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Unexpected angering news waited for me on the internet on Sunday. I had been having such a great day. I had finally gotten to see my companion and organize his stuff for him at his care center, after having to just deliver his mail and supplies to the front door of his care center for months, due to pandemic restrictions. While I was clearing out a pile of months' worth of old magazines one of the workers mentioned it had gotten so big it tipped over on the workers a few times, so I suspect they may have allowed me in to organize his space because of that. Regardless, it had been really nice to finally see him in person.

I had come home, tested my blood sugar to see if it was safe to get in the pool before eating, and it was not, so I devoured a home grown pear first. Let me tell you about this pear. It was perfect. Soft, juicy, sweet but not insipidly so, everything a pear should be. I had a nice swim, and then a good lunch, and signed into the net thinking "Oh, I'll just check my messages and then log some work hours in at my new job." (I had recently started a new job on top of my writing career and my home business doing life management / property management, and of course my gythia duties and service to the heathen community but that's volunteer work. I had also recently given up my home business dyeing fabric because of my failing grip strength.) My friends, nothing good ever comes from "Oh, I'll just."

On August 1, book launch day for Asatru: A Beginner's Guide to the Heathen Path, I hosted an online book launch party on my social media instead of having an in-person book launch event. People posted some questions to my social media. Here's an unroll of questions and answers from the event.

Question:
What changed for you, from the beginning to the end of writing this book? How did writing this book change you?

While my state was on Phase 1 lockdown, I did not hold or go to any religious events in person. However, Nevada entered Phase 2 in the beginning of summer, and while online activities helped, I wanted to find a way to hold a kindred event safely. I decided on an entirely outdoor event, and since it reached 114 degrees out during the week I wanted to hold it, that meant holding it in the pool.

Starting with knowing this would be held in the pool, I designed an event around the theme of water. Last year during the Rainbow Season ritual, which honors Heimdall at the end of monsoon season, we had also honored Heimdall's Nine Mothers. I thought it would be appropriate to honor his mothers again this summer, just before the beginning of monsoon season. Heimdall's mothers are called the waves of the sea, and daughters of Aegir. Aegir is one of the gods who is of the Jotun tribe, and sometimes Heimdall's Nine Mothers are seen as mermaids. So I came up with the Mermaid Party.

Today is the day my book goes live! Preorders of the print edition have already been shipping, but August 1st 2020 is my new book's official launch day, so today the ebook edition should be available to download, and print editions should be available in bookstores.

Asatru: A Beginner's Guide to the Heathen Path is the longer, updated version of my out of print classic Asatru For Beginners. The new edition includes recent history in the history chapter, has an expanded section on the gods, includes new scholarship made since the original version of the book first started being sold as an ebook around the turn of the millenium, and includes the new modernist movement in Asatru, covering the differences between traditionalist and modernist Asatru, especially with regards to morals and magic.

When I set out to scatter my mom's ashes in a place with trees in June 2020, butterflies literally guided me to the right place. I was driving along Kyle Canyon Road on Mount Charleston, Nevada, when butterflies started appearing, one after another. A lot of them. So many butterflies! So I pulled off the road. More butterflies appeared after I got out of the car. Different kinds, different colors and sizes.

I looked around: both evergreen and deciduous trees, check. Was there water? I didn't see water, but I saw a line of blooming wildflowers, reds and whites and other colors. That was clearly a dry watercourse. It would be a small creek when it rained or during snowmelt in the spring. In my mind's eye, it was flowing down to the larger river across the other side of the road, through a culvert. The butterflies were all headed in the other direction, though. I followed the dry streambed up to its source. It ended at cliff. There were many interesting rock formations and gnarled tree roots, and more flowers. That was the place. I decided to climb the cliff and scatter the ashes down onto the stream source from the top. I didn't realize it was going to be quite so difficult when I started out; it was loose scree and it grew more vertical toward the top, but toward the top there were also big sturdy tree roots to grab, which would have been easier to manage if I hadn't been carrying a box of ashes, leaving only one hand free. I managed it, though. I looked around up there, waited for a hiker and his dog to pass by (OK I petted the dog,) realized there was an easier way down-- of course! but that was alright. There was a breeze flowing from one side, so I positioned myself carefully to make sure the ashes would float away from me, opened the box and cut up the plastic inside. I spoke some words-- not a formal ritual, nothing actually religious since mom was an atheist, and realized I was smiling as I spoke. I was filled with an odd kind of joy at how perfect everything was. I let the ashes go and they sailed out over the edge and settled on the steep slope of the cliff itself. I was filled with peace.

Yggdrasil is the World-Tree in heathen mythology. It grew by itself in the deeps of time, before the worlds came to be. The worlds are the fruit of its branches. Some art of the World-Tree depicts all nine worlds in the branches, while some depicts the worlds of fire and ice below the Tree with the Tree's roots going down into them. That image references the story of the birth of the universe in which the magically charged void divided into two main powers called fire (energy) and ice (patterns.) The dynamic combination of those two powers gave rise to matter and everything else, including the Tree, the Sacred Cow that woke up the gods and the giants, the Well at the root of the Tree, and all the raw materials from which our world was made.

Throughout most of the retellings in Some Say Fire of the stories collectively known as The Lore, the World-Tree is pretty much as described in the mythology. During the parts of the story that take place during Ragnarok, though, the main human character P sees Yggdrasil from the deck of the Naglfarr, the boat made of nails. She is basically in space, but also in a higher dimension, and the boat is not as it seems. It’s not literally a Viking longship despite how it appears. The view she has of the Tree is meant to be literal within the story, though. And the Tree is rotted in the heart-wood, hollow, and the Well below it is on fire. This shows how messed up everything is, and how much Ragnarok is needed by that point. At that point in the story, someone really needs to push the reset button on the universe and make a new one, because the old one is no longer sustainable.

The Voluspa or Prophecy of the Seeress is one of the stories in the Poetic Edda. It predicts Ragnarok, the end of the world, and the universe, and the gods. Scholars of heathenry note that it bears a strong resemblance to the Book of Revelations in the Christian Bible. Some Asatruars believe in the Prophecy and some don't. Among those who believe in it, some place it in the future as written, and some place it in the past.

The Voluspa is a major plot point in the Fireverse. Early on, Odin receives this Prophecy and writes it down and it’s in a book in his library. He spends a lot of time and effort trying to make the next universe come out right, and he tries to follow the Prophecy, embracing prophecy rather than trying to change it. A lot of his actions result from his desire to make the next universe better than this one and set up things in this universe that will result in a better starting place for the next one. Loki reads this book while he’s still a young god and is horrified, but eventually he accepts his role and the necessity of what will happen. He has a chance to derail the prophecy by leaving Asgard before the binding takes place, but he chooses not to, because by that point in the story he has accepted Odin’s viewpoint that the events described in the Prophecy are necessary to make the next universe come out right.He remains in Asgard knowing he will eventually be bound.