going to truly make the various Heathenry communities into cultures is going to be the passing of the worldview, teachings, relationships, and so on to the next generations.

Religious beliefs and worldviews alone do not make a culture. What comes out of them is part of that, too. Over time perhaps Heathen cultures will develop distinct styles of dressing, wearing their hair, decorating themselves and their homes, or any other way we could think of making themselves distinct from the largely Christian American overculture. On the other hand most Heathens blend rather seemlessly into mainstream American culture, regardless of the tattoos on their skin or the jewelry, shirts, and other things they wear.

So if we do not see the wide trends regarding dress, decoration, dance, and other outward signs of a distinct Heathen culture, what would differentiate a Heathen culture from the American Christian overculture? Relationships with and to the land would be a big way. Since most Heathens relate to the world Itself as a Goddess, and have a series of Gods They worship as part of/involved in the world, this is a firm push to develop good ways of living with Her/Them in reciprocity.

Most Heathens engage in some kind of Ancestor cultus. That could, over time, take place with actual mounds we raise on our own lands to Them, and provide powerful intergenerational connections to land, and through that to our Ancestors and vaettir. The vaettir Themselves are another powerful connection that encourages the development of culture, both in relationship with the environment and in relationship with how we live on the land. With a world alive with vaettir, spirits, and connections literally all around us, Heathens engaging with the vaettir can develop unique ways of relating to and living with the land. Already some Heathens, myself included, are working to include indigenous wisdom, permaculture, and similarly aligned views so we live well on the land and with the vaettir here.

As more Heathens engage in lived relationships with the Earth Goddesses, Gods of the land, local Gods, the Ancestors, and vaettir, local and regional cultus is beginning to form. Heathens will likely become even more distinct from one another as this goes on over time. We cannot all relate to the Earth the same way when we are living in different parts of America. Even those Heathens living close to each other not have the same relationship with the environment, the Gods of these places, our Ancestors, and/or the landvaettir.

Another vector for Heathens’ cultural development is the way that relationships within as well as without Heathen communities form, and how those are maintained. Having just written on the concept of frið and grið for my latest Q&A, it seems to me that it is both related to similar concepts found in other religions and also distinctly Heathen. Writ large into how we form relationships, personal and interpersonal, individually and communally, these webs of relationships can unfold in ways we are only just seeing.

TikTok’s latest Norsetok controversies actually show us the dark side of this: flame wars and cults of personality being formed around folks based in clan and Kindred structure. However, it also has shown in the same blow that even Norsetok has staying power, as folks have banded together to work against such things and address power imbalances, unchecked ego, and so on. Twitter and Tumblr Heathen communities before them have gone this way, and likewise so have physical Heathen communities. So, what we may be seeing on a far faster scale in TikTok is a larger trend borne from the way Heathens tend to structure themselves.

Heathen communities tend to unfold around shared interests of being in relationship with and worshiping the Gods, Ancestors, and vaettir. They may or may not share larger interests with the overculture, not unlike a lot of other cultures. There are Christians that play video games like Call of Duty, whereas others reject them as too worldly, or glorifying violence. There are Heathens that play video games like Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla or watch the Thor Marvel movies, while others refuse to engage with them. I expect that as we come into second, third, and in some cases fourth generations of Heathens, we will see similar trends to the overculture in terms of our overall place in things. Some Heathens will trend politically left, others politically right, and this will shift over time with general trends based on where they live, how, and with whom they are relationship with. What I think will be politically distinct for Heathens is that most will still carry some kind of emphasis on a good relationship with the Earth, their local environment, and environmental issues generally, whatever source that comes from for them. More than anything else the interconnected relationships born out of Gebo, frið, and grið that are distinct to Heathenry will have unfolding consequences into how regional variations of Heathenry may come about.

There is a big lack of prognostication in this post on exactly how Heathen cultures will come about, develop, grow, and work. Part of the reason for that is that I have no idea how Anglo-Saxon Heathenry, Continental Heathenry, Slavic Heathenry, and other Heathen communities will develop over time because I am not directly involved in them. I do not have the anecdotes to develop even a broad picture of how those communities could shake out over time. The other reason for the lack of prediction on my part is because it is essentially a fool’s errand. There are some Heathen communities that operate essentially as männerbund (warband), others as communes, others as communally connected yet distinct hearths, and some Heathen communities are organized almost entirely online. Some Heathen communities incorporate some or all of these modes of operation together. Factor that together with the understanding that regional cultus and relationships are being made between local Gods, Ancestors, and vaettir with Heathen communities, and predicting anything other than a very broad-based idea is quickly put full of holes.

