A primary focus in the material that I teach is on considerations of establishing a firm foundation for polytheistic frameworks of discussion, practice, cult-building, worship, spirit-work, and inter-faith engagements. This is the guiding philosophy behind writings on discernment, distinctions, differentiations, definitions – “The Ds” – and on hashing out elementary ideas for “101” primers, and on building living tradition beyond the blog. It is why so much of my writing and talking circles back to…

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…

Keynote | Many Gods West 2015 by Morpheus Ravenna Good evening. Thanks for that welcome. What I want to talk with you about tonight is the agency and sovereignty of the Gods. This begins in understanding what Gods are, and how They are distinct from forms such as archetypes. Now, this may sound to you like I will be beating a dead horse here, or preaching to the choir; and it’s true that the differences between…

Owing to a mystical dress that changes colour in the presence of Orcs, colour itself has become a recently popularized topic. In particular importance has been reference to the epics of Homer, wherein there is no mention of the colour ‘blue’ as a descriptor, and how this is used as evidence to indicate that the Ancient Greeks were incapable of recognizing the colour ‘blue’, as they evidently had no word for it. Before we can…

Brennos, December 2014 Service above Self Last night I found myself, once again, in downtown Oakland at a vigil for members of the community that have been killed by the police. This was a rare peaceful moment in the troubles that have been consuming our city lately. People gathered on a cold and rainy December night and encircled Lake Merritt in downtown Oakland for a candlelight vigil to remember these lives that have been cruelly…