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Happy Mother’s Day
To all the mothers out there: biological, adopted, spiritual; to all who mentor and act as mother-figures, to all women who step into this position out of necessity and strive to do their best: I honor you. Mothers for the most part are thrust into one of the most important positions one can hold: ferrying souls across the bridge into being and life, sheltering and nurturing those souls, raising them up rightly, piously, in love and care all the while knowing that they are inevitably making mistakes — there is no more difficult role, and it is a sacred one. Having children, raising a family is the marrow, the root, the absolute foundation for our traditions.
So, today I hail the women who do or have done this; and I hail the ones who have wanted to but for whatever reason have been unable to have children. May our Gods and Goddesses watch over you and inspire you.
I hail my adopted mother Fuensanta Arismendi Plaza. I miss her every day and every day I strive to live up to her example.
I hail my biological mother Mary Ann Dabravalskas (nee Hanna). I wish that we had had more time to get to know each other as adults and I wish you joy with the ancestors, and pray that should you reincarnate, it is into a loving, healthy family that recognizes you in all your goodness.
I hail the third mother that I had, my aunt Cindy, who loved me as a mother loves a daughter, and did her best to nurture and nourish my talents (especially my love of reading, writing, and books). I was so incredibly blessed to have had three mothers.
I honor my husband’s mother, Karen Shorie Lewis who raised up a wonderful, stubborn, and very loving man that I am proud to call my husband.
I pray that those who wish to become mothers and have struggled and experienced loss are nourished and given hope. May the Goddess Hlif be at your side. You too have held souls and possibly healed them on their way. You too are mothers.
To all those women who, like me, have not been called to this vocation, may you be nourished in the work that you do. This too sustains our traditions.
Happy Mother’s day.
Contemplative Living Series: Brigid’s Rule- I will maintain loyalty to the endurance of my order.
As always, I want to begin with the disclaimer that Rules for the Order of the Horae, including this rule, may be found here. I’m not part of this Order, but I am using their rules as a jumping off point for these explorations of contemplative and/or devotional living. Please note, these rules were originally intended for a contemplative community. I’m expanding upon them, beyond the boundaries of contemplative living, in ways that I hope will be beneficial to devotion in general and living a devout life in particular.
I give this rule to Thor. Thor, as I have experienced Him, is the epitome of groundedness, of loyalty, of steadfastness and I think that when we are living within a tradition, or within a religious order (in this, I’d apply the same rubric to both) at the end of the day, what we contribute and what we gain comes down to just that: steadfastness and loyalty to the tradition. It’s a matter of choosing to stay the course. I would say this same type of commitment can be applied to one’s household and family too. This is the Rule that provides a bridge over difficulties and annoyances, vexations large and small that come from living with others in close quarters. What are we working toward? Why are we together and how can we nurture each other’s vocations and each other’s devotion to our Gods? This rule demands, I think, a tremendous commitment not just toward religious life and to one’s tradition, but also a willingness to confront, admit, sit with, and resolve difficult and uncomfortable emotions. It demands a respect for the hierarchy of a House but at the same time and in equal measure, demands that the elders of a House and tradition live up to their responsibilities toward those coming up in that tradition. That web of mutual and interlocking obligations means that we cannot ignore the small fissures that can easily grow into chasms of resentment and envy. Everyone needs to own their shit, so to speak. That is a type of radical honesty and deep commitment to self-knowledge (Γνῶθι σαυτόν) that I don’t think we are commonly encouraged to cultivate in relationships. To do our religious work well, within a House, a tradition, particularly within a religious order, I really do think it needs to be a cultivated and nourished expectation. It keeps everyone focused, working together, and spiritually clean. It also denies the opportunity for raw and painful emotions to go rancid within the heart. Deal with difficulties when they arise and always, always keep your common goal and ultimate telos in mind. I would also caution to pray regularly and before such discussions. Prayer, it should go without saying, needs to bracket all of this all the time.
