And there were stars: How a time out turned into the nighttime sky

Have you ever been angry with other people?

I’m not talking about being annoyed with one or two particular people, or general frustration. I’m talking about the kind of seething, frothing misanthropy that makes you furious at the human race in general, the kind of rage and disgust that makes you think, “If I never see another human being again, I could live with that.” This is the kind of all-consuming anger that makes you sick of trying to get along with anybody, that has you cursing everything and everybody and just wanting to be left alone.

This is how angry Ra was with human beings, according to the myth where Sekhmet was born. In His rage – and mind you, as far as the myth goes, He was right to be angry – He sent Hethert down as the Lioness of the Blood Red Garments and told Her to chew up evil. Then She got carried away, and started chewing up everybody, not just the evil ones. Her rage was “pleasant to her heart,” and She would not stop.

So Ra came up with a clever ruse with the help of a small army of priestesses and a large quantity of beer and hematite powder. Transformed into a lake of “blood,” this red-tinted beer was poured out alongside the town where Sekhmet had gone a’slaughtering, and once She found it, She drank it. And once She drank it, She fell asleep. End of angry lion, end of destruction, end of story.

Or was it?

The story of the Destruction of Mankind is only the first half of the Book of the Celestial Cow, inscribed on the funerary shrines of Tutankhamun, the walls of Seti I’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings, and alluded to in some other source material. There’s far more to this story once the Lady comes home, once She has transformed from raging feline to joyful bovine. Traditionally, this story gets translated is several different ways. Some of them mimic the other Near Eastern mythologies of a time when a deity got angry at humans and it all ended in some sort of a flood.

This story is different, and not only because the flood is beer and it saves people instead of killing them. In this story, the deity (in this case, Ra) isn’t withdrawing because mankind is evil and doesn’t deserve to live, or because mankind is not perfect enough for the gods to live among.

The reason that Ra withdraws is because He’s still angry, but NOT at humans. If He was, why did He try to call Sekhmet off, and then why would He find a way to stop Her from destroying them all?

Ra’s withdrawal comes after His anger turns inward: at Himself, rather than at the humans who angered Him. Like the process of coming down from our own blind rages, Ra goes through the stomach-churning of guilt – people are dead for the very first time! He also realizes that as long as He lives among mankind, They will not be safe from the consequences of His rage.

Sekhmet as Ra’s Eye embodies His power, and the myth indicates that She cannot be stopped once unleashed. So, to keep creation safe, Ra realizes He must put some distance between Himself and His creations. He must withdraw, not to damn mankind….but to save it.

The Eye, Who has become a cow again, called mehet-weret or “great of the flood” to remind Ra (and the reader) exactly what it took to make Her this way again….lets Ra climb on to Her back, and Ra withdraws. He punishes Himself by separating Himself, by permitting Himself to be distant, so that humans and everything else on earth has a chance to live without having to worry about divine retribution lurking around every corner.

He trusts us to not screw it up, and He climbs to the sky.

Several times, the Cow stops, being afraid of the height. This is new territory for Her, too. Maybe She wondered why Ra was leaving, or maybe She hoped He’d change His mind. In any case, each time She stops, Ra encourages Her to keep climbing, up and up and up and up. Eventually She is up so high that She can’t stand without help, so Ra calls the sons of Shu, the “pillars of the sky” and the four winds, to steady Her legs so She can stand without falling, and the two of them find themselves alone at the top of the sky.

Ra looks down. He can still see everything He created, but He knows that from up here, His vengeance is unlikely to find its way back down without intent – and with plenty of time to stop it, if it’s not headed to the right place.

For Her part, the Cow is lonely. Where She was, there were people and gods and things to do, and now She’s up here in the middle of nowhere with Ra, barely able to stand. And Ra notes Her difficulty, and tells Her that She should think of all the good people and creations that She can….

The next line of the text reads, in the original, “and there were stars.”

In Kemetic thought, the stars are symbols of the justified, blessed dead. As this is also the myth where death originates, as a result of defying Ra…these stars are the souls of the people She killed. They represent Her first victims – and Ra’s first consequences.

In creating the Celestial Cow, Ra has both made sure that She will never be lonely – and righted the wrong of killing people in the first place, by making sure that they can have another life after the lives they lost, and another chance at redemption.

From rage to guilt to redemption, the story turns. From cow to lion to starry sky, the Eye turns, and Ra shines in the sky as a reminder that He is always watching, even from the height.

(That’s some deep thought for a quiet “moo-mas” evening. If you’d prefer something more playful, I wrote a humorous version of the myth in 2009 that you’re welcome to peruse. Tonight, however, I look at the stars, and I see the concrete manifestation of a promise of gods Who are willing to take a time out rather than smite me, and I think about my own relationship with anger and its consequences.)

—

This article originally appeared at NISUT.ORG on December 25, 2013, and is reproduced here at Polytheist.com with the author’s permission.

