E is for Equinox

I was fishing around for subjects for my next Pagan Blog Project, thinking of Eddas and English and other E words.  That’s when I realized I was maniacally cleaning my office at work.

It started off normally enough.  It was a sunny, cool day on the island.  I have east-facing windows and so the morning light showed me a splotchy film of dust on my desk.  This sent me to the commissary for a couple of boxes of Swiffers.  Back in my office I dusted my desk, credenza, bookshelves, computer and desk lamp.  After that came the lemon Pledge.  I also noticed the tangle of electrical cords off the back of my computer, which I straightened out and tied into a neat electronic ponytail.

“Must be spring cleaning day,” I thought and then went, “Of course!  It’s the equinox!”  I don’t know how I didn’t put two and two together.  I knew perfectly well what day it was.  My Daily Asatru app gave me a notice that it was a holiday and the random rune Naudhiz.  I’m wearing a Green Man pendant.  I knew it was the equinox in my intellect, and had made external signs of observance.  It was up to the seasonal change itself to make me feel it in my body and express it in my actions.  I was going to write about being mindful in observing the subtle signs of the turning of the season, but that’s too intellectual for what is actually going on.  It’s spring!  It’s sprung! It’s spring!  

D is for Disir

The Disir, known also as the Idises, are ones' female ancestors.  That they were worshiped enormously in the past is attested to by hundreds of images of the Matronae, three female seated figures, all over Europe.  I'm not posting a photo because if you Google the term you'll see plenty.  And Plenty is what the Matronae/Disir are all about.  They are usually shown holding bread and apples and sometimes corunucopia (horns of plenty).

Georges Dumezil interpreted the female figures as being the maiden, the mother, and the grandmother, an identification that went well into Wiccan thealogy.  In Asatru, however, we don't deal with Gods or Goddesses in the abstract--they're people.  The Idises are female ancestors who we may or may not know.  If some of them are young, it's because we have ancestors who died young.  A multiply-great aunt who died at the age of 14 of disease is every bit an ancestor as the great-great grandmother whose name we know.  She would undoubtedly have some knowledge for us; certainly she'd know textile manufacture and how to dress a chicken for supper.  The fact that the Matronae hold food and sometimes the means of production such as spindles and distaffs show that they are there to provide.

Which makes perfect sense.  Grandmas and aunts are notorious feeders.  I am blessed to have one of my grandmothers still alive; she's nearly 100 of course, but into her late 80s if I asked for Puerto Rican beans and rice, she was very happy to comply.  Especially since I was taking it back to my barracks to share.  My late grandmother could churn out hundreds of cookies of staggering complexity before the winter holiday season.

Food is love, the Matronae say, and put on this sweater, it's cold.  It's useful to form a devotion to the female ancestors, because they know you.  Just because a person is dead doesn't mean they suddenly stop loving their families.  When Sven had a surgery in January of last year, I assured him that the Idises were watching over him.  (He told me in Danish that he loved me.)  The gods are good to invoke, but the ancestors are the ones who most have your interest at heart, because for them it's personal.

Yesterday was the birthday of Sven's mom, who died in 2007.  We bought a piece of carrot cake, which is presently on our hearth, because she loved carrot cake.  She's still with us, from her Danish folkways to Sven's very DNA.

I once knew someone who didn't honour her Idises because her family had been abusive.  That's her choice, but somewhere down the line she still would have female ancestors who would approve of her.  There are also spiritual ancestors with whom one can connect.  I think that some would react to finding a descendant they didn't previously know about with all sorts of gifts.  (Remember, a gift calls for a gift!)

Love never dies.  Hail the Matronae!  Hail the Disir!  Hail the Idises!

C is for Con

Pantheacon is two days away, and I'm going for the first time.  I'm excited and looking forward to it, but also kind of terrified.  I don't like crowds particularly, and there's going to be a lot of strange people doing stranger things.  I'm terribly afraid I'm going to walk into a ritual and hear, "Our god hates green!  Leave now!" or something like that.

But I'm looking forward to meeting P. Sufenas Virius Lupus at at least one of his rituals, seeing Diana Paxson's panel on Freyr, encountering MoJo and Sparrow from "The Wigglian Way" podcast, attending the Pomba Gira devotional (I've become fascinated with her) and making all sorts of new friends.

I will deliver a full report when I return.

B is for Body

(Another entry into the Pagan Blog Project)

Bodies.  Everyone has one, and it is the source of our knowledge of everything.  As a divinity student I became aware of the enormous amounts of writing about the body according to religious writers.  The Greeks loved to think about the interplay of body and soul, and this thread has been taken up for millennia by philosophers and theologians. 

So of course I became a Norse Heathen where there is no wide field of philosophy to delve into.  Although the Norse had the runes, they didn’t use it to write down much, and this is very much indicative of how they thought about life and body. 

Life was to be lived, and life was good and desirable.  “It is better to live, even to live miserably,” Odin says in Havamal verse 70.  In Havamal 71, he adds that “no one gets any good from a corpse”.  Even life in a damaged body is better than being dead.  Crippled?  Ride a horse.  Deaf?  You can still be brave in battle.  Blind?  Even in a harsh climate and conflict-filled culture it’s better to be alive than dead, especially if it’s later in life and you have your family around you.

