Category Archives: Holy Tides

Yuletide Shopping Guide 2023 – Part Seven

I created the Yuletide Shopping Guide in part because Yule is one of my favorite times of year. On this last entry, I wanted to shamelessly spotlight my own books for your consideration, especially since one of my publishers, Red Wheel Weiser, is running a 30% Off Sale.

Affiliate Advertising Disclosure


Red Wheel Weiser Books

If you haven’t picked up my books “A Modern Guide to Heathenry: Lore, Celebrations, and Mysteries of the Northern Traditions,” “Living Runes: Theory and Practice” and/or Northern Tradition for the Solitary Practitioner now is the perfect time! Click on the link and use code RWW30 at checkout (offer good for a limited time). You can currently enjoy 30% OFF direct from the publisher’s website: redwheelweiser.com. Please note that this deal only applies for orders being shipped for delivery to the United States.

As a reminder, my book A Modern Guide to Heathenry (2019) takes what I created in Exploring the Northern Tradition: A Guide to the Gods, Lore, Rites, and Celebrations from the Norse, German, and Anglo-Saxon Traditions (2005) as a foundation and significantly expands upon it with more than 70,000 words of new material especially on devotional work, honoring the ancestors, and theological exegesis. It’s basically twice the word heft of its predecessor! Living RunesTheory & Practice, however is a re-publication under a new title of my earlier work Runes: Theory and Practice book.


Other Assorted Books

Amazon will have the most comprehensive selection of my written works, including a number of devotionals and novenas.


Among my books, which ones do you most love? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Yuletide Shopping Guide 2023 – Part Five

I created the Yuletide Shopping Guide in part because Yule is one of my favorite times of year. The guide features items polytheists would enjoy seeing in their homes or under their tree this yuletide. All with the hope of spreading some holiday cheer, but also to hopefully lift up some of the artisans in our midst too.  I believe if we are to have religious iconography and grow our religious communities, this will not happen unless we support the artisans within our community.

Today I’ll be spotlighting books.

Affiliate Advertising Disclosure

I am an avid reader and quite the bibliophile. If I really wanted to do this section justice, I could be writing for over a year on suggested books. So I decided to approach this list primarily from the point of view of books for children, because nourishing the next generation is so important.


Mythology Books

Many of these texts are geared towards children and young adults, so content tends to be adapted for that audience.


Coloring Books

Coloring books.


Pagan Kids

Books for children by Jennifer Hartman at PaganKids.org. The website has free kids activities (coloring pages, word search, word puzzles, etc. you can download as free supplementals.)


What books would you recommend? Share your thoughts in the comments.

30% Off at Red Wheel Weiser

My publisher Red Wheel Weiser is running (for a limited time) a 30% Off Sale for any books with delivery in the U.S. So if you’ve been wanting to pick up A Modern Guide to Heathenry, Living Runes, or the Northern Tradition for the Solitary Practitioner now is the perfect time!

Click on the link and use code WNL30 at checkout.

Charming of the Plough Prayer to Thor and Sif

I offer this prayer to Thor and to the Goddess Sif.
Hail to You, Holy Ones.
Hail to You, Protectors of Midgard,
Hail to You, Son of Odin and Hail to You,
His gleaming Bride.

You hallow and drive out all pollution.
You are mighty. There is no malignant force
that You cannot banish. There is no threat,
You cannot overcome.
You are magnificent and Your grace
protects me in the face of evil.

Mighty Thor, wise, compassionate Friend of humanity,
look upon us and wield Your hammer for our protection.
Gracious Sif, You Whose gentle touch causes the grain to grow,
please nourish us, restore us, and grant us the fortitude
to walk in alignment with the Holy Powers always.

Through Your blessings, may we grow strong in faith.
through Your blessings may we grow strong in devotion.
Through Your blessings, may we always resist impiety,
may we be nourished as the grain is nourished
under Your caring hands.

In times of peril, come to our aid, I pray.
In times of desperation, I place myself under Your care.
Hail Thor, Son of Odin.
Hail Sif, His Gracious Bride.