I also think this commitment and the prayer practice and strength of one’s elders throughout the lineage can be a great shield wall against one of the most devastating of spiritual sicknesses: acedia. I’ve written on acedia here https://krasskova.wordpress.com/2018/03/03/fighting-the-noon-day-demon/. I encourage everyone to go read this. I have fought my own battles against this evil spirit and it is intensely difficult to conquer. There are accounts dating back into late antiquity of monks and contemplatives fighting acedia, and it is especially something that will zero in on those living in religious community. Thor is a Power upon which one may call when acedia or any other spiritual malaise, sickness, or attack threatens. He will come with His might and with the force of Mjolnir and drive out the disorder. His very presence creates ordered space and evil spirits, and pollution cannot exist within sacral and ordered space.
I think this Rule also tells us right up that spiritual work is hard. Whether one is a lay person committed to regular devotion, a contemplative, or a specialist or anyone else, spiritual work is difficult, challenging, often upsetting, sometimes unspeakably joyful but the daily grind as with anything else can be just that: a grind unless we choose to consciously elevate it. It’s up to us to keep in mind our telos, both with building our traditions but also with our souls and our relationship to our Gods.
The Question of Gendered Cultus
Logging into my feed today, I saw this post by P.S.V.L. It’s rather cumbersome, but asks a very good question: should people of any/all genders be able to take part in the cultus for Deities when traditionally those Deities were venerated by only one gender. For instance, e mentions specifically the cultus of Bona Dea in Rome. She was traditionally honored only by women and harsh penalties befell any man known to have violated Her rites. There were other Deities as well: for instance, the Goddess Pudicitia was served only by married women. The rites of Mithras were, to my knowledge performed solely by men (Mithras was popular amongst soldiers and that was not a profession generally open to women, esp. in Rome. It would be an interesting thing to find out if He welcomes female soldiers today). So, in our modern day when gender roles or even our understanding of gender (rightly or wrongly) is not what our ancestors would have necessarily recognized, should gendered restrictions on a particular Deity’s veneration be removed?
I would say no. Or rather I would say not without a damned good reason; and people’s comfort, modern values, sense of entitlement, or well-meaning desire for equity are not good enough reasons to destroy a cultus. There’s a rule with ritual and I think this holds true with respect to cultus as well: “don’t change it if you don’t understand why it’s there or what it’s purpose is with respect to the whole.” Without knowing, and really comprehending *why* a rule exists with respect to gendered cultus, it approaches hubris to simply discard such restrictions. Now, Gods are more than capable of making Their wishes known and there are on very rare occasions, exceptions. P.S.V.L. notes this when e writes:
“Though men were not supposed to enter Bona Dea’s sanctuary, exceptions could be made, especially if the Goddess Herself expressed such a desire for the exception to be made. Since She was associated with prophecy, such an utterance from one of Her designated functionaries would probably be obtainable in a ready manner.
What we see here is an important difference that needs to be understood (and, in my view, respected). Any person can have a cultus to any Deity, and if the Deity either specifically allows or forbids it in a given individual’s case (and divination can always be done to find out if this is the case!), then such directives should be followed, in my view; but without such explicit proscriptions or prohibitions, anyone and everyone should be able to simply offer to, praise, and carry out other devotional acts with any and every Deity, no matter the genders of the Deities or the genders of the devotees.”I would, for the most part agree with this. However, these are exceptions, not the rule, and exceptions are rare. I think it’s very easy to be so eager to consider oneself an exception that one doesn’t go through all the requisite and respectful steps to determine the Deity’s will, but rather puts one’s own desire ahead of that will. Likewise, I think diviners have to be very careful about allowing their own values and preconceptions to influence their results. I don’t think a person’s self-identification is enough of a reason to override such prohibitions, not without clear assent from the Deity in question. (Easy enough to get via divination–I recall asking about this once from a Lukumi elder, and he said that before initiation, divination would be done for trans people—for everyone but I was specifically asking about transfolk. That divination would determine whether a person would perform certain ritual prostrations in the male or female form. The result was up to the Orishas. I suspect each House handles this differently but in the end, the decision should be up to the Holy Powers, who made us as we are, rather than our modern iteration of Manichaeism writ large). Here I disagree with P.S.V.L who writes:
“ if the grounds for exclusion are a matter of identity, then the self-identification of the people involved should be what determines that identity’s validity…” I do think there is a difference between a Deity’s Mysteries and personal devotion, the latter of which should not be affected by any such prohibitions. We are free to pray as we pray after all. There’s a difference between having a personal devotion to a Deity and celebrating the Mysteries of that Deity and that’s the line at which prayer, discernment, and divination must occur, the former two by oneself and the latter by experts before any changes in protocol happen. Anyone who carries the Mysteries of a tradition or God, or to be honest, anyone who respects their Gods and wants to see proper restoration of Their cultus occur is charged with protecting Their rites and rituals.
