Ancestral Religion

My husband Sven, as I've said many times before, is Danish-American and grew up practicing many traditional customs and listening to his grandpa tell him lore, in between puffs of his Salem and shots of his akvavit.  When he turned to Asatru, he had come home, and I've never seen him happier or more grounded.

I, on the other hand, am the classic all-American, Old Yeller mutt.  I'm a dual citizen of the U.S. and Canada on top of everything else.  My mom is from Puerto Rico and her birth certificate reads "mulatto" because she was born during World War II and things were like that then.  My dad is half Italian and half Mexican.

I did a DNA analysis on my mitochondrial DNA and found out that my maternal DNA does not lead back to Africa, which I expected, but to the Americas.  So my mom is more properly a mestiza and her maternal ancestors the Taino people who have now vanished into the genes of their descendants.

My mother's father's people were originally from Burgos in Spain, Celts not Basques.  On my dad's side we know nothing about his father's family, because they were illiterate orphans, and on his mother's side we still have relatives in Puebla, Mexico.  However, they were of French descent, so it starts going back to central Europe again.

So no ancestral religion for me.  I do feel some pull to the Celtic/Gallic gods--the image of Cernunnos on the Gundestrup cauldron is one that I love.  I could (and did) gaze on the fearsome statue of Coatlicue Teteoinanzin in Mexico City for hours.  I was raised with no Italian customs at all; my Italian-American grandfather adapted to Mexican culture instead.

The common denominator is that everybody was strictly Catholic.  So while Stregheria is amazing, powerful stuff, I wasn't raised with anything resembling it.  I didn't find out about Santeria until I was well into my adult years and when I did discover it I described it as a beautiful motorcycle that is way too big and powerful for me.

When Sven reverted into Asatru I was pleased and envious.  The religion began working for me immediately in 2007, when I began studying and working with the runes.  The only thing was, I felt I was betraying my own ancestors.  I can't help not believing in Christianity anymore; my ability to maintain that cognitive dissonance broke down utterly.  I don't want to turn to Mexican polytheism; those gods demand blood, a lot of it.

So when Sannion of "The House of Vines" posted this article by Tess Dawson, it spoke to me perfectly:

 If you are in the same situation, give these techniques a try: honor your own ancestors in deeds and skills, and honor the ancestors of your religion through learning how they honored their own and applying that information in their veneration. I would guess that the steps in this dance are familiar to many in similar situations and to others in mixed families who have ancestors that would have been at war with one another. Only time and practice will tell how suitable both sets of ancestors will find this arrangement.

So I'll continue doing Dia de los Muertos every November, as I have for years.  We have our Asatru altar, which also commemorates Sven's ancestors, over our fireplace in the living room while I have an ancestral altar in our bedroom.  I have my grandma's wooden spoon on it, and I only use it on November 2.  I have her statue of St. Anthony of Padua there, and my grandpa's woolen hat.  I can only hope that they and the other ancestors don't mind my going heathen on them.

The Aesir are pleased by those who venerate their physical ancestors, which reminds me; I need to call my mom.

Ain't No Woman Like the One-Eyed God

Someone recently asked about gay men and their role in Asatru.  They had been somewhat put off by the emphasis on sexual differentiation and gender roles in Wicca.  This was my response:

There is certainly sexual fluidity already present in the lore.  While many of them
have been lost, perhaps because of Christian squeamishness, there are
stories of quite a number of the gods being in subservient or
"feminine" roles.  Odin is the Allfather, but in Lokasenna Loki talks
about Odin's having spent time as a milkmaid.  Odin also learned magic
from Freya, some of which may have involved gender-bending.

Thor objects strenuously to being dressed up as not just a bride but
as the beautiful Freya in order to regain his power (hammer).  That
the idea does not come from Loki but from Heimdall is significant.
Loki happily dresses up as a lady's maid in order to go with Thor to
Thrym, but that's Loki for you.  He got pregnant and gave birth as a
mare, so I doubt that anything feminine slows him down after that.

Frey gives away his sword in order to marry Gerd.  He is associated
with peace and fertile fields although he is also remembered as a
warrior king by both the Danish and Swedish royal houses, which he is
said to have founded.  Frey gives us the "total man": a warrior when
he needs to be, a king, a lover and also a keeper of peace.  I'm not a
Freyswoman per se, but I really like him.

I've observed that in Asatru being gay might be treated with some
ribaldness, but I have overall not noticed in being in a cruel way.
We might tease married folks in the same way.  This is only in the
Troth mind you; there are Asatru groups that really value traditional
sex/gender roles and thus see being homosexual as bad for the
reproductive future.  I think we all agree that they are full of it.

Our kindred has 6 females and 8 males.  One of the males is five years
old.  The men tend to be capital-D Dudes who do MMA and shoot a lot of
guns.  We do have gay members and it just doesn't come up in
conversation.  I'm reminded of a column I was reading by a Voudou
houngan yesterday.  He said that Voudou is a community religion.  An
individual may be gay, but since the community and its worship are not
focused on sex in any way (unlike in Wicca) this isn't an issue.

