Pagan Cowboy

I must be missing something. I just don’t get this thing that some heathens have about tribes and kindreds. Oh, I totally get the importance of family in the heathen ethic. What I don’t get is how someone could think that he or she is authentically living that ethic by creating an artificial group based on a common religion. I would call that a community, not a kindred. I understand the concept of intentional communities. The idea of intentional kindreds or intentional tribes seems a bit forced. Okay — more than a bit.

Still, I’m open to understanding if I can find someone who can explain cogently why it isn’t just some modernist silliness.

I’m in the minority here, being neither folkish nor modernist myself. I’m a heathen because it’s the proper religion for me, not because I have some special calling from the gods. My ancestors came from Sweden. My surname is my badge of membership in their kindred. If I want to follow a non-Christian path, the only proper path for me is the pre-Christian religion of my kindred. It doesn’t matter whether I get along with them. In fact, I have ongoing issues with a few of them. It doesn’t matter that many of them are Christian. They’re still my kindred. It does help that the gods planted in my heart a passion for Norse sagas. It also helps that my Mom instilled in us a proper respect for tomten and encouraged us to pray to our ancestors when we need help. (After a few martinis, she’ll also remind us that we’re descended from Freyr and it doesn’t hurt to thank him for our prosperity if we want it to continue.) Christian or not, it’s inevitable that I’d be required to pay the proper respect to the Elder Kin. And, being more of the not, really my only choice is how much I want to learn about my ancestral faith and the obligations that go with it. I can flirt with any religion or philosophy that takes my fancy (and I often do), but I can’t not give proper honor to the gods of my ancestors. It just wouldn’t be proper.

But that’s just me. I don’t expect anyone else to see things the same way. We see people whose surnames announce their membership in a Gaelic kindred taking leadership positions in heathen organizations, and no one thinks it’s odd that they choose to honor gods foreign to them. Or, perhaps they have some sort of maternal connection to the Germanic peoples but they don’t take it seriously enough to legally change their surname to associate themselves with those maternal kindreds. Or, they adopt illogical names — like Thorsson when in fact they are not sons of a man named Thor. I have an online chum — most of you know who she is — who happens to have no known Scandinavian ancestry, but she takes her religion seriously. Unlike some people who merely pay lip service to the idea of kindred and honoring the gods, she changed her name to a properly Scandinavian name without the pretension of filiating as the daughter of a god or goddess. She would disagree, I think, but it seems to me that by changing her name she severed her kindred ties, at least as far as our gods are concerned, and brought herself before the gods as a new woman and an honorary Swede. Such stoutness of heart! Surely, this is the kind of approach to the gods that they would never deny.

One of the things that bothers me is that the heathens who talk about the importance of kindred don’t care as much about their own kindred as they do about participating in a modernist project to re-create a tribal society. They don’t seem to notice that our society uses hereditary surnames as a badge of kindred membership. And, for most of us, those surnames were adopted 800 years ago. So long ago, in fact, that they have moved from being indiciae of family membership, beyond badges of clan membership, and solidly into being tribal labels. My surname is only 250 years old, and the surnames of some of my Swedish cousins are less than 100 years old, but most Americans belong to British and Continental patrilineages going back to about 1200 CE. Yet, somehow, their heathen members don’t regard membership in these tribes as important. They want to create new tribes.

I dislike saying — or even thinking — that anyone is wrong in matters of faith. But, it’s pretty easy to be dysfunctional in such matters. I hope someone tells me I’m wrong. I’m hoping that someone can explain to me how ignoring your own kindred to create an artificial tribe is an authentic way of honoring your relatives and giving the gods their due.

Fritterfae responded:

Kin and kindred are people you are genetically related to, and who fall within your anthropologic structures of kinship. Would you include adopted children among your kin? And what about marriages that bring people of different ancestry or religious traditions together, are your in-laws among your kin?

Kith was another of those old terms that gets tied with kin a lot. Kith refers to your familiar friends, neighbors, and probably some of your relatives (perhaps the not-so-close ones).

But both of these are of anglo-saxon origin, so why don’t the heathens use an actual scandinavian term like “släkting” for actual relations or “själsfränder” for people of like mind and avoid that silly confusion.

As for tribes of intention, I think that’s a valid distinction. The Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation, http://www.unpo.org/, has members that include:

“indigenous peoples, occupied nations, minorities and independent states or territories who have joined together to protect their human and cultural rights, preserve their environments, and to find non-violent solutions to conflicts which affect them.”

Radical Faeries have discussed at length their identity as tribe, and whether or not we should actively consider ourselves a separate people. Why? When we have no established qualifications as members of the tribe, we can’t decide on who or what is Faerie, we have these constant splits over what we do and don’t do as a group, etc. etc. There’s something in our spirit that tells us we are among these people. Does that mean we reject or disrespect our heritage, our families, no. We take on additional names, sometimes even changing our names legally to our Faerie names, does this mean we disrespect what we were given at birth, no, we have discovered ourselves. At least that’s how I see it.

But I’m of the touchy-feely Pagans, as well as a moral relativist. No conviction is so firm as to be unflexible with me. So, take my explanations as you will.

Then I said:

My post might have been a bit clearer if I had taken time – as you have – to define kith and kin, then made the point that intentional tribes are really kiths, not kindreds. Uncountable years ago I belonged to a wicca group called Cyth Dana, which was the founder’s version of Community of the Goddess Danu 😉

Would you include adopted children among your kin? And what about marriages that bring people of different ancestry or religious traditions together, are your in-laws among your kin?

Of course I would include adopted children. Else what would be the point of adoption? It might take some work, but I think you could fairly extrapolate from what I wrote that I regard the surname as the determinative factor for membership in a kindred, and that would naturally include anyone adopted into the kindred. I’m not much impressed with arguments that family is defined by blood. It seems to me, rather, that families are defined by cultural structures – which is why the surname is the badge of membership.

As for in-laws, history shows that the Germanic peoples took marriage so seriously in part because it linked the ørlög of two families. In the oldest literature, one often sees children being named for, say, an uncle by marriage, or the father’s father-in-law from a previous marriage. No blood relationship to the new child. What was being honored was the union of the fates of the two families. The child was thereby linked not just to its own kin, but also to the kins of its affinal relatives.

Radical Faeries have discussed at length their identity as tribe, and whether or not we should actively consider ourselves a separate people.