As an aside, I am fascinated with the suggestion offered in the article that Bona Dea’s mysteries might be expanded to include abortion and also with the suggestion that this well may have been part of Her original area of expertise (in addition to other areas of relevance to fertile women). Yes, and yes. Knowing what I know of ancient Rome, this would not surprise me at all. Birth control and abortion were so widely practiced in ancient Rome that one plant, silphium, was so effective and popular that it went extinct from overuse and there were, especially during the Augustan period, serious concerns about declining birthrates. However, I digress.
Someone who is pious should not WANT to force his or her way into a cultus restricted by gender, and if that person is trans, I would think that the requirements of the God would take precedence over desire for human recognition as male or female—recognition happily given in every other area. But, as a line from the Book of the Dead that came up in recent div (unrelated to this topic) said, “we are not perfect but perfecting” and I think that holds true here. When in doubt divine, but also be willing to accept the answer. We’re not entitled after all to any Mystery of any God. We may, however, ask.
Unlike Christianity, we have options. It isn’t as though one Deity holds the key to all the Mysteries. We can go to another Deity or approach that Deity in a different form outside of those rites and if we’re unwilling to do this, but instead are yammering about how we should be granted access then the problem is our own arrogance, not the proscriptions. I have been barred from receiving the Mysteries of specific Gods that I love very much. I am free to honor the Deity in question (Dionysos) but I was barred from initiation because I am owned by Odin and initiation has soteriological consequences. I accepted the decree of the Gods because in the end, THEY get to decide and my obligation as a pious human being is fulfilling Their will. We are lucky that we have the option to do divination, to hear firsthand via oracle or div. what our Gods might want. Not every tradition allows its votaries direct access like that. It’s a blessing of being a polytheist. I think we should focus more on what we can do for our Gods and traditions and move with gratitude into devotion.
By trying to force your way into these restricted areas, you’re missing the opportunity to find Mysteries and rites and roles that are accessible to [insert your gender here]. You’re missing the opportunity to create another doorway through which the Gods you love may work. That’s a powerful thing, and a heavy responsibility to accept. It takes more integrity than trying to tear down established and productive traditions. Someone, by the way, might have wanted to mention this to the Catholics before the abattoir that was Vatican II. Traditions are meant to be nourished not picked apart into irrelevance.
More Musings on Lineage: Emma Livry (1842-1863)
Lineage is a fragile thing. I think about that every time I think about ballet, and I probably learned more about what it takes to maintain and nourish a lineage through having been a dancer than in all the studies and religious work I’ve done since. Lineage is connection, power, tradition, rootedness, identity, culture, and that culture is directed at maintaining and expressing something precious (be it devotion in our case as polytheists, or beauty and art, a different type of devotion, in the case of the dancers I’m discussing here). It is passed through bodies, through the stories, material culture, and lived experience of one generation to the next. One generation takes the next in hand, carefully forming them, teaching them, helping them, and entrusting to them whatever lineage and tradition it is that one carries. That is a sacred trust, something to be cherished, reverenced, protected.
In ballet, it’s not just greatness that is shaped this way, but the endurance of specific choreographies, pedagogies, and ballets themselves. One learns directly from those who danced before one. One dancer teaches a particular role to another, or a dancer begins to teach and passes on all he or she has learned to those students seeking to step into the art, and that is how the lineage and tradition survives. It is terrifyingly ephemeral. Break that chain and you can shatter the lineage.
