The Flight of the Silver Vixen may look like a work of feminist science fiction, but it is much more. It is a novel that has an authentic background of devotion to Our Mother God and the Golden Order.

In Drápa af Maríugrát, a skaldic poem of the 1300s, Jesus is repeatedly referred to as a "prince of the sun". He is called the öðlingr ... bjartra röðla, "atheling of the bright sun", the fylki sunnu, "king of the sun", sunnu grundar siklings , "king of the sun's grassy fields", hilmi sólar, "helmsman/ruler of the sun", lofðung‹r› hauðrs ... sólar, "the prince of the sun's land", máttugr anzar mána stjettar, "mighty defender of the paths of Mani", sólar vísir, "leader of the sun", Höll ítarlig himna stillis, "glorious moderator of the Hall of Heaven", mildingr ... mána hauðrs, "the merciful prince of Mani's land", mána hauðrs stilli, "moderator of Mani's land", hilmis sunnu, "helmsman of the sun", hilmir vænnar stjettar ... bjartrar sólar, "helmsman of the beautiful paths of the bright sun", sólar kóngs, "king of the sun", birti dróttins ... mána strandar, "the bright lord of Mani's shores", sólar þengils, "thing-leader of the sun", hirði mána bryggju, "herdsman of Mani's bridge", and sæll ... sólar stillir sóma prýddr, "blessed honor-adorned moderator of the sun".

Although the intent of the poem is to designate Jesus as the ruler of the heavens, and indeed, he is sometimes so called, it is curious that he is paired with the sun so often. In three places, he is actually referred to as a protector of the paths of the sun and the moon, a place which in the heathen mythology belonged to Baldr. This suggests that the skald had his kennings ready to hand, and could simply transfer what had been kennings of Baldr directly to Jesus. Indeed, in a couple places, the skald seems to lift paraphrases of Thor as well, lát þú kveikjast loginn dróttins leiptra skríns í hjarta mínu, "Let thou kindle the fire of the lord of the shrine of lightning in my heart", and lýðr er allr leiptra stillis lofi dýrligstu skyldr að ofra, "All people should offer endearing praise to the leader of lightning". It would seem as if Christian poets were free to lift the epithets of various heathen Gods and with a slight twist, apply them all to God or to Christ. Yet when these adaptations are obvious, we may have an inroads to reclaiming important kennings and conceptions of our ancient Gods.

Scholars have speculated that the poet of Drápa af Maríugrát was reworking Planctus siue lamentacio beate Marie, which was a prose translation into Icelandic of Liber de passione Christi et doloribus et planctus matris eius, by the Italian abbot Ogerius de Locedio of the 12th century, but as a skaldic poem, the choice of kennings was the poet's. He may have many times needed to translate a phrase meaning "lord of the heavens", but that he does so with kennings that are strikingly reminiscent of Baldur's epithets is telling. Knowing this, we may reclaim these kennings for Baldur, who was known as a great moderator of the heavens, and who protected the sun and the moon on their courses.

This is a reminder to everyone that tomorrow (Saturday) is Moura Day. Have you decided what you are giving up and/or doing for Moura yet? Tomorrow is a festival wherein it is traditional to indulge freely in whatever you are giving up. Moura lasts from Sunday the First of Moura (19 Feb) to Monday 20th of March (which has no date in the Filianic Calendar – it is the Day out of Time. The new year begins on Monday the First of Culverine (21st March)

I am interested in learning the reasons or symbolisms behind the assignations of the Janyas and the Elements over which they rule, in accordance with the four cardinal directions. For instance, in say, Wicca along with the tarot and other western systems (I believe this originated with the Golden Dawn), Air is East/Spring, Fire is South/Summer (although not considered so in Australia), Water is West/Autumn and Earth is North/Winter. In the Deanic Faith, Water is East under the rule of Sai Sushuri, Fire remains in the South under the rule of Sai Vikhe, Earth is West under the Rule of Sai Thame and Air is North under Sai Mati. Is this a reflection of the Cardinal Directions and the corresponding Elements from an Eastern point of view in general, or the Deanic/Filianic Faith in particular? The Filianic attribution of the cardinal directions to the elements is, we think, fairly unique to the Filianic faith - though someone will probably now find other examples. Water, for example is considered the element of love, hence its attribution to Sai Sushuri. It also has lunar and sacrificial associations, and belongs to Eastre; and again is the sign of new life - both the Resurrection and the natural new life of Spring. The Janyatic attributions are not intended to be absolute. Water and Sai Sushuri are not permanently bonded - indeed, as suggested above, Sai Candre rules water in some aspects. The three/four division of the Janyati, which attributes the quaternity to the four material elements is only one (important) perspective. In the east, Janya attributes tend to be different. One of the most usual is: Water to Sai Mati
Wood to Sai Thamë
Fire to Sai Vikhë
Metal (gold) to Sai Sushuri
Earth to Sai Rhave. As in the Filianic system, the two luminaries (Sai Raya and Sai Candre) are not part of the elemental schema but earth is attributed to Sai Rhave (which is also a Filianic association from some perspectives - the schema not being exclusive) . In the Filianic schema, however, Sai Rhave forms part of the triplicity with the luminaries, and the whole triplicity rules the fifth, non-material, element of aethyr.

