If you have questions for me, now is the chance to ask them. I’ll keep the comments section open until 9pm est tonight. I received two excellent questions by email that I’ll be posting shortly. They were so good, I asked the readers in each case if I could keep them for Wednesday.
Hail Odin, Seeker of K knowledge. Hail the God of Glory.
About ganglerisgrove
Galina Krasskova has been a Heathen priest since 1995. She holds a Masters in Religious Studies (2009), a Masters in Medieval Studies (2019), has done extensive graduate work in Classics including teaching Latin, Roman History, and Greek and Roman Literature for the better part of a decade, and is currently pursuing a PhD in Theology. She is the managing editor of Walking the Worlds journal and has written over thirty books on Heathenry and Polytheism including "A Modern Guide to Heathenry" and "He is Frenzy: Collected Writings about Odin." In addition to her religious work, she is an accomplished artist who has shown all over the world and she currently runs a prayer card project available at wyrdcuriosities.etsy.com.
Gangleri's Grove 
This past week, I received these two excellent questions. I asked permission from both my questioners if i could save them for my Wodinic Wednesday and both kindly said yes. So, here you go. I’m doing them in the order in which they were received. Thank you, folks both for reaching out AND for letting me hold these back till today. I’ll post each question separately. Here’s the first:
KH asked, “I am curious, I seem to be seeing a change in Paganism as some are moving away from Christian based morality to a more authentic Pagan morality while others are honoring pagan Gods but their morals are firmly Christian. Do you see this as well?“
I think the question first should be, what is “Pagan morality”? That’s going to differ depending on one’s particular Polytheism or Paganism. After all, “Paganism” and “Polytheism” are both umbrella terms for a whole body of very, very different religions, each of which has its own cosmology, its own ideas of human anthropology (why we were created and what is right relationship to the Gods), its own Gods and Goddesses, and its own ideas of what it means to do good in the world. Morality are the principles by which we differentiate between right and wrong or good and bad behavior (and that’s a dictionary definition, I didn’t make it up. Ethics are rules of conduct for a society, culture, or group and morality are the principles of determining right and wrong, based on one’s own personal compass).So, this is actually a very complicated question. I suspect the answer is going to be “depends.” It depends which tradition you’re speaking about, where you’re located, how long the group you’re engaging with has been practicing, and a whole host of other factors. I say that because we are still primarily a religion of converts. That’s changing for many polytheisms as parents commit to raising children in their faith and we’re starting to see second generation polytheists and pagans and that’s an amazing thing. If we’re talking about Wicca, we might even be getting third generation. I celebrate this. For a tradition, any tradition we need at least three generations to even seriously begin restoration.
I also want to point out that polytheistic traditions in the ancient world didn’t necessarily draw their morality from their religion. Of course, for one who is devout, religion is going to influence everything, but in the ancient world, religion was about proper relationship with the Holy Powers, and philosophy and one’s culture’s customs and laws — nomoi – helped shape morality and ethics. Soteriological concerns tended to be the purview of mystery cultus. Many monotheistic traditions (perhaps because they began as tribal religions without the overarching political institutions that one would have found in ancient Rome, for instance) rolled the whole morality/ethics question up into their religious praxis and holy writings. What is authentic morality is not such an easy question to answer when you also had syncretism, people practicing more than one tradition, social and cultural inter-relations, inter-marriage, economic interaction and in so many ways, cross-cultural contamination. Christians likewise developed in relationship with Judaism, Roman polytheisms, and even certain eastern traditions (very early on too). No religious tradition exists in a vacuum so how do we parse out what is this morality or that? Our Gods also have different agendas and expectations for Their devotees so it can become really complicated.
I’ll focus on Heathenry in my own answer to KH’s question. Conversion is always a process. It’s not enough to just suddenly exchange veneration of one God for Many. There’s a whole worldview, a way of being in the world, of looking at it, engaging with it that has to change and that takes time and we have precious little by way of trained pastoral directors to help. I think the deeper one roots oneself in one’s new tradition, the more experience one has in devotion, the more one comes to really claim one’s new tradition for oneself then the more that world view will start shifting to something more authentically Heathen. Our values do not necessarily match up with those of our secular culture — something I think many religious people across a variety of religions can easily say. When I was Theodish, we’d often phrase it this way: we have our religious culture with its morality and ethics, and we live within an over-culture that is in no way Heathen. I agree with this. Of course, we have to follow the laws of our over-culture — and as a Heathen, that is not just common sense, but also hospitality. Hospitality works both ways: guest and host–but the values of that over-culture are often antithetical to our religious lives. Modernity is a terrible, dehumanizing thing (not modern inventions or technology, but ‘modernity’ in the academic sense: the way we look at the world and what we prioritize).