It is the same with religious traditions, which is why intergenerational passage of knowledge i.e. polytheists raising children as polytheists, cultivating devotion from the womb is so terribly important. We don’t have the societal structure (yet) to support any type of devotion let alone ours, but we can make our households, our homes, our minds, and our hearts living temples to the Gods one by one. We can restore. There’s a line in the Talmud that says that to save a single soul is to save the entire world. I’d like to think that raising up one good polytheist or being one oneself, or leaving behind a body of work to help the next generation, is similarly restorative to our traditions in the world. Anyway, I’m digressing when instead I specifically want to talk about a break in ballet lineage.
In the mid 19th century, there were two main centers of ballet: France and Italy. Denmark also had a significant school. The Imperial Russian school existed but hadn’t yet come into the fullness of its tradition. That would take thirty plus years of Italian and French dancers and ballet masters working in St. Petersburg and sharing their knowledge, establishing clear lines of pedagogy, and training up several generations of dancers, each better than the last. After 1863 the locus of ballet moved to Italy and then Russia and French ballet fell into … not oblivion but let us say disregard. I’ll explain in a moment. It wasn’t until the Ballet Russe – shaped by French and Italian pedagogy – returned to Paris in the early 20thcentury that French ballet experienced a renaissance. I believe strongly that part of the reason for French ballet losing its place for close to a hundred years was the death of ballerina Emma Livry (and I will caution you before you read further, I’m going to talk about her death, and it was horrific).
In each generation there are dancers who stand out from the rest, the truly great artists and/or pedagogues. The heaviest weight of a tradition rests on their shoulders and they pass it on to their apprentices and students. They infuse the ballet tradition of a particular place with power, life, and vitality and make it shine like the sun in its glory. In the generation before Livry, the key dancers were Marie Taglioni (1804-1884) and Fanny Essler (1810-1884 – Essler actually visited the east coast of the US on one of her many tours! She performed in Baltimore). There was also Carlotta Grisi (1819-1899), Lucille Grahn (1819-1907), and Fanny Cerrito (1817-1909). It’s important to note that many of these women were also noted choreographers, a fact that until recently received very little attention (1). The same can be said for their predecessor Marie Salle (1709-1756). While all of these dancers at some point danced at the Paris Opera Ballet, it was Taglioni who truly reigned in Paris (and I think can probably be counted the greatest of the dancers mentioned here, though she and Essler were rivals on pretty equal terms technique-wise. Their artistic styles were almost diametrically opposed).
Emma Livry was Taglioni’s student and protegee. Before she met Taglioni, she debuted at age sixteen at the Paris Opera ballet in Taglioni’s signature role La Sylphide. When Taglioni saw her dance, she took Livry as a student and eventually choregraphed a ballet named Le Papillon (the butterfly) for the girl. Livry was incredibly talented and a noted sculptor at the time, Jean-Auguste Barre created sculptures of her. She was praised by ballet critics and it was clear, even in her own day, that she was the one destined to inherit the mantle of the French ballet tradition, and in doing so, carry it into the next generation. Sadly, tragically – and I don’t use that word often—that did not happen.
On November 15, 1862, during a ballet rehearsal, her skirts caught fire. At that time, stages were lit by gaslights, not electricity. There had been fire related deaths before due to this, so dancers had the option of fire-proofing their skirts. Livry, as many dancers, declined because the substance used in fireproofing made the skirts stiff, unpleasant, and more importantly heavy. When she went up in flames, two male dancers rushed to help her, but by the time they were able to put the fire out, she was so burned that the stays of her corset (dancers wore corsets when they danced in the 19th century) had burned/fused into her ribs. Her face and breasts were unburned. Taglioni was present and tried to help her as the girl as well, and it is recorded Livry prayed fervently immediately after the ordeal. She didn’t die immediately but lingered bed-bound for months in an agony it is recorded she bore with piety and stoicism, dying on July 26, 1863. She died of septicemia when her wounds reopened (they never really healed) at the age of twenty. She is buried in Montmartre Cemetery. I knew most of this from my own time in ballet, but here’s the wiki article on her.
As a dancer, Livry was particularly noted for her extraordinary ballon: the quality of her jumps, the ability to jump lightly and to seemingly hover in the air. Le Papillon was the only ballet Marie Taglioni ever choreographed.