Winge’s “Thor’s Fight with the Giants”

Charming of the Plough

Yule is over and the chilly expanse of January spreads before us with nary a holy day in sight. Well, there may be a very minor feast day here and there depending upon one’s denomination, but there’s nothing approaching the festivity of Yule. Everything feels different now that we’ve exited the ember time into a new (though sadly, equally tumultuous) year. At first I was melancholy as usual at the inevitable shift in seasonal energy but then, given how full the Yule time is, part me went “thank the Gods. We can rest and recoup!” That has its benefits too. 

We were discussing it the other day in my home and my housemate was asking me what the next big holiday was and I had to think for a moment, because it’s not one that I’ve ever really kept with any commitment. Our next serious holy tide occurs sometime in February: charming of the Plough. This confused her because in no way, shape, or form, is the land ready to be worked in February. We *might* be getting seed starters ready in the greenhouse but there isn’t any ploughing going on, nor working the soil or anything else. (Hell, Acerbot doesn’t even happen until the spring equinox!) I started to respond, “Yeah, I know…” when the whole purpose of the ritual opened up in my mind, a moment of divinely inspired insight. 

Charming of the Plough is a ritual wherein our tools are blessed and readied for the work that awaits them in the spring. Usually that is the plough, the outdoor, gardening or farming tools, etc. We often expand that today to include laptops, pens, writing tools, sewing tools, our sacred tools and divination tools, hell, I might even bless the kitchen and its tools. It could easily turn into or at least encompass an entire house blessing. When I thought about including sacred and divinatory tools, well, that’s when the light really went on. I realized there’s a real beauty to the ritual cycle. Yule is terrifying and beautiful and powerful and often toward its end, frenetic. January is calm, then there is a moment’s breath, a moment of preparation for the spring madness (trust me, planting and gardening, farming, and tending the land alone turns spring into a terribly busy time), a time where we make sure all our tools are in good working order, wherein we consecrate those tools to the Gods so that all the work done with them is likewise rendered holy. It’s a gentle way of turning our mind to the Gods and spirits, cycles and seasonal shifts, and requirements of the spring liturgical season. It’s a rite and ritual of transition. I think that’s just lovely. 

For our Charming of the Plough, we usually aim for mid-February. There’s no real set date. For Celtic polytheists, there’s a festival of Brigid on the 2nd. In my tradition, there’s the feast day of a sancta on the 3rd, and Sigyn has a feast day mid-month too. We always offer to Mani on the full moon. So, I usually aim for about the 20th for Charming of the Plough. This is a holy tide wherein we usually honor Thor and Sif and ask the Friend of Midgard and His wife to bless our work. This year, we may also be honoring Andvari and other duergar, since They’ve been showing up in dreams. 

This has never been a holy tide with which I’ve particularly connected, but after a springtime and summer of working the land, that has completely changed. 

Greeting New Spirits- There is a Protocol

And oh how I wish I’d remembered that tonight!

It has been a very, very fruitful Yule season. As part of that, there is an ongoing cycle of gift exchange and my family gifted me with several ongon, spirit infused ritual pieces. They are beautiful and the first two were welcomed into the house with all the decorum new spirit allies should receive. The second two …um…not so much. There is a lesson here and one I am both grateful for but should really know by now. 

Two of them sat in a box for a week, maybe a little more. They’d arrived right before our solstice ritual proper, and we were only expecting one. They were big spirits and I knew that it would be very important to place them properly but we don’t really do divination during the ember days, at least not from Modranacht till the New Year, and we all knew that div would be required to determine the proper place for them to live. All of that would have been fine, but we didn’t properly explain it when we packed them away, and then new problems arose tonight when we did our first divination of the year. 

We got it sorted out, but at first it was really aggravating. They wouldn’t respond to any of the divination systems we use. I kept getting “go to divination” but they weren’t familiar with our systems and we didn’t know theirs. It took much, much longer than it should have done and it wasn’t until the whole thing was over and done with, and I was placing one of the spirits that he explained to me what we should have done. I’m sharing that here for any of you who might find yourself in the same boat. Let me just say, I’m grateful for the patience of these two new spirits, tremendously so. 