So where are we going? I have ideas for my local communities. A lot of us are engaging in local cultus, developing relationships with our Gods, Ancestors, and vaettir in context of where we are and how we live. As time goes on, I think one of the ways we and the overall trend for the Heathen communities are following one another is that there is going to be more involvement in local and national environmental movements. Something I am seeing the beginning of is communities developing distinct aesthetics with regards to clothes, home decor, tattooing, and other forms of decoration. There are patterns in the Heathen community which are in place that will balance devotion and relationship with the Gods, Ancestors, and vaettir. Some, if not most of those relationships will unfold with how we live on the land. I am excited to experience how Heathen cultures will develop, grow, and maintain themselves.

Patreon Topic 18: Reflecting on The Culture of Intensity and Spiritwork

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From Fen’harel comes this question:

“I was listening to the AGF podcast episode with Chiron Armand and the topic of “the culture of intensity” came up. What does that culture, in your opinion, look like for spirit workers? Is it something like not feeling one is doing enough work? I hope that makes sense.”

When I first got this question the most recent TikTok stupidity had not yet come to my attention, but now that it has? It is a great, almost perfect example of the culture of intensity. Now, it looks like a bunch of folks are trolling other TikTok folks saying they’re going to ‘hex the Fae’ or ‘hex the Moon’ and similar stupidity. Then there are others how are rising to the trolling/baiting and saying they will counteract this. Keep in mind we are in the middle of a damn pandemic, we are supposed to be socially isolating, and this is probably as close to interacting with peers as some folks are going to get until this COVID-19 crap is done with.

For some, this is what the culture of intensity looks like. You get someone or you yourself get riled up and in arms about stupid shit someone else is engaged in that is not actually hurting you and cannot hurt the Gods, Ancestors, and/or spirits in question, just to have something to do. Now, don’t get me wrong. I find the notion that folks would even entertain the notion of hexing the Fae, Moon, or Sun incredibly dumb, funny, and requires more than a bit of hubris. That said? I have no reason to jump out in front of these folks. Go ahead, sew the wind and reap the whirlwind you dipshits.

For a lot of spiritworkers, myself included, the culture of intensity looks like “I need to be doing something important/powerful/challenging right now!” Sometimes it comes from a feeling of not being/doing enough. Other times we are in a transition period. Those are uncomfortable, and patience is not a virtue easily cultivated in a culture where instant gratification is so prevalent I can order a book, sink, or something else and have it arrive 1-2 days later due to just-in-time delivery options.

The culture of intensity can manifest as feeling like “I am not doing enough!” or “Shouldn’t I be doing more?” When your value as a person in the overculture is determined by what you do, eg the job you hold, and how ‘productive’ your hobbies are, eg “Can I turn this into a side-hustle?” then the overculture teaches things that are “not productive”, aka making you money or stepping stones on the way to that, are wastes of time.

Part of the reason so many have a hard time meditating, taking time out to do self-care, or just taking a walk, is that it feels like you are wasting time as it is not producing a product or making you money. It is a vile trap. It devalues peace of mind, reflecting on things, self-care, and a host of other needed things that actually require our input of time, energy, care, experience, and expertise to do well. It also devalues the time we spend with our Gods, Ancestors, vaettir, our communities, and by ourselves taking care of our needs and wants. The culture of intensity pushes us to keep seeking the highs while devaluing the lows that make getting there reliably and safely possible in the first place.

The culture of intensity is also quite ravenous, asking for our time, attention, and continuously feeding a variety of time-wasting beasts. For a spiritworker, just as much as your average Pagan, polytheist, and/or animist, spending time praying, communing, and worshiping the Gods, Ancestors, and vaettir, and doing good self-care work is hardly a waste of time. Because these things are not valued in the overculture and so many of us are hungry for human interaction, it can be so easy to get sucked into go-nowhere conversations whether it be over Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, TikTok, or other places that increasingly serve as distractions rather than points of connection. This is not to knock the very real use that Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, TikTok, etc can serve, but that, as platforms, their primary purpose is to serve as data collection/networking/disbursement rather than connectivity. I find better and more consistently fulfilling connection over personal email, personal chat/text, and programs like Discord and Zoom where the people I am interacting with are not communicating with me through a reference medium (see this retweet, that like, that share, the For You page, etc), but about as close to face-to-face as I can get without being right there with them.

