Monthly Archives: March 2017
Latest Prayer Cards
The Mother’s Prayer Card Series is nearly complete. The latest card will be available for purchase by week’s end. It’s Pasiphae, Mother of the Minotaur, and the image is based on Grecian vases which likewise show Her holding the baby Asterios.
Pasiphae is one of the ten Mothers of Greek Gods and heroes honored in my latest novena book: “Honoring the Mothers.”
I am still accepting donations toward the cards. Each card costs $450 including printing so every little bit toward the cost helps in the creation of more images of our Gods. If you’re interested in donating, there are perks. Please contact me at krasskova at gmail.com.
Pasiphae by Grace Palmer
There is also a prayer card by Basil Blake currently in the works for the Finnish Goddess Meilikki. I believe this is the first prayer card to a Finnish Deity. 🙂 It will be available likely next week (I am working on the prayer for the card, though if any of you honor Meilikki and would be interested in contributing the prayer, please contact me at krasskova at gmail.com. In return for writing the prayer, you will receive six cards of your choice).
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Wyrd Curiosities at Etsy
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Commissioned Prayer: To Hypnos
I’ve been getting quite a few commissions for prayers. The latest was one to the God Hypnos. (If you’re interested in commissioning a piece, please check this page for information).
Prayer to Hypnos
By G. Krasskova
(Written for S.)
Sweet Hypnos,
most benevolent and gracious God,
please hear my prayer.
Grant me the sweetness of sleep
when I seek my rest.
Help me to still my mind,
my racing thoughts,
to put the tensions
and stress of my body aside.
May Your children:
especially Morpheus,
the Oneiroi, and
Phantasmos
bless my slumber.
May my dreams be fruitful.
May I wake refreshed,
even on those occasions
when Your Son Phobetor visits.
Oh God of poppies,
of pleasure and relaxation,
please grant me Your healing touch.
Smile upon me,
place Your gentle hand upon my brow,
and grant me release from my cares
through the grace of sleep,
which only You may bring.
Hail to You, Hypnos,
Husband of Pasiphae,
Daughter of Dionysos,
Who Himself relieves care,
Hail to You, Beautiful God.
(Hypnos by Grace Palmer. The prayer card is available here.)
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Entry #5 for the Ares Agon
Ares at Gaugamela
By Petros
Koinos waited for them to hit. The Persians were coming. They were screaming as they came and they were terrifying.
He was not feeling so brave at the moment. Despite the heat of the day, he felt cold, even as his sweat dripped beneath his linothorax. He hoped that no one had noticed the piss running down his legs.
He prayed to the Gods that the men next to him wouldn’t see his shaking or see that he could barely keep his sarrisa at the proper height and angle.
He wanted to run.
“Don’t worry boy. I’m here.”
Koinos looked to his right at Amyntas.
Amyntas who rarely spoke. Amyntas who never joined the boisterous drinking after the day’s march.
In fact, last night Amyntas had been alone, just outside of the firelight kneeling in front of a stone he had placed on a stump.
Koinos had blearily noticed him pouring wine over the small black stone that he carried with him on campaign. He could hear him muttering something, though with all the pre-battle revelry going on, it was hard to hear his words.
But, today, he could hear him. His voice was…different.
“Don’t worry boy. I’m here.”
What?
“Today your shield will not drop. Your spear will not shatter. The blood of the barbarians will flow like wine from my brother’s cup.”
Koinos again took his eyes off of the onrushing Persians to glance at Amyntas.
Amyntas seemed larger somehow. His shoulders were rising and falling like a bull’s. His breath loud. His voice more like a growl now.
“Let them fall like harvested grain beneath our blades.”
And then Amyntas turned to Koinos.
“Are you with me boy?”
Koinos stared into the face visible behind the helmet’s face guard. The too-white teeth smiling at him. The eyes glowing the way a man’s never could.
He could only nod, his mouth too dry for words.
“Good boy.”
When the Persian line collided with the Macedonian phalanx, Amyntas, who-was-not-Amyntas, began to laugh.
