#heathenasceticism

[kinfriday]

All Hallows

The scents of autumn drift upon the air. The wind has changed, and with it a chill, as if in herald to the coming season.

The rains have blessedly returned, and for the first time since last spring I can hear the creek bubbling down the way, racing towards the river.

Trees, bedecked in their fiery splendor, beckon in fond farewell, for they shall soon sleep through the winter, as the evergreen, ever stalwart, keep sentry.

It is a time of reflections, and transitions. In many traditions this is the moment where old business should be concluded. The very definition of harvest being to reap the work done in the previous year, all the while we prepare for the cold months ahead. Memento Mori... Remember death, reflected in coming winter, in every meal, at every moment of our life, death walks beside us. It is an ever present and often ignored companion, but not in this season. This is the season of reaping, and in many western cultures, death is imagined as a reaper, with robe and scythe, harvesting souls like we mortal harvest wheat and corn. It is the cycle, life and death must both exist. The fear of death comes in the perception that death is an ending, but I have found that death is a threshold, which inspires a love in me of this current holiday, and sparks reflection on my own path, this way I'm trying to build. Memento Mori... Remember you will die. That makes it quite personal. One day this body of mine will end, but it's not the end of my journey. That death is the threshold for the next journey. Remembering that I will come to an autumn in this life, and then the winter, reminds me that I will one day cross that far horizon, then, my spirit will come to a new spring. Death is a transition, not a stopping. The trees shed their leaves in fall, and seem to lose all life, but a spark of it persists within, ready to explode out in all the grandeur and hope of life in spring. For every night there is a dawn, and in that, I see reason for discipline, reason for moments of quiet reflection. Today, two days before the 31st, I've taken up the task of fasting. Today I will eat nothing, I will feel hunger, endure the winter. In truth, my stomach is already rumbling five hours into my day. At multiple times I have found myself standing in front of the snack cabinet, eager for a pretzel or some peanut. But not today... Memento Mori... It's time to do the hard thing.. It reminds me, this discipline, that I am more than just a body, that I am not enslaved to its wants, that I am in control, but there's something more. Through denial I am learning of the boundaries between my spirit and the mortal coil that it drives. I feel the edges of my own being, contained within this life that is mine for but a season. By facing my small winter, my chosen winter now for a day... maybe two, I prepare myself for the times when I may have less. I show myself that I can survive with less, that it's ok to do without for a time. It reminds me also that so many in our world do not have this choice. They experience hunger without choice, that I am incredibly privileged for everything I have and with those privileges come responsibilities, not the least of which is to honor all the good I've been given. But on Monday, I will feast, and celebrate. I will enjoy every good thing, spend time with family, and offer mead to the Gods... These two aspects exist in balance, one to the other, life and death, winter and spring, and in honoring both sides, I feel I honor the spirit of the autumn. It is both a time to look forward, and back. It is liminal, and we, each are liminal beings. A blessed All Hallows to all. May the Gods grant you a good harvest and an easy winter. -Rebecca Snow Hare

#Heathenasceticism #Anglo saxon heathenery #germanic paganism #asatru #troth #halloween #all hallows eve #memento mori #fall 2022 #autumn #The Way of the Hare #neopaganism #samhain #otherkin #therian #heathen #heathenry

[kinfriday]

The Tip of the Spear

  Setting the water to its coldest setting, I start the time on my watch. Soon enough the icy blast is hitting me, chilling me to the bone, as the seconds tick down.  

At first, I cringe, every muscle contracts but then something curious happens. I relax. Though we run off of well water, and our pipes are just below the frost line, making the water especially icy in winter... I’ve been here daily for months.  

Once I let go, and come to a place of acceptance it’s like the cold isn’t even there at all. It’s just water as the time ticks down.  

This is part of my ascetic path, something I’ve incorporated into my days after finding through research that cold water exposure can help with norepinephrine release, energy recovery, and metabolic activity.

Far from being an act of masochism, I’m doing it instead so that I can improve, perform better, recover faster from my runs, but I’ve also found a hidden benefit that I wasn’t fully aware of before.  

By embracing hardship and doing the hard thing I’m working my self-discipline like a muscle. I’m choosing this to be a stronger better version of myself, and that choice is active.  

And this is part of being an ascetic.  

It’s reasonable to ask what place ascetic actions, rigorous routines, and self-denial have upon the heathen path, but I need look no further than the Gods to find my answer.  

Woden hung from sacred Yggdrasil to achieve the Runes, and later gave an eye for wisdom.  

Tyr sacrificed his hand to bind Fenrir, and even the legend of Valhalla bears out this hidden truth.  

The greatest warriors that fall upon the battlefield are taken to a place where they can train, and sacrifice, for time immemorial until the moment of Ragnarök where they will give their all one last time before going to their ultimate end. 

Not even death is enough to take a true warrior from their duty.  

Time and time again when you read the tales, the greatest achievements of the heroes and Gods within come from the relentless pursuit of goals, a sacrifice, or the immediate denial of self, and all too often we see them fail when they give in to the more indulgent or negative aspects of their nature. 

Loki, God of Chaos, is sometimes referred to as the wildfire, and what is an aspect of wildfire? An utter lack of restraint.  

The Gods left us these tales, full of their victories and foibles so we could learn from their triumphs, and their mistakes, and it is in between those verses that I’ve come to understand my own path and why I feel I’m called to it. Even though we have no archeological or direct evidence that anything like an ascetic or monastic culture was a part of the old ways.  