I just finished reading Ronald Hutton's "Triumph of the Moon".  Wicca
is traditionally very focused on sexuality (fertility) and sexual
differentiation, to the point that there have to be separate trads for
gays and lesbians.  The Radical Faeries and the Dianics are the first
two who spring to mind.  Gardner's Wicca started out being
male-dominated, though focused on binary sexuality.  The switch to the
Goddess being more emphasized than the God is a 1970s development.
This has both drawn men to Wicca as well as driven them away.

Asatru does not demand that a god and goddess be worshiped together,
and as hard polytheists we insist that the gods and goddesses are not
"faces" of one God and Goddess.  Choices of patron are very personal.
My husband is an attorney whose patron is Loki.  I'm an Army NCO whose
patron is Thor.  I invoke Frigga when I'm at home; she has a shrine in
my kitchen.

Since Asatru life is focused on deeds, not magic, this also spins our
religion in a way far different from Wicca, but that's another essay,
and already exists out there.

Holidays

One challenge that’s come up in our domestic practice is which heathen holidays to celebrate.  The normative calendar seems to be the one posted on the Asatru Alliance website (http://www.asatru.org).  This is a calendar of not only seasonally-related days but days of remembrance for Asatru heroes and martyrs as well.  November 9, for existence, is the Day of Remembrance for Queen Sigrid the Haughty.  Who wouldn’t want to celebrate that?

However, when there are numerous holidays dedicated to the Idises, two to Leif Erickson and others that drift in from the Anglo-Saxon and Wicca calendars (Lammas/Freyfaxi), it’s time to sit down and evaluate what to celebrate and what just to note in passing.  We’re a Danish tradition household, so Lammas isn’t one we observe.  Call it Freyfaxi if you will; even though Ingvi-Frey is the founder of Denmark, I really doubt the ancestors had an available calendar that would tell them when August 1 was.

The ones Sven and I celebrate draw from natural cycles, Danish tradition, and the fact that we live in the U.S. in the 21^st century.  January 1 might be the last day of Jul (more on this in a later column) but we observe it as plain old New Year’s Day. 

February 14 is given sometimes as “Feast of Vali”, probably because it resembles “Valentine”.  If it wasn’t a heathen holy day, why not just call it “Valentine’s Day” and observe in honour of Freya?  Since Freya is fond of love poems and likes being invoked in matters of the heart, she’d definitely enjoy that.

February 2 is Candlemas/Feast of the Purification in the Catholic and Orthodox calendars and Imbolc in the Wiccan.  I’ve seen some heathens observe this in honour of Frigga, because of the Imbolc connection to sheep and milk.  Here’s an insight; the early days of February are also the time of the Lupercalia, a Roman holiday so ancient that even the Romans weren’t sure what it was about.  What’s important to know about Lupercalia is that it involved sheep, wool, and sheep’s milk.  Frigga can be superimposed on that aspect of Lupercalia, but I am personally not comfortable with that. 

February 2 is also The Charming of the Plow and sacred to the Idises.  Sven is particularly devoted to the Idises, so use this date to honour them.  The Charming of the Plow is, I’ve read, also a day to commemorate the wooing of Gerda by Frey.  If one subscribes to the idea that Gerda represents the enclosed field (gard), this would be the day to get organized to prepare the fields for plowing and seeding, which Frey is all about.

Plus, you have the option of telling your workplace, “I’m going to be out on xday, it’s a religious holiday for me—The Charming of the Plow.”  They’re definitely going to be curious, if they don’t fire you on the spot for sounding like you’re channeling Borat.

Ostara is also one I find a little problematic.  It’s the beginning of spring, which may or may not have escaped the ancestor’s notice; they only really acknowledged two seasons: summer and winter.  The name is only attested to in Grimm.  We celebrate this one because our kindred does.

May 1 is observed in many northern countries, and some heathens do as well.  We don’t.  There is an ancient custom that if you are a heathen and call it Beltane and observe it as a union of Frey and Freya, that Gullinbursti will come down from Alfheim and eat you.  No, there isn’t.  I made that up.

Summer Solstice is a big deal.  Call it Midsummer, call it Summer Finding, it doesn’t matter.  It’s the Solstice.  You can’t miss it.  On the other hand, we don’t really pay attention to the autumnal equinox.

November is full of holidays, some of which have been superimposed on modern ones.  November 11 is Veterans Day/Armistice Day and called the feast of the Einharjar.  We would observe this one anyway, but thinking about it as a day to contemplate the war dead who may be with Freya and the All-Father is appropriate and, I find, uplifting.

Sven and I have recently found out that Jul might be a holiday to reserve for January rather than its current overlap with Christmas.  We’re still discussing how to accommodate this, although I bear in mind southern hemisphere heathens who celebrate Jul in June.  Last year we observed the Winter Solstice, but just because Jul is placed around the Winter Solstice doesn’t mean it has to be.  We might end up extending our winter holidays and inserting more into our own household practice, with appropriate feasting and drinking.  I’m sure no one would mind.

