The Halloween Special: Óðinn is a Scary

Through my years spent in Heathenry, I have noticed a trend regarding Óðinn among young, bright-eyed, busy-tailed new Heathens. Many Heathens tend to see Óðinn as a wise, grandfatherly figure. The kind of guy that would take you fishing and help you sort out all of your life’s troubles with his wry, old man wisdom, before cooking up a few steaks on the grill and telling you the secret to life. Or the kind of guy who selflessly sacrifices himself and everything he holds dear for the dream of a better world. A peaceful world, a world where goodness and honor prevail. Ha! Those poor fools!

The reality is, that despite Óðinn’s modern reputation, back in the day he was seen as a pretty scary dude that, unless you were a poet or an aristocrat, was best left avoided. Óðinn was the god of war, frenzy, and strife. His warriors were the Beserkers (think werewolves), he could summon ghosts from the grave to do his bidding (think zombies), he was the god of hanged men (usually executed criminals), and was considered to be an overall, spooky badass. It is possible that Óðinn’s lack of place-names and absence from human names in certain parts of Scandinavia (such as Iceland) was due to the fear people felt for this God and the death and chaos of war that he sometimes brought with him .1 This has often made me wonder if the reason Óðinn has so many different kennings is because everyone was too scared to say his name! E.O.G Truville-Petre reiterates the fear that people had for Óðinn back in the day, saying:

“We might expect the northern god of war to be noble, valiant, and an example to every soldier, but Óðinn was far from that. According to the sources in which he is most fully described, he was evil and sinister. He delighted especially in fratricidal strife and in conflict between kinsmen.”2

But did Óðinn’s reign of terror stop with the conversion of Scandinavia? Or the beginning of the Enlightenment? Or has he secretly been terrifying us for years through new means? It’s become pretty obvious to me that Óðinn has found his new niche in the horror industry, and if you look closely, you too can see how the guys that have been scaring the piss out of you since childhood were all really just Óðinn all along.

The Creeper

The premise:

The Creeper, featured in Jeepers Creepers (2001), is a winged monster that hunts every 23rd spring for 23 days to feast on human body parts, which then become a part of its own body. He smells his victims through fear, and spends the first movie in the pursuit of a brother and sister on a road trip.

How can you tell he’s Óðinn?

This one is so obvious it hardly even bears mentioning. First of all, the Creeper wears the classic Óðinnic attire, complete with the tattered, wind-blown coat and broad brimmed black hat. Secondly, every time the Creeper is near, large flocks of ravens appear and seem to follow him wherever he goes. If these two giveaways weren’t enough, in the first movie the Creeper spends the duration of the film stalking one of the protagonists, Darry, until he finally captures him and takes what he’s wanted from him the whole time: his eyes. He then takes a peek at us through Darry’s empty eye-socket before the credits roll. Is this a nod to Óðinn’s own sacrifice of his eye at Mimir’s well? Ok Óðinn, we get the point. You’re scary.

Freddy Kreuger

The premise:

Freddy Kreuger, who first appeared in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) was a child killer who was captured by the police but escaped prosecution due to a legal technicality. He was then hunted down and cornered by the children’s parents in a boiler room where he used to take his victims. The parents burn him to death, after which he becomes a vengeful spirit who kills teenagers in their dreams.

How can you tell he’s Oðinn?

Though the wide brimmed hat and coy one-liners are a dead give away ( such as “How’s this for a wet dream?” as he’s drowning a teenager in a water bed in Nightmare on Elm Street 4), Freddy´s penchant for child sacrifice is another clue. In Ynglinga Saga, we learn that King Aun of Sweden made a deal with Óðinn to prolong his own life, where every 10 years Aun would sacrifice one of his sons to Óðinn:
“Odin then told him he should go on living as long as he gave him a son every ten years and further gave a name to each of the districts of his land according ot the number of those sons he offered up to Odin.” 3

Aside from this desire for child human sacrifices, we also know from Ynglinga Saga that Óðinn is a seiðr practitioner, which among its many functions grants Óðinn the ability to twist people’s minds and terrify them. Combine this with his kenning Sváfnir (“sleep bringer”), and the whole jig is up. Sorry “Freddy”, you’re not fooling anyone.

Dracula

The premise

Count Dracula, as imagined by Bram Stoker, is a Transylvanian noble who is actually a centuries old vampire and sorcerer.

How can you tell he’s Óðinn?

First of all, Dracula was inspired by the famous nobleman Vlad the Impaler, who (as his name implies) would impale his victims on stakes. This is reminiscent of Óðinn’s weapon of choice: the spear, not to mention Óðinn was the god of nobles. Dracula also has the power to twist the mind (an old seiðr trick) and has power over creatures of the night, including wolves (Geri and Freki anyone?). We also know from Ynglinga saga, that like Dracula, Óðinn had power over the dead:

“and sometimes he awoke dead men from the earth and sat himself down under men who had been hanged; and se he was called Lord of the Ghosts or the Hanged Men.” 4

Aside from his ability to transform men and women into Vampires and thus awaken the dead, Dracula is of course most famous for his penchant for human blood. According to Grímnismál 19:

“Geri and Freki, tamed to war, he satiates,

the glorious Father of Hosts;

but on wine alone the weapon-magnificent

Odin always lives.”5

Uh huh, sure, I bet that red liquid Óðinn lives off of is “wine”. Nice try Drac. And what about those Valkyries? Don’t maidens that choose dead men seem just a little bit like Dracula’s brides? With this one, Óðinn was hiding in plain sight, disguising himself as a creepy, European nobleman. How original.

So the next time you find yourself trembling at the movie theater, just remember that you’re actually being had by a 4,000 something year-old Germanic deity, which should make the whole experience a little less terrifying. Or does it?

1Turville-Petre, E.O.G. Myth and Religion of the North: The Religion of Ancient Scandinavia. Greenwood Press, 1975. 69

2Ibid, 51

3 Snorri Sturluson. Heimskringla or The Lives of the Norse Kings. Tr. A.H. Smith. Dover Publications, 1990. 17-18

4Ibid, 5

5The Poetic Edda. Tr. Larrington, Carolyne. Oxford University Press, 2008. 54

Confessions of a Polytheist who Engages in Sacrificial Practices

I am a part of three separate traditions that practice some form of animal sacrifice, one of which is an ancestral tradition in which I was born and raised. I must admit, I have gone back and forth about whether or not to write this article, and I have reservations about having this published. But it occurred to me that most of the conversations about animal sacrifice that I’ve been privy to have been very theoretical, lacking in actual explanations of what these practices entail. And I have heard incredibly problematic statements made about who is engaging in these practices, and what kinds of threats we pose to the larger community. While I don’t claim to be an expert on any of this, it has been pointed out to me that, as a person who was raised within some of these traditions and who actively participates in these traditions, I may have some unique perspective to bring to this conversation by talking about my own personal experiences. Basically, when you are talking about “those evil/misguided/clinically psychotic/wannabe edgy hipsters” who practice traditions that include animal sacrifice, you are talking about me.

