PaganSquare


PaganSquare is a community blog space where Pagans can discuss topics relevant to the life and spiritual practice of all Pagans.

  • Home
    Home This is where you can find all the blog posts throughout the site.
  • Tags
    Tags Displays a list of tags that have been used in the blog.
  • Bloggers
    Bloggers Search for your favorite blogger from this site.
  • Login
    Login Login form
Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in Heathen

Posted by on in Paths Blogs

Picture the Platonic ideal of a cloud. Is it oval, white and fluffy? Set against a blue sky? Pretty, static, happy in a mild and calm way? Or did you imagine a thundercloud squirting rain and lightning and booms and rainbows and wind in all directions, wild and raw? Starting wildfires and putting them out? Fertilizing the earth, growing crops, and also flooding them, knocking them over, sheeting them with ice?

We are not always talking about the same ideal when we picture something as natural and observable as a cloud. How much more nebulous-- how much cloudier, as it were-- is the picture when we talk about such a thing as masculinity, in toxic and non-toxic flavors? Or any other quality that is socially constructed?

...
Last modified on

Posted by on in Paths Blogs
Smell the Flowers

There is always something good somewhere, even in hard times, even in hard lives. "Stop to smell the flowers" has become a cliche, but we said it so much because it's useful.

In Taoist and Buddhist traditions they have the concept of the yin and yang, which are depicted always having a tiny spot of their opposite inside. Like the good in Darth Vader (lol, sorry, I'm such a geek I couldn't resist.) Heathen philosophy doesn't put this concept so starkly in a visual symbol, but in our mythology the entire universe was generated out of the dynamic combination of two opposites, the runes fehu (primal fire) and isa (primal ice.) So everything we see around us is both matter and energy, both power and pattern, both potential and the universal laws of physics that make potential reach its physically manifested form.

...
Last modified on

My new book Asatru: A Beginner's Guide to the Heathen Path is now available for preorder. It is scheduled to be published in August, and preorders will turn into live orders automatically when the book goes live.

I'm really excited about my new book! Of course I won't be able to go to as many in-person events as I had hoped. Any festivals and so forth I miss out on this year I hope to be able to get to when they reopen. I'll just have to plan on a post-pandemic belated book tour.

...
Last modified on
Asatru FAQ: What's With That Dude Snorri?
Oh, Snorri. OK, the first thing to understand is that he was a Christian writing down heathen stories. He was both trying to preserve his ancestors' dying culture AND trying to stamp it not only with his true believer Christian convert religious views but ALSO his pro- King of Norway political views.

Secondly, he was writing specifically for other poets, to explain the stories behind kennings, which were essential code for court poets of the time period. Basically poetry of this time read like "Grimnir at TEnagra, his arms wide" or some stuff like that. The point of Snorri's writing was a decoding manual.
 
The Prose Edda is NOT to be treated like an inerrant Bible.
 
***
 
Announcement:
My upcoming book Asatru: A Beginner's Guide to the Heathen Path now has preorder links!
 
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Asatru-Beginners-Guide-Heathen-Path/dp/1578637023/

Barnes and Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/asatru-erin-lale/1135232720

IndieBound (independent bookstores)
https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781578637027
 
Image: drinking horn, photo by Erin Lale
 
Last modified on

Posted by on in Paths Blogs

In planning my kindred’s Ostara ritual for this year, which we canceled, I ran across an interesting association with similarly named dawn goddesses. The goddess Ostara may be older than we think.

...
Last modified on
Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Anthony Gresham
    Anthony Gresham says #
    I remember Deep Space 9 sufficiently to get the analogy.
  • Erin Lale
    Erin Lale says #
    Anthony, glad it was clear!

Posted by on in Paths Blogs
Berserker Way

My paper on Bersarkrgangr recently published in Enheduanna Journal #3 was based on a lifetime of learning. It includes an analysis of the raw data from the reader survey I conducted via Bersarkrgangr Magazine. The raw data had been published in Bersarkrgangr Magazine in the 90s but the analysis had never been published before, so finally seeing it in print brought both excitement and relief.

I had a work in progress version of this paper on academia dot edu but it was not edited and did not have the citations. Enheduanna's editor helped me organize my paper, and greatly improved it thereby.

...
Last modified on

Posted by on in Paths Blogs

Asatru: A Beginner's Guide to the Heathen Path is the updated, longer version of my out-of-print book Asatru For Beginners. It's scheduled to be published next summer. It now has a preorder link for both Kindle and paperback editions.

New and improved! Now with more gods!

...
Last modified on

Additional information