Sources and Finding our Way

The Horned One altar with bundle, tobacco pouch and headdress 

     In the pagan world it is extremely difficult to find and verify sources for so much of what is put in books that sit in the metaphysical sections of Half Price Books and Barnes and Noble. Most authors bios read something like "A practitioner of X for over 30 years, a High Priestess of Y, Hedge Witch, Tarot Reader, Celtic Druid and Shaman." Not that any of these experiences should be discounted, but by and large, I have no way of verifying or denying these claims, and it honestly doesn't tell me much about the Author other than that they dabble in a LOT of different realms of belief. Which again, isn't bad, but it doesn't instill a lot of confidence either. The other problem with a lot of these books is that the references and sources are sometimes nonexistent or if they do exist, are just references to other peoples works who didn't cite their sources either. So, what is one to do. 

    My recommendation is to find and start with academic works. Works that don't have a "practitioner" as their author, someone who is just interested in the historical facts and interpreting them. Someone with a PHD who is trained to handle the source material and hopefully present it in an unbiased way. Then, you can use these other sources as supplemental information. 

    Now, I want to say that, in my personal opinion, it's all made up. We have NO idea. Any book that purports to be about "norse shamanism" or "Celtic Druidry" etc. is just made up to some degree. Yeah there are some sources, but it's filled in with a LOT of conjecture and borrows heavily from core shamanism and Wicca. 

    Basically, we have a bunch of scrap pieces of fabric and we're trying to reassemble a garment that we have no pattern for. We have vague clues, but nothing concrete. And so what are we to do? I think as people living in America, we have the benefit of living alongside indigenous cultures and these cultures can give us a window into world of tribal beliefs that may give us clues as to what our ancestors may have done.  There are many similarities, customs and motifs that seem to be universal. That's not to say that we should come in and take things that are not ours or assume to speak on behalf of a people who we do not belong. Rather, we should approach the myths, motifs, symbolism with an eye of application. For instance, I have a bundle. Inside this bundle are sacred objects and things that are important to me spiritually, that represent my homeland, that represent my ancestors and my beliefs, animals I feel close to etc. It's very personalized and it's very unique to me. I'm in no way claiming it's a Native American bundle. It's the bundle of an Indo-European Descended North American who found something that resonated in the local customs and is employing it to fulfill a spiritual need that I feel we lost touch with almost 2,000 years ago when our tribal ancestors were conquered. 

    Not long ago I visited the serpent mound, and I talked about applying our Indo-European motifs and myths to the landscape around us and getting in touch with the local stories that native peoples have believed for thousands of years. I think this represents our way forward for those of us Europeans who wish to return to our more instinctive tribal religions. Take our stories, and find our way back to their everyday application through really engaging with our Native brothers and sisters and forming those bonds of friendship and mutual understanding. 

    It's that tribal sense that I hoped to create with our little far flung community. Not a tribe of exclusion, but a a tribe of sharing what we have and of supporting one another centered around a devotion to nature and the gods. 

    Just a quick post script: If you have any prayer requests or want a ritual working done for a specific need, I have put a request box on the blog (for mobile users, click on "desktop view" at the very bottom of the page to see it.) Please feel free to reach out and I'll do my best to serve the need. 

     

    

Rituals and Words : Musings on Invoking the Gods

Altar with ritual and words in a stand up frame for ease of invocations 

    Something that anyone will realize after they've become pagan or started following a pagan path is just how little we actually know about the day in and day out practices of our pagan ancestors. We just don't have all the information, especially when it comes to words and the spoken parts of rituals and ceremonies. We are left to sort of make it up as we go along. This always really bothered me, coming from a more liturgical christian tradition. I love written prayers that I don't have to come up with on the spot. Extemporaneous prayer is not something I was very good at as an evangelical, and so the idea of doing it as a pagan isn't any better. Fortunately, there are a lot of good resources for prayers out there that people have written based on the myths and legends and attributes of the gods and you can of course write your own! 

    Recently, I have been studying Japanese Shinto, as many might know of my sumo wrestling exploits. Shinto has the distinction of being a fully intact "pagan" animistic/polytheistic religion or folk practice in the modern world with rituals and prayers so old nobody really knows how far back they go. One thing I learned though is that the shinto priest will often write rituals or prayers for specific occasions that might arise. 

    I really think the role of the priest/gothi/shaman is to communicate the needs of the community to the gods through rituals and offerings. There's a certain amount of intuition at play. In your personal practice, it's the same. Creating the ritual that will most draw the gaze of the gods that they may grant blessings. 

    While we don't know much about the words or invocations, there does seem to be a standard series of actions that are found across all cultures. Whether it's directed towards the gods, the spirts of nature or the ancestors the pattern seems to be the same. 