I want to start by discussing the tradition in which I was born and raised: Judaism. You may not know this, but Jews still practice animal sacrifice. I am the grandchild of Holocaust survivors. I need this piece of information to be voiced first. My grandparents came to the US in 1950, after a number of years in concentration camps and several more years living in refuge camps, where they met and were married. I was raised with the very real spectre of anti-Semitism – my entire family bears the spiritual and emotional scars of the Holocaust; my still-living grandmother bears the physical scars as well. I need to voice this because I need you, the reader, to understand that I am not angry at the possibility that you might judge me and my people for engaging in these practices, I am not insulted or offended at the ways you might judge me. I am terrified of your judgment, afraid of what your judgment of my people and our practices may mean for what you might feel justified in doing to me, or what you would allow to be done to me and my people. And I feel justified in this fear. I am afraid to talk about this because I am afraid of the possibility of being subjected to violence, threats, loss of job, loss of protections. There are things that my Jewish community generally does not discuss with outsiders, for fear of violence or persecution: animal sacrifice is one of those things.

Animal sacrifice is an important part of Judaism; it always has been and it still is. As I understand it having grown up in this culture, our laws of Kashrut are based in part on the idea that meat from an animal that was not properly offered to G-d first is an abomination and not fit for consumption by Jewish people. Blood and life force are properties that are reserved for G-d alone; humans eat the meat once it’s been properly blessed and prepared. To kill an animal without first sanctifying it is to commit a violent and senseless act, to waste a life. Life is precious, and the taking of a life, even for the purpose of nourishment, is something to be done with the utmost respect, reverence and care. For those Jews who keep kosher, this puts us at odds with mainstream American dietary sensibilities – we see your commercially produced meat (even your ethically raised organic grass fed meat) as ritually unclean, because the animal was not properly sanctified and blessed. It’s not because we culturally think blood is gross, it’s because we culturally believe life is sacred, blood contains the life force, and blood and life force are to be consumed by G-d alone.

But kosher animal slaughter is not the only type of animal sacrifice done in Judaism. We also have spiritual cleansing rituals done annually prior to Yom Kippur among some of the more religious Jews that involve the slaughter of a chicken as part of the ritual. Many Jews do not participate in this ritual (heck, many secular Jews don’t even know that these rituals exist and are available in the US), but this ritual is still done. The men in my family try and attend this ritual annually, when timing allows.

You may be wondering why I am starting with my experiences of Judaism, when Judaism is not a polytheistic nor pagan tradition. The reason I start here is because some of the arguments I have heard against animal sacrifice seem to imply that those who engage in animal sacrifice are somehow psychotic, dangerous, mentally ill, or savage and backwards. Again, these types of arguments against sacrifice are precisely why many Jews are afraid to talk about our practices to outsiders. World War II didn’t exactly inspire confidence for us as a people in our fellow non-Jewish neighbors, and accusations of savagery and barbarism have been used to justify violence against us quite a lot in our history. When you levy these kinds of accusations against folks who practice religious animal sacrifice, you are making, in part, an anti-Semitic argument.

But the other reason I start with my tradition of origin is because it was in part due to my upbringing that parts of Heathenry felt familiar and comfortable for me. I found the fact that some Heathens were experimenting with bringing back humane and ethical animal sacrifice into reconstructed ritual practices to be familiar and comfortable. I felt this familiarity even more so when I found my way into Santeria, a tradition that has maintained an unbroken tradition of animal sacrifice. In my experience, those traditions which engage in sacrificial practices tend to have overall a greater respect for animals, a greater respect for the dignity and sacredness of life, of the taking of life, and of the process of eating.

I initiated as a priest of Ochun in July 2011. Santeros are notoriously private and secretive about our religious practices. Much of this is because our tradition includes both animal sacrifice and trance possession, two spiritual practices that are often harshly judged by outsiders to our tradition. Animal sacrifice is judged by outsiders as savage, cruel and backwards, while trance possession is seen as playacting or hysteria at best and the sign of dangerous psychosis at worst. And to be very blunt, part of why I can talk about these practices (part of why I can write this article) is due to my own white privilege. Most of the other folks in my House are first or second generation American citizens, legal and illegal immigrants; many of them are monolingual Spanish-speakers. Out of respect and protectiveness, I will not name any of my co-religionists – I would not want to put any of their safety at risk for being publicly identified as Santeros. You see, we are also judged by the same disgust and disdain currently being thrown at those Polytheists who choose to include animal sacrifice in their practices. And when I say “judged”, I mean folks risk losing jobs, housing, custody of their children, or having immigration called on them for practicing our religion. I am a third generation American citizen (second generation born on US soil), I am a native English speaker and I have light skin privilege; I am not as vulnerable to these risks as some of my friends are. But due in part to these very real fears, most Santeros will not publicly identify themselves as Santeros, and most will not associate themselves with the broader Pagan and Polytheist communities. Why would we, when these communities disapprove of our practices, and when that disapproval puts some of us at risk for being at the receiving end of significant negative consequences?

I have heard the argument made that reconstructionist Polytheists who engage in ritual animal sacrifice are problematic, while those who are part of African Diasporic or Derived Traditions and African Traditional Religions get a “pass”, as though somehow letting us “off the hook” for our practice of animal sacrifice makes the speaker “enlightened” or more “understanding” of traditional religions. These kinds of arguments are racist and offensive. It is as though you are saying to us, “European traditions, and the (mostly) white people who practice them, should know better – Europeans are supposed to be more enlightened. Traditions primarily being practiced by African, African American, and Latino folks can get a pass because we already know those folks are unenlightened savages”. This is far more offensive than if you simply condemned the practice of animal sacrifice across the board. This may not be what you mean, but this is what we hear when you say it.

