General Update on Stuff & Things

I’ve had a number of questions about what I’m up to lately so here you go: 

What am I currently reading?: I’m working my way through the wonder charm and prayer book Sannion compiled for me out of thousands of Norse, Germanic, Old English, Faroese, and other sources. Most of what I’m reading is academically focused: “Commentary on the Gospel of St. Matthew by Saint John Chrysostom,”  (Matthew has an important passage relevant to eunuchs and eunuchs are relevant to my dissertation); “Contextualizing Gender in Early Christian Discourse: Thinking Beyond Thecla” by C. Stichele and T. Penner. I’ve read it before twice, but it’s an excellent study on the various lenses we can use to engage with a text. Finally, I’m about to start “The Gods of the Ancient Slavs” by Znayenko. I’m not holding my breath on that one – I suspect the scholarship is out of date, but who knows? I might be pleasantly surprised. 

What am I watching?: America collapsing season 2024. *sarcasm* On tv we just finished the series “Fallout” and enjoyed that quite a bit. It had character arc for the main female character, which is so rare. We’re getting ready for the final season of “Evil”, though I do wish they’d have a Catholic consultant just once. Still, it’s entertaining. I like police procedurals so I’ve been really enjoying the show “Will Trent” and just started watching a new show called “Tracker.” Not sure yet about that one, but each episode is getting better and the characters more tightly written. As to movies, I loved the movie “Cabrini” though my one issue was that she wasn’t shown praying enough for an average lay person let alone a saint who spoke of the absolute necessity of prayer. I watched the 1973 “Wicker Man”, the perfect Beltane movie, on April 30^th. That’s always an uplifting family film. I’m waiting to watch the movie “One Life” – it’s out now on prime but I know it’s going to make me cry. 

What am I listening to? : I’m really enjoying The Long Dog Street Band. Sannion introduced me to their music awhile back and it’s potent. It has a very Appalachian vibe to it and some of their music reminds me of post-civil war ambience and melodies. 

What am I working on academically? : I’m working through revisions on my dissertation proposal. I need to have it done in within the next couple of weeks. I’m also trying to keep my Latin and German up to par. I’m getting ready to teach a summer course on Ancient Christian Texts and I just finished a fantastic course on Christian Mystical Texts. I absolutely loved this class. I work at a university that requires two theology and two philosophy courses for every student. It’s part of their undergraduate core. The intro course is set (Faith and Critical Reason in theology or, I think, Introduction to Philosophy) but then students can choose from a large selection of courses in either field for their second requirement. 

What am I doing for fun now? : I’m learning Ladino. It’s a language very much like Yiddish but instead of coming out of Germany and Russia, it was the language that developed amongst Jewish peoples expelled from the Iberian Peninsula in the 15^th century. It has Balkan, Turkish, Arabic, Hebrew, Portuguese, French, and of course a lot of Spanish influence and comes out of medieval Spanish. It’s fascinating. I’m doing a six week online course for fun and relaxation at the moment, but I plan to keep up with it after the course is over. 

What’s up with my art?: I have two shows at the moment, one in Poughkeepsie and one in Beacon. Folks can follow my art adventures here. 

What am I playing on guitar? : a lovely renaissance piece called “Spagnoletta” (anonymous) and a Baroque piece called “Canarios” by Gaspar Sanz. I also have a piece by Carcassi, but that, while lovely, is very much a type of etude and hard as hell. Lol. Then scales. Lots and lots of scales. 

What religious writing am I working on: well, slowly, veeery slowly I have two projects in the works. One is a small novena book for Idunna. The other is a “basics of spirit-work” book, sort of all the things I wish I’d known before I started doing that Work. Both are going to take awhile because I’m focused primarily on academic work right now, which is also part of my religious work (Teaching is a service I give to Odin), and that’s eating up most of my time at the moment. 

So what are you all up to? ^__^

Wodinic Wednesday Q&A

Happy Wednesday, folks. Once again it’s Woden’s Day and so, I’ll be doing my Wodinic Wednesday Q&A for my readers. Until 10pm EST tonight, I’ll keep this blog open to reader questions. Please don’t hesitate to ask questions on whatever topic you think I might be able to tender an answer (for example: Odin, Heathenry, Norse Gods, devotion, spiritwork, mysticism, occult practices, my academic field –early Christianity, specifically pain and the body, eunuchs, asceticism, etc. ballet, and anything else you might be interested in). I’ll do my best to answer or direct you to where you can find an answer.

