In Which I Become a Doggy Chew Toy

So, during the diocesan sex-abuse shakeup, the Diocese of San Diego hid a bunch of properties from the federal courts. One of them was a desecrated church near the Pauma Indian Reservation in northeast county. The church had once been El Centro Guadalupano, but the priest went nuts (?!) and became a Pentecostal. He tore out the altar and tabernacle and installed a full-immersion baptismal pool in what had once been the sanctuary. The Diocese threw him off the land. He sued for ownership and lost. When the Diocese had to hide the property lest it be seized and sold off for sex abuse reparations, they gave it to Fr. Joe of Father Joe's Village (kind of a Boys Town for homeless people).

Fr. Joe has a friend, Susan, who is a Druid. He asked her to be caretaker of the building and its four acres of land. Susan has moved into the ex-church and is offering the property's use to different pagan communities for their rituals. Birgit and Liz, the older ladies (they are a couple) who run our kindred and John the Archdruid immediately accepted the offer.

On Saturday, we went to go do some cleanup, remove the cross from the front of the building, paint over "Centro Guadalupano" on the facade and have a first ritual. Not long after we arrived, Susan came out with her two doggies, one of whom is a pit bull. I stood still so the dogs could get a good sniff, but neither of them seemed interested, so I turned around to walk to the table where we were about to plan out our tasks.

I heard a growl behind me and the pitbull snapped at my left hand. He punctured the skin of my inner left wrist as if it were rice paper. I yowled and Susan hastened to tie the dog up. The wound was deep, and took a couple of seconds to fill with blood. As I watched, I noticed the white gleam of tendon underneath. My friends were alarmed and bandaged the injury. Liz brought me coffee. I did manage to help do some cleaning, but not a lot. The bandages soaked through in an hour, so I took them off, replaced them with a gauze pad and tape, and buried the bloody bandages at the foot of Odin's tree.

Ultimately I cut our stay short (I'd driven a couple of people) and after dropping off my passengers I hastened to the ER at our hospital of record, the UCSD in Hillcrest. I received good care as always, although it was a little surrealistic being checked in by a transwoman. She wasn't being a very successful one; she looked and sounded like a man in womens' clothing, despite the curly blond hair pulled back in a ponytail.

My wound was examined, irrigated, bandaged, and I was given Keflex and a tetanus shot since the last one I'd had was in June of 2005 in Basic Training.

No idea why doggie attacked me. Susan says he's going to be tied up whenever people are on the property now; this can't be allowed to happen again. A while after I was bit, Susan gave me some turkey and we went to go visit the dog. He took the turkey very nicely and let me pet him. I told him he was not allowed to bite me ever again. It was just weird; animals usually adore me and the only time I've been bitten before was not that bad and because I was a child teasing the dog.

The wound is healing.  Today I was able to push open the door of my pickup truck without pain.  Saturday is Freyfaxi for our kindred, and I am relieved to know the pittie is going to be on a chain.  This is strange for me, because I've never been afraid of dogs before.

Freyfaxi is a feast that isn't celebrated in Denmark, but Sven is elsewhere that weekend so we don't have to have that discussion.  I like it because I'm fond of Freyr, even if he's not one of my regularly-invoked gods.  Coverage of that ritual will be up next.

Save the Bees

Bees are necessary for pollination as well as honey and wax production.  I didn't know too much about it, wanting to hear from an actual beekeeper rather than some hippie or Natural News who pull "information" out of their butts.  Well, here is an Ontario, Canada beekeeper discussing the topic. 

http://www.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=959722

The takeaway?  Nicotine-based pesticides, and a humbling sight of a man who truly loves his bees and lives with and among them.  The bee is sacred, and we are dependent on it.  I will do what I can towards saving them; planting organically and writing to government representatives and agricultural companies.

A boast!

It's not a talk on heathenry or Asatru, but I've put in my application to do a presentation at the 2014 Pantheacon.  In  keeping with my Mexican background and residence in the American southwest, I am going to do a talk on Santa Muerte, because I've been interacting with her since 2006 or 2007 and I just love her.

I'm going to be talking about her obscure origins, why she became popular, why her popularity is spreading and her law-abiding as well as criminal devotees. 

Now to pay my registration fee and wait for room reservations to open up.

 

Isn't she pretty?  Oh yes she is.

Today, I want to talk about the gods.  I’m not going to comment on how anyone else thinks of the gods, because that’s not my business.  I’m only going to talk about my own polytheology.

