The Gods give the world the gift of order. But this is living order, to which our penchant to line things up in rows and columns is the most elementary and juvenile rudiment. From the electrifyingly vibrant and ramifyingly complex intelligence of the Gods' order, even our most advanced mathematics, in all their complexity, are as child's play. There is within that order the Gods give a logos function, in the deepest sense of the word. And the name given to this order is heill. It is a whole-making force, that touches ice and forms a snowflake, engerming crystalline growth into the very structure of substance.
The Gods grasp essences. They are able to grok the essential nature of a thing, to see its potential locked in a static form that protects but imprisons the essence, and free it by reshaping the form to fit the essence. These are great acts of understanding. Edmund Carpenter has a classic essay about Eskimo sculptors and how they see the subject suggested in the material, and work to bring it out. "As the carver holds the unworked ivory lightly in his hand, turning it this way and that, he whispers, “Who are you? Who hides there?” And then, “Ah, seal!” He rarely sets out to carve, say, a seal, but picks up the ivory, examines it so to find its hidden form and, if that’s not immediately apparent, carves aimlessly until he sees it, humming or chanting as he works. Then he brings it out: Seal, hidden, emerges. It’s always there: He doesn’t create it: he releases it: he helps it step forth. In a deeper sense, of course, there is no “it”; he does more than discover: he reveals." (Edmund Carpenter, Man and Art in the Arctic, United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Browning, Montana, 1964.) "The carver never attempts to force the ivory into uncharacteristic forms, but responds to the material as it tries to be itself, and thus the carving is continually modified as the ivory has its say." (Ibid.) This releasing of potentiality is found in the Norse word órlausn, which has taken on the meaning, "to answer or respond", yet which literally means, "to loosen out of" or to "release". And thus, when we are asked a question, we release the answer out of the question itself. This is how the Gods create.
Carpenter's imagery allows us to imagine how the Gods handled the broken bones and flesh of Ymir as they pondered creation. "The carving lives in the hand as it is moved, spoken to and about." (Ibid.) Even experiences can be freed from the dull undifferentiation which would keep them locked up. "I’ve seen silent, gently, slow-moving Eskimo, suddenly caught up in the hunt, accomplish astonishing feats of skill and daring. Yet there was consistency here. They were the same. They simply allowed the world to act towards them with complete freedom. They weren’t passive: they freed this experience from its formless state and gave it expression and beauty. When you feel a song willing up within you, you sing it; when Eskimo feel themselves possessed by the hunt, they commit themselves fully to it." (Ibid.)
Carpenter suggests that the environment of the tundra -- a barren, difficult environment our ancestors identified with Jotunheim, or approaching thereof -- forces the artist to find the shape in the form in order to create order. To his description may be supplemented the knowledge that our Gods formed the world out of the screaming blizzard that was Ymir. "The environment encourages the Eskimo to think in this fashion. To Western minds the “monotony” of snow, ice, and darkness can often be depressing, even frightening. Nothing in particular stands out; there is no scenery in the sense in which we use the term. But the Eskimo do not see it this way. They’re not interested in scenery, but in action, existence ... for nothing in their world easily defines itself and is separable from the general background. What exists, the Eskimo themselves must struggle to bring into existence. Theirs is a world which has to be conquered with each act and statement, each carving and song – but which, with each act accomplished, is as quickly lost. ... But his role is not passive. He reveals form; he cancels nothingness. ... they free the idea, the thing, from the general formlessness of the outside. ... Carver, like poet, releases form from the bonds of formlessness; he brings it forth into consciousness. He must reveal form in order to protest against a universe that is formless, and the form he reveals should be beautiful. ... Here, then, is a world of chaos and chance, a meaningless whirl of cold and white; man alone can give meaning to this – its form does not come ready-made." (Ibid., emphasis mine.) This cancelling of nothingness, this conquest of the undifferentiated and howling monotony, to bring out its difference, is the shaping magic the Gods bring to existence to ground our world. The form is not "ready-made", and yet it does lie inherent within the material, if one has the eyes to see.
There is thus a study of the material to understand its essence, and then a bringing-out of this essence by shaving off that which is inessential, and bringing the essence into that form which allows it to come into its own. Because shaping implies working with the material, there is thus an intimacy that is cultivated with the nature of the material. One does not carve marble, ivory, and wood all in the same way. Similarly, the different parts of Ymir's body presented different possibilities. With each material, one must work with the grain in the wood, the structural pattern inherent in its substance. One explores the material to see what it can do. There is thus a playful sensuality inherent in creation, and indeed, the Gods are described as playful in the age when they were shaping the world.
The Gods therefore find the potential within matter and shape it by giving it form. That shaping is a creative act which bestows heill. The two words most frequently utilized to describe creation in the Eddas are sköpuð and gerðu. In English, they "geared and shaped". "Gearing" involves preparing, which implies careful planning for contingencies, and the ability to meet that which may come. It is thus a species of intelligence and order. They readied the world for the challenges which it would unfold. Gearing also means taking the time it takes to prepare something : letting it cook in its own time. Great things take time and slow preparation. In "shaping", the Gods gave proportion to life, that the matter within it might find its proper pathways. Because shaping works with the material at hand, it is not about imposition, but release, of form. Each essence is allowed to spring into its being, and finds its own within that shape native to it. It is thus not broken from what it is and twisted beyond its own inherency to suit the whims of the carver, but blends itself with the material, subtly bending and stretching it to find its point of greatest balance. (If our modern landscaping followed such divine principles, our houses and other structures would blend harmoniously into environment, for we would shape our environment, bringing out its higher power and creative potentiality, rather than impose upon it.) Balanced and made whole, it is heill.
To heill we may contrast illr. Illr is the opposite of heillr. It is a disordering force, which deranges the wholeness of all with which it comes into contact. It is not malicious per se, although if it has been driven mad enough by its derangement it may be, but more unbalancing. It is thus, as our more modern form of it ("ill") suggests, sick, unwhole. It can have a dementing effect on its surroundings ; it is misshapen (ósköpnir), unfortunate, even cursed. It partakes of the hríð, the storm, both disordering and tending to cover over differentiation.
Heillr shapes, gives structure, form, intelligence, balance, and most especially, ability to cope and adapt. Adaptability might be the very definition of our word "wit", which in its modern form connotes an ability to adapt to verbal badinage, yet which extends beyond this to the ability of intelligence to meet and match what is encountered in experience. When we are whole, we are able to hold together against dissipation and storm. If the Gods were to cease their blessings, the heill still in the world would continue for some time, but eventually, without periodic reinfusions (particularly as we ask for them and participate in them through offerings and sacrifice), would begin to run down, and the world would eventually return to storm. Shaping finds that proportion which fits the essence precisely so that it may run its own course, and is not drowned in the smother of storm.
In this way, the Gods outwit the storm by infusing within it an element of intelligence that outstrips it. If you impregnated chaos with self-replicating pattern, then despite the protean evanescence of the constant emergence and dissolution of forms, you would still be able to slowly build coherence on top of this arising and falling. The pattern would have to be so vastly organic and squirmingly intelligent that it would be able to outmatch and surpass the rate of dissolution. Thus through sheer replication of desired verdant form, the transformal march of dissolution could be mocked, and an enduring if liquid structure could be devised and propagated. Thus, any one wonder may disappear, but the bewonderment process is so fertile and rampant that bewonderment begets bewonderment in uncontrollable lushness. Thus, the striving process of coming into vibrancy (the evolutionary process of blossoming out one's wholeness), in which form is pursued by form, must have the capacity to outstrip the predatorial nature of the bedulling and dissolving forces. Heill allows this inherent intelligence to emerge.