Not my place to judge a system that works for you, but I am willing to say that in my opinion the Radical Faeries are an intentional community of people called out of the common herd by the gods. It would be impious not to honor that call on its own terms. I personally have too much American Indian in me to be troubled by any Anglo prejudice against having as many names as you can wring out of the universe. Every additional name, in my book, is its own dose of power. But, when you legally change to your Faerie name, you are changing your relationship to your kindred. I’m assuming that the name someone would take is something other than the name of a maternal kindred, so to my way of thinking the change severs the primary tie to kin, and replaces it with a primary identity as a Radical Faerie. As a heathen, it would trouble me greatly to do something like that, but I can understand that personal identity as a Radical Faerie could take first place for some people. Whether the change is disrespectful or a rejection of kindred is something the individual would have to work out between himself, his kin and his gods. If you’re not starting from a heathen premise that family plays a primary role in religion, I’m not sure that a heathen perspective is even relevant.

But I’m of the touchy-feely Pagans, as well as a moral relativist. No conviction is so firm as to be unflexible with me. So, take my explanations as you will.

I’m glad you took the time to comment. When I wrote this entry, I never expected to have the challenge of thinking about the Radical Faery perspective. I could never be one of you, but I have a special place in my heart for the spirit embodied by the Radical Faeries.

Wednesbury reponded:

Well, I have to admit that I see nothing wrong with trying to re-create a tribal society myself. I don’t see anything dysfunctional in it, although I will admit that at best all we can achieve at the moment are proto-tribes. My thought is that since ancient heathendom was originally practised in a tribal setting, then the same should hold true for modern heathendom. If this is indeed the case (and it is possible that i am wrong), then the best idea would be try to re-create a tribal society.

Here I must stress that I differentiate between kindred and tribe. One’s kindred is one’s blood kin or those that have been legally adopted into the family. One’s tribe is a group of people, not all of whom are going to be necessarily related by blood, with whom one shares a common history, heritage, et. al.

Anyhow, I have to disagree with you that “who talk about the importance of kindred don’t care as much about their own kindred as they do about participating in a modernist project to re-create a tribal society.” My kindred, whether heathen or not, is central to me. And it seems to be for most theodisc types. One cannot have a tribe without kindreds. I am lucky to have heathen who are part of Miercinga who are related to me by blood. As to my Christian relatives, I simply regard them as non-participants in the tribe.

Of course, the one flaw I can see in trying to re-create any sort of tribal society is that it is going to be somewhat artificial at the outset. I think at best what we are doing now is creating proto-tribes that may one day become full fledged tribes. But I do think it is a worthwhile project. And I don’t see it at all in conflict with blood kinship–in fact kinship is needed if it is to succeed at all.

Then I said:

Just so we understand each other, I also see no problem with trying to re-create a tribal society. My issue is only with the means.

The problem I see with current efforts is that they treat tribe as synonymous with a type of particularly close community, when in fact tribes were larger kinship groups, albeit fictive in many cases.

I’m not up on current anthropological theories but back in the day when I was studying, tribes were thought to have formed around a core kinship group. While there was probably a large accession by recruitment, one of the salient features was the fiction of a common descent from a semi-divine eponymous ancestor – the Saxons from Saxnot, the Ingvaeones from Ingvi, and so on. Among the Teutons, kingship was elective but only from among the male members of a sacral family, almost certainly the family around whom the proto-tribe coalesced, and to whom new members were tied by bounds of adoption, marriage and conquest.

It strikes me as a bit disingenuous to posit a necessary connection between tribalism and religion, then ignore the pieces such as a common descent and a sacral dynasty that would have mattered most to our ancestors. I’m sympathetic to the dilemma that these elements, if necessary, could be an almost insurmountable barrier to creating modern tribes. Nevertheless, I have to think that what matters is the whole system, not just the easy parts.

Of course, none of this will be anything new to you. The piece that’s missing for me is how you get from here to your particular brand of tribalism.

When I think about the ways tribalism might be re-energized (not re-created), I think about the Scottish clans. My understanding is that they are actually tribes, the word clan having taken on another meaning among anthropolgists and ethnographers. They have the fiction of a common descent (which is nevertheless an actual descent, at least in the maternal lines for many clan members). And, they have chiefly families, some of whom are desendants of ancient dynasts. Indeed, if I remember correctly, McLean of Duart is thought by many historians to be descended in the male line from the Yngling dynasty of Uppsala.

My own bit of tribalism extends only as far as memberhip in the Clan Sinclair Association. I am descended – maternally – from the Sinclairs, and through them from the ancient Jarls of Orkney, from whom the Sinclairs derived their Earldom. If I were ever to be tempted into a tribalist project, I think it might be a cooperative project with other Sinclair heathens (or some other family group with whom I have an actual familial connection). Considering the high interest many Sinclairs have in their Norse heritage, I don’t think it’s an unlikely scenario.

And he said:

Well, I’m not sure that current efforts do treat tribe simply as type of particularly close type of community. The Ealdriht and the groups that emerged from it were always aware of the importance of kinship. Whether by design or by coincidence, I am related to a good number of my fellow theodsmen. Some of those relationships are very close–Swain is my brother. In other cases, the relationship are more distant–Brian is my second cousin. In some cases they are so distant that we simply share descent from Penda and Alfred through William the Bastard. But there are relationships there and they have always played an important role in the Ealdriht and now the groups descended from it.

The problem is that not everyone who wishes to be part of any given tribe (or proto-tribe, as the case may be) are not going to be necessarily related blood. I could not seriously see restricting membership of a tribe to blood relations as this would seem too restrictive to growth. Ultimately, while blood is important, there are other matters, such a shared belief system, shared customs, shared history, that are as important. Besides which, I see a tribe as composed of kindreds, of extended families. Not everyone in a tribe is going to be a close relation, or even a slightly distant one.

Anyway, I see it, this is something that will take time. Over time we will establish our own customs and develop our own shared history. People will marry and have children. This is how I see us achieving a truly tribal society. I admit that it is going to be difficult and it is not without obstacles, but I honeatly think that it can be done.

And I said:

Well argued. Although I disagree, I think it’s only fair to let yours be the last word.