I have heard the argument made that animal sacrifice is some kind of “slippery slope” to human sacrifice. This is as absurd as claiming that eating bacon is a slippery slope to cannibalism, and speaks more to the way the speaker has framed the world than those who engage in these practices. In all of the traditions in which I participate, animal sacrifice is an occasional practice, done for very specific religious reasons and done according to very specific rules and procedures. In Judaism, animal sacrifice is an integrated part of how we religiously and respectfully prepare our food, and is done for spiritual cleansing. In Santeria, there are very strict rules for how and when sacrifices happen – even the size, color, age and gender of an animal are factors in which animals are selected for which religious purposes. There are strict rules for how animals are handled before, during and after the sacrifice. And only someone who has been specially trained and sanctioned is permitted to perform these sacrifices. And in Heathenry, where some individuals and groups are experimenting with bringing some of these practices back, these are livestock animals who are humanely and respectfully slaughtered by folks who have experience with such slaughter, then prepared as food for the community.

Of the three traditions in which I participate, Heathenry is the only one which does not have an unbroken tradition of animal sacrifice (though there is no shortage of both written and archaeological evidence of animal sacrifice being an important component of worship to folks across Europe). In Heathenry, I have seen animal sacrifice happen in one of three ways. Some kindreds or worship groups will sometimes pool their money together and pay a local rancher in advance for part or all of a pig or steer (there are a number of small family farms that will let groups of folks do this). Either when the money is collected, or when the animal is due for slaughter, the group does a dedication to a god or gods, designating the animal as a sacrifice. Sometimes some or all of the group may go to the ranch and witness or participate in the slaughter; sometimes this is all done from a distance. The group receives the meat, which is then used as part of a feast to honor that deity or holiday. The second way I have seen this process happen is by heathens who are living on farms and who slaughter their own livestock – when an animal is to be slaughtered to feed their families or community, they say prayers over the animal before slaughtering it, dedicating its blood and its death to their gods. The third way I have seen this process happen is when individuals or groups commission an expert to perform the sacrifice for them. When those sacrifices are performed, again generally the sacrificed animals are butchered and used for food, or parts of the animal may be taxidermied or tanned and used for ritual items (such as a rooster wing or a goat skin). In all three of these scenarios, the animals in question are livestock animals who are blessed and respected, humanely slaughtered, and used for food, leather or parts.

I want to talk more about the importance of recognizing what personal narrative you bring to the animal sacrifice conversation. Especially in pagan circles, I find most folks tend to think that whatever they and their friends believe and do is what they consider to be “normal” for all pagans to believe and do. This personal narrative becomes problematic when we remember that the “pagan” community is actually a very large umbrella that includes folks of a multitude of beliefs, traditions and practices, including atheists who work with archetypes for personal elevation, folks who have a reverence for “nature” without necessarily identifying individual entities, folks who believe in the existence of or worship gods and/or spirits, folks who engage in magical practices, folks who believe all gods and goddesses can be categorized by gender and worshipped as aspects of a great God and a great Goddess, and folks who like to hang out with other folks who are scantily clad and getting drunk in the woods, as well as many other permutations of belief and practice. All of these individuals and more are doing valid and legitimate paths, however one absolutely cannot assume any of these folks share a common narrative or set of practices.

Here’s where this narrative/framing conversation becomes important. If you, for example, are coming from an ideology that says the gods and spirits are symbols and metaphors to inspire humans to reach their highest potential, of course animal sacrifice makes no sense in your ideology. The gods and spirits are stories – you wouldn’t perform this kind of devotional act to feed a story. You might perform symbolic acts to feed a story, but animal sacrifice wouldn’t make any sense in this frame. Another example of this might be if your spiritual path includes strict veganism, and you endeavor to neither eat food derived from animals nor wear clothing or use other animal derived items. For this person, animal sacrifice would be exactly as nonsensical as eating hamburgers, using lanolin-based hand cream, or wearing leather shoes.

However, when a person’s frame is a religious one, where sacrifice is done as a means of honoring deities and gifting blood and life force to a power that exists outside of oneself (and who, traditionally, was or is honored that way), there are checks and balances already built into this frame. In my Jewish frame, for my people to slaughter an animal without blessing and sanctifying it first is an abomination and a violent, wasted death, deeply disrespectful to both the animal who is being slaughtered and to the G-d of my people. In my Santeria frame, these are old ritual technologies that have been passed down through generations, intended for specific ritual purposes, and the animals are treated more respectfully and more humanely than animals thoughtlessly slaughtered for food or products. In my Heathen frame, especially for those Heathens who are living in rural settings anyway, ritually slaughtering their livestock is a more honorable and respectful way to procure their food than simply slaughtering without sanctifying first. And for those of us who are not living in rural settings, animal sacrifice is a way for us to honor our gods in traditional and meaningful ways, reconnecting the act of procuring, preparing and eating food to honoring our gods and blessing our communities. How could any of these scenarios be seen as criminal, violent, savage, backwards, or clinically insane?

I understand that animal sacrifice is a charged topic for many people. I hope that perhaps by talking more openly about what my own practices and experiences have been, folks have an opportunity to peek into my world and see that those of us who engage in these practices are not all crazy violent primitive savages. If we are to move forward as a multi-faith community of pagans and polytheists, we need to find ways to support one another’s traditions, whether we agree with them or not. We do not need to all practice the same way, we do not need to all believe the same things, we don’t even necessarily need to understand what others are doing entirely. But racist, ethnocentric, close-minded attacks and accusations of savagery, insanity and violence levied against those of us who engage in these practices are not ways to facilitate multi-faith community cohesion. Much of mainstream US society already doesn’t trust pagan and polytheist folks. Attacking members of our own communities because of differences in practices and beliefs only serves to further divide us, and does not make us more “palatable” or “acceptable” to mainstream monotheistic or atheistic sensibilities. I look forward to the day when we can all find some common ground in our multi-faith community identity, and get one another’s backs in a culture that would vilify us for our beliefs and practices. Perhaps if we put faces and descriptions of actual practices to the boogey man of animal sacrifice, the idea of animal sacrifice will seem less horrifying to those of you who don’t have any lived experience with these traditions.

To Syncretize or Not To Syncretize…!?!

We are now in late October, when many people are either getting ready for, or have already done, something in relation to the Irish quarter-day of Samain (I use the Old Irish spellings of many terms because they taste better to me–yes, I am a synaesthete!). Those who celebrate “astrological Samain” are doing something entirely novel from the last 40 years or so, which has no basis in Irish tradition or anything remotely Celtic whatsoever; but if it works for them as a modern innovation, that’s fine, as long as they recognize it is such, and don’t say it’s the “real Samain,” since Samhain in Ireland today is the name of the month of November. So, whether you celebrate it on November 1st, or on October 31st (since in Irish reckoning, a day began with the night that preceded it), it will be coming up soon.

