June 2017 — The Rational Heathen

Wights, Ancestors, and Dreams

June 28, 2017 Tyra Ulfdottir Comments 0 Comment

I think I’m getting high off mint.

I don’t think of myself as a particular lightweight when it comes to alcohol or medications. (In fact, doctors usually have to use several times the amount they think they need for me to be numbed. And I won’t go into alcohol, at this time.) So, when I was digging up mint out of my garden to replant and possibly sell, I felt a wave of absolute joy from something. I suspect it was a wight of some sort, or maybe an ancestor. It could’ve been me getting high off the heady scent of the mint, but I think it unlikely.

Feral Mint

I had planted the mint several years back in an attempt to rid some other noxious weeds with my more preferable version of a weed. Out West, we have the unfortunate situation of having constant invasive plants. The mint, although incredibly invasive, is minimal compared to the other invasive plants, some which are quite poisonous to wildlife and livestock. At least the mint can be eaten without harm.

The intoxicating smell of the mint, the gentle breeze, and the sun suddenly transported me into several minutes of pure joy. I swear, I felt hands on my shoulders as I stood there alone. Then, as quickly as it came, it left, but not before leaving me in wide-eyed wonder over what just happened.

Being Closer to Nature

Our ancestors were closer to nature than we are. Let’s face it, most of us grew up in urban or suburban environments. A few of us actually lived in rural areas. Even so, we still aren’t as close to nature as our ancestors who had to deal with the good and the bad on a daily basis. Don’t get me wrong: nature can be deadly, and often is. We, as humans, have learned to keep the bad stuff (as defined by humans) at bay, but unfortunately, we’ve put the good stuff at arm’s length as well.

I moved into the mountains when I could. I’m not unique that I did this nor that I have a meager ranch of a few acres whence I get a large portion of my meat and some of my vegetables. When I do the work, I get the feeling that this is just a taste of the backbreaking work our ancestors had to endure. It wasn’t romantic or pleasant, but it did come with the benefit of being closer to what this Earth is all about.

Ancestors

Both my parents loved gardening. My mom was a Master Gardener. Even so, I don’t recall her

planting more than tomatoes, zucchini, and basil for food. My plants are in container gardens (with the exception of mint) because of the rocky ground here, but I have a variety of lettuce, peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, tomatillos, beans, squash, corn, and herbs, all in containers. Yeah, it isn’t in the ground, but it is easy to get to.

I don’t know what my grandparents did in terms of gardens. My dad worked on a farm when he was younger and ate fresh food. My mom probably did the same. Her dad was a baker who loved to hunt. I know little of my dad’s side — I know his brothers were hunters. I do know some relatives and have some genealogy charts. Maybe I need to take another look at them.

I suspect that there are farmers and hunters in my ancestors. At some point, all our ancestors were hunter-gatherers. So, maybe they would look at our lives and marvel at the easy way we have it, but also the apparent lack of connection.

Odd Dreams

I had an odd dream last night. In the dream, I was hunting with my husband (not unusual) at a ranch we had never been to. There were many strange things there, but the oddest had to do with a big pavilion that was set up for hunters. When you went inside, you were in row after row of cubicles with phones and computers, presumably for those waiting. Only, everyone in there was dead. They had killed themselves because they were waiting to hunt, but couldn’t. They were being told to wait, and they could only read while waiting.

None of them bothered to step out of the tent. None of them tried the Internet connection or computers. None of them took the chance to go out and hunt. In retrospect, I think the dream had to do with how people are choosing to live their lives. They are sitting in a row of cubicles until someone tells them they can go hunt, or they go crazy and kill themselves.

I wonder if this is a metaphor for life? People waiting around in cubicles until they die, never taking the chance of stepping out and hunting, even if they were wrong? It makes you think, doesn’t it?

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Thoughts on the Summer Solstice

June 19, 2017 Tyra Ulfdottir Comments 0 Comment

I’m not a summertime person, really. I hate the heat and, quite frankly, there’s not much hunting to be

Thanks to Magickalgraphics.

done during the summer and usually summer is the start of fire season here in the West. Even so, this year I find that I’ve been enjoying the spring and summer because La Nina has made this summer cool (relatively speaking) and wet for us in the Northwest. So, I’m able to take a breather and actually enjoy the green landscape plus work on my garden.