Here’s the thing: the power of French ballet died with her for decades. It’s a noticeably glaring gap in the history of ballet. Many of the leading pedagogues had moved to St. Petersburg (which led to the glory days of the Imperial ballet there, and the Ballet Russe, which returned and repaid the debt to France generations later). Livry’s death, however, left a lacuna in the mid 19th century that no other French dancer could fill. I’m not the only historian to note this. I can’t recall where I read it, possibly here, but other historians have also pointed out that with Livry’s death, ballet in France went into a serious decline (2).
I will close by pointing out that the work you do matters. It doesn’t matter how big or small it is. It matters even if all you’re doing is choosing to pray or make an offering. In the eyes of our Gods, I do not believe this is insignificant. It is restoration, the whisper of lineage, devotion and in a tiny way, the restoration of our world. Never ever doubt that your lives matter, that the choices you make matter. You may not realize how much at the time. You don’t have to be a spiritual specialist like a spirit worker or priest for that to be true. It matters and what you create matters. So, find your devotional voice. Find the medium by which you will bring beauty into the world and throw yourself into it without hesitation. It doesn’t matter if others think it ‘good.’ Pray. Do your devotions. Bring beauty into the world and know that in doing so you are reweaving delicate threads of traditions through which the Gods, I think, are aching to express Themselves. You’re restoring windows to the world through which They can act. May be so always and may you be blessed in the striving.
γινέσθω
Notes:
- Until the past two, maybe three years, there was in ballet circles the mistaken idea that until the 20th century choreographers were male. Even now, it’s still seen as men choreograph, women dance. This is not the case at all though historically. Women, from the earliest significant periods of ballet, like Marie Salle in the 18th century, were choreographers, and noted as such in their heyday.
- The prestige of French ballet began to rise again in the 1920s (after the Ballet Russe re-infused ballet there with vitality). Several noted Imperial ballerinas, most especially Matilda Kchessinska , Olga Preobrajenska, and I believe, Lyubov Egorova began teaching in Paris. Then there was ballerina Yvette Chauvire and Claude Bessy, the latter the youngest child to ever be admitted to the Paris Opera Ballet School, and who later became director of the school. Both of whom helped train the incomparable Sylvie Guillem, and thus the tradition in France was revived, restored, and holds its place today as one of the great schools of modern ballet.
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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In Our House, Iðunn Rules the Year
(I’ve been meaning to post this since New Year’s Day).
Every January, usually on New Year’s Day, our household does divination for the coming year, a ‘reading of the year’ if you will. We seek several things: which Deity “owns” the year; are there any taboos we must follow; what are the key influences over every month? This, then, guides our entire year. One of the most important of those questions is which Deity governs the year and we were all [happily] shocked by what our div showed.
I won’t go into the particulars of the divination itself. That is for our House; but I will share that our divination showed that Iðunn governs the year. I was shocked and delighted because the last couple of years have been so intensely grueling, so exhausting and in the face of that, Iðunn’s promise is that what was old will become new again. She offers joy and renewed inspiration and excitement in those areas that have become rote and stale. With this Goddess stepping forward for the year, we are told that it will be a year of transformations and surprises. We are counselled to expected εκστασις and breakthroughs, creatively and spiritually. Essentially, regardless of what else this year brings, it is time to shake off the dust and depression and fill our celebrations with joy and love of the divine.
Prayer to Idunna
Goddess of regeneration,
Bearer of the Blessed Apples,
Wife of the God of Poetry's Fire
I hail You.
The Sweetness of growth,
the tartness of change,
the crisp tautness of eternal balance:
these are Your mysteries,
These the fruits of Your blessings.
Bless me, Sweet Idunna.
Tend my heart, and mind, and spirit,
that my love for the Gods may never wither.
That is the apple whose bite I would beg,
that is the gift I would cherish the most,
from Your hands alone.
Gracious Goddess,
to You, I pray.
hail, Idunna.
(by G. Krasskova)
Likewise, for each month, we drew a rune to interpret what influences would guide that month. I share them here, without further comment.
Runes for each month:
January - Laguz
February - Kenaz
March - Inguz
April - Algiz
May - Isa
June - Eiwaz
July - Raido
August - Ehwaz
September Nauðiz
October - Sowilo
November - Hagalaz
December - Thursisaz
Good luck!