But, also, in the Ekklesía Antínoou, we have entered the nine-day holy tide known as the Sacred Nights of Antinous, which span from October 24th through to November 1st. The most important date in this period is October 30th, Foundation Day, which is the day that Antinous’ cultus was first founded in 130 CE and the holy city of Antinoöpolis was also founded in his honor. It is a day to honor him and remember his death and deification, and to re-deify him in our rituals and welcome him in as Antinous the Liberator.

In Irish tradition, at least as recorded in Serglige Con Culainn, “The Wasting Sickness of Cú Chulainn,” there is a period known as the “Thirds of Samain,” which encompasses the three days before Samain, the three days after Samain, and Samain itself, thus forming a seven-day festival. Of course, October 30th thus falls within the Thirds of Samain, and the Sacred Nights of Antinous generally speaking also overlap with much of it.

A reasonable-seeming person would suggest “combine your efforts in these matters.” Many modern polytheists, who have been critical of the notion of being “dual trad” and so forth (and rightly in many cases), might suggest doing likewise. In 2004, I even encountered someone in Ireland who came to our Foundation Day ritual who suggested that she thought Hadrian knew about Samain (since he had been in the northern areas of Roman Britain in 122 CE, and therefore knew “Celtic” things), and set the date of Antinous’ deification on that date around Samain purposefully, and that he likely died at some other point. While there are holes in that theory for a variety of reasons (e.g. Northern Britain did not necessarily have the same practices, month-names, or anything else that Ireland did, especially at that period; and Roman records are better on exact dates than pre-medieval Irish ones are), at the same time, for a polytheist and a syncretist to combine the holidays might seem like a good idea.

I never have done that before, and likely as not, I never will.

Granted, there is some slippage between the two in my own practices. The poem I wrote last year for the Sacred Nights of Antinous featured a Hibernian slave narrating events around the death of Antinous. When we have Foundation Day rituals, there is often a kind of “god-party” involved in it, where deities of any and all cultures are invited to take part and be honored alongside Antinous, and various Irish (and other Celtic) deities from my own practices and those of others often have been. Especially when I was in Ireland, this was the case, particularly with Cú Chulainn, who has a variety of connections to the Samain season and festival, as well as being in certain ways comparable to Antinous (a youthful death, connection to or control of the flooding of rivers, being an avid hunter, having homoerotic relationships, and connection to hounds, amongst many others).

But, other things have mitigated against me combining them in a comprehensive fashion for a variety of reasons.

The chief reason is that in polytheism, there is no such thing as “one-stop shopping,” as I’ve written in various other places before. The fact that “poly- means ‘many'” tends to suggest to me that thoughts, considerations, rituals, deities, and particular attentions to all of these should tend to increase rather than decrease, and they should rarely if ever decrease due to combination or some apparent notion of reduction being beneficial. Convenience on the part of humans should not enter into the considerations either (outside of the bare necessities and utter limitations of time and space themselves), and if it means having two rituals on two days, even if one of them is a work-day, then that’s what should happen. For the past few years, I’ve taken the day of Foundation Day off no matter what, because celebrating it on the actual calendar day is extremely important, and significant enough to warrant taking the full day for preparation and contemplation of the festival and the god.

There are other reasons, though, that are personal and particular for which I don’t combine the festivals. I’ll share one of them in relatively brief detail here. In 2010, when I was still a part of a local Celtic Reconstructionist group in Seattle, the date they decided to hold their Samain all-night vigil was on October 30th. I had to travel down to Seattle for this occasion, and was able to celebrate Foundation Day in the afternoon at one venue with several co-religionists, and then pack up and head to the house where we were having the all-night vigil just after that. I had brought something I had written on Antinous and Cú Chulainn to potentially read during the all-night storytelling that was supposed to take place. I never read it, because when I suggested that I do so, the suggestion was met with a rather deafening and negative silence. Instead, later we were treated to such things as excerpts from “Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blogge” and bits of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which I honestly found a bit inappropriate to the day and occasion in a variety of ways.

But, the following year, the real difficulty occurred when there was going to be a similar overlap, and I asked if it would be possible to have a short observance of Foundation Day for an hour out of the all-night vigil, the rest of which would be for the usual Irish (and other Celtic) matters. It was made known to me that certain people in the group objected to me ever mentioning Antinous during meetings or other occasions because it was a “waste of time,” as was any mention of Hanuman or Shinto on my part. As these were all things that I have a great interest in or involvement with, and had discussed over the informal dinner that would follow various meetings of the group in the past (where such edifying topics as The Venture Brothers or Cthulhu were also discussed), it seemed readily apparent to me that someone in the group had a personal problem with me and all that I was interested in, and decided to single those things out as wastes of time, while they would not even admit to having those problems with me directly.

Unfortunately, I have a bit of a geis where it comes to Antinous (now there’s some Irish-Antinoan syncretism for you!). If someone is actively hostile towards Antinous in some fashion, whether in a group or at a particular venue or event, then I cannot continue to be associated with that event, venue, or person (outside of any social or material absolute necessities) because it would be a violation of their hospitality, and even if I don’t speak of Antinous in such a setting or with such a person, he is still with me in various ways at all times by virtue of my mere physical presence. That incident, thus, ended my association with the CR group in Seattle.

Perhaps more importantly than this sordid personal history, though, there is another issue at stake. The two occasions of Samain and Foundation Day do not have themes that directly overlap without shoehorning one or the other festival into shapes that end up (if you’ll excuse the extended conceit) cutting off a few toes. Cú Chulainn was said to have had seven fingers on each hand and seven toes on each foot, and while that is unusual enough and cause for wonderment and marveling, and would make it hard to find standard shoes or gloves, it would thus not be wise to say “Sorry, you can’t come to our house unless you wear normal shoes and gloves, so you’ll have to cut off a few fingers and toes to make us more comfortable.”

Samain in the beginning of the Irish year, and is a time for divination and getting oneself in right relationship with the Otherworld. It is also a time when supernatural incursions into this world are likely, and thus the tribe comes together in solidarity for a feast and for mutual protection, which is why people stayed up all night in a vigil–doing so was especially effective in protecting the king from dangers that might befall him in sleep or dreams. Some people think that Samain is the time for honoring ancestors, which is not strictly true as far as Irish customs and lore are concerned until much later, and this is due to Christian influence with All Saints and All Souls Days in early November, and has little to nothing to do with actual Irish (or wider Celtic) practices associated with this time, at least as far as we can tell from the extant sources. (In modern paganism in the U.S., it is also due to cultural appropriation of Day of the Dead celebrations.) Honoring one’s ancestors is a good thing to do at any and all times throughout the year; suggesting it should be done only on this holy day, or especially on it, is not very good ancestor-worshipping methodology nor is it in line with what is known of “strictly non-Christian” Irish practice. If one has no problem with incorporating Christian syncretistic elements into those practices, however (which Irish and Scottish folk custom has done, definitely!), then one certainly can and should, and should also admit that this is where these things come from and that one is a practitioner of Christian-Irish polytheist syncretism.