    A sacred space for your ritual is marked out. This could be a grove of trees, a stone circle, a favorite tree, a favorite rock, etc. What I typically do is call the spirits of the cardinal directions while burning incense. I'll say "Spirits of the North, come to us in peace" and so on. Casting a circle seems to be a more modern phenomenon, but there's nothing wrong with it. Then I typically will offer prayers to the idol, I'll mention the spirits and the ancestors. This can be done with pre-written prayers or extemporaneously. I prefer the former because I don't do well with the latter. I always feel that I stumble and second guess and it makes the ritual feel stilted and not very well executed and maybe a little cheesy. Then I will offer my libations or food after which I will say a closing prayer usually thanking the gods, ancestors and spirits for their abundance and blessing. I will send the spirits off with incense saying "Go from us in peace". 

 I think this formula works well. 

 Opening the space 

 Offering the Invocation and Request 

 Physical Offerings (Food and Drink) 

 Closing Prayer 

 Close the space 

 I hope this helps you in your own ritual life.  

Odins Day Reflection : Overwhelmed...and it's okay!

  

The only spirituality I was able to muster this week. Have been feeling very close to the Horned One lately. 

Blessings to all on this day of the week set aside for the Wanderer Odin, 

    I am going to be brief today but I am trying to keep up with this for the one or two of you who find these reflections of use. I recently received my last packet from the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids and had I been keeping up with my studies, would now be set to apply for the Ovate grade. However, life is busy, other interests take my attention and sometimes the spiritual pursuits fall by the wayside. I have tried to be consistent but this is not my strong quality. That being said, I am trying to dive back into the Druidic material. I have heard from others in the Order that some take years to sit with the Bardic grade before taking the next step so I feel good just allowing it to take time. 

    With that in mind I just want to encourage all of you that no matter what you are pursuing, things may feel overwhelming or you may feel like "what's the point of doing this" but it's okay. I think we live in a world of instant gratification and it makes us feel like anything but immediate results or progress isn't enough. Well, it is enough, you are enough and it's okay! 

    If all you can muster is to light some incense at the altar and walk away, that's okay. If all you can muster is a walk into the woods to just listen to the birds and hear the wind rustle the trees, that's okay! If that epic plan you had to give offerings all week and meditate at the altar didn't quite go as planned, it's okay! Start again. 

    So I continue to head down the path I'm on with all its twists and turns. The gods and ancestors are with me and they're with you too. 

-Jacob 

Odins Day Reflection : Faeries, Offerings, the Full Moon and Protection

Blessings to all of you on this Odin Day, 

    It's been a pleasant week with much going on. Graduations are happening and in this house the oldest son has moved into his next phase of life as the summer season is truly heating up and the sun is beaming down a bit more harshly. The crops are in the ground and sprouts of corn surround our little patch of wood and field. At the entrance of our woods near Odin's idol, another phase of life has begun.  A robin nest has been under our observation and the eggs have finally hatched revealing little leathery skinned creatures that will eventually be beautiful orange breasted birds. What a miracle. So much wildlife all around us. 

    Today I wanted to speak on Faeries and their role in everyday life. The full moon is tomorrow and this is a wonderful time to leave out offerings and such for the good people. Faeries are most active during the full moon and they are said to exact their revenge or be the most trouble for us humans around this time. I have noticed that when we live in harmony with them, things seem to go a little bit better. There was a time earlier this year that we had been missing some things for a while. We looked and looked and looked. We stopped and decided that the faeries should receive an offering. That week every single lost item turned up. 

    Lady Wilde writes, ‘on moonlight nights they often come up on the land, riding their white horses, and they hold revels with their fairy kindred of the earth, who live in the clefts of the hills, and they dance together on the green sward under the ancient trees, and drink, nectar from the cups of the flowers, which is the fairy wine.’

    The woods and fields should teaming with faeries on a full moon and so it recommended as much as you can to stay indoors, but if you must go out here are some ways to protect yourself. 

- Offerings and libations of milk and honey 

-Carry a piece of iron in your pocket

 -Wear a shirt or piece of clothing backwards as it confuses them 

-Carrying some St. John's wort or a four leaf clover or some ash from the May Day fires in a vile will keep them at bay

-Crossing running water 

-A red thread tied to your person, finger, neck, wrist etc...

    The faeries aren't good or bad, they just are. Treat them with respect and they'll generally leave you be. 

Be safe and may the gods bless and keep you. 

Jacob  

Odins Day Reflection : Are the Gods and Spirits real?

 

 Blessings to all on this Odin Day! 

    I have been slipping lately but trying to get back in the saddle after a brief illness. 

    I've entitled this reflection "Are the Gods and Spirits Real" because I have for my whole life run into a certain line of thinking that I'd like to challenge a bit. Maybe it's my wishful thinking that drives me but I can't help but feel this question is a plague on our modern mind and an idea that our ancestors simply took at face value. 

    Whenever I see articles from pagan folks, especially from academics, dealing with faeries or gods and push comest to shove, they will typically fall into the idea that the faeries and gods are merely something we made up and then go into various things that they are or are not. Archetypes, personifications of the weather and the elements etc. But the idea that theres an actual person or force named Odin, or that theres literally a faerie living in a tree, these ideas seem to concrete for their post enlightened brain to admit to, so they shield it with the abstract. And I get it, you don't want to feel foolish. So it's easier to say you believe in some larger over arching unnamable force that animates everything because again this is way less direct. Again this rationalism plagues us. This unwillingness to surrender to things we can't see, to accept things that older generations took as fact until the enlightenment destroyed those sensibilities and relegated them to the nursery rhyme and the fairy tale. 