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Be sure to check out my other sites:
Wyrd Curiosities at Etsy
My academia.edu page
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Walking the Worlds Journal
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My blog about all things strange, weird and medieval.
And if you like what you see, consider becoming a sponsor at Patreon.
March Agon is Nearly Over
Hey Folks,
The Ares agon ends Friday at 9pm EST. If you were thinking about submitting something, now is the time to do it. There are prizes for the agon and you can read all about it here.
The Agon for April will be devoted to a Norse Deity — and I’ll reveal which One on Friday when I announce the March Agon winner. Stay tuned.
EDIT: For all my patreon supporters, i’ve posted on my patreon blog and there’s a little give away for y’all there.
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Be sure to check out my other sites:
Wyrd Curiosities at Etsy
My academia.edu page
My amazon author page.
Walking the Worlds Journal
My art blog at Krasskova Creations
My blog about all things strange, weird and medieval.
And if you like what you see, consider becoming a sponsor at Patreon.
Two New Paintings for Sale
I’ve uploaded two new paintings for sale on my Etsy shop. Check them out. 🙂
I’ve just uploaded two new paintings on my Etsy site.
The first is another sweet naked lady in need of a good home. Drawing from classical motifs, this female nude is titled “Modesty” and shows a woman, standing with hip cocked depicted in vivid cadmiums and pink.
The second, which I just finished this morning (or rather decided it was finished after leaving it on my easel for a month, glaring at it): “Still Life in Blue,” which depicts a glass vase of roses in a beam of light, rendered with spontaneous brush strokes in a rather abstract style.
Both are for sale (at a sale price) at my shop. Check it out, and check back here regularly for further updates.
Apollo and Marsyas: The Nature of Art
(Bartolomeo Manfredi’s “Apollo and Marsyas.” Source: wiki commons)
I have a fascination with operatic castrati and since I’m currently doing quite a bit of research for an academic project that involves them, their music has been the subject of much conversation in my house lately. Add to that a meme a friend of mine posted on facebook wherein one of the choices was “because a human did something better than a God and that God threw a hissy fit” and I knew I had to write about the conversation my husband and I had the other day.(1) Somehow the subject of the contest between Apollo and Marsyas came up and the lessons this might hold for musicians.
In this story, Marsyas, a satyr and master musician hubristically challenges Apollo to a music contest. The contest is to be judged by the Muses and the winner would then be permitted to treat the loser anyway he wished.(2) Both God and satyr play, Apollo wins, and in punishment for his hubris Marsyas is flayed. Customary interpretations of this story revolve around the flaying specifically as a punishment for hubris, for the satyr daring to challenge a God (and thus to put himself above the right and natural order of things) and this is not an incorrect interpretation but there are other lessons to be had in this tale as well.
Allowing that one of the major lessons of this story is in fact the need for piety and humility before the Gods (amazing how “don’t be an asshole” covers so many situations in which we might find ourselves, devotionally and otherwise), I’d like to discuss here one of the other lessons, and this is where the castrati come in.
In my research I’ve noticed that there is a standard way in which historians seemingly must approach this material. Before they go into whatever it is that they want to discuss about the castrati, they must first state how barbaric or inhumane they find the practice.(3) They must first separate themselves from any hint that they might approve of the process, particularly if they are writing positively about the result (and given that the influence of the castrati pretty much defined opera for two hundred years and shaped contemporary opera too, there’s quite a bit to celebrate there).
The question is endlessly asked (by academics and other researchers): why would someone do that to himself? Why would someone allow that to be done to a child? What was the allure of the castrati (they were the equivalent of sex symbols and rock stars)? I find these questions boggling: for the voice. Are you people deaf? Have you never listened to a top-notch counter tenor? It’s like listening to the voice of God. It’s like having the heavens crashing down around you and these men don’t come close to the vocal quality of a well-trained castrato superstar.(4) I completely understand why someone would have sought to become a castrato and certainly why they were so attractive to their listeners. I mourn the fact that we can’t hear them today.
