Hearthside

So I have lots of bigger stuff underway for the blog but it just isn't quite ready yet. This has been weighing on me lately though, and I just needed a rant.  Canadian Heathenry. There are only 13 inclusive Heathen kindreds in Canada that I can confirm on my inclusive Heathen group list . (If you have another one please contact me on social media or by email to have it added.) That is 13 groups. We have 13 provinces and territories in Canada. These groups are not evenly dispersed across all of them. In fact, many of them are multiple kindreds within the same cities even. The result is that the Canadian Heathen landscape is very isolationist. If you aren't able to travel you might never meet another Heathen or if you are lucky enough to be a part of a kindred, you may never meet another kindred.  But wait... Didn't I just say many kindreds are in the same cities? Yeah. That is the point of this rant actually. This isn't about how isolationist Canadian Heathenry is, altho...

Okay, so I have alluded to this a few times in my blog, but never really got into it. But what the heck? I have been sick for most of the month of December and I can’t sleep as a result. Why not work out my frustrations this way? Loki. A tricky topic at the best of times. If you are hoping for my opinion on the worshipfulness of Loki in modern Heathen practice (or even historical Heathen practice) you are in for a let down. No, what bothers me about Loki is very specifically Loki’s role in the story arc of the death of Baldr.  Honestly, Loki’s character makes perfect sense up until then. They are a trickster figure who makes mistakes and then finds ways to set them right. We see similar patterns with other trickster figures around the world. But then there is Loki’s role in the death of Baldr. Suddenly Loki takes on a sinister (and unredemptive?) role.  Baldr has his dream that he will die but it isn’t clear how. So Odin goes to ask the sorceress. Meanwhile, Frigg asks everyth...

Below is the transcript for an interview with Heathen Children's Author, Joy Page. Her book would be excellent as a Halloween/Samhain gift or for someone on your Yule list this year! --- Michelle: Hi there, and welcome to Hearthside. My name is Michelle. I'm the author on the blog, and today we're doing something a little bit different. Instead of starting with our blog and making the accessible copy, what we are doing is I am interviewing Joy here, and then I will make the transcript as the blog entry. Michelle: So for those of you who don't know Joy, this is Joy Page and she's one of my Kyn. And something really cool that Joy has just done is released a children's book. The book is called The Witch’s Family. So we have hard copies and paperback editions and I'll give you all the information at the end. So this is written by Joy and the illustrator is Penny Nicoles, and yeah, so I'm really excited about breaking our routine, doing the YouTube version fi...

(left) Brooch. 9th Century. Revninge, Denmark. (center) Silver Pendant from between 800 – 1050 CE. Statens Historiska Museum, Stockholm. (right) Freyr Statue. Södermanland, Sweden. I had the unique experience of making a Heathen themed work of art to share with my tribe, and it allowed me to reflect on Heathen art as a whole. There are some interesting trends worth noting.  If we look at historical Heathen art it is difficult to know what the intent of the maker was. Was their art solely a devotional act, or was it also a way to make a profit? And are some of the things we would think of today as historical Heathen art even meant to be that at all? A good example are some of the images that we speculate are Freyja but may just have been a depiction of a woman.  Moving forward to modern Heathen art, I would say most of it is of one of two types: (left) Runestone in Täby. 1100CE. (middle) The Tjängvide stone. 8th-9th Century. (right) Modern depiction of the Allfather by Lør...

It is interesting that Winter Nights (or Vetrnætr) is probably my favourite Heathen holiday and the last one I got to writing about here. (Well, we will see what I say after a long winter, and then maybe Sigrblót will be my favourite.) The reality is that while I love this time of year and all the symbolism, the weather, everything… I am always very busy. Finding a spare moment to write this was a challenge, but it was starting to feel like an incomplete task. In a way, that is the embodiment of this holiday.  This is the celebration of the end of summer and the harvest, the preparation for the winter. We can tell by its name that it is a series of nights, rather than one. (Although it is my personal take that all of the Heathen holidays were a series of nights, probably the 3 surrounding the full moon.) If we look at the Ynglinga Saga, Winter Nights is said to be a blot at the beginning of winter for a good year. Many modern Heathens associated it with the phrase: Til árs ok friða...