If you were to touch the barren tree, and call forth its fruit in the touching, your hand would have to know the whole history of the tree and its speciation, for history is the process of manifestation and materialization. In the material world, things materialize through time, and therefore to understand them is to understand their process. To bring out potential, one must bring out potential through the very real struggle of the thing's history. In order to work magic, you must understand the struggles that live at the very heart of that which you would transform, and find a creative way to meet those challenges which existentially face that which is to be transformed.
To know something, you must know its development. You must know its process of genesis. You must know its history of tangles, and that with which it is interwoven, and that through which it has interstrewn. You must know its knots, the contradictions that it has laid and that it has had laid upon it, and which it is struggling to work through, even as it creates new contradictions.
Reality is history. This does not mean the dead past ; it means the living past, the past which refuses to die and wraps itself around and forms the integument and structure of every manifest thing in the world. It includes the living, green pith as well as the encrustations, and all of these combined are that which we confront when we look upon a thing in the world. Everything is a battle which is striving through active combat towards victory. And thus, because every thing is its own history of struggle, knowledge is not smooth. It is textured, it is difficult, it is hard-won, and change is not easy, for it must contend with the entire history of forces that are inherent in that which one is attempting to change. The forces resist us, and resist change, at the same time as they tend towards their own kinds of changes and processes. Thus, the world is beautifully, thickly, enmeshedly difficult, and because of this very difficulty, it is real, it is complex, it is intriguing, it is sinewed and fibred and grounded, it outlasts us, and therefore provides an environment in which all of our own struggles may take place and have meaning.
That our thoughts do not modify everything is the greatest blessing. If there were nothing to resist us, what a nightmare world we would live in, as our own untamed souls, souls that have not yet come into their own flourishment and order -- that vital order which a soul must find in order to become whole -- this disordered soul of ours would manifest nightmare, and all the world would be nightmare such as we cannot imagine. But for the world resists us, we must learn it, and through that process of learning, in the very midst of the difficulty, and grappling and engaging with the hindrances, our soul finds that order which is inherent in it. The encounter between the world of difficulty and the yearning soul draws out the order within that soul, that lies pregnant within it.
That is the often unrealized genius of the prima materia, this monstrous matter that much of the time confronts us as dull, purposeless, opaque, adverse, dumb, even ferocious in its grossness and enormity. But the sagacity and ingenuity of the Gods is to be able to see into that which seems useless and find its use. They are able to take even that which does not fit and find a way for it to fit, thus making it good. And so the world is in a process of being made good. An enormous lump of this stuff, this writhing, protean, chaotic, monstrous matter, which they tore apart from the raging monstrous beast Ymir, they impregnated with patterned life, that through the process of evolution has an opportunity to find its own order through time. Because of the scaled levels of resistence that the world presents us with, this world becomes an arena of challenges, and thus, a nursery of heroes.
We are still in the primordial process of creation, which was interrupted by strife. The final fruition of this prima materia has not been reached. Only through the long work of that spirit which has been impregnated into matter can the world finally, over long stretches of time, reach its fruition. And in that stage of time in which each of us are assigned, and ensnarled, each of us are gnarls, and we gnarl our way towards our defining destination.
Against dissipation, to hold : to hold onto one's treasure is an awesome power in a world where so much is evanescent, and so much slips away. To hold is to keep together and keep whole that which is precious and yet which would threaten to disperse into the four winds, and to keep it where it may be cherished. One of the old meanings of the word "hold" was loyalty, and it was the loyalty of the heart extended out into the world, saying, "No, I shall not let go of that which is precious to me," knowing that much would slip away ; that in this world of transience, where wyrd is ever changing and becoming, much slips through our fingers, even as we experience it, and in fact that most does, but that some things are not to be allowed to slip through. They must be regathered and held, and this extends even to the ancestors. The ancestors are not just cherished for what they may do for us in the other world, but that we love them and will not let them go.
Our love extends that far, for even over the threshold of death itself, we shall not abandon them, but claim them. We claim them even over that abyss from which none return, but still we say, they are ours. We extend that relation of love even beyond the doorstep of existence itself, into the substrata beneath and within existence, Hel, the hidden interiority within the unseen heart of existence, and say, we are all of one unit. All whom we love are tied together. And to do so with those who are now grounded in the very heart of existence itself is often what gives us the power and root to do so in this changing and mutable world where things have not yet found their final form. That which is dead is done ; it has found its final form, and therefore has a stability that the wonderful living world has not yet found. But once again we must remember that death does not have a connotation held in bad faith of ghostliness or deadenedness. Those words are relative to our world, to the realm of husks and compost and rotting. Once someone is dead, their spirit-form finds flourishment and fulfillment and stability, for the final doom pronounced at their afterworld hearing by the Gods is etched into the Tree itself. Indeed, as I have commented before, in some ways, the dead are far more alive than we are. We are the ones who are trying to find our alivement, and this life is our first journey in that direction.
So we do accept much of the transience of the world, as the Buddhists urge, but we also urge -- and this is the other hand of the equation that is so important -- to hold on to that which is your treasure. That which can be gathered into significance, and given the coherence of that wholeness or heill which is the holy order the Gods bless this Earth with, has the strength to persist beyond all the streamings and doings-undoings that unfold in the passage of time. The word treasure itself refers to the heirlooms, which take on value because they were held by the hands of the cherished family members and passed on. And so, we do not allow even death to separate us.
It is not something that can be proven scientifically, but we defy even science with our faith, a faith that is not a blind belief, but an assertion. It is a laying down of our law and our will. We will not let them go. We will that we will not let them go. There is therefore an element of boldness, daring, and assertion to our faith, and even audacity, to speak beyond that which the five senses would permit us. To speak and say, our loved ones we still love, and hold close to us. We say this beyond the apparent world of manifestation, for we understand that death has literally under-mined our loved ones and beneathed them beyond manifestation. The five senses would be pointless in this regard. Our will stretches beyond what the eyes can see.
If our faith extends our will this far, beyond that which can even be seen, then it gives us the strength to hold in this tornado-world where all is so often in flux, and to develop the will to hold and keep the precious coherent and alive in our lives. It will often be a battle, but it is a battle with significance.
Mary and God. Many devotees see statues of Mary as statues of Our Mother God. Christians see her as a human woman who lived in the first century. Are we even talking about the same Mary?
When started our long overdue Wheel of the Year series (we really need definitive guide to the Deanic year), we got out of the proverbial mothballs a chart of the Sacred Year that has been going around Deanic circles for easily two decades. In those days Deanic and Filianic material usually circulated as black and white photocopied pages.
Someone suggested that with the resources now at our disposal, a color version should be produced. She knew not what she asked. This turned into a rather mammoth task, but one we believe was well worth the effort. the structure of the year is made much clearer with this new version.
We do hope you will find it useful.
As before, just click the wheel to see it enlarged so that you can examine all details. Thanks to Heartbook for providing the server space for the expanded version - our provider does not allow graphics over 100 KB and the full-sized Wheel of the Year is much bigger than that.
We are delighted to announce the first new edition of The Feminine Universe since its publication back in 1997.
This classic of feminine philosophy is an absolute must-read for anyone interested in the worship of Our Mother God or in true feminine spirituality.
The new edition has a full-color cover, a completely re-written last chapter, covering events that have taken place in the years since the book was written and other additions and amendations.
If you have never read The Feminine Universe, there has never been a better time to buy a copy.
The Wheel of the Year is fundamental to devotees of Our Mother God. The cycles of nature on earth represent both the primal Sacred Drama and a map of the metaphysical cosmos.