Don’t be lazy about your good. Too much whip about your ill can wilt the good, however small, still active within you. The good must be nurtured, cultivated, watered, loved, given ample opportunity and room. Scolding has its place, but it oversteps if it begins to encroach on the active nurturing of the good. What is good in you, act upon. What promises fruit, water and tend. What promises opportunity and growth, seize upon. It is our feebleness in the face of our good promise, and less our fill of ill, that undoes us. Have the courage to be the best within you. It takes valour to reach out for what calls from within.

The sinuous,

As thick, petrified snake,

Its scales of mottled bark,

Uptending skyward-bound,

Where far past all the canopies of men,

Its trunk enringed by billowed clouds,

And up through starry heights,

Where white-powdered fog-roiled beard of All-Father looms,

The thunder of his son beside him,

And the colors all of all the Heavenly Gods.

Through such clouds as these, I close my eyes and pray,

That rippling tree in serpentine waves might up

my breath’d requests that yearn for deep communion.

Rushing megin in my flesh, I tilt my head back,

And gasp with rapture. (And though this be cartoon of mind,

Though brightest, vibrant film to me,

These fancies stretched do make the link,

So far beyond is here beside.)

My only prayer, to make me holy,

Year by year by year.

And let ascend the spiraled staircase

Round the royal ash

Where my further noble blood

may be imbibed and fused into my bones,

The boons of which I share with kith,

And kin, as shining sun.

Let all stains of unworth begone ;

Let all unholy thoughts,

Let all unholy will,

Let all unholy deeds, drain down as watered venom

To the wastelands of the nether North,

Where they may rot the ill back into soil.

Give me strength to fight each battle,

The inner as the outer, too,

For ill, oft tricky, hides within,

As out withal we ward.

Let me pulse on that path laid for my wholemaking,

And never far astray from it do wend,

For where I don’t belong I have no holy power.

But where I do belong, give strength,

Give will, give righteous wisdom.

And as I ask You All to listen

With wisened balance the in-between

The mercy and the justice that I crave,

May I my own ears’ judgement broaden,

And to fellows fair, my fairest judgements give.

Let me gather my momentum,

as a wave with all its fellows does,

When rushing from the all of ocean,

It out upon the shores as horses spring.

For I am fruit, and fruit ought warm, and come to fullness.

Give soothe to wounds’ torment,

Which oft long linger after scars.

Let eyes in darkness rest from dazzle of battle’s blaze,

And in dream a new way portend and glimpse.

Let my boldness be a beacon to the weak,

To find their strength in bending,

But the ill leave far behind.

May I fulfill my highest, righteous rung of wyrd,

And be a blessing to my Folk, and Land, and Cosmos;

Be it humble, I shall smile.

Let breathe the bless of each day’s boon

Which you in plural color give

So deep into my inner dens,

And banish angst,

And banish sickness,

And banish every wicked seed of deed,

For I shall will the Good, in all its blessed Wholeness,

With the stridence of my fullest might,

And pledge myself to do thy Right,

Whose pathways long ago you laid down.

This, a humble-handed ant,

With spark of upper fires held

in silly, smallest brain,

Beneath on dust of planets’ shores,

A world though small, be full of good potential,

Offers up to Thee and Thine.

There in high cathedrals, in a city further far

Than all of space and time could fathom,

I know you are, and yet you hear my prayers.

O hear my prayers, O blessed Lords and Ladies.

As if the waves of water part, when swim,

I peer, by peeling back the papered bark

Of crystal-boughèd tree (whose crown in seas

Of studded-flash of black does blow its green

And luminescent leaves), within the pith

Of pulpy xylem, and I hear within the echoed pulse

Of beating song that stirs fermented saps, a sound.

First faint, a newer strand, a fresh motif

Of orange-blazèd mew, and padded paws

On dark and dewy grass as heads he forth

For family grounds of mine in lower realms,

My cat, this midnight last his breath in-took ;

And know within the surging choir hid

Invisible beneath all things, his wise meow

Shall now resound, as wisdom realized, all

Within the all of inner depths of all, from roots

So thick and gnarled, down, how far

Their downing goes, O no one knows ; but there,

In nestled valley meadows, where my hall

Of elders’ roof is raised beside the mountain gardens,

He shall purr ; and trill from his enwisened purr

Shall pulse within the pith of tree, and nourish me,

And all my kin, and you, as well, if feline wit

In old and graceful strength you’d claim as wise.

I do, I do, I do ; adieu, O sweetest Garfield.

Let tears of mine be dew

That softens all the pathways’ meadows

As you pitter-patter to the steps of where

My friend two years of late did pass

Shall warm and welcome you, with soft caresses.