The Nature of the Gods (I): The Problem and Purpose of Reduction

Edward P. Butler in Noēseis

When polytheists use terms translatable as ‘God’, in whatever language they are speaking—speaking at the moment not with regard to the substance of such terms, but to their common designation of an object of the highest religious regard—and are not referring to some particular deity elsewhere identified by a proper name, they are not speaking of a singular ‘super-God’, but of the characteristics constitutive of ‘godhood’, of the nature of ‘the divine’ or ‘divinity’, if you will. We see this usage of the unmarked singular term for deity in a wide array of historical polytheisms, and there is no reason to think that it is not universal, inasmuch as it is basic to thought itself to discern classes of entity and denote them with a collective term, a practice which does not by any means render such class terms unproblematic in their singularity and in their value. But problems are not necessarily things we seek to eliminate, and the problematic status of universals has proven productive in all the crafts and sciences since the method of generating them “was cast down from somewhere among the Gods by a certain Prometheus together with a certain most brilliant fire,” (Plato, Philebus 16c).

Precisely because polytheists do not cut off the question concerning the nature of the Gods by vesting godhood in the proper or superlative sense in a single God, the nature of divinity has stimulated higher thought in every polytheist civilization. This is why philosophy and the other sciences were born in polytheist civilizations and were nourished by them. Thought feeds on difference and thrives when confronted with diversity. With respect to the nature of the Gods themselves, there is a special problem, due to the ultimacy of the Gods as a class of entities, which seems to be something basic in their nature. As Proclus puts it, “All those who have at any time been occupied with theology have termed ‘Gods’ those things which are first by nature,” (Theol. Plat. I 3, p. 12 Westerink). That is, people spontaneously think of the Gods as being first, not (or not only) chronologically but in terms of power or perfection or whatever other factor allows us to establish a hierarchy kata physin, ‘according to nature’. So there is not only the problem of what is the nature of the Gods, but also that this nature, when found, will also be somehow primary among the other natures, among the natures of other classes of things. And so theology is always already going to be cosmology, because an account of everything is somehow going to be implied in the account of the nature of the Gods. Perhaps it is true that in order to know anything, one must know everything; but in the case of the Gods this is apparently more immediately and concretely the case than with respect to any other class of objects.

So the problem of the nature of the Gods is going to be the problem of first principles as well. Proclus goes on, in the chapter quoted above, to mention a number of schools of thought concerning the Gods and the first principles implied by them. There are those who think that only bodies of different kinds exist, and for these, the Gods must be made of some special kind of material. Others recognize the existence of soul, and its essential dignity, and conceive the Gods accordingly as a special variety of souls or as certain powers of the soul. Others discern in intellect the first principle of things, and so the Gods for them are intelligences or powers of intellect or what we might call forms. To all these, Proclus posits the Platonists as superior, because they recognize a principle beyond these in its breadth and simplicity, namely the principle of individuation. For prior to any other fact about a thing, even whether it exists or not, is the fact that it is one, or else we couldn’t speak of it at all. Even something impossible, like a square circle, is one thing, to the degree that it is anything at all.

The Platonic solution thus at once allows everything, wherever it may be in any sort of hierarchy, to really exist just as whatever it happens to be, and also allows the problem of the nature of the Gods, if what is truly fundamental about Them is their individuality, that is, the uniqueness of each one of them, to lie at the absolute outer limit of the whole system of cosmology, of natural types, however that should be formulated.

Therefore, different principles may operate, in a cosmological sense, as ultimate or first principles, without implicating the Gods or requiring them to underwrite or guarantee the validity or exclusivity of that cosmological hierarchy. The Gods are, in this sense, beyond hierarchy, and we see this in the fact, recognized by all polytheisms in one way or another, that, as Thales put it, “All things are full of Gods,” or, as Heraclitus said, that “The Gods are present even here,” that is, that the Gods are active everywhere and among every class of beings. This is something that the Platonic approach can more directly accommodate than other approaches, it seems, insofar as the latter preserve some binary distinction as ultimate: the different kinds of matter, of which some kind is divine and the others are not; the distinction between the living and the nonliving, or between different powers of soul or ranks of souls; the distinction between form and content or between a form and its instances or between subject and predicate. Everything, irrespective of anything else about it, is something, that is, is one. This is the power of the concept of unity, which centuries of misconception have led us to treat in primitive fashion either as the power of some One, or as the power of fusing everything into one single thing, Scylla and Charybdis of transcendent and immanent monotheism.

Correctly understood, however, the priority of the concept of unity makes of the Gods the guarantors of the ultimate existence of each thing and each kind of thing. In the subsequent parts of this essay, I wish to treat of what can be said more specifically about the nature of the Gods from positing their unity or individuality as primary. For now, however, I would like to conclude by considering the other candidates mentioned by Proclus, and the way in which these conceptualizations of the Gods are still with us today, each of which is not only a means of conceiving of the Gods, but also of the ultimate nature of all things—each one, therefore, is not just a theology, but a cosmology as well. Each one, as such, is also fundamentally useful for something, answers to some purpose or need, and therefore is not to be rejected, but incorporated into a comprehensive understanding of the nature of things.