The thunder is His son, but so is the snow-white bliss of wisdom and righteousness. The flashing blade that strikes out against evil is His son, but so is the honey-tongued psalmster of mirthful glory. The fur and claw toothed bear of ferocity is His son, but so is the silent, ever-waiting wooded one, who shall the end of times redeem. He births the fury whose name is vengeance, restoring honor to the injured kin, but so He calls into his castle the bright, fecundous lord of feasts and frithful harvests. He fosters the fire who all watching wards the hearth of homes, but so he fosters the shining soul of the most widely traveled. His home is a home of heroes, His star-tower a wizard's yeshiva. His throne an all-worlds observatory. Storms' Master, He unleashes the might and rush of wisdom's inspiration all against the up-spiral'd life-tree's foes. What He holds in one hand, He other hand tempers ; the half His vision outwards, the other inward-depths is drawn. He is the wise passion of moderation having found its fullness, the all-worlds' chaos given shape and found form, the seed of spirit sown in matter, uprising in the the mead of inspiration. Praise this over-arching Breath between the many heavens' worlds, who all around bestows His Spirit.
His name is Awe he rides eight-legged across the brachiated jewel-studded heavens with everywhere his destination. Oh, Awe looks over all and all-descending, transforms a'times into that which Awe beholds which always in gaze of wonder seeks the dancing creature, swaying bough, to speak that poem of flashed, collaged moments of peak this braided song of involute, ecstatic gasp cosmos is, and Awe, in moment-sampling, blends with the bliss far-and-wide branched starry boughs across the many worlds offer. Awe is everywhere, and above, wherever Awe chooses, for Awe is the Father of All ; and we, in awe, are with Awe, and give that worship the Awe of All, The All of Awe, demands.
O one of the wide-brimmed starry hat, O cloaked in the four corners of sky, O baffler, O riddler, O ponderer of deepest, shrouded secrets, O crazed intellect, high on the quest's exhilaration, Come, O plumber of depths, come, O seeker of lore, Come, O treasurer of the vaults of Saga, Come and share the smallest share, a crumb or table-scrapp'd bite of hard-won wisdom, for those who seek the see-through of the all-too-solid opaque. Glimpse-gift us, Breeze Rider, Wit & Wish Crafter, O Ur-Thanc Lord of the deepest penetration, Insight! All things inlight seeing ; Let us grasp a passing flash of realest marvel, Objective dazzle of indreamed cells & stars that we might, so small, for an instant grasp a glance at what Large Mind you see through, Lord, for we are yearning seekers after sagedom, Much Wise, & seek to touch our minds one moment, O Fully Swift, with yours, & taste the whole spin and span of ages, long roll of arcane symbols uberwit ponders on scrolls a toss of lifetimes might start to fathom. Too long locked up has been the hidden ages-lost lore, O Lord of Asgard's Heights! With a simple wave of the wand of your bladed shaft, you glaze the black, and make crystal what before was solid stone, & so may we see through, O Pulsing Rapids' Master, for we would seek to ride that pulse, and know this mazes world you still aft all this time do marvel yet, & taste the Godly gain of wisdom, even at that hundredth trace diluted. Let us your ever-seeking proteges become, O Wondrous Father.
Bram Brack or Soul Cake is a traditional Hallowe'en food from Ireland and the British Isles. During the Medieval era, children would go from house to house singing songs and asking for Soul Cakes. For each cake gathered, they would then say a prayer for a deceased loved one from the family who gave the cake. These prayers were meant to help lost souls or those in purgatory into Heaven. Many historians believe this may have been the beginning of our modern day trick'or'treaters.
Ancient Celtic traditions would couple this with the Samhain bonfire. Children would collect a piece of wood for the communal bonfire from each house, along with any treats. After the bonfire was lit, people would douse the fires in their hearths at home to be relit with an ember from the sacred Samhain fire. It is believed that this was meant to symbolize the Spark of Life found in all living things that connects us all, as well as our connection to our ancestors long passed and our children not yet born. The Samhain embers were carried home in carved "lanterns" that were made, apparently, from turnips, which is believed to be the first jack'o'lantern.
Rev. Mother Georgia Cobb
Among Filianists, it is customary for each maid to throw a stick into the bonfire sending with it some fault or negative trait that she wishes to cast away from herself.
The custom of extinguishing the hearth fire and re-lighting it from a sacred flame, however, belongs among Filyani to the Day of Herthe - the hearth-fire festival - which falls on the secular new year's eve (the Filianic New Year is of course on Culverine 1st/March 21st).
Samhain actually means "Summer's End" - though "Summer" here means the bright half of the year, rather than the season of Summer.
A written poem can be explained entirely in terms of the poet's finger-movements. A mother can be explained in chemical terms - so much carbon, so much calcium etc. etc., and such explanations can have a certain utility on a certain level.
But if you say that you now know all there is to know about the poet and the mother, what do you have? The mind of the modern Western world.
What a thing it is to sit absolutely alone, in the forest, at night, cherished by this wonderful, unintelligible, perfectly innocent speech, the most comforting speech in the world, the talk that rain makes by itself all over the ridges, and the talk of the watercourses everywhere in the hollows! Nobody started it, nobody is going to stop it. It will talk as long as it wants, this rain. As long as it talks I am going to listen.
I have a hard time believing that the heathen community wants to grow. Heck, I have a hard time believing that there even is such a thing as a heathen "community". Is there? It seems to me that there are just a bunch of hobbyists at best.
One thing of which I am certain : if there were a heathen community, and particularly one that wanted to grow, this blog would not be on the boondocks of the web, and would receive not only a lot more attention, but a lot more participation, because good things are being said and explored on this blog. And yet I feel most of the time as if I am shouting into the emptiness.
And if I write poetry, forget it ... no one will pay attention. This despite the fact that poetry was incredibly important to our ancestors. A good poem could land one an estate.
I have consistently worked to enrich our understanding of the Gods, and I have done it through inspiration grounded in rigorous research and close attention to the original sources and wellsprings of folklore.
This isn't a point of ego, although I well should have earned much more honor for my efforts than I have, but a much more important point ... when treasures are generally neglected, there is something wrong with a "movement". Or even more to the point, when a "movement" shows no movement at all, it is ... stagnating, which pretty much guarantees that the Master of Wod, that quality of dynamis that is cracklingly intelligent turbulence, is going to leave it in the wayside of evolution's riptides, where it probably belongs.
This to me is such a shame it is hard to overlabor the point. There is an opportunity being missed here. Does anyone get that this is an incredibly powerful theology and beautiful inview on the cosmos? The way has might and grace and grandeur. And yet all I hear about in "the community" is either petty, petty politics, or silence, and I think ... the Gods don't seem to be lending much luck, and I wonder why.
Is this how you want it to go? The way of a fad, something not worth developing? Do you really want to get everything you can out of this, or is it just an excuse to be mentally and socially lazy?
There are literally hundreds of pages archived on this blog, full of rich and deep material, material that could become a springing board for further evolutions and discussions that might lead in a progressive direction.
Are you interested in those discussions? Are you interested in evolution?
I'm not by any means saying I am the only one pushing the envelope, but I am certainly one of them, and I often wonder why I am even bothering. The feedback is so seldom and sparse I question why I am pouring so much talent into all this. Of course I am doing so to honor the Gods. But there is the missing element of the Folk ... Where are the Folk?
Is there any reason for this blog to continue? Do you want it to continue? Is vivid imagery, careful argument, developed devotion, and exploration of difficult existential and social issues important to you? There are many fascinating topics and issues I would be inspired to tackle if I felt there was any interest at all to raise my level of inspiration.