So how do we work to address this? We need to take time out each day so we have that self-care. That self-care does not need to take a long time, be particularly productive in and of itself, nor does it need to tie into anything any more than peace of mind, connection with the Gods, Ancestors, vaettir, our communities, and/or ourselves. I take about 10-30 minutes each day. I spend that time doing cleansing, grounding, centering, shielding, checking on any wards I have needing maintenance. I also spend that time making prayers to my Gods, Ancestors, and vaettir, and then making offerings. I recommend anyone, spiritworker or not, put that time in each day.

If I have a hard time engaging in self-care, I refocus on doing the preparation work (cleansing, etc) so I can do the prayers and offerings cleanly. It is easier at times for me to think of others over myself, and is a way I engage in self-care so I can do the connective work. Taking my needs out of the equation and engaging with the obligations I have helps my frame of mind at times, because it is no longer my emotions that are center stage, but the obligations I hold. If sitting and meditating is not working for me I may switch it up to walking around the garden and talk with the plants and trees. If my usual methods of cleansing, grounding, centering, and shielding are not working for me, I switch it up. There is nothing wrong with fighting boredom or making adjustments so that whatever you need to do has you more involved in it. This is also why rote prayers and spiritual prep work are useful. Sometimes I do not have the brainspace to effectively make more involved processes and I need to do the motions that are most near and dear to me so I can do my work. Whether you need to switch things up or keep to how you have always done them, what matters is the efficacy of the spiritwork you engage in.

The ‘culture of intensity’ has a lot of ins to influence our lives. Excising those can be pretty tough, especially if you have grown up with a lot of the ‘culture of intensity’ as part of your own value system. So, instead of fully shifting or damming the river, working with its flow may be the more effective option. One of the keys for me is reminding myself that I need to do the ground work so the rest of the work is possible. That the small moments lead to the ability to do the big moments, and that whatever I experience, the moment is not the goal.

The goal is to do the work before me so that the work may be effective and see through to its end. It is like throwing a punch. Your aim is not merely the target, it is to blow past the target so the hit connects with the fullness of the energy behind the punch. In a sense, the blow is ‘behind’ the target. You follow through. The goal of planting a garden is not merely to plant, it is to lead to plants to grow, whether flowers, herbs, or food crops. Refocusing the ‘culture of intensity’ to serve our purposes is a needed repurposing. That ‘culture’, such as it is, is unsustainable and liable to destroy us quite quickly. The follow through of long-term planning is desperately needed more so than the short-term highs. We need to shift the culture from one of intense, short experiences, to one where we can build up from foundations into intergenerational communities.

It will take patience, work, and follow through. It will take concerted effort to refocus the ‘high seeking’ behavior of the overculture and to live our lives as valuable things regardless of monetary or social media gain. It will take us being willing and working to refocus our lives with different priorities than many of us were raised with so the ‘culture of intensity’ has less hold on our own. Intensity is a part of life, but the way things are wired right now to produce the maximum reaction on a consistent/constant basis is leading a lot of folks to burnout and quick. So, we need to channel these things and make them more effective over the long run so we have candles to spare when all the other lights go dark.

Patreon Topic 15: Pop Culture’s Impact on Polytheist Practice

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From Maleck Odinsson comes this topic idea:

“Pop cultural influences on individual practice. Not just stuff like Marvel, but also the Litany Against Fear, etc.”

For me, there are more than a few pop culture influences that have made way into my view. When I first became a Heathen it took a long time for me to see Þórr as red-haired and red-bearded. For a very long time I saw, and even still on occasion, I will see Him as He appears in Marvel productions with long blond hair and a great golden beard. As small as that influence may seem, it really is not when you think about what iconography should be showing up in my head when it comes to my God.

So what about other influences? As an avid reader of Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files, I find a lot of use if I am going to bring together a piece of magic to do it in a fashion similar to Dresden when he forms his own. He incorporates as much of the six senses as he can in his magical work. I find this bringing in of the senses to be a powerful catalyst in magical work, and something I found influencing how I approached it whether I wanted it in there or no. Through Dresden, Butcher also examines how headblind power and authority can make a body of even experienced magical practitioners when faced with novel scenarios. How being hidebound for its own sake is a weakness and accepting new, if radical or challenging ideas, is a powerful antidote to fossilization and corruption.

