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 Firehose (Drinking From It)

As May winds down, I'm looking ahead to what is likely to be a very busy summer. I have begun the preliminary coursework for ADF's clergy program, and wedding planning is underway, but I also have two possible side projects that, if they both come to pass, will take up a tremendous amount of time.

I credit Hermes with bringing those about, and they are going to very good things (though I feel it right to keep the details to myself for now), but they may require me to back-burner the clergy training for a little while. The wedding and my day job have to take first priority, and one of the two side projects will have deadlines attached.

I've spent the past couple of weeks adjusting to being done with the DP (it was approved on May 15, just a few days after I submitted it) and reflecting on how my spiritual life within ADF in particular, and as a pagan in general, has progressed so far. It has been a long road to here, with a few setbacks along the way, and finishing the DP is in some ways just a matter of completing documentation, and yet at the same time it feels like a real milestone. Ending the work with the Dedicant Oath is what makes the difference, I think. It represents a real decision point -- that yes, this is my path and I am publicly committed to it, it's no longer just an idea I'm exploring.

OK, enough about me. What about those crazy kids who think that Superman and Odin are the same kind of thing and equally worthy of worship?

Finding the Gods

It's fair to say that many, and maybe most, polytheists have one or two deities they consider their special patrons. These are gods who we believe have sought us out, or responded well to our seeking them, to whom we give frequent devotions and offerings, and from whom we expect more regular attention and favor than the other gods we may honor now and then.

Before any of that happened to me, when I was new to polytheism and still trying it on, I approached the gods of the British Isles, especially Ireland. I can't actually trace any of my family tree back to Europe, but based on family names, England and Ireland are good guesses. But I did not feel any particular interest from those gods at the time.

A little while later – just last year, really – I began to intuit that Odin/Woden was trying to get my attention. I had felt his presence at CedarLight's Yule ritual in 2011, and then I began to notice crows or ravens (I'm still not sure I can tell the difference). I am sure crows and/or ravens are always around, but it's the noticing of them that makes them omens.

Anyway, after a period of hesitation (Woden is not necessarily a comforting presence), I began to make offerings to him. Some months down the road now, I can call him a patron, although I still one whom I prefer to interact with only occasionally. I get the impression that this suits him just fine.

More recently, another god has come into my consciousness – Hermes, the Hellenic messenger of the gods, fleet-footed and quick-witted. That began with a book coming to my attention, “The Gods of Reason” by Timothy Jay Alexander, which turned my attention in general to the hearth cultures I'd never given a second look to before, Greek and Roman. The more I read and contemplated, the more the Greeks began to appeal. I started making offerings to Hermes because I had a specific request that he seemed to be the right one for, but I quickly found myself liking his energy and presence. Now I'm giving him a brief morning devotional and incense almost daily, just because I want him to be welcome and stick around.

As I near the end of Dedicant Program, I find that the year and a half of study it has entailed – much required, some on my own – has really changed my outlook. At the beginning, I was approaching the gods tentatively and with very little understanding of what was going on and without even any confidence that polytheism made any sense. Now it just seems to be a given.

I find that the Celtic deities still do hold some appeal, especially as I spend more time with my grovies who are more immersed in that culture than I am. And I would like to expand my interactions with the gods of Olympus as well. Among the gods and the hearth cultures, even when confining myself to ADF's Indo-European focus, I find elements that appeal to reason and logic (the Greeks with their history of rich philosophy, in particular) and elements that appeal to primal energies and earthiness. It's a good mix.  

Woden and the Hermit

The Hermit in the Druidcraft Tarot. 

I am not the tarot expert that Lynda is, but I do know the cards. As long as I have known of tarot, I've always felt an affinity for a few certain cards, and respond to their imagery in almost every deck I am familiar with. One of these is the Hermit.

Around the same time of the omens I wrote of before, I undertook an exercise that the Dedicant manual suggests for those seeking a patron deity. It is to look through the major arcana cards of several decks and pick those that resonate strongly, either positive or negative. I chose various ones in the three decks I worked with, and put the Hermit into the strong attraction pile of all three.

The Hermit is always depicted as an old man with a staff and a lantern wandering the landscape. The interpretation of the card usually refers to seeking wisdom and retreat -- retreat meaning withdrawal from distraction into solitude for a time.

This is another point of strong connection with Woden, who is often depicted in a floppy hat, wandering the worlds with a staff, keeping watch of what's going on. (Think Gandalf with one eye.)

My choices overall showed an attraction to the sober wielding of power or confident exercise of authority, the acquiring and passing on of wisdom (the Hierophant), an a curiosity about mystery (the Moon.) These are also traits that are true of the All-Father.

In the Wildwood Tarot
The Hermit is called
The Hooded Man.

Interestingly, though, another strong image that could relate to Woden, the Hanged Man, didn't strike me.

I know that I hanged on a windy tree
nine long nights
wounded with a spear, dedicated to Odin,
myself to myself,
on that tree of which no man knows
from where its roots run.


No bread did they give me nor a drink from a horn
downward I peered;
I took up the runes, screaming I took them,
then I fell back from there.

(From The Havamal)

Still, the wandering Hermit, in my mind, IS Woden, and he has always spoken to me. I think my other choices also illuminate aspects of his nature that may be less obvious, less well-known to me. It was an enlightening exercise.

Well, it is hard to ignore

I have been going back and forth with Woden ever since Yule. As I wrote then, we felt something as the Norse deities were honored, and we started reading up a good bit on the Norse and Anglo-Saxon hearth cultures. For my hearth culture ADF book review I chose "Gods and Myths of Northern Europe" by H.R. Ellis-Davidson. We also read "Travels Through Middle-Earth," a look at Anglo-Saxon paganism by ADF member Alaric Albertsson.

Eventually, we reached a difference of opinion. Lynda has been feeling an affinity for Frigga, while I had been slowly concluding that the Germanic culture was maybe a bit more stark and austere than I cared for and began reconsidering the Irish pantheon.

But Woden has stayed in my thoughts, especially as we've been reading "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman on audiobook, where the mysterious "Mr. Wednesday" is Woden/Odin traveling incognito.

Then yesterday, after services at our UU church, I was in the lounge and caught a glimpse in the woods behind the building of a large black bird in the trees. A raven? A crow? I can't be certain, I am no expert at bird identification, but I do think it was most likely one of the two.

Since I had been thinking of Woden/Odin again, I wondered whether I should consider the sighting to be an omen. This morning, I rose early and dusted off the home shrine (we still have been negligent in practice, probably mostly because we've had no clarity on just which deities we felt called to work with) and performed a very brief ritual: I simply lit the three candles, put some water into the bowl we use as a well and asked the All-Father to give me one more confirming sign, if indeed he was trying to get my attention. I poured a small offering of olive oil into the offering bowl, letting a drop or two fall onto the candle flame.

Then I went outside to sit on the porch and watch the dawn brighten. After about 20 minutes, movement in the corner of my eye drew my attention ... I looked up to see another large black bird, wings spread wide, coming in for a landing on a tree branch.

Well then.