Firstly, we should have greeted them and made small offerings right away. It was fine not to divine for a week or so, but rather than keep them in a box, we should have welcomed them and incorporated them into the household rituals. That way, they would learn about us, we about them, the household spirits would get to know them and vice versa, and it would be easier to figure out how to forge a functional relationship. They’re not things. These are living spirits. It was like I kept a super genius cat locked in a box for a week because I wasn’t sure where to put his food! Or like grandma came to visit and you kept her locked in the bathroom for a week! Both working with spirits and divination involving spirits is a matter of learning each other’s languages, symbol systems, mental metaphor and image maps, of figuring out how to most efficiently communicate with each other. We lost out on an opportunity to do that early on and we were unintentionally rude too.  What’s more, had we let our house spirits get to know the new spirits and vice versa, our own spirits could have better facilitated this whole process. 

Secondly, when we sat down to divine tonight, we should have started by inviting the new spirits in, welcoming them again, making offerings and most importantly of all, explaining the systems we use, how they work, etc. THAT is what made the whole thing so aggravating. They had to figure that out on their own because it never in a million years occurred to us to make that explanation before we started. 

Everything worked out well in the end, there were apologies and offerings made and the situation was properly sorted but we made it a lot harder on ourselves by not having a set protocol instituted as a matter of course when welcoming new spirits into the cadre. I have a set protocol for divination from which I never deviate and I instituted that after a horrible experience where I was tricked by an unhappy and sick spirit, a recently deceased ancestor of the client who was jealous and angry that my client had a life while the spirit, who had died of a drug overdose, no longer did. It was nasty, messy, and never would have been so had we stuck to our protocols. That time, I was convinced to skip them. Never again. Now, I have learned another valuable lesson about first contact protocol (lol) and it’s not one that anyone in my house will neglect from here on out. 

One caveat: because we are so familiar with the Gods and spirits that form such a strong and beloved part of our Household cadre, we tend to forget to be properly formal (and hospitable, because that is what these protocols are, in part) with new spirits. 

I hope this is helpful to those of you reading this who likewise have spiritwork concerns. I receive a lot of questions about how to engage properly with Gods and spirits, about my own protocols, and I find that sometimes pointing out where one falls short, and the lessons learned from that can be tremendously valuable. We learn, by Gods we learn. It sure as hell isn’t always pretty though. 

A New Shrine

One of the things we did in my household this Yule was set up a shrine to Idunna. I’ve never really had any type of devotional relationship with Her before, but this autumn, we all began finding ourselves deeply drawn to Her veneration. I wanted to share a picture of the shrine. I’m very pleased with the way it’s coming along. It is a wall shrine, though I”m not sure that comes through in the photo. We have it hanging at the top of our stairs and every time we pass by, we pray to Her.

Tonight was our last formal Yule ritual. We had Modranacht on the 20th, a proper Yule rite on the 21st, and tonight we did a rather informal rite for the House of Mundilfari. Our next rite will be on the 31st to usher in the New Year. Happy Yule, folks.

Catching Up

Friday we celebrated our last Sunwait of the year. We had such a lovely ritual. It’s hard to describe something that is at once so simple and yet so profound. The rituals we have done as we move toward Yule have nourished us so deeply, and I truly think they have helped us prepare for these ember days so much more fully than we have in years previous.  There was something very special about concluding this cycle with kenaz. It is the hearth fire, the light in the darkness, the torch that leads the way and it came powerfully.  Here is the prayer that we offered, written just like last week by both myself and my housemate (and assistant) Tatyana:

To Sunna and Kenaz

Hail to You, Oh Sunna, Who always lights our way, keeping the hearthfire glowing and warm in the cold expanse of winter. 

Hail to Sunna, Who teaches us to cultivate the arts of the home and of civilization, in the icy depths of the cold; for You come bearing kenaz, this rune who brings with himself the power of creation, the fire of the hammer hitting the anvil, of art, of sorcery, and of manifestation. 

You, gracious Goddess, protect our homes, tending the fire of our spirits, warming the halls of our hearts, in the months when the land slumbers. You inspire our creativity, our playfulness, granting us the gift of inventive craft, and of wonder. 

You, Sunna, are the spark of optimism carrying us through every dark time again and again. You grant us the courage to persevere, for Your light will always come. 

You shine the brightest, when your glorious gleaming light glitters on the snow and ice, reminding  us always that You are there; and Your embrace is one of joy that our souls may drink in deeply, daily, in the darkness of winter. 

You bear kenaz forth, a brilliant torch, leading us laughing into the ember time of Yule, where we taste the fullness of Your blessings. 

Hail to You, Goddess of the Sun, may Your journey lengthen as You return to us again, the fullness of Your glory. Hail, mighty Goddess. 