Now for a few other interesting things.

Firstly, I went to see the movie Cabrini this past week. It was absolutely fantastic and I highly recommend it. It really gives both a glimpse into a powerhouse of a woman who became the first American saint, but also a heart-wrenching glimpse into what life was like for Italian immigrants and the poor in the late 19^th/early 20^th century in New York City. The acting was Oscar worthy in my opinion. My only complaint: this woman who emphasized prayer in everything she did was never shown praying (save perhaps once and then it’s really ambiguous). There were moments where prayer and her connection to her God should have been emphasized and weren’t— ostensibly to make the film more accessible to non-Catholics. It was a lost opportunity to highlight the piety that drove her and this omission got rather annoying by the last third of the movie. Even with that, I highly recommend the film. This saint has a shrine, and it’s one of the few in the US that has first class relics (her body – minus her heart which was sent to Italy). I have a fascinating with bone chapels which this is not, and by extension bodily relics, which this has. When I went to see the movie, my husband and I had the theatre to ourselves, and this was good, because watching the dramatization of what this woman had to go through in order to found what became Cabrini hospital had me cussing a blue streak! I keep an eye out for movies that present religions and devotion positively and while this is not a Heathen movie, it did that and it’s such a rarity in today’s media I wanted to recommend it.

Secondly, here is a short Instagram video about mindfulness. I’m not at this point by any measure, but I like the anecdote the woman tells. It makes me realize how far I have to go in moving mindfully in the world. Thank you to my friend, Mary Ann for this one.

Finally, I’ve been thinking about one of our healing Goddesses, Aurboda. She is the mother of Gerda and in my particular tradition considered particularly skilled in pharmacology. I think because I’ve been making salves lately, I’ve been praying to Her more than usual, so, here is one of my prayers. It’s written in a style that I first discovered in Mechthild of Magdeburg’s “Flowing Light of the Godhead” and it really works for me:

Prayer to Aurboda

We praise You, Aurboða, companion of Eir, companion of Mengloth, great in the ways of healing.

We praise You, Aurboða, wise and pious in making offerings to the land and the spirits therein. They are Your allies and a source of Your power. Yours is a bond of mutual respect.

We praise You, skilled in herbs and medicines, great apothecary of Lyfjaberg, Whom even other healing Powers consult.

We praise You, Canny Seeress, Who knows the ways of reverence, Who easily untangles the snarled skeins of wyrd and reads them rightly.

We Praise You, Mother of Gerda, Who raised Your daughter in the ways of Power, a jewel in the hall of the Mountain tribes, Carrier of Your peoples’ sovereignty.

Oh Wisdom beyond Measure!

Oh Mighty Healing Power!

Oh Tree of richness and plenty!

Oh Caretaker of the land!

Oh Protector of all the spirits of the earth!

Oh Jewel of Prophetic Wonder!

Mighty Apothecary of the Gods, ever and always do we praise You! Hail to You, Aurboða! Teach us ever and always we pray, to make good offerings, to walk in the ways of respect and reverence, and to honor the land that has shaped us, every day of our lives.

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That is all for now. I might not get to your questions until late tonight, but I promise to answer them before the day is done.

A Little Fun

Ok, folks, I’m gallery sitting today, and I have a bit more time on my hands than usual, so I thought I’d ask y’all for recommendations. If you are so moved, tell me 

*what you’re listening too, 

*what you’ve watched recently, and 

*what you’ve read recently 

that you enjoyed enough to recommend. Feel free to post in the comments. 

Here are mine: 

I’ve been listening to this song obsessively the past two days. I love Brown’s voice.

I watched “Strays” last night and it actually made me cry. It’s a beautiful movie. It is NOT, I repeat NOT child friendly (despite justice happening in the end). I highly recommend it. I’m serious about it not being a kid’s movie though. We watched it as a fluke, expecting it to be funny but essentially for kids. It really, really, REALLY is not. Funny and sad, heart wrenching ,and infuriating in equal turns, it hits on some heavy themes. There is a happy ending for all but Doug. Doug got what he deserved. 

