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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Heathen Visibility Project 2021 Year in Review

Posted by on in Paths Blogs

2021 was a challenging year for the Heathen Visibility Project for two reasons. One, adapting to the pandemic, and two, some of our symbols started the year with some bad PR.

This was the year that some heathen symbols were brought to the negative attention of the public on the body of a man who was not heathen, whom heathens referred to variously as Horned Hat Man and Mr. Fur-Brains. The event came soon after the publication of my article Heathen Vs. Hate in Witches and Pagans Magazine, which was still on newsstands at the time, so I was able to tell the public via my social media where to look for info on heathen symbols. Rolling Stone Magazine painted all heathen symbols as hate symbols but after an uproar by the public (including me and my forum members) and by organizations such as the UK Police Pagan Association, they corrected their article, although they did not publicly issue a formal retraction.

For at least part of the year in most places, as in 2020, it was difficult to take Project photos of heathen gatherings and rituals because there were no large gatherings due to the continued pandemic. Nonetheless, many people continued to make and publish Heathen Visibility Project photos and other images. New people joined the Project and started making and tagging images. New Project image creator to follow: https://twitter.com/angeshilling and her landtaking video: youtu.be/x6LtfEIIRgs

My kindred, American Celebration Kindred, was able to resume a lot of our normal activities starting in June, although we did try to do as much of our ritual outdoors as possible. In the summer, that often meant holding ritual in the pool. We took Project photos, and that was the source of the mermaid series. We got some images at the Sin City Witches Halloween Soiree this year too (see prior post Witches Party in Vegas.)

In addition to taking some new photos, I created new Project images by photomanipulation of pre-pandemic photos to make them appear like watercolor paintings. I did the same to some more recent photos after we resumed normal activities in Nevada in June of 2021. As always, my Project images are available for editorial use for any media, journalist, news outlet, etc. to illustrate writing about Asatru, Heathenry, and related topics via a standard creative commons license. You can view and download both my photos and my photomanipulation watercolor Heathen Visibility Project images on my Deviantart on this link: https://www.deviantart.com/erinlale/gallery/64184335/heathenvisibility

The Heathen Visibility Project was mentioned in my blog post Marker with Thorshammer, which was about my companion Tom getting a marker with the Thorshammer on it at the local Veterans' Cemetery. He was a big supporter of the Project in life and he is going on representing Asatru now in death.

 A Yuletide Heathen Visibility Project photo shoot is planned for later this month. Results will be posted.

Image: a new Project image of myself I created this year, 2021, by manipulating a photo of me taken at a Pagan Pride Day in 2019 before the pandemic started.

 

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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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