Foundation Day is the beginning of a particular cultus that arose out of the tragic death and traditional Egyptian deification of a human, and the foundation of a city with that human as its eponymous hero. Death and deification (which is not the same thing as “resurrection” or “rebirth,” though rejuvenation is certainly a part of it) is a part of the festival intrinsically, and the possibility that this fate can await all of us is also hoped for. While sacred space (in terms of the city of Antinoöpolis) and sacred time, as well as “beginnings,” are thus a part of the festivities, it’s not quite the same as Samain as the “new year,” nor of the interpenetration of the Otherworld with this world implied by the Irish holy day.

Differences and distinctions are important to recognize in polytheism. Thus, papering over such differences for human convenience, and not having to have two big feasts or two big rituals as a result, is not what polytheism is all about, nor what syncretism should be used for. Making easy equations of “death” and “the supernatural,” “new year” and “beginnings of things,” and the famous deeds and near-death or actual death experiences of particular heroes (Cú Chulainn as far as near-death at Samain, and Antinous as far as actual death before Foundation Day), might seem clever to one extent or another, but it doesn’t necessarily make for good polytheist ritual praxis, or for contented deities and heroes. Cú Chulainnn always has a place at the feast of Foundation Day, and Antinous always has a seat around the fire for Samain, at least as far as I can see it and as my practices have occurred, and as the deities involved seem to suggest; but neither Antinous nor Cú Chulainn and all of the Irish deities and heroes are going to call their festivals off in favor of just combining with those of the other on the day before or after. It would be just as rude for someone whose birthday was the day before or after yours to suggest to you that you call off your own celebration and simply come to their party instead as it would be to tell either the Irish gods or Antinous and his divine companions that their day is being downsized into someone else’s whether they like it or not.

There are many gods in polytheism, which means there are many ritual obligations and cultural involvements (depending on the person who is involved in polytheism). Rather than seeing this as any kind of inconvenience or extra effort on behalf of humans, it should instead be seen as an opportunity to show how serious one is about one’s traditions and one’s deities, to honor both or each or all according to propriety and custom and tradition as fully as possible and expected given one’s circumstances. If it takes three efforts to please two gods, then it is worth each of those efforts being done as well as possible.

Sacrifice

Animal sacrifice is a big issue in modern polytheistic and monotheistic faiths. The issue of if we have a right to kill an animal in the name of our god / gods. I believe this issue is way too complicated for me to express in a simple essay. No, something like a book would be fitting: exploring the history, social development, culture, theology, needs for survival, modern developments and philosophical decadence we are privileged to in western culture.

So I’ll hint at things.

Culture:
I was born in country where many of our parents killed their own animals for dinner. I was raised at a time where they didn’t need to kill their own food because a brand new sparkling supermarket sold every cut of meat of every kind of meat conceivable in cling wrap, hygienic looking polystyrene trays. Australia is a young nation, it is only 115 years old, it’s first colony was founded in 1788 and earned recognition as an independent commonwealth nation in 1901. With my often obscure/ skewed concept of history accounted for, I think it’s safe to say: we’re babes.

When my mother’s family settled in a so called resort town founded as a naval base in the 1960’s there was nothing but prefabricated houses surrounded by swampland and a dirt road. The nearest general store was 2 kilometres away (roughly 1.2 miles) often the trek was made by foot. The general store only had bare basics, eggs, meat, milk had to be either ordered or made by self-effort.
The next generation, as in my generation never knew this, we never knew that even in the 1960’s most households had an outdoor ‘dunny’ where the entire families waste was collected and disposed of by an early morning shit collector. We are spoiled and deprived of cultural responsibilities that led to the same exposure of death that our parents experienced in their childhood. However, some were not forgetting. Even as growing up in the 1980/90’s it was not uncommon for a sizable suburban house to have a chicken coop and a yearling sheep in the backyard. It was also not uncommon for these families to lament the missing of “Betty” a day before the most scrumptious Sunday roast.

Even in modern times my culture still practices home growing livestock in suburban environments. While not something I was exposed to directly as a child, there are many I know who have been and they still practice it today. Our concept of animal slaughter is dependent on culture, but if we start saying silly things like: ‘that is in the past, we’ve moved from that time, we don’t need to kill because others do it for us.” I’d question you and your justification for an inhumane meat industry that results in ‘products’ in a supermarket and distancing from traditional standards of development in animal husbandry.

Supermarkets:
Every other day I walk into my sparkling neon lit supermarket and think, what’s for dinner? Often I see a hygienic looking polystyrene tray of meat, the meat itself appears nothing like the animal it came from. It is deprived of all identity as a creature. I don’t salivate over an animal, but a perfectly presented product. It’s very easy to forget that a life was lost for this product, it’s a habit that I try to avoid. As I am preparing the meat I do actually think of the animal, the processes and suffering it endured for my meal. It disturbs me. If you drive a couple hours outside a main city in Australia you are confronted by the sight and smell of massive livestock trucks carrying hundreds of sheep to the slaughterhouse. In the last 24 hours of these animals life they endure torment and terror, their meat becomes filled with all kinds of biological chemicals released by fear impulses. I am a meat eater, but I do avoid most red meats because of this. I also note a difference in meats that are not killed in this manner, such as home reared sheep and kangaroo (which are hunted in the wild, not farmed). I’m conscious of the source of the meat and have a moral issue when consuming it, but I also find myself ill if I do not consume meat at least once a week. As I mention when discussing culture, I was raised in a typical Australian suburban family, a traditional meal is ‘meat and three veg’ my body is dependent on this and if I do not eat some qualities of the diet I was raised with I get ill. I’ve had vegetarian friends tell me that saying that is bullshit, but it is true. Likewise for eating certain foods I was not raised with, for example spices and chilli make me sick, I love eating them, but I’ll be sitting on the toilet for an hour the next day, with cramps and a burning ring of fire if I eat something that is consider mild by others.