"I give you the gift of dawn," exclaimed the sun in brilli'ed clamor. "Unpack what plexed within the day shall offer." She spoke before the rust-enflamed wings horizon-wide of Delling, dawn the citadel of Eastern elf whose upward rose-enpetall'd feathers call the Day out from the Night. "I give you all and awe-ly chance to dance beneath the light, for Day is paged book of life's each golden chapter, pages turned by Night's jet fingers. For I do burden-draw across the heavens but a ringed mirror polish'd within whose gaze each creature sees her own reflected brightness. What all the green unknowing give I looking glass a'back return with gain of subtle warmth a'gathered from my ample heart ablaze, with bright thanksgiving for the pageant greening 'neath my white-hooved pave. I see your every all in glory, humble giving without ask. Without the asking, I give back, for praise is lover's gaze reflected free in sweet duet, and I from lovers' isle emerge, and each Day dip down into Western lands where lovers' Gods do find. Think not I receive not your spirit's freely given light : for all do each Day see it shining as I bridge above your blessed plains. Good Day. Good Day to you, my creatures! Praise the opportunity of Day to truly shine. Good Day!"
And in that moment last, between the jaws within which saw he stars, and something more, he leapt, for maw was portal then, without the Wolf a'knowing all ; and spied the Mighty Sage a thousand branches more extending out from o'er the other side of tree, the limbs a feast of fruited worlds a'hung with swirling sway of other starry seas, and mind agape with holy hunger then for myst'ries more which beckon'd to him there, he smil'd, trusting Baldur ward the world, and gave his final leap, and robbed the Wolf of any gain or sating ; Vidar came and holding ope the rav'nous jaws, he slic'd, and reached within as had been planned fore'er to pull his Father out, but to his shock, the gut was empty! No one there at all! And plunging sword into the wolfen heart, he backed away, his mind a'daze, and met on Idavoll the other Gods who there were gathered. There they ponder'd all the ancient myst'ries of their Father of the All, and Baldur, twinkling eyes alive, remarked, "Out there," and they all nodded, knowing well the thirst of God to know more wondrous worlds.
And when his journeys long were last complete, the all of stars and time wrapped up within his knowing, joyous, world-tree jolly heart, as last without the ward of world he plighted duty first against the awful foes and trolls, now all cleared out, and back on track the world, could now his fullest heart's delight go out a'wand'ring far and wide, as he had once, and wisdom now in fullness ripen'd, share the all of laws that o'er great times he'd gathered. Came he then the All of God to share what All of Tree he'd slowly captur'd on his missing, wonder'd journeys out afar, and all the Gods were learned a'new, to guide what journeys now in peace the kin of men might slowly make o'er endless stretch of time. He settled all the judgements, laid to rest the ancient charges, shaped the holy settlements where new Gods rule in light of all His glory.
We felt the following posting on the Deanic/traditionalist approach to "science" might be of interest ot our readers:
While some people have imagined that we "reject science" that has never been true. What we reject is the purely arbitrary dogma that material observations and mental reflection thereon are our only source of knowledge. Only one civilization has ever believed that - the post 17th-century European culture, which by military and economic force, and also the "persuasion of success", has expanded to the point where it covers most of the globe and many people simply cannot imagine other ways of thinking.
Material science, however, can and does provide valuable information. It would do a far better job if (as in the Motherland) it were allied with traditional thought instead of having staged an arrogant "revolution" against it. But even in its current ideologically compromised state it is capable of providing valuable information.
Honored Kohime-chei's reply here illustrates one important point: that where spiritual or metaphysical truth conflicts with the speculations of material science, the former must take precedence. Why? Because material observations can be flawed, and so can the speculations based on them, whereas eternal principles cannot be flawed.
Does this mean that any argument based on Principle instantly trumps any material-scientific hypothesis? No, for several reasons of which I adduce two:
1. In many cases the two do not overlap and each should be regarded as more proficient in its own domain.
2. While eternal Principles cannot be wrong, our application of them can be. So while we are correct to say material speculation z is incorrect if it contradicts eternal principle a, we still need to discuss whether such a contradiction actually exists.
However the fact that Principle must take primacy is inalterable, and attempts to bring traditional teachings "into line with science" are contemptibly weak-minded. We recall (among countless examples) a translation of an ancient Sanskrit text in which the term used to describe the beginning of manifestation is rendered "the Big Bang". To mix up principial Truth with a currently popularized theory which may or may not outlast this century is an absurdity, and one that completely inverts the proper relation of unchanging Principle to temporal speculation.
There, where auburn-gold glows from foiled leaves whose crinkling adds windchime to sun rising and setting ; There, atop that crystalline crown, in the canopies wherein lay all the sparks of Muspell ; There, such meadows of heaven as ne'er the mortal eye who wouldst return to Midgard hath seen ; There, where such beasts of marvel glow silver or golden, as per the light resplendant and ambient : That oak-branched argentine-tined white & ghostly roebuck, who e'er his own velvetine, fur-trimmed skin bathes in that highest of overflowing waterfalls, the rushing raindrop torrent pours night-light scattering spray o'er his magnificent antlers ; That shaggy white-furred, full udder'd goat capering o'er the aurelian-shield thatched glory of Hall's Fallen Might, whose ample flows of milk fall flavored as honey-spiced mead ; That full-wisened eagle who rests in the high-foilaged perch, its wings the hue of noon's sun blotted by sunset's blood, watching, o'erwatching ; and there, between his very aquiline eyes the full-weathered kestrel curious falcon-fallow broods ; with that whisking, ashen-haired bushy-tailed rascal a-scurrying up-a-down the many-branched quartz-translucent trunk whose bulk beyond eyes holds the whole star-lined living frame together ; There, beneath the highest high mountain crags, where cliff-ensconced the silver-seat of prophecy sits bulwarked in the argent-lined granite walls of All-Father's far-seeing hall, beneath whose stony foundations dark runs its star-infloresced glow below to all the leaf-sheltered halls dotted meadow & thick-thicketed field, on that grandest of gold-fortressed plains, high, high above the whole circle of worlds ; There, where Thor once warded the sun-englared shining blade ; There, upon those ample plains lay Our Lady's lavender and wort-orcharded estate, replete with long labyrinthed rows of burgundy vines, ripe and potent, wild and serpentine, where all th'veneriline flock full-gasp rapture in engypsied, turkishine all-arms-up mad mania of Volta's blossom, to swoon at mere river's flection of Her High Bride's night's unveiling upon the throne atop that lovely, once-elf-crafted Mons of Venus. They say the undulate inflorescence of undine anenome starlight spackled ring-and-circle rapture dances in the air above that grassy knoll where Night's spangled twinkling quasars wink as elfine maids and rising knaves, a'bow in the high-hilled ballroom's courteous prelude, elegant ; and those who besom-and-beast ride high feather fly ascent that Brocken peak may lay their prayer-tapestried linens there, that She may, sauntering in the weeks that follow that furious dance, bend, and thumb-fingered lift those runed, soft doilies and read, and Her mind pleased by the voluptuous feast of full-ecstate, open-heart elation, grant us such love as full-season bounty for our worthy deeds She deems fit ; and for this I brew that sap of the buzzing swarm's hive that She might be described in such psalm as stupor-lifts the layman to enpraised words.
I have researched the names of the 8th month of the Deanic calendar and concluded the following:
The 8th month begins on 03 October and ends on 30 October
It is called "The Golden Month" because:
The month of October is called "the Golden Month" in art, poetry and song in recognition of the fact that, in the Northern Hemisphere, Mother Nature turns the leaves on many trees to golden yellow during this season of the year.
It is called "The Month of Hathor" because:
The Egyptian festival dedicated to the goddess Hathor was celebrated on 03 October
It is called "The Month of Vac" (or Vois pronounced Voish) a word that means "speech" or "butter". Latin "vacca", a cow (French vache) as well as to "vox", "voice" etc...because: The Hindu goddess Vac has similar attributes to the Egyptian goddess Hathor.
Question: What do the goddess Hathor (Egyptian) and Vac (Hindu) have in common?