Wodening responded:

Well, I know you were going to let Eric’s be the last word here, but I have something to add. I think part of the problem is we are seeing tribes differently. The Clan Sinclair is a clan…. not a tribe. In our particular brand of neo-tribalism we break it down into tribe, clan, family, or in our own Anglo-Saxon terms, þ&eacure;od; sibb, mægð. The sibb could also be called a kindred. Your mægð are folks immediately related to you; brothers, sisters, first cousins, aunts, uncles, mother, and father. The sibb are all related to you out to five or eight generations (for example Brian Smith of Néoweanglia is mine and Eric’s sixth cousin by blood). The þ&eacure;od; are all those that claim a common line of descent no matter how common, share a common history, and a common identity. Now this is the only place we really have to stretch things. Instead of claiming a common descent as the ancient tribes did with ancestors like Ingvi, Irmin, and Esta (mentioned in Taticus’ Germanic), we are more vague… folks that are of English descent OR participate in an English derived culture.

All that aside House Wodening, our sibb, is very much the sort of thing you were talking about with a theorerical cooperative project with other Sinclair Heathens. So we are indeed approaching it in a way you seem to think we should. Beyond that, I think we may simply be using terms differently.

Welgá!

Swain

Then he added:

Well, I think part of the problem is that Asatruar in American decades ago adopted the term kindred without really thinking about what it meant. What they were really trying to say I think was tribe or, at least community. Believe me though there has been go arounds in the Heathen community about the true meaning of the word kindred.

As to forming an articial tribe, whose to say that means throwing off your own true kindred and ignoring them is part of forming a tribe? The majority of my family are Xian as are my wife’s, and we are still very much a part of them, and yet, also very much a part of our Heathen tribe. I simply cannot see where you are coming up with one would have to ignore their own family in order to form a Heathen tribe.

Maybe it is different in the path you have chose, but in Germanic Heathenry probably 90% of the folks I know still feel they are a part of their real (birth, genetic, what have you) family, Xian or not.

I responded:

I don’t know why I’m so disappointed in yours and Eric’s response. I guess I just thought there’d be more. I’ve thought on and off all day about how best to respond. The easy answers would be to let myself be distracted by the details — Do you really think the Anglo-Saxon mægð is well-enough understood be considered a subunit of the Sippe/sibb? How do their traditionally cognatic structures play into your use of them as subunits of a tribe? Or perhaps you do not envision the tribe you’re creating as agnatic? Why have you set the limit of the sibb so much further than the Anglo-Saxons seem to have done? Why do you disagree with the contemporary schools of thought that define the Scottish clans as tribes? Looking at your descent from Penda, which I assume is one of the scholarly conjectures currently in favor, where did you find one that passes through William the Bastard?

I’d love to know the answers to these questions, and others, but I would be doing injury to our topic if I went off on a tangent.

I’m sympathetic to many of your arguments, but you seem to be glossing over my principal concerns. As I read your comments, it seems to me that the bottom-line answer is that you’re choosing the path that seems practical. Perhaps you regret a few of the compromises you are making, but you regard them as necessary to achieve your goal. (It’s taking a bit of reading between the lines, so correct me if I’m wrong.)

You and Eric both objected to me saying that forming a modernist tribe amounts to throwing off your own kindred. I think you mis-read or misundstood my meaning. I don’t want to patronize you, but I do want to be very clear about this point, and I’m not sure how accustomed you are to thinking about kinship in scholarly terms (as opposed, let’s say, to educated terms).

Each of us belongs to a named lineage, typically agnatic. This lineage is marked by the use of a particular surname. It should not be confused with a bilateral kinship group (that is, with the relatives you think of as your relatives on both sides). If your surname is English, and I assume it is, it’s probably about 800 years old — perhaps a little more, perhaps a little less. You were born into that group. And, here’s where the misunderstanding seems to arise.

I am not saying that forming modern tribes involves a rejection of your aunts and uncles and cousins — your bilateral kinship group. I’m saying that forming a modern tribe with people of different agnatic lineages — different surnames — evidences a disrespect for the lineage you were born into.

Just to play the devil’s advocate for a moment, you could respond that Rice Miercinga is composed primarily of people who trace their surname line back to the area of Mercia, with a few folks here and there who have been formally adopted and changed their surname. I could have very little objection to that, except to churlishly quibble about whether such a project should be centered in Mercia. If you were to add that arrungs take into account a person’s proven descent from the nobility of Mercia, at whatever period, and that you see House Wodening becoming the sacral family for the tribe — well, I might not personally want to join your project, but I would hold it in high esteem as an authentic reconstruction project.

My real, heartfelt objection to modern tribalism is that there is no way to claim on behalf of your entire named lineage that you belong to this tribe or that. It is only possible to subtract small sub lineages from their authentic surname group and attach them to new groups.

Almost half of Americans believe God created humans 10,000 years ago

by Frank Newport

Only about a third of Americans believe that Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution is a scientific theory that has been well supported by the evidence, while just as many say that it is just one of many theories and has not been supported by the evidence. The rest say they don’t know enough to say. Forty-five percent of Americans also believe that God created human beings pretty much in their present form about 10,000 years ago. A third of Americans are biblical literalists who believe that the Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally, word for word.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/23200/Almost-Half-Americans-Believe-Humans-Did-Evolve.aspx

Having written about the idea of a multi-part soul among the Norse, I suspect that some will think that such a system is too obtuse to be meaningful. So, I want to present — very briefly — a quick summary of two other cultural systems with multi-part souls.

Among the Lakota of the American Plains, the soul has four elements: the niya, the nagi, šicun and the nagila. The niya is the basic life-element, or life-breath. This is the soul that animates the body and allows it to move, although the body will not be able to move fully without the other souls. Proper care of the body nourishes the niya, while ritual cleansing and healing are designed to strengthen it. The nagi, on the other hand, is a more personal soul, although it is thought to be capricious. The nagi, typically in conjunction with the niya, can leave the body and journey to the spirit world. However, the nagi might need to be lured back from such a journey, and the return of the two requires reintegration of the niya. It is the nagi that is strengthened by a vision quest. Because all beings possess nagi, an individual on a vision quest can communicate with animals in the language common to all nagi. If the nagi leaves but the niya remains, the person might become ill or insane, or even fall into a coma or semi-consciousness. Like the Greek shade, it takes the form of the body and after death can become a ghost. Because it has a great deal of freedom, the nagi can be reborn, in which case it will retain the memories of its former life. The third part of the soul is šicun, the person’s store of spiritual power. This power can take the form of knowledge or wisdom, as well as the unique traits or strengths of a being. Some people possess more, and some less. The nagi on its journey may be given a part of the šicun of those he meets, along with instructions about its use, and ritual songs, dances and prayers to activate it. The fourth and final part of the soul is the nagila, or “little ghost.” It is the individual part of the energy that animates and the entire universe and binds the parts together.