Finally,  I’ve been reading a collection of Wendell Berry’s poetry, a volume gifted to me by my mom. He was one of her (and my) favorite poets. If you haven’t read him, here are a few of his poems. His poetry is wistful, evocative, makes my heart hurt sometimes, and makes me long for another place and time. I move better in the world having read them. 

So, … what would you all like to recommend? 

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Two Amazing Movies About Honor, Grace, and Doing the Right Thing

This past week my husband and I watched two unexpectedly good, really good movies: “Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant” and (trust me, I’ll explain below) “Black Demon.” I knew the first could be compelling but had no idea how much so, and I expected nothing but a shark movie from the latter, but it really blew us away. Both movies are about honor, grace, valor, piety, and doing the right thing under horrible and seemingly unsurmountable circumstances. I ended up buying both of them on dvd. 

I’ll begin with “The Covenant.” I suspected this was going to be quite a compelling movie just from the previews, but I had no idea how much so. It’s beautiful and one of the most powerful meditations on honor and righteous masculinity that I have ever seen. We need those stories, especially now. I was also very pleased to note that the women were equally honorable. I utterly loathe the trope one sees in so many movies and television shows where the male character is military, FBI, police, etc. and has to go to work and the wife gets upset about this or acts passive aggressively and unsupportive instead of telling him to go do his job. (It can happen with a female character and her wife or husband but most frequently it’s a male character and wife). I loathe that trope beyond measure. I want to hit the characters upside the head (metaphorically) with Plutarch’s writings on the women of Sparta! Fortunately, in this movie, the wife of the main character is every bit as solid as he is and the interpreter’s wife is written pretty effectively too. That was a relief and I’ll admit, raised the movie even higher in my estimation. Women need good, solid models of female honor too. 

The story is fairly simple. 

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SPOILERS FOLLOW

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A military unit in Afghanistan is assigned an Afghani interpreter named Ahmed (the movie notes he speaks Dari, and four other area-important languages, though I don’t think those languages are specified). The audience is told that the Taliban killed this man’s son and that’s why he’s fighting for the Americans. [One of the things the movie seeks to highlight is the plight of Afghanis who chose to work with Americans, but who were left beyond when American pulled out of Afghanistan]. The team goes out, and eventually gets ambushed. In that ambush, everyone except the interpreter Ahmed and Gyllenhaal’s character John Kinley are killed. Kinley is terribly injured. Ahmed rescues him and carries him over dangerous, brutal terrain, until he can get the soldier back to the US base. The whole time, the two of them are being hunted by groups of Taliban. After Ahmed gets Kinley back to the base, the story picks up with Kinley in the States waking up from having been three weeks unconscious in the hospital. He immediately starts trying to get Ahmed and his family visas to move to the US – something they had been promised for Ahmed’s work as a translator. In the interim, Ahmed has become a folk hero. He left a trail of Taliban bodies behind when he rescued Kinley. He and his family have had to go into hiding, moving frequently to avoid being captured by the Taliban. That family is comprised of a wife and newborn. Kinley tries every legitimate military channel and gets stonewalled again and again and finally realizes he has to do this himself. He hesitates to tell his wife of his decision, but she tells him to go and do what is right, i.e. rescuing Ahmed. This is particularly dangerous since he’s at the top of the Taliban’s hit list. Eventually, Kinley gets his commander’s assistance in procuring visas and then hires a military contractor in Afghanistan so that he’ll have a competent team. When he gets to Afghanistan, the situation is such that he is on his own until he finds Ahmed, which he eventually does with the help of Ahmed’s brother. They’re all under fire, trying to make their escape and out of options when the military contractor shows up to extract them. They all make it out of Afghanistan safely. That’s it. That’s the bare bones story but within that scaffolding, is a powerful story of honor, integrity, perseverance, and grit. 