If the sounds harsh, consider my own background: I was a professional ballet dancer for the first part of my adult life. I started working with a regional company at thirteen and retired in my early twenties. I retired with crippling injuries. I knew at thirteen that I was choosing to commit to a career that would likely leave my body broken irreparably. I knew that I would have to make health and nutritional choices that were ultimately damaging. I didn’t make this choice blind and I did make it over parental objection. The call of that daimon – dance – was too strong. I have crushing pain now and very limited mobility and while I did soloist roles in the regional company for which I worked, I didn’t make it past apprentice in the New York company. I’ll go down in no history books as a competent dancer and…I would make exactly the same choice again.
I suspect that is incomprehensible to someone who hasn’t been infected with that hunger, been taken up by that daimon, felt what it is like to push the body past its limits, past pain, to fly. I know that if at twelve, someone had said to me, if you mutilate your genitals you’ll have a chance to be one of the truly great dancers, I’d have done it without question. I would have considered it a worthy trade. There are things more important than what’s between our legs and far more important than our ability to procreate or the limits of our bodies. Being in service to art, in service to something far bigger and more important than ourselves supersedes all of that. That’s what moderns don’t comprehend.
Of course, that the castrati had to be castrated before puberty complicates things. There are questions of a child’s ability to make such a long-term choice for himself (see my comments above for where I stand on that) and certainly there were children sent under the knife against their will. The consequences of early castration are not just loss of fertility. (5)I also find the way Castrati were treated socially by the same communities that idolized their voices to be repellent (the church, for instance, forbade them to marry and in regular society they were often viewed as freaks, mocked for the very procedure that gave them the angelic voices so celebrated). By the nineteenth century with “enlightenment,” industrialization, more focus on binary gender roles, more focus on ‘nature’ as opposed to constructed brilliance, and certainly the elevation of both childhood and the individual over any common good the castrati were fast becoming a thing of the past. The last operatic superstar was the castrato Giovanni Velluti for whom both Rossini and Meyerbeer composed but operatic tastes were changing along with everything else and by 1913 not even the Vatican choir allowed for them. (6)
So what does all of this have to do with the story of Apollo and Marsyas? One of the many ways that I interpret this story is as a clear indication of what is required for excellence in an art. It doesn’t matter what the art form is (dance, singing, music, painting, etc.), to truly reach the heights of greatness, sacrifice is not just required, it is demanded. Excellence has a price. Art brings us into communion with the Gods like nothing else can. The Platonic philosophers wrote about the ennobling effects of Beauty, how it had the capacity to elevate the soul and I very much believe that is true. To be in service to the arts is to be in service to the Gods when it’s done right. It’s to move in sacred currents. That carries a demanding price and sometimes the consequences are irreparable. Devotion is like that too, if one wants to do it well.
We are owed nothing, yet opportunities are given. Devotion is an art just as much as dance or opera. It’s the art of the soul and it often carries as great a price as that any performer will pay. Excellence requires sacrifice. Mediocrity doesn’t. Make a choice. I read once of one castrato (and I can’t recall which one at the moment. I’ve been reading * a lot* on the topic) who was once asked if he regretted having been cut. He laughed in the interviewer’s face. He was one of perhaps half a dozen men who could do what he did at the level at which he performed in the entire world. He was feted across Europe. His name would go down in music history. He was as close to a god as a mortal has any right to be (barring apotheosis!).
Ironically I have seen some of the same criticisms of ballet children that I’ve seen about the castrati: it’s abuse. How can a child make that decision, etc. etc.(7) One such included a documentary about a leading Russian ballerina. The narrator could not stop talking about the brutality of the training and the sacrifice required. Yes, and she’s one of maybe ten women in the world who can do what she does. She had some of the best training in the world, and it’s training she herself wanted. I find it far more offensive that a second rate film maker is complaining about her sacrifices than that she’s consciously making them. Excellence requires certain choices and sometimes those choices hurt.
