The Earth Lies Fallow, and So Do I

Philip Halling, via Creative Commons

I am at a point in my life where a lot of things are poised on the brink - waiting, wanting to change, but just not quite there yet.  It can be a very frustrating time.  I want so much to just get on with it, to blaze ahead, to make those changes and live inside them and grow used to them.  But it's not time yet.

I am an impatient person.  I really, really suck at waiting - even bad things, I just want to get them over with as soon as possible.  The anticipation is almost always worse than the pain itself.  But that's not how life works.  Even simple things like the cycle of the seasons; everything turns slowly, and comes around in its proper time.

Nerthus is teaching me this right now.  I have other Gods, other spirits, knocking down my door to tell me about this change, to prepare me for what's ahead, to bid me goodbye as I move on to the next stage of my life.  But Nerthus - it's a human thing, a human concern, and She honestly couldn't care less.  A song keeps running through my head: "we'll sleep out in the garden, and when it rains, we'll just sink into the mud," it says.  She is calling me.  To forget my human concerns, this silly impatience, all the surrounding pain; instead, I must sink into the mud.  A time of pause.  This time, before the first green shoots poke their way out of the soil, is for resting.  I must lay in the lake, let the dark water wash over my head, breathe that darkness into me while I wait.

On the other side of this coin is new growth, blooming flowers, a warm and inviting spring - I know that it's waiting to come forth.  In the gnostic gospel of Thomas, Jesus says "If they ask 'what is the sign of the Father in you?', tell them: 'movement and repose'."  That cycle is inherent in my life, and from what I can see, in all of nature.  The sacred is working within me - there is movement, there is rest.  This time of waiting will turn, and new and exciting things will happen; but now is not that time.  And so I lay down in the soil and wait.

Cauldron Blog Project: Doorways

Loki and Svadilfari by Dorothy Hardy
public domain

I've never been a Roman recon or honored any deities originating farther south than Germany and England, but I must admit I'm a little obsessed with Janus and everything that He represents.  A deity just for doorways?  Weird.  And awesome.  Boundaries, and the thresholds where these boundaries meet, is a recurring theme in Indo-European lore and mythology.  Both Celtic and Germanic sources speak of rituals where people parade objects around the boundary of farmland, of the home, of the town, to bless these spaces.  Establishing the boundary is seen as a sacred act.

I often wonder about the implications of these rituals when considering the story of the walling of Asgard.  Told in the Gylfaginning of the Prose Edda and the Völuspá of the Poetic Edda, the tale recounts a giant who comes to Asgard, offering to build an impenetrable wall around it in exchange for the hand of Freya, and the sun and the moon.  The Gods give him a time limit that seems impossible, but the giant comes close to completing his task.  Loki is sent to stop him and succeeds - and for the giant's "failure", Thor kills him with his hammer.  Of course, that's a very concise version, but it's the very beginning that's of interest to me.

The being that walls and encircles Asgard, certainly a holy and protective function, is not one of the Aesir.  The threshold of the home of the Gods is not established by its inhabitants or a sacred, appointed spirit - instead, it is built by a giant, a member of the apparent "savage" race that the Gods are trying to keep out.  There's no evidence either here or in later writings that the giant is attempting to trick the Aesir with shoddy building or a hidden door so he can later attack - he is the honorable one in this exchange, serving a sacred function for the Gods who unfortunately prove themselves unworthy.

Another Jotun, a giantess named Gerd, is said to have later married the God Frey and is listed by Snorri as one of the Asynjur.  The etomology of Her name is an interesting one, with many concluding it means either 'walled field' or that it simply denotes the action of walling (from Rudolf Simek's Dictionary of Northern Mythology).  How fascinating that She also is so linked to this bounding of space, separating the inside from the outside, while She is really a product of both.  While of course I honor Gerd in my garden, I see Her also as a deity of these boundaries, and I offer to Her when I ward my doorways and the edges of my land.

It's clear that doorways and boundaries were very important to the ancient Indo-European peoples.  How interesting that two spirits strongly associated with these boundaries are giants, so often overlooked or pushed aside in modern Heathenry.

TC Blog Project: Calendars

Wheel of the Year from the 

Museum of Witchcraft, Boscastle

Creative Commons license

Calendars - they can be such a touchy subject for Pagans!  For many outside the regular Wiccan paradigm, telling another Pagan that you don't exactly follow the Wheel of the Year (or even close) can lead to confusion and sometimes arguments.  I do follow the regular 8 holidays with my ADF grove and Wiccan coven, and the local Heathen group celebrates the solstices and equinoxes.  But in my family's practice, we have a bit of a different liturgical calendar.  I've posted before about my Anglo-Saxon holidays; this calendar includes my personal Gaelic holidays, some cultural holidays, and a couple to honor other deities.

