Hearthside

So it is 10:30pm on a Sunday night. I am halfway through dishes in an attempt to make room in the kitchen to rack my mead… but instead I find myself at the kitchen table pounding out words at the keyboard. It doesn’t matter who it was this time out there is the broader sphere of online Heathenry. It doesn’t matter who got the gears turning. It wasn’t the first time. It won’t be the last. That is the point of this really… Sometimes we disagree with other Heathens. Sometimes we disagree with other Heathens who are in our own tribes, kindreds, or close-knit communities. Sometimes those disagreements are beyond reparations and lead to a rift, or splitting off into separate groups. Sometimes tempers just flare, and Heathens are too proud to do the work to reestablish common ground. Either way unless it is my group, it is none of my concern… at least it shouldn’t be. The problem is that in this fast-paced modern world, when tempers flare we often turn to posting online to rant. (Ranting on i...

Runic Stone Upplands runinskrifter U839. Accessed from WikiMedia Commons. I have been noticing more and more that many Heathens don’t realize they can access a lot of the source material online, often for free. So I thought it might be useful to link you up with some places to find good sources. I am sure there are many more out there I am missing, and I will try to update these when I come across more good ones. I am also including sites that have fairly reputable takes on Modern Heathenry. Please note I don’t endorse any of these sites. This is purely a reference list. The materials are worthwhile, but I cannot speak for whoever posted them there. Some discernment is necessary on the part of the reader. The author of this blog does not agree with all opinions or takes of people whose content is listed. Please Heathen in a way that is right for you. General: Skaldic.org has a large collection of all things Norse. https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=onw   While mostly more broadly Indo-Eur...

(Part 2) If you made it through Part 1 and came back, congrats. It was a tough slog. If you haven’t read Part 1 yet, I suggest you start there , and come back. This is the tougher of 2 parts, certainly the toughest for me to write, and reading my previous post will help lay the groundwork for understanding where I am coming from.  I want to open this part very clearly with the statement that racism is not acceptable, and we should not tolerate it in any aspects of our lives. We should definitely not tolerate it in modern inclusive Heathenry. I want to say we shouldn’t tolerate it in modern Heathenry at all, but since modern Heathenry grew out of white nationalist sentiments that ship has sailed. Rather, we must work to uplift inclusive Heathenry, because the reality is that the majority of modern Heathens today are inclusive Heathens and that number continues to grow rapidly. To me, racists aren’t Heathen. No fascism, not in my Heathenry. But ignoring history never goes well either...

(Part 1) So today is the 1st anniversary of this blog. I am going to mark it by addressing the elephant in the room. I made my first post on February 22nd last year, but this wasn’t the point of conception for it. The blog arose as an idea in my mind that was quite reactionary to the January 6th Storming of the Capital in the United States, and the ripple effect that occurred after it in the Heathen community. I gave this topic only a passing mention, and never a full blog post dedicated to it. That was very intentional. Why should I make the name of a certain questionably dressed “shaman” immortal? What deeds did he do to be worthy of living there in the collective memory? He was no hero and nor was he even Heathen. Best to forget. Here I am 1 year later, finding myself with similar sentiments about the Freedom Convoy here in Canada. I thought about writing about it here several times, but I stayed my hand. I don’t need a reactionary post or to raise up the names of people or groups w...