 

To my eyes, the gods are real.  I’m a person, you the reader are a person, and they are likewise persons.  I’m influenced by Buddhism in that I believe there is an imminent and eternal Sacred behind all beings and all creation.  I like to equate this imminent and eternal Sacred, which I follow Mircea Eliade in calling the Numen, with the ocean. 

 

The Numen is an ocean and in it we are fish.  We swim through the Numen and it flows through us.  Without it we would die.  However, the Numen doesn’t have consciousness on its own, and it would be both pointless and ignorant to pray to it or expect it to have any emotions towards us.  Water doesn’t care for every tiny minnow or even every mighty giant squid.

 

The ocean/sea life metaphor has its limits there.  Smaller sea creatures don’t pray to the squids or the sharks.  However, just as sea life is comprised of mostly water, life in Midgard is comprised mostly of the Numen.  This is, at its simplest, what we mean or should mean when we say, “All life is sacred.”

 

For me, the gods are beings which are characterized by being more intensely concentrated of the Numen.  They are individuals with likes and dislikes, emotions and actions, and abilities.  No two are alike.  For instance, the Roman Apollo is syncretized to the Greek Apollo, but he’s still not the same.   The Romans could call Thracian Taranis Jupiter all they liked; it doesn’t make those gods the same person.

 

Since the gods are people, we can relate to them.   Since they aren’t alike in substance to a human being, we have to have different relationships with them.   We meet, we find we get along, and we maintain our relationships.  The important difference enters into how the gods are transcendent in a way we humans aren’t, with powers we can’t touch, so we need to be “in tune” with them in order to understand the back-and-forth between them and us.  I can’t draw any generalizations or put forth any ground rules because, as I’ve written already, they’re individuals.

 

It should be remembered that not all gods will like you, just as not all human people will like you.  This is their prerogative, and shouldn’t be taken personally.  If you appeal to one deity and he/she tells you to get lost, unless you are an absolute unlikable bastard there’ll be one out there who thinks you’re keen and who will be happy to make your acquaintance.  I struggled along with God the Father for decades before finally accepting that he wasn’t the one for me.

 

I tend to deal more with land and nature spirits than gods, and recently confirmed that I need to pay a lot more attention to my ancestors.  Blessed be. * Like the gods, they have preferences and dislikes.  Along with the nature spirits can come gods of place.  In the past month I’ve been struck by how powerfully Kokopelli strides through the southwest.  He’s always lived there and he gets lots of attention and energy from admiration lavished on the petroglyphs that depict him and from suburban gardeners putting iron cut-outs of him by the sidewalk up to their front door.  He’s the Lord of Fertility there, and since we are planning our raised-bed gardens, we need to be on good terms with him. 

 

Archetypes may be applied to gods, but they aren’t gods, and gods are not personifications of archetypes.  Gaia, Rhea, Demeter and Cybele are all great Magnae Matres,  but they aren’t “faces” of the archetype of Great Mother Goddess.  The Virgin Mary and Anahita are virgin mothers, but they are not the Eternal Virgin. 

 

The overwhelming reason I’m not Wiccan is because of their theology.  “All gods are one God, all goddesses one Goddess does not fly with me.  Not my polytheology.

 

I’ll let Allison Lonsdale explain it all to you.  Her CD, "Live at Lestat's" is full of science, spirituality and god-talk.

 

 

 

 

*I say “blessed be” when “Hail!” doesn’t work, and where I would previously have said, “Amen”.  It’s not heathen,  but since I “viked” it from the Wiccans, I claim it as spoils.

Trothmoot!

Last weekend was Trothmoot 2014.  It was only four hours away from San Diego, in Tehachapi Mountain Park.  Sven wasn’t interested in going, and left for the hacienda instead.  Dreya and I packed our seabag and dufflebag respectively (same item, different names) and headed north.

We got lost on the way, of course, but turned around before driving off into the Mojave.  We made the sloooooow climb up into fresh pine woods 6,000 feet up. 

 

I’ve commented elsewhere on the site.  It was on the side of the mountain, so there was a lot of walking up and down to do.  The showers and mess hall were down, halfway up were the cabins and ALL the way up were the vés. 

Our cabin, which was a bunch of Army beds, was only our kindred, so that was nice.  No surprises when it came to roommates.  Dreya has a knee injury, so she spent a lot of the weekend relaxing and reading, and there are a lot worse settings for that.

I arrived on guard against New Age nonsense.  There was some, but it was old New Age, like Viktor Ryberg stuff.  I’ll admit it, I think galdrstadr (aka Runic Yoga) is just plain dumb.  The runes are the runes, yoga is yoga, don’t cross the streams. 