But all this got me thinking about solstice from a historical perspective. So, whether you call it Midsummer, Lithia, or just the summer solstice, I like looking at the roots of the celebration.

Prehistoric Times

There’s little doubt that humans in prehistoric times recognized the solstice and celebrated the day with the most amount of sunlight. Stonehenge and Externsteine were places where people could observe and mark the longest day of the year. The altar at Externsteine has a keyhole that lights up at dawn on the summer solstice. And Stonehenge is definitely a monument to the sun. The heel stone gateway capture’s the sun’s rays on June 21st.

Almost all prehistoric peoples worshiped the sun in some capacity. Bonfires were common both in prehistoric times and later to welcome the solstice.

Medieval and Viking Times

During the Viking era, northern peoples held a Thing and used the time to solve legal matters and disputes. Bonfires were common as were visiting wells that were thought to have magical properties. In northern Europe, it was customary to light a wheel encased with straw and roll it down a hill to determine if the harvest would be good or poor. If the wheel went out before it reached the bottom, it would mean a poor harvest. Methinks it’d be a good idea to pick a short hill. Obviously with the droughts in the West, that would be a foolhardy thing to do. At least I won’t be doing that anytime soon.

Thanks to Magickalgraphics.

Midsummer in Sweden

Not unsurprisingly, Midsummer celebrations are alive and well in Sweden. A direct descendant of the Viking era solstice celebrations, Midsummer is celebrated with feasts, music, dance, the Maypole, and honoring nature. Not surprisingly, the Church didn’t squash the tradition, it merely usurped it and made it the feast of John the Baptist. Midsummer celebrations still has kept their fertility roots, thus hearkening back to the much older tradition. After all, who wants to let something like Christian conversion ruin a good thing?

My Own Midsummer Celebration

Solstices tend to be a special time for me. I’ll be cooking a pork tenderloin and maybe make some special foods. I’ll be honoring Freyja, Freyja, Sunna, Mani, and Tyr on summer solstice. Perhaps I’ll used the time to reflect on what I want to accomplish before hunting season is upon us. I’ll make offerings for a safe and fruitful season as well.

I hope you have a good solstice and let me know how you do to celebrate.
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I’m Not Eating Your Word Salad

June 14, 2017 Tyra Ulfdottir Comments 0 Comment

This is a bitch session. Get over it.

One thing I really have issues with is the need by certain Heathen “scholars” to use pretentious words. You know whence I speak. We’re talking arch-heathens, thew, frith, grith, innangard, praxi, and whatever other words they’ve come up with. They may be saying something important, but their need to come up with fanciful wordage just kills me. It’s word salad, plain and simple. And it needs to go away.

Arch-Heathen Circle-Jerking

I’m sure you’ve read other people’s blogs and know exactly what I mean. It’s like the writer fell in love with the mishmash of terms and threw them together in some sagely sounding bout of verbal diarrhea. The ideas aren’t particularly complex, but the writer has decided that obfuscation is better than writing clearly. What’s more, because they’re using those oh-so-big words, they’re sure they sound extra important, even if most of the audience doesn’t understand them.

Most of the time I look at what they say and groan. Dudes, you are not sounding intelligent. You’re sounding pretentious as Hel. It’s like an arch-Heathen circle jerk. The moment you start throwing this crap at me, I dodge and split. I have other things to do with my time.

You’re Not Faulkner, and Certainly Not Hemingway

William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway were literary opposites to the point where they insulted each other frequently. Hemingway was a reporter and knew how to write. Faulkner went through the dictionary, hoping to send his readers there. (I’m more of a Hemingway fan than a Faulkner fan.)

“He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.” — Faulkner on Hemingway.

“Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?” — Hemingway on Faulkner.

The truth is those Heathens who think they’re sounding smart actually sound like my dog when she barfs. They aren’t Faulkner, and they sure as shit aren’t Hemingway.

Ignoring the Basic Beauty of Anglo-Saxon

What I find odd is these so-called scholars have ignored the basics of the Anglo-Saxon language. Most of the simpler words we use today are from Anglo-Saxon. The big, ostentatious words are usually Latin-derived. Occasionally, they use archaic words borrowed from Old English or German. Aren’t there better, easier to understand words available?