What has this to do with animal sacrifice? I try to understand others through empathy, sometimes I fail at this task but often I can understand how a person comes to an opinion by considering their background and history. The above information about my cultural background should be enough framing to get that I come from a different culture and have a different view on livestock. When it was announced that the Thiasos I belong to will performed animal sacrifice I had no moral compunction because of my background, because of how I was raised, because it’s a part of my diet. I detest animal cruelty, I’m often outspoken because I protest against horse racing or any use of animals for leisure or entertainment, but I also believe that meat consumption is a necessary part of our biology. I believe without consuming meat humans would not had evolved into what we are today. In most cases animal sacrifice in ancient culture was a communal justification for killing an animal for a feast, the guilt of eating meat was forgiven because of the manner of killing, by deifying the creature, by relating it to a god, therefore the people were consuming the meat of god. These ritual views are still kept in essence in Christianity where people say grace before a meal or when they take part in the Eucharist ceremony.

Culture affects our concept of morality, In Greece when these sacrifices happened people would had been used to life and death. As a community they raised the beasts themselves, they saw them born, they fed them, treated them when ill, they killed them, they ate them. There was an intimacy that only livestock farmers know today. We live in a time of decadence where our guilt for killing an animal is non-existent because the creatures are slaughtered somewhere else and we see their meat as nothing but a product. This moral laziness does not just include the meat industry, look around you right now. Look at the objects on your desk, think about the thing you’re sitting on. Tell me, do you know where it came from? Do you know every person that made that object? Do you know the suffering, the living conditions of those people?

I know you will say no.

Go into your kitchen, look in your pantry look at the oils, the spice holders, the baskets you keep things in. Do you know how these things were collected, farmed, manufactured, produced? Do you know the people who created these things you consume? Do you know the countless situations that produced these products for your consumption? Do you know the ethics behind each development?

I know you will say no.

Ancient Greece was a small world. The distance from my mother’s house to the general store in the early 1960’s would had been the difference between language and culture in ancient Greece. People knew each other and they knew the circumstances of buying a product. There was an intimacy that they had with things we’d consider trivial. Back to your pantry, look at your oil bottles – plastic clear bottles with a sunny looking flower or olive label with a bright trademarked logo right? Do you love that bottle of oil so much you want to be buried with it? Do you want your spice jars, wine bottles, plates and cups to go in your coffin?

I know you will say no.

The Greeks were materialist people, but they were not a consumer / disposable culture we are now. Even objects that were traded from foreigners held a different significance compared to what we experience today. Everything had a value and they worked bloody hard to have those things. They had such a intimate relationship with everything they owned it was sacred, they went to the grave with these objects. Including that oil bottle in your pantry.

Gods:
I feed my cat twice a day from cans of metal that would had been considered precious in Greek times, I throw the cans in the bin. His food is made up of meat, if I fed him anything otherwise he would not eat it, nor will he live. Cats are carnivorous, their bodies cannot process most plant stuff. (If I find out someone is feeding their cat on a vegan diet, I will report them to the authorities.) I feed my cat more meat in a week than I eat in a week. I feed my cat more than I feed my gods. There is no moral outcry? There is no issue of senseless killing by doing this. My gods are not my pets. They are not make believe concepts or archetypes, they are divine beings that I love dearly. Certainly, I love them more than my cat, I love them more than myself. But suggestion of performing a live sacrifice to them is regarded unethical?

It is possible that this sacrifice by the Thiasos of the Starry Bull will NOT be consumed by humans. My first reaction to hearing this was disappointment at the idea the meat will be wasted. But it won’t be. I quickly reminded myself of that when I thought about it. The gods are very much real and this offering is deserving to them. With all of the above about our disposable materialism every devotions I give to the gods can attract the same moral outcry as killing a beast and giving it’s body whole. I pour libation to the gods almost daily, the wine has animal products in it. Is that a waste? Is that unethical? I use incense exported from a third world country – most likely harvested by children, is that unethical? I offer fruit that has been exported from China, I cook and dedicate meat to the gods and dispose of it after a day. Every day I ‘waste’ a product that has resulted in some suffering of a creature or person for devotion of my gods. There is no moral outcry about that.

The offering:
Myself and many others were rightfully concerned about how this sacrifice will be performed. The person doing the killing explained the plans in depth when it was announced. I was concerned for the welfare and the method of performing the ritual but was satisfied by how it was described. It appears those involved know what they are doing and are considerate towards the creature. What was described is far more humane than what is standard practice in the meat industry today, with high regard for the animals wellbeing. Really if I protested it, I would have to face up to my daily living practices of eating supermarket meat, from pouring wine libation, to throwing out that plastic oil bottle, to feeding my cat.

Further reading and information:

http://thehouseofvines.com/2014/10/17/the-red-thread-of-our-tradition/
http://thehouseofvines.com/2014/10/17/the-orphic-position-on-animal-sacrifice/
http://thehouseofvines.com/2014/10/18/that-question-you-just-knew-was-coming-up/
http://krasskova.wordpress.com/2014/10/17/on-the-nature-of-sacrifice/
https://thracianexodus.wordpress.com/2014/10/19/the-valley-of-the-shadow-of-death/
http://polytheist.com/featured-voices/2014/10/22/dr-strangegod/
http://krasskova.wordpress.com/2014/10/20/the-red-thread-res-ipsa-loquitur/
http://thracianexodus.wordpress.com/2014/10/21/let-us-find-a-better-way/

The Question of Why

“Darkness, Darkness, be my pillow, Take my head and let me sleep

In the coolness of your shadow, In the silence of your deep

Darkness, darkness, hide my yearning, For the things I cannot see

Keep my mind from constant turning, To the things I cannot be

Darkness, darkness, be my blanket, cover me with the endless night”

“Darkness Darkness”, The Youngbloods, 1969

One of the very first times I ever spoke up about my work with Deities of an Infernal nature, I was met with fairly heavy disdain and informed that working with “Those Kinds of Gods” was a dangerous enterprise. “Why?”, I was asked, would I ever open my life up to such currents of death and pain and madness? At the time of that first asking all those years ago, I didn’t have a very concrete answer. I only knew that I had always felt a deep pull towards the various Underworlds, so much so that I often found myself seeking entrance during my sleep into what I knew were forbidden places.

As the years wore on, I gained a deeper insight of what it was that was pulling me underneath the feet of the living, and into a world filled with What Is No Longer. I started cultivating profound relationships with both the Gods that called those realms home, and with the ghosts, imprints and non-human spirits that inhabited that plane as well. And as I walked within those shadows, I also began to cultivate an understanding of who I honestly was.

That sounds MUCH less painful than it actually was. For every secret I unlocked, I had to barter away a bit of my already tarnished innocence. For every forbidden place I snuck into, I knew that I was being watched for deeper transgressions by Deities who could, at the snap of a finger, destroy me utterly and completely.

And… you would not be out of line in asking yourself right now, “no really, why would you DO THAT?”

Unlike those first days, I now find that have a proper answer.

