Post-Ritual note

So, I did end up praying extemporaneously so I don’t have a pre-written prayer to share. I will say that I was struck while invoking Sunna tonight that one of Her greatest gifts to us is courage. She gives us courage of heart that we can draw upon to do what is right when the need comes. I love that and each Sunwait, I find myself just so grateful that I live in a time when I can love and honor the Gods as openly as I do and each Sunwait, I love Sunna even more.

Here is a picture of our shrine, a close up tonight. I put a number of things on the shrine and asked Her blessing on them. One of them was the prayer card you see right in front.

If anyone would like this ^ blessed card (for free), please contact me via email krasskova at gmail.com. I will give it to the first person who emails me. Everyone else can have a Sunna card, but it will not have been blessed in ritual — OR you may request a blessed one and we can put it on the shrine table for next week and send it out after next week’s sunwait. Just ask. So, if you’re interested, go ahead and email me and I’ll get that out. Include a mailing address.

I pray that all of you who are celebrating Sunwait have a lovely and blessed week.

EDIT : The card has been claimed. 🙂

A Bit About Symbol

Friday’s Sunwait ritual ended with a symbel and this was the first time my assistant had ever attended one. Ours was relatively informal so afterwards, we had a long discussion on what to expect if it were more formal and we had more than nine or ten people present! This article is drawn from some of that conversation. I’ll preface this with noting that different traditions/denominations and groups may choose to perform symbel differently from what I describe here. This is how my religious House does it and the way I do symbel was largely influenced by my years in Theodism (1). 

Symbel or Symbol is just the Old English word for “feast” (2). From the start, this tells us a bit about this rite: firstly, it may be a religious ritual but it’s also quite literally a community affair. It’s a feast, and the focus is as much on the community and building bonds between community members, reifying relationships and hierarchies, as it is honoring the Gods (3).  At its best, this rite reifies the cosmic hierarchy, the architecture of the worlds, our devotion and gratitude to the Gods and the unity of the community itself – whose hierarchy is in microcosm, a reflection of that greater macrocosm of divine architecture. At its worst, it’s a shit show where the ego of those seated at the high table is the only thing being venerated. It takes a deft and pious hand to really manage symbel well.  In the religious sense, doing it poorly means bringing ill luck and the consequences of impiety if not blasphemy down on the entire gathered group. The head of the House and/or the Lady of the House  (if they’re different people) are responsible for this (4). 

I’m going to describe the ritual and the ideal set up of the space and then I will talk about bearing the horn, why it’s almost always (and I believe personally should be whenever possible) a [biological] woman who bears the horn, and what happens during the actual rite. 

In the perfect world, I would set up my symbel hall with one long table at the front of the hall, for the heads of house, and their right hand men/women, immediate family, and honored guests, etc. Then, in a rather squarish horse-shoe shape, I’d have two very long tables (or more likely two or three tables put together to form each leg) extending perpendicularly from each end of the high table. If the group were really large, there might be a third extending from the middle of the high table. 

Barley Hall-Great Hall – York, UK as it would have been in the mid 15th c.

If I wanted to get really structured, there would be a fancy salt bowl or box at some point on each table. It’s not relevant where it’s placed at the high table, but it is a hierarchical marker on the other guest tables. Everyone may be welcome, but the more rank and familiarity, worth – not in the human sense of this human being has worth but in the ritual sense of this human being has contributed in thus and such a fashion and holds these honors within this community – the closer to the high table one sits, and thus, more likely above the salt. I don’t enforce this in my House symbels, but there are groups where formal symbel will include this hierarchical marker (and yes, seating someone of status below the salt can be a passive insult). Figuring out the seating in a high symbel can be as bad as figuring out the seating arrangement in a wedding where both families hate each other! This is a rite to honor the Gods, but it also developed in a feudal society and served and serves the purpose of recognizing one’s position within one’s community. That makes it a rite full of pitfalls, all the more so, because it’s not a formal liturgy in the way that Blòt or even a faining is. The liturgical structure is there, but blended seamlessly with the communal, social one. Ideally, both are consciously brought into alignment, but I can seriously count on one hand with fingers left over the times I’ve seen that done effectively in really large symbels. 

Here’s a particularly important caveat: There will always be figures who don’t fit into the normal hierarchy. Shrine priests, sacrificial priests, ancestor workers, spirit-workers, vitkar, shamans and the like – your spiritual specialists—are outside of any community hierarchy like this. They commune directly with the Gods, and it is from the Gods their authority comes and likewise it is the Gods Who hold them in fealty. These people may impact the luck of the community, their presence protects the community, their work is to maintain and make sure the community maintains right relationship with the Gods, and they are absolutely necessary to a healthy community and should be treated with greatest honor, but they are, to borrow a linguistic term, hapax legomena where the whole hierarchical group is concerned. They are their own tribe and class, essentially and have their own hierarchy within that grouping. Seating them can be problematic if one doesn’t realize this. I personally, would put my priests and spirit-workers at the high table or damned close (this particular spirit worker would avoid symbel like it was a house on fire unless my position as lady of the house demanded I host one. Many spirit-workers may feel the same. We have way too much to do. When the community or group we tend is engaged in symbel, most of us I suspect, prefer to enjoy a little Sturmfrei!). My solution would be, in a functioning community, to discuss this with the spiritual specialist in question before the rite. If, however, another spiritual specialist is visiting, that person should be given a position of honor and should be seated next to one of the community’s specialists (it would then become a matter of hospitality and work for that community’s specialist to attend)—I’d personally invite my spirit-worker, or priest to attend (if I weren’t that person in my own House! Lol) and I’d talk to that spirit-worker, gyðia, goði, et al and let him or her tell me what he or she prefers. 

Guests of honor, lineage carriers and elders of other traditions should be seated at the high table, or as close as possible to it. If you have more than one elder, all other things being equal, seat them in order of how long they have been initiated. How you seat your folk will tell everyone what your priorities are and what you truly value. In the best symbels that is devotion and the Gods. In the worst, it‘s one‘s own ego, wealth, perceived or imagined power, and those who are willing to play along. 

