Hearth and Heart

Back when I was first getting started with polytheism, I tried to build some affinity with the deities of the Irish pantheon, as I know I have some ancestral heritage there. As much as some of the gods appealed to me though, I didn't seem to appeal to them, and I never felt much responsiveness.

At Yule 2011 at CedarLight, we honored some of the Norse gods, and they seemed to be very "present." For quite a while after that, I made regular offerings to Odin/Woden at home, and read up on both Asatru and Anglo-Saxon Heathenry.

This Spring, though, the Greek gods caught my attention, Hermes in particular, and after a couple of dramatic answers to requests, I began to call him my patron god. The Hellenic culture appeals to me intellectually, as much of their original pre-Christian mythology and philosophy has survived through the centuries.

But then the weather turned cooler and it was as if Odin returned from travels and knocked on my window again, much like Gandalf, and now the deities and culture of the northlands are again top of mind.

All of this fluctuation, coupled with some of my initial study on ADF's clergy preliminary program, has led me to the conviction that ADF's notion of "hearth culture" should be only a starting point. In the reality of history, the cultures of Europe mingled and mixed and migrated, and gods were worshiped far from the lands where they originally appeared.

I've been thinking that perhaps there is some value in a pan-Indo-European hearth. In practice, most of the ADF members I know do not limit themselves to a single hearth culture, but choose – or are chosen by – those deities that they find affinity for. Nothing in ADF discourages this, but the hearth culture paradigm as presented in the Dedicant Manual might leave the impression that our ancestors lived in isolated bubbles, either Norse or Roman or Gaulish for example, when the reality was much more dynamic.

So, to extrapolate from history, the various IE cultures encountered each other and shared their ideas and religion fairly broadly until conversion eventually overtook the land. Had that not happened, it stands to reason that the process would have continued to the point that rather than a set of distinct pantheons, the gods of all the lands would be known more universally and available to all. While it seems likely that a Norseman would still be more inclined to make offerings to Thor or Freyr than to Ares or Lugh, a person with a mixed ancestry – as is true of most 21^st Century Americans – might not have the same strong ties.

What I am thinking toward, and the work is far from done, is to simply articulate in theory what is already frequently the case in practice. I will post more as my thinking develops.

The Theology Library

Theology fascinates me, but good, well-reasoned pagan theology can be hard to come by. On the hopes that other folks find it interesting, I thought I would take an opportunity to recommend a few books that have contributed significantly to my own thoughts on the topic, and a fourth that I think is going to.




A World Full of Gods by John Michael Greer systematically argues for the coherency of polytheism as a credible alternative to monotheism. Greer artfully demonstrates some weaknesses in the popular arguments for the existence of only one god, and argues that the reality of many gods better fits what we observe about the world. This book was my introduction to Greer's work and I've been a fan ever since.



Jordan Paper's book is another excellent explanation and defense of polytheism as a live option for religion today. He draws from Native American and Eastern religions as well as the more familiar (to us ADF members anyway) Indo-European cultures.


This is one of a couple of books that undermine the Jewish and Christian insistence that their religious tradition is essentially monotheistic. In fact, the ancient Israelites were polytheists until fairly late in the Old Testament era. Penchansky illustrates his points with stories from the Bible and with writings for neighboring cultures that illuminate the deities mentioned in the Bible in new ways.


Another book on early Hebrew religion, Smith is more detailed but also less accessible than Penchansky's book above. However, for someone interested in the topic, it's highly readable and worth the time.


An inspiring intellectual argument for the reality of the Greek gods, drawing heavily on Greek philosophy and myth, but applicable to other pantheons as well. (That is, if the philosophers were correct about the nature of their gods and the relationship of their gods to the cosmos, it stands to reason that Odin and Mannanan and Krishna are of the same nature.)

Our Social Circle

We've now attended two 'pubmoots' with a small group of Asatruar in northern Virginia. They're not part of the same kindred, but they gather once a month as fellow travelers for socializing (so far, none of the conversations have actually been about Asatru.)

This gives us a second pagan social outlet (in addition to rituals at Cedar Light Grove) and one that's much easier to get to for us. I'm liking the way our social circle is building. But our home practice has not been keeping up. We had been holding a small ritual of our own each full moon, but a variety of issues (including some dissatisfaction with the source material we were using plus several weeks of either having house guests or travel) disrupted it. I'm hoping we can get back into that at the next full moon.

We also have not been using our home shrine for any sort of devotional work. It's a habit, one we fell out of before building it up. With luck and some diligence, we should be able to return to it.