Broken Plates and Mosaics

I came across these two TikToks tonight (December 30th, 2023) from Gene Lee and Reverend PopPop.

Sometimes I hang on to things for awhile, revising my thoughts and thinking on things. Following on from the last post, Thoughts and Reflections on 2017 Geography of Hope: Becoming Native to a Place, I thought about how that last post took me from October 31st till now to publish and I went through 15 revisions. The prevailing feeling that I was left with when I finished watching the video was a sense of bittersweet joy each person felt from connecting with their Native cultures and hope carrying on forward from it. There gets to be a distance from the details, the freshness of the bitter, the sweet, and the hope too, as revisions go on and time separates me from the initial experiences and feelings that prompted the post. So, a lot of this post is going to be off the cuff and with as few revisions as I can. It’s been written in just an hour or two.

Tonight, I feel a sense of hope that resonates with what I felt then. It is more acute, though. The pain is as well. For my part, I am trying to put fewer revisions and time between myself and those feelings. When I was watching the 2017 video, for all the emotions that swelled up in me during it, it was not my grief to share but to hold space for. It was grief I could feel, but it was not mine that I had personally experienced. When I watched Gene Lee’s response to Reverend PopPop’s video, that invitation to grief hit something personally. When Rev. PopPop shared his Grandma’s experience of the residential school, the loss she felt of her culture, her language, and all the pain she went through, followed on then with the message she gave to the Reverend about broken plates being turned into mosaics something hit me hard about that. That, too, is how I live my Heathenry. How I live my life as best as I can on stolen land. How I live through the bittersweet hope that John Trudell, Lyla June Johnston, Brooke Hecht, Nicky Finney, and Ilarion Merculieff shared with their experiences, their stories, their music, their hearts. These peoples’ pain is not my pain. It resonates, though, and it is important to acknowledge that. That Rev. PopPop would give what his Ancestor gave to him, to go so far as to give an invitation to look at the damn broken plate, to really feel what was lost, and then to grieve what has been lost hit something hard in me.

I have my own pain. So do my Ancestors. I have my own Ancestral baggage that is being worked through in an ongoing basis. Sometimes that is through prayer, sometimes through dedicated spiritwork, and sometimes that is through just being alive, being Heathen, and doing what I can while I live. Sometimes it is done through sitting back and listening to my Ancestors. Sometimes it is me shouting at my Ancestors. Sometimes it is me singing with Them and/or dancing with Them. Sometimes it is all of these things, and more besides.

I have had more than a few times where I began with my usual spiritual hygiene, then a prayer of invitation. I then lit a sacred pipe after the Fire Prayer filled with Asemaa and Ama Una, and after some conversation I have yelled. “Why the fuck did you do that?!” “Why is this something I have to deal with?!” “This is bullshit!” I think it would be lying by omission to act like these kinds of feelings of grief, anger, and pain do not happen in sacred space. They certainly do. I have had them myself, seen them around Sacred Fires I have been honored to tend, and through these some truly profound healing has been able to be had by both Ancestors and descendant. To not look at the pain, to not give it space, to not allow both you and the Ancestors to be with it and to grieve is to deny whole parts of ourselves, souls needing space to feel, to heal, and to come to a new way of being.

Sometimes the Ancestral baggage is recent. Stories that are not mine to tell, but sear at the edges of the family. The loss of language and culture from great-Grandparents coming to this country because America is an assimilating, melting, ravenous monster that takes bites out of us all, eating everything and everyone it can, and shits us all out. Sometimes the Ancestral baggage is ancient. Betrayals not remembered by anyone except the Ancestors who endured them, or the giving up of whole cultural traditions, or relationships with their Gods, Ancestors, and spirits for Christianity because of expedience, trading opportunities, or the local king, jarl, or some other dignitary insisted on it. Whenever the Ancestors bring me Their grief it is a gift, a gift of trust from Them to me, a gift of knowledge and understanding, and in turn I give Them the space to share, to give, to grieve. Certainly the Ancestors have given me that space in kind.

Gene Lee is spot on when he says “This is what I mean when I say we cannot fix the problems with white supremacy and colonization by simply reclaiming the ethnic identities that were lost. A lot of that is just gone, and we have the responsibility of building something new for ourselves. America used to be described as the Great Melting Pot and I think that is a beautiful way to illustrate how white hegemony, how whiteness erases ethnic culture and tries to turn everyone into this monolith of whiteness. I like the idea of seeing American culture as a mosaic because it pays homage to how much had to be broken and lost for us to be what we are today. It shows how much damage was done for us to be on this stolen land. If we look at the American empire as a plate it is very obviously crumbling and that’s because it was never, you know, fired or forged properly. There were cracks in that plate from the moment we started using it, and now it is time to break that apart and to turn the pieces into something better for everyone.”

Heathenry as I live it is a mosaic. Before I was born it was envisioned as, to use Rev. PopPop’s metaphor, restoring a broken plate, and those efforts cut generations of Heathens’ fingers long before I came to it. Give a listen to the Heathen History podcast if you need examples. Now, I see one of the big challenges of today’s Heathenry is to make a living mosaic from the broken plates we have, both from our ancient Heathen past and from the more recent revivals that made the Heathen communities what they are today. If we cannot look to the grief in our past we continue to cut our fingers on the plates as we try to put them back together. No matter how much we romanticize the past, no matter how much we reach back, we cannot repair all the shards. To quote Rev. PopPop’s Ancestor “Sometimes what is lost is just lost. Sometimes you cannot get it back.” Some of those shards from the plate are lost. For good.

We can grieve that. We can grieve that loss right alongside our Ancestors’ losses, our own losses, and the things we have set aside or had to do so we can live or walk our paths as well as we can. We can grieve what was done to us, for us, and/or on our behalf. What we cannot do is put that shattered plate back together the same way. It is healthy for us to grieve. It is unhealthy to live in that grief to the point where nothing gets done and no healing can occur. It is not healthy nor honoring our Ancestors to let Their grief, Their pain, and Their loss do us ongoing harm when there are better ways we can come to live and do things. We can take the good shards we have, and, as the Reverend invites us, to make a mosaic. We do deserve to scream. To cry. To do all the things we need to do to grieve. We also deserve to make something from it. To make something more than just bloody fingers and tears. We deserve to heal.

Gene Lee points out that “This decolonization, this has to start inside of us and it is going to be hard. It is going to entail grieving things that you didn’t even know you lost. But at least we will not be alone in our grief. Let that grief drive you to building community. Recognize that grief, share that pain, and allow yourself to be supported through it. Find the people that will support you through because I swear to God they are out there. Everybody is hurting in some way. So find someone whose pain is relatable and then heal together. Work together to heal.”