Among the Ga of West Africa, the soul has two elements: the susuma and the kla. The kla is the life-force that pervades everything living. It has no individuality, but it can be gradually stolen by witches, who thereby add to their own store of it. Those who live to a very old age are often suspected of doing so by stealing the kla of others. At death, the kla returns to the heavens in the form of a shooting star to rejoin that universal store of kla from which all living things receive it. In contrast, the susuma is individual. It is the conscious personality. It might know more than the person does, and indeed it controls the individual. The individual can survive temporarily without it; it leaves the body in dreams. Illness can be caused by a struggle between the susuma and the kla. To this three-part individual, the Ga add two additional elements: the name and luck (gbeshi). A person can be injured through his name, which is kept secret for protection. On the other hand, a person’s own gbeshi might lead him astray and frustrate his good intentions.

Among the pre-technical cultures of the world, belief in a multi-part soul predominates. Generally, people are thought to have two, three or four souls, although there are examples of cultures that have as many as 30 or 40. The two systems, briefly outlined here, show surprising similitarities with the Norse system, although there are also significant dissimilarities. For those particularly interested in other theories about the Germanic system, Swain Wodening has a very interesting article online, Cosmology and the Soul: the Soul.

Sources

Arthur Amiotte, “Our Other Selves” in I Become a Part of It: Sacred Dimensions in Native American Life, D.M. Dooling and Paul Jordan-Smith, eds. (1989, 1992), pp 164-172.

William Howell, The Heathens: Primitive Man and His Religions (1962), pp. 151-52.

I don’t like the idea of reincarnation as it’s normally presented, but I have no problem with the idea that some part of the soul can be reborn.

Many cultures believe that at death an individual joins his or her ancestors. Although there is some debate, most heathens I know believe that at death they will join the ancestors of their particular kindred, going to live in their ancestral halls in the otherworld. This belief is poetically captured in a prayer from The 13th Warrior, a movie based in part on Beowulf:

Lo, there do I see my father
Lo, there do I see my mother and my sisters
and my brothers
Lo, there I do see the line of my people
back to the beginning
Lo, they do call to me
They bid me to take my place among them
in the hallowed halls of Valhalla
Where the brave shall live forever!

This belief differs from some of the sources, which say that Óðinn and Freyja divide the souls of warriors slain in battle between themselves, Rán gets the souls of those who drown, Thórr gets “the kin of slaves” (see Hárbodsljód), the souls of those who die of old age and sickness go to live with Hel, and women who die unmarried go to serve Gefjon. However, some scholars believe that these beliefs were late innovations. More likely, the older, general belief was that the dead went to live with their families in Hel’s realm. Snorri Sturlusson tells us that Óðinn was called Valfödr, father of the slain, because everyone who falls in battle is his foster-son. This explanation emphasizes the usual connection between death and joining one’s family. However, I think the idea that the dead join their ancestors might be oversimplified. Although scholars disagree sharply among themselves, I think there is some justification for thinking that the Norse believed in a multi-part soul.

If the idea of a multi-part soul seems unusual, it shouldn’t. Many cultures have the idea that the soul is composed of parts that separate at death. I’m told that the Chinese, for example, conceptualize two souls, the Hun (superior soul), which strives for Heaven, and the P’o (inferior soul), which is malign. In the west, Plato tells us that Socrates believed in a three-part soul (or mind), the parts of which govern desire (sensation and appetite), emotion (spirit and will), and reason (intellect). He used this division to explain why an individual might have conflicting desires. The division was accepted by the early Christians. St. Paul called the parts (in translation) body, soul and spirit. We retain Plato’s tripartite division in popular discourse about body, mind and spirit (soul), although we no longer think of them as three souls.

In the 9th century, the Christian church rejected the idea of a tripartite soul in favor of a simple duality between body and soul. Interestingly, we also get from Socrates (or his mysterious teacher) the idea that the spirit is pure, the material world is corrupt, and therefore our souls are polluted by living in this world. It’s proven to be a curiously popular idea. This is how most of the people I know think of themselves, as a soul inhabiting a material body.

The clue to the idea that the Norse believed in a multi-part soul is, I think, their creation story. The dwarves fashioned the first humans, Ask (“ash-tree”) and Embla (“vine,” or perhaps, “elm-tree”) from pieces of driftwood, and the gods gave them life. According to Völuspá, Lódhr gave them lá (vitality or blood), Hœnir gave them ódhr (passion or inspiration), and Óðinn gave them ónd (breath or spirit).

These are the parts I believe separate at death. Without a scholarly examination of the subject, I’m guessing about which part plays which role, but it seems likely to me that one part passes on to an afterlife with the ancestors or gods, one part is reborn in a later generation of the same family, and one part stays with the body, perhaps to be reabsorbed into the landscape. If so, the system would be similar to the shamanism of the Russian steppes. It would also be analagous to the Platonic system of body, soul and spirit.

The Lá

First, the body itself, which is not completely lifeless after death but perhaps still retains the lá, the vitality or blood given by Lódhr. Before the gods animated Ask and Embla, they were “fateless” and “capable of little.” This passage might suggest that the first humans already possessed a minimal life even before the gods gave them souls, but another translation reads, “empty of might.” I think it is likely that this passage is an example of the laconic style of Norse poetry. Probably, Ask and Embla were capable of nothing. Yet, a dead body could be animated by what we would might a shade, without higher faculties and perhaps even dangerous. I suggest that this shade is the lá. It would have been similar to the shade in Homer’s poetry, where it descended to Hades to lead a much diminished life. This faculty can also be equated with the lowest of Plato’s souls, which governs desire, sensation and appetite.

The sagas and folklore have several examples of a haugbúi, a mound-dweller, essentially an animated corpse living in splendor in his burial mound, guarding his wealth and feasting at the head of a warrior band. Burial mounds were generally stone chambers, roofed, then covered with dirt. A family’s burial mounds stood near its dwelling. The heir to a farm had to name the ancestors who held it before him, and be able to point to the burial mound of each. These mounds were the family’s doors to the other world and were the places at which the owner would perform sacrifices and pour libations to honor his ancestors. A fire not usually visible surrounded the barrow and formed a boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead. To see the fire was to know that its occupant was active. At Júl the dead return to the world of the living, where they are especially honored.