Answer: 1) They are both cow goddesses (nourishing celestial mothers); 2) they are both creative goddesses (mothers of the arts, music, language); and 3) they are both "golden-skinned" goddesses (lifegiving solar mothers).
My research could not discover the etymological meaning or history of the other name for the 8th month "Hadora".
Reverend Mother GeorgiaAdditional notes by site editors:
Could Hadora be a corruption of "Hathor"? Or could the "ora" part mean either or both of "gold" and/or "speech" (as in oration)?
Interestingly, while Vois/Hathor is the Golden Month, the Golden Festival is Chelanya, or the Festival of Regeneration in Kerea/August. This festival begins the Mysteries of Life cycle, which is ended by Tamala, The Feast of the Dead directly after Vois ends.
Vois and the following month, Werde, are the only two Deanic months to fit wholly into one Gregorian month.
While the names Vois/Hathor are rich in meaning, October simply means "eighth (month)", though actually it is the tenth Gregorian month. Vois, however, is the eighth month of the Deanic calendar.
Dear Madam,
Two nights ago, I dreamt of our Mother Mary, who was floating in the sky. She was a real person in my dream. She was wearing an ivory colored long gown with a little gold and brown accent. The gown is pleated in front, just like her other gowns. I was standing on the ground, looking at her. She smiled at me and nodded at me and handed me a burgundy red ladies' leather handbag.
I stretched out my hands to receive it from her. After she has handed me the bag, she disappeared.
Can you please tell me the meaning of my dream ?
Is there anywhere in the world where Mother Mary appeared wearing the gown I described ?
Will await your kind answer.
Truly yours,
Mrs. E. K.
Honored Mrs. K., there are indeed many images of Our dear Mother dressed in ivory or white in the manner you describe (we reproduce one here). This is especially an image of purity and salvation.
The meaning of the red leather purse or handbag may depend somewhat on your relation to such a purse. Do you use one, or did you formerly?
Such a purse is associated with traditional femininity in Western countries, and many women no longer use them, preferring more casual and "unisex" containers.
It is possible that Our Lady is here assuring you of her love, and empowering you to embrace the simple, pure and elegant femininity that so many have left behind and yet which has a spiritual meaning far deeper than its everyday appearance may lead us to guess.
The world needs to regain femininity and we believe Our Lady was giving this message to you as it may have some special relevance to your life right now.
As I have stated before, the essential function of tradition is to stimulate the development of maturity. Its job is to work and wring out and knead and beat and draw forth and weave in in multiple layers your juvenility until it grows, and grows thick into maturity. In other words, a tradition's purpose is "to make a man (or woman) out of you", and if it's not doing that, then there is either something wrong with the tradition as it has been handed to you or as you are practicing it, or you aren't doing the work with that tradition that you should.
Tradition is thus a way for the elder and particularly once-alpha leaders to tell the juvenile up-and-comer's, "Knock it off", and "get your act together". It can do so gently and poetically for those youngsters who are eager to learn, sensitive, and willing to listen ; and it can do so rather bluntly and in a real no-nonsense, even "drill sergeant" way for those youngsters who have no intention of listening to anyone, and are eager to promote their own semi-ignorance rather than to learn.
If the majority of people practicing your tradition around you seem like they have never graduated from junior high or high school in terms of their behaviors and attitudes, then someone is playing dress-up and not actually doing the work of the tradition. And if doing the work of the tradition would drive them off, don't accomodate them to keep them : let them drift whereever their workless drift would take them anyway. They are dead weight and need not be kept around. When and if they're serious, they can come back and do the work.
"Making a man out of you" doesn't mean turning you into a grizzled, disappointed, bitter, cynical, and broken man who acquiesces to the reality you're handed. It does mean being able to weather disappointment, and trusting in the seasons to fund and source resilience, as winter inevitably (with help and will of Gods and Alfar) returns to spring. It is that resilience which comes out of long and hard experience which is the key here to maturity, because maturity ought be the flowering of idealism, and not its extended funeral. In order for a seed to flower, it may first need to toughen up its stem, strive with all might and crazed yearning for the sun, and grow thorns, but it must not forget its flowering, for if it forgets that, it forgets its glory, and its purpose, and the new seeds fail to fall upon the soil.
Maturity comes through encouragement and inspiration, and it also comes through scolding. Much of maturity is working through our scolding. The community speaks through its scolds, and we must determine what is of value and what is not in the scoldings. There inevitably will be much of value in the scolding. There will also be a great deal that is utter crap. But good scolds return us to our shoulds, and in fact have the same root. Scolds sting, and ought to. They are reminders, they force us to do introspection, and question where we are not standing as upright in the mirror as our dignity demands. Here the mirror is the world itself. For this, we ought not hold back our scolds, but our scolds should be as should be, not according to our own ignorance, parochialism, or narcissism, but as another whom we would respect falls short of that calling to progressive nobility with which the Gods beckon.
In deeply stewed and fermented disappointment lies the rich soil out of which new harvests may come. Sometimes we receive the disappointments we need, difficult as they are. They are not sent, Gods forbid, to crush our idealisms, but rather to show where our idealisms were imperfect in their conceptions, that we might make them lither, more flexible, and more congruent with the evolving wyrd we wish to shape. Disappointments force us to face up to realities we had rather avoid. In defeats lie seeds of greater victories if we will listen to what the faults tell us, and bring the full weight of our mind and our inspirations to bear upon the problems that we might learn what we need to learn to move on.
The heathen "community" is disappointing, very disappointing. It does not, on the whole, foster maturity, but is run for the most part by the most juvenile, who are pulled by whims of pettiness, of shallowness, and of simple thrill-seeking expressing itself in sophomoric behaviors and stereotyped slogans. A kindred, while it ought have mirth and the main of festivity, is not a frat party. A sumble and a tavern ought have a completely different feel. Blots are not excuses to get together, drink beer, and brag (in the vulgar sense). Again, it would be much better if heathen religious practice were far more intimidating, not in any macho sense, but in the sense of expected prerequisites, level of rigor, and strictly enforced behavior codes. ("Strictly enforced behavior codes" need not imply any level of puritanism, as behavior codes can incorporate mirth, festivity, and frith, but they can certainly distinguish these in very explicit ways from their counterfeits and those who would call upon their counterfeits in the name of these very real heathen values.) That might not win any converts too easily, and might very well alienate those who think they are already heathen, but so what? Quantity or quality? I believe that out of the disappointment and failure of the heathen "community" may come a greater maturity, if processed and worked through, that may lead to something more authentic and sustainable.
We might begin by emphasing sculd over bragi. Don't brag and get all mighty on yourself if you haven't first acknowledged your debts and begun to pay them off. Your first boasts ought be to work hard to pay off whatever debts you might have. Your debts accrue according to your flaws and injuries, as well as the debt of potential with which you are born and which you must pay back by developing who you are, individuating, and therefore giving back the fruit of your own flowering. Someone ought come to a blot fully conscious of one's debts. Kindreds ought encourage their members to do inventories of where they are in debt, both materially, on an economic level, and spiritually, where they have assaulted the rights of others and done injury. And just as a little hint : if you're still a jackass, maybe you ought to be working on yourself. Chances are you're probably in a fair amount of debt. Sure, you may not be a killer, nor even an out and out criminal, but you know, all those little snubs, all that petty bullying, be it physical or emotional, all that strife-sewing, however small, adds up over time : penny by penny the bank fills up. Don't strut your stuff until you've done your time.
"Do Your Time" really ought to be a heathen slogan of first priority. It's definitely not sexy, which commends it from the get-go. Do the inventory. Where have you hurt others? Where are you still a nasty bastard? How do you exploit others? Where are you failing to live up to your potential? How are you redeeming all the time and energy and money that has been invested by others in your life? Where are the weaknesses that are not only keeping your best sides from flowering, but actually draining off any luck or heil you might receive from the Gods or ancestors?