As a professional writer, it’s my duty to write for maximum comprehension. That means I write clearly so most people can read what I write. If I try to sound collegiate, it takes away the writing’s clarity.

Most of these people writing word salad aren’t scholars or writers. I have a Masters degree and a Masters certificate, which at least puts me in the post graduate league. I’ve studied Latin and Anglo Saxon in college. And I am a professional writer with more books published than many of you have in number of years. So, I think I’ve got a sufficient reason to gripe. Many who talk the talk are amateurs; albeit, some are talented ones. They don’t have the necessary training in logical thinking or deduction. The moment they start with the word salad, I know whom I am dealing with. And it ain’t pretty.

You Have to Wonder…

Part of me wonders if maybe the lofty, lurid, purple prose is an intentional subterfuge. After all, if people don’t know what in the Hel you’re saying, it’s hard for them to dispute it. And if it sounds lofty, then doesn’t it make sense that some people might like to parrot it? Hmm…Got to wonder about it.

As a follower of Tyr, I know that what I say doesn’t make me popular with some people. But just once I’d like for all the word salad junkies to step back and speak plainly. Who knows? You might actually win a convert in The Rational Heathen.

(Nah…)

Mindfulness Magic: Seeing the World as a Heathen

June 6, 2017 Tyra Ulfdottir Comments 0 Comment

One of the things that seems to bind most of us Heathens together is the love of the natural world, in some way. (No doubt I’ll get an argument from someone who says that they don’t give a shit about nature.) However, I’d wager that some number of Heathens don’t have a close–dare I say intimate?– relationship with the natural world. (For those with minds in the gutter, I know where you went–forget it.)

I know, I know. You’re busy making a living. You live where you do because your family lives there. Or maybe you do get out in nature once in a while when you have time for a vacation. But, you live in a city, or the suburbs, where your world is surrounded by asphalt, concrete, steel, and glass. The closest to nature you get to every day is maybe the city park, or your neighbor’s manicured lawn.

I’m Not Discounting Your Efforts

Maybe you have a special tree in your yard; maybe you put an altar out there. Maybe you planted a garden. Maybe you hunt and fish. Maybe you took my advice and have unplugged for a portion of the day. Maybe you’ve made friends with the wights who live nearby. All these things are good. And yet, I’m not sure it’s enough. I’ll explain.

Your Ancestors Didn’t Evolve in Urbanized Settings

Our hominid ancestors were around some 6 million years before us. Homo sapiens, our current species, is about 200,000 years old. Civilization, as we know it, went back some 6000 years. That’s roughly 194,000 years when our species didn’t live in huge cities. Our ancestors were hunter-gatherers or lived in small villages. Agriculture started somewhere around 12,000 years ago with hunter-gatherers trying their hand at planting crops.

I bring this up because I want to show you how unnatural our current lifestyle is. We evolved being on the move and with nature, not sitting in a cubicle in an office building. Technically, even the agrarian lifestyle is unnatural to us, but less so. At least that lifestyle still had people close to nature.

It’s Not Natural

I grew up in a suburban setting. I hated every moment of it. I hated having neighbors around my home. When I was older and decided I no longer wanted to play suburbanite, I moved to the mountains. I’d like to say I had peace, but I had some evil neighbors. One died in a crack house on Christmas Eve from an overdose of heroin. Another actually broke into my home and stole stuff. (Got to love that.) Oddly, I wasn’t even in a bad neighborhood. Eventually I arrived where I live currently, where I have people at an arm’s length most of the time.

My work has had me travel to big cities like New York and Chicago. One of the biggest issues I had with those places is the noise. Sure, the denizens there are use to it, but not really. I could see it in their behavior that even if they didn’t consciously register the constant cacophony, their bodies did. Yes, they are stressed just by living there, and they don’t even know it.

Mindfulness

It sounds weird and new-agey, but some of not being part of the natural order comes from a complete lack of mindfulness. Most of the time we sit at our computers and type. Get in the car and drive someplace. Walk to work or school with our noses buried in our smartphones. Very seldom do we actually spend time and just observe what is going on around us. When we do, we’re often making judgements or thinking about other things, instead of just observing. When you strip away the so-called “monkey-mind,”–that is, the mind that is busy thinking about a thousand different things– and focus on one thing, you can actually start touching the true nature of the world.