“Black Demon” is a little different. I really thought it was going to be a typical shark-attacks-humans movie. I’m ok with those. I like action movies and I like sharks. I’d have been ok with a typical action movie. It turned out to be so much more though. The shark in question is an avatar of the Aztec God Tlaloc. I almost didn’t watch it when I realized that – fearing that it would be disrespectful, but it wasn’t and I’m glad I watched. There is so much piety throughout the movie: prayers in Nahuatl, reverence and offerings to Tlaloc, deep understanding and piety from one of the children, and at the end, a blessing from the God. I was stunned, absolutely stunned. In between, a man is forced to take responsibility for his choices and the damage they’ve caused to the local environment. It was a surprisingly beautiful movie…and the shark was trying to eat the people. Best of both worlds. 🙂 It IS a big sensationalist – it’s an action movie after all, but the undercurrent of piety is very visibly there and my husband and I were watching it with our mouths hanging open in shock. 

So, there are my recommendations for my movie Monday post. 

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Movie Mondays

I alway mean to give at least one Monday out of the month to a movie review but quite often I just don’t watch enough television or movies — I don’t have time. This month has been like that. So, I’m turning it over to all y’all (a good southern expression, for my non US readers. Southern English solved the issue of modern English not having a second person plural early on lol.): as polytheists, what movies or tv shows would y’all like to recommend? Please feel free to leave your comments and recommendations below.

Happy Monday, my reprobates. Happy Monday. 🙂

Finally saw “the Northman”

​Ok. So I finally saw “the Northman” tonight, and I have to say I was seriously, disappointingly, underwhelmed. I really really wanted to like it but I found myself irritated all the way through. 

Here’s what I did like: 

1. Pretty much all of the female characters. This is unusual for me. Usually, I find most female characters unnecessarily shoehorned into​ stories, or irritating, foolish, or weak, etc. etc. I really don’t like the way women are written most of the time but in this movie, I liked all of the major female characters and Bjork’s performance was amazing (I’m not a fan of Bjork either, so for me to say this is something). 

2. the Odinic scenes — the rescue by the valkyrja, the Tree of life, etc. The valkyrja was amazing. 

3. the male shaman (and I seriously want the drum beater he was using).

4. the foxes. 🙂

5. That the seeresss of Freyr must have seen what was really happening when the first bodies showed up, but she said nothing, giving Freyr’s tacit consent to the just vengeance. 

6. Across the board the acting was excellent.

7. The rituals surrounding the funerals — I won’t say more as I don’t want to give spoilers.

8. Some of the fight choreography — not a lot of it, but every once in awhile, esp. with shield and sword, there was a really clever move.

9. At one point, Freyr is referred to as “the God of Erections” and frankly, that just delighted me. It’s a great by-name for Him. I know some Heathens have complained about this part of the movie, but it’s an accurate description of Freyr’s iconography and also His power. 

10. the clothing seemed historically accurate and one thing that struck me was the dim interiors. I don’t think we really “get” how dark indoor rooms would have been before gas light and then electric lighting. 

11. I’m assuming it was shot in Iceland. I’ve been there and it really is that beautiful. The scenery was stunning. 

12. The way the Christians were referenced throughout the movie made me smile. It was first to last a properly Heathen world. 

13. There was a female fighter, a shield maiden shown in one of the battles, in the aftermath, and that was really cool. There wasn’t more than one, which is far more accurate than showing a ton of them. We have historical references here and there to female fighters– women have always fought — but they were never the norm. 

Things I really disliked: 

1. the way berserkers were presented (were we dealing with berserker or ulfednar?).

2. Amleth was foolish and this is what irritated me the most. He fought stupidly. There was no cleverness save when he was working with Olga. Also, that he was a berserker, earlier established in the movie, doesn’t come into play in the later vengeance-taking battles. I didn’t think he was written as a smart character and that bothered me intensely and to my mind, goes against the saga this is based upon.

3. Skarsgard’s posture. Like dude, get some help for that neck issue. his head was constantly shoved so far forward it made my own neck hurt. stand up straight ffs. (I’m a former ballet dancer who had a ton of martial arts training too. Stand. Up. Straight). This drove me crazy throughout the film. 

4. Everyone was dirty. The Scandinavians were very clean. There’s a (7th c. I think?) bit of Christian writing from England where the Christians are complaining that the Vikings get all the girls because they bathe weekly, perfume themselves, comb their hair and braid their beards. 