"But wait ... that doesn't sound like a warrior ..."
Shut up. You don't get to be a soldier in our army until we've put you through boot camp, and you've proven to our satisfaction that you're ready to fight for the values we stand for. We don't just want random mayhem-seekers. This is not a religion that is about carnage and sociopathy. Prove to us first that you know what you're fighting for.
And put a muffle on the glory-talk, braggart. It's empty talk, and you know it. Don't talk to us about the glory of battle and other such platitudes when you haven't even done your homework. Get down to business. Roll up those sleeves and do the work.
"Do The Work". Another great heathen slogan. Figure out where you're deficient, and begin working on it. Unless you're dealing with an enemy --- and I don't mean a rival, I don't mean someone with whom you got into a spat, I don't mean some petty internet feud, I mean a real enemy who acts on the will to undo your existence --- a real heathen is decent towards others. Honor demands it. You don't need to be warm and fuzzy towards everyone. That's reserved for proven friends and family. But unless someone is a literal enemy, you ought be decent, even if you don't like them. It's courteous, and in the long run, it preserves frith.
Before you come before the Gods, take a little note of what an ass you've been throughout your life. Get a little embarassed. Figure out where you need to shore up. You're facing some mighty impressive presences here, beings who didn't just talk about doing something great, who didn't glory in someone else's greatness, but who actually did great things, and moreover, deeds of great foresight and benevolence. Look at your life, your petty little life. Look, I don't mean to demean you, but you know far better than I do where you've been a little shit, and you damn well know there have been plenty of times, far more often than your pride would want to admit. Well, you can try to hide it from yourself, and you can try to hide it from others, but you cannot hide it from the Gods. They see that and smell its reek from miles off. Consider how far your prayers extend when you so willfully remain in such debt and unwholeness.
"Well, all this scolding and focus on debts and faults doesn't seem very heathen to me. Heathenism is about Pride."
No. You're wrong. Heathenism is about Pride From Merit. Merit through maturity. Grow up. A big man, a bold man, knows his faults, and does the work, however humble, every day. It's not easy. But it means when you have done your work and earned your merit, then you get to have genuine pride, and not just empty, bombastic boasting with no real weight of authentic brag behind it.
You don't have to be perfect ; you are expected to mature. If even those who ought to be elders are juvenile geeks, then you have a tradition of fools, no tradition at all. Good luck getting audience from the Gods.
Tough words, tough life. Face facts and do your growing ; find the secret resilience. Are you digging your well? Have you found the hidden springs? Are you so puffed up on yourself you're neglecting to tend your own garden?
The Heart Wire (an Aristasian announcement blog) introduces the month as follows:
We have just begun a new month the month of Voiś (pronounced Voish). It aligns very closely with the Tellurian month of October. I think it is the closest alignment between any two Telluri/Aristasian months.
The name means literally butter, but also speech. The connexion between these two concepts is found very anciently in Telluria too in Vac, the early Vedic and pre-Vedic cow-Janya (or goddess) who also rules the sacred power of speech. See The Angelic Hymn to Dea in The Gospel of Our Mother God the sixth verse and its commentary for more on this.
Most comely is this Speech, a heavenly Cow, yielding food and all desires.
Voiś is unusual in having no great festivals within it, though The Feast of the Dead comes immediately upon its ending.
The term Goldener Oktober would certainly be understood by Motherland Aristasians, who see Voiś as the month of golden, flowing butter.
Note: the connection between the two names is apparent when we consider that Hathor was considered a Cow-Goddess"
This current month was called Hathor by some early Madrians and Vois by Aristasians and some other Filianists. On the first name.
Revd. Mother Georgia writes:
The following is an article which indicates how Dea, in her manifestation as Hathor is connected to both the upper word of light and life and the nether world of darkness and death.
Hathor (Greek) Het-Hert (Egyptian) [from het-hert the house above] One of the oldest known Egyptian deities. Het-Hert refers to the sky or heaven, known by the Greeks as Hathor. Originally, Hathor was a cosmic goddess, mother of light -- the production of which was considered the opening act in cosmogony, producer of the twin deities Shu and Tefnut (the sky and the moisture of the sky). Later she was regarded as the great Mother, bringing forth all the other deities -- Mother Nature personified. She has been associated with all the goddesses of Egypt, partaking of all their attributes; but her principal
title was Lady of Amentet (the Holy Land or underworld).
The Greeks identified Hathor with Aphrodite, for she was the patron deity of beauty and joy in life, of artists and their creative work as was the celestial and earthly Venus. Her chief position, however, was goddess of the Underworld, providing the deceased with food and drink.
Astronomically she was associated with the star Sept (Sothis or Sirius), which
rose heliacally on the first day of the Egyptian New Year.
Hathor was closely connected with Neith (at Sais), and in Ptolemaic times with
Nekhebet, Uatchet, and Bast. "Hathor is the infernal Isis, the goddess pre-eminently of the West or the nether world" (SD 1:400). Yet this was but the
lower aspect of Hathor, Neith, and Isis. Neith, or the celestial Hathor, was one of the most spiritual, recondite, and abstract of all the deities of the Egyptian pantheon, in this sense the celestial womb of light, out of which came in hierarchical procession the world or the cosmos and all in and of it.
October is a month known for its "bright blue weather" when the skies are clear and the sun shines brightly. By the end of October the weather is turning very cold. In the Celtic Calendar, the season of light, Summer aka Samon is coming to and end and the season of darkness, Winter aka Gamon is about to begin. The Feast of the Dead is held on October 31 aka Samhein (Summer's End). At this time, the walls between the upper world and the lower world are thin, and the spirits of the living and the dead may communicate.
Reverend Mother Georgia
The Thursar do not know that Yggdrasil exists. Its glassy gold is to them, as to many of us, invisible, and thus they laugh at its invocation. To them, only the chaos of monstrous matter, visible before their eyes, exists, and they know not, therefore, the cradle and womb of that chaos, which takes it up and weaves it into a living context.
The living order at the heart of matter is not immediately evident to purely empirical eyes. Such a notion is easily scoffed at, particularly by those for whom only the effects of brute force are real. (Think of how much "force" is a basic concept in our rudimentary physics!) But there are those who are able to see with eyes of meaning, and know that what they see through those eyes is as real as what the physical eyes see.
You can't see Yggdrasil. You can't point to its branches. You cannot show its trunk. You cannot prove its deep roots. Yet it is that totality of life and meaning, which encompasses and yet transcends the biological and material, for which the Gods train to fight and protect. It is that which fully matters.
It matters because it is important ; and it also "matters" in the sense that it exhudes as an epidermal shedding from its deeper flows that material world of flesh and bone and bark and stone we know so well. Thursar look at the shed husks and conclude it is all.
No wonder they are so hungry. No wonder they would eat the world. For they feed their souls on the tablescraps of the Great Feast, and bemoaning their starvation, brutally assault the world to feed that endless gnawing.
There is more. It is alive. It cannot be seen with physical eyes.
This is what we teach. This is the essence of what the ancestors passed on. This is the center around which even Gods are peripheral. The cosmos is alive, and we only follow our own Gods' example when we do worship a tree.
Putting rhetoric aside, and basing evaluation entirely upon actions and interactions, I would define the heathen community at present largely as a group dedicated to the worship of Loki.
I do not claim that this worship is explicit in terms of external dedication, ceremony, or words, but rather that it is inherent in those deeds acted upon and the quality of interactions.
The level of sheer strife, beyond the level of basic human imperfection and conflict, beyond even that ordinary level of cynicism we expect for human beings in a corrupted age, when Baldur has fallen, is really quite extraordinary, which is to say it is deplorable. It points to a very rudimentary level of social evolution, where decorum, courtesy, conflict-resolution, and clear thought remain at frankly juvenile levels of stunted growth.