Wyrd is full of twist and turns of flowing, raging chance, which ravel 'bout each other, forming loop and twine and threaded pattern, giving layer to the screaming song, so it has force of habit rolling forward. So deep are deepest habits that we call these layers law, but though this pulsing web of rippled light is strong, and we may oft predict, what will become is shimmered on the rippling skein of lake, in constant motion. So the deepest strength of fate has chance insurging through it, strong, so all determinations laid down have a strange, uncanny whimsy running through them. From higher elevations, momentum may be projected towards trajectory, but how the details come, not even higher ones can know. And so the world is woven with surprise, and all our hopes ride on the wings of shrouded magic, even as the strongest motions lunge with near-unstoppable stampede. An element of uncertainty survives ; and thus, we call it Wyrd.

Who is spiritual? Often the people who are advertising it the least. The people who proclaim their spirituality are often seeking spirituality, but haven't found it. "The wyrd that can be worded is not so weirded." Thus sayeth Wyrd Megin Thew, in loving transliteration of the Tao Te Ching. Those who know speak softly and do.

In my book Wyrd Megin Thew, I suggest that there are inchoate priesthoods waiting in the earth to be claimed, that ordinary people may be living. An English professor teaching the soulful meanings in literature may be functioning as a druid. A hospice worker may function more as a shaman than someone with a lot of paraphernalia. A gardener may be an inchoate pagan, intuitively working with the spirits.

There are people out there doing good work. Exceptional work, even. They exhude wisdom, and often, they are too immersed in their work to do advertising. Yet they deserve recognition and we ought to open our eyes and praise the worth of their work, because they can teach us. Teachers are all around us. If pagan/heathen spirituality is about anything, it is that : teachers surround us. But often in humble places that require us to humble our imperialist arrogance and get closer to the ground.

Who is spiritual? Those doing the work of the spirits. Spirits are invisible. Their workers may be less than obvious to the eyes as well. Priesthoods do not disappear ; they simply stop being recognized by a culture, yet the draw and pull to them continues to pull souls in to do the good work. Good culture gives name and role to that which has value. Look around you. Who, unrecognized, is performing ministry? Who is serving spirit in all its many variations and relations? Let them know that they are doing something sacred. Life is tended to in many ways, and all who do the tending merit praise. Spirituality is often performed in surprisingly ordinary ways. Who touches us acts as spirits' emissary. Who teaches us gives us access to deeper legacies. Who lives well, however silent, provides model for all of us who fall from virtue so easily. Let us see teachers where before we saw none. Let us recognize good work and give it praise.

Don’t miss out on the wind.

Plato emphasizes that the wise must transcend the body and its material prison in order to discover their refined spirit. No doubt this is based in ancient pagan spiritual practices grounded in the mysteries. But it is only half of the story.

The soul is, in fact, bi-directional. It connects to the spirit, and it connects to the animal-spirits within the body. It grows up from the earth, but is breathed into by the spirit. We find this in the Voluspa strophes where mankind is created from the trees. The odr is in between the ond, the spirit that can soar into the cosmos, and the la, the blood, and leiti, the senses, both of which give us animal movement.

The fact of the matter is, we need both.

We incarnated to have an experience of Beloved Mother Earth. Doubt not that we wanted to feel ourselves deeply within her womb. The ascetic path of detaching from everything bodily and material only speaks to half of the equation. It is true that if we get too caught up in the senses and take everything literal we find there, we may lose out on important spiritual truths. Yggdrasil, for example, cannot be seen with the five senses. Blake called that part of us that is entirely invested in the five senses the “spectre”, and it is this part of ourselves that doubts spirituality and questions immortality. This is the animal part of ourselves that becomes afraid of any fright of death. But it is also the part the is deeply attuned to the primal experiences of the earth. We ought not slander this animal. Indeed, we have come in part to care for it.

Don’t miss out on the wind. I believe that we need to experience the qualities of this natural and wild world, the wilder the better. This is important to our soul. Lately at times I will do nothing but open my window in the evening, with the lights off, and lie in bed, allowing myself to experience all the sounds on the air, and feel the cool wind. I may do that for an hour or a couple hours. Or I go outside and walk around, to feel the sky, the trees, the grass. I need these things. These are not extraneous.

The fact that Plato de-emphasizes these experiences may suggest that in his time, particularly in Greece, there was great gusto for the material enjoyment of the senses, and that this could be taken for granted, and thus, his teachings were intended as an antidote, a balancing medicine. But the fact of the matter is that spiritual teachings have since been imbalanced in this direction. Opening our Cosmic Mind is important. It is important to practice the gaze of see-through eyes which turn this opaque flesh and matter transparent, so we can look into body and world and see the tumbling stars and nebulae through them, and soar to all the far places our spirit of wind may take us. In this way, we may surge throughout the nine worlds, and allow the Great Tree to gallop as a great horse. These are important. Some of Plato’s suggestions on de-identifying from the body can be very useful in this regard.