Imbolc - February 1 (set out a brat to be blessed by Brighid, bless the house)

Ériu Day - March 17 (honor Irish ancestors, prepare traditional Irish food, honor to Ériu)

Cailleach Day - March 20 (bid goodbye to the Cailleach)

Earth Day - April 22 (ritual and offerings for Earth deities)

Arbor Day - April 25 (a big holiday in Nebraska, we visit Arbor Day Farms and discuss tree lore)

Beltane - May 1 (collect dew for holy water, ritually rekindle the household fire, decorate May tree with bright ribbons)

Midsummer - June 21 (tend a flame through the night, offering rushes to Manannán and milk-soaked bread to Áine)

Star Day - July 27 (a new moon, good day for star viewing, and honoring a star Goddess)

Lughnasadh - August 1 (honor Lugh, harvest the first fruits of the garden, make a large feast to share with the Gods, athletic fun and games)

Samhain - October 31 (honoring the Ancestors)

Totensonntag - November 23 (honoring recent Ancestors - this is a 19th century German holiday, and many of my near Ancestors came from Germany after that time)

TC Blog Project: Family

This time of year, we start to hear a lot of talk about love.  And love in February is almost never referenced as the love between friends, the love of family, or even *gasp* a love for things.  No, our entire culture frames Valentine's Day - a celebration of love - as celebrating only romantic love.  Those who don't have romantic partners are said to be "alone on Valentine's", whether they will actually be physically alone or not.

I'd rather talk today about one of my favorite aspects of Heathenry: familial love.  For a long time, I considered myself the 'odd duck out' in many Heathen circles, being generally the most leftist of the US-politics liberals.  It's taken awhile, but I've come to realize that perhaps I found Heathenry because some part of me understood that, deep down, I actually hold a few traditional values.  One of the most important of these values, to me, is the importance of family.

Growing up, my immediate family was sort of the odd one in the extended family.  We were poor in a family full of middle-class, my mother was too Evangelical and my father too atheist, us kids were socially-awkward brainiacs and always wanted to play with the wrong genders.  And yet, despite the unspoken uncomfortableness surrounding those topics, the entire family was always warm and welcoming.  We were weird, but it didn't ultimately matter, because we were family.  There weren't any family feuds or in-fighting; we all got together on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter and made generally pleasant dinner conversation with each other.

Growing up, I didn't exactly appreciate how rare and precious a family like this is.  When I went to college, I basically cut all ties with everyone - I didn't speak to even my parents for about a year.  It wasn't until I found myself pregnant, faced with beginning my own family, that I began to appreciate just how amazing a good family can be.  The biggest recent influence on my concept of family has been my mother-in-law; she comes from a very traditional culture where it is a woman's duty to care for her house and her family.  She welcomed me with open arms, took me in as her daughter, claimed me as part of her family.  She cares for her elderly mother together with her three local sisters, all of whom work full-time, because it is her duty to love and honor her mother the way her mother loved and raised her.  I have watched her pour out her heart into the food she makes for our family dinner every Sunday; all of her love and good wishes and affection goes directly into the meal.  She holds the most love for family of anyone I've ever known - and though I aspire to be like her in caring for my own family, I must admit that I seldom hit the mark.

I'd like to be clear that by valuing family, I am not referencing only a traditional nuclear family.  That's how mine worked out, but it's certainly not the be-all, end-all.  I spent a large part of my life with my mother and step-father on one hand, and a single father on the other, and we were just as much family as anyone else.  Same goes for gay, poly, or whatever relationships - if you think of yourself as a family, you are.  This is a special kind of love, and no matter how some conservatives would like to play it, it is there for everyone to experience.

I try to give my children the good things I had growing up, while skipping over the worse ones.  We eat dinner together every night, no TV or other interruptions, and talk about our days.  I make it a point to talk to my kids in the car when we're driving somewhere.  I plan family celebrations - not just for my own holidays; I throw a darn good party for Eid twice a year too!  Just as my mother and grandmother did growing up, I tell stories of the ancestors I remember, and those that are still with us but who we don't have the opportunity to visit.  These are all religious acts for me.  The simple act of loving my family - and expressing that love by caring for them, cooking for them, making sure their lives are organized and also enriching - is a big part of my religious devotion.  In Heathenry, your family's honor is incredibly important - it is simultaneously your legacy and your gift to your ancestors.  Caring for my children, loving them, and teaching them the ways of my ancestors is an offering to those who have gone before.  It is also an offering to those I will leave behind.