The Litany Against Fear from Frank Herbert’s Dune was something that hit me shortly after I got into college. For awhile my Dad had read and recommended the Dune series to me. When I finally did it had a profound effect on me, particularly that Litany. I find it a useful mantra not only in dispelling or working through fear, but also in deescalation, grounding, centering, and even shielding work. It can work as a setting of intention prior to or in a working. As in the books, the Litany can be a meditation unto itself.

Can we really avoid pop cultural influences? No, not really. They shape a lot of landscape of the possible within and without us. No small amount of folks have found their way into magic, animism, and polytheism through movies, comic books, music, and other media. No small amount of us make choices on what media to consume or not consume based on our worldview as animists and polytheists. I still hold we need to be really careful of what from pop culture makes it into our spiritual practices. That is true of anything, though, gnosis included.

Why do I not mind the influence of the media like Dune, The Dresden Files on my magical practice? Because the books and other media are not substituting my experience with the Gods, Ancestors, and vaettir with what is in its pages, but adding to the ideas I have at my disposal for working with Them and understanding Them. I think that is the positive influence of pop culture on a person: if the media can open new doorways of understanding, experience, knowledge, and relationship between ourselves and the Gods, Ancestors, and vaettir. The negative is when the pop culture begins to supplant or even deny the lived experiences we have, or the history of the cultures that worshiped our Gods, Ancestors, and vaettir.

In the end what I would like to see is more conscious interaction with media whether we are incorporating it into our individual practices or not. Does this piece of media make me think, question, respond to things from a polytheist or animist lens? Does this piece of media challenge the status quo and makes me consider my relationship with a given God, Goddess, Ancestor, or spirit? Does this piece of media make sense to the point where trying out a given technique, eg the Litany Against Fear can produce positive results? These are just a few questions we can ask as polytheists, animists, and magical practitioners to make more mindful, careful choices in the media we participate in.

A Response to Jön Upsal’s Freedom of Conscience and

When I wrote my posts Orthopraxy Requires Orthodoxy and Reviving Religions vs. Reviving Cultures, I was happy with the discourse that followed.  I’m glad that people wrote about why they agreed and disagreed with my points.  I didn’t realize at first that Jön Upsal had wrote several posts following onto my reply to him in the Reviving post.

Jön raises a good point in that I am speaking from the perspective more as a separatist polytheist and less as a mainstream Pagan.  I am writing from this perspective for a few reasons:

My personal worldview, religion, etc. consists of Heathenry from an animist and polytheist point of view.  At least from my interactions with Pagans lately, the most theist response I get is either duotheism or an ill defined theism that allows for the Gods but also calls them archetypes or thoughtforms, sometimes in the same breath.  This doesn’t sit well with me at all, and it’s really not my view, nor how I live my life.  So, while I may be related to mainstream Paganism by being both Northern Tradition Pagan and Heathen, I find myself less readily able to relate to mainstream Paganism as I’m coming into contact with it.

Now, in regards to the model that Jön links to in his rebuttal to the Reviving post, titled Freedom of Conscience, he is absolutely right that I view the model as being the one that gives rise to animist and polytheist belief, that gives rise to the actions that are the expression of those beliefs.  The Oxford English Dictionary defines worship as:

The feeling or expression of reverence and adoration for a deity:the worship of God

ancestor worship

Without believing that a God is worthy of reverence and adoration, and that the God is, in some way real, of what import is the reverence and adoration of that God?  This is not merely a personal question, but also a question of group belief and practice.  For some groups this will simply not matter, a subject I went over in the Reviving post. Jön responded to this as well, and it will be covered later.

As I have mentioned elsewhere, it’s not my job to screen people theologically if they have shown up to a public ceremony, which is why I was talking in regards to the sumbel being something I do with people that I know are on a similar theological level with me, both because of the regard I have for such a ceremony, and how the ceremony itself affects those who partake in it.  This is a ceremony, at least in how I partake in it, that I have very firm views on.  These are firm in no small regard given the oath-taking that can occur during it.