Dreya and I came up Friday, so I got to my first workshop after lunch.  It was a lecture on Braucherei from Rob Schreiwer.  Braucherei is the Pennsylvania Deitsch form of magic, and the de-Christianized form of it is Urglaawe, which is what Rob practices and teaches. Braucherei has been in the USA since about 1680, and since 1680 it has preserved runes and rune usage, herb lore, and a figure named Dame Holle.  Holle is very similar, possibly cognate with, the German Frau Holda, and on Saturday afternoon we had a Holle blot that was very moving.  I was particularly happy to find out that one of Holle’s totemic animals is the Bear, since I’m married to Sven, who is a bear.

Next was Finding Freyr, which is a ritual I’d attended at Pantheacon and really liked, but I didn’t go again.  What was different this time was that they’d brought an enormous Freyr cart, with an image of the god in it, riding along with a pregnant lady.  The lady has a devotion to Freyr, so regardless of the actual circumstances of conception, FREYR HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH IT. 

I socialized a bit and then sang a song at the Skaldic Competition.  I didn’t win, but people seemed to like it and sang the chorus with me.  It was a parody of the song “Dynamite” and I wrote it about Odin.  I’ll post it later.
 
After dark was the spae ritual.  I remain skeptical about the seidhr practiced by the seeresses, but I did ask a series of questions directed towards one of my ancestors.  I now think I may have contacted the wrong one, (there were a series of them with the same name) but nonetheless, I was taken aback by my ancestors and pretty emotional afterwards.

I am very annoyed to say I fell asleep and missed both Loki blots/parties up at the vés.  SO annoyed.  The Saturday night one I’m sure Loki had something to do with it because apparently the other Loki fans and I were up at the hill, which was dark, at the same time and we didn’t see each other.  No idea how that happened.

Oh yes, the vés.  Freyr had the largest, since his cart had to be parked in it.  There was a nice, kind of abstract statue of him carved out of a log.  On either side of him were bowls of condoms, and he had plenty of the usual offerings, of art, jewelry and drinks.
 
The Frigga vé had a large sculpted egret in front, which pleased me because I often see egrets and now when I see one I will also think of her.  Inside was a chest, drop spindles and wool, and a blue and white interior.
 
The Odin vé was a small tent with a cushion and plaid blanket for sitting in front of his small, handmade statue.  It was dark and a little scary which of course is how the Old Man likes it.

The Thor vé was fun.  I contributed my Thor statue and my two small straw goats that usually live in my office.  There was also a crocheted Thor doll, and I can’t remember who made it, but she could make a fortune on them.   Other items in the vé included a helmet, axe, and a keychain in the form of a lightning bolt that made thunder noises.
 
Finally, there was the Loki vé.  This was the vé that got the most love.  The centerpiece of the altar was the Paul Borda enthroned Loki statue, with a copy of the Snaptun  forge cover below.  There was a big bowl of party favours, and the kids rapidly found them and ran around blowing out the curls of paper.  Someone put a pink flamingo in front of the vé and it was decorated by coloured paper streamers, a green shag rug, a pot of paper flames and a banner that said in runes, LOKI SAVES.
 
The Freya vé was sad.  It had few items in it and it was tiny and messy. 
 
Another high point of Trothmoot was the divination workshop.  Originally there had been two workshops on divination scheduled for the same time.  This was deemed rather silly, so they combined them.  The workshop was three parts: what we know about Norse divination; modern forms of divination and using the runes in the modern era. 
 
I had a specific question, and it was suitable for an answer based on divination.  About a month or so ago, I woke up and my heavy silver Mjollnir, that I’ve been wearing since just before I went to Afghanistan, fell off its chain and to the floor at my feet.  The chain didn’t break or open; it was still clasped about my neck.  At first I thought maybe I’d been “let go” and I should pursue another religious path, but after the spae ritual, I had been rethinking that.  My new working theory was that perhaps I was to focus my spirituality on the ancestors and land spirits.  My instincts were correct; the runes confirmed my theory.  So that alone was worth the cost of the weekend.

Dreya and I took off before breakfast on Sunday, and we saw a doe walk across the road and up the slope on the other side, into the trees.  It was a beautiful coda to the weekend, but I was still very glad to be down near sea level and on our way back to San Diego.

Radical Farming

I recently saw a post on FaceBook which pointed out that raising your own food has become a radical act.   Not only have most people in the US and Canada become dependent on supermarkets, the unprocessed foods in the supermarkets have drifted farther and farther from nature.  The GMO controversy aside, the breeds of animals and strains of fruits and vegetables are so cultivated and groomed that our ancestors would not recognize them.