One need not look very far and wide to discover such disappointing dedication and devotion to principles of strife. It is both prevalent and frequent. And it does not reflect the kind of interpersonal development the Gods wish for us to attain. But that is our choice. We can choose the path of sustainability and survival, or we can give way to faction, slander, and the politics of continual disappointment, and watch efforts become swallowed by time and consigned thereby to the garbage bin for overall value. In this, we ought not wonder at widespread divestment by those with talent and who are dedicated to excellence, for the very fact that wisdom after a time urges the best to not throw in their good value with that which has little more intent than the vagaries and storms of the unconscious moment.
It represents a genuine and rather deep crisis in the heathen community. This crisis can be taken seriously, addressed with both personal soul-searching and interpersonal intelligence, and worked through, or it can be pooh-poohed, cynically noted with resignation, or avoided, with the ultimate result of being pronounced by history itself as being irrelevant to the ongoing survival and thrival of the species.
I'm not certain that the depth of this crisis is appreciated. It touches fundamental religious issues. Something is wrong with our worship forms if they are not creating greater and more lasting levels of unity capable of riding out transient storms of conflict. We are tested by the ways in which we handle conflict, and overall, the learning curve at this point is not too encouraging. The wise ones stand back from the petty conflicts and just ride it out, but there is something more fundamental going on that requires address. It seems to me that a level of hypocrisy, and one that is quite deadly to our vitality, has entered into our rituals, one akin to the Sunday-Christian phenomenon of professing one thing in church and living something entirely different. Such hypocrisy indicates that there is a lack of honesty and authenticity in our rituals about what our authentic struggles are, and a failure to pray for the ability to skillfully and gracefully work through such struggles. It would seem we are speaking bold words, and getting caught up in the bombasticism of the moment, declaring things our actions and indeed the very texture of our lives belie. We speak of loyalty, of honor, of kinship, of wisdom, of frith, and of strength. These are easy things to speak about. They are heady and they sound good. One feels glorious merely reciting the words.
We learn the right things to say within a group and then we say them. We receive our accolades and make our alliances. It really doesn't matter what the words are. It could be this group's creed, it could be that group's creed. It could be beautiful words, it could be ugly words. It doesn't really matter. We aren't much listening anyway.
The last thing in the world we want is to really face our deficiencies and do the work required to improve upon them. That requires awareness, soul-searching, and real work. No, just pass the horn around and say some things that will make people feel good and self-important in the moment. Then do whatever you want. Do what you were going to do anyway. Follow your whims, and if it takes you into conflict, be as nasty as your unconscious desires impel you to be. If someone calls you on your behavior, or advises you to cultivate a little more awareness, pull up some phrases from common slogans as a shield, and finagle an argument that tries to show how their check and balance upon your acting out is really a violation of all the wonderful words that have been bandied about. That's what those words are there for, anyway, right? To give you some kind of defense in case someone actually makes some genuine and genuinely constructive critique?
We've forgotten, it seems, that the word "worth" is in the word "worship", and therefore fail to ask the soul-searching question, Am I worthy to worship? If that sounds like a strange question, one might want to sit down and think about it. It is, admittedly, a hard question. It does not cater to convenience or ease. It asks something of you. It doesn't come door to door to you to offer you blessings for free. The question asks you whether you are worthy of such worthy ancestors and worthy Gods.
Think about it. On a human level, would you walk into a club that was filled with the cream of the crop, the most excellent in the field, and really feel qualified to take up their time? Have you accomplished enough, have you improved yourself enough, have you dedicated yourself enough to the values around which that club is organized, to feel that anyone would even take your application seriously? Think that through, because chances are, you would feel a level of formidable intimidation to even consider entering an application, unless you were really, really good, and not just in your own mind, but as tested by circumstances and long experience. If you weren't intimidated, but also were not very good, you would show yourself to be a fool, and the club would want to have little to do with you. Under such circumstances, how much benefit ought you to expect from its members, practically speaking? If you have done little to advance their agenda, to enliven them, even to entertain them in terms of motifs and interests they find engaging, and in fact, from your achievements or lack thereof, are beneath their notice, how much help do you anticipate from this club? Think real pragmatically here.
Now consider that as a heathen you are making an application to join a club of ancestors whose deeds are sung around the world, and Gods whose great deeds speak for themselves in the majesties and beauties of the world itself. If you're not at least a little bit intimidated, not only have you not been paying attention, but you aren't even taking the matter seriously. And if you are not taking the matter seriously, and are therefore engaged in what amounts to little more than game-playing and social recitation, how do you expect beings of such worth to take you seriously at all?
Prayer ought be understood as a request or petition. If you were petitioning an individual or group to whose values you had openly scorned -- if not with words, then with deeds -- and were asking them for some kind of practical assistance in your life, beyond, say, the bare minimum of help that strangers might grant to one another out of a humanistic dedication to the larger community, how much practical assistance would you really expect to be rendered?
On a communal level, the question goes deeper. It is now no longer a question of whether you personally are worthy to participate in such worship, but when considering a potential member of your group (or even an already existing one), are they worthy of participating in such worship? Again, I know, a hard question, but then, convenience was never one of those bold words passed around in toasts. I beg practicality again. If you were part of a group that was petitioning a large organization or official, say, the President or the Congress or the United Nations, or even some international charity fund of some kind, and you knew that part of the process of considering your petition would involve scrutinizing the merit of the individuals who make up your group, as well as the overall integrity of the group itself, is the person next to you holding the horn of such merit that the petition will be either turned down or potentially accepted? Because now you're all in this together. You personally may be of excellent worth, but if you keep the company of low-lifes, in anything more than a charitable way, it is going to reflect, like it or not, upon you. Is this person an asset to the group's goal of attaining merit in the eyes of those it is petitioning? If you aren't considering these things, you're probably not taking the group very seriously, and it is probably nothing more than a social club, or perhaps even a drinking club, with a little Norse dressing just for flavor. (Or, within our larger generalization, whatever flavor the group professes as its particular style.) You ought not anticipate, therefore, for anyone, whether part of the larger public, or a part of the higher group you are petitioning, to take you seriously at all. Your credibility, and therefore effective organizational or social power, will be very low. If this is true at a human level, how much more true it is on higher levels.
I want to make it clear that when I encourage individuals and groups to engage in soul-searching regarding their own worthiness that perfection is not a relevant issue. Every single person has deficiencies which it is their responsibility to notice, address, and tend. The question of worth addresses whether you are actually doing your work in this regard, and the dedication with which you have thrown yourself into the work. Everyone makes mistakes, and everyone, to differing degrees, is entitled to a little fun. The question of worth is not encouraging a false sense of shame. However, if there is shame inside, that is worthy to examine and address, because it just might be speaking to something. It might speak to something which needs development and work. If you've begun the path of undoing shame through good work, you have begun a path which leads to merit and worthy notice. You might slip. Life is full of failures and conflicts. The question is how quickly you pick yourself back up, address and correct your mistakes, and dedicate yourself back to the work. And ultimately, as well, there is a question of learning curve. Repeated and significant mistakes (there are many mistakes that are of little or no consequence), particularly if they involve injuries of some kind, will not help one's reputation.
And reputation here is geared towards worth. This is not about whether people "like" you or not. People's attractions and affinities are diverse and changeable, often to the point of fickleness, but what people authentically value, and I mean authentically value as demonstrated repeatedly in the concrete texture of their lives, tends to remain steady and weather petty flurries and little primate monkey-storms of "I like her", "I don't like him", etc. In fact, when someone demonstrates achievement in terms of things we actually value, we often are willing to set aside whether we personally like them or not, and they gain honor in our eyes for their authentic integrity despite their likability or lack thereof. Returning to our more practical examples, you might know on a personal level several people who are part of an exclusive club with selective membership dedicated to specific goals, and you might have a good relationship with them. Despite their personal liking for you, however, you are not going to become part of the group (if the group, that is, has any real integrity) unless you demonstrate some basic level of competence, and no one ought expect otherwise.