The body in the tomb could be helpful to its living relatives. Through úitseta (out-sitting), an individual could contact the ancestors and seek their advice. In Grettirs Saga, Kárr, although dead, helps his son Thórfinnr extend their family’s influence over the surrounding countryside. Moreover, the haugbúi might have magical powers, including the ability to shape-shift, to move through rock, to foretell the future, and to give dreams and poetry to the living. For example, in Flateyjarbók, the shepherd Hallbjörn receives the gift of poetry by sleeping on the burial mound of the poet Thórleifr, who appeared to Hallbjörn in a dream. In Laxdæla Saga, a church was built on the grave of a dead seeress, who appears in a dream to complain of being disturbed by the living. In Landnámabók, Ásólfr, a dead Christian, appears in two different dreams, once to complain about a girl wiping her muddy feet on his grave mound and then to complain about having his peace disturbed when his bones were dug up.

The dead were not always benign. The dead, particularly those killed by violence, might leave their barrows as draugar to roam the countryside. Being jealous of the living, they could be dangerous. Moreover, a barrow was thought to be a dangerous place if the occupant was not kin to those in the region.

It would seem that the body, with its lá, retains vitality as long as it receives the offerings of the living, but otherwise fades, even though it is never entirely dead.

The Ódhr

Second, ódhr, which means “passion” or “inspiration.” I equate this faculty with the second of Plato’s souls, which governs emotion and will, and with our concept of “mind.” I’ve already pointed out that the earlier, general belief was probably that individuals join the dead of their family in an ancestral hall in another world. Helgakvidha Hundingsbana II tells us that “In olden days it was believed that people could be reborn (væru endrbornir), although now that is reckoned an old wives’ tale.” The two ideas seem to be related.

From Ibn Fadlan’s Risala, his account of the time he spent among the Rus in 921, comes an eye-witness account of a viking funeral. He says that the companions of the dead man raised a slave girl three times to look through something like a door frame. Each time they raise her up she reports what she sees:

Lo, I see here my father and mother;

Lo, now I see all my deceased relatives sitting;

Lo, there is my master, who is sitting in paradise.

Paradise is so beautiful, so green.

With him are his men and boys.

He calls me, so bring me to him.

In Eyrbyggja Saga, Thórsteinn Thórólfsson drowns with his crew while fishing, and a shepherd sees them entering Helgafell, the holy mountain of Thórsteinn’s family. Inside the mountain, men are drinking in a brightly lit hall. Thórsteinn’s father, Thórólfr of Mostur, welcomes him and leads him to the high seat. There is no hint here that the mens’ bodies rest within the mountain, so this scene is quite different from that of a haugbúi in his burial mound. It is, however, not entirely clear whether the company is actually within the mountain or whether the mountain is a nexus that connects this world to another.

These two passages show that the dead were welcomed by their relatives. Norse iconography is filled with images on gravestones of a mounted warrior being handed a horn by a woman. Conventional interpretation has it that these images show the deceased warrior being welcomed to Valhöll by one of the valkyries, and this is no doubt true of many or all, but the symbolism would equally fit the welcome of any man to his ancestral hall by the dísir (female ancestors). Indeed, the image of a warrior being welcomed to Valhöll might have evolved out of a more general idea of being welcomed to an ancestral hall.

The dead not only receive their relatives at death, they are concerned for their well-being in life. In Víga-Glúms Saga, Glúm offends the god Freyr, then has a dream that his kinsmen intercede on his behalf. He sees Freyr sitting on a chair by a river, with people massed around him. Glúm is told that these are his dead relatives, begging that he not be driven from his land. The ties betwen living and dead are reciprocal. At Júl, the dead would return to the world of the living to be honored by their living family. Very likely there is a sub-text in Víga-Glúms Saga that the dead did not want to lose their own connection to the land or the honor that Glúm would pay them there.

The ódhr seems to be connected, to some extent, to a person’s name, and it was probably this part of the soul that was concerned about its good name and its lasting fame. In Svarfdæla Saga, the young Thórólfr receives a mortal wound. Dying, he asks his brother to perpetuate his name: “My name has lived but a little hour, and thus I should be forgotten as soon as you are gone, but I see that you will increase the family and become a great man of luck. I wish you would let a son be called Thórólfr, and all luck (heillir) I have had, those will I give him; then I think my name shall live as long as men dwell in the world.” Thórsteinn promises: “This I will gladly promise you, for I look that it shall be to our honor, and good luck shall go with your name as long as it is in the clan.” He keeps his promise, and the new Thórólfr grows up to be much like his uncle.

In Flateyjarbók, Thórsteinn Ox-foot sleeps on a burial mound and is invited to enter by a man in red. He obtains the charm he sought, and as he was leaving the man in red begs Thórsteinn to give his name to a son, so that the dead might “come under baptism.” The incident makes sense only if we understand that giving the red man’s name to a new child would bring him back to the world of the living.

Among the Norse, a baby could be rejected by its father and be exposed, or be given a name and be accepted into the family. In this practice, repugnant as it is to modern sensibilities, I see evidence that a child was not fully human until it received a name, which might therefore have been connected with receiving the final part of its soul. Moreover, I think it is significant that the giving of a name was coordinated with acceptance into the family, that the name conferred was a family name, and (arguably) that there was a taboo against using the name of a living relative. To me, the conjunction of these elements suggests that the Norse thought of names as connected to a part of the soul and that to confer a particular name was to confer that particular soul on the new child. I suggest this part might have been the ódhr, the mind, because it could have been seen that lá (vitality) and ónd (breath) were present in the child from birth.

For this part of the soul, life is a revolving door, in which the dead spend their time feasting in the barrow on their ancestral farm, then return to the same family when their name is reused among their descendants. So, at any given time, part of the family was in this world and part in the other world. The Romans had a similar idea. The genius (or juno) of the individual was already one of the family’s lares prior to birth, and would return when its name was given to a member of the gens.

It seems possible to me, perhaps even likely, that the ódhr remained connected to the physical body until it was conferred on a new child. If so, the dead who feast in their tombs, who receive offerings, and who might sometimes be seen by the living would be those who still have their ódhr.