But do not miss the fact that the soul needs the earth besides. We do need what Father Sky offers. But we also desperately need what Mother Earth offers. We will not be complete without feeling the soil in our hands, many a time, tumbling in the grass, licking – yes, licking – the bark of trees (non-poisonous varieties!), running our hands through someone else’s hair, standing out and allowing the winds to affect us. These qualities we need within us. We need to deeply experience them so that they become a part of us. The ceremonial magicians and hermeticists speak about uniting the microcosm – our psyches – and the macrocosm – the world about us, and this is an intellectual expression of a very heathen sensibility. We become ourselves through the world. We grow soul through the experiences of the world.

Let us not become after life a hungering soul who is bereft of all the experiences we needed to be full and complete. This does not mean diving after experiences like a tourist. It means taking the time to really feel and reflect, and deepen that which we encounter into true experiences. The dead who do not do this miss the carved wood of the chair, miss the exquisite linen of the doily table-cloth, crave the textured bark of the hickory, long for the wind. For these qualities do not live within themselves. That is what it means to be a heathen, to take these qualities within.

For the truth, which Plato did not speak, is that when you deepen your experience of the sensual earth-world about us, it deepens into an experience of soul that is as spiritual as the ascetic spirit.

Or did Plato? He spoke of material things as shadows of their real spiritual forms. This suggests that by immersing ourselves in the material things and deepening our connection, we could touch the level of spirit-form within the things. This is probably how seers and witches functioned in his time. So he may have expressed this as well.

What is really needed is a balance. There are those who can afford to detach from their enslavement to the senses, and stretch their mind beyond to more cosmic and intellectual truths. But there are those who are so in flight they have lost their groundedness. Now why did they come to Earth, of all the nine worlds? Perhaps because their soul lacked some of the weightiness that is fitting for a good soul. We come here to mature. If we trust Beloved Mother Earth, as the kind guardian and spiritual guide behind and within this material stuff, she will help us find that rich and soulful maturity.

Don’t miss out on the wind. The earth The leaves. The ond cries out we are immortal. Let us listen. But the blood and the senses say, you are a traveler, a short sojourner in a place of marvel, whatever its terrors : drink the marvel, taste all you can. The blood and senses do not lie. Spirituality is simply finding their proper place. The sense of mortality rises up from the blood and senses. We know we are not here forever. Therefore every moment is precious. Therefore we have an opportunity. The soul has a chance to be stained not by sin, which mars it, but by the color of earth tones and the texture of experience. This makes for a colorful, alive, vibrant soul that will enrich and nourish the underworld within-of-all-withins when it returns at last to its roots.

For why did a flower arises from roots at all but to blossom? Raise and unfold thy petals, drink in the rain, feel the sun on your fronds, and come into your own bloom of warmth. The soul says, let me run like an animal upon these blessed plains. Allow me to pant and stand my ground and truly feel. And the soaring spirit, which longs to rise above and sail the seven seas of the nine worlds, will be enriched by the experience.

Tower of light,
as sun beneath the sea rising,
arms stretched out in dawn
shoreline yawns, she beams, and I,
upon the highest seat on granite crags
that all above the circling worlds does sit,
am stunned, with awe of brightness bound
within a sterile, barren wasteland. Ah!
If only I, who like her light, was once sore bound
within the lair of howling brutes, might free :
release that seething ovum-field so burgeon'd out
to barley-burst in green and gold upon the fields!
For I have caught her shy yet stern and stoutest eyes
beneath that deepest palace shining gold
beneath the green-blue waves where Gods take sip
of Aegir tribute-brewèd beer : but ne'er
before this moment dawning 'fore my eyes have I
been awed so deep with ripe so frozen buried!
Tears! O if these tears might drip as drops of rain
from antlers of Eikthyrnir, down,
to where her homeland, frozen-bound, is found,
then thaw, the ancient loin-runes of my wand, might work
such magic marvel-ripening as ne'er the eyes have seen!
Alas! But yet this rescue may not --- no, it is forbidden, sure!
Then why my eyes did rest upon her bosom beaming
cleaved beneath the ice-rimmed sea above? O why?
For I might rescue her entire, loose her gripped
by blue-cold hands! But as it stands, I rue,
bereft with sudden love forbid and foreign.

Commenting on our new page on The Feast of Lights, La Petite Sorciere writes:

I have often heard the Daughter's Taking on of Fate equated to Quan Yin's Vow. I am sure this is correct, but I have a question. Quan Yin's vow is not to enter Buddhahood (oneness with the Divine) until every being is saved "even to the last blade of grass". However the Daughter, while She goes down unto death, is ultimately raised up as Queen of Heaven. Can you shed more light on this?