5. The ritual at the beginning with the king and his son barking like dogs. WTF was that supposed to be? 

Overall, it just left me cold. It does have the same pacing and surreal atmosphere as “The Witch,” (which I liked — it captures something of the paranoia and isolation of Puritan New England). Across the board the acting is exceptional. The reveal with Nicole Kidman’s character — wow. I’m not saying anything about it, but it was very, very well done. But other than that, I was just like…meh. 

Upon Seeing “The Green Knight”

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Warning: THERE WILL BE SPOILERS BELOW

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As a medievalist, my focus is theology. I have never had any particular interest in Arthurian literature, so I will admit to having not read the original story since Middle School. My comments here are about the movie – the dvd isn’t available for pre order yet (not that I can find) or I would link to it here. I definitely want to add it to my collection! My husband and I saw it tonight and I just got back so you’re getting my stream of consciousness thoughts on this first viewing. 

The use of color in the movie made me cry. It’s absolutely beautiful. There’s also a conversation happening with the shifting tones of Gawain’s cloak, which starts out as a rich, yellow ochre and at times, as he picks up a fox traveling companion, shifts to a subtle saffron now and again, the exact shade of the fox’s fur.  I think this happens whenever Gawain has followed the fox into somewhere particularly eldritch and magical and is no longer moving in the mundane world alone. Likewise, the landscape is so stark and empty, yet magical and frightening. There’s a conversation there, especially when this is contrasted with the vibrant color always encircling Gawain. 

The walking giants show a world passing away and that’s what is so potent about this story the way it was originally written and the way it’s visualized here: it captures that sense of one world passing into memory, and another being built atop its echoes: Polytheisms, indigenous Paganisms were passing away, blending, shifting, syncretizing  – sometimes forcibly so –and a new religion was taking root but had not yet fully done so. That is a potent underlying theme in this vision. 

Fathers are important. One of the first things that I picked up on is that in this iteration, Gawain has no father present, nor any male role model. He’s not unkind. In fact, he’s a confused but largely kindhearted young man. He’s not unloved. He has a mother who loves him dearly and an erstwhile partner. But there’s no father figure present (something the King actually laments at one point: that he was not there as Gawain, his nephew was growing up) and it shows in the uncertainty that plagues Gawain throughout the film. He doesn’t know himself but moreover doesn’t trust himself. He doesn’t think he is worth anything (again, this comes out when Arthur invites him to take a seat at the royal table). He had the beauty and benefit of a mother’s love but there was no comparable male figure to show him how to be a man. (His mother is awesome, by the way: a seeress and sorcerous who, with her magic, sets all this in motion to give her son a chance to find himself. In the end he does, but it takes male figures: Arthur, the Lord of the Castle of distractions, the Green Knight himself to show him how to do this). 

The fox was my favorite part. It reminded me in personality of my cat Elena. 

Gawain went on a quest. The purpose of a quest is the honing of a man. The purpose of a quest is facing challenges and finding one’s honor and courage. Gawain wanted to become a knight. He’s challenged on this in the Castle of distractions. The Lord of the castle asked him, “is it just one and done? You’re knighted and then you’re a new person and that’s it?” and Gawain (a little slow on the uptake) says, “yes.” But that’s not it, as he finds out. Honor, the making of character, the making of a man (or a woman) is not ever defined by one instance. It’s making the right choices again and again and again, sometimes under horrible circumstances. It’s a never-ending process. 

Gawain is challenged at every turn: to look beyond pleasure and carnal enjoyment, to do the right thing without expectation of reward, to act with integrity even in the face of fear and death, to focus, to be courageous, to keep his word, and most of all to make the hardest choices of all. 

SERIOUS SPOILER FOLLOWS

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When he is kneeling before Green Knight, he flinches several times when the knight goes to strike. We see him running out of the cave, saying he’s sorry but he can’t do it. Then we see him being knighted, becoming Arthur’s heir, discarding his low born lover after taking their child from her (the worst scene in the movie in my opinion), marrying a princess, waging war, losing his son in war and seeing what kind of hard, pitiless man he will become if he goes home on the wings of stolen valor, instead of earning it rightly (even though earning it means pain, scars, and maybe even death). There’s an earlier flash when he is bound, having been overtaken by brigands and we see a skeletal body garbed just like him. The meaning is clear: you have a choice to give up or fight and use your mind and persevere. He meets that challenge. We find out at the end, that the horrible, brutal, merciless, cold, stone hearted man he has become at the end was a vision given to him by the Green Knight, conjured up by his mother a year earlier: this is what you will become if you don’t make the right choices. Choose. It’s up to you and every one of them counts; and in the end, Gawain faces the Green Knight realizing it is better to die a good, honorable man than live without manhood. 