Tonight, we celebrated Modranacht, calling our Mighty Mother Goddesses: Frigga, Freya, Sigyn, Nerthus, Sif, Ran, Loki (not a Goddess but He did transform into female form to birth Sleipnir), Gerda (Who in our tradition chose not to have children but comforts every grieving mother), Idunna (we don’t know if She has children or not), Sunna, Angurboda, Hela (all the dead are Her children), moist Mother Earth, Frigga’s retinue (again, we don’t know from the sacred stories if any of Them have children)—I feel like I’m missing a Deity but we made sure to offer to all of our mighty Mother Goddesses named and unnamed. Then we honored our Disir, and then as many of our female ancestors as we could name. We ended by remembering the Nornir, hailing Audumla, and offering a powerful prayer to Embla. My husband suggested it before we closed the rite and when I spoke Embla’s name, it hit such a powerful groove spiritually, ancestrally that it nearly knocked me over. I don’t remember what I said during ritual – the prayer was offered extempore – but this is a reconstruction of what I do remember:

Prayer to Embla for Modranacht

I raise this horn to Embla, 
Mother of all mothers, 
Mother of us all. 
I hail Embla, the first of all women,
who drank in the breath of a God,
who received sense and warmth and life
from the Holy Ones Themselves, 
who knew Their touch in blessing, 
who was given a soul. 
Embla, born of elm, 
Who ties us to the worlds, 
Who roots us deep 
In the time of the beginning, 
We pray that you, Eldest Mother, 
Restore our souls and spirits, 
That we too may look at the world 
With eyes that have seen the Gods
And know that which comes from Their hands
To be good and wise and true. 
Hail to you, Embla. 
May we always remember you. 

For those of you celebrating Yule tomorrow, may your celebrations be showered with blessings and may you find favor in the eyes of your Gods and your honored dead. Alu. 

Yuletide Shopping Guide – Books

Today is the last and final installment of my Yuletide Shopping Guide. I created the Yuletide Shopping Guide in part because Yule is one of my favorite times of year. The guide features items polytheists might enjoy seeing in their homes or under their tree this yuletide. All with the hope of spreading some holiday cheer in a difficult year by finding items that can help feed our devotions within our polytheistic traditions, but also to hopefully along the way lift up some of the artisans in our midst too.

So far I’ve included resources for crafters, makers, and DIYers: cookie cutters, crafting molds, fabric (MesoamericanEgyptianGreekNorthern Europe), machine embroidery designs, cross-stitch and embroidery patterns, as well as knitting and crochet patterns. I’ve also highlighted some items on a Krampus theme. I’ve spotlighted items you can use to deck the halls & trim the tree. 

Check out the Greco-Roman themed products relevant to devotees of Cultus Deorum and Hellenismos, the Egyptian themed products ( Part 1 & Part 2 ) relevant to devotees of Kemetism, Northern European themed products ( Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 & Part 5) relevant to Northern Tradition polytheists (Heathens, Asatruar, etc.), as well as some Miscellaneous ( Part 1 & Part 2 ) spotlights featuring artists and artisans who offered a range of product across pantheons, or whose work focused on a tradition that I didn’t have enough items to spotlight on its own. Peruse with care and you will find items related to deities from the Norse, Slavic, Celtic, Roman, Greek, Egyptian, Hindu, Polynesian, Mesoamerican, Minoan, Assyrian, Sumerian, Welsh, Asian, Native American/Inuit, and more!

Today I’ll be spotlighting books.

Affiliate Advertising Disclosure

I am an avid reader and quite the bibliophile. If I really wanted to do this section justice, I could be writing for over a year on suggested books. So I decided to approach this list primarily from the point of view of more recently published works I have either personally read and therefore recommend, or for texts that are on my to read list. I’ve also sprinkled in a few classics, and some books I felt kids could enjoy too so we can pass our traditions to the next generations.


Academic Reading

Unfortunately, I will warn you that some of the academic books are part of small academic print runs and can be prohibitively priced as a result.


Books for Polytheists

The Illustrated Havamal and Illustrated Voluspa takes the old Bellows translation of those eponymous texts but is released with illustrations by artist Sam Flegal. The Man Who Spoke Snakish is a fictional work with strong themes that should resonate with polytheists. The remaining texts were all written by polytheists for polytheists.


