Hearthside

On Canada Day, the city of Winnipeg put on a drone show instead of fireworks this year. This was a great idea for many reasons. First of all, it is less loud for pets and people with sensory issues. Secondly, Canada is having a particularly bad wildfire year and it is not a good idea to poke the bear. The last reason is that the drone show allowed a unique opportunity to tell a story, and the story chosen was a retelling of Indigenous star lore. Everyone was captivated as the stories of the stars came to life in 3D in the sky above them. There were people exclaiming and tearing up. When the show was done people lay, stunned, on the grass, not willing to shake off the spell of the remarkable storytelling. Whoever wrote the story for the drone show, pieced together lots of different stories from Indigenous Star Lore expert, Wilfred Buck, and paired it with the broader Western understanding of the constellations of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. The result was a multi-layered story that broug...

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...

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...

So I finished my last post on Nerthus and Jörð. I had been working at it for over a week but in the end it was one of those pieces that became all-consuming until I finally completed it. The writing took on its own life quite separate from the original direction I had thought I was going with it. With that completed I thought, finally I will get some sleep… And I fell hard, into a dream about the Thunderer in the Proto-Indo-European myths. Perk w unos awoke in my mind, forming a thundercloud that loomed over everything. When I finally pulled myself out of the dream it was past my alarm, and outside the Sky showered the Earth with rain. It is thunderstorm season here. I admit that Thor has been on my mind, since I associate the midsummer blot with Thor. The coming of the storms brings the water needed for the crops in their big growth time before the harvest. There are also the hot and humid summer evenings when all you can do is sit with a cool drink on a patio and tell stories until ...