I think that’s the second lesson to be found in the story of Marsyas and Apollo. It’s not just a warning against hubris, it’s also telling us what is required to reach the heights of a practice: sacrifice. Perhaps it’s a warning against the hubris of assuming we can find greatness without the work or the cost.
Far from being appalled by the castrati, I rather think that when we as a culture began putting the mediocrity of the individual over the glory of art, over arête, over those things that represent the best of who we are as a people, that was when the real moral and cultural decay began and that’s what horrifies me the most because it’s not just sacrifice for the arts that modernists find problematic, it’s veneration of and sacrifice for devotion too and yet, if we wish to truly find excellence in our devotion, it’s going to require hard work and sacrifice on par with that of the best of the castrati or the best ballet dancers. We should be willing to bleed for our devotion, to bleed for our art, to bleed for our dreams. That’s Marsyas’s lesson: nothing is free, and one doesn’t reach the top of one’s game without painful hard work. We all have those talents and skills that we were given. The gap between that and excellence is what we choose to do with them and how much of ourselves we’re willing to bet in the bargain.(8)
Notes:
1. The meme in question meant to be humorous, and I found it funny but it edges well into territory that while not impious necessarily bears watching. Humans do not do things better than the Gods and I think to allow that idea to take deep root in our minds is problematic. A joke is one thing but we’re constantly being bombarded by pop culture movies and tv that even when entertaining put forth the idea that humans are superior to the Gods and it’s important to recognize when that’s happening.
2. One source implied that of course the Muses would vote in favor of Apollo but I think that rather They would vote for the better musician. To do otherwise would be to violate the very Arts whose mysteries They govern. It is also to ascribe to Gods our own pathetic lack of integrity.
3. The Castrati were the rock stars of the 17th and 18th centuries. Castrated before puberty (often by their own request), they were men with pure, powerful soprano and alto voices. They commanded great applause and even greater fees and dominated the opera stage for two hundred years. The phenomenon began in the Byzantine church (the earliest recorded castrato singer that I’ve been able to document so far is a Byzantine choir master in 400 C.E.) and ended in the Papal Choir of the Vatican in 1922. We actually have recordings of the last known castrato: A. Moreschi. Unfortunately, they don’t give any sense of what his voice was actually like. Not only was he never an operatic virtuoso, but the recording technology of the time was in its infancy and could not capture the main bulk of his range. You can hear this with contemporary recordings of female stars like Nellie Melba too: the main part of the tessitura, its frequencies couldn’t be recorded so the voice sounds thin and given the limitations of recording, also out of tune. It’s unfortunate but early video recordings of the great dancers of the imperial ballet, like Pavlova and Spessivtseva show similar issues and in no way do justice to their subjects.
4. A couple of my favorite counter tenors include F. Fagioli, P. Jaroussky, A. Scholl, and the winner of this year’s Metropolitan Opera prize, Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen. Then there’s natural soporano M. Maniaci, who is in a class by himself. Each of them is singing work originally written for the greatest castrati of the baroque age and a the recent interest in baroque music has allowed for a mini-renaissance of counter tenors. 🙂 The counter tenor voice is a very different voice from that of the castrati, and both are different again from female sopranos. They’re very different instruments.
5. The ends of the bones don’t harden and so most castrati were, for their time, very, very tall. Depending on when the castration was done, they may or may not be able to have sex. If the operation was performed when they were very small, their genitals might not have grown to adult size. The results, according to way too much medical literature that I’ve had to read for my research, varied significantly. If their voices didn’t hold, if they didn’t have what it takes to be truly great, they were resigned to church choirs. Some became priests. I think it’s likewise important to note that ‘childhood’ was not then the cossetted state that it has become now for better or worse. There were different expectations of children and many parents gave their children over to the knife so that the boys would have a better future than the parents could otherwise give them.
6. I often wonder what it must have been like for Velluti…a generation before him, castrati were super stars and while he had an extensive career, he was the last of his kind and knew it and was often greeted as much with horror as acclaim…not to mention Meyerbeer and Rossini don’t hold a candle to Porpora and Handel when it comes to showing off a high voice.