This is why I place so little stock in hereditary approaches to ethnicity, because mere ancestry does not establish worth in and of itself. Sure, we're all willing to extend the minimum loyalty required of a family member towards even the worst of our kin, but such are mere trifles. It is those family members who have actually made good of themselves, or at least have not proven themselves to be forces of mayhem, who win our long approval, and to whom we are willing to dedicate greater amounts of passion and assistance. And the Icelandic Sagas are full of instances of kinsmen refusing to render any palpable assistance to a kinsman who has proven to be a danger or of little worth. How much more so from kinsmen beyond the grave with their expanded perspective. The point here is, don't stand on the laurels of your ancestors unless you are willing to live the values behind the deeds which made them great. And if you stand on the laurels of ancestors who did no deeds and proved of little worth (or worse), what kinds of benefits do you expect to receive from such powerless people? Do you think you personally gain worth just because someone a long time ago who happens to be related to you did something of value? What are you going to do? That heritage is nothing in which to rest in complacency ; it is, actually, more of an onus upon you, for even greater deeds than average are expected. (And one more friendly critique of the volkish : there is absolutely no indication that any of our ancestors ever attempted to create any kind of social or legal form of copyright around their worship forms, let alone one that was based solely on genetic ties. Affinity and worth, as always, are the stronger factors, and while biological ancestry might create greater propensity towards affinity, it cannot establish worth without equal or greater achievements of merit. It stands to reason that there will be many with biological ancestry who have neither affinity nor worth, while on the other hand, there may be some, or even potentially many, who have little biological ancestry yet a great deal of affinity and even worth. Such matters are best left to Wyrd, rather than human politics.)
This doesn't mean we should go prying into other people's lives and appoint ourselves judge over them. It does mean we should encourage soul-searching, and should not shy away from appearing intimidating, and ought to, as discretely and appropriately as possible, in the spirit of genuinely constructive critique aimed at improvement, point out discrepancies between professed declarations and actual, glaring conduct.
Constructive critique and methods of conflict resolution are vital parts of keeping any group healthy. One of the first orders of business in this regard is to prioritize, which already brings us back to the basic issue of weighing the worth of things, and figure out what is important and what is not. What is petty, and what has weight? Once this determination has been made, and some sort of consensus established, it is then worthy to assess : to what side of this spectrum of pettiness versus importance does an individual or group dedicate most of their energies? If pettiness is a major concern, as reflected in actual interactions, then that which is actually important is probably being majorly neglected. In fact, if pettiness is a major and lasting concern, then what is actually happening --- in reality, not rhetoric --- is that they are declaring that what is petty is in fact of major importance to them. They have made their concrete choices. I know these are hard ways of looking at things, but we ought not expect that the Gods' scrutiny will be any less probing, intense, and thorough ; if anything, it will be more so.
Once we have determined what is petty and what is not, we can then attend to actual methods of addressing and resolving conflict. Are private matters kept at least somewhat private? Are public matters addressed in proper channels? Despite passions, has proper decorum been observed, which is to say has proper respect for the larger community, who is not a party to the special interests involved in the conflict, and is therefore deserving of sustained consideration and regard, been given?
How do you deal with your upsets? We all get upset, every single one of us, each in differing ways. We all may need arenas, forums, and venues in which to blow off steam and air out our frustrations. (And here we may ask, have you searched for an appropriate arena? If one does not exist, have you begun the work of creating that arena?) The question is, when you get upset, do your speech-and-deed-actions reflect those values you so boldly claim in circle? Carefully scrutinizing your actual life, when you get upset, are your actions characterized by honor, loyalty, kinship, wisdom, strength, and frith? Do they at least lean in that direction? If not, what are you doing about it? Do you need some help learning how to moderate your temper or find appropriate ways to express your frustrations and air out your conflicts? Seek out and find such help, discretely or openly as you see fit.
Remember, anyone can be a good guy, or so seem, when they're not upset, when nothing is going wrong, when everything is going their way, and conflict is absent. What you're really declaring (and, let's face it, aspiring towards, more than anything else) in circle is how you wish and will to be when the cards are down and things are difficult. How are you in conflict? How are you when upset? You don't have to be perfect. Even the Gods are not perfect, and they have broad tolerance and understanding for personal failings for all those who have demonstrated overall their merits and dedication to those values the Gods affirm as life-enhancing. If you're doing your work, you get a lot of credit, even if you slip up. If you're not doing your work, and have openly, with your actions if not your speech, declared that your life is dedicated to mayhem, do not expect a lot of help or understanding. It is your choices, and not your rhetoric, that make your alliances. (And believe that those alliances will be scrutinized by the Gods in great detail : attend to your loyalties and associations.)
To invoke a cliche (but a good one) : don't talk the talk, walk the walk. Then you can talk. If people aren't walking the walk, you might want to ask whether they are in fact just bowing down before cartoon characters, because these Gods defend very particular values, and seek them in those who seek benefits. If that's hard, I'm sorry, but so is life.
The theodish have an official called the thyle whose official business is to act as a devil's advocate at ritual, and call into question any claim which doesn't seem to match the actual deeds of those speaking. The thyle is, therefore, the bullshit detector. It seems obvious to me that we need a lot more bullshit detecting in heathenism, whether centered in a particular official, or more generally and discretely exercised, because if the ritual is to have meaning, words and actions must be woven together in authentic ways, and people must be dedicated to actually working on the struggles which they declare and for which they petition aid.
I don't personally care whether you like me or not. I mean, it might be nice, and I might enjoy it if you did like me. But your liking me or not is not going to seduce me away from my real values. And whether you like me or not, whether you enjoy what I say or not, one thing you will see is that over time, on the whole, I am both dedicated and persistent to fulfilling those values I declare. I, like everyone else, have a lot of work to do, but I take that work very seriously. And I do in fact anticipate that over time that dedication will prove of value to those who authentically share the same values, regardless of their personal feelings of like or dislike towards me. That is, after all, what worth is all about, because it allows us to rise above the petty monkey politics. If the latter is all you wish, hey, why did Ask and Embla ever come down from the trees? Are you going to waste or flourish those soulful gifts the Gods once gave?
Dear Madam,
Two nights ago, I dreamt of our Mother Mary, who was floating in the sky. She was a real person in my dream. She was wearing an ivory colored long gown with a little gold and brown accent. The gown is pleated in front, just like her other gowns. I was standing on the ground, looking at her. She smiled at me and nodded at me and handed me a burgundy red ladies' leather handbag.
I stretched out my hands to receive it from her. After she has handed me the bag, she disappeared.
Can you please tell me the meaning of my dream ?
Is there anywhere in the world where Mother Mary appeared wearing the gown I described ?
Will await your kind answer.
Truly yours,
Mrs. E. K.
Honored Mrs. K., there are indeed many images of Our dear Mother dressed in ivory or white in the manner you describe (we reproduce one here). This is especially an image of purity and salvation.
The meaning of the red leather purse or handbag may depend somewhat on your relation to such a purse. Do you use one, or did you formerly?
Such a purse is associated with traditional femininity in Western countries, and many women no longer use them, preferring more casual and "unisex" containers.
It is possible that Our Lady is here assuring you of her love, and empowering you to embrace the simple, pure and elegant femininity that so many have left behind and yet which has a spiritual meaning far deeper than its everyday appearance may lead us to guess.
The world needs to regain femininity and we believe Our Lady was giving this message to you as it may have some special relevance to your life right now. 
