SOME THOUGHTS OF A BEGINNER 

I haven’t been on this spiritual path for very long, some 5 months or so at the time of writing. So some may feel with justification that it would be somewhat presumptuous for a “newbie” to write something about our faith. However, several recent articles in Sunwheel got me to thinking about the problems that can face a newcomer to the faith.

I think different problems would face different people depending on the background they came from because of the baggage that background would bring. For myself it started many years ago with a general dissatisfaction with the mainstream religious and spiritual approaches. They didn’t answer my questions, at least not to my own satisfaction; they also didn’t fit with my world-view.  There was also dissatisfaction with the current material culture and its obsessions with celebrity and wealth (although I suspect these are certainly not new obsessions) and the fickleness and transitory nature of modern thinking.  Then there was the wasteful and destructive use of nature and the “commoditising” of the natural world. Sadly the list is seemingly endless!  In a nutshell there seemed to be no awe or respect for the sacredness of nature.

To cut a long and tedious story short the catalyst occurred after we moved house a couple of years back and gained our first garden. Big Plans were hatched – with the aid of beer needless to say! – without any thought to the backbreaking work involved. It was through working in the garden that I felt closer to the natural world. And digging is a great aid to thinking, I find.

One thing led to another and I started investigating the various pagan belief systems. I was soon drawn to the heathen path. It helped that I had a life-long interest in Anglo-Saxon and Viking subjects. I thought about it for a long while and everything about the faith seemed right.

The first thing to do, I decided, was to dust off the Sagas and Eddas sitting on my bookshelves and start reading and re-reading them. I analysed them, read “between the lines”, I even got some Old Icelandic versions and attempted translating them (in what can only be described as a completely amateurish manner and hopelessly inaccurate). These gave me a useful grounding and, along with history books, helped form an idea of the cosmology of the Nine Worlds and our place within it.

It is here that it would be easy to fall into what I see as traps, especially if one is over eager and a little incautious.  The first trap would be the temptation to escape and hide in the past, pretending somehow that the past was a better place. Well, generally it wasn’t.  The past can offer important lessons for those willing to listen and learn (except politicians obviously). It can teach us many things about who we are, individually and as a nation. It can tell us what we are and, potentially, where we are going.  But it would be a mistake to try and live in that past, to somehow try and recapture that past.  We don’t belong there (even it we wish we did).  It is not our world and we are not those people.  We are too saturated with the modern world and the centuries of history that have passed.  But we can work with the past to make the present a better place, both spiritually and materially.

One of the things I considered was whether to get hold of a drinking horn, sword, cloak and all the other paraphernalia which can be purchased.  And the temptation was high.  After some thought I decided not to.  In the end I couldn’t see the point of it.  To my mind it seemed to be an (understandable) attempt to escape to the past and deny the present.  Our ancestors would have used contemporary items, unless they were lucky enough to have been handed down heirlooms. In some cases they would have used whatever came to hand.  I couldn’t see how it mattered what we used – the intent and meaning were the important things, not the utensils.  I could see that I ran the risk of letting the items, be it idol, sword or horn become more important than the meaning behind it.   Also, I’m not terribly keen on dressing up!

The other trap I could see myself falling into was thinking that because these things are written in the Eddas and Sagas then those works would somehow become “holy writ”. It seemed to me that this would be a mistake.  The world and society they were composed in has gone.  I shan’t enter into the arguments about whether they represent an authentic account or whether they are too tainted with Christianity to be of much use.  The important thing it seemed was how they related to my world, not theirs. I do believe it is important to study as much as we can to gain an insight into their world – a world that shaped the beliefs and ultimately the Eddas, but it is important to remember that the academic is not necessarily the spiritual.

An academic understanding of our faith is I believe an important part and should be encouraged, even if this does throw up the occasional controversy and a few things we may not like. Even these controversies are good for us. I personally think it is healthy for us to question things, including our own faith and motivations, as this gives us a closer picture of who we are and where we are.