People usually garb for symbel, so this is the time to get fancy and in many groups this involves dressing according to the way our Heathen ancestors would have. It‘s a nice bit of formality and a nice way to connect to our ancestors. It‘s not necessary and there‘s nothing wrong with guests being dressed in secular clothing. I find garbing for ritual allows me the protection of specifically liturgical garb into which I‘ve worked wards, blessings, and protections and also helps with the mental tradition of „now I‘m moving into ritual space.“

Symbel often includes a husel. To translate: the ritual of community symbel is an evening rite, one that often includes a sacrificial feast, i.e. a feast where the meat has been provided from a blòt performed earlier in the day. That earlier ritual is one of our greatest sacraments. Usually, offerings are not eaten in our tradition. When we do a blòt, we‘ll do exensive divination before and after (and once during!) to determine what the Gods want done with the meat. Often, quite often, the answer will be: share it amongst the people. Sometimes, though, the God in question wants it to be given in full to Him or Her (5). If this is the case, since one will ostensibly have spoken with one‘s spirit worker or priest (who will do the divination), one will know this beforehand and a second animal can be acquired, and given in sacrifice with the request to the Gods that Divine blessings fall on that animal and that it nourish the community and restore and reify the bonds bewteen community and Gods. There are always ways to negotiate and work around issues that arise and thankfully we have divination to sort these things out. Do not short the Gods to do a symbel.  If you cannot provide a second animal and the God wants the whole thing (which is a rarity, I might add. Most want it shared.), have your specialist ask what can be done. This is, after all, an ongoing relationship and conversation. There are groups that don‘t perform blòt, though they may use this term for non-sacrificial rites. There are many reasons for it ranging from not having a priest trained in sacrifice, to not understanding the importance of it to our tradition, to not having the funds to provide the animals, to not living in an area where it‘s possible to do sacrifice. I‘m a blòt-priest but at our symbel Friday we didn‘t sacrifice. There was no need to do so and it was not a high symbel. We shared out a post-Thanksgiving feast after our Sunwait ritual and after first having made offerings to all our Holy Ones. If you hold a symbel, you have to feed the people. It doesn‘t have to be meat from a sacrifice but there has to be food and drink!

Before any ritual, I ward the space by calling on Thor and bearing sacred fire around with a special chant and then I call upon Heimdallr. That’s my regular opening. People will have already been ritually cleansed before we get to that point. In symbel, everyone is usually seated at this point as well. The first part proceeds like a regular feast but there is a point where a horn is passed around. 

This role of horn-bearer is a holy role. Usually, the role of horn-bearer is fulfilled by the Lady of the House who functions as a stand in for Urd. I, however, will only do this if no one else is available. The Horn-bearer (called the “Valkyrie” in some traditions because in Valhalla, Odin’s Valkyries carry the horn to the warriors in the hall – and probably beat them in line when need be lol) must be the manifestation, the embodiment both of Urd and Her well, but also of frith. Often mistranslated as peace, frith is right order. Ideally that is peace, but not always (6). This means that the horn-bearer has specific tasks: 

1. She bears the horn to each person (who hails the Holy Ones and hands it back to her) in a particular order. The horn-bearer if she is Lady of the hall, establishes and recognizes the hierarchy within the group. The lady and lord of the hall will have worked this out between themselves well before hand – 99% of the time, it is already a given known because this is a working community. The “working out” part is relevant when one has guests. How do they fit into the established and ever evolving order? The order in which the horn-bearer passes the horn is a visible demonstration of that order. If she is not Lady of the hall, this should be worked out in advance with the Lady of the Hall (7). I worked out a system where if my horn-bearer gets confused about whom to give the horn to next, she can just look at me and I’ll quietly indicate it.
2. The horn-bearer makes sure the horn never goes empty. 
3. Most importantly of all, she makes sure that nothing impious is said over the horn. For the duration of symbel, the horn is a manifestation of, a doorway to Urda’s Well. What is spoken over it is a thread of powerful wyrd, not only binding the community together, but carrying –as all wyrd carries—consequence. It is laid like law in the well. The Horn-bearer witnesses each word spoken: in praise, in hail of the Holy Ones, in remembrance, in oath, in the sharing of the good things that have come to us….and if something is amiss, if someone speaks ill of the Holy Ones, if someone neglects to honor a particular group or spirit that ought to be honored (8), if someone promises something in sacred oath he or she cannot fulfill, or promises and gives no payment for failing to come through…the horn-bearer challenges and may refuse to allow the person to drink. In this, she should have full support of those in the hall. Usually, it’s enough to explain the problem with a promise and ask that the person more thoughtfully reword. Give that person time to do it and offer the horn again. 
4. While normally we tend to honor only Heathen Gods at our rites, if a guest is present who belongs to another Deity, especially if this person is an elder of another tradition, those Deities may be and should be welcomed and hailed. Invite the elder to do this or do it yourself as head of the hall. 
5. The horn-bearer should fulfill her role with grace and reverence. She should, however, be UNOBTRUSIVE. At no point should she make the ritual all about her. There should be no jostling, or whispering charms, or drawing attention to oneself. She is representing Urd and what she is doing is crucially important but it’s not about her. If a horn-bearer cannot do her job without such vainglory, get someone else to do it, even if that person is of lower rank in the House. It is a very high honor to be appointed horn bearer

During the formal part of the symbel, as opposed to the general feasting and merriment, the horn is passed around the entire group via the horn-bearer at least three times: first round is for the ancestors and land spirits, second to the Gods, third for oaths, other hails to the Holy Ones, or boasts of the good things given – boasts made in gratitude not arrogance. This third round is the most difficult for the horn-bearer who must be vigilant against foolish and thoughtless oaths. What is said over the horn matters. It becomes law in the Well. All who were present while those words were spoken bear responsibility for them. They are bound by wyrd. This is why many of us are very, very selective about with whom we share ritual. 

During the third round – and there may be more added (I usually do nine rounds with the horn)—the heads of House may give gifts. Others may give gifts too. This is usually done as an expression of fealty and responsibility: a patron to client/elder to student or neophyte. One doesn’t have to give gifts, but if one does make sure they are of decent quality (9). An ounce round of silver is a traditional gift. People may be elevated in rank, honored by the heads of House for accomplishments (many are often shy about boasting, so this is a good time for them to receive recognition). Anyone of higher “status” may gift anyone of lower status but this implies a bond, a relationship of service and obligation on both sides. It involves the higher ranking people actually caring and being involved in the regular life of those they gift. (for me to know someone’s accomplishments for instance, means I socialize with them). Gifting is not neutral in this setting. It expresses relationship and mutual obligations. In addition to all those things, it can be an expression of appreciation so just be sure to choose your words wisely and precisely so there is no ambiguity. 

Finally, the horn-bearer should be a biological woman. Most of our roles are not gendered (Theodism aside). For a long time, I didn’t see any reason for the horn-bearer to be female but the past fifteen years or so of running my own House changed my mind. (If you are in a male-only group, I would suggest making an offering to the Nornir, and just passing the horn amongst yourselves. Don’t have a horn-bearer and don’t call it a symbel. It is not ideal but needs must. In a formal symbel however,) the horn-bearer is performing an act of women’s magic, of frith-weaving. The integrity of the hall rests on the shoulders of the lady of the hall, or in this case, the horn-bearer. She is the embodiment of Urd, and of luck and bounty. She carries hamingja in a way that transforms the hall. She calls forth the best of those gathered– all in honor of the Holy Ones. Our first named holy Power was female – Auðumla, the great Goddess of frith-weaving is Frigga, and the Nornir govern Fate, with Urda ordering wyrd in Her well. Men have powerful functions within a sacral setting, but this particular role can, I believe, rightly be expressed only by a biological woman (10). 

Symbel is a weird combination of merriment and solemnity. Usually, the passing of the horn occurs after the meal and with the conclusion of the horn-bearing, the formal part of symbel also concludes. It’s a challenging rite to get well because the lines between sacred and profane (in the anthropological sense) are so blurred or intertwined. It’s deeply rewarding when one does it well though. It’s so important a rite that I tend to reserve high symbel for the two solstices. 