Popular imagery of “the Vikings” usually portrays big, hearty people, laughing, drinking, fighting and eating large roasted animals.  In other words, the qualities of the Vikings that appeal to us in the modern era are qualities tied to their physicality.  The appeal of the gods is secondary.  A Norseman would find this completely understandable and be puzzled by asceticism.  Why would anyone give up food, drinking alcohol and having sex in the name of religion?  That is why Odin, Thor, Freya and the other deities enjoy feasting, partying and having lovers—because that’s what life is for!  When you do want to encounter the gods and the land-spirits, you don’t need to meditate quietly in a temple but to go out and experience them face to face.

The word “heathenry” points to it being a religion of people who spent much if not most of their lives outside, that is, on the heath.  We may speak about ours being “the religion with homework”, but to really be doing it right we ought to be outside, and not necessarily doing ritual.  Asatru should be experiential.  The building of a Heathen spirituality should come with just enough reading to make us eager to close the book, go outdoors and feel the forces that are embodied by the gods.  I believe that the best prayer we can offer is to go hiking, being constantly aware of what we feel, see, hear and smell.  I don’t live in anything resembling the forests of Scandinavia (and no, going to Ikea doesn’t count), so Sven and I like to go walking in the deserts near our home.  When we do, I like to wear athletic shoes with toes that allow me to feel the textures of the trail as if I were barefoot without having to worry about cactus spines or burning hot sand. 

I also believe that physical fitness should be part of heathen practice.  Most of the heathens I know are a fit and outdoorsy bunch, which is what I would expect from people who are reviving the religion of a set of cultures where everyone had to work their bodies hard just to stay alive.  We may not have to hunt, raise all our own food, build our own shelters, invade and battle off invaders, but we should develop strength by which we could.  If we cultivate the strength and skill, tracking, farming and building are good things to do in order to both experience nature and get a feel for the lives of our ancestors.

That the Norse enjoyed life is made evident by the fact that the afterlife wasn’t a preoccupation of theirs.  When they did think about it, it was a continuation of the life they had lived on earth.  After death most people went to sit with their family members who had gone on before them.  I’m not sure how many people actually believed in Valhalla or their chances of ending up there, but it was a never-ending round of fighting and partying with all wounds healed by evening and nights spent with plenty of meat and booze.  In contrast to the Christian heaven where the saved spend eternity bodiless and in perpetual praise of God, the heathen can look forward to a very physical afterlife that reflects the joy of being alive and embodied.

Go outside and feel the sun, the rain and the snow if you have it.  Submerge yourself in the oceans or lakes.  Smell the air and feel trees.  I wrote earlier about giving thanks for your food; add to that by paying attention to the flavours and textures in your mouth.  When you drink alcohol, be aware of how it makes you feel.  I took up yoga in the past few months and while it’s very obviously not a Norse practice, I do appreciate the way it makes me think about how I move, what the limits of my range of motion are and what perspectives I get when I’m doing the poses.

Asatru is not a religion of withdrawal from the world.  Embrace it.

A is for Ancestors

I've decided to participate in the Pagan Blog Project.  The 26 letters of the alphabet are the prompts, one for every two weeks.  I have until Friday to get this in.

The subject of ancestors is going to receive terribly short shrift in one measly column.  Ancestors, exchange of gifts and land-spirits are at the heart of Asatru, and all of which will be discussed in the next year.

Family ancestors are recalled in Asatru as the alfar (males) and disir (females).  We can also have ancestors by choice, as with friends or heroes who have gone before us.  The gods are honoured as our eldest kin, and   the royal families of Sweden and Denmark claim lineage back to them.

Ancestry is one of the things that draws people into heathenry.  I've heard more than one heathen or druid tell their spiritual journey as beginning when they realized that Christianity was foreign to them, imposed on their people by kings or invaders.  I think this is an excellent realization; cultural roots run deep, and for Scandinavians, Christianity has only been around for a millenia or less.  Before that, lines can be traced from there, to central Europe, to the Baltic and all the way east to India.  When you realize that the traditional gods of your people have a lineage stretching back to time immemorial, it's a powerful thing.

For my husband Sven, religious ancestry is very immediate.  He heard stories of the Norse gods at his grandpa's knee and watched him set bowls of milk out "for the cats" when they didn't have any cats.

For me, it was a harder reach.  I consider King Arthur, Gawain and Guenevere as ancestors of a sort, because it was through their stories that I first started feeling the existence of what I would later realize was paganism.   I first went to England in 1987 and going to Glastonbury was absolutely life-changing in that Avalon, the Chalice Well and the thorn tree planted by Joseph of Arimathea were real.  I could walk there, drink the water, and touch the tree.  It made me feel as if an unseen, spiritual world were only just barely out of reach, and I never saw reality or spirituality quite the same way again.

In our home practice, ancestors are quite important.  Sven has photos of his grandpa, a statue to house his family's hjemnisse and a cabinet that recalls his mom on or around our hearth.  I have a separate shrine to my family with small items belonging to my grandparents.  I don't know what my own family would think of what I do now religiously.  They were very Catholic, but at least they were on the liberal side.  I like to think that with all the shenanigans going on in the Church right now, they might not blame me, or actively approve.  If nothing else, heathenry has a lot of drinking and feasting going on, and most of us have had family gatherings that are all about that!