On Family
In a recent discussion on a previous post of mine here, the subject of “family” came up. I don’t often talk about family, but this is a blog in part about things relevant to contemporary polytheisms, to their restoration, and their longevity, and to the nurturing of devotion. As such, “family” is an important topic, one which, in my ham-fisted way, I’m going to touch on it here just a little. I spent most of my twenties hostile to the whole idea of “family.” My own experience with my birth family had been less than pleasant (1). It took having a deeply devout adopted mom to help me sort all of that out and learn to cherish this idea of “family” as something good and necessary to healthy communities.
When I say family, I do not necessarily restrict that to father-mother-children. In fact, while I believe there should be male and female role models in the family to help guide and nourish the children, I think restricting that to just the parents is deeply divisive, stressful, and destructive. It puts a tremendous pressure on the parents while providing little to no resources or accountability. We need our extended family, our grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, and more; and on top of that, we need to situate all of this in an awareness of our ancestors – that there is that family going back as far as we could ever imagine, of which we too will be a part one day. The nuclear family is an aberration. If you look just throughout the world today, and most certainly throughout history, it was and is more common to have extended family living together and helping each other out, instilling intergenerational virtues and building up functional, healthy, pious adults (2).
It’s become the vogue today, especially amongst those who consider themselves “woke,” who draw a good deal of their rhetoric and raison d’etre from Marxism, to dismiss the family as a wicked and patriarchal institution that serves no purpose but the abuse of those within its confines. What nonsense. Yet, this nonsense is gaining traction in our communities. Mind you, I’ve yet to see a workable alternative presented, because there isn’t one. Family is fundamental (especially when you expand the definition of family beyond the nuclear. (3)). Of course, “family” doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It exists within a culture, a society, a community that may or may not reinforce the values of one’s kin. In our modern world, family can be a fortress in which piety may be nourished and allowed to grow, a curative and medicine for the spiritual pollution infecting our world (4).
Personally, I’ve come to believe that family is an absolute essential building block of any sustainable tradition. It is the way that a proper …I’ll use a Roman term and if that hurts your brain, too bad …pax deorum begins: first in the individual, then the family, then the community, then the city and outward in ever larger circles. It is a sacred thing, something to be cherished and nurtured. “Mother” and “Father” are sacred titles and should carry with them an awareness of the power and responsibility of those roles. What is it that Swinburne wrote? “Mother is the name of God on every child’s tongue…” (5). Family is the best means of passing a religious tradition on to the next generation, and the best way of rooting it as a long-term societal presence. A healthy family is also the best way of correcting societal ills; it starts at home.
I recommend the Tove’s article as well, as part of this discussion. Also, thank you, Guasón, for inspiring this piece. You are awesome.
Notes:
- For a number of reasons, mostly having to do with intergenerational trauma; happily though, in my thirties I was able to heal some of those rifts and make peace with my biological family.
- If you’re not pious I don’t think you’re actually healthy. That piety may look different in each person depending on tradition/gods/etc. but part of raising a healthy child is exercising their spiritual muscles and teaching them what it means to be in right relationship with the Gods, i.e. passing on your tradition.
- Sometimes we make our families. Envision it how you want and create it but understand it’s an essential building block for sustainable polytheistic communities or indeed any community.
- No, I don’t think that we should keep children confined and away from any interaction with the world at large. What I think is that we should be providing them with protection – emotionally and spiritually- from the forces of uncreation. We should be nurturing them in ways that allow them to develop strength and courage, devotion, and goodness. We should be making space for them to bring their questions and to share what they are receiving from the world at large and how and why that may or may not accord with our values.
- Which is why child abuse of any sort is absolutely anathema. Healthy communities, religious or otherwise, root that shit out assiduously. There is no room now or ever in our communities for someone who would sexually or physically assault a child or a spouse.
Apostasy in our Communities
I hate having to make this post. The subject is one, however, that needs to be addressed by those of us who have been in the community long enough to know the history of the person in question. I really hate having to write this.
Apparently Swain Wodening is back, after having apostatized, broken faith with our Gods, after he returned to Christianity, and after he’s written at least one book “Letting Go to Live with Christ” (and this is not going into detail about what an execrable human being he is on a personal level). He’s lurking in multiple Facebook Heathen groups under his legal name Berry Canote.