Thank you for raising this point. What we must bear in mind here is that Myths, which are far profounder than mere terrestrial history, are in fact four-dimensional snapshots of Realities that lie beyond dimensionality - in other words, Transcendent events presented to our understanding as if they were events in time and space. Since we are space/time-bound creatures this is the only way we can perceive them. The primary difference between the "angle" or "perspective" of the Quan Yin story and the Gospel is that of time. In the first place Quan Yin is seen (at least partially) as a human who attains Buddhahood, but refuses it, while the Daughter is Divine from the beginning. Now in fact, Quan Yin is a Goddess assimilated into Buddhism, but even leaving this aside and speaking purely within the logic, or "economy", of Buddhism, the difference between the two perspectives is illusory. Once a being has attained full and ultimate Buddhahood she is Divine and is (one with) the only God that Buddhism acknowledges (and we accept this as a valid Spiritual perspective, although not ours). So the refusal of Buddhahood and the separation of the Daughter from the Mother are two ways of expressing the same thing: the paradoxical separation of the Divine from the Divine, for the salvation of beings. The Daughter is certainly raised up as Queen of Heaven after Her Resurrection, but She remains the Daughter. She is not assimilated into the Mother. And She is the Preserver of the Worlds. It is only through Her that the Mother's creation may continue in existence. She will continue to sustain the worlds, and to guide Her children, until all beings are reunited with the Mother, "even to the last blade of grass". We may also note that the original perspective is never far from the surface. In folk-tales about Quan Yin, She is indeed killed, descends to Hell, liberates the souls there and rises again. While these may be dismissed by High Buddhism as mere peasant tales (or more likely by arrogant Western scholarly Buddhists - eastern Buddhists tend to have more respect and more understanding of the subtleties of spirituality) - what they show is the ultimate unity of the two perspectives.

The Feast of Lights, or Luciad, is the beginning of the Easter Cycle in the religion of God the Mother.

A gift for Gardner, and his grand dames
who England opened ancient ways
unto the muggled modern zombies
banal-bound to mill-pulled machines.
From the heart of a home's secrets,
the sweet woven writhings of a kindred's craft,
books' leaves fluttering in the Autumn wind
he up gripped words to cover paths
that witches' mouths once spoke in secret.
These other authors' utterance he tailor-seam sewed
to fit the garment of the garden's God and Goddess
words women private-poem hymned, and could not share,
for oath : and oath he held, yet wrapped the naked
unspoken words in luscious leaves blood and white dew
inked by masters of magic and sex god and star'stress' wonders.
He did not need to unroll these words, for women worried
that these spells by stranger's paws might sullied be,
for soft psalms of the amateur's breath,
long hallowed in the family's secret ways through long times of hiding
might misunderstood by modern minds twist, and spit, and drive
away long kin-held fairies who gather round the magic round.
Yet he did! For beauty and subtle night's trance ought not
ever fade from the fields of blessed mother, beloved Earth!
So he psalmed, for these naked spiral writhings spellbound
spoke deep summerlands where loved ones gather
and grow their strengths for new surgings! Together!
Beyond the veil of our deepest fears, in Night's seeming snuffing,
there gasps of plenty, gasps of pleasure dawn
in the witch mind twirling naked and blindfold
on the god-named blessed circle where nymphs once
spun this spunky British gentleman long spun out
by his laughter's large eccentrics, beyond his hope or grasping.
In deep halls of grand canyon-down meandered lichen ways
to Holy Hel's sun dancing fields of apricot and frolic, he saw
the family's friends gathered in rest and pleasure, paraded
and feasted by the phallus' antlered wheat-showered God,
who in yoredays drew down blessed dew
of lunar queen's loin's marvel, kissing her, and joined his spells to hers.
In the fullness of month's menstrual orb, she taught
midst the thicket-weave's waves of fallen leaves
all matrons and maidens the heart's spell of love,
if all fairies welcome they would tend. And hunters, horn-drawn
out to pastures flocked by old oaks' many children,
heard in the deep-root spiral scent
of stag's musk the old big-bellied laughter-wisdom
of the phallus' smiling God tomes.
The gold-runed leaves of the grand dames have faded,
burnt as offerings unto the heavens, whose incensed smoke
enlucks the world, and are not found. Yet Gardner's arcane
words compiled, collaged, and wrapt up, boquet in rose
and rapture, woo, and welcome thee, and thee, and thine
to dine and taste forbidden wine
brewed by kinsmen in the depths
who wait and wassail thee. Ho!

A study of fraud, greed, brutality, and stupidity is a good way to begin spirituality. Don't start in the heights. Begin right where you are, in your community.

The Gods have set down some lessons for us. There's four big opponents in front of us : survival and the struggle to thrive, which is necessary, and then three perennial opponents who are not necessary but constant companions to us in this age and dispensation : Loki, Gullveig, and the Giants.

Let us begin with Loki. A study of the hucksters, con-men, and manipulators in a community, who learn the jargon, who twist it to justify the basest of motives, who take advantage of a community's ideals and then with often unnoticed audacity, in the very name of those ideals, is a good way to get wise. And Odin does want us to get wise.