That decolonization, to me, is one of the biggest challenges before the Heathen communities. As Heathen communities we can, and I believe should grieve what we lost, both in terms of the ancient past and in terms of our more recent past. We can grieve the connections with the Ginnreginn our Ancestors could have given us had they survived intact until now. We can grieve the Romanticism that more recent Heathen and adjacent communities not only indulged in, but lived in. We can grieve the wrong our more recent Ancestors did to folks who could have been part of our communities if they had not been havens for white supremacy and racism.

There is nothing wrong with that grieving! That is healthy! What is unhealthy is to place that as more important than the ongoing suffering others are experiencing, the ongoing trauma that is still taking place, the ongoing genocides that are still occurring. We have more than enough shattered plates mosaics without taking from others’ shattered plates and disrespecting their grief and grievances. Witnessing others’ grief does not give us right to it, or to the shards of their broken plates.

So, please, follow the advice of Gene Lee above, and Rev. PopPop here: “Grieve in a way that is inconvenient and unproductive to this system, and if you see someone grieving, do not take the opportunity to make it a competition, sit there with them in that grief and your grief and feel that grief together. Just let yourself experience loss. And I want you to grieve so loudly that the earth shakes. That it cracks and breaks apart. Because these are the labor pains of a new world, and you deserve to scream. Then as the New Year rolls in, I want you to put on some gloves and I want you to pick up the pieces of that plate. Because we cannot return it to what it was, but together we can build the most beautiful fucking mosaic that this world has ever goddamn seen. A mosaic made of all our broken pieces. A world without as many broken plates. That was the world my Grandmother believed in. And so do I.”

We cannot live in our or our Ancestors’ grief or grieving. We can grieve, together, as we move on. We can grieve as we make the mosaic. We can grieve after we’ve made a mosaic. Grief is not a straight line, it is not a one and done process. We have to continuously make room for it, because without that room we cannot heal. If we cannot heal we may repeat what caused the grief in the first place, or do even more damage.

I firmly believe each of us can do this work in our own ways individually and especially in community. I firmly believe this grieving, healing, and work is vital to ourselves, our Ancestors and other Ginnreginn, our Kindreds and groups, to Heathenry, and to our wider communities. Together, with our Ginnreginn, our communities, with one another, I believe we can grieve, decolonize, heal, and make new mosaics.

Patreon Topic 78: On Wolves

If you want to submit a topic you would like me to write on for this blog or my Patreon, sign up for the Ansuz level or above here on my Patreon.

From Cunnian comes this topic:

“My mind is much on wolves and their meaning. I know you do wolves a lot. My representation on my altar that Odin came through is a wolf. There is a lot of apparent contradiction in wolf symbolism. There are a lot of different wolves. The relationships are fraught but not entirely negative.”

So generally wolves get a fairly bad reputation in the Old Norse sources. Óðinn’s two wolves, Geri and Freki, both translate to greed or being ravenous. A name for wolf, varg, was used to refer to outlaws. Depending on the story, úlfheðnar seem to have not been well trusted. It is a wild contrast between how the sources we have relate to wolves and how we may relate to them today.

I think that part of the contradiction comes from how we know how wolves act through scientific observation. Some of that tension comes from the observation directly denying common conceptions of how ‘how wolves are supposed to act’. Some of that contradiction is how these investigations have revealed how close many of our own attitudes and ideas of interdependence works, e.g. the older generation raising the younger, eschew to wolves. Rather than there being strict hierarchies like was once thought (eg alpha, beta, sigma, omega, etc) there is actually much more parity. There is also a lack of connection to our forebears’ mindsets with regards to wolves. Most of us are not ranchers or farmers, and even those that are tend to go for deterrents rather than treating wolves as monsters. Given how much more close we now understand wolves to be to humanity and that most of us do not raise livestock, that contradiction in wolf symbolism is cropping up again and again. The monster role for wolves just is not getting its due because we no longer carry that relationship, if, indeed, our Ancestors did.

As with ravens, wolves were held as special to Óðinn. Kennings such as “feeding the wolf” was a standard in Old Norse poetry as pointed out by Stephen Grundy in The Cult of Óðinn: God of Death? (32). As he notes pp 35, Geri and Freki’s names were both frequently used as kennings for wolves and in Helgakviða Hundingsbana wolves are referred to as Óðinn’s hounds. Grundy points out a page later the ties that another scholar, W. von Unworthy, who connects the Sàmi God Rota and Óðinn through Their physical descriptions and the wolves that walk with Them. There is, of course, also Óðinn’s association with The Wild Hunt and His connections with wolves there as well. Without exhaustion of section 6 of the first part of this book, Óðinn’s association with death, war, ravaging, and the wolf is well-established for our purposes.

For an excellent treatment of the Wild Hunt and similar motifs see Lecouteux’s Phantom Armies of the Night: The Wild Hunt and the Ghostly Processions of the Undead. While what it has to say regarding wolves is small, the wolf and/or hounds accompanying The Wild Hunt and similar processions is old. It would make sense because of how wolves and dogs would have been seen to disturb the dead, and how they likely have, over time, gone from following us to walking with us over the millennia.

I see wolves as embodying a lot of violence in Nordic mythology, and as with many things when it comes to this body of myths, there is an overrepresentation of violence. Something that exists throughout the myths and sagas is that there is not as much on other ways of relating. It should not be surprising, then, that the written lore we has an overemphasis on the martial, violent, and brutal aspects of things. If there was any proof to be found in the written sources, beyond the obvious donning of various animal skins by the berserkr, úlfheðnar, and the few animal-themed helmets, charms, and bracteates that have survived the centuries since they saw their use.

All of this is to say that, as with a great many things, the myths and sagas give us very little outside a narrow scope to go on. There is likely a lot of detail we would find of great use today completely absent, as the written sources are predominantly concerned with upper class settlements, politics, and other goings-on. We have hints that there was a lot more inter-cultural exchange by ideas such as finnfara (to fare forth to the Finns, aka the Sámi) where the would-be seiðmaðr would seek training. Generally, though, we have little idea of how these things impacted individuals’ relationship with various animals. Per Lecuouteux’s Nordic and Germanic Folklore, Mythology, and Magic with the entry on Hamr we know that folks could have hamr that were animal-shaped and these may say certain things about them, and that some folks were known as eigi einhamr, meaning that they have more than one hamr (127). The gaps we have are many, great, and require thinking, divination, and experience if we are to fill them.