The Ónd

Third, the ónd (breath or spirit) or sál (soul), which was conferred by Óðinn himself and must have been the most important part of the soul. I equate this faculty with Plato’s highest soul, which governs the intellect and reason, and with our modern idea of the soul or spirit. It seems to me that this is the soul that joins the gods, whether Óðinn or Freyja or some other. It might, in fact, be a faculty that humans share with the gods.

Three stories might suggest that it is the ónd, not the ódhr, that is reincarnated, but I do not think they are persuasive. First, in Völuspá, we learn that Gullveig, who some equate with Freyja, was born three times (þrisvar borin), and burnt three times (þrisvar brennd) by the gods. Nevertheless, she is still alive. Because Gullveig is clearly not human, I do not think we learn anything about the nature of the human soul from her successive births.

Second, Helgakvidha Hjörvardhssonar tells the story of two lovers who repeat their doom over the course of three lifetimes. As proof of reincarnation, this story has been much criticized. I think properly so. Helgi retains his name and family connection through all three lifetimes, but the name of his beloved changes from Sváva to Sigrún to Kára and there seems to be no connection between the families into which she was born. Sváva-Sigrún-Kára was a valkyrie, not a mortal woman, so I question whether she can properly be said to have had an ódhr. Moreover, I see the recurring name and family connection of Helgi as emphasizing the completeness of his continuity from lifetiem to lifetime. I read the story as poetic and heroic, not as indicative of the normal fate of humans. It seems likely to me that the portion of the soul reincarnated for both the lovers was the highest part, the part that would normally have joined the gods.

Third, the story of Saint Óláfr. In Flateyjarbók we learn that Saint Óláfr II of Norway was thought to be a reincarnation of his ancestor Óláfr Geirstadaálf, but the idea disturbed him. According to the story, Saint Óláfr’s mother had a difficult labor. She was delivered only after the sword, sword-belt and ring of Óláfr Geirstadaálf were brought from his burial mound, and the sword-belt was placed around her. The new child was given the name Óláfr. He grew up to become king of Norway as Óláfr II and became a Christian. While riding past the barrow of Óláfr Geirstadaálf, one of the king’s men asked him if he was his ancestor reborn. The king answered, “My soul (ónd) has never had two bodies; and cannot, either now or on the day of resurrection.” It is significant that Óláfr speaks of his ónd, when (as I argue) his retainer meant his ódhr. To me, the twist is deliberate. As a new Christian, the king must think only of a duality between body and soul. So, he uses the word ónd, even though he would have been perfectly aware that in conventional belief it was not his ónd that would have been reincarnated. I acknowledge that my argument here is circular. Having decided that the ódhr is the soul that is reincarnated, I dismiss Óláfr’s explicit reference to his ónd in the context of reincarnation. Absent other evidence, I’m not entirely comfortable with my interpretation, but I’m willing to rest here for the time being.

The Fylgja

In addition to the three souls, each person had a fylgja, a fetch or double that acted as guardian throughout life. It seems to have been born alongside a child, and was personified as an animal. The fylgja could appear in place of the person. In Hrólfs Saga Kraka, the warrior Bödvar Bjarki sleeps through the beginning of a battle, but a huge bear fights alongside his men. When they wake Bödvar, the bear disappears and the battle turns against them. The fylgja could also appear in times of crisis or impending death. In Njáls Saga, Thórdr sees a goat covered in blood, but the goat is invisible to Njáll. Njáll suggests that Thórdr has seen his flygja and is doomed. Njáll was apparently correct; Thórdr was killed shortly thereafter.

Although I think the fylgja was a separate life-element, it is possible that there was a connection between the fylgja and the ódhr, and that the fylgja rather than the ódhr was the part of the personality (speculatively) projected by seers. It is also possible that the fylgja rather than the lá was the shade or double that stayed with the warrior in his burial mound. I leave these questions for future consideration.

The kynfylgja seems to have differed from the fylgja. The kynfylgja was personified as a woman, and was perhaps originally one of the dísir (ancestral mothers) who protected members of the family. The surviving sources are late and have already begun to confuse the hamingja and the kynfylgja (if indeed there was not always a great deal of overlap between the two).

Other Elements

Finally, I want to mention in passing three of the other elements that play a role in human life: ørlög, heillir and hamingjur. Although perhaps not part of a person’s soul, they are nevertheless discrete elements attached to families and individuals.

Ørlög is the fate of families and individuals. In Völuspá, we learn that when the gods animated Ask and Embla, were “fateless” (without ørlög). In its most basic form, fate consists of living out the consequences of past actions, both one’s own actions and the actions of one’s ancestors. The first humans had no past, so they had no fate.

Heillir (“luck”) can help a man meet his fate, and in some cases turn it aside. A man whose luck has run out is feigr (“fey”). He rushes blindly to his death. Unable to heed the counsels of his friends, he makes bad decisions and and cannot turn aside the rush of events. In Njáls Saga, Njáll’s luck runs out and his fate unfolds, until at last his enemies surround the house. His son Skarphedinn recognizes that the end has come, and says, “Our father is marked for death now.” Njáll’s sons choose to die with him, and the family is burned inside their house.

In Grettirs Saga, an old woman curses Grettir, “Here I declare over you that you shall be forsaken of luck, of fortune and blessing and all guardian strength and wit, the more for all your length of life.” Yet, the outlawed Grettir has already lost his luck. The old woman merely declares his predicament, “These men [Grettir and his brother] might yet be luckless in their boldness. Good terms are offered them, but they thrust them aside, and nothing leads more surely to evil than being unable to accept good.”

The hamingja is the embodiment of luck attached to a family, perhaps something along the lines of a family soul. At death, it leaves the individual to attach itself to another of the same family. In Víga-Glúms Saga, Glúm dreams of an immense woman striding across the countryside toward his house. He interprets the dream as meaning that his grandfather Vígfús has died and Vígfús’ hamingja is coming to dwell with Glúm. It might have been a special attribute of the head of the family. Glúm, although a maternal grandson of Vígfús, was his grandfather’s heir.

Seidhr

In seidhr, certain powerful women could commune with spirits. I’m skeptical, but some scholars suggest that seidhr was a form of shamanism, and that the völva (seer) projected a part of herself on a soul-journey (hamfarir). The idea is speculative, depending as it does on theories about the ways that the Norse might have been influenced by the Sámí (Finns), whom they regarded as great magicians. Against it is the story in Eiríks Saga Raudha, in which a seer communes with spirits without any suggestion that she has made a journey to reach them. In fact, a singer is required to call the spirits to the seer. Likewise, in Laxdæla Saga, it does not seem that Gríma or Kotkell make any type of journey.