Loki is strong in each of us, because we want to fool ourselves. We don't like to think that we can be taken advantage of, and yet our own need for delusion, and our refusal to look at things square in the face, allows us to be manipulated. And the less we are willing to see the trickster within ourselves, and simply condemn it in others, the more we are tricked by that very trickster, who punishes gullibility whether it comes in the name of innocence or judgemental and oversimplified moralism.

It's deeply disappointing to study fraud and its pervasiveness. This disappointment, and working through all the feelings that go with it, is a deep and beautiful way to nourish the wisdom within us, and is an important part of the spiritual task. To open our eyes and see flaws, and see the failure of hopes and ideals, is an important step in developing the groundedness and savvy that empowers us to further realize those hopes and ideals. Loki will teach us, if we will study him, not only what fools others are (which is often easy to spot), but what fools we ourselves are. This develops an important moral humility to which Odin points in Havamal 22 : Vesall maðr ok illa skapi hlær at hvívetna; hittki hann veit, er hann vita þyrfti, at hann er-a vamma vanr, "A man who ridicules everything is impoverished and ill-charactered ; he knows not that which he most needs to know, that he does not lack blemishes." * Which is one way of saying, "Look in the mirror."

It's not a bad place to begin by cataloguing your own flaws, your lies, your attempts to cheat others and cover it over, your deceit to yourself about your real motives in questionable situations, not to lash yourself, but to learn. To learn whom you have been worshipping in your deeds. And from that awareness, to trace consequences, and make a conscious decision whom you would really like your actions to worship.

And to acknowledge, in a hard life, in a life which is not always easy to survive, fraud and deceit are constant temptations, and often get the best of us when we're not noticing. And just as the Gods were willing to tolerate Loki up to a certain point (but not a step beyond), in reality, a little of this energy, in balance and kept in check, can be a part of the rich texture of life. But one must be very careful, because it is a slippery slope. A little white lie from time to time to gentle someone's feelings or smooth something over may really not be too terrible a sin, but if it becomes a habit, it can become problematical. Loki will pitch for the benefits of fraud and deceit, and sometimes he will be right, but the myths show that he often got himself into more trouble than he ever anticipated in his mischief and humor. He is an example to learn from, not a model to imitate. We are all still struggling with this, and frankly, our learning curve, collectively speaking, is pretty poor. Like Loki, we may be able to (up to a point) get ourselves out of the messes into which our slippery behavior has cast us, but we may in the meantime cause a great deal of collateral damage, and in a wyrd universe, all consequences, however delayed, have a way of catching up to us. Whether we are damaged in our own persons or in the consequences our beloved descendants will have to suffer is never certain, but that a "gift calls for a gift" is the primal law, and here we might remember the ambivalence of this word, particularly in German, where gift can mean not only something of worth and generosity, but also poison. Gift for gift, poison for poison, we might say.

In a world of limitations, where poverty is all too often a bone-breaking and spirit-crushing reality, where there often seems all too little of what we want, and too many people competing for it, greed is also a constant temptation in human life. We all have needs and we all have desires, and the temptation to put "me first" ahead of every other consideration and value in life, to the neglect of all else, and out of all proportion, however extreme that sounds when explicitly stated, is often very strong. We want what we want and we want what we want, and you be damned if you stand in the way. Listen close, America, you too are being called out. We have a craving, you've got it, or you stand in our way, and we'll cheat you, we'll starve you, we'll bomb you to get it. Because "that's how life is". The Mother of Wolves whispers in our ears, "It's a dog eat dog world". Traumatic fear of scarcity fuels and powers Gullveig's luring words. And let's be clear : it's not that a greedy impulse from time to time is going to condemn you. We're all human. We can be adults and understand these temptations, but also understand that from the Gods' perspective that is no excuse for laxness in our alertness and responsibility to do the work of personal, kindred, and collective growth. And we will catch ourselves from time to time having got caught up in it, and that can be ok, so long as we do catch ourselves, and so long as we are willing to take the requisite responsibility for our deeds. But greed has become so much a religion in America, developed as an ideology of mercantilist and increasingly corporatist capitalism, that the scolding that ought accompany disproportionate greed has receded to dangerously low levels. Scolding is a great tradition in heathenism. You can hear the norn Skuld's name in it. She is not called a valkyrie for nothing, because she can be a fierce warrior in calling out behavior against the loom of that which should happen, as it has been woven as potential into the weave. And if we, continuously and consistently, beyond the pale of ordinary human foibles, refuse to live up to that potential, we may by all rights be scolded, and ought to be. (Again, with the condition of moral humility expressed in Havamal 22.) The negative consequences of greed are all about us. Its disproportionate excess has inspired equally excessive antidotes, instead of seeking that healthy place in between where the intelligent mean acts as powerful fertilizer for the soil of our souls. Because of imbalanced and unaddressed greed, our relationship to money is extremely poor. We haven't even yet digested the first rune in the set!

The Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem guides us in the healthy relationship to Fehu, money. Feoh byþ frofur fira gehwylcum; sceal ðeah manna gehwylc miclun hyt dælan gif he wile for drihtne domes hleotan. "Money is comfort for every man ; though each man should distribute it abundantly if he desires to obtain a share of honor in the judgement of his lord." Money is meant to be a comfort, and one gains honor through appropriate generosity. It is attention to appropriate generosity and the spirit of magnanimousity that keeps money within appropriate limits. But the Icelandic and Norse Rune Poems warn us against the temptation to abuse. Fé er frænda róg ... ok grafseiðs gata, the Icelandic Rune Poem warns : "Money is strife to kinsmen ... and the road to the sorcery of the grave." The Norse Rune Poem cautions : føðesk ulfr í skóge, "The wolf is raised in the woods." There's no mistaking these direct allusions to Gullveig's causing strife to the kin of Aesir and Vanir, and her raising of wolves in the Ironwoods. Greed is a real danger in life, and combined with fraud, can create monsters that threaten the balance of the world. Endeavour to keep greed in check, not only in your life, but in those around you. Call out your culture in no uncertain terms when it begins breeding wolves.

Our third perennial set of opponents are the Giants. Time and again, we see the stupid people -- however myopically clever they are -- running things, and using brute force and the monopoly on violence by the State (or otherwise) to enforce their stupidity and impose it on others. Our ancestors recognized this combination of idiocy and force that often combine with excess and disproportion. They gave this spiritual power for ill the name jotnar, and visualized them as big, dumb giants with raging appetites and tempers, and identified them as the enemy of the divine force in us which impels us to grow more intelligent and seek harmony with nature. Yet time and again, we often refuse to learn our lessons, ignore the teachings of the ancestors, accept the propaganda thrown our way, and join ourselves, either in complicity or with enthusiasm, to jotnar forces.

If we do this in heathenism, we reduce heathenism to a cargo-cult, abusing symbols to render them inert, giving lip-service to the Gods while continuing with enthusiasm our stupidities, and systematically ignoring the connections (or disconnect) between our proclamations of value and our actual actions, between word and deed. We seldom ask what it means to proclaim the worth of the intelligence and spirit of the earth (Jord), of the oceans (Njord), of organic farming (Frey), of wisdom itself (Odin), or the integrity of love (Freya), and instead go by rote, a rote now given greater sanction by our false, symbol-abused gist of sanctity.

And while it's important to call out those people and institutions which are larger than us and acting even more like giants than ourselves, still we must ask ourselves to what degree we maintain our own ignorance and stubborn prejudice, acting with brute force to stuff our mouths (and groins and whatever else), while ravaging others around us, including the smaller creatures for whom we truly are giants.

Fortunately, the Gods do not leave us without tools against these opponents, for they have given us the power of wíg, of battle and struggle against pernicious tendencies, both internal and external ; but even more important than this, in our striving for survival and thrival, they have given us the power and potential of frith, the choice to harmonize with others in a spirit of mutual aid in order to get what we want in the world. As the title of a wonderful book of black and white woodblock art says, You Don't Have To Fuck Over Other People To Survive. Heathenism extends this worthy anthropocentric spirit to the entire world.

There is a kind of bottom-line test of heathenism (or any symbolic system for relating to spirit in the world, for that matter), and that is : is it enhancing our learning curve relative to living in harmony with the world? Because that eco-evolutionary learning curve really is the bottom line. Odin wants us to sharpen our wits and get on top of this dilemma. Do we answer it? Do we dare to call upon Him if we refuse? I like religion with hard questions and clear implications that in turn derive difficult challenges, and demands that knock us off our complacency and impel us to grow. Odin's message boiled down might be : "Look around, put your thinking caps on, and stop dorking around." Wisdom is not just knowing something. It's doing something about it. "We are our deeds"? We're an activist religion, like it or not. Are you an activist?




* A more literal translation, keeping the word order, would be "An impoverished man and ill-shaped laughs at everything ; he knows not that which he needs to know, that he is not lacking blemish." I have chosen the above translation for the emphasis I read in the original.

All translations copyright 2011 by Siegfried Goodfellow

I feel so grateful to heathenism, for helping me to grasp a holistic spirituality that does not divide me from my wholeness but keeps me grounded in common sense and the earth. It has helped me to realize that single variables in life, no matter how wonderful, do not make paradise simply by maximizing them to the neglect of everything else. Life is about fibre and texture, which requires many threads in the weave. It has helped me to see that I need my connection to the earth as much as I need my connection to the sky. It has helped me to affirm the struggle in life and that it is ok, even meaningful, that life is often a struggle, and, that I am in struggle rather than perfection, that I experience conflict and passion as often as I inhabit serenity and love, is not a mark against my spirituality, but rather a sign that life is complex and rich and full of knotted goodness. And at times it's bad ; not good at all. In those times we fight to make it better, and we often suffer in the fight. Too much fight and we can lose our humanity and love, and this is important to hold onto, but what heathenism teaches is that sometimes too little fight can lose us the same. There's the pragmatism of the farmer and the ecstasy of the poet, and the love of life of both. There's a place for your curmudgeon and a place for your idealist, a place for your shrewdness, and a place for your highest nobility. Praise be the Gods! They are demanding, and they are compassionate. They are wise, and they are understanding. And they desire such rich, rich goodness for each of us that they ask us to work so we can harvest the best life has to offer us. It's hard work ; it's good work ; praise be the Gods!