In my experience of being úlfheðinn there is a great deal of nuance that is completely left out of the sagas, whether that is due to úlfheðnar often being a literary device such as testing the hero of the story, or because it was not of interest to write down. My first experience with a fellow berserkr in the flesh was with a wonderful elder in my local Pagan community, Nybor. When I was still her student, Galina advised I seek him out and ask him to show me how to work with my úlfheðinn nature. It turned out to be an excellent piece of advice. Nybor not only showed me how to bring up my nature in a safe way, he also worked with me on how to channel the immense soul connection, the energy, spirit, and body connections. He taught me how to turn what I experienced up until that point as a usually frightening or anxiety-inducing experience into one which could be worked with for writing, creativity, magic, and more. I have found a variety of experiences, and while yes, some of them work hand-in-hand (pun fully intended) with martial arts and combat, others are deeply powerful when it comes to creative expression, magic, and all kinds of spiritwork. When it comes to working with wolves from a Heathen perspective mine is just one. Each of us has something that may be brought to the table, whether through our understanding, knowledge, and/or experience.

Wolves in Heathenry is another place that, once we have looked at the lore and archaeology, and then what modern science has to say about them, we largely have to do our own discovering and work. I firmly feel, though, that understanding wolves from a modern scientific viewpoint is fairly key to understanding them better spiritually, as many of the common ideas surrounding wolves, such as the idea of alphas, betas, sigmas, and omegas, have been debunked by David Mech, the very scientist that put that idea into circulation. For a good examination of this and how wolves actually organize themselves, look here.

An area where Heathens need to be careful also goes for examining and exploring ideas of fylgjur and spiritual relationships more generally: that of cultural appropriation. While we may have wolf fylgjur (Old Norse meaning followers, a term I generally use to refer to vaettir that guide, mentor, or are otherwise with us), kynfylgjur (an Old Norse term that I use much like the previous word, with the addition that They are Ancestors and/or kin), vörðr (guardian, plural is verðir), and/or Ancestors who are wolves in some capacity, we need to be careful of what we are saying, claiming, and how we communicate what we understand to others. These are not the same/equivalent term as Anishinaabe and equivalent terms other Native peoples may use for animal spirit/spirit animal. Spiritual kinship with wolves is not the same as being part of Ma’iingan doodem (Wolf clan) in Anishinaabe speaking cultures such as the Ojibwe. Theirs are very specific cultural contexts, relationships, and myths that are not ours unless, of course, a given Heathen is part of that culture. This is also a case where I am fully happy to be corrected on this by folks within a given Native culture, as I am not Native. As of this writing, however, this is my understanding.

Heathens have our own cultural context, connections, myths, and relationships that we have with wolves, even as we are working to uncover the full scale and breadth of them. While I believe we should be careful, I do not think we should be so careful as to do and explore nothing. We do ourselves, the Ginnreginn, and the Heathen communities no favors by simply not exploring these ideas, connections, and spiritwork out of a sense of worry, concern, or avoidance no matter how well-meaning that may be. As Heathens the more that we do to develop our own various understandings, have spiritual experiences, and engage in spiritwork, I expect more ways of engaging in relationships with wolves will emerge over time.

Patreon Topic 72: On Navigating Being a Spiritworker

If you want to submit a topic you would like me to write on for this blog or my Patreon, sign up for the Ansuz level or above here on my Patreon. From Maleck comes this topic:

“This is a bit of a beast of a topic, but what’s it been like for you, navigating being a spiritworker in a reconstructed and largely spirit taught practice? Where do you draw inspiration from other extant traditions without appropriating? How has learning about those other practices informed your own, either by showing similarity or by highlighting difference?”

Navigating being a spiritworker in a reconstructed and largely spirit taught practice means a lot of things. Among them are needing to be okay with not knowing something for absolute certainty. That is a lot different from making things up as you go along, because the reconstruction side of things makes it so that there is a grounding in the written and archaeological material. However, that reconstruction is a methodology for understanding the map of the territory. Sometimes, that methodology is shit at interpreting what is going on in the territory.

A spiritworker is not only walking in the territory, they are interacting with the Beings of that territory as well. Sometimes the stuff you learn from spirits does not match up, or it has no precedent with what is written down, and you are going to have to be okay with that. It means you are going to need to do your due dilligence, do the research needed, and to get verification from fellow spiritworkers, diviners, and other community members so you keep a clear head. It means also, at some point, you are going to need to trust your intuition, skills, abilities, talents, and experiences. You are going to need to develop skills, intuition, understanding, and knowledge such that your expertise is that you know when you get spiritual experiences and information that is actionable and useful.

Reconstruction as a methodology has limits, and a lot of them. Can you read what original works we have, or are you reading translations into English? If it is the former, then your quality of education on reading the old sources, what is available to you, and what you can reliably translate will determine if your translating work will have any benefit to the work at hand. If it’s latter, then, you are going to have to grapple with the information available to the translator at the time, the particular discipline they are translating in relation to, the education and understanding of the translator of the material, and the biases of translators with regards to the reality and Being of the Ginnreginn, magic, and related topics, and what historical, religious, and political messaging the translator brings forward as a result. Likewise, these considerations will need to be directed at archaeologists and archaeological work in general.

You have to understand and respect that reconstructionism is a helpmate to your religious pursuit. It’s main purpose is to help vet information you would use as a baseline for religious expression, exploration, and development. It is to help develop and codify ideas of what the Gods, Ancestors, and vaettir are like. Reconstructionism can help us effectively develop religious ideas from our source cultures, including cosmogeny and cosmology, religious terminology and phenomena. Reconstruction can help to develop and codify a taxonomy of language to express understanding of spiritual reality as experienced by modern spiritworkers. Alone, it cannot do this. It cannot tell us what a spiritworker should look like in modern Heathenry because its sourcing is in ancient times, or adjacent to it with regards to folklore. It can barely tell us what a seiðmaðr did, historically. Even where we have information there are limits. We have no historical recording of a varðlókkur, for instance. There is no manual, pamphlet, book, or volume for seiðr, or for Runework, for that matter, beyond those that have been written for us and by us in the modern age.

Recognizing the very real limits of what the written word and archaeology can tell us gives us a lot of freedom to explore, be inspired, and grow. It gives us the ability to forge entirely new ways with the Ginnreginn. In some cases, depending on our needs and experiences, we may have to. I have said all of this throughout my blog in some form or another, and it bears repeating often, especially given how often I see debates about reconstructionism pop up in Pagan and Heathen spaces. It is especially important to deploy this understanding when fools, liars, and grifters try to imply or directly say that Heathen ways are ‘closed practices’ in ways similar to Hoodoo, various conjure paths, Vodou, Ífa, and other African Traditional Religions and folkways. Not only are Heathen ways not closed, they are open to anyone who wishes to develop relationships with the Ginnreginn, and learn the various forms of magic and spiritwork. Particular emerging relationships as they exist in modern times may require initiation, whether for particular cultus, mystery, initiation requirements by certain Ginnreginn or groups of Them, or spiritual safety reasons. Whatever the reason, this does not make them ‘closed’ as is commonly used in reference to African Traditional religions and folkways. Seiðr, spá, Runework, and related Heathen magic and spiritwork are available to anyone who wishes to learn them and build the relationship(s), understanding, knowledge, skills, and experience necessary to engage in them.