What I find interesting is that in every example I have been provided, by both Jön and in the Reddit threads I found my blog was being discussed in, I feel the main point I was making has been reinforced, that orthopraxy comes from orthodoxy, rather than the other way around.  To be clear on this, I’m quoting Jön’s post:

A thought experiment

That said, I submit the following thought experiment as a way to explain why an insistence on orthodoxy, that is, “right belief” is simply impossible on a practical level.

Imagine two self-identified Heathens, Einar and Eirik. Both are members of an Asatru tribe, both attend a Yule gathering. Both have many friends in the tribe, and bow their heads respectfully during the blót to Freyr while they are sprinkled with blood, both sit at high places at the sumbel, both give gifts in hall, and both make beautiful and impassioned toasts in honor of Freyr, their ancestors, and their host.

One of them believes the Gods have a real existence outside of ourselves, and one of them believes the Gods are merely mythological archetypes.

Which is which?

Unless you can answer me that question, then I submit that the answer doesn’t matter, and you shouldn’t care. It’s impossible to police, as long as the non-believers take my advice from a week ago and simply go with the flow, as it were. That’s apparently what they’re interested in, supposedly.

Regardless of whether Einar or Eirik is the polytheist or atheist, they are both drinking from the same spring if they are from the same tribe.  The right thought informs the right action, the right thought and action being decided upon by the group, and not by either Einar or Eirik.  The right thought here is respect during the sumbel and giving the Gods and whomever has the cup/horn their full attention and respect.  What I find interesting is that in this example, both make impassioned toasts, but neither one is said to actively make an oath before the Gods, which is one of the sticking points in my own example.  This is also where I get into the part where we talk about groups oriented around culture and those oriented around religion, and Jon’s point here:

I don’t have to understand their position to understand that they might well have a reason. I’m not their judge. So when Sarenth says something like this:

Without the orthodoxy of the Gods being real, holy, and due offerings, the orthopraxy of offering to Them in or out of ritual makes not a lick of sense.

I have to hold myself back from yelling at the screen, “it doesn’t make sense to you, but it might make sense to them!“

He’s right, it doesn’t need to make sense to me.  However, there is a big difference between having empathy for another person, and accepting their view as being as valid as my own.  In this regard, I do not accept atheism as being part of religious Heathenry for reasons I’ve made before.  Also, my point in the quote he is making is that holiness and sacredness at terms are tied into the Gods and the cosmologies They are part of.  I am speaking in terms of theology as well as etymology in this post of mine he quoted, which was a more overarching look into why atheists claiming use of words like ‘holy’, ‘sacred’, and so on do not make sense.   Keeping in mind as well, that in my Reviving post, I was making a lot of “I” and “my” statements.  I was speaking from and to my own experiences, beliefs, etc.  If a given Heathen group fully accepts atheist members, that’s their choice, and I welcome them to it.

This is also where I get into the difference between a living culture and reviving a religion.  My tack is in reviving the religion first and the culture following on from that, given that the overculture where I live is generally WASP, and that building up Heathen culture without it roots in the religious worldview and practice seems totally at odds in my mind with the revival of the culture to begin with.  From his writing, it seems that Jön is rejecting that, or taking the opposite view.

That said, this point is another one where I think he is making my case for me:

Orthopraxy stems from tradition and custom.

Okay, but what informs tradition and custom?  Right thought, right action.  How so?

Two ways, by looking at the meanings of the words tradition and custom, and the example he provides:

OED defines tradition as:

The transmission of customs or beliefs from generation to generation, or the fact of being passed on in this way.

and

A doctrine believed to have divine authority though not in the scriptures, in particular.

OED defines custom as:

A traditional and widely accepted way of behaving or doing something that is specific to a particular society, place, or time.

As to Jön’s example, here in terms of blót:

And how can we tell? One of the elements of blót is the taking of auguries and omens to see whether the offering has been accepted.

Not all of us have the benefit of Gods talking in our ears all the time, after all… Does your kindred or tribe or whatever harbor respectful unbeliever practitioners within its midst? If that really was something the Gods didn’t want, it would be reflected in the luck of the tribe. I’ve never heard of a systematic study being done, of course, but I would think if that did happen, the circumstantial evidence would quickly make the situation clear.

So following this train of thought we can:

-Have offerings accepted or rejected.

-Have trained ways and means to discern if the offering has been accepted accessible to spiritual specialists and/or the whole tribe.

