Hearthside

It is Remembrance Day. I am tired. I have been very over-taxed with work lately and was looking forward to the day off. I would do a little Remembrance Day rite in my Hearth cult, watch the Remembrance Day ceremony on CBC, read a little, and take a nap. Perfect. Unfortunately, it can’t be that simple these days. I was watching the CBC live on my phone and couldn’t figure out how to hide the comments. They were pretty bad… anti-LGBTQ+ and racist. I was shocked people would type such things while the veterans and soldiers were standing there at attention. I tried to report a few people, but, as usual that was fruitless. Hate speech is allowed these days apparently. Anyways, shortly afterwards I was watching a video talking about the new Remembrance Day stamp released by Canada Post and the pieces fell into place in my mind. Here was a picture of a Sikh veteran… and people were mad. “When did Remembrance Day become woke?” Well, sir… when those people you hate fought for your freedom. Whic...

I am afraid it is a bit of unfortunate business that sparked me on this thought train, but just the same, the idea is still a useful one and something worth sharing. I have been thinking a lot about ancestor veneration lately, but not on the individual level, on the community level.  A tribe that shares frith, shares ancestors. Our lives are irrefutably linked. But our ancestors help to create cohesion and belonging within the group. They seek to make us better and improve our luck. They seek to help us heal what needs to be healed, so that we can grow as a community. Even on the larger community level there are shared ancestors. These take the form of local folk heroes or ancestors of place that are publicly venerated. (Often without all the members of the community who are venerating them really understanding what they are doing.) For people who are not familiar with ancestor veneration as a common practice, they don’t recognize it, and yet feel drawn to participate in it, even w...

I have been writing a lot about Heathenry from a female perspective, but how important is gender (and also sexual identity) to Heathenry? The answer is, not very.  I am talking about Heathenry from a female perspective mainly because when I was starting this blog I was not seeing enough women creating Heathen content even though as a religion there are actually a fairly large percentage of women in leadership roles compared to broader society. I felt a bit strange stepping into this role, while people around me seemed to think I was a good fit for it. Additionally, I have found in other Heathen circles that sometimes I am put into a position where the discussion is very male dominated, to the point that I have joked on occasion that perhaps I needed a beard to be a part of it. So I am pushing back against that, but it is really only a start. Gender is a construct from the broader over-culture. We cannot know what the elder Heathens truly thought about gender and sexual identity....

Image from Wikipedia and created by Bygul So I am in a bit of a mood over this... My kindred in the last 2 years has been making an extra effort to promote inclusive heathenry in our province, the reason being was that I noted that it was easier to find Folkish groups than anything else when you Googled our province and the word “heathenry.” As such we did note that the Wikipedia page for Heathenry in Canada appeared high in the search results and we were sure to link ourselves and other inclusive heathen groups locally onto that page. (As plenty of other kindreds and groups had already done.) Unfortunately, due to the nature of it being a small, decentralized religion most groups organize using Facebook, and Wikipedia is starting to take a hard line of Facebook page links as being uncredible. (Which I get for things like scientific information, but not religion…) In any case, a massive overhaul of the Heathenry in Canada page has occurred, removing a huge number of external links. In ...

So, this is not my regularly scheduled content (what schedule, you ask?) but it is heathen and Canadian, so that makes it apt content for this blog. If you aren’t from Canada, that is okay. It might interest you too, or you might want to skip this one, your choice.  What is the Heathen Confederation of Canada (HCC)? It is a newly formed organization in Canada that advocates on behalf of Canadian heathens. But before I get into the how, I want to be transparent here. I am running for the National Council. However, this isn’t a political post. I am not trying to gain any votes here. In fact, if you aren’t already a member, the cut off has passed for being eligible to vote in this first election. Instead, this post is to tell you more about this organization and why I think it is beneficial to all Canadian heathens, and why you should check it out for yourself. If this is your first time visiting my blog and you followed the link in my candidacy bio, you are probably already a member....

There are a lot of complex issues when talking about children in heathenry in general, and ritual is definitely going to be a main area of contention. Understanding the political landscape of heathenry is key to navigating this. There are several dynamics taking place that make this such a hot topic.  First of all, we cannot escape the folkish element of heathenry and their push to breed to expand heathenry. This seems to cause pushback in inclusive heathenry, where people and groups are hesitant to entertain family friendly ritual at all for fear of being lumped into a folkish category. This is highly problematic, since most religions are inclusive to families. This leads right into our next issue. The religious backgrounds of most of the heathen demographic have shaped their perceptions of family and religion. Many heathens grew up in a landscape where religion was forced upon them, and are hesitant to allow that to happen to the next generation. There are also some concerns that...

This one is not going to be super exciting. I have other stuff in the works, but this weekend my schedule has been a bit crazy. (Not that I have promised to adhere to any sort of schedule for posting anyways.) I have been coming back to this topic a lot lately, so let’s see if we can unpack it. Do you honour the ancestors in your personal practice? If so, who are you honouring? This seems like it should be fairly easy to answer on first glance, but it really isn’t.  Most people in heathenry seem to honour their recent dead primarily in their ancestor practice. I know that a lot of my ancestor practice is based on honouring and maintaining relationships with recent dead. It makes sense. Presumably, you knew them in life and then wanted to continue your relationship with them in death. That makes perfect sense. It is also very healthy to do in order to accept their passing.  Things get very complicated fast though. Ancestors aren’t just the recent dead. You may be doing lineage ...