Dev Patel is absolutely amazing in this role (the entire cast is amazing). He plays a Gawain who is insecure, who wants to be a good man but has no idea how and often feels hopeless and worthless. There’s a confused vulnerability there (which makes the contrast with the king he becomes in the alternate future vision all the more compelling), as though he can almost grasp the lesson but then is wrong again and again, screwing up again and again, until finally he learns to trust himself and makes his final choice, a good choice, and in doing so becomes the man he has always wished to be. 

As an aside, there were two other couples in the theater. I had almost as much enjoyment watching their confusion at the end, as I did watching the movie. They had zero idea what was happening at the end. It’s a type of story-telling we don’t see very often anymore (and the pacing was at once fast and very slow) because no one is reading the Classics of ancient and medieval literature anymore. There are a thousand layers to this story, and a thousand tips for moving in a world that is as much spirit as corporeal force. 

Best lines: 

When Arthur asks Gawain to tell him a story of Gawain’s accomplishments in the beginning, the young man says, “I have nothing to tell.” And the Queen interjects, “Yet.” 

Yes, exactly: yet. That tells you there, the type of journey this will be. (Also, as an aside, the Queen is arrayed like a votive image of the Madonna – one at Koln Cathedral in particular comes to mind – with her entire dress covered in Milagros). 

Finally, during one of his challenges, Gawain says to St. Winifred (who has asked him to help her find her head, which was tossed in a spring): are you real or a spirit?

St. W.: Is there a difference? I need my head. 

I gave a little cheer. 

Wisdom in Strange Places

My housemate was watching the new series “The Stand” this afternoon on her lunch break, and I sat down to watch with her. Without giving away plot points for people who may not have read the book but are watching the series, the story is about a confrontation between good and evil, the latter embodied in a terrible being that wears the shape of a man. At one point, four characters aligned with good are journeying to make their stand against this creature and there is a moment where they have to decide whether to continue as a divinely inspired prophet told them to do, or whether to stay with an injured comrade. The fallen comrade invokes the 23^rd Psalm and watching this scene, I had a moment of such intense clarity that it was painful. 

There is evil and pollution out there, everywhere we walk in this world. Sometimes it is small but sometimes it is massive and terrifying. Sometimes we are called to step up and come face to face with that evil. Do not fear. Wherever we go, our Gods are with us. Our ancestors walk at our backs sustaining us. The land itself reflects the power of the Holy. Why the hell should I fear anything when my God stands at my back, surrounds me with His protection, when He fills me with His glory as I stand encircled by enemies. None of the evil which rises against us matters. It is nothing in comparison to the Power of our Gods and when we choose, really choose to align ourselves with the Holy, we no longer have any need to fear. What is there in this world, what force, what wickedness that is as great as those Gods that we love and serve? 

So yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death – places polluted and filled with wickedness, places of foulness and danger, and though I am forced to sometimes engage with people who are also filled with pollution, I will never fear. I will not give evil that to feed upon. I am surrounded by my Gods. They have poured Themselves out around me, through me, through every pore, every molecule of my being. They stand between me and every unholy thing that I must face down. They are with me, filling me with Their protection and Their glory. What is the banality of wickedness in the face of such might? What is evil in the face of such power? I will be a conduit for my Gods until my soul itself is dust glittering in Their hands. Why the hell should I EVER fear that which stands against Them?  

