My Heathenry

 I posted briefly on Tumblr something about my approach to heathenry. In some ways, I grew up with heathen values. Not the "Nine Noble Virtues" but things like be honorable in word and deed, always be hospitable to guests, treat strangers with courtesy, strength with out wisdom is wasted, and family is everything. Things did not turn out as I had thought they would as a child and my parents did not prove to have the values that I grew up on. I am so dynamically different from my parents and siblings that I have regularly been asked if I was adopted. (We're estranged now for various reasons, but to say the least, I did not mesh well into their family dynamic on the basis of my personality and sense of honor.)

I have some customs that sort of come from my parents and come from what I could extrapolate from the different pagan lore that I studied over the years. I always make enough food for a possible surprise visitor. My family make a point of being hospitable to any guest that arrives at our door, regardless of how we might feel about them personally. At the same time, we are very protective of our boundaries and do not allow folks that could be harmful past the threshold. We are polite but firm about this. Instead of words, we express gratitude with actions. It's like the old concept 'a gift demands a gift in return.'  I also take the approach, that it is always better to give too much than be thought stingy when giving gifts. I have the habit of giving peace-gifts to maintain the bonds of good will between us and people who are important in our lives.

I am careful not to swear an oath that I can not keep. I am doubly so when it comes to teaching my children not to swear in such a manner. There are those who would take them at their word and treat them ill if they were unable to keep the oath. I make a point of giving offerings to my family's ancestors. We have a small ancestor shrine in the living room near the altar. Every morning, I give an offering to the gods and ancestors, asking their good will and blessings over all of our household. I do my best to maintain my plethora of houseplants in good care as an offering to Freyr, the spirits of the plants, and the landwights. I dedicate my efforts to maintain the household to the housewight. (Fortunately, they are understanding of my difficulties and tend to be bemused with the kids efforts to help that make more messes than they clean up.)

I do not engage racists, except to mock them or get into a verbal fight with them. I am firmly of the mind that the gods call who they call regardless of skin color or background. The gatekeepers be damned. I am annoyed with the conflation of the Marvel version of prominent figures from the lore (i.e. Thor and Loki) with the actual lore. I try to present evidence that the Norse pantheon is not the same as Marvel's version. At the same time, I recognize that popculture paganism is a thing. So, I try to be understanding. Loki likes to throw me curveballs from time to time in referencing Marvel's version of him just to make sure that I'm paying attention. Marvel!Mythology is different from the lore but in the eyes of popculture pagans, it is the same weight. I try to be sensitive to that.

I have a particularly strong loathing for trans-exclusionary radical feminists. Having been a target of their harassment by virtue of the fact that my vocal range is lower than most other women and my thyroid is a bit on the large side, I have no qualms about getting in their faces. I have in the past, literally had to fight people to make them stop harassing me over these things. I would do so again in a heartbeat if it were necessary. I defend the rights, safety, and honor of transgender people with all the same passion that I do the rights, safety, and honor of all non-heterosexual people. Part of this position is because I have people I love who are in these communities and I feel honor bound to protect them. Part of this position is because I am a Loki's woman and I believe I would be a hypocrite if I did not defend or stand up for the people who fall outside of the cis-het dynamic. It doesn't hurt that I happen to be bisexual and part of the LGBTQ+ community. If anything, that makes me a bit more aggressive about it.

I am something of an animist. I believe that just about everything has a spirit. I try to maintain a good accord with the spirits about me. The jury is still out if the computer has a singular spirit or if it is a community of spirits forced to work together. Electronics in general is a fuzzy area that I am still trying to parse out how they fit into this world view. But all living things have a spirit. Elemental forces are spirits. Deities exist in the realm of spirits as well as elsewhere. I do my best to keep the spirits on my side. That means caring for a garden and leaving out offerings when I can. 

I am not a 'normal' heathen. And I'm ok with that.