Gnosis Diary: Life as a Heathen

My personal experiences, including religious and spiritual experiences, community interaction, general heathenry, and modern life on my heathen path, which is Asatru.

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Erin Lale

Erin Lale

Erin Lale is the author of Asatru For Beginners, and the updated, longer version of her book, Asatru: A Beginner's Guide to the Heathen Path. Erin has been a gythia since 1989. She was the editor and publisher of Berserkrgangr Magazine, and is admin/ owner of the Asatru Facebook Forum. She also writes science fiction and poetry, ran for public office, is a dyer and fiber artist, was acquisitions editor at a small press, and founded the Heathen Visibility Project.

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In the recent Loki series on TV, Marvel-Loki says "I can rewrite the story." He's talking about controlling time, alternate timelines and universes, and time travel. Comics fans are now calling him God of Stories, a title he had in the comics. 

Asa-Loki never held that title, but was certainly a driver of stories, being central to the plot of many myths. He makes change happen.

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Sometimes we are influenced by writers without even reading them. I recently found out about early influences on me from writers my family knew. As I discussed in Writing and Writers part 1, with the story of the carob being an influence on Snorri's version of the Baldur tale, second hand or third hand influence can have a big impact. 

After I blogged about Honoring the Bear, I posted a link with some commentary on the Official Animal Spirit Beings Thread in my discussion group, the Asatru Facebook Forum. In my blog post, I mentioned that when I studied the martial art Shaolin Sho Shu Kung Fu Way of the Beast as a teenager I had learned an exercise to connect to the seven beasts of martial arts and had once seen myself in the mirror as a giant mantis, which had frightened me at the time. I had also connected with other beasts, including cat and bear.

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Tolkien once wrote in a letter to his son that he was "a Hwiccian (of Wychwood) on both sides."*

Curious words, are they not? My mind generated an entire alternate universe in which Tolkien was the granddaddy of Fam-Trad Witches, and all the things in our culture that would be different if it were so.

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Blessing at Pagan Pride Day 2023

At Pagan Pride Day 2023, I gave a speech about Asatru, signed my book Asatru: A Beginner's Guide to the Heathen Path, and conducted a Rainbow Season offering to Heimdall and a Blessing of the Veterans. It was a wonderful day, and I'm happy to relive it by sharing this report with you.

After 4 years, Las Vegas Pagan Pride Day returned! Just like last time in 2019, it was held on Veterans' Day in Paradise Park, and included a Veterans' Blessing. Last time the Rev. Selena Fox did the blessing. This time it was me. I am deeply honored to have been asked to do this. It was very fulfilling, and I had a great time at the ritual.

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Honoring the Bear Spirit

I wanted to honor the bear spirit this year. As long time readers of this blog may remember, Odin activated my bear to protect me from dangerous spirits. I wanted to honor my bear specifically and also the great bear spirit generally. My housemate also had a relationship with a bear spirit, and of course there are various gods and goddesses with bear forms, and I wanted to honor them as well. 

I happened to have an unusual opportunity to have access to fresh salmon through an online grocery outlet box company. I ordered enough for the whole kindred to have one small piece each during ritual. As it happened, a household with a lot of members had illness, and other households were otherwise unavailable, so we had an overly authentic Bear Day because only those who live here showed up and we ended up eating all the salmon, berries, and honey ourselves. Bear Day turned into Bear Weekend as we stuffed ourselves with salmon until I didn't want to see another fish until next year. I got way too in touch with my inner bear and was definitely ready to hibernate afterwards.

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Community Experiences Fall 2023

From kindred holidays to the return of my local Pagan Pride Day, I've had a lot of community experiences this autumn. It's been awesome and of course I am sharing my fun with my blog readers. 

American Celebration Kindred usually does our fall ritual as Rainbow Season, for two reasons. Firstly in honor of Heimdall, Tom's patron. Secondly, because we live in the Mojave Desert, where summer is the rainy season. After the rain comes the rainbow, so after the rainy season comes the rainbow season. This year we held Zisa Day in September and I did a Rainbow Season ritual at Pagan Pride Day in November. We'll probably return to doing our Rainbow Season ritual in September in other years, but we also try to do a least one or more new rituals each year. Last year my kindred's other gythia Amanda led Haustlong, a traditional autumn ritual, in September. This year we held Zisa Day. 

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My first article for my new Asatru Plus column appears in the latest issue of Witches & Pagans Magazine. I think readers of my blog and book will enjoy my column, and vice versa. My blog Gnosis Diary focuses on gnosis and on my personal experiences, while the column will focus on practical information for readers to use. 

My first column is about honoring the powers associated with the days of the week. After a brief introduction about my new column, I talk about the heathen gods and powers of the days of the week, and the 7 day heathen ritual cycle. The powers are Sunnna on Sunday, Mani on Monday, Tyr on Tuesday, Odin on Wednesday, Thor on Thursday, Freya on Friday, and then there is Bath Day. The old name for Saturday was Laugrdagr which means Bath Day or Wash Day. Why 6 major powers and bathing? Find out in my column! 

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