7. Like with castrati, there is a time limit to the training. If a dancer doesn’t make that decision young, they’re not going to have a career and they certainly aren’t going to reach the heights of that career. A childhood is a small sacrifice to pay for such an opportunity, in my opinion (having made that choice). There are rare exceptions. Melissa Hayden for example, one of Balanchine’s stars began dancing at sixteen. She is a rarity and frankly not in the same league as the best Russian or French dancers who began as children. I began my ballet training at ten and that was at least three years too late. There’s a sweet spot with certain elements of the training too. If a girl, for instance is planning to go on pointe, that should happen after two years of near daily training (in the west, I’d say around 12, but in major ballet schools, if they’re training for several hours a day from the time they’re seven or eight, you might see it earlier, around ten. Without that multi hour daily training regimen though, putting a child on pointe before twelve is criminal. The bones just aren’t ready.). Going on pointe too early without proper preparation can severely damage the feet but going on too late, after say 15 can also be problematic. It is much, much more difficult to develop the competence and fluidity on pointe that one needs for professional work if the feet aren’t broken to it young. As the bones harden, it’s that much more difficult to gain that combination of strength and flexibility that makes proper pointe work possible.
8. Here is a BBC documentary on the castrati that is useful for those with no prior knowledge. Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI. The whole thing is about an hour.
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Be sure to check out my other sites:
Wyrd Curiosities at Etsy
My academia.edu page
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Walking the Worlds Journal
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My blog about all things strange, weird and medieval.
And if you like what you see, consider becoming a sponsor at Patreon.
New Prayer Cards
I have added two new prayer cards to my Etsy shop:
Ragana, Baltic Goddess of Fate, Prophecy, and Healing by Halldora
Turan Ati, Etruscan Goddess of love, fertility, and vitality by Lykeia.
I’ve also uploaded an assortment of greeting cards, which may be purchased singly or in groups of five (i can also set up a reserve listing if you want a larger one time order). I have two sets: my shaman series and my still life series.
I’m slowly uploading several of my photographs and paintings. If you’re interested in owning a piece of original art, check them out.
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Be sure to check out my other sites:
Wyrd Curiosities at Etsy
My academia.edu page
My amazon author page.
Walking the Worlds Journal
My art blog at Krasskova Creations
My blog about all things strange, weird and medieval.
And if you like what you see, consider becoming a sponsor at Patreon.
Censorship is Never Ok: Whitney Museum and Artist Dana Schutz Face Attacks Over Key Piece in the Whitney’s 2017 Biennial.
Apparently there is a small furor brewing over at the Whitney Museum in New York City. It all centers around a painting featured in their 2017 Biennial: “Open Casket 2016” by artist Dana Schutz.
Firstly, here is the painting in question:
(“Open Casket 2016” by Dana Schutz)
It is a memorial piece, her interpretation of the horrific murder of Emmett Till, which helped spark this nation’s Civil Rights movement.
The photo of Emmett Till in his casket has become iconic, a symbol of the fight for justice that galvanized this nation, a fight that is still going on. Till’s mother, having lost her only son in a most horrific manner, insisted on an open casket saying, “Let the people see what I have seen.” He was murdered for supposedly whistling at a white woman. The woman in question admitted that her accusations were false just this year.
I still remember my own response when, early in my twenties I first saw the iconic photograph of Mr. Till in his coffin (it is extremely graphic and I am not posting it here, but this link will take readers directly to the photograph). It was like a punch in the gut. It leveled me. It apparently left quite an impression on Dana Schutz too, and her painting shows that the death of Emmett Till still has the power to affect us today. When I saw that she titled it ‘Open Casket 2016’ I was even more moved, because it’s a clear statement that what happened to Till is still happening. It’s an acknowledge of the pain of ever mother who has ever lost her child to racism and violence. The artist herself said that she responded viscerally as a mother to Emmett Till’s death.