Something I am not seeing discussed in Heathen communities is that, at some point, we will need to shed the need for an inflexible adherence to history, written sources, and archaeology. Not that they are unimportant or unuseful.We are going to have to trust that our own maps, constructed by and for our religious communities are reliable ways of coming to know, understand, and develop relationships with our Ginnreginn. I have seen the sources of cultural understanding used in ways that are directly harmful, whether that is by one-upmanship or the invalidation of folks’ experiences because it did not 1:1 comport with what was written. While reconstruction and historical exploration provide us a map, it is one map that is showing its age. As we become firmer in developing generations of Heathens this drive for our experiences and understanding to comport with what few written sources and archaeology can tell us needs to become less important. To not allow this would be to stifle innovative and new ways of relating with the Ginnreginn, developing our communities and their magic, spiritwork, knowledge, and understanding.

It is one thing for us to say “this is what the Rune poems tell us about the Runes” and another for us to wholly discount that we may have new, or at least revived ways, that have few to no references in the written and archaeological sources. I cannot and will not deny that my spiritual experiences with the Runes have brought me to the understanding that They are vaettir, spirits, and powerful ones at that. I have no doubt that this was a valid view, historically. However, this is my opinion and experiences talking. I have nowhere in the written or archaeological sources I can point to that makes this an indisputable fact. Yet, not only are my experiences still valid unto themselves, others have also had this experience and understanding, this knowing, of the Runes as vættir. Eventually we have to trust that our experiences are genuine and begin to form new ways of being able to parse future experiences, and form the ground of new ways of discerning.

My experiences with the Runes do not add mere wrinkles to a map. They bring topography to it. If the Runes are vættir then each is a Being unto Itself, a person in other words, worthy of consideration for Their individual paths, identity, drives, and so on. If each Rune is a vættr then we are not merely studying, writing, drawing, galdring, or working with mere symbols. Indeed, unless one is a strict materialist few who look at the Runes understand Them as having been, historically or in modern times, merely symbols. I teach my students that the Runes are vaettir. My perspective as a polytheist and animist is that the very language we engage in has spiritual depth, power, and animacy. This means that our very means of relating through communication, words, sounds, all of it, is enmeshed in spiritual relationships. Runework and galdr as I practice and teach them are particular expressions of this understanding. They are particular ways of employing magic within a given cultural context in our modern times.

The first thing that you need to have in being a spiritworker is to know what your priorities are. In my view the first priority should be the Ginnreginn you are serving with your spiritwork, those of your hearth cultus, and/or those you have deep relationships with. Priorities guide the rest of a spiritworker’s life. There will come times when Ginnreginn will have conflicting desires, and knowing Whose obligations are foremost for you allows you to know to Whom goes first consideration, in what way(s), and how. These priorities shape the course of a spiritworker’s life, and often that of their family and communities.

Now, many folks will list family as their first priority. It may disturb others that I do not. Those of us who prioritize the Ginnreginn above our family are sometimes misunderstood as not valuing our family. Rather, we understand very well the value of our family, and seek to prioritize Those who help each of our loved ones and communities to flourish. By prioritizing the Gods, Ancestors, and vaettir first, by these relationships taking first priority, we have right relationship with those Who bless and shape our lives and that of our loved ones. In doing so we help to positively shape our lives and that of our loved ones both through cultivation of good Gebo and hamingja.

Having a list of priorities makes it clear where my energies and focus go. Having priorities of obligations and responsibilities gives me keys to make effective decisions, whether it is in pondering what to do in a given situation, or whether a given practice does or does not come into use. Does a given action deepen right relationship with the Ginnreginn? Does a practice deepen right relationship with the Ginnreginn? If right relationship is either not a factor or is satisfied, does making a given choice or bringing in a practice improve my ability to do my job as a spiritworker? Does a given way of doing things work in the modern period or is trying to imitate a past practice getting in the way of effective spiritwork? These questions are especially important when considering the following:

“Where do you draw inspiration from other extant traditions without appropriating? How has learning about those other practices informed your own, either by showing similarity or by highlighting difference?”

If I know a practice to be open then that is not as big a deal as questions of practices that are closed, or initiatory only. The appropriateness of a given practice in application to spiritwork may be, though. For instance, the offering of hell money to the Ancestors may be open, but is that particular form of offering to my Ancestors useful, welcome, or furthering right relationship? I have offered coins to my Ancestors, among a great many things, but until writing this post had not considered offering hell money. I do not see a problem with it. However, my Ancestors generally enjoy receiving things, such as coffee, alcohol, tobacco, and herb offerings rather than money. They will not turn it down, but it is not the most common offering I give for or that They ask for. It seems that many of Them appreciate the sitting down and drinking a cup of coffee with Them far more.

One place where I have drawn inspiration from is throat singing with regards to performing galdr. Now, when I first began to do galdr I did not know the throat singing I was doing sounded a lot like Mongolian and Tuvan throat singing. It just occurred to me that galdr translated to singing or to crowing like a raven. I found the different ways I could do it affected how the Runework came about. So, much of my galdr has been intoning, as in my time with ceremonial magic with long, melodic or single note galdr, or with throat singing of galdr. When I ran into throat singing not long after starting this, I had to decide whether to stop the practice or continue it. Not only am I not singing any traditional Mongolian or Tuvan shaman songs, and have not made any attempt to, I am also not doing throat singing to call to any of these spirits.

The similarity of the throat singing I do for galdr has shown me different ways that I could engage in throat singing. Most of the ways I am seeing others throat sing do not seem to work well with how I galdr. Something that does work well is overtone singing. I would occasionally accidentally veer into overtone singing during a galdr, but it has only been lately where I have done work to actively cultivate doing it with intention. Given what I know it does not seem that overtone singing itself is appropriation, and that throat singing itself as I practice it is  not. Learning about throat singing from different cultures has given me ways I might improve the quality of my own galdr without taking on their stories, the spiritual qualities or connections in their throat singing, and so on.

Another area I drew inspiration from other traditions was through African Traditional Religions in the basics of setting up an Ancestor shrine. Through Jim I came to set up an Ancestor shrine in this way that he himself had taken on, starting with a simple white candle, clean cup of water, on a clean surface with a white cloth. Then, over time I began adding Ancestor representations as inspired or asked to. It has grown and changed since. I have various cloths and representations I use, and offerings I make. My understanding of Ancestors include those of blood, adoption, spirit, lineage, and initiation. They include nonhuman Ancestors. So, I took the ground of the practice of ‘this is how to set up a basic Ancestor shrine’ as Jim was taught through folks in ATR and have made my own practice out of it grounded in my Heathen religion.