I was also thinking about what actors do when they tell these stories of evil. Those stories are important. They aren’t just stories of evil, but stories of human courage and virtue and valor in the most unexpected of places. Just as those that are the most evil are often boring and banal, the man or woman next door, so too are those who might rise up against that evil. We need those stories. We need to see that we too can have courage. At the same time, actors are vessels for forces far greater than they themselves. I was a performer for the first part of my life, granted a ballet dancer not an actor but the same thing holds: those who take up that work empty themselves out and take on the mask of other beings. That is dangerous. I know if I were playing a role now that was supposed to be the embodiment of evil, I would be bracketing every actual performance with offerings and prayers, cleansings and there would be a shrine to my Gods and probably also to Dionysos especially – even if I weren’t devoted to Him, because is the patron of the theatre, in my dressing room. This is why, I firmly believe, that in the ancient world, theatre wasn’t just a good time. It was bracketed by days of rituals and prayers and offerings to Dionysos. The stage is a liminal place and those who work upon it open themselves up in ways that can be very dangerous to the self.   The stories told on the stage are important. They have the power to make us better, to elevate us to virtue and help us cultivate the best parts of ourselves. They give us a language to understand what is happening when evil comes calling. Evil feeds on fear. The power of Story, a Power in and of itself, shows us how to move beyond that fear. 

May those who do this sacred work remain clean. 
May they be protected as they open themselves up 
on stage, before a camera, to forces beyond themselves. 
May they feel the grace of Dionysos and their own Gods too. 
May they be safe and nourished in their work. 

May we ourselves rest secure in the knowledge that the Gods are with us always, 
That we need not fear. That we are Theirs and They are ours, 
and in the alchemy of that equation evil is nothing at all. 

Selah.

Movie Monday: What a Mess (the Craft:Legacy)

So, we watched “The Craft: Legacy” the other night. What a piece of unmitigated garbage. I love the first movie (despite a rather milk-toast main character); it was edgy and dangerous and showed real “sisterhood.” There was a (thankfully fictional, given the story line) Deity figure mentioned (Manon), and it showed the danger of receiving too much power too soon. It also really captured what the neo-pagan and occult communities were like at the tail end of the nineties. This one…well, let’s start with what I liked. 

The performance of the main character was excellent and I liked the reveal about her parentage at the end of the movie. There was also a bi male character, which one rarely sees in movies. That was about it. Even the score was crap. 

What I disliked: the characters parroted social justice slogans, you know, in place of actual personality, ethics, or soul. I expected a bit of it, but the whole movie was suffused with this nonsense. In the original, there was character development, and the scars and trauma of the girls was shown on screen. In this new movie, it was just slogans. (For instance, one of the girls was trans. Ok. That could be really interesting, but we don’t actually see any of her experience or struggles or personality or journey. It’s just a label to check off).  The girls’ sisterhood also goes out the window the moment one of them demonstrates true power, betraying exactly the lack of critical thinking and reasoning skills I’ve come to expect from the left. Masculinity throughout the movie is portrayed as toxic (unless it’s utterly spineless, then it’s “woke”), the rituals are pathetic, and none of the girls are shown actually able to focus enough to work anything, and what could have been a fascinating continuation turned into a poorly written mess. One could have written this well, still with the leftist principles. That’s not what happened though, and it’s a shame, because the actresses were quite good despite being given personality-less characters to play. The movie did show how brutal and bullying high school can be though, in a much more graphic way than the original, which was well done. (Watching it, I said to my housemate: so many reasons to homeschool. So. Many. Reasons). 

I think part of the problem, aside from the woke nonsense which I personally think should have been jettisoned wholesale (it became a caricature of these principles, which shouldn’t have been the intent. If you’re going to introduce that, it has to be done well and the time has to be taken to draw out the complexities and characterizations involved), is writers don’t understand the mindset of a magus or witch (used in the traditional sense not as a gloss for Wicca). It’s about the acquisition of power. Any magician who tells you he or she isn’t interested in power is lying to themselves and to you. There is a certain brutal amorality in the best of them. This isn’t the type of character with which the audience will empathize, especially not if that character is female. I’m reminded of a fiction author I used to like, who wrote one of my favorite vampire series (no, it’s not Anne Rice). She recently betrayed and frankly neutered her main character, rendering him harmless. She said in the epilogue that she was concerned about how popular this character was, because he was essentially a serial killer. Um yes, sweetheart, vampires should not sparkle. You wrote a compelling character drawing on a significant amount of traditional vampire lore. Have some courage and stay the course (Gods save us from cowardice passing as morality). Stories with harsh characters, with complicated villains who are not always bad but certainly not good (and heroes who are not always good either) are important, and they teach us about navigating the complexities of a morally grey world. We don’t need a handful of Mary Sues checking off social justice oppression points (but never actually depicting the struggles, which would have been interesting) on screen or on page. 