If seers did project a part of themselves, I suggest that part was the ódhr, essentially the mind. Although it is the faculty given by Hœnir, the word ódhr is cognate with the name Óðinn, who was a master of seidhr and his ability to undertake soul-journeys is mentioned in the Ynglinga Saga. The idea of projection also has a corollary in Huginn (“thought”) and Muninn (“memory”), the ravens Óðinn sends throughout the world to gather information about it. Moreover, for human seers it could have been seen that lá (vitality) and ónd (breath) were still present in the seer, just as they were in a new-born child, although the personality itself was apparently absent.

Conclusion

It seems to me that the Norse believed in a multi-part soul. One part stayed with the body, perhaps to decay at death. A second part stayed connected to the family, awaiting rebirth. And, a third part joined the gods in another world. There is no idea here of a pre-existing soul, or of the individual as a soul incarnated into a physical body or succession of bodies. Instead, the essential parts of the individual come together for the first time at his or her birth, and at death they separate forever.

I’ve had to keep this account at a very simple level. I’m aware that there are many different interpretations even among those who agree that the Norse believed in a multi-part soul. Many of them are much more complicated than mine. In fact, my own thoughts have developed since I wrote the core of this entry many years ago. I’ve been tinkering with this piece for years. I’ve polished a bit and placed it here to serve as the basis for future entries on this subject.

I’ve been thinking about reincarnation, a subject that usually does not interest me. I don’t pay much attention to the various ideas about life after death, but the idea of reincarnation particularly irks me. When I say reincarnation, I am thinking of the genericized idea borrowed by New Age Americans from Oriental religions: the idea that we are all progressing through a series of human lives toward an ultimate perfection. I don’t include other systems in which the idea of rebirth has a different significance.

I used to dismiss reincarnation on the grounds that there haven’t been enough people who ever lived for each of us now living to have had a series of past lives. I haven’t been able to track down the origin of this bit of folklore. Sometime in the 70s, someone, perhaps Annie Dillard, wrote that half the people who were ever born are alive today. If true, that would mean we can’t all have had many past lives. However, population estimates for the number of people ever born seem to range from 50 billion to 120 billion, with 6 billion of those currently living. It seems then that reincarnation is possible. Everyone now living can have had somewhere between 9 and 20 past lives. Not quite the endless cycle of rebirth envisioned by Hindus and Buddhists, but a comfortable range for psychics doing past life readings for middle class Americans.

What interests me more than reincarnation is the question of why people believe in reincarnation. I have a theory.

Simply stated, I think it has a lot to do with wanting a tidy universe. Some people really do not tolerate ambiguity well. For them, there must be a final result. Union with God. Perfection. Perfect Peace. Whatever. I recently had a heated exchange with a friend who started from the premise that all souls achieve union with God. He then dismissed all contrary beliefs as mere cultural “particulars,” and deemed his analytic style to be a “search for universals.”

I’m fascinated by this type of thinking. I think it holds a clue about why people believe in reincarnation. If you that believe the Universe is moving toward perfection, it will include the perfection of all souls, no matter how long it takes. A very comforting idea. It is the Myth of Eternal Progress transplanted from historiography to metaphysics. Christians still look for the Second Coming of Christ and Marxists still look for the Workers Revolution, either of which will end History-with-a-capital-H, but historians no longer write about Manifest Destiny or the March of Science. God is dead, Marx is dead, History (in that sense) has ended. I am as suspicious of teleology in religion as I am in history. It seems to me that it takes away the element of personal responsibility. If the end is predetermined, if we’ll all get there in the end, it’s okay to coast a bit right now.

I think a second reason that people believe in reincarnation is the need to believe that life will balance out in the end. “The meek really will inherit the earth.” “My enemies will burn forever in Hell.” “I might be poor and miserable in this life, but just wait. Someday, I’ll have it all, even if it won’t be until I’m dead.” My pet theory is that this hope for retribution is the real reason Christianity triumphed in the Late Roman Empire. Christianity appealed to slaves and to the downtrodden. I think it was because it offered the chance that everyone who was ever mean to you would go to Hell while you would get eternal glory. What a marketing strategy! Look humble, be obedient, and you’ll crush your enemies and revel in their eternal torment. Now, in the western world, we’re a bit too sophisticated to go for a simple Heaven and Hell, but reincarnation still offers the hope that injustice will be avenged. If you get fired and you can’t get revenge, you can at least console yourself with the thought that the bastard will get his someday. If someone breaks your heart with impugnity, you can tell yourself that he’ll get his, if not in this life then in the next.

A third reason people believe in reincarnation, it seems to me, is the idea that they can someday pay for their sins, but not yet, not in this life where payment would be too real, would hurt too much. Instead, it’s easy to hope that you’ll pay your karmic debts in some other life. Sure, you’ll be miserable when it happens, but better then than now. One of the nifty things about shifting the karmic debt to the future is that you can feel virtuous because you really will pay, unlike those silly Christians who think that God will simply forgive them over and over again if they just ask. But, in either system, you have a convenient way to shrug off the guilt you might or should be feeling.

Finally, a fourth reason people believe in reincarnation is that it gives meaning to life, without being particularly threatening. You can believe you have lessons to learn, lessons apparently best learned in an upper middle class setting. You don’t know what those lessons might be, but they must be important, and really the only way to learn them is to live a generically good life. It seems to me that this is not a particularly arduous task, so believers have simultaneously given themselves a meaningful life and an pretty easy time of it.

Not only is belief in reincarnation a crutch, it sets up some pointless and even dangerous games. First, we are soul-beings trapped in an impure world from which we seek to escape. I object to this on the simple ground that it creates a dysfunctional relationship between ourselves and the world.

Second, it sets a very high standard for us, one that cannot be mastered in a single life. On the surface, reincarnation seems to offer hope that humans are perfectable. But, instead of living this life then moving on to the next in search of further wisdom, reincarnation would drag us back here because of our failure and ignorance. We’re so weak and stupid that we don’t deserve to move on, and the goal is so impossibly high that we must become something other than human.

Third, some people are more advanced than others. This strikes me as a much more invidious belief than the idea that some people are more honest, or less greedy than others. Reincarnation sets up a conveniently subjective hierarchy that can be used to justify other hierachical games, such as the Indian caste system. It can also form the basis of games between individuals, as when certain “more enlightened” inviduals become “teachers” for others.