Art critic Hannah Black has a problem with that and has started a campaign not only to have the painting removed, but to see it destroyed. Not only has she started a petition to that effect (recently amended to show only the names of black signatories) but she is also encouraging her non-black supporters to vandalize the painting having recently updated her post to say the following, “Non-Black people super very welcome to help get painting destroyed tho [sic] in other ways.”
She doesn’t like this piece and she is calling for it to be destroyed. She is advocating for others to try to destroy it. She is calling for the willful silencing of an artist and the destruction of that person’s art. She is willfully trying to shut another artist down.
Hannah Black and those signatories are saying this painting is exploitative because the artist isn’t black. From the day of the opening last week, there have been protestors lined up in front of Ms. Schutz’s painting purposely blocking it from being viewed by those attending the exhibit. Its sole offense? The artist isn’t black. I’m not a fucking basket of fruit but that doesn’t stop me from painting the occasional still life. Art is that thing which crosses all boundaries after all. One does not need to be a particular anything in order to paint it.
Apparently “Open Casket 2016” is racist and exploitative though because the artist isn’t herself black. That is the objection, not the nature of the art itself. Seriously, if you would find this piece acceptable if the artist were black, then you’re not worried about exploitation, you’re just a racist. You, Ms. Black, are the worst kind of racist and I sincerely hope that you are arrested for attempting to promote vandalism and destruction of Museum property. You are a disgusting human being.
I also hope the Whitney doesn’t cave here and I hope to Gods they have security on this painting, which represents one of the most horrific events in the American Civil Rights movement. We should remember this event. We should be struck and moved and rendered by art. What we shouldn’t do is censor it. Ever but most especially when it upsets us.
We’ve seen this play out before. How many cultural icons do these deluded people need to destroy before we learn our lesson? Can anyone say Inquisition, Cultural Revolution, Soviet Russia? The moment you begin advocating for the destruction of artistic freedom, you lose. NO SUBJECT SHOULD BE OFF LIMITS TO AN ARTIST. I hope this makes Dana Schutz’s career.
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Be sure to check out my other sites:
Wyrd Curiosities at Etsy
My academia.edu page
My amazon author page.
Walking the Worlds Journal
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My blog about all things strange, weird and medieval.
And if you like what you see, consider becoming a sponsor at Patreon.
Brjóta ekki bein (Don’t Break the Bones): Sacrifice in the Northern Tradition
(I know that this is going to be a challenging topic for some of you. If you are bothered by frank discussions of religion and animal sacrifice, stop reading and go watch this cat video. Here’s some pussies for you to play with. For everyone else, let’s have an adult conversation).
Years and years ago (at least fifteen if not longer) when I was still Theodish, I remember many heated discussions over the proper way to perform sacrifice. Those among us who were trained to perform this ritual were split about the proper way to dispatch the chosen animals. Some favored shooting the animal in the head first (as a mercy) and others using a clean cut at the throat. One of the reasons given for preferring the traditional method (the cut of the knife) was the story of the Thor and His goats.
Thor’s chariot is driven by two goats: Tanngrisnir (snarler, one who bears his teeth) and Tanngnjóstr (teeth grinder). When necessary, Thor is able to kill, cook, and consume these goats who will then be restored to life with His hammer provided their bones are left intact. The prose Edda tells the story of Thor’s visit to a farmer. He and Loki stop for rest, and Thor (perhaps knowing that hosting two Gods is a bit much for a poor farmer) offers up His two goats in sacrifice to provide the evening’s meal. There’s one caveat: the bones must not be cracked for their marrow. They must remain intact. The farmer’s son Thjalfi can’t resist and cracks one leg bone to suck a bit of the marrow. When Thor restores the goats to life, one of them is lame. In reparation for this, the peasant offers his children Thjalfi and Roskva to Thor as servants. It’s an entertaining tale and Loki, Thor, and the children go off to have adventures. For our purposes, however, the important point is the emphasis on maintaining the integrity of the bones.