I cannot overstate what this practice has meant to me. As a young polytheist and animist connecting with the Ancestors was revolutionary, and pushed me to rethink my understanding of myself not merely living my life, but towards an understanding of being an Ancestor in the making. That my life not only has ripples here, but throughout the Worlds as an Ancestor. It has brought me to worship the powerful Ancestors in the way I do now, specifically starting with the powerful Ancestors: the Dísir, the Fedrar, the Ergi, and the Þverr. I have forged powerful connections with Ancestors of all kinds, human and nonhuman, and it has brought depth, power, and beauty to my practice in ways I could not have predicted. It has given me a place to develop all these relationships, and in turn, it has positively affected all the people that I have. It has given me places to put down good roots in right relationship with the Ancestors and it affects all that I do.

There is a deep richness in exploring how others do things. I am reminded of something that Rune of Nordic Animism has relayed through his channel: that to be stupid someone is said to be homebound. The lore we have available to us notes that going Finnfara, that is, to seek out training from the Sámi was to seek wisdom, understanding, and magic. Our forebears certainly did not shy away from looking to others for their wisdom, knowledge, expertise, or magic. I do not think it is incumbent on us now, when we have more ability than ever to access knowledge and to talk to one another, that we should remain siloed in what little lore is left to us as Heathens. However, this does mean that is more incumbent on us than ever to enter into dialogue when and where we can with those we seek to learn from and their ways with even more respect. That means if I am in connection with, say, a Sámi person and they say ‘this is ours, for us, and not available to those outside the culture’ then that should be the end of it. There may be a long history of Heathen folks going to the Sámi to learn from them, but we are not owed that any more than the Sámi are obligated to share with us.

Keep in mind: that richness can go both ways. Just because we are reconstructing, reviving, and bringing new ways forward does not mean we are without things to offer one another. If we adopt that mindset then there is precious little point to doing any of this because we are denigrating our ongoing relationships with the Ginnreginn. We can speak across breadths of experience, expertise, understanding, knowledge, and wisdom because we are in active work to building our own anew with our Ginnreginn. Our spiritwork and spiritworkers may not be 1:1 with an Ojibwe medewin, a Sámi noaidi, a Mongolian shaman, or Shinto priest. They are not meant to be. Heathen spiritworkers, whether they be seiðmaðr, spámaðr, völur, vitkar, rýnmaðr, erilar, góðar, gyðjar, or some other kind, are Heathen spiritworkers. In the end the work we do as spiritworkers is to benefit our Ginnreginn and the communities we serve, even if the only Beings who are in our immediate communities in that capacity are the Ginnreginn Themselves.

I believe we Heathens, not only the spiritworkers among us, have a great deal to offer to our human communities merely by existing. As spiritworkers we may bring wisdom, understanding, magic, power, and relationships to bear, just as any of those that may count us as colleagues, friends, and fellow spiritworkers in different traditions and religions. Learning what we can where we can in respect, giving good Gebo for Gebo given, and in hospitality furthers our own spiritwork, and allows good, healthy, heil relationships to flourish to the benefit of all involved.

AGF 113 – The Birthplace of Shamanism

Also Available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, and more! We are joined by the amazing David J. Shi, author of Spirit Voices: The Mysteries and Magic of North Asian Shamanism where we talk about the origin of the term and what it means, the three types of shamanism, Ancestral Spirits vs. Ancestors […]

AGF 113 – The Birthplace of Shamanism

Reflecting on Social Media and Modern Pagan Religions

I started these musings on Twitter and Mastodon, and wanted to expand on them a bit here.

An important development, one that I think a lot of folks in especially Heathen and adjacent spheres should take note of, is how much more acceptable it is to be experimental with our approach to the Ginnreginn, magic, and forms of spiritwork.

I came at the end usenet’s popularity. 

I never used it myself. 

Most of my Pagan/occult social media experiences are from Livejournal, WordPress, Tumblr, Facebook, then Twitter and now, Mastodon. Overall, I have seen that social media has been a net positive for Pagan religions.

I would not have as many connections to coreligionists, to colleagues, or to those I that are part of my communities. It would certainly make it a lot harder to have the necessary conversations with folks on developments in our communities, and especially across them.

To the end of being in and staying in contact with community, Discord has been peerless. It allows for instant communication or as one can get to them, sharing of images and videos, and the use of both voice and video chat. Certainly there are issues, but Discord has made itself indispensible to the communities I am part of, both locally and across the world, for keeping in touch.

Rather than cursing social media’s influences here, I think that it has actually made our communities both more communicative and *accountable* not only to our own communities, but to one another. It is harder to bury things, harder to baffle with bullshit, and far easier to find true and accurate information than it was when I first became a Pagan.

I came out of the period where we were still beating the dead horse of Margaret Murray’s disinformation. Where we were still hearing ‘Never again the Burning Times’. Where a lot of folks were using 30-50 year outdated written and archaeological information (eg Budge for Kemetic folks was still being pushed in many of the circles I was in) because we simply did not have access to the latest information. So much of it was behind paywalls, like being hidden in academic journals or compendiums. Access to accurate, good scholarship has come leaps and bounds to our communities, and along with it, folks who are developing more thorough understanding of philosophy, religion, spiritwork, and experiences within and across our various religions.

It is easy to get caught up here and now, or with where we want to be, and not appreciate just how far our communities have come in the last 20 years. In the time I have been a Pagan the acceptance and celebration of trans and non-binary people alone has been downright revolutionary. Rather than forcing folks to fit into a man/woman model, energetically, ritually, and socially, many of these models have been modified to be inclusive or have been wholly set aside. That’s *not* a simple or an easy thing, and worth celebrating on its own.

Recognizing we have come a long way is certainly not saying we should merely congratulate ourselves on a job well done and consider things solved or ideal. There is always work of some kind to be done. There is more to do, whether that is the development of Mysteries, the exploration and engagement in various kinds of cultus, the development of communities and infrastructure, and/or each person’s personal walk with the Gods, Ancestors, and/or vættir.

Yes, the stupid Ishtar = Easter, the snakes that St. Patrick were said to have driven from Ireland are Pagans, and similar memes are irritating to post against every year. Grifters and charlatans proliferate through Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram. Thing is, folks, is that grifters and charlatans have always been with us. Whether the memes are based on flawed understanding of etymology, scholarship, or are intentional trolling at this point does not deny that it is far easier now to debunk misinformation than it has in the past. Whether the grifts and charlatans sincerely believe their bullshit, quickers than ever we can identify them and excise them from among us.

With modern scholars not only willing but able to reach out and talk with our communities, whether they are in them or not, and more of us becoming part of the academic establishment each year, we are far better equipped year on year to educate, empower, and enliven our communities. We have seminaries that, while not yet accredited, are working towards these things. We have established religious groups, festivals, and projects that build up our members and communities. We have groups like Crossing Hedgerows Sanctuary and Farm that are bringing together community events and so folks can see what lived spiritual values on the land look like.

