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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Oops I Accidentally Led a Bardic Circle

I attended virtual Trothmoot even though I'm not a Troth member for two reasons. Firstly because they not only got rid of their Loki ban but were having an official Loki blot (ritual), and secondly because they were making their festival / convention available online. Both of those are things I want to encourage.

Trothmoot was 3 days of rituals, workshops, and virtual fire circle chatting. I had technical difficulties several times, and was pretty overwhelmed by the end, but overall it was a very positive experience.

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No, Disney Isn't Trying to Own the Norse God Loki

verybody calm down about the Redbubble incident. This is all over the net at the speed of clickbait but it is a false alarm. An artist on Redbubble made a comics based cosplay item, tagged it with the name Loki, and Redbubble removed it. Disney did not do or say anything, and as of this writing, has not made any official statements about this incident. The artist YourBoswell took to social media telling people that because the issue was the name Loki that Disney could have gotten heathen sacred art removed, but that is not what happened. The art was based on Marvel comics and it was not even Disney that took it down.

Disney has never gone after other entertainment providers with different versions of Loki such as Neil Gaiman, and if they did they would lose, since Loki and the other beings in heathen mythology are in the public domain. They certainly are not going to go after the state religion of Iceland for having the name Loki on their website, because they know if they did they would lose. They would lose just as hard if they went after an individual Asatruar or other Heathen in the USA for making devotional art or books about the god Loki, and they surely know that. Somewhere out there, I'm sure there is a lawyer salivating at the idea of arguing a 1st Amendment freedom of religion case before the Supreme Court against Disney, but this is not that case.

I know the whole "Disney steals the god Loki" story sounds plausible, because Disney did actually try to claim the phrase Dia de los Muertos before public outcry shut them down, so they have shown they are ready to be cultural appropriators if they think there is profit in it. And if they ever do try to claim ownership of medieval books and their contents and the names of the gods within them, or any other thing that properly belongs to the entire world and should always be freely available to everyone, then we should indeed fight them on that. But that's not what is happening right now.

Image: Idunna giving Loki an apple, public domain art

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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Erin Lale
    Erin Lale says #
    You're welcome! Redbubble has apparently gone after more than one artist that Disney has no problem with themselves, according to
  • Anthony Gresham
    Anthony Gresham says #
    Thank you for the update. Disney doing something stupid is something people have grown to expect. It's nice to know that trying

Posted by on in Paths Blogs
Midsummer Mermaid

For our Midsummer ritual, gythia Amanda, first of my lineage, surprised me by planning her first blot and bringing her mermaid tail, and so we did mermaid blessings in my swimming pool in the name of the Nine Mothers. We had been talking about doing a mermaid ritual for a couple of years but hadn't made specific plans to do one for Midsummer, so it was a delightful surprise for me. She and her husband also brought a Swedish Midsummer Cake and it was delicious.

The Nine Mothers of Heimdall are the waves of the sea, the daughters of Aegir. In my kindred we honor them as mermaids. My late companion Tom was a devotee of Heimdall. Amanda was already performing as a mermaid at Renfaire and Pirate Fest and so on before she joined our little kindred. So a mermaid blessing ritual was right in line with the powers our kindred honors.

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I'm a virtual panelist on the Polytheist Authors panel talking about representation of pagan and heathen gods and cultures in science fiction at the convention Imaginarium 2021 in July. It's a hybrid con with both virtual and physical attendance.
 
I was invited to be a panelist by a publisher who knows me for my book reviews in addition to my fiction and poetry. I'll be talking about science fiction novels, movies, and short stories by other authors, and hopefully I'll also talk about my sf universe, Time Yarns, a bit too.
 
Due to the debut of the new Loki series, social media is full of talk about the Marvel versions of Loki and other heathen gods. We'll undoubtedly talk about that on the panel, too, although I haven't seen the new series yet, since it's on a subscription channel. One new tech expense at a time! I will be debuting my new ability to make video calls at this virtual panel.
 
Here's the link to the convention: https://www.entertheimaginarium.com/
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This is a question posed to me on Facebook. Here's my answer: Excellent question (puts on professor glasses. stretches fingers.) So.

In the Stone Age there were these people called the Battle Axe People. They had double headed axes. Knapped from stone. Tools, not massive weapons, and so not really that big. OK so picture those. Now fast forward to the Viking Age.

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  • Victoria
    Victoria says #
    Also likely a personified thunder god or connection between thunder and the hammer/axe existed during the Battle Axe culture/Boat

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Wishbone folk magic conjures up memories of holiday turkeys. Chickens have wishbones too, though, and the other day I found one. Traditionally, two people break a wishbone together. Each person grabs one of the sides, they make their wishes, and on a signal, they pull at the same time. Whoever ends up with the connector piece gets their wish. So what happens when I'm alone in the house when I find a wishbone?

I thought about drying it for later use. I was not sure if that would work, though, since finding the wishbone while eating was part of the magic. Just like finding a bay leaf in the stew or finding a prize in a king cake, finding is part of what makes it folk magic and not just regular magic.

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  • Anthony Gresham
    Anthony Gresham says #
    This reminded me of a wishbone spell I read in "Hex and Spellwork" by Karl Herr on page 109, but for that you need some red yarn,

Posted by on in Paths Blogs

As I rejoin humanity after a little over a year going slowly feral in my home and generally only speaking to gods and my cat, I find I've developed a habit that I need to break. OK I exaggerated about the aloneness a bit, I did briefly a housemate a couple of times, but still. And I also spoke to the dead a lot. Anyway. The habit is: making grand hand gestures. And I don't mean pouring Grand Marnier.

I only realized how exaggerated my gestures in response to my silent thoughts have become when I accidentally waved my hands around like some kind of Jedi in front of another human, lol. OK not so lol and writing lol is also a bad habit, brought on by excessive social media usage. Now that I can socialize in person again I need to try to get away from that too.

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