In the Theod, we solved the initial debate by choosing to sacrifice in the traditional way (and in retrospect I’m very, very glad we did so). At the time, I didn’t see the problem with shooting the animal first. It seemed merciful and kind but over the years I’ve completely changed my position. Partly, I’ve had so much more experience with proper sacrifice and I’ve become far more confident in making sacrifice myself, and I’ve had far more exposure to other traditions where this is likewise common. I learned several things, not the least of which was that if a cut is done cleanly and correctly, it is actually all but painless for the animal. I’ve also come to realize how crucially important this story is to the ritual scaffolding in which sacrifice must take place.
When we do these ritual actions, like sacrifice, we’re re-enacting our cosmology. We’re bringing to life the communal mysteries of our tradition. A living tradition exists in those currents and it is the obligation of those practicing it to renew them regularly.
This is also largely why I no longer believe it appropriate to shoot the animal before cutting its throat. A) it’s far more humane to cut properly and B) any other method is a violation of ritual protocol. The bones must remain intact. I went back and forth on this for years and I used to come down on the side of shooting the animal first if one felt one must but now, I think that is incorrect. As we learn better, we do better. A sacrifice is more than just a collection of mechanical techniques. It is the living expression of a tradition. It is a sacrament.
For the blotere,(1) there are three parts to any sacrifice that must be carefully learned and understood: the mechanics (how to make the cut and to do it painlessly for the animal, and effectively), how to do the divination to determine how to dispose of the sacrifice and whether or not it was accepted, and the ritual itself, in other words, how to infuse the entire procedure with the holy, how to make the conscious connections between the cosmic structures in which we’re working, the ritual being done, the living tradition, and the Gods Themselves. This is a ritual process. It’s not enough to simply cut an animal’s throat, or kill it in some other way, and give it to the Gods. There is a proper ritual scaffolding for the act, an act that is our holiest and most important of sacraments.
It’s not just that you’re giving a life to the Gods; the act of sacrifice is an imitation of primordial creation: Odin, Lodhur, and Hoenir create the world out of the slaughter of Ymir. Sacrifice is tapping into that, recreating that act, everything that it encompasses, bringing our traditions into being again and again and again and that’s potent magic.(2) It must be approached in a proper way, with purity and focus, and attention to every detail. It’s not enough just to slaughter. We must understand what we’re tapping into and why.
This all came up recently within my lineage when one of my apprentices received inspiration for a sacrificial song. We had long felt that there should be some sort of song sung when the animal is being sacrificed.(3) In fact, it’s rather odd for our traditions not to have one; after all, the ATR have a special song that is sung when an animal is given and so did many Greek and Roman traditions. It was part of the procedure in many IE traditions and it always seemed rather odd to find the Norse and Germanic ones lacking. I was delighted when L. came to me with his song and when I did divination to confirm its appropriateness, the sense of it was overwhelming. Our tradition regained one of its songs. Think about how profound that is for a moment. When our traditions were destroyed by Christianity, our songs fell silent. Our procedures were lost. The scaffolding that supported our traditions was broken. This is one step back to full restoration and that is incredible.
It brings home the necessity, the crucial necessity of re-sacralizing our ritual procedures. It’s not enough to do, rather we must understand how to invest these actions with the sacred and why – otherwise, it’s pointless. (4) We must open ourselves up once again to awareness of the Holy. Our Gods are counting on us. Our traditions demand it.
The next time I take up the sacrificial knife and prepare myself for this ritual, I will think on this: Thor had two goats given over to nourish both Gods and man. Their bones must always remain unbroken and they will be restored to life. As I take up the blotere’s blade, with each offering, I am calling our traditions back to life again, and again, and again. May they flourish.
Notes:
1. sacrificial priest
2. this article is about ritual sacrifice to the Gods only. Sacrifice for magical purposes is a different matter all together, not covered here.
3. It doesn’t matter to which Deity the animal is being given, or how the animal is disposed of afterwards: the act of sacrifice itself taps into certain cosmic grooves within the tradition.
4. and a mockery of our ancestral ways.
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