Please feel free to post any questions in the comments. I’ll do my best to answer them. 

Notes: 

1. There are many theological disagreements that I have with Theodism but they do two things well: symbel and blót. I think the whole of Heathenry can benefit from the work that Theodish Heathens have done in restoring these two rites. I should also note that this ritual presupposes that a working House is also a community and even a tribe, with a clear leader and bonds of loyalty given to that person. It bridges the gap between the structure of a secular community and the structure of a liturgical one.
2. This is contrasted with the OE word husel, which is also a feast but one involving a sacrifice. This word was so deeply embedded in liturgical language that it became the word for the Eucharist once England Christianized. It may also be spelled housel. I think I’ve even seen it spelled hüsel at least once. I suppose these were regional variants? There’s also the fact that spelling wasn’t anything near standardized until the modern era (something to note if you’re working on your genealogy – the spelling of surnames can vary substantially, and even the same person may spell his or her name differently and sometimes even in the same document!). A faining, which I mention later, is a ritual where no animal is sacrificed. It’s the most common type of religious rite, I think. Many denominations use the words “faining” and “blòt” interchangeably. 
3. For this reason, I actually don’t care for symbel. It’s way too easy for the focus to become solely on the people attending and their egos – something I find utterly disgusting and impious – than the Gods and the blessings that the Gods have given and will give to those in the community. It takes a very devout hand to manage symbel effectively, not allowing it to degenerate into a human-centric gathering. If that happens, it does not remove the sacral obligations and consequences, particularly with the horn, it just means the group in question has fucked it up and will bear those consequences usually having no idea what they did wrong. If one wants to have a party in period garb, rock on. Just don’t call it a symbel. Keep the religious aspects out of it if it causes you too much pain to give the Gods Their due, or if you just don’t feel up to a proper symbel. It’s a lot of work!
4. Theodism tends to be very gendered in ways that I find frankly ridiculous. They start itching when women carry blades despite the historical fact that women have always fought, and we have plenty of archeological evidence for female warriors. Was it the norm? no. Did it happen? Yes.  Likewise, a hall run by only a woman would seem unusual in Theodism but there’s no reason whatsoever that can’t happen. Most denominations of Heathenry, my own included, have very few gender restrictions. Women can and do function as clergy, holy women, spirit workers, and heads of house. The same can be said of men and trans-people. 
5. Usually, unless divination says otherwise, for this blòt-symbel combination, unlike a regular blòt, the blood is given to the Gods, and then the meat to the community husel. I would give the choicest cut to the spiritual specialist who performed the rite, and any spirit workers, then the rest is cooked and shared (it can be cooked first and then thus divided). Divination is always done, or should always be done, because sometimes the God being honored will want the entire animal given in offering to Him or Her ( in our House, we usually give the whole to the Deity in question for regular blòt). I’ve had this happen with Odin. If that’s the case on a symbel day, prepare two animals and ask for special blessings for the community on the second, and sacrifice it with the blood and life gifted to the Gods and the meat reserved for symbel. In Theodism, it’s usually the head of the group that does the sacrifice, but I firmly believe this should be reserved for a trained sacrificial priest. The “lord” or “lady” does not need to elevate him or herself at the expense of proper piety. Such work is holy work and belongs to the class of holy people, your priests. Amongst our Gods, Freyja is the sacrificial priest and noted as such in the lore. 
6. In our tradition vengeance can be a sacral obligation necessary to restore frith. There are a lot of steps before it gets to that point, and many ways to intervene, but theoretically, restoration of frith can involve a significant amount of violence. 
7. For instance, someone can say something over the horn that requires breaking this order and challenging them. Someone might feel so polluted that the horn-bearer doesn’t want to pass the horn without consultation, In the first situation, the horn-bearer should verbally challenge with the full support of the heads of the hall. In the second, hospitality demands a bit more savvy. I personally would say that I needed to refill the horn – to allow the horn to go empty during symbel is very unlucky – and return to the high table to refill it, and while doing so have a quick word with the lady of the house, at which point right action can be determined possibly with divination and if you think I won’t stop a ritual in an emergency to divine, think again. I’d rather do that than risk polluting a rite though ideally everyone is vetted, known, and everything divined on beforehand. 
8. I once attended a Theodish symbel held on a civil war battlefield. One group did Hrafnar style seiðr (that style is itself, in my opinion, often a shitshow) and then later there was symbel. There wasn’t much respect for spirit workers or seers or priests in this group, the ritual was held on the battlefield site, less than 100 yards away from the battlefield graveyard, several people were well aware the dead were active – some had seen them. At no point in the symbel did anyone, including the head of the hall, mention or honor those who had fought, bled and died on the very land we were working on – this despite the fact that during the seiðr session the dead had been so disturbed, and so active that I walked out and, with a friend, buried a ton of items in offering to them, including a carved horn and jewelry. The woman leading the “seiðr-rite,” was oblivious to their presence. The appropriate thing during symbel would have been for the first offering, the very first hail to have gone to the dead of that land. Since no one did that, thought about doing it, sensed they should do it, or had the common sense to try, I made that my first hail of the evening over the horn, repairing the damage that had been done with the power of Wodinic-blessed words.  The space upon which you hold your rites needs to be taken into account. So do any spirits walking that space.  
9. I was once present where amber bracelets were given to the lower ranking women, but they turned out to be plastic. Don’t be an asshole. Better not to gift than to gift crap. It’s insulting. It’s rough on the Heads of the house though. They pretty much have an unspoken obligation in really formal symbel to gift everyone something. 
10. It may simply be that she is outside the male hierarchy—men socially tend to express competition in a much more obviously disruptive way than women, who are if anything more vicious but also more devious about it. Look at any class of middle-school girls and boys. The way girls typically bully is different than the way boys do and often goes unrecognized by adults – there have been actual psych studies on this. Yes, much of this may be socialization but nowhere are those patterns going to be more obvious than in symbel. Men will behave differently in the presence of a woman who carries herself with grace. A woman of virtue and good bearing elevates the entire assembly and if the way I’ve chosen to phrase that offends, I cannot possibly express now little I care. I tend to prefer the way men handle things. If I could find a sacral reason to avoid having a woman in this role, I’d probably do it, but I’ve been to symbels where women carried the horn, the occasional one where men carried the horn, and there is a difference, and it affects the sacrality of the rite. Why? Maybe because we are as the Gods made us and each of us brings different gifts to bear. Ask and Embla came from the Tree, and we are each extensions thereof and have our part to do in sustaining it and by extension creation. 