For all that we are facing swathes of challenges in the overculture, particularly from the right wing with regards to Evangelical Christianity, anti-theist fundamentalism, and white supremacists that are among our religions, we are better connected and better equipped to fight against these groups than we ever have before. Not only are we not socially alone, through the work we can do on and through social media we can coordinate, engage in mutual aid in a variety of ways, and help each other through the hard times while celebrating the good. We can build lists of allies, such as Pagan-friendly mental health and medical professionals. We can network and we can brings folks together for mutual aid work projects whether we are looking for help in the garden or to build a shrine, organizing a potluck or ritual, or developing infrastructure for our community gatherings. We can fund each others’ needs whether food, water, medicine, or transport. We can coordinate with each other dynamically, living the value of hospitality and reciprocity with one another in even better ways than we could without it.

Rather than treating it as an enemy or necessary evil, I would treat social media as a tool in our communities’ toolchest. We ignore it at our danger. It will not replace the necessary on-the-ground efforts that go into making a local Pagan Pride, a Kindred, a tribe, grove, coven, or other group, but it can damn make sure it is easier to form and maintain them. Social media may not be an appropriate tool for every need we have, but it is a flexible and powerful tool nonetheless. We have the ability to take hold of it and build useful, lasting things with it for ourselves.

A Story of Loss, Meaning, and Mutual Aid

TW: Loss of a pet, grief, working with a body, bodily functions

I don’t kid when I tell folks mutual aid can be some of the most frustrating and inconvenient things. A case in point:

Sometimes mutual aid is helping your neighbors bury their dog when you are sick as hell.

A week before and during the week of Thanksgiving I was sick with the flu. I’ve never been that sick with the flu before, save one time when I was a kid and was so bad off with the flu I was hallucinating. I took those two weeks off from work after having to visit the urgent care multiple times, and sometime after this story’s occurence, I ended up in the ER getting seen. It was a rough illness.

This takes place about halfway through this illness. I am knocked completely out because this flu has kicked my ass up one side and down the other. I get woken up by my partner, Streaking Fate. She tells me that our neighbor’s dog, about an eight month old black pitty mix puppy, got hit by a car. There is a car stopped that is just starting to pull away from our neighbor’s driveway. I found out later they did the right thing and spoke with our neighbor about what happened, and apologized.  So, having just been woken up out of a dead sleep with a flu bug that has completely leveled my ass, adrenaline starts pumping. I hauled over to check after throwing on some clothes, hoodie, leather gloves, and my winter coat. At this point I had no idea if the dog was alive, suffering, or not, so I brought some things along in case I could help their dog out to either get to the hospital or end its suffering.

First, I check on the dog, who is lying on the side of the street outside their driveway. The poor boy was a puppy, a pitty mix if memory serves, and very loving. A bit hyper, doofy, and really enjoyed breaking the rules and running around our yard, but generally a harmless pupper. All of the light is out of his eyes, and he is collapsed on the street, head to the side. I check him, speak his name a few times, and check his breathing and pulse. His eyes are glazed. There is nothing I can do for him.

I then check on my neighbors. They are a man and a woman about my age, not married yet though from what I gather they are working on that. I can see that she’s absolutely crushed, not only for herself, but for her boys and especially her partner, who loves that dog. I hug her for awhile and let her cry. Then, I ask her if there is anything I can do for her. She’s beside herself, and cannot bear to see her dog. I look to my partner who is sitting with their dog’s body. I know what I should do. I ask her if she wants me to take him, get him away from the street, and get him cleaned up in my garage. She agrees, I give her my number, and she lets me go to take care of him so she can break the news to her boys.

I come back and the poor guy has involuntarily vomited. Sometimes when we die, this happens. Sometimes we vomit, sometimes we shit,or both, because the muscles move in such a way on death that evacuation just occurs. So, we grab a tarp from my garage, and carefully put him on it, and bring him up to the garage as carefully as we can. His size belies how damned heavy he is. We get him in and put him on a large foldable clean plastic table.

We make prayers to our Gods of the Dead, to Anpu, to Hela, to Óðinn, and others. We make prayers to our Gods that are Wolves, Dogs, and other canids, including Anpu and Fenrisúlfr, and divine animals, including Hela’s hound Garmr, and Óðinn’s wolves Geri and Freki, among others. Then, after some cleansing breaths, we get to work on cleaning him.

He has pits of asphalt from the impact of the road, scratches, and bits of blood here and there. We clean out the pits and wipe away the blood on him with warm, wet terry cloths. Probably the hardest thing to work with is the vomit, because while we were bringing him inside, and I hauled him onto the table, his stomach continued to empty. To make him presentable for our neighbors, we keep cleaning him all over and especially inside his mouth. We use most of our terry towels over the course of an hour to an hour and a half. As we work we whisper prayers, and we speak with him.  We tell him what a good boy he is and was, and how much his people will miss him, and how much love they have for him. We speak with the Dead, cleaning him, so his Daddy doesn’t have to see him in the state we did. Over time the grime and grit, the blood, vomit, and all the rest come up. I take one of the white cloths that served as an altar cloth, and bring it outside. Streaking Fate puts it beneath him while I lift him up, and we wrap him in it, and wait for his Dad to come over.

It takes him some time to get home, to see his family, and to talk and process things. He calls, tells me he will be over soon. I ask if he needs anything to eat or drink. He can’t, so I just tell him to come over when he is ready to. When he comes over to the garage I can see him barely contain his emotions. I hug him, and can tell he’s a man not used to this, but I am, and I give him a soft squeeze on his shoulder and let him know his grief is welcome. I can see it in his eyes. As much as this puppy was loved by his family, this dog was his boy. He was a member of the family. He speaks to him as a son. For a few moments I watch him, watch as he drapes his hands over the coal-black fur in the most gentle way over his boy, and pet him, whispering words. I tell him to take as much time as he needs, and if he needs to warm up to come into the house. We leave him.

I take a seat in one of the chairs we have upstairs, and breathe long and hard, coughing hard because the flu is trying to make me expel my lungs. I blow my nose on one of my many handkerchiefs (thank you, Grandpa, they’ve definitely come in handy), and clean my hands with soap and water. A while later he knocks on the door from the garage. When my neighbor comes in he lets me know he needs to get some things from his home and to bring his truck around to take his puppy home. He asks if he can leave his boy with us for an hour or so, in order to get some things ready. He mentions wanting to bury him that evening, asking his boys to help him. Given what I saw of him and his family, I knew how hard that would be for them. I felt prompted by my heart and a small push by Óðinn to offer to help him bury his puppy.