Beyond what this path of mine has done for (and to) me personally, over the last few years I have seen many people take up what I term “The Infernal Thread” of different paths. The many-chambered Underworld is being courted by many more people these days. People who feel the same tug to explore the Darkness are crafting practices that are renewing ties to not only our own Dead, but to the Deities who reside within those realms and reaches. We are renewing bonds that were cut away hundreds, and sometimes thousands of years ago. In some cases we are establishing bonds that were never there before. For some it is a balance to their Dayside practice, and for others (like myself) it is an act of reclaiming the Lands of Erebus from the monotheistic idea that the lower realms are worthy of nothing but scorn, and are by their nature places of evil.

That last idea is one that is strangely prevalent in Modern Neo-Paganism. That “The Darkness” should be avoided at all costs (both the metaphorical darkness and the literal), and those that reside within it shunned as evil-doers. Pagans of many stripes are still afraid of the Devil it seems, by one name or descriptive idea or another, and that fear is just extended to the entire Underworld once they make the move to Pagan Ideals. As a Polytheist, I find that kind of unthinking fear strangely unproductive. (Then again, I have never met an idea I would not poke with a stick.)

For the record, I am not implying that the various underworlds are safe places by any means. Nope. They hide dangers unlike any you will ever face anywhere else, but you can face them. The qualities one masters within the shadows have immediate impact. The fears faced, the monsters mastered, and the false dualities imposed by society at large can melt away. Wholeness is found, power is discovered, and one can begin to see that the world has far more possibilities than what is illuminated by the Light alone.

And before this idea is simply dismissed, it should be pointed out that many times, a very large part of “The Heroes Journey” in many cultures was the act of descending into the Underworld, and coming back up changed. The word for it in the Hellenistic world, this trip into darkness, is Catabasis, a “descent or downward movement”. Often this descent was into the realm of the underworld, where only Heroes managed to go and come back from. This was more than a simple spiritual day-trip, it was a deep, life altering transformation. And in those stories, standing at the Gates of Many Hells, was often a Seer or Oracle helpfully placed to help the Hero on his way. And these Mystics were not acting as gatekeepers, but as map-makers of the realms beyond our own.

In today’s world we have very few maps left to us, and in an unhelpful twist, the landscape has changed as well. And while being the Map-maker is not nearly as glamorous as being the Hero, it has a place of importance that has been quite overlooked.

I will wrap this up by being very honest about what I see my place as in The Big Scheme of Things. I do not see myself as an important leader, a humble guru of any kind, or the creator of The Next Big Thing. Im a mischievous explorer who by virtue of actions long passed has access to places I should not. That access (and my mischievous nature) has led to me being recruited as one of many New Map Makers that this new era in Paganism and Polytheism is giving birth to. My area of mapping just happens to be the Lands of Erebus.

Wide as the Night Sky: Mediumship and Collective Identity. Also, Odin.

I was going to write an article about an individual versus collective sense of self, about the importance of becoming proficient at shifting one’s understanding of self/identity from one of a singular identity to one of a collective identity as a tool to help deepen into connection with the Gods and Powers. I got at least 4 wobbly paragraphs into it, struggling to try and figure out what exactly I was trying to say. But then Anomalous Thracian wrote this, and basically said much of what I was shaping up to say, more gracefully and in more depth. And then every time I sat down at the computer in an attempt to write my article anyway, there was Odin staring back at me from the screen. So I am going to stop trying to write something analytical and reasoned and persuasive, and instead I am going to write about why being able to hold both an individual and a collective sense of self helps me do more effective work for and with my beloved Powers. And I’m going to talk about Odin, and I’m going to get a little personal. But to talk about Odin, there are things I need to talk about first.

I am a medium, among other things. I’ve been a medium since I was 18, when I started struggling with involuntary possession by random beings. Some were benign and helpful, and I would hear afterwards that my hands were used to perform healings, my mouth to shape prophesy and to give blessings. Some were awful, would harm me, slamming my body around and screaming in tongues. My mediumship rather abruptly came online when I started attending eclectic Wiccan-style rituals in the California Bay Area (this was what I had the most ready access to in the early 90s), and would either get possessed during these rituals or would find myself possessed afterwards as random spirits followed me home (consider this a very strongly implied plug about the importance of personal and group spiritual hygiene – more on that in a future article). It was an absolutely terrifying and confusing time in my life, made worse by my inability to find mentors or teachers.

Odin was the first god who ever possessed me. I was participating in a rather earnest Dianic-style full moon ritual with my coven. And all of a sudden, I went blind in one eye. A mocking laugh came pouring out of my mouth, and I blacked out. When I came back to consciousness, my coven sister was crying and I still couldn’t see out of my eye. Confused and frightened, I asked her what happened. She said Odin, the Norse god of battle madness, poetry and wisdom had possessed me and talked to her. She had unsettled business with him, and he used me to tell her things that were true and important, but that she did not want to hear. He wasn’t very nice about it. Not being familiar with Norse mythology, I had never even heard his name prior to that evening. I decided at that point, given how things had transpired, that I wanted nothing to do with him. And after that and several other experiences, I found myself in the odd position of believing in all the gods and wanting nothing to do with any of them. They all seemed to be very large and political and complicated, and I figured I would much rather hide in the woods with my plants, rocks, animals, streams and dead people.

Thirteen years later, after a bunch of fighting with and running away (and a handful of other Powers coaxing me back out of the woods and getting me healed and trained and, well, housebroken), I found myself oath sworn to Odin. He brought me to all my other primary oathed Powers, and lovingly bullied me into making Ocha. All the blessings in my life have come, directly or indirectly, through his hands.

In the context of trance possession, every Power comes down in a different way for me. Loki sneaks in behind my eyes. Ochun lands on me like a large bird, flapping and dancing her way inside. Freyr sits in my lap as though I were a throne. And every one of these is ecstatic. Odin… Odin blows me to pieces, expanding my felt sense of self outward in a rush of stars and wind and darkness until I am as broad as the midnight sky, breathless and unfathomably large. Coming back from being possessed by Odin is awkward, as I need to re-figure out how to be bound by a small human frame. How can one fit the entire night sky back into a body? You can’t. The disconcerting confusion of the shape shift helps me to remember myself enough to come back.

For me, trance possession, when I invite or consent to it, is about joining my individual sense of self to a larger consciousness. I become a single cell in the vast body of a god. I expand my sense of self outward to a larger, networked sense of self that is named Odin (or Loki, or Freyr, etc.). And then I am not separate from him. I am a small part of him, and he can speak with my mouth because my mouth is one of his mouths. The key here is submission – consenting to a sublimation of my own small and individual identity into a larger identity. I can do this because I love him, because I trust him to return me to myself when he is done (and we have carefully negotiated our terms, and I have reason to trust that he will keep his end of our bargain).