The materialistic conception of the Gods corresponds to the materialistic conception of everything. This conception has been very fruitful indeed in the progress of the natural sciences and in the achievements of technology. The conception of the Gods corresponding to the materialistic worldview may be as crude as that they are an advanced race of alien beings, or as sophisticated as that they are essentially nothing other than the social practices and expressions of devotion and belief directed toward them. On the other hand, there are conceptions of matter applied by the ancients to the Gods which are not reducible to ‘matter’ as conformable to the methods and goals of modern natural science or amenable to technological exploitation, such as aithêr, ambrosia or ichor, or the theophanic minerals Egyptian texts incorporate into descriptions of the flesh of the Gods. A sufficiently anomalous conception of matter can accommodate almost any phenomenon, but materialism, however exotic, has the universal restriction of only being able to deal with phenomena as such—that is, just that which appears insofar as it appears.

The psychologistic conception of the Gods corresponds to the view of reality as essentially constituted in psychical experience, so that the elements of being are nothing other than elements of psyche. And after all, nothing is separable, for us, from a psyche experiencing it. The notion of the Gods as aspects of psychical substance, or as psyches of a given kind, has many manifestations. Plato himself treats the Gods as the best of souls, at least in his written works. We are familiar, of course, with those today who regard the Gods as psychical ‘archetypes’, that is, as nothing other than the causes of certain psychical dispositions in humans. But much mundane polytheist practice also treats the Gods as, in effect, souls, and it is particularly in such contexts that practitioners find it unnecessary to draw any sharp distinction between ‘Gods’ and ‘spirits’ or ‘powers’. In practical contexts like these, the Gods may simply be regarded as the most powerful in a continuum of power among different incorporeal agencies that includes ‘spirits’ of diverse kinds as well as the souls of living and deceased mortal animals. Psychologism is almost inseparable from a higher materialism.

The intellectual conception of the Gods corresponds to the view of reality as constituted by formal patterns, in which the distinction between form and matter, or ‘hylomorphism’, appears in its sharpest form. It is a very powerful mode of thought, but its restriction lies in the requirement that individuation be negative, as we see in Spinoza’s axiom “All determination is negation,” or Leibniz’s axiom of the identity of indiscernibles. Thus the intellectual conception of the Gods leads to the reduction of the Gods’ persons to their functions or activity. Where unity is a principle in itself, by contrast, individuation is by definition positive, rather than differential.

Because the Platonic positing of ‘unity’ or individuality/uniqueness as the principle of divinity as such undermines the hierarchical organizations characteristic of cosmology, it resists identification with any cosmology. In this way it is most importantly distinct from the intellective conception of the nature of the Gods, which can, by contrast, be identified with each theophanic cosmology sequentially, but cannot stand apart from them or thus generate an effective space of mediation between them. We see this on a mundane level in the intellectual identification of Gods with one another based upon their functions or activities, which is instrumentally valuable but existentially precarious.

The root of this limitation, however, lies in the very power of intellective reduction, because intellective analysis recognizes in the elements of a theophanic cosmology (any ‘creation myth’) the very elements of the conceptual set adequate to that theophany’s (self-)understanding. The intellectual tools for grasping any theology are given by its Gods, their environment, activities, equipment, etc. Each such theology thus offers in itself a complete grasp of the cosmos; and since Platonic henology supplies no cosmology of its own, it does not compete with any of these. In turn, it is only the grasp of Gods as unique individuals that can provide the basis for a universal account of the nature of ‘Gods’ as such.

Any reductionism is instrumental, serving some purpose, and establishes a hierarchy of ‘natures’ relative to that nature which is its goal—in the examples given by Proclus, mastery of materials, development of psychical potencies, and discrimination of forms, respectively. In this sense, it is not clear that the ‘reduction’ to unities is really a reduction at all; certainly it is not a reduction in the numerical sense. In seeking to grasp how a thing is one, in what its unity consists, we must take into account everything about it, and therefore unity is prior to any distinction between essential and inessential characteristics. At the same time, the discernment of essences depends upon the ability to designate these very essences as units of some kind, as well as to recognize in the unity of other things their positing themselves in relation to such an essence, as when activities tend toward an ideal, or when organisms orient themselves toward a form of their species, however processual these ideal units may in fact be. All of the terms involved in such a relation have and are defined by their different unit-characters, that is, they are each unique and also units of different kinds, and this tension between uniqueness and the emergence of kinds is basic to existence itself.

If It’s “Celtic,” It’s Syncretistic—and Especially If It’s Celtic Reconstructionist

P. Sufenas Virius Lupus in Speaking of Syncretism

If one is a Roman reconstructionist, a Gaulish reconstructionist, or a Gallo-Roman reconstructionist, then one is probably aware that December 18th is a festival known as the Eponalia, in honor of the Gaulish horse- and mother-goddess Epona. The irony of this festival, of course, is that we only know about it because the Romans held this festival when their Legionary cavalries adopted the Goddess in the post-Gallic Wars period—there are no Gaulish calendars or other records which note this festival, or that of any other particular Deity.