He looks a mix of relieved and pained, and says he appreciates that and takes off. I rest with my partner for a while, and we get some dinner. A while later my neighbor gives me a call and it turns out he’s already made progress on his puppy’s grave in the backyard where he liked to be. He asks me for help in loading him into his truck bed. We only have one shovel, and I feel like I need to see this through. So, I grab my coats, gear up again, and help him put his puppy into the bed of his truck. Then, I get my shovel, and head over with him. The truck is warm, real warm, and he parks it with the high beams shining so we can see what we are doing. When we get out the cold kind of feels like it is trying to steal your breath.

We work together for about an hour to finish up the grave. We take turns with the older of his sons; the younger could not bear to be there. His partner watches but lets us work. He asks if I think the hole is deep enough. Considering I am around 5’7″ and having trouble getting into and out of it now, I say yes. So he, his son, and I bring his puppy to rest in our blanket and with his favorite blanket and a toy. Tears are stinging all of our eyes in the cold, but I blink them back, and breathe slow and deep. I get control. This is their time to grieve. I can process later. His Dad hops down into the grave, and asks to put him down into it himself.

I whisper some prayers into his puppy’s ear as I set him down into his Dad’s arms. The other two are openly crying. My neighbor is burying his face into his boy’s fur, speaking to him and finally, when he is ready, puts him down in the mound. I offer him my hand and he comes out of the grave. Then he says a prayer to his puppy, and offers space for the other two. When they say they’re good, we begin to bury him. It is quick work, between three guys shaping and digging with the cold spurring us on. We work it flat as we go, and finally, mound up the grave. When we are all finished he offers to drive me home.

He looks to me, and for another of the countless times that night, says thank you to me. I let him know that this what I was taught neighbors do for each other. This is what my parents taught me, and it is what my religion teaches me to do. When we get out of the car he shakes my hand and we embrace, and he tells me that if I ever need anything to let him know. I let him go and let him know if he ever needs anything I am here too.

This is what hospitality and mutual aid can look like. Sometimes it is sharing food. Sometimes it is defending your community from a common foe. Sometimes it is showing up to a protest or counterprotesting. Sometimes it is showing up when you are woken up from a deep sleep, dead on your feet from a flu, to help your neighbors on the worst day of their lives and bury a loved one. It may not be easy work but I can tell you, from the spirit of my neighbor’s dog to my neighbors themselves, it is good and sacred work. I didn’t show up in my peak condition. I showed up the best I was able. Really, in hospitality and mutual aid, that is all any of us can ask of ourselves or each other.

So, extend hospitality and mutual aid wherever you can however you are able. You may have no idea the impact just showing up can have for those who just need you to show up.

It is enough.

You are enough.

Patreon Topic 69: On Priesthood

If you want to submit a topic you would like me to write on for this blog or my Patreon, sign up for the Ansuz level or above here on my Patreon.
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.

Patreon Topic 67: On Building Modern Communities

If you want to submit a topic you would like me to write on for this blog or my Patreon, sign up for the Ansuz level or above here on my Patreon.
From Maleck comes this topic:

“How do you build community in the modern era?”

I think part of the issue with writing on this subject is that we have to define what kinds of communities we are looking to build. Kindreds are vastly different in structure, scope, and goals than that of a coalition of leftists, builders of a local mutual aid network, or more formal political structures. What we are trying to build and the focus we bring to it greatly differs even if there are some commonalities built into the idea of community building.

First, you have to figure out what kind of community you are going to build. In this, I would ask a series of questions.

What is the purpose of the community? Is this community oriented around religious, political, or hobby interests? Building a community is based on the foundation you are sharing.

How oriented around a worldview, ideology, or set of ideas does this community need to be in order to be considered a cohesive community with regards to its purpose? A Heathen Kindred or Wiccan coven requires a fairly tightly held set of beliefs, ideas, responsibilities, and expectations of each member in order to function and develop well. Communities oriented around hobbies need to have some set ideas about what hobbies they will be enjoying in their time together, but otherwise each member may have wildly different ideas of religion, politics, and other essential parts of their worldview.

How tight are the ties in this community? Is it a Kindred or a coven? Is it a religious community such as a Pagan or Heathen Discord? Is it a mutual aid network? Is it a hobby-based community? Each has its requirements for how tight those ties are to be included within a community, and the accompanying expectations for how one is to act.

What are the expectations, including responsibilities and obligations of each member to one another and the community as a whole? Are there administrative needs that must be met in order for the community to function well? What are the core fundamentals of organization of the community? Does the community operate under egalitarian, hierarchical, and/or other forms of organization? Even free apps have terms of service, and to leave this idea unaddressed is to leave gaps for serious inroads of issues to occur.

After these questions are answered, in a way, I think the overarching way you build community is quite similar. Whether you are looking to create a Kindred, coven, mutual aid network, political group, or hobbyist group, a community needs to know the fundamentals of what is required for in/out group, what level of buy-in/work is required to be an active member, and a good idea of what the active participation by each member looks like. While the ties may be looser or tighter depending on the obligations, responsibilities, roles, and worldview of the group, there has to be fundamental agreements on how things are done, what is being done, and why.

Communities transform over time. When I started teaching at The Wandering Owl it was started to teach on the Runes. It then turned into a Northern Tradition study class. Then it turned into a working group, and finally, a Kindred. At each step there were discussions around expectations of each member, my role as the facilitator, what was changing in regards to the group, and how we were to be, and what the community was becoming at each step of the way. The Kindred has largely gone quiet in the last few years because of the masive amounts of difference in our schedules and obligations in our lives. Nonetheless, we carry love and care for one another. Much of my focus has shifted specifically from Mímisbrunnr Kindred to my work with the larger communities in Around Grandfather Fire, 3 Pagans on Tap, and the various Heathen, polytheist, and animist communities I am part of and serve.

Another example of change: I was involved as a member of a boards of directors for a nonprofit that handled millions of dollars of donations to help kids connect with technology, computers especially but also programming and basic robot work with Lego Mindstorm kits. Animation was my speciality at this point in time and I won a small award from the nonprofit before they approached me, asked me to join, and I had to stop participating in the competitions. I transitioned from a regular member to a board member, taking leadership classes and other training so I could be an effective youth liason and full voting member. I then began to teach kids how to animate, bringing basic visual design with basic animation as I had learned how to do it.

The various computer clubs in schools we partnered with then have carried on the work we started. Over time we went from a relatively small base of schools to a regional SE Michigan base of schools, and the competitions were bigger, more involved, and amazing to watch. We did excellent, needed work to bring kids into better working relationship with tech, computers, and building life skills.

We had to shut our doors because the donors stopped giving in 2004, the year I graduated. So, we finished out the year with a bang and had our largest competitions for animation and robots yet. Our transition out of the schools meant they had to source their own computers, their own funding, and bring more local focus to the work they did. Some did exceptionally well, and some did not. I am deeply proud of the work we did. If nothing else, we helped launch countless school computer clubs, tech clubs, and robot clubs, and helped teach a generation of students from middle through high school how to effectively work with computers and technology.