And I can do this because I am not afraid of feeling and experiencing myself as part of a larger collective identity. I can do this because I have a strong individual sense of self – I know myself, I like myself, and I am comfortable taking responsibility for my own choices and actions. But I also believe that there is strength and blessing in connection, and I trust my Powers. I feel humbled and honored to get to participate, to be part of larger systems – systems that embody gods, systems that embody human communities, my neighborhood, my family, the land on which I live.

Part of how I wrap up my own polytheism is in the context of relationships, of participating in complex systems. And this participation is more than just a whimsical philosophical exercise; it deeply informs how I live my life and perform religious duties and activities. My Powers exist in pantheons – each pantheon is whole and complete, each Power complementing the other Powers in that larger system. My religion includes having access to a whole bunch of Specialists I can approach for blessings and help. And each one works as a necessary and important part of a larger whole that is their pantheon, so if one Power is not the correct one for me to approach, I can be (and have been) directed to others who are better suited to my needs or concerns. And when one pantheon is not the correct system for me to access for whatever reason, I may be directed to another pantheon all together. In return, I offer my devotions as an individual and as part of devotional community, and serve the gods and my communities as clergy, medium and healer.

Odin is a vast deity. Scholars have counted over 200 recorded names for him in the surviving Icelandic and Scandinavian literature. Each name speaks to a specific and different aspect of him: Alfodr (All-Father), Hveðrungr (Weather-Shaper), Valdr galga (Ruler of the Gallows), Uðr (Lover), Vegtam (Wanderer), Saðr (Truth-Teller), Ygg (Terrible One), Bolverk (Evil-Worker), Kjalarr (He who Provides Nourishment) and Goðjaðarr (God of Protection). In the Gylfaginning, the following explanation is given for why he has so many names:

Then said Gangleri: “Exceeding many names have ye given him; and, by my faith, it must indeed be a goodly wit that knows all the lore and the examples of what chances have brought about each of these names.” Then Hárr made answer: “It is truly a vast sum of knowledge to gather together and set forth fittingly. But it is briefest to tell thee that most of his names have been given him by reason of this chance: there being so many branches of tongues in the world, all peoples believed that it was needful for them to turn his name into their own tongue, by which they might the better invoke him and entreat him on their own behalf. But some occasions for these names arose in his wanderings; and that matter is recorded in tales. Nor canst thou ever be called a wise man if thou shalt not be able to tell of those great events.”

(Gylfaginning, XX, Brodeur’s translation.)

While Snorri Sturluson’s writings contain any number of challenges from a theological and mythological perspective, he does record the general thinking of Icelanders about two hundred years after the conversion of Iceland, thus recording some of the surviving beliefs native to that region. While I don’t believe that Odin is found in every pantheon around the world under different names, I do think he is vast enough to be able to make use of 200 names or more.

When dealing with a god of this size, the idea that he can cram himself down into a single human for the purpose of mediumship is absurd. He will never fit inside me. But I can fit inside of him, handing myself over for him to speak through me. And by doing so, I can manifest more of him and in a deeper and richer way. He is not inside of me; I am networked into him. And I maintain an aspect of this understanding of my relationship to him whether I am engaging in trance possession, performing runic divination, acting in a clergy role for my heathen community, or engaging in personal devotional work with him.

And truthfully, all gods are vast in comparison to humans. Expanding our sense of identity outward to join with our gods at the identity level allows us to connect deeper and more ecstatically. When we loosen our tight grip on our own individual identity, even if only for a moment, we open ourselves to the possibility of ecstatic divine connection. And when we come back to a singular, individual sense of self, we may find ourselves expanded, wiser, deeper for the experience.

Relationships are complicated things. To do relationship well, we have to be our own unique selves, fully and unflinchingly, to the best of our ability. We have to be soft and flexible enough to be moved by another, while strong enough to hold our center, keep from being bowled over and lost in another. And we have to be willing to share parts of ourselves, and humbly and graciously receive parts of others.

In relationship, the relationship is greater than the sum of its parts. A relationship takes on its own kind of sentience, where each person in the relationship (whether it is a relationship of two or a relationship of many) functions as a cell or an organ in the larger body of the relationship. So how do we engage in these relationships? Do we fight for control of the center? Do we allow ourselves to be dragged along by the momentum of the larger body? Do we step up and actively participate, sharing in the responsibility of maintaining that larger body?

As my darling Anomalous Thracian says, “Nothing exists independent of anything else, not because of some philosophical monistic sense of collective one-ness, but specifically because of the diverse many-ness of all… intersecting and networking through complex systems of relation.” The key here is networking – we impact and are impacted by the larger systems in which we are networked. Sometimes those larger systems include gods, and it is on us to actively participate in devotional practices, in working harmoniously, possibly in participating in religious structures in partnership with our beloved gods. But sometimes the specific larger system in question IS a god. And for me, this is where my mediumship lands.

When I am participating in relationship with my gods, it is important that I bring as much of my unique individual embodied self to the table as I can. I want to be my all, I want to give my all, and therefore I want to have access to my full self so that I can best participate in the relationship. But I don’t stand alone from my gods. As a medium and priest, sometimes I function in part as one of the faces of my gods. But the only way I can cleanly and appropriately do this is by sometimes letting go of my singular sense of self – I do not talk for the gods but sometimes the gods talk through me. If I insert myself into the conversation, allowing my individuated sense of self, my personal opinions and beliefs to bleed over into the dialogue, I am behaving unethically. There is a subtle but crucial nuance here. So in order to cleanly perform in my duties as a medium, I need to be able to expand outward, allowing my individual identity to be subsumed by the larger identity, and feel myself connected in a cellular way to my gods.

Relationships are personal, intimate. While reason and intellect may play a role in how we choose to engage, participation is what shapes relationships. You don’t need to be clergy, or a scholar, or a medium, or an oracle, or any other kind of spiritual or religious specialist to show up and participate in relationship with the gods, with other polytheists, with our ancestors or with the land. And to me, this is the true heart of the kind of polytheism in which I engage – interconnected, complex and intimate.

Odin was my first breath, and owns my last. He is the wild wind, the insatiable hunger for wisdom and experience. He is beserker rage, instigation and poetry. He is inspiration and strategy, treachery and seduction, generosity and victory. He gathers the glorious dead into armies to fight back the powers of entropy and chaos. He is my love and my darkness, and I am one of his many hands in this world. All hail Odin, who rides the night sky shrieking.