I personally do not find myself to be a good fit for horn-bearer. I don’t have the right skillset to carry a horn. I’d rather be guarding the door. Even though I am Lady of my hall, I pass on the role of horn-bearer to my housemate, student, and friend who belongs to Freyja and who oozes frith and delight and brightens the entire room when she takes up her sacred work. It’s a pleasure to see someone so fit for this role performing it. I may be sensitive to hierarchy and hospitality obligations in a way that many horn-bearers aren’t, but as a spirit-worker, part of my work is challenging and finding the crap no one wants to admit or deal with and dancing on it. That is a warrior’s work. It does not a good horn-bearer make. Also, ancestrally, one of my lines was expelled from Scotland for feuding and another may have been involved in the Hatfield/McCoy feud, AND as an ancestor worker I speak for the military dead.  Sometimes to weave peace one must overlook offense and truth and I can’t easily do that. Too much of my work demands the opposite. Which makes me think that it might just be a matter of my being a spirit-worker and having a different *job* than any inherent unfitness for the role. In a pinch, I’d do it and I have done it –again, needs must and I was boots on the ground – but I’m not the best fit. So, just like not every man is fit to be a sacral lord, not every woman is fit to be hornbearer. It is a very special skillset. No one can do everything.

It may, of course, simply be that generations of our forebears did it this way because of social gender roles and expectations but I personally think there’s more there on a liturgical level and the rule with ritual is always: if you don’t know what every single part means, what it does, and how it fits into the whole, don’t change it. 

As an aside, most people who are wired to experience deity possession often find cross-gender possessions difficult. I do not, and in fact carry male Deities much, much more easily than female. This may seem like a complete non sequitur, but I strongly suspect there is a connection or at least that these things move in the same venn circle. 

The obvious question, of course is what to do if a trans-woman wants to bear the horn. My initial feeling is to refuse BUT if she seemed on the surface the best candidate, I would take it to divination. I would be more inclined to allow a trans-woman to serve as an attendant at the high table than horn -bearer though without divination being absolutely positive toward the latter. We have two Gods who temporarily changed gender, but neither is known for frith-weaving! I would also, however, note that in every healthy community, there are going to be people who do not fit the established norms. A good community makes some allowances for this and helps everyone find their niche (and by niche I mean sacred work), so to nearly every rule there can be exceptions. Serious divination by a professional diviner is always a good place to start with a ritual as important as symbel – see my ritual rule above. 

Sunwait Week 1: Sunna in Fehu

For those who don’t know, Sunwait is the period six weeks before Yule where we honor Sunna (our Sun Goddess) weekly and slowly make the descent into the rich, dark, liminal period of the winter solstice. This year we made the decision to also hold Sunwait before the summer solstice: as yule is a going down into the darkness, so the summer Solstice is a coming up into glorious light. There is a powerful parallel there that we intend to explore. This year is also the first year since our household has been keeping Sunwait that it fell on Remembrance Day (1). We honored Sunna but we also honored our military dead, particularly our WWI dead, but also all of our fallen soldiers. Their presence bracketed our rite and provided an honor guard for this Goddess Who shepherds them all into the ancestral havens.

We exchanged small gifts at the end of the rite, after the horn – representing Urda’s Well – had been passed and round after round of prayers made. In a formal symbel, (which we did not do tonight!) there is almost always an exchange of gifts toward the end of the passing of the horn. It felt right to do this tonight, even though it was not a symbel. This gifting set the tone for the season, one of love, care, luck, and generosity and the giving of gifts mirrors in microcosm the enormous generosity of the Gods at the moment of creation. It mirrors all the gifts that They poured into creation, and into the hands of the first human beings and every human after (2).

Here is the prayer that we offered tonight, a prayer for the first week of Sunwait, with Sunna triumphant in fehu.

Prayer to Sunna as She Comes in Fehu:

Fehu is light, strength, and luck.
It flows from Audhumla, the sacred cow,
partaking of the power of Holy places,
potentiality and the Gap.
Fehu crowns You, oh Sunna,
emanates from and around You.
It fills the heavens in wake of Your passage.
You soar across the sky:
scattering luck and dripping healing power
ever as the wheels of Your chariot turn.
Hail oh Gracious Goddess,
Glory of Mundilfari’s House.

You, Holy One, make Your journey across the sky
and then You journey too beneath the earth.
Your light, and fehu burning brightly,
guides the souls of the dead to their rest.
You take special care for soldiers,
especially those not claimed for Valhalla’s Hall,
especially those not heading for Folkvangr,
but to the loving embrace of their dead.
You seek out those most lost, hurting, or broken,
and no soldier waits for Your arrival.
Your gentle, healing touch is always there.
You are the great Psychopompous,
before Whom all doors open,
all bridges may be crossed,
in Whose wake, all darkness
turns to light.

Hail to You, Oh Sunna,
Protectress of our honored dead,
Guide and Guardian of our soldiers,
Mighty Power,
Shining Warrior of Mundilfari’s Hall.
Hail on this, the first night of Sunwait.

 

Notes:

1. Sunwait may be celebrated on Thursday, Friday, or Saturday – ironically I have never known any House to keep this day on Sunna’s actual day of Sunday. Our House chose Friday years ago, because it’s a nice way to end our week. I think, from everything that I’ve seen, Thursday is probably the most popular day for the Sunwait rites but ymmv.
2. In formal symbel, gift giving also recognizes and reifies the often hierarchical relationships and bonds between members of the House (and all the obligations and responsibilities therein), but that is not where we took it tonight.

The shrine about an hour before we began our rite — we did this one in our living room rather than the temple room.

Here is a close up of the shrine — the small glasses are for our military dead. I later added a bowl for them too (They got a huge bottle of vodka. We gave Sunna a nice bottle of wine). The horn here belonged to my adopted mom, as did the round candle holder in front of the six-candle Sunwait candle-holder.

Happy Autumn Equinox (a bit early!)

I’m a little early – the equinox falls midweek but we’re celebrating tonight. This holy day marks the seasonal transition into fall but also our liturgical transition from the ember days of late summer to our ancestral liturgical period. From here, we move into Winternights (all the ancestral holy days) and then right into the high holy time of Sun-wait and Yule. For me, this is the most exciting time liturgically. Maybe it’s because autumn is my favorite time of year and I also love winter, but for me, there’s an exciting synergy as we shift into thinking about the fall, going from a season in care of Sif to Idunna’s time.

Usually we honor Thor and Sif, Mani and Sunna at this time but tonight’ ritual will be a little different. We’re installing a new Deity in the House. This is a pretty big deal, and after we create the right ritual space, purify, and pour out offerings to the aforementioned Gods, we’ll be installing a shrine, making special offering, hymns, and invocation of welcome, and honoring a new Deity. The new shrine will be set up and piled high with gifts of welcome. It’s so exciting. It is such a tremendous privilege to have the opportunity to honor our Gods like this.

After our ritual, most likely there will be food, good hearty comfort food. I usually cook, but I’ve ben quite tired the last week so I will probably order from a local restaurant. My town is developing a nice little food culture, so we have quite a bit from which to choose. That’s it. Tonight is a ritual both low-key and exciting at the same time. May all our Holy Ones be praised.

What are y’all planning for the equinox?

