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Folk dance is ritual. Dances are performed for holidays, weddings, the agricultural cycle, and to bring people together. I’m going to teach folk dance at an upcoming heathen gathering.

At the dawn of agricultural, newly settled villagers who needed to work together on farm tasks danced together to learn how to move as a unit and co-ordinate with each other, and to build team spirit. Those are also some reasons for military marching. There are folk dances that actually are forms of military drill, such as the vari hasapikos, a Greek men’s dance for a four man team, that teaches how to read a leader’s hand signals and follow them in unison.

One of the things people coming from either Wicca or Christianity to Asatru notice is that the idea that the sun god gets resurrected at Yule doesn't fit in our culture, because to heathens the sun is she. Yet, people still try to wedge the sun god into heathenism, and go looking for a sun god, and identify Baldr as a sun god-- correctly! -- and end up trying to celebrate Baldr's resurrection at Yule, although the lore says he won't come back until the after the end of the universe. 

I have novel gnosis on this topic, that is, gnosis that I received while writing my overgrown unpublished novel Some Say Fire. In the Fireverse, powers that are transferred to another host upon the previous host's death always swap to a host of  the opposite gender. Thus, when Baldur died, the sun power was transferred to Sunna, who became the sun goddess. When Baldur's wife Nanna died, the moon power was transferred to Mani, who became the moon god. Like many things in the Fireverse, that's an oversimplification of the process, but has a kernel of truth in it.

What is "the heathen worldview?" That's a topic that comes up on heathen forums regularly. This is my attempt to answer it. 

With so many cultures and time periods to choose from on which to base heathen practice, there are bound to be many differences between various heathen paths. On the old Asatru MSN Group, which I used to manage, I put a welcome message on the landing page that advised newcomers that "there is no Asa-Pope." Today, Asatruars are still quoting it, so it must have resonated with the Asatru community. In other heathen traditions, though, there are central authorities. For example, the various forms of Theod each have a king. Both Asatru and Theod based their leadership structures on historical examples, but from different countries.

Loki borrows Freya's falcon cloak in the story of the Theft of Idunna's Apples. Loki is a shape shifter. In the Eddaic stories, he appears in various forms, including a fly, a seal, etc. In Continental European folklore, he appears as a red fox. It's very likely that he could have turned into a bird without Freya's divine object. For what purpose did he borrow it? It would make sense in the story to borrow it to have a greater flight time, but that would only be the answer if his shape shifting power was limited, and there does not appear to be any evidence for that. So, I think the answer is that he borrowed it to mask as Freya. So that when he flew over Jotunheim, the giants below would not know it was him. 

Freya must have known that Loki intended to mask as her when she lent him the cloak. Freya also once helped Thor mask as her, in the story in which Thor puts on a wedding gown to retrieve his hammer. 

If you actually have a farm and use a real plough, it's traditional to bless the plough right before using it. The date that one would begin using one's plough would be different in different locations. 

Most pagan and heathen groups that celebrate Charming of the Plough on a specific date don't actually use a real plough for anything. Some American Asatru groups celebrate Charming of the Plough on the second day after Twelfth Night, which is January 3rd. Some celebrate it on February 2nd, which is otherwise called Candlemas / Groundhog Day / Imbolc / Imbolg / Brigid's Day. 

My practice of honoring the First Woman started with a weed. A weed is a plant growing where one doesn't want it. 

In June of 2016, I found a four foot tall plant in my tomato bed. Online friends on the Plant Identification group helped me positively identify it as a Siberian Elm, which is not the same species as the American Elm. Siberian Elm is an invasive non-native species, so it had to go. But, it was an elm. Elm is the tree the threefold Odin made the first woman from. Embla was her name, and was also the word for elm. I was unlikely to have an elm sapling again, so I had to make good use of it. I pulled it up roots and all and whittled it into an Embla doll with my pocket knife.

My Northern Lights Goddesses Brew debuted at Yule 2016, but it can be used for any occasion when one wishes to honor the heathen goddesses. It's an extract of herbs in grain alcohol. Because it uses fresh lavender, I can only make it when lavender is blooming in my garden. The grain in the grain alcohol honors Sif, goddess of wheat and corn. The herbs honor other goddesses, as listed below. I first extract and then strain the fresh lavender, which takes between one to three weeks, and then extract the other herbs from commercial tea, which takes about a week. 

Grain for Sif