I begin with this little tidbit of information not simply because this is a festival that is relevant to our current temporal context in mid-December, but also because Epona’s example highlights something that is so endemic to the modern Celtic reconstructionist methodology (and, let’s remember, reconstructionism is a methodology, and not a religion) that it is entirely taken for granted and ignored, despite it being excoriated in other contexts: namely, syncretism is part of that methodology. One rarely hears discussions of the horse-related Goddesses one finds in Ireland or Wales, especially when these are connected to the concept of sovereignty, without mention of the Gaulish Epona. The Welsh had Rhiannon, and she does seem to function as a sovereignty Goddess in relation to Pwyll, and to a lesser extent Manawydan, in the First and Third Branches of the Mabinogi, respectively, with a connection to horses in the First Branch and to donkeys in the Third Branch; and in the Second Branch, the “Birds of Rhiannon” entertain Bran’s men when they are feasting with his severed head after the invasion of Ireland, which also matches some of Epona’s iconography. In Ireland, the story of Macha, who marries Cruinniuc, races faster than his horses, and then is forced to race against the King of Ulster’s horses, and then dies in childbirth while giving birth to twins and cursing the Ulaid to have birth-pangs like hers when they are most in need (with the exceptions to this curse being women, children, and Cú Chulainn—i.e. all “non-men”!), and giving the name Emain Macha (“Twins of Macha”) to the territorial capital of Ulster, also seems to have a horse- and mother-Goddess connection; but it is another Macha (amongst several others which exist in Irish myth) that seems to have a more direct sovereignty function. There is also the eponymous figure who is the mother of Fergus and Sualtaim, Roích, whose name seems to etymologize as Ro-ech, which some scholars render as “super-horse.” Fergus mac Roích is a king of Ulster before Conchobor mac Nessa, and is also “hung like a horse” in superlative fashion, as well as meeting his death in a manner very similar to the Vedic horse sacrifice ritual of regal inauguration known as the asvamedha. His brother Sualtaim is Cú Chulainn’s final “earthly/mortal” father, giving him his third conception, and he also seems to have a way with horses.

But, does this allow us to assume a sovereignty connection for Epona? Strictly speaking, it doesn’t; but because in the inter-Celtic comparative methodology that has been de rigeur in Celtic Studies since its beginnings in the 19th century, often with the underlying assumption that all of these Deities are “the same” and are mere “reflexes” of Common Celtic Deities, these sorts of comparisons are unquestioned. The existence of a Celtic “horse/sovereignty goddess” called *Rigantona (which means “Queen-Goddess,” and seems to be a likely protoform of Rhiannon’s name), thus, is not only posited but is accepted as factual. The details of one Goddess’ cultus or mythos is freely borrowed and adapted into another Celtic culture without any question of there being anything like cultural appropriation, or even what the reality is, which is use of syncretism as a “filling-in-the-blanks” method. Yet, many Celtic reconstructionists are the first to decry syncretism, and to accuse those who practice it in any form that mixes what is “legitimately Celtic” with what is “non-Celtic” is derided as eclecticism, and often gets accused (in some cases) with cultural appropriation.

But, even where common Celtic roots are not explored and exploited to make such points of fleshing out, Celtic cultures themselves are already helplessly syncretistic when they are examined, and they cannot be easily extricated from what “non-Celtic” elements they might contain. This is certainly the case with all Insular Celtic (mainly Irish and Welsh, but also Scottish, Manx, Cornish, and Breton) sources, as they are heavily influenced by both Christianity and classical sources, and often analogues are drawn between these in a very conscious fashion. With medieval Welsh sources, there is also a very deliberate attempt to connect known Roman history in Britain with native mythic figures—Caswallawn, the medieval Welsh rendering of the British historical figure Cassivellaunus, is made the son of Beli Mawr (the father of Aranrhod, as well as Lludd and Llewellys—the latter of whom are cognates of the other Welsh Deities Nudd and Lleu, the Romano-British Nodons and Lugus, as well as the Irish Nuada and Lug—and others), and a usurper who takes over Britain when Bran is in Ireland, and elsewhere in Welsh sources is said to have contended with Julius Caesar himself for the love of a woman named Fflur, and to have obtained his famous horse Meinlas from the Romans in order to allow them to invade Britain. Removing the Roman influence from Welsh sources would take a great deal away from them; and removing the Romans from Romano-British religion would leave almost nothing available to us now.

Ancient Continental Celtic cultures were also inherently syncretistic, as is evidence with Gaul, which is in a similar situation to the Romano-British context: without Roman influence, we’d know much less about the Gauls from properly Gaulish sources (like inscriptions) than we would without their knowledge of Latin. Celtiberian Deities like Endovellicus may not be strictly Celtiberian, but may actually have Phoenician influence, and this exists in other parts of Celtiberian culture. One of the most readily-identified “Celtic” religious artifacts is the Gundestrup Cauldron, which was found disassembled in a Danish bog, thus putting it at very least into Celto-Germanic syncretistic spheres; but, the actual art style on it is not Gaulish, and is not really “diagnostically Celtic” (meaning La Tène), but instead exhibits diagnostically Thracian design elements, and looks like one of their metalwork reliefs, but depicting (likely) Celtic Deities and narrative elements. Such a work could have been commissioned in a place like Tylis, the Gaulish city on the Black Sea in Thracian territory, where some of the Gaulish invasions into Thraco-Grecian areas set themselves up (others ended up founding the area in Asia Minor known as Galatia). None of the ancient or medieval Celtic cultures were opposed to syncretism—all of them were syncretistic already in a variety of ways, even in what a modern perspective would perceive as their “cultural purity.”