What disturbed me the most, is this movie is all about conformity with your peer group, not independent thought, not power, certainly not magic. It had very little to do with actual power, with overcoming fear of one’s power, with growing into power as a female or male, and even less to do with the much-touted ‘sisterhood.’ Skip it, my friends, and re-watch the original.  

Movie Monday: 13th Warrior

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I’m working on a deeper theological piece, but it’s going to take me a bit of time to complete, especially since I have a conference paper to finish writing. In the meantime, I’m really enjoying my movie Monday posts, so here’s another one. 

Someone at school asked me the other day what my favorite medieval themed movie was and without missing a beat, I said, “13^thWarrior.” This was the first-time Heathenry had been portrayed on screen, at least insofar as I had seen and I loved it, and despite its flaws, it remains one of my feel-good movies. I think I’ve watched it dozens of times. 

The movie is based on a book by Michael Crichton titled Eaters of the Dead. This book itself uses two medieval stories, firstly Beowulf, and secondly a book by Ibn Fadlan, a tenth century Muslim traveler to the North, who spent significant time amongst the Rus and later wrote a travelogue of the wonders he witnessed there. Viking Answer Lady has an informative post here that gives links to Fadlan’s account and also analyzes some of the more interesting sections. It’s worth a read because – and this is one thing that comes through in the movie too – we get to see the Northmen through a foreigner’s eyes, someone for whom the practices and customs he’s experiencing are completely alien. He is able to bring them into vivid relief in his account, because everything is different and strange and new. In the movie, the main character (supposedly based on Ibn Fadlan… a very very fictionalized Fadlan) becomes our interlocutor, in the same way, for a story of great heroism. 

Things I really liked about this movie: 

1. The divination scene where the prophetess calls 13 warriors to journey forth. I particularly liked the respect they gave to her and the reverence the entire process of divination had for the Northmen.
2. The prayer the Muslim character makes before the final battle – it’s lovely and potent (despite referring to God as “Father,” which is not congruent with Islamic tradition), and the prayer all the Heathens make before the final battle (in which the Muslim character joins too), to the ancestors. I just adore that final prayer. 
3. The way the main character learns the Norse language, through osmosis, i.e. listening. 
4. The way this then demonstrates how intelligent Bulwif is – I won’t give anything away, but he represents the best type of leader as described in the Havamal. He’s also very, very Odinic, especially how he dies. This is much more emphasized in the book than in the movie but it still comes through (in the book, he’s not only seated in the throne with his dogs at his feet but ravens come to rest on each shoulder). 
5. The fight scenes – I’m a sucker for a good fight scene. 

Things that annoyed me: 

1. The different types of armor. While some of the older armor might have been passed down in a family, at least two warriors wore armor that wouldn’t be invented for another couple hundred years! 
2. The wash basin scene – it’s just inaccurate, a misreading of Ibn Fadhlan. 
3. The minor romance. Why must otherwise good action movies always have romance (if romance it can be called; it was really just a booty call on both sides)? Fortunately, it didn’t detract much from the movie and little time was spent on it. 
4. All the older fighters die in the first attack. If they had lived long enough to be old, that means they were canny, intelligent, lucky, and badass fighters. They wouldn’t have crumpled in that first battle.

Is this a great movie? No, not by any means. It is, however fun, and it’s one of the few things I’ve seen that not only presents Heathens well, but taps into (however lightly) some of our lore. Despite its inaccuracies, it brings the viewer into a different world, a different time, a different way of being in the world. It shows certain virtues, like courage and honor, a willingness to confront terrifying things to do right by one’s allies. As always, I think it’s beneficial for us to see and read examples of heroism, of virtue. That’s a big part of why these stories, epics, folksongs and the like, were continuously recited. The media we consume changes us internally and that can be for the better or for the worse. That’s why it’s important to approach these things critically, to make good choices, to make choices that teach us how to cultivate a better way of being in the world, a message emphasized most assuredly, in the Havamal.