Mythology Books

Many of these texts are geared towards children and young adults, so content tends to be adapted for that audience.


Coloring Books

Coloring books for both kids and adults.


My Books

In case you missed it since last December I have released 9 books. A Modern Guide to Heathenry is a significantly revised and expanded book built on the foundation of Exploring the Northern Tradition with over 70,000 words of additional, new content. Sigyn: Our Lady of the Staying Power is a re-release after a change in publishers. The other books are all new releases.


Walking the Worlds

After several years and 12 volumes, Walking the Worlds, a peer-reviewed journal of polytheism and spiritwork has concluded its run. In commemoration, here are the links to each release of the journal in case you missed any.


What books are on your to read list? What books would you recommend? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Yuletide Shopping Guide – Northern Europe Products – Part 5

I created the Yuletide Shopping Guide in part because Yule is one of my favorite times of year. The guide features items polytheists would enjoy seeing in their homes or under their tree this yuletide. All with the hope of spreading some holiday cheer in a difficult year by finding items that can help feed our devotions within our polytheistic traditions, but also to hopefully along the way lift up some of the artisans in our midst too.

So far I’ve included resources for crafters, makers, and DIYers: cookie cutters, crafting molds, fabric (MesoamericanEgyptianGreekNorthern Europe), machine embroidery designs, cross-stitch and embroidery patterns, as well as knitting and crochet patterns. I’ve also highlighted some items on a Krampus theme. I’ve spotlighted items you can use to deck the halls and trim the tree. 

Check out the Greco-Roman themed products relevant to devotees of Cultus Deorum and Hellenismos, the Egyptian themed products ( Part 1 & Part 2 ) relevant to devotees of Kemetism, and Northern Europe themed products ( Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 ) relevant to Northern Tradition polytheists. Primarily these items are Norse-centric, but there’s a small scattering of Celtic and Slavic goods too in the mix.

There were some artists and artisans who offered a range of product across pantheons, or whose work focuses on a tradition that I didn’t have enough items to spotlight on its own. So I highly recommend that you carefully peruse the spotlighted artists and artisans in my miscellaneous ( Part 1 & Part 2 ). You will find offerings encompassing a vast array of traditions: Norse, Slavic, Celtic, Roman, Greek, Egyptian, Hindu, Polynesian, Mesoamerican, Minoan, Assyrian, Sumerian, Welsh, Asian, Native American/Inuit, and more!

Today is the fifth installment of Northern Europe themed products relevant for fellow Northern Tradition polytheists.

PantheonSkulptur

PantheonSkulptur based in Sweden, features the artistic gold or silver gilded statues of Norse or Celtic Gods and Goddesses by Stina Jarenskog. Since ever piece is handmade, sometimes there’s nothing in the shop as she’s sold out. Just be sure to bookmark the shop and revisit.


FatefulSigns

FatefulSigns is the online storefront for illustrator Sam Flegal, who has done work for gaming companies and concept art for movies. He has some truly stunning images of our Gods and Goddesses, and offers the original for sale, as well as prints. He’s also decided to do his own illustrations for sections of the lore, which you can find in his two books: the Illustrated Havamal, and the Illustrated Voluspa.


Grimfrost

Grimfrost is a Swedish based company that specializes in items inspired by and related to Viking Age culture. They have some replica statuary and jewelry, but also some truly unique things based on the familiar. Some highlighted items are the Sleipnir Post Earrings, a Freya Drum, a replica of a ritual procession, and replicas from the archaeological record of our Gods.


Norsies

SummitCollection’s Norsies features painted cold cast resin figures of Norse Gods & Goddesses.


Miscellaneous

Not every item listed below is depicted in this image.
  • Poster of Travis Bowman’s prayer to Odin 
  • Norhalla’s Sleipnir Plush Toy
  • ArcanicaArt painted Frigg
  • MailoniKat’s Fox Cloth
  • DeBaunFineCeramics Valknut Pendant
  • HeathenTreeCreations – Vanic Deities Statues
  • Dharmalus – Valknut wall shelves
  • SevenOaksGrove Rune Cloth
  • ShirePost Ullr and vegvisir zipper pull
  • The National Museum of Denmark’s Gift Shop has a wide range of products too!

We’re almost done! Just one more post to go.