Reconciling Christian Traditions within a Heathen Worldview
One of the things that came up recently with my Kindred was a discussion on Christianity and how you reconcile the overculture with your Heathen practice. Something that myself and other people who had been Heathens for a longer period of time said was that when you first become Pagan or Heathen then there's a lot of energy that you push at distancing yourself from Christianity. However, eventually you become comfortable enough in your own identity and your own practice that you kind of slide back a little bit the other way. I don't mean that you become Christian again but instead that you can enjoy some of the traditions that you enjoyed as a child, or perhaps that you're less bothered by the overculture (and by other people celebrating holidays that you don't believe in anymore).
I personally still have the most trouble with the Christmas season just because it's so long and so commercial. It's not really to do with the Christianity. I tend to feel overwhelmed and at some point I still have like those outbursts that I had as a baby Pagan about “hey I'm not this” and push back against it just because it becomes too much. That said, I am also very careful with my energy and how I relate to that Christian overculture because my husband is Christian. I don't want to negate his feelings of spirituality and the meaning he derives from these traditions just because I have a different way of deriving meaning. This means that we both celebrate Christian and Heathen holidays. For example, last week was Sigrblot for my Kindred and my husband came and celebrated with us. Now this weekend it's Easter, and I am going to my mother-in-law's house tonight. I asked her what she wanted me to make and she said deviled eggs, so that's what I'm bringing.
It's about how you reconcile everything and how you derive meaning from those interactions with the overculture that go on in your daily life. For instance, I can't separate myself entirely from Christmas or from Easter because my husband celebrates those and my family still celebrates them to varying degrees. As a result there are still expectations on me to participate to some extent. The first step for me in reconciling that was realizing that family is a huge Heathen value and so those interactions and connections with family were more important than the pushback I was feeling against those holidays. For a long time that was how I reconciled it. It didn't feel fully complete; it felt a little bit hollow. However, slowly I'm adding my own levels of meaning to Christian holidays that come from my beliefs within my Heathen worldview.
Another step is acknowledging our Christian ancestors and how much this holiday meaned for them. I left mini eggs on the ancestor altar this morning. I also moved an ornate egg there this weekend. It is a family heirloom. My grandmother collected all manner of ornate eggs. I used to marvel over her collection as a child. I only have a few of them in my home. I took only what small and precious items I could fit in a carry-on bag coming back from the funeral. (Honestly, I brought less clothes on the trip just so I could have room for the beautiful doll my aunt saved for me.) I rarely share my altars online but I think it is relevant to this topic.
I wanted to share with you some of the things that I have done this Easter and during previous Easter celebrations over the last few years within our household and with extended family. The first thing that really helped I think was getting our cat, Storm, and their first Easter I happened to find really tiny plastic eggs at the dollar store. I had this spontaneous idea, what if I hide them around the house with cat treats inside? Then Storm will be batting them around like little balls, and it's going to be so cute. So I did that and Storm loves it. They are so smart and can break open these eggs and get the treats. It usually takes a few days but it's just amazing to see them interacting with these eggs and having such a great time. So that warmed my heart a little bit to the celebration again.
The other thing that I find a little bit challenging about Easter is oh my goodness there's so much going on at the end of March and the whole month of April. There is Sigrblot, Easter, the Equinox (which although I don't celebrate I recognize to some extent) and there's my birthday. I just feel like so much is happening all at once and then my job usually picks up this time of year as well. It's a lot. Trying to make my weekends work so that all those things can happen is challenging. Sometimes the same weekend (not this year luckily) Sigrblot and Easter both occur. That is definitely a part of the challenge for me. Having relaxing family traditions for this time of year and ones that are meaningful to me becomes vital.
I don't buy into the Ostara-Easter connection or whatever but I do like to joke that the Easter Bunny is definitely Pagan. It is obvious that that tradition did not come from Christianity because why would there be Easter eggs and Easter bunnies? That is silly; it has nothing to do with the crucifixion of Jesus or whatever. So I always joke, “Oh the Easter Bunny has come to bring eggs, well the Easter Bunny is Pagan… well I wonder who that could be?” and then I'm pointing to myself at the same time, grinning. So in that way it feels more natural even though it's not a Heathen holiday in any way shape or form. I take a lot of joy out of creating an Easter basket from my husband and I, hiding the eggs for the cat to find. and that sort of thing in that sort of subversive role of Easter Bunny. (So absolutely not a Heathen practice but still how I can reconcile a Christian holiday within my own worldview.)
This year I wanted to try something that I've been wanting to try for awhile but I just couldn't find the energy to do it and that was like dying eggs with natural dyes. It was really time consuming and I needed eggs anyways this year because my mother-in-law had asked for deviled eggs for the Easter dinner tonight. I need to boil them anyways. I didn't need to dye them, that was like extra steps, but it was kind of cool learning what plants make different colors. Turmeric was obvious for yellow … oh my goodness it's messy though. That was the messiest and it was almost a pasty substance instead of like the liquid like the other dyes. I read that onion skins would be like a reddish color or an orange but it was more of a brown. It looked cool; it didn't just look like brown eggs. Then red cabbage is what makes a blue dye and it's a beautiful blue. You can also get a darker blue with blueberries and I thought for sure it was going to be purple with blueberries. It really was blue however. Beets make a reddish colour and then to get green you mix the turmeric and the red cabbage. The dye was red coloured but the eggs came out green and I couldn't believe it. It was really exciting to see what you could do and then the next day to make the deviled eggs. (I actually dyed some of the egg whites with turmeric and beets and red cabbage just to make it a little bit more fun when I made the deviled eggs, so that was really neat too.
Sometime I definitely want to try the natural dyes with fewer colours and using stockings with pressed flowers and leaves inside. It makes a white silhouette of that shape on the egg when you dye it. I'll try that a different year because that seemed like way too much work with how many dyes I was making this year and how many eggs there were. I really like to use the Free Run eggs when I'm making boiled eggs because it's so much easier to peel them, like night and day honestly. Some of the Free Run eggs were brown so I didn't dye those ones, I just dyed the white ones.
The other tradition I've had for a lot of years is to crack an egg over people's heads on Easter in order to bring luck for the year. I read about it somewhere and it just had a Heathen feel to it. I usually crack an egg over my head. It is best to do it in the shower and then you can work it into your hair a little bit and then wait a few minutes before you wash it off. It really volumizes your hair too, so it actually feels really nice. I read you do it outside with children but it's a good idea to do it in the shower unless it is warm where you live. It is pretty messy. So that's another tradition that I like to do this time of year.
None of this is very Heathen in the traditional sense of what Heathenry is but it is Heathen in the sense of adapting a Christian tradition with a modern Heathen lens to make it livable and valuable. It is a way of finding connections between cultural groups and it is important for most modern Heathens because there's not a lot of multi-generational Heathen families. There are a few, but this is definitely something I feel might be useful for a broader audience among Heathens. I hope this is helpful for some people and they can draw inspiration and come up with their own ideas on how to reconcile Heathenry in a world where Heathenry is a very small, minority religion and where other religious practices are imposed on you.
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All images are my own.