Try it sometime. When you’re outside, sit down and look around you. Empty your thoughts. Focus on something natural: a tree, a leaf, a blade of grass… Let your body relax and breathe slowly. At this point, you enter into a form of mediation. You let your thoughts exist but do not dwell on them. Remember, you are focused on the natural world.

When you are in this state, you will begin to become part of the natural order of things. The world will never look the same as it had before–you’ll see beyond the concrete, metal, and glass to something that is more alive and more vibrant. You’ll feel the world as a Heathen; seeing it for the first time as something beyond words.

Communicating with a Higher World

If you do this enough, at some point in your meditation you may experience supernatural beings because you’re receptive to them. It’s how I sometimes experience the gods. You may speak to wights, gods, or other denizens–all without psychotropic substances. And sometimes you’ll feel them even when you’re no longer mediating. It takes almost nothing to recover that sense of mindfulness once you get good at it.

I call this piece “mindfulness magic,” but in truth, I don’t believe in magic. I do, however, believe that the mind is a powerful thing and we can recover what we lost in the past 6000 years, I do hope you’ll let me know if you try it and where it leads for you. You may just touch more than that blade of grass.

Feeling Alone? You’re not, even if you are

June 1, 2017 Tyra Ulfdottir Comments 0 Comment

Are you a lone wolf Heathen? Are you tired of the theodish groups telling you that you can’t be a

Heathen because you practice alone? Guess what? You’re not alone. In fact, you are in the majority. Welcome!

Huginn’s Heathen Hof came out with some interesting statistics that suggests that 64 percent of those who call themselves Heathen are indeed sole practitioners. This is a huge number when compared to the rest of Heathenry, and the apparent belief by some reconstructionists that you can’t be a sole practitioner.

Well, recons, the statistics just proved you wrong.

Why So Many Solitary Practitioners?

A large portion of those who claimed to be solitary practitioners (36 percent) did so because there were no other Heathens near them. The second highest group chose to practice alone because of the bigotry of many groups near them (14 percent). There were a plethora of other reasons, too, such as the persons surveyed couldn’t find a group that they felt they fit into, they were too young or old, infighting among the community, and they just didn’t have time for it.

Heathenry has Changed, Like it or Not

Our society today does not resemble the past societies of our ancestors. We’re more mobile, we don’t spend as much time in the community we live in as we ought to, and, quite frankly, there aren’t as many Heathens concentrated in a single place. We’re aware of more people of various ethnicities who have also been called to the Heathen path, and most of us welcome them with open arms. Many of us have friends with different backgrounds and experiences. I know my closest friends from my childhood and college years live in Oregon, Virginia, Arizona, France, Ohio, Texas, and New York. If I could call them all together, I would. But they have their own lives, and I have mine.

How the Kindred has Changed

Back when our ancestors lived, we had to rely on the other Heathens for survival. A kindred wasn’t just a family; a kindred was your life line. Without a kindred, you couldn’t be assured you would have food, clothing, and someone to guard your back. They may have been assholes, but they were your assholes, dammit. You might not have liked them that much, but they were your support network in your time of need.

Our lives have changed tremendously since then. In America, concept of the kindred dwindled to the extended family. The family dwindled to the nuclear family. People moved to different states; the nuclear family has become the single parent family in many cases. Some folks have many relatives; others have few. Many are scattered, just like my friends. My relatives live across several states and countries. Many I haven’t seen or have known only on the Internet. I’m good with that.

Solitary by Nature

Some of us Heathens are solitary by nature. “Antisocial,” if you prefer. I prefer the term “introverted.” While I do join fellow introverts at cons and go to places where there are people, I really prefer to be alone. Maybe you empathize with that? I really despise someone telling what I can or cannot be by the sole reason of my personality. As I’ve said in the past, if you follow the path of the northern gods, you’re a Heathen. It doesn’t matter whether you are part of a kindred or not.

Maybe I’ve told you nothing that you don’t already know. Maybe I’ve given you some encouragement. Regardless, if you’re a lone wolf Heathen, know that you’re not alone.

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