From early on one of the great advantages our faith has, I saw, over the more mainstream religions was that we didn’t rely on a Holy Writ or Canon of Authorised books nor did we rely on a central figure or organisation as our authority. Because of this I see that our faith can be flexible, it can evolve with time and move with the times, unlike the fossilised dogma of some faiths. Our faith can stay fresh and relevant for any age.  In this sense it is a living faith.  With a written dogma the problem lies in the fact that once something has been committed to paper it then becomes inflexible and, as time passes, less relevant.  In effect it stagnates. Whereas our faith, because it isn’t reliant on a central authority figure or Canon, can encompass the latest astrophysical discoveries, or the Big Bang, Evolution, Quantum theory or any others because there is no contradiction with a written source.

Another thing that separates our faith from the mainstream religions is that because we have a collection of stories and not a Canon we can look upon those stories as just stories and not in a literal sense. They can teach us important lessons in an allegorical manner without us getting bogged down in arguments about whether archæology or history can prove it or not.

So far my spiritual journey was proceeding sedately but up to this point it was more an academic and intellectual pursuit.  The question was hot to put it into practice.  How to make it a living faith for myself?  I wasn’t sure how to go about this so the first thing I did was to start meditating, to see what happened.

In time I would meet the gods and other beings. I learnt about the wights in my home and in my neighbourhood – in the woods, fields and streams.  Some meetings were straightforward and easy to understand, and others were enigmatic to the point of being incredibly irritating.  Some I still have no idea what they were about!  Through meditation I have gained further insight into the faith that would not have been gained through books or intellect alone.

One of the things I wondered was how do I know what I am experiencing in a meditation is real?  How do I know it isn’t just a part of my brain conjuring up these images up?  I could only answer myself this way – I could touch, smell and see. All my senses were working. I could feel the wind in my hair and smell the grass on the ground.  I was shown things and told things I have never seen, never thought about and never imagined.  I was shown things that completely contradicted how I saw the world.  To me, it was as real as typing this article.  I really walked over those fields; I really did sup mead with my ancestors.  I have no doubt at all that is a real experience.  Science may say differently but these things are beyond the scope of science.  People want the world to work just as we label it, as I did once, but the world doesn’t work like that, no matter how much we want it to, or how many labels we attach to it for our convenience.

The interesting thing is how my perception of the world has changed.  I didn’t even notice that perception changing. It must have been a subtle transformation.  My world-view, once so science-based and “rational” has shifted 180°.  I have completely re-evaluated my core beliefs and attitudes and have made some radical changes in how I approach things, but in the main it has happened without any conscious input from me.  As much as it is a worn-out, tired old cliché, it is like a homecoming. It is where I belong and it satisfies my spiritual needs.

There are quite a number of confusing issues one encounters when beginning this faith.  The gods are one of them. Some pagan paths see the gods as merely different aspect of the God and Goddess. Others see them as a form of cosmic energy to which we attach different names. Others say they don’t exist and are just archetypes invented by the human mind.  As naïve as it seems (and I make no apologies for it!) but I truly believe that our gods (and other beings) independently exist in their own right.  It makes sense to me. Whereas the idea that they are merely reflections of the God and Goddess or even of a single all-powerful God just doesn’t add up. Our gods do exist, maybe not in this universe or dimension, but they have life.

Nothing, it seems, is straightforward or simple when starting on this path. Even the concept of a soul is complicated with different definitions from different people. Add to that the idea of Wyrd and Orlög, along with the Norns and their place in the scheme of things.  Where does Wyrd come from?  For someone new to the faith it can be a confusing time trying to figure out these things.

Also if one is coming from a Christian background of absolutes and a black and white view of the world, this faith is full of enigmas. Who created the fundamental building blocks from which the gods, giants and the world were created?  It is never revealed who is responsible for all this. What place does evil have when there is no devil-figure to blame?