“Tradition is what is left from our ancestors…”

Kukeri Mini-Doc

Let Mysteries Remain Mysteries – or What I Learned from the Latin Mass

I teach early Christian theology. That means that I teach texts and happenings prior to 1054 when the Roman and Constantinopolitan Churches split into what we now know as the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches respectively (1). I don’t really delve into liturgy overmuch (save for filioque disagreements—a mild term for this if ever there was one– and then only when I’m teaching Byzantine theology), but I do have an interest in it for more personal reasons. When I began my studies as a baby-polytheist, and especially when I was trained for initiation and ordination within Fellowship of Isis (where I got my start), I had extremely good ritual training. I am grateful for that every single time I lead a rite. The style of my rites may have changed as I became Heathen but understanding the rhythm and function and all the constituent parts of a good, solid, effective religious ritual has served me well for thirty years. It’s always educational and helpful to occasionally see how other people do things. Because of this, I occasionally attend services of other traditions – also, I think it’s important to experience the rites of the traditions whose history I end up teaching about (so yes, eventually I need to go to an Orthodox rite too. I’ll be hitting up my Orthodox friends later lol). It makes me more religiously literate about what I teach, and also, it really makes me consider ritual as a process and all the requisite structures therein, why various parts exist, and how to be a more effective ritual technician – all of which are good and necessary things for any clergyperson. These things are also easy to ignore in one’s own rites because we are so used to doing things a particular way (and we learn where we can cut corners and be less formal. There’s hopefully, an instinctive understanding of the constituent whole that allows for this). 

Now, I am always respectful. I participate as much as the tradition I’m visiting allows and more importantly, as much as my Gods allow, and I pay attention to the structure and rhythm of the rite. I do this because it’s rude to treat any religious tradition or person like they’re a bug under a microscope there for one’s own examination. So, while I certainly can’t do everything, I don’t just sit in the back taking notes! I don’t want to be rude to the Holy Powers involved or the people. 

This past Epiphany (Jan. 6) I had the opportunity to attend a Latin mass and oh was it ever educational! I was already familiar with the Novus Ordo, i.e. vernacular mass. I attend a Jesuit college; it’d be a little hard not to be. I’d never had the opportunity to attend a proper Latin mass though, and I should note, I’m pretty sure this was the low version of the Latin mass, not the whole nine yards of tridentine goodness. 

Ok. Insofar as aesthetic differences go, in a regular vernacular mass, the priest faces the congregation. In the Latin one, he faces the eucharist, which Catholics hold to be their incarnate God, at least after a certain part of the mass is performed. There’s more focus on the bible as an object of veneration in the vernacular mass, and much, much more focus on the eucharist as God in the Latin. There are a lot more altar servers in the Latin mass – more on that in a bit – and the music is better (this church at least had a choir loft and an organ, though I do wish they’d stop letting female sopranos lead the choir. Either put a counter tenor in charge so it sounds nice, or get a tenor or high baritone so people can actually sing with him at a decent pitch. The female sopranos tend to screech and dominate the other singers. Also, they purposely pitch too high for the congregation to follow even when the congregation is invited to do so. That screeching is still preferable to the abomination of a guitar or ukulele mass, unhappy innovations to which one can still be subjected within the novus ordo rite). 

I had gone in thinking that the only significant difference between the two versions of the Catholic rite would be the language and the direction the priest was facing. I was really wrong about that and it kind of blew me away. The language doesn’t really matter (though Latin is beautiful, precise, and I think it was a mistake for Vatican II to take the mass out of its primary liturgical and –for the Roman church at least – historical language). The real shocker was how intensely the Latin mass brought the entire congregation to focus on the host and what for Catholics, is the mystery of transubstantiation –their supreme liturgical mystery (2). There was also a palpable piety in the congregation. 

In every novus ordo mass I’ve had to attend (I sometimes take a local woman to mass when she can’t get a ride and just wait for her, so I’ve seen a lot of them), there’s chattering, shuffling, and lack of focus beforehand. Very few congregants pray. In the mass I attended, women covered their heads and almost everyone was praying the rosary beforehand. Though I can understand the Latin, there was an usher who gave out programs with Latin-English text for the service (3). Many congregants had their own Latin-English mass books. The focus of the congregation, because of the set -up of the altar, I think, which had an altar rail separating it from the pews, and a raised altar farther back from the congregation than anything I’d seen in other more modern churches, seems to have increased the sense of reverence amongst the people gathered. It was impossible to take the religious rite and its mysteries for granted and that equation is established from the moment one walks in and smells the incense. It’s not just a matter of the language being different but of many other changes that completely shift the focus of the rite. 

Most important was the direction the priest faced. Instead of focusing on the congregation and being the point of their focus, the priest focused almost exclusively on the Eucharist, preparing for it, performing the rite of transubstantiation, and leading adoration and communion. This is what really got me: at all times he was surrounded by an army of altar servers. They kept him surrounded by prayers and incense. At the holiest point in the service, when he was consecrating the host, the flat cracker that becomes the communion wafer, there was the host before him, and an altar server on either side and behind him (4). He was completely spiritually protected during this most holy moment in the rite—and I saw its effectiveness in warding off evil. This really highlighted the importance of having a team of ritual assistants, who, as they participated, where likewise learning and imbibing on an instinctual level, all the important parts and processes, the rhythms of the ritual itself. 

With the surrounding smoke and assistants, the congregation could only get the barest of glimpses of the motions of the actual mystery of transubstantiation effected as the priest made certain gestures and prayers with his back to the pews. This was good. Let mysteries remain mysteries. That is the heart of traditions.

So, I learned that the transition from Latin to vernacular mass isn’t just a matter of a change in language. The entire structure of the service changed, and with it, the focus of the congregation during worship. I felt the space on Epiphany was filled with numen. It was holy space. I have never felt that in a vernacular mass, but I no longer think it’s the language. So, what did I learn, what was really emphasized? Three things: 1. Don’t break with 1500 years of tradition to please outsiders or cater to modernity; 2. Little things matter more than we might think in effective ritual practice. Know what every piece of a ritual does before you change it, and if you don’t know that, leave it alone; 3. Finally, having a well-trained team is crucial and aids the ritual technician in proper performance of the public rites in ways that we may not realize at first. These smaller roles are crucially important and cannot and should not be overlooked. That priest was at least a decade older than I, possibly more and he made it through that rite without difficulty. I damn near keeled over just from the standing alone. He may have been the worst homilist I have ever seen (I gave better homilies in seminary) but he knew how to do this ritual well, and it’s one that takes serious stamina. Also, Latin is cool. That is all. 

Notes:

1. Actually, my research areas don’t go much beyond the sixth century, but I have taught both basic Intro to theology courses and Byzantine theology. Yes, it’s weird for me sometimes but yes, I enjoy it very much and it makes me more mindful of and reflective upon how my own religious tradition approaches things. I’d also note that there were earlier splits after the 451 C. E. Council of Chalcedon, where several regional churches refused to accept the Chalcedonian decision and broke with Constantinople and Rome.
2. This is where the bread and wine is transformed into the flesh and blood of their crucified and risen God. In Orthodoxy, the bread is leavened, in Catholicism, it is not. Look up the Azyme Controversy, which is one of my favorites. 
3. Downside, the church was freezing. I didn’t realize that this was going to be a 2 ½ hour service: it began with adoration of the host, continued with a special 40+ minute blessing of epiphany holy water, and then the mass. There was a lot more standing than I was used to – and kudos to the priest for his stamina. I was in pain after an hour. I woke up the next day barely able to walk – but I think that was a matter of me having been too stupid to take a coat on a cold, rainy day, when my back was already hurting and likewise too in a rush to take proper pain medication.
4. I went with two nominally Protestant friends. At one point in the service, when the priest is about to consecrate the communion wafers, one of the altar servers lifts his tabard and smokes beneath it (the priest is wearing a white cassock underneath an elaborately embroidered tabard) Others are smoking with censors on either side of him. Later –as in as soon as we hit the car, before it was even started, one of my friends asked, “why’d they smudge his butt?” lol. 