The current board of directors I am a part of, Crossing Hedgerows Sanctuary and Farm, is a growing, beautiful part of my life. I volunteer every other Wednesday, and as I can I make it out to various events we host on Saturdays.

Communities organize, live, and die for different reasons. In the case of Mímisbrunnr Kindred we yet live in a kind of holding pattern. In the case of the nonprofit I was part of as a teen, it died because funding ceased. Crossing Hedgerows Sanctuary and Farm lives because we are mimicking the environment we are building the sanctuary with: we are playing the long game, adjusting as we need to with regard to the energy and ability of our Board and volunteers.

Of these approaches I think that the approach of Mímisbrunnr Kindred and Crossing Hedgerows are the ones that last the longest and are most enduring because they are wholistically plugged into the members’ lives. They allow for changes in each member’s life while still having identity and direction around which they are oriented, providing guidance over time. They build on the experiences and contributions of each member. Perhaps the biggest weakness of the computer club nonprofit was its necessary reliance on big donors to keep the doors open, and so, those who were relied upon to provide the energy necessary to keep the projects going had no actual community buy-in. They were not part of the communities with direct stake in the projects. Their funding was a philanthropy project, likely more oriented around public relations and tax breaks than anything to do with closing the digital divide, and enabling the ongoing running of computer clubs, robot clubs, and animation clubs.

While far smaller in terms of focus, direction, and impact insofar as greater society is concerned, both Mímisbrunnr Kindred and Crossing Hedgerows have had major impact on their membership and all who come into each. Both of these communities have far outlived the computer club nonprofit. The focus, direction, and impact of these smaller, but tied-in community projects, are ongoing and directly affecting the wider communities they are situated within. Where the computer clubs we touched that were able to survive without us have thrived in different ways, many utterly failed once our support went away.

How do you build community in the modern era? In a variety of ways, and from the ground up its purpose needs to be consistent, shared by its members, and understood well to survive, thrive, and change. Otherwise, it risks being shut down once whatever used to fuel it is spent, whether that is money, people, volunteers, or passion. If you want me to tackle this in more detail, please let me know!

Anxiety

Joy-thief

Devourer of delight

Glad-foe

Curled at the base of my neck

Coiled in my guts

Gnawing at my heart

Remove your fangs, adder!

Let your poison course from me!

Let me be heil, let me be heil, let me be heil!

Ever-hungry

Feeder of fear

Heart-render

Tightening my limbs

Twisting my bones

Hammering my pulse

Stop your thrashing, troll!

Take your teeth off my mind!

Let me know peace, let me know peace, let me know peace!

Love-sapper

Tearer of ties

Mind-killer

Sat in the depths of my chest

Stirring my blood

Stealing my breath

I shatter the stabbing spear!

I take your shot from my souls!

I will be heil, I will be heil, I will be heil!

Calling to Our Ancestors 2nd Edition

Hey folks. I am putting together the 2nd Edition of Calling to Our Ancestors. I have the outline written. I am looking for contributors. Do you have Ancestor workers’ voices you think should be included? Poems, prayers, songs, essays, artwork, rituals, etc that you are allowed to share?

Prayers, poems, and rituals can be as long or short as you feel called to write them. Artwork should be at least 300 dpi preferably in lossless formats so it prints well on publication. Essays should be at minimum 700 words. All contributors retain rights to their work. If you are interested in contributing please contact me at sarenth@gmail.com. I will need a legal name and address to send a release form to you, as well as what name you would like the work published under.

I am looking to pull together as many resources for folks as I can. Do you have videos, eg on YouTube or documentaries you would recommend covering Ancestors, Ancestor work, rituals, etc? Podcasts? Books? Audiobooks and written? Blogs? Folks that are trusted Ancestor workers?

My aim with this 2nd Edition is to address what folks were most often telling me they wanted from the 1st Edition: more information on actually venerating and working with the Ancestors.

I have finally begun to put my fingers to the keys again to get the initial outline copied over from my Tūl notebook to my Google Docs.

This is what the outline currently looks like. I am having an issue getting it to look exactly like my outline in Google Docs, since I organize I, A, i, then a, and WordPress is being frustrating with formatting.

1. Introduction
   1. Dedication
   2. Foreword
   3. Notes on the Second Edition
2. The Ancestors
   1. Who They Are
   2. Worship and Veneration
   3. A Basic Polytheist Ancestor Altar and/or Shrine
   4. Offerings
   5. Acts of Service
   6. Sacrifice
   7. Expanding Ancestors
      1. Marriage
      2. Employment
      3. Profession/Craft
      4. Adoption
      5. Initiation/Acceptance into a Lineage
      6. Death
   8. Reducing Ancestors
      1. Divorce
      2. Retirement/Firing
      3. Putting a craft/job down
      4. Cutting out/leaving family/relatives
      5. Removal/Leaving/Exile, eg excommunication in Christianity, ADF stripping Bonewitz’ ancestry
      6. Not worshiping/venerating abusive dead people
   9. Ancestor Veneration vs Worship vs Work
      1. Definitions
      2. Differences between them
      3. Similarities
   10. Talking With The Ancestors
       1. Divination
       2. Dreams
       3. Clairaudience, clairsentience, etc.
       4. Speaking out loud at the altar/shrine
       5. Rituals
   11. Rituals for Connection
       1. Regular devotionals
       2. Sample devotional rites
       3. Simple
          1. Drinking a cup of coffee/tea/water with the Ancestors after a simple cleansing
       4. Complex
          1. At least once a week making prayers and leaving an offering on the shrine and cleaning it within a prescribed time.
       5. Prayer beads
          Special events, eg marriage, coming of age, etc
       6. Funerary Rites
       7. Rituals for Healing
       8. Rituals for Reconciliation
          1. With living descendents present, eg the victims of a dead abuser coming together and holding him to account with the Ancestors
          2. Bringing healing to Ancestors through a healing ritual bringing the powerful Ancestors together with one’s Gods of healing and family lines.
       9. Rituals for Reckoning
          1. Abusive dead in the line
          2. Wrongs done by one’s Ancestors to another’s
          3. Independent cutting of cords so a harmful Ancestor is outside of your cultus until and unless they do right.
   12. Open Doors -Ancestor Workers
       1. What They Are
       2. What They Do
       3. Basic Skills
       4. Being Called
       5. Doing the Work
3. Essays
4. Rituals
5. Prayers
6. Resources
   1. Ancestor Books (print, digital, and audiobook)
   2. YouTube, podcasts, and other media on Ancestors and Ancestor work
   3. People willing to be contacted for Ancestor Work