And, of course, there is the modern reconstructionist methodology of looking to other cultures to explore aspects of their ritual technologies, their cosmological thinking, and various other aspects of their religious outlooks to see if some of these might be adaptable into a Celtic (or any other) milieu. Even if this goes no further afield than to look at Proto-Indo-European theories (which are often built on Greek, Roman, Germanic, and Indian sources, but can also include Slavic and other elements as well), if these are used as the quarries from which to draw the stones that will be put into the foundations and walls of the new Irish or Welsh or Gaulish forts that people are attempting to build, then it is syncretism that is allowing that process to occur. This is even more the case when non-Indo-European sources are drawn upon for shamanic techniques (and pretty much all modern “Celtic shamans” are using those, not actual indigenously Celtic practices) and a variety of other ritual processes, ideas, and elements.

I would like to point out—and this will surprise precisely no one who knows of my work or of this present column—that there is nothing wrong with syncretism, and it is entirely natural and expectable where human religious activity is concerned. What does bother me, though, and which I invite any readers who are of a Celtic reconstructionist methodological orientation to carefully consider, is the use of the term “syncretism” as a pejorative, and likewise the use of its often-assumed synonym “eclectic” also as a term of derision when any multi-trad practices are concerned (outside of some that are deemed “acceptable,” e.g.: Celto-Heathen practices since the Vikings invaded Ireland and Scotland; Gallo-Roman practices since the former is not exactly possible without the latter though it is a grudging acceptance that such is the case; Gallo-Hellenic if one is attempting to base one’s practices on the colony of Massilia; etc.). No matter how much one might try to remove Christianity from one’s perceptions of medieval Irish conceptions of the world, or how bitterly one might lament that the Irish wrote about something using classical terminology or Deity-names rather than native Irish ones, the fact is one can accept that this is what actual Irish people produced on a particular matter, or one can reject it and possibly lose something very valuable in the process.

I have come to the position recently that even when we’re talking about Christianity in medieval Ireland, we’re talking less about “Christianity” and more about “being Irish,” for even on this material, the Irish made it their own in various ways. They made one of their saints, who is historically said to be from about the fifth or early sixth century, the midwife and wet-nurse of Jesus. They preserved apocryphal traditions in their homiletic texts that derive not only from potentially heretical Gnostic sources, but contain cosmological notions demonstrably deriving from ancient Egyptian texts on the afterlife. They made Jesus’ mother Mary conceive him not at the Annunciation with the angel Gabriel, but instead when Mary spoke the Magnificat in the presence of her sister Elizabeth. They even made one of their greatest druids, Mog Ruith, the student of Simon Magus and the slayer of John the Baptist. In classical terms, they made the Gorgons, the Fates, and the Furies one set of three Goddesses who were the daughers of Orcus, with different names in the heavens, on the earth, and in the underworld respectively. They made the maenadic raging of Dido into the madness of a geilt. They turned Herakles’ labor of bringing Cerberus to the surface of the earth his vanquishing of a dog-eared Fomoiri giant. They said that Ailill and Medb’s druids sacrificed the blood of various animals for divinatory purposes to the Gods Apaill, Mairt, Iobh, and Os—Apollo, Mars, Jove, and Osiris! They turned whatever narrative materials they could lay their hands on, from whatever sources, into something thoroughly and distinctively Irish. It is not that Irish sources are “infected” with Christianity or classical influences, it’s that classical and Christian sources in Ireland have been mutated—and positively!—into something else which can only be described as Irish. And it is a thoroughly syncretistic mindset which has allowed this to happen.

The Cycles of Reality

Guest Author in Featured Voices

by Ryan Smith

Reality in pre-Christian Scandinavian lore is not fixed, unchanging, or static. Much like life and the natural world all things go through cycles of growth, change, and eventual decline and demise. As is described in the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda in the beginning was the Ginnungagap, a great void with the fires of Muspelheim on one side and the ice of Niflheim on the other.¹ One day the fire and ice rose up and collided in the gap, creating a great cloud of steam from which emerges Ymir and the great cow Audumla.² Ymir sired the frost giants with all living in a land of frost for an indeterminate amount of time. One day Odin, Vili, and Ve, the grandsons of Buri and an unknown frost giant, rose up against Ymir, slew it, and in conjunction with all the Gods used its body to create Midgard.³ At some point in the future the giants of Muspelheim, led by Surtr, will rise up, slay the Gods, and burn the Nine Worlds after a new world will emerge from the ashes.⁴

The cyclical pattern is very consistent throughout the lore. At the beginning of each part of the cycle there is an established reality: the Ginnungagap, Ymir and the land of frost, and Midgard. Each of these arrangements of reality grow, change, and come to an end through deliberate action bringing about cataclysmic transformation whether this is in the form of the collision of fire and ice, Odin’s uprising against Ymir, or Ragnarok. These reality-shaping events are followed by a new world created from the elements and components of the old. This cosmic cycle can be summed up in three stages:

Established Reality

The present order of the cosmos as best known. This is seemingly fixed, unchanging, and permanent to those who exist within known reality.

Cataclysmic Upheaval

Reality is torn asunder by events of cosmic proportions.