So far, there has been no explanation of his apostasy, no contrition, no humility. Is he coming back in troth or coming back to proselytize? Or is he coming back because he didn’t get enough attention after his apostasy (after all, Christian groups might pet and fawn over the converted Pagan for a year or two but eventually that fame fades). Why should we ever trust the word of a man with so little honor?
Swain was not just regular laity. He was in positions of authority and leadership within Heathenry. He broke his word and turned his back on the Gods. We need to hold our leaders and elders to a higher standard or what’s the point? If someone is going to constantly swing back and forth between Heathenry, Christianity, Heathenry, Christianity, etc. they are unreliable and having broken their word, having broken troth to the degree that he did, we should not easily allow such a person to return to our communities without censure. Nor should he ever be given any position of leadership again ever.
It’s not even that he went Christian…a polytheist can honor the Christian Gods if he or she wants. No, Swain fully turned his back on the Gods and became a monotheist. This isn’t the same as syncretic practice, adding more Deities to your family shrine; this is a renunciation of our Holy Powers and once you do that, there should not be an easy way back. Personally, I don’t think there should be a way back at all, but if we’re being generous, the fucker should have to prove himself for a very long time.
At some point, we need to establish strict standards in dealing with garbage like this. There is no place in our community for atheists and there’s certainly no place for those who abandon the Gods in the way that he did to traipse back in expecting to be welcomed with open arms. This is a religion not a fucking social club.
EDIT: I would add if it were a lay person struggling with his or her faith, we could work with that and probably should work with that, but this was someone who was a leader in the heathen community for years, who influenced many people, and who behaved abominably. and, moreover, who has evinced no contrition or explanation upon his return and who is sneaking back in under his legal name, not the one he used before as if to hide. no. no. and no
A Brief Discussion of Spiritworker Taboos
In the comments section of my previous post, one of my readers asked a really good question about the taboos that spirit-workers often have, how they work, and why. It was such a good question that I decided to post it here separately, along with my response.
Firstly, a word on terminology. When I use the term “taboo” in this context, I am referring to proscriptions (either positive or negative) upon some aspect of behavior that spirit-workers often experience from their Gods, spirits, or sometimes as a result of particular rules within a lineage. This may include things that cannot be done, worn, eaten, etc. or conversely, things that must be done, and even protocols that must be followed over and above what would fall on regular laity. (I’ve been known to refer to this latter category with the Irish term geasa, singular: geas, but that’s my personal usage having been exposed to the Irish terminology early on. Most of us just refer to them as “taboos”). That is not to say that specific Deities won’t have particular protocols that one must follow when approaching that Deity’s shrine (for instance, washing hands and anointing with khernips before approaching Apollo’s shrine, or women covering their heads when going to traditional Catholic mass – as random examples), but those protocols are universal to anyone approaching that Deity or that sacred space. They’re not a matter of X restriction or obligation being laid on Y person because that person is a spirit worker in service to Z Deity. Lay people do not usually have to worry about this type of thing, not in the compulsory way that spirit-workers will often experience, ALTHOUGH in many traditions a goodly portion of what a spiritworker does is sort out taboos for laity, so your mileage may vary—initiatory traditions, for instance, often have taboos for individual initiates as a matter of course. From here on out, I’m going to write from the perspective of a spiritworker who has mostly divined on the question of taboo for other spiritworkers. I hope that makes sense because this is actually the first time I’ve ever written about this in any depth, so I’ve never really had to parse it out like this before.
I’ll also add, don’t be a stupid jackass and go looking for taboos. The Gods are ever more willing to give than we are to receive, and spirit workers who are just so certain that to be real, live spirit workers, they MUST have taboos are likely to find that the Gods listen and give rather unpleasant, or at least inconvenient ones. You’ve done it to yourselves, people. Just let the work teach you and lead you where you need to go and listen to the advice of your elders.
So, in my previous post, David asked: “I guess I’m asking- if one has them, what type of taboos are they? What governs the practice- by what gnosis? Lineage? I guess I’d just like an overview of how that works. Thank you.”