A Bit of Magical Advice for the New Year

We are in the process of preparing for our New Year’s ritual tonight, which y’all can read here. I want to take just a moment, however, to share with you something I consider of tremendous importance for January 1: setting one’s intentions for the year. In my House, we do this ritually by making sure that the first actions that one takes, once the clock has moved past midnight and into 2023, symbolically reflect what we want the year to hold. New Year hits a powerful groove magically and we can take advantage of that by using the same ritual i.e. symbolic language of action and focused intent. 

So, what do we do? After doing our traditional religious ritual (and there are a couple of things at the end of the ritual that we incorporate as a matter of course as part of the tail end of the rite), we do a couple of things consciously to set the tone for the new year. Nothing that we choose is random – we discuss it beforehand as a household—and nothing is difficult. Whatever things we choose are all symbolically charged though in our minds, and we approach this as a household with a unified intent. 

Normally I wouldn’t mention this because the first rule of magic is to shut the fuck up about it. We A). chip away at our workings by talking about them and B). give enemies an opportunity to work directly against us by showing them precisely where to focus. A magus of any sense does neither, so I’m not going to give specifics of what we are going to do tonight. Instead, I’ll give you options: 

• Make an offering at one of your shrines (beyond what is noted in the aforementioned rite). 
• Offer a prayer to your primary Deity or Deities.
• Clean something: either a mundane or a religious space. 
• Make sure that the first person to enter your house in the New Year precedes his or her entry by tossing a handful of coins across the threshold (I learned this one from a Jewish friend, who said it was a common bit of folk-custom when he was growing up).
• Cook bread or something nourishing. 
• Eat something sweet. 
• Cook and/or share a family meal.
• Exchange small gifts. 
• Go visit ancestral graves (ok, I’m an ancestor worker and a genealogist. For me, this is a good day out ,and my husband learned early on this qualifies as a date for me lol). 
• Have a party. 
• Kiss your romantic interest. Hug your friends (pet your pets too – they qualify as friends) and family members or express your appreciation of them in an appropriate way if they don’t want to be hugged.  Have sex with your partner/spouse. Or just tell that person that you love him/her. 
• Deposit a check or do something else that speaks of savings and financial stability for you. 
• Start an art project.
• Finish a craft or art project (and yes, I hear all my crafting friends LAUGH as I write this. I too have the huge basket of unfinished but in progress craft projects. Lol. Let’s not even discuss the fabric stash).  
• Do something that brings you joy. 
• Do something that in some way represents what you want this year to be like – here, I’ve been assuming love, prosperity, and joy as primary goals because these things tend to be universally desired states of being but, don’t necessarily feel stifled by this. Carefully think about it and select something that represents what YOU want to personally manifest in the coming year. 

There are literally thousands of things you could do. These that I’ve listed here are what come immediately to mind in the half hour I’ve set aside to write this. The important thing is to curate carefully the first things you do immediately after the clock tolls 2023. Choose carefully what you do, and do it with intent so that you set a positive track for yourself in the soon-to-be-here New Year. 

Happy 2023, folks. For my readers abroad, some of y’all are already in 2023. May this coming year be one of health, abundance, prosperity, and joy for us all. 

Reader Question about Ritual and Self-Care

Today I received the following question from one of my readers. It’s a good question and while I answered privately, I also asked permission to write about it here, which my interlocutor gladly gave. This is something that I think needs to be discussed more, and it’s something my generation of spirit-worker learned the hard way. 

Reader Question: How do you handle multiple rituals in a row? I’m exhausted and so glad tonight is the last for a bit or else I’d have to be carried around just for the joint pain management.

This is a hugely important question, especially for those of us with chronic pain. I should point out though that even if someone is in perfect physical health, multiple rituals in a row can also be quite physically grueling. Learning good self-care and management early on in one’s practice can be tremendously helpful and can also ensure that one doesn’t get burnt out or hurt. It’s a longevity practice and that’s important (1). 

It goes without saying that as much as possible, getting proper rest, eating healthily (I don’t know any spirit worker who does, but we should lol), and getting moderate exercise forms the foundation for a healthy mind and healthy body in any practice. I won’t belabor this (2). The better physical health we’re in, the easier the work can be (3).

Develop a solid prayer practice – not just a devotional practice (though this is equally important) but specifically a practice of prayer. Ideally it is the first thing we do on awakening, the last thing we do at night, and something to which our hearts and minds turn throughout the day. If we are praying all the time, that’s a start. Now, obviously that’s not just prayer before one’s shrines, but also personal prayer, sometimes set prayers, sometimes recitation of our Gods’ names, etc. There are many, many different ways to pray but learn to do it consistently and well. It is the first and last line of defense, the best of foundations, and a lifeline in times of crises (4). If this is too much trouble, then don’t do the work, don’t expect results, don’t even worry about longevity because you simply won’t have it. This is beyond essential. 

Learn the basics: grounding, centering, shielding, cleansing and do them daily. Keep yourself spiritually clean. Yes, it’s a pain in the ass to develop and maintain purification protocols but you will be grateful that you did as you progress.  Moreover, be aware of what you allow to take up space in your mind, memory, and thoughts. Yes, this includes popular media. What you do, watch, read, expose yourself to, etc. shapes you. It’s fine (and healthy) to have hobbies and avocations but choose them wisely. They should enhance your practice, reinforce good habits, character, and virtue, and make you a better person, not the opposite. What values are you instilling in yourself accidentally? It’s important to understand that, and I’m sure there’s a gentler way of phrasing this, but that isn’t my strong suite: discipline and courage are key and need to be cultivated, just like you would carefully nurture a seedling into a strong and mighty tree. 

Cleanse before and after your workings in whatever way you typically do in your tradition. I tend to use khernips and also to recan (smoke/smudge) with juniper. Do whatever is congruent with your Gods and tradition. This isn’t new. It’s not restricted to my practice. This has been pretty much the standard in ancient polytheisms the world over, especially for ritual practitioners. We’re not inventing the wheel here. Christianity did not invent the wheel either. Prayer and purification do not belong solely to them. Every religion and culture had and has their purification and prayer practices. 