Are more Pagans and Heathens coming to embrace a more fully Heathen morality? Maybe -Heathenry after all has been around in the US for over seventy years, and as a restoration for close to 200 (at least). The closer we are to our Gods, the more They are able to shape and form us. So, maybe what you’re encountering is people who have been more deeply rooted in their faith for a longer time than the average. As much as I see this shift, I also see those who avoid making that cognitive leap. The moment one realizes one’s over-culture is not conducive to productive devotion is a hard moment for many of us, and often the response is hostility and denial. Then, when one does accept this difference, the next question is what do we do? Each person and group will have to answer that for his, her, or itself.
I’ll be honest though; I am only seeing this embrace of Heathen morality in those who have been long term in the faith. I think that most are still trying to juggle their new religion with their own worldview and wondering why the pieces don’t fit. Best thing we can do is pray for new converts, to pray for their well-being.
As to Christianity, I’d have to ask again, what you mean by “Christian morality.” Some aspects of Christianity are laudable. Others are not so compatible with our ethics (I would say ours is a religion of frith — right order — not necessarily “peace” for instance. We don’t turn the other cheek). I also think there is much new converts can learn from medieval Christian models. That being said, we also have to acknowledge that as far as our ancestors go, with 2400 years of Christianity give or take, that religion is entwined in our ancestral houses and sometimes negotiations have to happen (this is why I have a shrine to Mary on my ancestor shrine. Many of my ancestors loved Her in life and wanted the shrine. My adopted mom’s partner, he wanted a small Ganesh. I do my best to accommodate all my ancestors, which is why my ancestor shrine is huge lol). I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. In fact, had Roman attitudes been a bit more consistent, and had they ignored the early Jesus followers instead of engaging in random bursts of persecution and martyrdom, what became Christianity might have integrated itself into the vast tapestry of Roman religions as just another mystery cultus.
As to “Christian morality”…which Christian denomination? The differences between denominations in Christianity are as vast and broad as the differences between Pagan or Polytheistic religions. With anything religious, I think it’s important not to make generalizations.
KH, if you’re seeing more people adopting what you are calling a more authentic “Pagan morality”, maybe it’s a consequence of people being more invested in creating in-person rather than online community. I’d like to think so anyway. Regardless, really good question!
LikeLiked by 4 people
Related to this topic, what are your feeling on people blending Christian and pagan beliefs? Or really any traditionally “monotheistic ” faiths like Judaism or Islam with paganism?
LikeLike
as long as each Deity is given His or Her due properly and with the correct rites and it’s not a blended mess, I’m fine with it. it’s pretty much how it would work with ancient polytheisms: you venerated your household Gods, your civic Gods, and then initiated into any cultus that appealed. I have an issue with monotheism (I think it’s unhealthy and frankly wrongheaded) but not the Gods Themselves .
LikeLiked by 1 person
Here is the second question I was asked. RK asked: “Perhaps this is a question best asked on Wodinic Wednesday, but what might your advice be for a blended household? My husband is agnostic and I’m polytheist. Currently all of my shrines are in my home office, as it’s the only non-communal space that’s truly mine.”
As our traditions grow, I would strongly advise not marrying non-polytheists. This is what Christians would call being un-equally yoked and regardless of how agnostic someone is, eventually this will very likely become an issue (particularly if there are children). That being said, you’re married and ostensibly love your husband so what to do? Claim space. You are building a home together. You tolerate him not participating in your religious holy days, yes? You tolerate him not honoring his ancestors? Yes? You probably tolerate a whole host of irritating habits lol (and the opposite is probably also true). He can tolerate your shrines. This is a shared home. Negotiate space. This has to happen even when two polytheists marry. My husband and I had to negotiate shrine space for all our Gods, and temple space and it took a while to figure out what worked best. Both of us had to make concessions.
If you are keeping all your shrines in your workspace, then you are ceding the rest of your home to your husband who has no belief of any concrete nature from what you described. I’m going to be very blunt: fuck that. Move some of your shrines out of your workspace. Put them where you want them in the house. Have a conversation if you want and explain that this is important and a way of making a healthy, holy home. It may not even be an issue — have you had the conversation with him? He might be completely fine with this. He may even be supportive.