Then there is Ragnarök.  Some say that we face our own Ragnarök many times in our lives. Others say it is real and perhaps hints at a coming nuclear war or something similar, perhaps an environmental disaster.  Yet others say it is just a late attempt to counter Christianities influence by creating a parallel to Armageddon and it has no place in our faith in reality.  I haven’t really made up my mind about Ragnarök yet, although I believe the story around it is symbolic and perhaps not meant to be taken literally. I have a sneaky feeling that Ragnarök may be a real event in some unspecified future (far off I hope), but this feeling is based on nothing more than gut-feeling (and one or two dropped hints during meditation) and I wouldn’t put any money on it!

Of course one of the big problems is that we have an incomplete picture of how our ancestors would have worshipped, especially in the UK.  The main source of information about the heathen period in the UK is from place-name evidence. The archæological record is open to interpretation and there is no Germanic contemporary written evidence. It makes it difficult to judge exactly what was believed. We have to rely on later Christian writings for our information.

I suspect different areas would have had different ways of approaching their faith. Perhaps in some areas more emphasis would have been placed on the wights and in others certain gods or goddesses.  The gods make for good stories but would they have been as relevant to the ordinary people as the wights whom they would have had closer contact with?

Another problem that can face the newcomer is what is considered heathen and what isn’t? Some things are obviously alien, but other things aren’t so clear-cut. What if you are drawn to witchcraft as well? Not Wicca but what I suppose some might call hedge-witchcraft?  Where do we draw the line between those things that are obviously rooted in the pre-Christian northern world and those that are more ambiguous?  Are some of the things I do in the spirit of the faith? Does it actually matter?

Our ancestors were a pragmatic lot and probably did whatever it took to survive. We have the luxury of not having to do these things to survive and can probably afford to be pickier. I have seen arguments about Seidhr work and runic yoga, whatever that is, and to a newcomer it can be confusing. To a newcomer, like myself, some of the arguments take on a dogmatic and inflexible feeling. The worry I have is if we add provisos and rules limiting our faith, do we risk becoming as dogmatic as those faiths with a Holy Canon?

I can understand the desire and the need not to flood our faith with obvious alien influences, because this might drown out our unique faith and it will become indistinguishable from the others. I guess it’s about balance and making sure that any new ideas are in harmony with the existing ethos of the faith.

Another contentious area seemed to be what we call ourselves.  Are we heathen? Odinist? Asatru? To a newcomer this can be very confusing, or at least it was to me. I tend to say I’m heathen, not for any good reason other than it is a term I was familiar with from history books. I could equally and with good reason call myself an Odinist, and perhaps with time I will. But the term heathen is what I am comfortable with at the moment.

In conclusion our faith can be a seemingly perilous journey to a newcomer, with as many opinions as people. I was buffeted this way and that when researching various subjects and sometimes I felt like screaming in frustration! In the end I think the best thing a newcomer can do is take on board the different opinions, weigh them up and see if they sit comfortably or not.  A newcomer could do worse than meditate on all areas of the faith and see what answers come.

Sometimes it is difficult to express exactly what the problems are to a newcomer because, as a newcomer, one can’t be sure how to phrase things or what questions to ask. 

As time passes some of the things I believed at the beginning have altered and transformed into different and new ideas. It is an ongoing process and one I am enjoying immensely. One of the aspects of this faith I like is the fact that there are widely held opinions and in the main these are respected, even if they are different to my own or someone else’s.  It seems to me that each of our faiths is as individual to us as the hairs on our head.  We interpret our faith in ways that make sense to our own internal world-view.

My opinions on the gods, on wyrd, on the runes, on all things will no doubt mature, change and transform over the coming years, possibly in directions I can’t dream of.  I may even dress up in Anglo-Saxon or Viking gear, although I wouldn’t hold my breath.

The one thing I am sure of - I’ll still be learning and trying to make sense of some things to the day I join my ancestors!