PaganSquare.com - WitchesAndPagans.com

In the news: Accused criminal brings up Odinism as a defense. 

This post is a summary of recent media coverage of terms of interest to Asatru, Heathen, and Pagan readers. These terms include Odinism, Norse Paganism, Asatru, Heathenism, Runes, Odin, and other terms. One source only mentions Odinism and Runes, the two terms used by the accused criminal.  Another source also mentions other Heathen and Pagan religions, pointing out that Odinism is condemned by other Heathen religions.

Recently, it occurred to me that when I speak with the gods, and they speak back to me, they are using my brain to communicate with me, so they use whatever they find in my brain. I speak to them in my native language, English, and they speak back in English. Or, they might speak in symbols with which I am familiar, and therefore may understand. They speak in the sounds, sights, and smells that have meaning for me. For example, I might see an animal I associate with a specific god, such as a butterfly for Sigyn. The gods don't really need to communicate with signs, since I have time set aside every day for communication with them. But they send them sometimes anyway, because it brings me joy, awe, and wonder.

Daily ritual anchors the gods in my life each day. There are rituals meant to be unique and only done once and there are rituals meant to be the same every time, and both have value. My small daily rituals are meant to be similar to each other every time. 

I happened on a scientific paper saying that believing in or sensing the spirit in an "object" was abnormal. How sad it must be to live in a world full of dead things, where everything is inanimate. Worse to evangelize it and say animist religion and fairy tales are pathological.

Animist religion is not something from the dusty past. Many modern religions have animist components, not only modern revivals of pagan and heathen religions, but continuous religions too.

Both online and in person, having friends, groups, kindreds, forums, communities, and events specific to Asatru and Heathenry can be important for modern heathens. It's also great to meet up with other heathens at pagan events such as Pagan Pride Day, festivals, events sponsored by bookstores, etc., and at non-religious events that have local pagan or heathen groups participating such as local renfaires, heritage days, etc.

Some events and groups have returned to in-person gatherings even though the pandemic is not over. Some groups, events, and individuals have decided to stick with online participation, which opens up events to international, disabled, people who can't take the entire time off work, and others besides those avoiding communicable diseases. Some groups and events do online only or online plus in-person options. 

We've come a long way. There's more to do, but let's take a moment and look back at how well we've already done. We should be encouraged, because things we thought would be hard or impossible turned out to be doable and we did them. That means we can do other things. I'm not even talking about magic but of course if you want to do magic to save the Earth, of course do that too! It's almost like we're all superheroes, yes? Saving the world and all. Here's how I started thinking about this recently. 

Recently there has been quite a bit of rain at my house. We had an unusually wet winter and spring this year and it looks like we might have a wet summer too, which is very welcome here in the desert. Several different times in the same week, rain fell from what looked like a sunny sky, or from a cloud that looked wispy and not like a raincloud. I photographed the rain edge phenomenon and posted it on my social media. As usual, every time it rained, I lifted a toast to Thor, mostly with coffee. One time when it was raining, after I made my toast, I asked Thor if there was anything I should be doing. He said he wanted me to convey his message to humanity again, and I said I would relay his message again, and so, here it is once more: save the Earth, his mother, and especially avoid the GMO wheat and corn, for the sake of his wife Sif. 

“Old trees, wild trees.” That’s something Treebeard the Ent says in Lord of the Rings. And it’s what excited me about trying new tea varieties. Or rather, old kinds—very old. Just ones I had not tried. 

I heard about the tea varietal Purple Joy on social media. A fellow tea lover posted his experience trying a wild tea, that is, a tea from wild trees. I had to try it too. Purple Joy is a black tea, and the purveyor Tea-Side also has wild green, oolong, and white tea, so I ordered one of each. I’ve seen photos of tea farming before and the tea plants looked like the clipped shrubbery in the knot gardens of English castles, laid out in mathematically precise rows, but the photos on Tea-Side’s website were pictures of huge individual trees, growing as they will in a jungle of random other plants. They looked a bit Entish. 

White daturas open gradually as the long summer evening deepens. Their scent blends with the scents of the perfume ritual. Gigantic sphinx moths hover like hummingbirds as they pollinate the humongous flowers. The perfumes take you on a journey, a journey to the Old West, as it exists in the dream plane where iconic figures like the Gunfighter come forth to guide you on a quest that is just as queer as it needs to be. 

A smell-o-story is a really original idea. Science fiction novels and movies have portrayed characters experiencing smell-o-vision movies, but they have not delivered the experience to the reader or viewer. Smoke and Silver by author / perfumer Derin Deschain of Cherry-Ka’s Trunk actually delivers that experience.