All good questions but difficult to answer because there’s no set way this happens. It’s not formulaic. Every real spirit worker that I know has a passel of taboos, some large, some small but there’s no rhyme or reason to it that we ourselves know even amongst those owned by the same Deity (though, of course, I am fully convinced that the Gods have a plan there and it makes perfect sense to Them–we just can’t see it). In fact, two people owned by the same Deity can have precisely opposite taboos. There’s no telling when or if one will get them either. Someone may end up getting hit within their first few months of service, others only after years, and some lucky devils not at all.
I want to emphasize again that with certain practices, or certain Deities, or certain shrines, traditions may teach that there is a protocol to be followed by everyone. That is not a taboo. That is just part of pious respect.
Now, with taboos, often a spirit worker can sort of feel them coming on. One will start to have an adverse reaction to certain fabrics or foods, for instance, when no medical allergy exists. Sometimes something will just start to feel really, really wrong. That’s usually the point at which the spirit worker will consult one of her tradition’s diviners to find out what’s going on (or more likely avoid it as long as possible in the hopes you are wrong. This does not work by the way. Lol). Often taboos will be given to a spirit worker to help sort out a problem that the spirit worker is having. Maybe a spirit worker is having problems with his Gods, and this is a means of rectifying that. In the negative, perhaps a spiritworker has abused a privilege and the taboo is the corrective. More usually, it’s a neutral thing that happens as a result of the various changes and modifications that spiritwork brings about in a person. Sannion noted in a conversation we had, that it’s not always a negative response to something that is the first sign a taboo is coming on; sometimes one can have a deep attraction to things that end up then becoming taboos. He’s right, and I’ve certainly experienced that myself.
I do think that taboos are meant to strengthen the spirit worker in some way, or his/her connection to his/her cadre of Holy Powers. We always end up having to discourage “baby” (new) spirit workers from seeking out taboos or pretending, in their enthusiasm, that they have them, or copying another spirit worker. Just stop. Having them doesn’t make you a better spiritworker. It doesn’t make you more legitimate. It’s just a byproduct sometimes of the Work. It’s certainly not something to seek. They’ll come if they come and if you pretend, you might get hit with one hard and fast that you don’t like. It’s not like we get to choose them after all and often they’re damned inconvenient.
Food and clothing taboos seem, as far as I can tell, to be the most common. I also think there’s some aspect of “othering” to certain taboos – that the spirit worker is meant to stand out as a carrier of the holy and we see this in anthropological accounts of “shamans” quite a bit. It’s interesting but I haven’t made a study of it. I just cuss when I realize I’ve had a new taboo dropped on my head. Often, quite often, taboos can be about protection too and ritual purity — an awful lot of mine have to do with avoiding miasma.
Some taboos come with lineage. So, if one is initiated to a particular Deity, and certain patterns occur during the divination thereafter, then xyz taboos are laid as a matter of course. Sometimes, a spirit worker will receive a taboo via theophany or more often personal gnosis. (A spirit worker will be told directly by one’s Gods and/or spirits). I even actually inherited one from my late mom. It’s funny, when I’m divining for someone, and that person is a spirit worker who asks about whether or not he or she has a taboo, unless that person is starting to experience the aforementioned dis/comfort, I’ll caution them NOT to ask. (Better to ask forgiveness than permission…once it comes up on the mat, one is obligated). Taboos can change over the course of one’s life and Work. For many years, I had a specific taboo, but then about fifteen years ago, after a major initiatory cycle, that completely changed. I freaked, but a ton of divination and also prayer and discernment confirmed that the original was no longer needed.
I want to emphasize that there’s no virtue in having a religious taboo. There’s no virtue in being free of taboo. It’s just a thing that sometimes happens in our formation as spirit workers that, in some way, helps us. My colleague Tove just said that “sometimes, it illuminates a path that we’re on as spirit worker with more clarity than we otherwise would have had.” I have found that to absolutely be true. She also added, “they [taboos] can also be an expression of the voice of our Deities too, especially our primary Deity.”
I can’t think of anything else to say on the matter. If y’all have questions, feel free to drop them in the comments.
Gangleri's Grove 