May we wish all our dear readers a very happy Epiphany (or Epopeia, as it was sometimes called in the pre-Christian faith of Demeter and Her Daughter Persephone). The Showing-Forth of the Daughter is the universal, cosmic darshan or "saving view" of Dea, because it is only in Her form as the "lunar" Daughter that the brightness of the solar Mother can be looked upon by our eyes. Since it is the Daughter who makes possible the Universal Darshan, by which the cosmos is preserved in, the Epiphany Event is fundamental to existence itself. We note that (perhaps more appropriately than he knew) the Pope chose this holy day to speak about the so-called "Big Bang". We wish to commend the wisely measured nature of his comments. He did not say (as some headlines have crudely suggested) "The Big Bang happened and God did it." He very wisely and properly maintained an agnostic position on the current beliefs of modern science. Properly agnostic, because scientific theories are only ever theories and cannot correctly be spoken of on the same level as metaphysical certainties. To do so would have merely been pandering to the popular scientistic (not scientific) beliefs of the Western masses. Whether a "Big Bang" actually happened, and whether it happened in the way that "science" (i.e., a majority of academic scientists at a given snapshot in time) believes, is something we cannot know for certain as long as we are time-bound beings, and when we are not, it will not matter very much. But what we can be certain of is that if it did happen it was only a secondary or mediate cause of (a certain physical level of) material manifestation. The First Principle and the Final Cause is known to us, because She has made Herself known to us.

After a thoughtful and interesting comment on yesterday's post on our Facebook page, we asked Madonna-chei to comment: It is a good essay, but it should be longer, in my opinion. For instance, it doesn't explore why fairy tales are 'naturally' feminine-because they're so old they were constructed under matriarchy? Most were written in patriarchial societies, so why are they 'naturally' feminine? Wouldn't the opposite be true if they were written by patriarchial peoples? Actually it wasn't an essay - just a comment on a comment on a Heartbook blog post. But the points you raise are valid and well worth considering. I should probably have been clearer about what I meant by "natural". Of course we can call patriarchal interpretations "natural to patriarchy", but my view was that feminine religion is natural in a much deeper sense than that. Not natural to one system or another, but natural to humanity. Or to put it another way, simply True. Patriarchal societies and religions have done a huge job of upending the first faith of humanity. Male-modelled "god forms" appear all over the world following "patriarchal revolutions". What I was saying was that, as soon as there is no patriarchal vested interest in keeping the iconography patriarchal (when, for example, folk-tales are considered unimportant) it naturally reverts to its original feminine form. Naturally because that is its true form. In a sense the stories go back to matriarchal times - but only in the sense that all fundamental archetypes are eternal and not the product of any human society. But I certainly would not put forward any literal, historical "matriarchal origin" claim, not only because it is dubiously historical, but also because the claim I would make is much deeper and more fundamental. Feminine religion is not the product of any form of society (unlike masculine religion, which is a product of patriarchy). It is religion in its fundamental, true form.

Commenting on why the main figures in modern versions of fairy tales are almost always feminine, Miss Sushuri Madonna writes: I think the reason is simply that in the metaphysics of fairy tales, the figures who represent the Divine (and even the Dark Queen) are naturally feminine. It takes effort on the part of patriarchal redactors (in the official patriarchal scriptures, for example) to masculinize them. Where they are left to themselves - for example in folk-tales, especially when folk-tales have ceased to be understood as metaphysical documents - the feminine re-surfaces naturally. One very good example is provided by Dr. A.K.Coomaraswamy's great and scholarly article "The Loathly Bride". In it he shows, with enormous documentation, how tales of the bride transformed into unpleasant forms and rescued by the hero's kiss are actually tales of the fallen soul rescued by the Spirit. In ancient versions of the story, the fallen soul was represented by a female figure and the Divine Spirit by a male. Why? Because the writers were patriarchal and had some idea what they were writing about. But as soon as that idea was lost and people (on the surface of their consciousness) believed these to be "just old stories, only fit for children", the natural order re-emerged. Who today has heard of the marriage of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell or any of the other versions Dr. Coomaraswamy cites? But everyone has heard of versions in which the Divine Spirit is feminine, such as "The Frog Prince" or "Beauty and the Beast". Interestingly, the one currently remembered story in which the giver of the Divine Kiss is not feminine is the Sleeping Beauty, but that is because the focus of the story is on Beauty Herself, and the story has a double-significance - the most prominent being that of Beauty as the Divine Spirit in the form of the Hidden Treasure or Goal of the Quest.

A discussion on the Apostles Creed, which raises some interesting questions about the Conception of God the Daughter