    A story was collected in the 19th century called "The Pooka" by E.W. The story of the Pooka is interesting to be sure, but it is the beginning of this tale that interests me where the story teller decries the "school master" or rather education as having ruined the folk beliefs of old.

    He writes :

    "Now that "the schoolmaster is abroad," there can be no question that the warm sun of education will, in the course of a very few years, dissipate those vapours of superstition, whose wild and shadowy forms have from time immemorial thrown a mysterious mantle around our mountain summits, shed a darker horror through our deepest glens, traced some legendary tale on each unchiselled column of stone that rises on our bleakest hills, and peopled the green border of the wizard stream and sainted well with beings of a spiritual world."

    So are these gods and faeries real? I can't say for sure. I have had intimate experiences with them ever since starting this journey that I can't explain, but I do know this, treating them like artifacts won't accomplish much. We have been taught that it's irrational to believe in things you can't see. So we comfort ourselves by turning them into abstractions that originate from the self because that's somehow easier for us to swallow. But what if there is a wanderer, and his name is Odin, and he gained the runes knowledge through self sacrifice and we can actually know him and interact with him? 

    I was reading in a book by George Ewart Evans where he stated that a certain generation born before WW1 had a wealth of lore and superstition that they accepted as fact and that the following generation who experienced the War in it's fullness had this same lore and knowledge but viewed with skepticism. 

    I think the best way to combat this skepticism and this need to make everything rational or abstract is to get out into the natural world and commune with the gods. Nature is clearly their abode and the old ones knew this. So on this Odins Day, I challenge you to grab a walking stick, throw some incense and an offering into a bag, maybe a small idol if you have a specific deity you work with and go into nature, build a little altar and make an offering and meditate and let me know how that goes.  

-Jacob 

Odins Day Reflection : The Maypole

 

 Blessing to all on this Odin's Day, 

    As we began the week, my wife and I cut the maypole and will be procuring items for decorations and such as we look towards Saturday. We are celebrating early as it's when we will be surrounded by the most family and loved ones. 

    I've been reading the great Marcus Aurelius and I think every young person should get a hold of his work "meditations." It contains so much wisdom and is thoroughly a pagan work while also appealing to a more Christian worldview at times. There's much to comment on, but a theme I touched on last week also shows itself in his writings. The idea of accepting what is, what comes and doing our best to live with this acceptance. 

    Beltane and this time of year represents a great change, a great shifting of seasons and we experience this every year and we accept it as part of the rhythm of life. Change is the great constant of our lives. Our relationships change, our personal interests, our opinions etc. So much is dependent on this change. And so this time of year, as with all the seasonal changes, asks us to accept different things. As we change from Spring into Summer we are encouraged to allow the seeds that have been planted to take root and grow. Summer is the season of rootedness and becoming our true selves and living up to that potential. But Summer can also be hot, uncomfortable and full of drought, which sounds a lot like another word, doubt. When we find ourselves in times of change we can tend towards doubt, but the hope of the season is that we will grow into what we are intended to be and that a great harvest awaits at the end where the fruits will be enjoyed. 

 So as we plant the roots of our Maypole in the ground and adorn it with ribbons and flowers, a great symbol of fertility and growth, may it cause us to examine those things that we are cultivating in ourselves and may we root ourselves and prepare for the coming season of harvest. 

 May we be open to this time of year, accepting change, and may we place doubt aside. 

-Jacob 

Odin's Day Reflection : The Red Bud

 

Blessing to all on this Odin's Day, 

    It's been a challenging week. Suffice to say, some sad news for my wife and I that has lead us to experience pain and sadness that we weren't anticipating. Please keep us in your prayers. 

    Yesterday we decided to do some yard work, just to keep moving and try to stave off the sadness a bit with some movement. Eileen cut out a big patch of multiflora rose and other weeds and dead foliage and pruned our fruit trees. I mowed the field and paths around it and helped throw things on the burn pile in anticipation of our Beltane bonfire we will be lighting at the end of this month. 

    In the field we have a red bud tree that sprouts out from a fallen log that was the original red bud. It fell over and was uprooted but yet, life persisted and out of the fallen tree, two new trees sprouted. What was once tragedy, turned out to actually create more beauty as the red bud is now even more picturesque and more interesting than it would have been before. 

    

    This is how it goes with life. Each turn, each tragedy or joy that befalls us is an opportunity for new growth, a chance for even better things, even if we can't see it in the moment. We shouldn't put too much stock in any new thing that is in front of us at any given moment, because change may be right over the horizon. Give things time to take root and evolve. 

    This Havalmal verse comes to mind, 

Do not put too much trust
in your newly planted crops,    
nor your child to early ---
weather will shape the field
and whim will shape the child
and neither will stay the same. 

Havalmal 88

(Wanderers Havalmal Translated by Jackson Crawford)

    Weather shaped the red bud and changed its course. May we always be accepting of the weather and the whim and look for the chance to grow in new and unexpected ways. 

-Jacob