Now, I tend to see the worst because people come to me as a pastoral director when they’re in crisis, so I am perhaps a bit jaded. I have seen several responses in past situations like this. One thing that often arises is that it will embarrass the non-polytheistic spouse when he or she has friends over to have a devout partner (or a non-Christian partner if it’s that type of mixed marriage) and if that’s the case, then you have bigger problems than just where to put a shrine.
Here’s another thing: If he cannot accept that you are building a religious home, then what he’s really saying is that he thinks the experiences you have had devotionally, and your faith, are mental illness. I’m not particularly charitable toward people who dismiss the pious as mentally ill, or deluded, or silly, or [insert adjective here]. I’ll go a step farther: if there is a dispute in where to put shrines, it is on the one who does NOT believe that pressure should be put to either get in line or get out of the way. After all, if he doesn’t believe then in his mind, he’s not violating any rubric of piety. But for you, to hide your shrines away, you run the risk of doing just that. Maybe he ought to consider Pascal’s wager.
LikeLiked by 5 people
Thank you so much for this detailed response to my question. When I first met my husband, I was going through a sort of dark night of the soul spiritually and was not as devout in my faith as I should have been, so his agnosticism didn’t matter as much.
As I’m finding my way back to devotion and living spiritually, it bothers me that all of my shrines are in one place. I’d love to have multiple shrines around the house (cats willing, haha. They do love to knock things down and go places they’re not supposed to be, little gremlins).
I’ve not talked with him about it. I should, because as you point out, his reaction either way will be very telling.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Definitely talk to him. He might be perfectly fine with it, but even if he isn’t, that shouldn’t stop you from practicing your faith and putting your shrines where you want. Do not let his lack of spiritual awareness hold you back, and don’t let it stop you from making a religiously holy home.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you! My main concern is that I don’t want to make him feel as though I am imposing my faith into him. Obviously I can’t control his reactions and feelings about it (yay, anti-codependency therapy work), but is there a way to start the conversation in a way more likely to put him at ease about it? He’s pretty easygoing and open-minded most of the time, so the only issue I might see is the perception that I am forcing this on him too when all I want is to live piously and honor my gods and ancestors.
LikeLike
May Hera and Frigga be with you for this conversation with your husband
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you! He’s a pretty easygoing guy most of the time, so I’m hoping he won’t object to setting up a house shrine.
LikeLike
He’s free to not engage with the shrines. But he shouldn’t be forcing his own agnosticism on you, which it sounds to me is what’s happening by default. Personally, I’d tell him that you’re growing in your faith and try to communicate how important this is to you. Then set up the shrines. All marriage has compromise, but this isn’t a good area to back down on — you can’t live reverently constantly compromising on the very space you take up. But I would acknowledge that this wasn’t an issue when you married, because otherwise he might be confused.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you for your excellent advice. I have a bad track record of making myself and my needs small to accommodate others and their comfort. But this is important to me, and I’ll definitely acknowledge the change within myself when I bring up the topic with him.
Now to find ways to cat proof the area I’m eyeing for the shrines…the smartest one is able to get past everything I think up and shows the others how to get around the barriers too.
May the Gods bless.you! And again, thank you for taking the time to have this conversation with me.
LikeLike
It may come as a complete surprise to him — if you have been growing more religious and not discussing that with him and not spreading your shrines out, or giving any outward sign, then he would have no way of knowing how important all of this is. So — and this is hard for me personally to say lol — give him the benefit of the doubt and have that conversation. 🙂 Give him the opportunity to be a decent partner.
As to cats, some are more responsive and respectful of sacred space than others. lol. good luck!
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’ve been reading up on Scandinavian late summer festivals, like Kraftstkiva and Harvest parties, and they all seem to have a strong lunar theme – paper moon and moon-man decorations, songs and games that reference the harvest moon and the man in the moon. They all seem pretty silly and joyful, with an emphasis on comedy and partying into the late evening while the light still lingers.
Anyway. I’m wondering what you think of this time of year for festivals dedicated to Mani. And if there are any other days of the year you good special to Mani.
LikeLike
Sorry, meant to type “hold as special to Mani”
LikeLike
Well, there are the the full and new moons of course. there’s a lot of power and magic there. I also would honor Mani and His sister at the equinox in march. we’re still working out our Summer liturgical cycle so thank you for the recommendation about Scandinavian harvest folklore and festivals. I need to look more into that. it’s a work in progress.
LikeLike