Looking for feedback

Really simple...I've been posting since January and the only comment I've received on any of my entries was a joke comment.  If you're reading, talk to me, even if it's just to say hi.  My site numbers say you're all out there, so don't be a stranger.

Pagan Pride 2012

Pagan Pride day was this past Saturday here in The Whale's Vagina.  Sven and I are members of a small independent Asatru kindred, and with one member having moved out of state, another accepting a teaching job overseas and some sporadic attendance from others due to ill health or childcare, we had become mildly concerned with its survival.  A number of months ago I suggested a table at Pagan Pride and we agreed that at $10 to reserve a booth space, it was a small enough bet to take, especially since most of us would be attending anyway.

Sven and I also sprung $50 for a 9x9 (hee) sun canopy.  Everyone brought outdoor chairs and we had two folding tables. 

Having that booth was very worth the work and time.  It was very popular.  At one point Sven was left alone for an hour towards the end and he had no fewer than four people who were very interested.  Two others appeared at our Pubmoot the next day.  What drew them in was one of our ladies using a drop spindle, plus the Norse mythology books on our table.  Three of us did rune readings, but I still think that our kinswoman spinning in a traditional method was the most eye-catching thing.

Like most Pagan events, this one is mostly Wiccan.  The ADF had a table, as did a small and strange little Thelemite group that seemed to be Goth early 20-somethings.  Along with us, that was it for the non-Wiccan contingent.  We had a lot of people saying that they'd been looking for an Asatru group but been unable to find one.

I think we had fewer vendors than in other years, but there was very nice stuff.  A full list can be found on the San Diego Pagan Pride website, but I'd like to especially plug Katla's "The Well and Spindle" shop on Etsy.  Katla had a physical booth at SDPP, and it was beautiful.  Hopefully the booth will lead to more Etsy sales.  She makes runes and Viking knit necklaces along with hoodoo oils and sprays. 

My take ended up being a cloisonne Mjollnir in turquoise and red, an altar tile with a Mjollnir on it from Katla's shop, a replacement for the ceramic sun-and-moon pendant my cat broke earlier this year and some soaps.

It was a long day.  Sven, a kinsman and I were setting up at 8:00 am or so, and we broke down nine hours later.  Sven made copies of informational flyers, brought subs for lunch, and other errands.  He is fussy about who he hangs out with, and I knew that he'd declare the event "fluffy bunny", but at one point there were three other godsfearing redneck Asatru males with him, talking about going shooting next week, so that was fun for him.

Next year, we'll have a vinyl banner, informational flyers or cards for how to get in touch with us, and nobody will have to stay all day because that many hours in the sun gets brutal.  We'll have a different team setting up and breaking down.

Hope your weekend was fun and productive as well!

Prayer to Thor #1

I'm currently taking an eight-week course on Reconstruction as Methodology through the Academia Antinoi.  Some of the classes have made me go "hm", one left me cold, but this week is about prayer and it just blew me away.  One of my assignments is to write three prayers to a god.  I chose Thor, who I love, and since the prayer had to request something, this is what I've written:

Asa-Thor,
You are the one who stands between the dwellers of Midgard and the powers of destruction.
You feed the people, bring rain to the thirsty fields, and gather the thralls to yourself.
You strike with skill and never cringe from battling chaos, even on the fatal day of Ragnarok.

SGT R(agnvaldsdottir) asks you for your guidance and example, for your courage, straightforwardness and fighting spirit.  These are what I see in you, and I want to be a model of these myself.

As an NCO, may I show the same protectiveness to those in my care as you do to all who live in Midgard.  Hail!

Further to my last entry

My 94 year old grandmother has had a stroke.  She's compos mentis and can get around with a walker.  She's currently in a rehab facility and my mom is trying to get her into a home closer to where my parents live.  The home is run by nuns.  My mom and grandmother are both very pious Catholics, and my mom's aggressive pursuit of the EWTN version of the religion is one of the things that makes it easier for me to have severed ties with it.

This has left me in a little bit of a bind.  I love my grandmother, I want her to get better and I want her to live closer to my parents.  Asatru only has little bits of lore about healing left.  There's the goddess Eir, "best of physicians", the Merseburg charms and some rune work.  That's extremely sketchy, but humans being humans, the medieval Germans and Scandinavians must have had prayers to say or rituals to perform when a relative or friend was sick or injured. 

It then struck me that it wouldn't be right at all to invoke a goddess or spell for the benefit of a sick Catholic.  After further reflection, it dawned on me that since my grandmother is devoted to Jesus and Mary, as a polytheist who doesn't deny their existence as deities, I can simply pray to them for her! 

This is why renouncing a god or holy figure one revered in the years before converting to paganism is not a good idea.  The gods of your past or not, they're still gods.  Like people from your past who may unexpectedly be interviewed for your top secret clearance, you hope they are at worst neutral on you.  I may not be Latin Rite Christian anymore, but my living family and serveral centuries of ancestors are.  I want my mom to be able to place grandmother close to her, and for grandmother to get better, so off to their patron deity I go.