Reconstitution and Reconfiguration of Reality

The survivors of the cataclysm use the components, elements, and foundations of the old order to construct a new form of reality. This reality is one that is more beneficial to those who craft it as they create the conditions necessary to thrive.

The flow of this cycle is summed in the chart below:

Also shown are other cycles observed in nature. In each case a similar pattern of new forms transformed from the elements of the old is present. The life cycle is an excellent example of the same concept at work. Plants, fed and energized by the light of the sun, grow and feed herbivores. These herbivores become prey to carnivores who eventually die. When the carnivores die their bodies break down to their core components, enriching the soil enabling the growth of new plant life thus ensuring the cycle continues.⁵ The seasons follow a similar march from the cold of winter to the promise of spring, the bounty of summer, and the retreat and preparations of autumn for the coming winter.⁶ Water, in turn, pours from the sky as rain and snow, runs across the land in rivers and streams feeding lakes, oceans, and glaciers before evaporating and returning to the atmosphere.⁷ Even in the case of the cycle of living, beginning with birth and ending with death, those who reach the end of their individual cycles contribute directly and indirectly to the lives of those who follow them.⁸ Whether through reproduction or the influence of their actions on the world all that lives plays a critical role in shaping the lives of those who follow.

The progression of events and worlds in the Voluspa follows similar logic to the cycles of life. The end of each world does not herald, as it does in the Abrahamic tradition, the end of reality. Each reality dies and its components, catalyzed by the upheaval that brought their demise, are reformed into a new reality. The demise of one world gives rise to a new one with the universe continuing on much like the natural cycles. This cycle is mirrored in the creation of humans who were made from two dead pieces of driftwood.⁹ Just as the Gods made Midgard from pre-existing materials they fashioned the first two humans from existing materials, giving unto them the gifts of heat, breath, and intellect. Nothing comes from nothing in Heathen cosmology as all things obey these fundamental dynamics.

A cyclical understanding of the universe is distinct from the more linear, mechanistic view which prevails in society thanks to Abrahamic influence. Reality, whether by the Big Bang or act of God, comes into existence with set rules and boundaries. If and when it ends that end is it. In such linear views of reality everything is arranged like some vast book with a clear beginning, end, and narrative describing how one gets from one to the other. This imposes a top-down, dominating understanding of the world where the ideas and opinions in line with this narrative are the only ones worthy of consideration and all others are secondary at best. It is an ideal perspective for asserting singular truths and monopolies on information at the cost of constricting discourse, discussion, and debate.

This cyclical understanding of the universe approaches reality from a different perspective. When one thing dies, breaks down, or falls apart its constituent elements and components go back into the world to facilitate new life and new creations. Even if a person or an animal dies without siring offspring they contribute to new life both literally, in the form of their decomposing body, and abstractly through the wisdom gained from their experiences, the fruits of their labor, and the impact their deeds had on the world around them. Just as the seasons progress so do lives, societies, and the universe. These broad strokes are consistent even as the details vary.

Another crucial element of Heathen cosmology is the relationship between the Gods and the universe. Unlike Abrahamic tradition, where God is present in all of creation while also being transcendent and outside of it,¹⁰ the Gods exist within the same reality as us and are not above or outside of it. While They engage in a great act of creation when shaping Midgard this is done within the context already established patterns and principles. Reality is not willed into existence ex nihilo¹¹ but created from existing components. They also do not create the whole of the universe. When or where the Yggdrasil came from is not known and only Midgard and Asgard are mentioned as creations of the Gods in the lore.¹² Even with all Their preparations, might, and wisdom the Gods cannot totally avert the inevitability of Ragnarok and Their own demise. They are a part of the same reality as the rest of us and, like everything else, are bound to its cycles.

What this suggests for Heathens is very profound. If, as the lore shows, reality is the result of endless moving cycles and great upheaval and transformation then we must consider how we live with a similar understanding. When the world and how it is organized is not permanent but can be changed through action this suggests the same is true for our lives, society, and the world around us. The main constants in such a conception of reality are transformation, interaction, and webs of relationship.

This poses a serious question to Heathens and adherents of such an understanding of reality. If all things can be changed through deliberate action one must ask what needs to be changed and what should be preserved. One of the main themes of the coming of Ragnarok is the struggle of the Gods, especially Odin, to delay the destruction of the Nine Worlds in Surtr’s flames. Their actions to maintain the order of reality as it currently is, on the grand scale, suggest there are certain conditions and arrangements worth preserving. Supplementing this are the actions of Odin, Vili, and Ve in ending the order dominated by Ymir and its offspring to pave the way for Midgard.

This dynamic, when taken in the context of other statements in the Havamal, give a clear sense of what should be maintained and what should be changed. The custom of hospitality, as illustrated in multiple verses in the Havamal,¹³ calls for aiding those who come in need regardless of who they are as best illustrated in this verse:

“Curse not thy guest, nor show him thy gate,
Deal well with a person in want.”

Havamal 135

Equally potent is the reminder of the despair those in a state of poverty and deprivation feel:

“Better a house, though a hut it be,
A man is master at home;
His heart is bleeding whose needs must beg
When food he fain would have.”

Havamal 37

Greed and cowardice are condemned as fiercely as generosity is praised:

“The lives of the brave and noble are best,
Sorrows they seldom feed;
But the coward fear of all things feels,
And not gladly the greedy gives.”