Being dependent on anything is not heathen.  Being separated from our ancestors is not heathen.   These things being true, Sven’s and my intention is to grow lots of heritage variety vegetables.   Heritage vegetables are hardier in their local environment, never artificially modified, and have flavours unlike the ones you buy in the store.  They’re also living pieces of history.

Enter Native Seeds/SEARCH (http://www.nativeseeds.org ).  While it’s possible to buy heritage seeds from any number of sources, Native Seeds/SEARCH is near us, and Sven and I have been devotedly locavore and intent on using local businesses for years now.  Native Seeds/SEARCH has a seed library where you can borrow seeds, “returning” them by keeping some seeds aside from the plants grown and bringing them to the library.   It sells collections of seeds bundled by ability to thrive in the seasons specific to our part of the desert.  Furthermore, they are seeds for foods grown by the local indigenous people, the Tohono O’ohdham.  As their “about us” page says:

“Our story began in 1983 following a profound realization. While working on a Meals for Millions project to assist the Tohono O’odham Nation with establishing gardens, NS/S co-founders Gary Nabhan and Mahina Drees presented tribal elders with broccoli and radish seeds. “What we are really looking for,” the elders replied, “are the seeds for the foods our grandparents used to grow.” This revelatory remark inspired the formation of Native Seeds/SEARCH as a collector and preserver of these endangered traditional seeds.”

Moving to a remote place in search of freedom and starting a farm there is really the Asatru activity par excellence.  Going a-viking was done for revenue in order to pay for a farm, or make money after a bad year on one.  The Norse who went to Iceland, Greenland and even further did so because they were discontent with some condition under which they had to live.  Sometimes it was a king being too heavy-handed with his power.  Sometimes it was a sentence of outlawry.  Towards the end of the Viking era it was religious persecution by Christians.  Moving out of California so that we can grow our own sustenance from non-corporate seeds, raising free-range chickens for eggs and making cheese from milk produced by our happy goats is not a hippie dream-come-true.  It’s our gods-blessed heritage.

Hail, and blessed be!

Northern Heim, Desert Clime

My heathenry vacillates between Crunchy Nature Mysticism and Free Religion for a Free and Independent People.  Sven and I are happy to say we’ve begun the process of reconciling both.

This past weekend, we took possession of a four-acre hacienda in the Arizona desert.  For the time being we have to split time between California and there.  We bought the hacienda from an older couple who were moving to Florida.  The husband openly admitted being pagan and the wife was wearing an “Orthodox Druid” t-shirt when we arrived on Saturday.  They were finishing up the cleaning.

We had a barbecue so the neighbours could say goodbye to them and meet us.   All the houses are on big plots of land; our four acres is typical.  This means we’re within eyesight of other houses, but getting to one involves some effort because all the roads are dirt.  Norse homes would have been further apart, but we still have a harsh climate to contend with to reach them.  The Norse grappled with winter and short growing seasons.  We will have to flourish in extreme heat and aridity.  As with most peoples who live in harsh climates, the neighbours are very friendly.  I’ve already been told I can get my first chickens from a family who have a large flock.

Here’s what is on the land currently.  The house has porches on four sides, including a screen-enclosed one (called an Arizona room).  There are desert climbing roses.  There’s a fountain in the back which Sven is “meh” about, but apparently the local birds adore it.  There are enormous outbuildings that only need ventilation and climate control to be breweries.  There is an olive tree, an orange tree, a grapefruit tree and a pecan tree.  D., the wife of Sven’s friend Karl, and I have many plans for those pecans.  My own eggs plus my own pecans equals the best pecan pie ever baked.

                                                                   

Posted because I like Soviet Realism

Besides chickens, the plan includes goats and gardens of heritage vegetables.  More on that in another column.

Our hacienda is also our temple.  We’re very keen on honouring the local nisse, and with those trees we have many.  I poured wine to all of the trees on the property and Sven introduced himself.  There is a large playhouse with a bridge leading up to it; Sven and I are in negotiations as to whether it should be a meditation room or a small hof to Odin, Thor, Frey and Loki.  The farming itself is a sacred act, and I think we are going to find ourselves invoking Frey, Thor and Sif more than we ever had.

Saturday night found several of us standing on top of an outbuilding, watching a magnificent sunset and then an uncountable number of stars and a perfect view of the new crescent moon.  It’s the best, and only going to get better, we think.  Hail, and blessed be.