Ok, now onto the practical aspects of doing multiple days of ritual. Firstly, in addition to everything I’ve already said, I recommend the following (with the caveat that I am not a doctor. Always check with your doctor before making any changes to your health regimen and/or before incorporating any of the suggestions I give below): 

1. Stay hydrated. I actually keep rehydration salts in my kit (there are several brands on the market. I personally prefer Liquid IV) for just this reason. Water won’t rebalance your electrolytes as well and sports drinks have a ton of sugar. Rehydration salts are my go-to even if I haven’t been outside. Spirit-work and/or ritual work is WORK. It has an effect on the body. It’s very easy to get dehydrated. I usually drink this twice a day if I’m doing intense periods of ritual. 
2. Stretch gently before and after rituals – whatever your body can manage. Don’t just jump into it. Prepare yourself physically, which means warming up the muscles and joints. (If there are joint problems, don’t skip your meds. Take your pain killer, take your anti-inflammatory before and especially afterwards. If your joints really get inflamed, take an ice bath – I soak my ankles and wrists in ice water even now when they get bad, or just in buckets of ice). Then wrap up warmly, as warmly as you can stand (5). 
3. Begin your day with a healthy multi-vitamin. I also recommend Vitamin D, B Complex, Magnesium (and if you get a lot of migraines, Chromium), and quite possibly a natural serotonin supplement. Again, I am not a doctor. Discuss all this with your health care professional. I’m telling you what my experience has been, what I’ve found helpful, and what I suggest to my own students. Yes, I also send their butts to the doctor more often than they would like. Maintenance is essential (6). 
4. When you’re doing a lot of Work, I also recommend taking Airborne (thank the Gods they make gummies now. The powder or tablets are god-awful) and Emergen-C. Don’t overdue either. Too much vitamin C can give you diarrhea. But when you’ve done an excessive amount of work and you feel like a dried-up shit-stain on the pavement, this can be helpful. It’s my default on heavy ritual days, or if I’m generally feeling run down from the Work. 
5. If you exhaust your energy channels, psi gifts, etc., if you take in too much energy and overload your ground, if you just overdue it way too much, you can get what I was taught is called a ‘reaction headache.’ This is a headache, often of migraine intensity that nothing will help. Nothing. It’s a horrible, nauseating experience. I was given the following recipe by my very first herbal teacher, a lovely, gnome-like woman named Arcus who used to run an herbal shop in the village in the early nineties and teach on the side, to help both with regular migraines but also with reaction headaches. It’s not the best tasting thing, but it’s not terrible either. Make a tea nightly of equal parts feverfew (for headache), skullcap (for muscle tightness), and oatstraw (for general anxiety) and drink a cup a day. I find it works best when it’s had time to build up in the system. I just gave this recipe to my assistant a couple of days ago, and it occurred to me that it’s not restricted or initiatory material, so I share it here. Again, run this by your doctor. 
6. Finally, if you can, have an assistant, or some sort of ground crew. You want someone to make sure you eat – and don’t skip this unless fasting is part of your ritual cycle. Make sure you get protein too. You may not want to eat when you’re exhausted from intense ritual cycles but you need to. Have someone make sure you eat, have them monitor your medication – this is especially the case if you take pain medication as it can be terrifyingly easy to take it, forget you’ve taken it – because the pain may not subside for awhile, and double dose. This is how overdose happens. I keep careful note of what I take and when for just this reason. It is also very, very important if you take a medication like insulin where you have to take it regularly AND eat. Also, having someone there as an assistant helps take a tremendous amount of stress off the spirit-worker, magus, ritual worker, priest, etc. They can monitor you, protect the space, make sure you have what you need, etc. You may find your motor-coordination is not the best after seriously intense work. Obviously, your assistant/ground crew person has to be someone sensible, trustworthy, and it should be someone you’ve worked with extensively, so they know how you’re likely to respond. They do not have to be a spirit-worker or even particularly psi-sensitive (and in some cases, beyond the scope of this piece, it’s actually helpful if they’re NOT) but they do have to know how to follow instructions, be mindful of what’s happening, and be willing to forcibly take care of you if necessary, which means he or she has to have a good, focused mind in a crisis (and of course consent for such care is discussed and given before the work begins so everyone knows one’s role, boundaries, and limitations).

To be honest, sometimes just knowing that a particular ritual cycle is going to be exhausting, that you’ll have x, y, z response and then preparing for that as best you can helps. Be gentle with yourself afterwards as intense ritual work, intense spirit, or Deity contact, etc. can leave one feeling raw, frail, and friable. It’s always good to keep a record of your work and how you felt afterwards. Like building a muscle, it does get somewhat easier. 

Notes:

1. I think this is why monastic manuals, like John Cassian’s “Conferences” counsel a certain degree of moderation in ascetic practices (of course their idea of moderation is, to modern readers at least, more intense than we might label “moderate.” I think that’s as it should be though. We shouldn’t be lukewarm in our devotion). The idea is that these are tools in a lifelong spiritual, intellectual, and emotional formation. The goal is ongoing and ultimately eternal life with one’s God. This is why I think it’s so important to really know why one is doing an ordeal or a particular ascetic practice: it should be to bring one closer to one’s God, not for any other reason.
2. And I myself am hardly an exemplar of it. I would rather push myself until I drop than stop and work in a measured capacity – it’s how I was trained, how my generation of ballet dancer trained, and I’ve carried that over into my spiritual and spirit work. 
3. If you are a spirit-worker/shaman/orpheoteleste or other specialist, good fucking luck. The work itself, particularly with the levels of pollution and evil that we deal with and fight on a regular basis can cause damage. 
4. I should note that we ought to pray because it is the right thing to do, but in doing this there will be benefit to us on every level too.   
5. All of this presupposes that you know your body and the difference between good pain (i.e. a hard work out) and bad pain (i.e. injury). I used to take this for granted having been a ballet dancer, but not everyone has a background where they would have learned this. It is actually part of being a good spirit worker: know your inner landscape mentally, emotionally and learn your body’s limits good and bad. 
6. Not everyone will find a serotonin supplement helpful and this one definitely has to be discussed with your health care provider. I have found, however, that certain aspects of spirit-work damage the immune system and mess with serotonin levels. I have no idea why. If you have a lot of trouble sleeping, staying asleep, falling asleep, if you have cravings for foods high in serotonin after Working then maybe discuss this with your doc. 

Happy Walpurgis/Beltane

This past weekend (April 30/May 1) saw my Household celebrating a major holy tide (as we call our key holy days), one of the eight major ones that make up our year: Walpurgisnacht and Beltane. It’s the final transition from the dark enclosure of winter into the growth and fecundity of summer. It’s also the same holy day, it’s just that part of the celebration takes place the night before. I had to explain this to one of my students—not an academic student but a woman that I’m training for the clergy. Within my religious tradition, we train our clergy one on one and this year she is focusing on following the cycle of holy days and really learning what they’re about (yes, I have major seminary envy of all my Jesuit friends lol). Little by little, I’ve been giving her a larger role in each liturgy and the Deity to Whom she is dedicated, Freya, has a particular association with this holiday. 

