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.
Make Your Own Myths
I invite you to write your own myths, and to write your own versions of the ancient myths. Interpet them how you wish, in the way the resonates with you. Write completely new mythology that speaks to your experience in your real life the way that myths about grain harvest spoke to ancient farmers. But also make new translations of the old myths, and new personal versions of them, and opposite versions like fractured fairytales.
If you speak other languages, make translations of untranslated works. Instead of translating a work in Old Norse that has been translated a dozen times, how about a work in Old Saxon other than Beowulf? Any other work in Old West Germanic? How about works in modern German which are new academic papers? Works in Latin? Works in obscure dialects?
Translate a familiar myth not to another version in another book but into a stage performance, a song, a tapestry, a dance, a perfume, a vehicle. Find the inner voice that flows into your art.
Some of these ideas are experiences I've had and can recommend. My unpublishable behemoth Some Say Fire was a retelling of the entire corpus of heathen mythology from the point of view of Loki telling the story to a recently dead woman during Ragnarok. It was a healing journey that changed my life.
Although less significant to my personal sanity and religious experience, I can also recommend retelling myths out loud as a stage performance. So far I've done one about the story of Heimdall retrieving Freya's necklace as a coming of age story, and one about Freya having her necklace made as a story of initiation. I've been invited to do a presentation on Asatru at the Sin City Witches Samhain Soiree; as part of my presentation I plan to retell the story of Thor losing and regaining his hammer as a story of a man getting in touch with his feminine side to become a more complete man.
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In addition to the 2024 Samhain Soiree, I'm also going to appear at Las Vegas Pagan Pride 2024. I'll be teaching a short 15 minute class on runic orthography, called Rune Shapes. They will have an author table and I'll also be hanging out at the author table part of the time. (I'm physically unable to stay awake all day so I can only attend the event for a few hours.) Below is a list of my upcoming public appearances both online and offline.
Fall 2024 events:
Sept 1st, appearance on The Bard's Archive.
I'll be weaving and talking about fiber art as it relates to the goddesses and Asatru.
Tune in to the Bard's Archive to watch on this link: https://www.youtube.com/@thebardsarchive5487
Watch my prior appearance, in which weaving came up while the main topic was the Heathen Visibility Project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp-ZKnHlmG4
Samhain Soiree
Sat. Oct. 19, 6pm
Jackpot Bar & Grill, 4485 S. Jones St., Las Vegas, NV.
Event starts at 6pm, I'm not sure when I'm doing my presentation. Organized by Sin City Witches.
My presentation will be a 30 minute presentation about Asatru, which will include the story of Thor's Wedding, aka when Thor got his hammer back.
Pagan Pride Day
Sat. Nov. 16, 10am-5pm
Paradise Park, 4775 McLeod Dr., Las Vegas, NV.
I'm not sure yet what time I'm doing the rune presentation, I'll announce it on this blog when I have the info.
My presentation will be a 15 minute presentation on runic orthography called Rune Shapes.
Comments
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Wednesday, 04 December 2024
Anthony, wow, that's awesome! I love it! You should publish it.
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It's taken me a while to finish writing this, but I accept your challenge to write a new myth of my own. Here goes:
Narfi & Nari
I write of Narfi and Nari the sons of Sigyn and Loki. I tell you now that the twins loved magic and were forever curious about it's application. The boys eagerly learned all that their parents Sigyn and Loki would teach them.
When Sigyn went to visit with her foster father Njord and foster sister Freya she would take the twins with her. The boys would show off the magic they had learned. Njord taught them rhymes for smooth sailing, to calm rough seas, and to spot false measures. Freya taught them Seidr.
When Loki took the boys to visit their grandmother Laufey they showed what they had learned to her. She in turn taught them the lore of the giants. Sometimes Jord the mother of Thor and father of Frigg would be visiting with her. Jord taught the boys that they didn't have to choose either male or female form when they shape changed, but that they could be both at the same time.
The twins loved magic for it's own sake, and studied with whoever would teach them. They learned witchcraft from Vitholf; warlockry from Vilmeith, and soothsaying from Svarthofthi. If you ask the three who dwell above in shadow: Vitholf, Vilmeith, and Svarthothi if the twins were good students they will tell you, "Oh yes, Nari and Narfi were very good students indeed."
The twins loved magic and traveled throughout Scandinavia practicing their are and teaching what they knew to friends and lovers along the way. Nor did they limit their travels to Scandinavia alone. They traveled north to Lapland, East to Finland, South to Germany, and south west to England and Ireland. Everywhere they went they learned the magics of the people they visited and shared the magics that they knew.
Wherever they went their soothsaying would reveal that one day Nari would be disemboweled. Realizing that they could not avoid that fate they sought to find a way for Nari to survive. Their soothsaying revealed that they should consult Eir the beset of physicians. So together with their mother Sigyn they went to see the goddess Eir and find out if she knew a way for Nari to survive disembowelment.
Eir did not have such a treatment at that time, but she was intrigued by the idea of healing such a would. So, she asked the boys to stay with her for nine months and help her search for a treatment.
The boys agreed and together they worked as Eir's assistants researching all kinds of cures and treatments. After nine months they found a way to use the intestines of a living pig to substitute for those lost by the patient, but the process also required a potion of nine herbs to be taken every day for five months. Less than that and the patients body would reject the pig graft. Longer than that and the herbs would poison the patient.
The fated day arrived. Nari's intestines were ripped out and used to bind his father Loki. Eir and Sigyn were ready and carried away Nari's body. The treatment worked. Even though Nari now carries the sobriquet of pig-guts Nari it is altogether a small price to pay for being alive.
What of Narfi you might ask. How did he fair?
An experienced shape changer himself Narfi was shocked at being forced into the shape of a wolf by someone else. He ran all the way to Svartalfheim where he wrestled with the curse for three months before he regained the ability to shift at his own will.
Furious at the Asgardians for what they had done to him and his brother he aided Christian missionaries throughout Germany, Scandinavia and the British Isles to spread their faith. When the priests and monks lost the ability to perform miracles of their own he left them behind to teach the poor, the desperate and the pious the ways of magic.
The brothers reunited on America's underground railroad. They've been working together on again, off again ever since aiding their students, lovers and children to relearn and develop their magic.