-The Gods can let us know when They are displeased with an offering and we can act accordingly and respectfully to correct wrongs or errors when They make these things known.

-The Gods can and do affect the luck of the tribe, and the luck of the tribe is worth protecting.

The concern over the luck of the tribe being affected is again, first grounded in right thought.  Protecting the luck of the tribe is a desired thing, and can be affected by the Gods.  The right action of doing the blót well follows from the right thought that in order to do well by the Gods, increase the tribe’s good luck, and ensure the protection of the tribe’s luck before the Gods, one does what is respectful and honorable to/for the Gods.  Otherwise, what would be the point in worrying about the Gods, the luck of the tribe, or making good offerings and the like?

But they should be shunned and cast out not for their beliefs, but for their actions.

Again, if your group is a Heathen culture group rather than a Heathen religious group, I would agree.  If yours is a Heathen religious group that accepts atheists among its ranks, again, that is your choice to make.  It’s not one that I agree with, but then, I’m not part of your tribe/group/etc.  I also agree in the case of public gatherings and rituals.  For much of his post, I’m not actually in active disagreement with Jön at all.

I have to admit that when I read his post on Reviving culture vs. Religion, I laughed out loud at the Syrio Forel meme.  Yes, I agree, that today I’m not working on reviving the culture, at least as-a-whole.  I’m working on reviving the roots of the culture, specifically religious ones.

I counter that a polytheist religious group includes culture as well by definition, and a re-creation of the ancient mindset that accompanied it, because ancient culture and religion were inseparable.

Mind you, I’m not actively disagreeing with what he is saying here.  This is certainly my own case and that of the group I help to run.  I also agree that ancient culture and religion were inseparable.  It’s my hope that we can have that again.  It is my hope that we can someday have tribes again, and I’m all for anyone who wants to come and adopt the culture to do so.  Unfortunately, as it is right now, we’re still in the process of bringing back roots from religious worldviews that were largely laid down or only adopted into wholly other worldviews, worldviews that had animosity towards believing in Gods, magic, and the like.  So I’m looking at this from a revival from the bottom approach, whereas, if I’m reading him right, Jön  is adopting an all-of-the-tree approach.

So I thank Jön Upsal for providing some food for thought.

Reviving Religions vs. Reviving Cultures

So I gave this post, Atheism and Asatru, by Jön Upsal a read.  Then, I sat back and thought.

He raises some interesting points, but I don’t think any polytheist is about shunning or ushering out the non-theists.  Hell, I’m not even all about ushering out the atheists at this point from the Pagan community.  That boat sailed a long time ago; they’re given equal, if not more standing than polytheists, and it is easy to see where many have cast their lot.  I don’t and won’t agree with it, and I’ll speak against it, but there’s been a din of silence from everyone except those on the atheist or polytheist side, and those few voices from in between have been unhelpful “Let’s get together and sing kumbaya” without actually addressing issues, grievances, etc.

I will need to reread some of his points here, especially in regards to the lore.  Non-belief may have been accepted, but it was not the norm to be so.  I get the feeling that Hrafknell’s story has context missing or something.

I think he is right, in that our religions are orthopraxic, but I think we dismiss orthodoxy at the peril of the former losing meaning and weight without the latter.

Here’s the crux: what I think is missing from the analysis here is that these were intact cultures with room for non-believers, whereas, for our purposes, we are strictly reviving our religions, and the culture will follow after.  We simply have a different demographic makeup.  Americans don’t have the investment in anything like an Althing culture, Gebo is practically nonexistant as a feature of regular life here, and that is with contracts and contractual reinforcement. I think there’s room for non-believers in our culture, but there’s also a reason I don’t invite them to my Northern Tradition Working Group or Study Group.  These are polytheist religious groups.  It’s a whole other story if I and my family start a permaculture-oriented community.  I have dear, dear friends I would be inviting, at least one of which is agnostic/atheist.  Depends on the day; sometimes he sounds like he believes in something, others not.

That’s a whole other ballgame though.  The difference between a polytheist religious group, and a group like a permaculture-oriented community, is the former is strictly a religious group, and the latter is a pluralist community.  Belief need not be required to be a permaculturalist, but in order to be part of the Northern Tradition Pagan community, you do need to be a polytheist of some stripe.  I think that much of the talking past one another takes place right here, and this is something worth thought and exploration.