Havamal 48

This verse is an especially potent example with its assertion that those who are brave and noble, in turn, do not feed sorrow. In turn is the reminder that all find joy in life in one way or another and how important this is:

“All wretched is no one, though never so sick;
Some from their children have joy,
Some win it from kinsmen, and some from their wealth,
And some from worthy works.”

Havamal 69

These verses are paired with reminders to confront problems directly and resolve them rather than hoping they will fix themselves by leaving them be:

“The sluggard believes they shall live forever
If the fight they face not;
But age shall not grant them the gift of peace,
Though spears may spare their life.”

Havamal 16

This point is made even more potently in a later verse:

“If evil you see and evil you know
Speak out against it and give your enemies no peace.”

Havamal 127

One of the most direct reminders is the speech given by Beowulf in the famous Anglo-Saxon saga giving his reasons for voyaging to King Hrothgar’s hall:

“Then news of Grendel, hard to ignore, reached me at home: sailors brought stories of the plight you suffer in this legendary hall, how it lies deserted, empty and useless once the evening light hides itself under heaven’s dome. So every elder and experienced councilman among my people supported my resolve to come here to you, King Hrothgar, because all knew of my awesome strength.”¹⁴

What motivates him, according to his speech, is hearing of the plight of Hrothgar’s people. Nowhere does he demand or show expectation of compensation, only asking for the chance to fight Grendel on his own terms.¹⁵

What is clear is that which is beneficial to life is worthy of preservation and support. That which is harmful, stifling, or causes suffering must be replaced with new arrangements that are nurturing, supportive, and beneficial to as many as possible.

Those who perpetuate arrangements that cause harm must be opposed and neutralized by the most effective means for creating a new, better reality for all. The massive orgy of destruction and death preceding Ragnarok, as described in the Voluspa, offers a grim contrast with the first sign given by the Seeress being the total breakdown of society as humanity destroys itself:

“Brothers shall fight and fell each other,
And sisters’ sons shall kinship stain;
Hard it is on earth, with mighty abandon;
Axe-time, sword-time, shields are sundered,
Wind-time, wolf-time, ere the world falls;
Nor ever shall humans each other spare.”

Voluspa 45

Just as positive change is achieved through deliberate action so too is negative, detrimental change realized.

As has been shown in the cycles of reality change occurs because of action. All things eventually fade, age, and pass on but their replacement by newer forms is only possible through deeds, not waiting for the inevitable to happen on its own. The yawning gap was only replaced through the surging of fire and ice. Ymir’s waste was only replaced by Midgard through Odin, Vili, and Ve’s heroic uprising. Midgard and the Nine Worlds, in turn, will be replaced by the world yet to come because of the actions of the followers of Surtr, other Jotnar, and Odin’s plans and deeds in preparation for the final day.

Deeds drive the worlds, transform them, and make it possible for life to become better. It is also possible, as shown by Rangarok, for deeds to ruin them. The question we are left with is what should be changed, what should be preserved, and how to best ensure the most beneficial order for as many lives as possible.

About the Author:
Ryan Smith is a practicing Heathen sworn to Odin living in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is a co-founder of Heathens United Against Racism and a founding member of the Golden Gate Kindred. He recently finished his Masters in History, specializing in economic history, the modern Middle East, and maritime history, and currently works as an outdoor educator.

Nodens

Segomâros Widugeni in Nemeton Segomâros

1. Meaning of Name: Olmsted suggests “He Who Gives Renewal” “The Youth”, “The Child”, and several other possible translations. Green very tentatively suggests “Wealthy One” or “Cloud Maker”.¹
2. Pronunciation: NAWD-ens, the “s” is almost a “ts” sound.
3. Other Names and Epithets: The name was also spelled Nodents, Noudonts, and various other ways. He may also be connected to Olmsted’s reconstructed proto-Celtic divinity Nectonios.²
4. Interpretatio Romana: Mars and Silvanus.³
5. Irish Equivalent: Nuada.⁴
6. Indo-European Equivalent: If he can be connected to Olmsted’s Nectonios, then he is also equivalent to Xákwōm Népōt, the “Nephew of the Waters”, and the “God of Fiery Water”.⁵
7. Realm: Given the Celtic associations of the sea, probably Andernados/Underworld God, but his solar associations may suggest otherwise.
8. Iconography: Olmsted notes that he is depicted with dogs, and tritons holding anchors. A hollow bronze arm is found in his temple at Lydney, in Britain, which may indicate that, like the Irish Nuada, he had a metal hand, or it might be a votive dedication from a worshiper wishing to have his arm healed. Olmsted also notes one depiction of him as “a sort of sun-God holding a sort of whip or flail in his right hand and driving toward the spectator in a four-horse chariot.⁶
9. Significance: Kodratiev regards Nodens as a name of the “Celtic Mars”. This has been followed by significant numbers of Gaulish Polytheists, but there is little in the other scholarly literature or in Nodens’ iconography to bear it out. He is quite different from other versions of the “Celtic Mars”, and seems more like a British version of Grannus. It should be noted that the temple at Lydney is the only temple to Nodens known. He is not apparently known on the Continent. Dáithi Ó hÓgáin believes Nodens to have been a British healing and sea God whose cult was introduced into Ireland, giving rise to the Irish Nuada.⁷

It’s Ok to Pray for Paris and Beirut

Tess Dawson in Spring and Stone

It is troubling to see how some folks are turning the tragedies of Paris and Beirut into a platform to oppose religion in all stripes and forms. I want to be very clear here. These tragedies are not the result of one particular religion or of having a religion, or of religions in general. These tragedies are the result of malevolent people who have warped their own religions in their human pursuits of power, domination, fear, misunderstanding, and foulness, and the human needs to avoid scarcity of resources and to eliminate physical, mental, and emotional insecurities.