I don’t buy any of it. Reincarnation is the cheap and easy way out. Here you are in life, as unfair and absurd as it can be at times. You have a choice. Do you lick your wounds and tell yourself you’ll get even somehow (or, because that’s not very nice, God/Universe will get even for you)? C’mon, that sounds like something your mother might have told you when you were 5 to help you cope when you didn’t get invited to a party. Or, do you look for a way to live with the anger or the hurt (or the guilt or the shame) without the crutch of believing in perfect justice, perfect forgiveness, or ultimate perfection and union with God.

I confess that I don’t dwell much on life after death, although I acknowledge the possibility. But, what I truly dislike are systems that give people an “out” for taking responsibility in this life. I don’t like the idea of Heaven and Hell, because belief then becomes too self-serving. (I truly despise Pascal’s Wager.) I don’t like the idea that everything will work out in the end, whether the result is defined as union with God, ultimate perfection of all living beings, or anything else, because that removes any real need to fix things now. And, I don’t like systems that give folks a crutch for escaping feelings like guilt, anger and shame.

On the other hand, I don’t see anything wrong with postulating life beyond death (as long as you don’t put your center in that future). I believe that there are going to be choices, and I’m willing to accept that one of those choices might be rebirth. So, the question is — how do you live without relying on God or Universe to solve it all for you? That, I suspect, is a lifelong search for an answer.

“Historically speaking, the “ancient” rituals of the Goddess movement are almost certainly bunk“

“Wicca, sometimes known as the Goddess movement, Goddess spirituality, or the Craft, appears to be the fastest-growing religion in America. Thirty years ago only a handful of Wiccans existed. One scholar has estimated that there are now more than 200,000 adherents of Wicca and related “neopagan” faiths in the United States, the country where neopaganism, like many formal religions, is most flourishing.“

Read More:

• Charlotte Allen, “The Scholars and the Goddess“, The Atlantic (Jan. 2001).

I’m not sure it’s accurate to say that 30 years ago “only a handful of Wiccans existed.” I knew a zillion of ’em back then, including myself. Admittedly, there were far fewer than now. But what I think probably is true is that back then there weren’t many people who understood or were willing to believe that Wicca was founded in the 1950s.

“A person will worship something, have no doubt about that. We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts, but it will out. That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and our character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.

“Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world. I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser, who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested, – ‘But these impulses may be from below, not from above.’ I replied, ‘They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the Devil’s child, I will live then from the Devil.’ No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. A man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition, as if every thing were titular and ephemeral but he. I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“this is what you shall do: love the earth and sun and animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning god, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem . . .”

— walt whitman

I’m not really so naive that I don’t see the connections I touched on in my entry Seidhr today, August 5, 2004. My (American Indian) connection to ravens and those dreams about flying horses that haunted me for so many years have parallels in Norse religion. I can never bring myself to be fully candid with my friends when I talk about the dream life I have in the so-called parallel universe. Frankly, seidhr scares me. Not surprising, considering Ridge’s problems, or what I think his problems were.

I’ve been exploring some Internet sites on the subject of seidhr. Many of them, even the heathen sites that trumpet their own authenticity, are talking about nothing more than a recreational guided visualization. But, I also see a few that have a ring of authenticity. There really are people out there who are reaching levels deep enough to be difficult or frightening, and it seems that they have a better support system than I thought possible. It occurs to me, not for the first time, that I might benefit from their experience and learn a thing or two if I could bring myself to talk about what happens for me, and — even harder — be willing to undertake these journeys knowingly. A first step, I think, would be to relax the stranglehold I have on seeing myself as a rational being.

At the simplest level, what happens for me is this. A universe exists for me to the side of this one. Many of my dreams take place there, and it is relatively easy to me to enter it by beginning to fall asleep but stopping short. In that universe, there is a geography with many familiar points. The highway that heads west. The lighted bridge. The neighborhood that’s so hard to find just to the west of downtown. The street with the house in Logan and the changing zoo just north of that. The town that is Mantua, but not Mantua, with the highway that I keep trying to follow. The dam, with the reservoir and the elevator down to the powerplant and the enormous water pressure above. The empty room that has so much in it behind the wall. Roads and pipes everywhere. Houses and rooms in houses. All of these places have a stable geography and relationship to one another, although I don’t yet have a full map of their relationship to one another. And then, there is the well. The horse that takes me there, even though I’m terrified of heights. The clearing. The lake. They exist on a different level. The house where I live my other life. The old woman I go to at the fire and call her Mother and learn from her but never remember to bring back what she tells me. And the man I used to call Pan, who is me but not me, and who laughs that I want a name for him. Are these one world, or three? I’m not sure, because when I’m in one place I’m just there.

I don’t object to visiting any of those places. In fact, my visits are rather pleasant even though I rarely go intentionally. I can talk about them as though they are parts of dreams, so it is not very threatening to think about them. In fact, they could be dreams if I didn’t know that they aren’t, if they didn’t have a sharp reality, a numinous quality, an underlying sense (with the landscape, at least) that I am choosing to give these particular forms to things that really have other forms because it is less frightening that way.

It’s some of the other things that are truly frightening. When I get on that horse, I don’t know where I’ll end up and I don’t know how to control my destination. Sometimes, I’m in places so overwhelming and confusing that I can no longer cope with the idea. I will be paralyzed, not able to escape, and not sure how to return to myself. When I do come back, I’m drained. I might be despondent for days and terrified that I’ll cross a line someday and become psychotic, as so many of Evelyn’s ancestors must have been.

It’s that fear that has me thinking I could learn something from other practitioners, if I could find ones who know what they’re doing. I read something on one seidhr site today about the way he sees ley lines, and I thought, “Yes! That’s the pipes, the highways.” (I didn’t think until tonight that I actually believe in ley lines, but yes, now I know what they’re talking about. Those things. I feel like a simpleton. Of course, I know what they are.) I was also reading tonight about fylgya and it occurred to me for the first time that maybe my ravens are like that, and perhaps I can send them out the way Odhinn does and have them come back to me. Again, the simpleton. I don’t even have to try it to know that it would be very simple.

But, thinking about the gods . . . why is it that there is nothing in this alternate universe I can recognize as being connected to any pantheon?

Enough for tonight. Writing has relieved some of the anxiety that’s been building the past few days. Maybe I can sleep now.