Anyway, on Walpurgis, we usually start our religious revels at twilight. First divination is done to make sure we are doing what is desired and correct in the eyes of our Gods. Then, if that looks good, we get to work. I’ll go out before everyone else, make offerings to all the local spirits of land, mountain, tree, and town. I’ll light a fire. We have two ritual spaces in our home, the first our indoor ritual room and the second, a space behind my house with a huge fire pit. All safety precautions, like fire extinguisher and hose are set up earlier in the day and checked before I begin ritual prep. Walpurgisnacht is a day for shamanizing, for meeting the Gods and spirits joyously on Their own ground. In larger groups who are fortunate enough to have a spirit-worker, vitki, or “shaman,” this spiritual technician garbs in sacred garb and takes his or her drum, mask, and staff and begins calling the spirits. We invoke our Gods, we call to the spirits, we make offerings into the fire but most of all, we dance and pray moving into a deep and potent altered state. We dance and pray to shake the threads of our communal wyrd free of stagnation, free of malefica, free of anything out of alignment with the order of the Gods. We restore and realign ourselves and our community so that we may move into the time of growth and planting cleanly. We dance so that nothing may remain embedded in our community’s wyrd (threads of fate) that might twist us out of true, or cause us to grow wrongly with respect to our Gods in the coming season. We dance in praise of our Gods and all the spirits that serve Them. The shaman works that drum while others keep the fire burning until there are no more prayers left to be said, no more praise songs left to be sung,  and any spiritual brambles and trash occluding the way forward in the sacred cycle of the year has been burned away. 

The next day is a community celebration. The Gods and spirits are honored and there is (in larger communities – we try, but we are a small House) mumming and a maypole. Beltane is about the land coming back to green and bursting life. It’s about fertility and pleasure, joy, and growth and the blessings these things bring to the community. We don’t have enough people in our House to do a proper Maypole but there are other rites we do and there is always a ritual and then a communal feast. In my book “Devotional Polytheism,” when writing about this holy tide, I also note that it “is about sex. Well, ok it’s not just about sex but it is about loosing creativity and readying the land for summer growth, and the explosion of life that comes with the turning of the seasonal year to spring. It’s a seasonal festival all about fertility and fire, abundance, and rampant, unadulterated, unapologetic creativity. It’s about coming and the burning in the loins, and the earth’s seasonal orgasm that brings a flood of life into being as spring turns to summer and the land yields its bounty to the blazing beauty of the sun.”   

So go out there and have a frolicking good time. Let us celebrate this holy tide the way our ancestors did: with abandon. Let us bring back our ecstatic rites and let us celebrate our Gods with joy. Here is one of the prayers to Freya that I really like (and Freya is not the only Deity invoked. It varies from House to House, and I tend to emphasize Her when writing about Beltane because my key apprentice at the moment is a Freya’s woman). 

To the Boar-Rider 

(prayer by H. Jeremiah Lewis*)

Hail victory-bringing Goddess
with braids of electrum, eyes like ice
and a countenance even colder,
clever Freyja of snaring schemes
and snaky stratagems
whose beauty is stern,
severe, indomitable
and utterly Hyperborean
when you stand firm
in the war-council of the Gods
with your Giant-dispatching ash-spear,
your handsome boar tusk helm,
and your gleaming sun-bedecked linden shield as well.
You speak far-seeing words,
hard words and brutal,
which the Gallow’s God, Borr’s son,
the High One approves of.
Oft have you sparred and oft fought as allies; 

of the two, Óðinn much prefers the latter. You won his respect, O Freyja;
he knows your worth,
and will never again underestimate 

the one who is mighty with mead.
For once you roared out onto the field
astride your gold-bristled charger
and there appeared nothing cool,
calm or collected about you.
No, your eyes rolled back
and your body seethed and shuddered
as violent cantrips tore themselves
from your lovely throat
like the call of crows or wolf’s howl,
and fearful frenzies lashed your foes,
driving them shrieking
before you and your violent kin.
Glad is Sigþrór and Glapsviðr
to have one so heiðr to fight beside
with the dire day of doom,
darkness, damnation and desolation
drawing ever nearer.
Help me to meet my own
trials, obstacles and antagonists
with will unwavering and mind unfettered as your own, O Mistress of the Battle Din and Delight of Soldiers. 

( * Used with permission – he’s my husband. I looked over and asked him if I could share these lol. This isn’t a regular Walpurgis prayer, but comes from our household prayer book. I like it because it focuses on Freya as a protector of soldiers and Goddess of war).

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And the Yule Liturgical Cycle Concludes…

Happy Perchta’s Day, Everyone. If you haven’t already read it, head on over to Masks and Monsters to read Dver’s account of her Perchtenlauf. They tramped through their town in Oregon and even invaded a hotel in full mumming garb and it was wonderful. Rites like this, whether small or large, restore the wyrd, cleansing it and driving out malefica and evil. They open and close the doorways into powerful ritual times, and they spread just a touch of the holy, of the numen of the Gods, the holy terror They carry, and the magic of this dark and powerful time to all who see or participate. This is a good thing, a blessing thing. 

As I sit writing this now, we have concluded our Yuletime just within the last hour. We’d intended to use our firepit and have a bonfire, but I was not feeling particularly well today (migraine – it’s going to snow tomorrow, and I’m excited about that but oooh my body is complaining!) so instead, we built our fire in a large cauldron that I have at the front of the house. It’s easier to control and maintain the fire there than in a large firepit and when I do firework of any sort, I put safety first. I was worried that the rite would be disjointed because of the last-minute change of venue, so to speak, but it wasn’t. The moment we called Perchta we palpably felt Her presence, and felt Her clean and reset our land, home, and space. 

First, we garbed and masked ourselves. One traditionally masks one’s face for these rites. Tove (pictured below after the ritual with her drum) painted her face instead. It counts as a mask. We took up our drums and headed outside with offerings and fuel for the fire. I called to Thor to protect and ward our space and then to Heimdallr to consecrate it. Then, I quickly kindled the fire in the cauldron (it’s about two feet in diameter, so a goodly but portable size and cast iron). We honored the fire and called Perchta and Her retinue and passed a horn of Lithuanian mead. We drummed, calling the spirits, calling to our Gods, asking Their blessings on our land, our home, our work, our House, our family. We felt the way Perchta effortlessly banishes darkness. We gave thanks to Her and Her retinue, to the House of Mundilfari, to Odin, Frey, Thor, Freya, Frigga, to the Bacchic hoarde and all the Gods and spirits we love and venerate. We danced and in the dark of the night one of our neighbors walked by and tentatively peeked over our fence—he thought we didn’t see him lol– and the hemlock trees we have planted there, curious as to what the bear-masked shaman and her painted, garbed, and reveling colleagues were doing. May his glimpse of this sacred rite bring him luck and plenty in the year to come. 

We concluded with thanks to all our Gods and spirits and then made sure the fire was completely out. That was that. For the first time, in the entire time I’ve been Heathen (nearly thirty years), my House has kept the entire Yule liturgical cycle, starting with Sunwait, through Oski’s Day, Lussanatre, Modranacht, Yule proper, and now Perchta’s Day. It’s been a wild ride but well worth it.  I wish all of you, my readers, a happy and healthy 2022.  

Tove after the rite. While we never, ever take photos *during* rituals — that would be disrespectful and a terrible violation of piety and protocol—doing so before or after is ok.