One does not judge whether or not Hamlet is a good play by watching only a bad parody of it, and that’s what religious-based terrorists have—a bad parody of their own religion which they have modified to suit their own human needs.

So, please, pray for Paris, pray for Beirut, pray all you wish to and all you need to; and take steps as you wish to or need to beyond prayer in political venues or community service or whatever. Or don’t pray—that’s ok too. Or sit on your keister while you watch endless episodes of sitcoms on Netflix because there is so much horror all around that you need a mental vacation from it all. Or do all of the above, or none of the above. Whatever. But do what you do not because some people who are promoting an extremist version of atheism are telling you that you do more harm than good by praying. You’re not doing harm by praying.

The wholesale boycotting of religions is a form of thought-policing which robs people of interaction with their deities, robs people of their identities, and robs people of their relationships with the world around them. If terrorists who misuse religion are seeking to control others and bend them to their will through violence and force…extremist atheistic boycotts of religion do the same thing but go about it in a different, less apparently violent way. Atheistic religion-shaming is a thing, and accusing people of doing more harm than good by praying or by having a religion is a very bad thing to do. Accusing religious people of being stupid, foolish, immature, socially irresponsible, and superstitious in a bid to shame them out of their religions, their religious identities, and their relationships is a foul thing to do. And boycotting all religions everywhere by claiming all religions are the problem just because of some violent whack-jobs’ parody of a religion, is just bad logic.

If religious terrorists would use violence to end all religion but their own bad parody of a religion, there are some (not all, but some!) atheists who use other coercive tactics to end all religions ever. It’s a hell of a thing to use fear as a tactic to get you to bow to the terrorists who warp religion to suit their human needs, but it’s also a hell of a thing to use grief, or fear, or shame as a tactics to get you to give up your relationship with a deity or deities.The problem worsens when people, having succumbed to these pressures, think that their religion is something to be embarrassed about, or when they’ve accidentally absorbed and unconsciously perpetuate atheism as a form of “non-bias” (atheism is not the absence of bias!), or the flawed ideas of religion being “stupid, foolish, immature, and socially irresponsible,” or the flat-out wrong ideas that “ ‘religion’ is the cause of much violence in the world.” In an effort of comforting one another, people keep wanting to sing John Lennon’s song Imagine without actually thinking about the lyrics and seeing them for what they are: not a daydream song of idealism and peace even if it was intended as such. It is instead a nightmare dirge of the erasure of diversity and identity. Comfort is a real and needed thing in times of trauma, but comfort based unknowingly on erasure only makes things worse. And comfort is not necessarily the same thing as healing.

Religions didn’t get us into “this mess.” Religions themselves–or philosophies, or ideologies including some forms of atheism–are not the problem, and thus boycotting religions (or other philosophies or ideologies) does not solve the problem. Willful misuse of religions–and willful misuse of atheism–combined with violence, fear, or coercive tactics is the problem. For some people, atheist or non-atheist, to claim that “All religions are wrong and we will only have peace when we get rid of all religions. Look what religions did to people in Paris, Beirut, New York! 9-11! People are dying! Don’t you care? If you care you must get rid of all religions because religion is the problem!” is the kind of bad logic and coercion at a moment of extreme emotional vulnerability which leads to knee-jerk actions of erasure. That’s not ok. Indeed, that’s flat-out abusive whether or not the person who says it “means well” or not, and that’s something that should be defended against and spoken out against.

(As for atheism, there is a difference between simply not having a religion versus the active erasure of other religions, ideologies and philosophies. Not believing in any religion or deity is a person’s choice and others can defend that person’s right not to believe without having to agree with the ideology in order to defend those basic rights. But, when matters venture into the territory of erasing others’ religions—that’s where things are not ok. A religious and/or theistic person can still defend other people’s basic human rights, while speaking up and refusing to allow an atheist or any person just parroting atheistic sentiments which they may not have thought all the way through, to erase his religion. Fighting for others’ basic rights while protecting your own rights are not mutually exclusive activities. A person can indeed do both if she is so inclined.)

So, please think before repeating or forwarding memes spouting “don’t pray for Paris” or Beirut, think before parroting “religions are evil and violent,” think before singing Imagine as a song of comfort and hope, and think before trying to comfort people in this manner. It’s hard to think when we’re staggering from horror, and fear, and insecurity, but this is the very thing we must do. These are not mantras which will bring peace; and the constant, even well-meaning, repeating of them does more damage to an already unstable matter. Erasure of diversity is not a celebration of it, and it is not a road to healing.