PaganSquare.com - WitchesAndPagans.com

My companion Tom Newman died of Covid on Friday. His patron god was Heimdall. This is the temporary altar setup I made for a toast to Heimdall and Tom, mostly composed of things from Tom's house and car. The rum had previously been used in last year's Rainbow Season ritual to Heimdall and his mothers.

When I was assembling this, originally I was only going to include the Heimdall coin as a kind of portable Heimdall altar that could go in the assemblage, but the Tyr coin literally leaped out at me. I don't know if that is because of Tom's dedication to justice or if it's because this is so close to Zisasege. That's an Urglaawe holiday but I feel close to Zisa too so although as an Asatruar I don't do the exact same full Zisasege ritual that Urglaawer do I am planning to do a little something for Zisa on the 28th. Zisa is Tyr's wife in Tyr's aspect as Ziu. So, I was opening the boxes to see which one the Heimdall coin was in and when I opened the box containing the Tyr coin it sproinged right out at me, so of course I included it.

I've performed this curse removal spell the same way since I was in college. I didn't have any other heathens to consult with back then so it was designed in a more general pagan way than specifically heathen but I'm not going to change it now after 30 years of doing it the same way. In addition to telling you how I do this spell, including a short video, I'm also writing about why I did the curse removal and what happened after I did it.

I recently did this spell in my companion Tom's house. He's in the hospital and I noticed a string of odd glitches that led me to think there may be bad energy that needed to be dispelled in a more formal way than just gathering up whatever energy was around in my hands and tossing it towards the pyramid light saying "bad vibes away!" like I usually do.

It's my longstanding gnosis, which begun as novel gnosis but was later confirmed in the current universe, that the goddess Hel likes blue agave. Thus, tequila. Thus, mojitos.

A mojito is made of tequila, mint leaves, sugar syrup, and lime juice. In the summer season, I have fresh mint in the garden, so I pick it fresh. I usually put in some flavored sweetened syrup instead of simple syrup that is only made of sugar and water. One of my favorites is elderflower tonic, which I also use for vodka cocktails. Hel doesn't seem to care what else is in the tequila as long as it's Patron. Patron the drink is a pun on patron god, and was novel gnosis from my unpublished novel Some Say Fire. I didn't realize until much later that it was more than a symbolic pun and she actually does like it, but if you have a different relationship with that goddess you might toast her with a different kind.

Asatru is one of the paths that includes ancestors among the beings we honor. That doesn't always have to be one's own personal literal biological ancestors, as explored in a prior post. However, many heathens go in for genealogy, and for those who have done so and hit a wall, or for adoptees and others who don't know anything about their ancestors, the corner where modern science and capitalism meet has provided home DNA tests.

My brother has extensively traced our family genealogy and uncovered some interesting things, but there was one mystery the paperwork could not answer for us. We had been told that we were part Cherokee. The summer after I graduated from college, which was about a year after my father died, I went looking for my Cherokee roots and drove across the country, all the way from California to the Qualla Boundary reservation in North Carolina. I utterly failed to connect to the land spirits, the people, or even the artifacts in the museum. I went camping nearby in the Great Smoky Mountains and did not connect to the land there either. I tried looking for records, and whether I approached via writing or in person, I hit a wall of silence everywhere I went. I tried to connect spiritually, and decided that was not the path for me. I had already been following a heathen path at that point, but that was about when I found a local California Asatru organization, and when I went there I felt right at home, welcome and connected, so I was affirmed on my path. But the unsolved mystery of the elusive Cherokee ancestors stayed in the back of my mind.

If you are blind or visually impaired, or just prefer audiobooks to print or ebooks, there are links at the end of this post for your use. I have a limited number of free codes for the audiobook of my new book Asatru: A Beginner's Guide to the Heathen Path, and I would like to give them to readers of my blog who are blind. I am also giving these codes to the blind in my forum, the Asatru Facebook Forum, and on my social media. These codes will all be gone after this month, August 2020.

Here is a link to my new book on Audible. Right now Audible is giving away free copies of my book when you sign up for a 30 day trial of Audible.

Here are some more questions and answers about my new book Asatru: A Beginner's Guide to the Heathen Path, and about me and my other books and projects. This book is the ONLY official, authorized new version of my out-of-print book Asatru For Beginners.

With that out of the way, here are some more of the questions and answers. Part 1 of this 2 part series ran last weekend.

The only official, authorized new version of my book Asatru For Beginners is my new book Asatru: A Beginner's Guide to the Heathen Path. It was published on the 1st of this month by Weiser Books. The upcoming book announced on Facebook by Mathias Nordvig last Sunday titled Asatru For Beginners: A Modern Heathen's Guide to the Ancient Northern Way is NOT my book. I don't know the man, he is not my heir or apprentice, and his book is not my book's successor. Do not be confused.The only successor to my out-of-print book is my new book.

Look for my name, Erin Lale, to be sure you're getting a genuine Erin Lale book. My name is a brand. Erin Lale is a brand you know and trust. I've earned it over the past 2 decades since I first published Asatru For Beginners. Here follows a more detailed timeline for those interested in more of the story.