The old ways are not meant to be a straight jacket, or an anchor but a guide. The Gods left us the tales we have as lessons. In their wisdom and love for us they freely admit their past foibles, show their victories, and leave us with a picture of a culture that was in some ways very much like our own, and in others quite different and alien.  

The old ways had their time only to pass away, as all things will. Still there is an eternity to ideas, to the Gods and to the spirits of all things, and just as the Old Ways found their winter, they have come to a new spring in us.     Once again, the old tales inspire a new generation, to take up new missions, to honor the Gods that never left, only cycled, and with that generation comes new eyes, new interpretations, new understandings of old truths that let them shine all the brighter.  

And so, in the example of the Gods and the Ancestors that have gone on before, I choose discipline, I choose to do the hard thing, to not just speak of my ways, but to do my best to embody them. There was no central liturgy, no priestly class that worked from a central dogma to enforce an ideological milieu over the whole of the germanic peoples. Instead it was a lived tradition, a way of thinking, and a way of life.  

This was all encouraged by individual mystics, and small groups from community to community, enabling the expression of those lived traditions and the understanding of Gods to promulgate in disparate ways forming a kaleidoscope of belief.  

It is in this spirit that I find the calling to my path. Through hardship and rigor, I find myself better prepared for the challenges in my life. I find myself more able to endure the challenge when life demands of me more than I want to give, but I also find a comfort in the rigors. They have become anchor points, defining elements of my days, the drumbeats of this strange mercurial dance we call a mortal life.

And in this I find kinship with my Elder Kindred, a way to relate to the Gods through the chasing of my path. Woden was the God of Wisdom before he hung from Yggdrasil, before he gave his eye, yet this fact did not stop him from choosing those actions. Tyr was the God of Honor and justice, ever willing to sacrifice  before he let Fenrir take his hand. Though the task was painful, and risky it did not keep him from doing the hard thing.  

The Gods are defined by their aspects because of repeated and endless dedication to their deeds, come what may, no matter how often they failed and I, though not their equal, but inspired by their example, find a similar purpose on the ascetic path.  

-Sister Snow Hare (First time using that... Embrace the cringe!)  

#heathenry #heathen #heathen asceticism #otherkin #therian #ascetic #Heathenasceticism #asatru #troth #The Way of the Hare #neopaganism #germanic paganism #stoicism #embrace the suck #embrace the cringe #discipline #do the hard thing

[kinfriday]

Failure State

22:15 and a gentle chime begins, each tone dripping like liquid light, falling like rain upon my unconscious state.

Sitting up on my mat, I wipe at my eyes, and put away my pillow and blanket in their cabinet, slide my mat against the wall, recite my creed, and set to my morning plank and wake up exercise. It's time to start the day. With that done, still on autopilot, I wander towards the bathroom, wash my face and would normally prep for the gym, but for the last week there has been no gym.

My knee is injured, it hurts to run, and I need to let it recover...but every day that I rest feels like failure, and that break in my routine leads to a cascade.

I'm not managing my stress as well without my daily workout, which leads to stress eating, another failure state. Certainly life is a balance, spring and summer give way to fall and winter, light and dark must both exist, all of these things I've repeated endlessly, spoken about, written about, chanted as if a mantra, but when it comes to me, well, I'm the exception aren't I?

I'm supposed to do, wake up, follow the program, go and go and go... This is my rhythm... I like my rhythm, it helps me feel whole, and complete, it keeps me from thinking that I'm squandering my time here. It lets me retort against the ticking clock.

I'm doing my best. I'm doing it for my Lady. I'm doing to be ready for whatever comes. As it turns out, life has ways of reminding me that I'm not the exception, and with the rigidity I often cling to comes a fragility. When I shatter, I fall into shame, and self hatred. I judge myself for falling out of pattern until I inevitably recover, and the cycle repeats.

And is that being an ascetic? Is that truly honoring Her? Is that really me doing what I can to be ready for what comes? Is that serving others or helping me on my path?

No... there can be no progress without rest, without taking time to understand.

Sometimes I have to let go if I want to keep going.

Why is a powerful question. This last week or so, when things have gone off the rails, when I've hit the pretzels a little to hard, I've asked myself... why? I've tried to understand, to look beyond the surface and understand the motivations for these habits and these challenges that I have.

With understanding, comes strategy, growth, and ways to overcome even the most ingrained processes.

Self Hatred, in and of itself, is a distraction, and a thief. It robs us of our forward motion, it robs us of learning, pulling us from the lessons that we're meant to learn while chaining us down with guilt and recrimination. There is nothing to be done about yesterday, those choices have been made. Whether a good choice, or a bad choice, there are now only the consequences of it, and the learning from it... but self hatred turns it into an anchor instead of a lesson. So as I move down this ascetic path I have embraced, ironically, part of the path is accepting that I will fail, sometimes over and over again.

It is the struggle that is the way.

#heathenry #heathen #heathen asceticism #otherkin #therian #ascetic #Heathenasceticism #asatru #troth #The Way of the Hare #neopaganism #germanic paganism #Youtube

[kinfriday]

Grim

As consciousness caught, I was warm and comfortable on my sleeping mat. Cocooned in my sleeping quilt, the world still felt far away.  

Still, it was time to get up, and get going. With a deep breath I threw off my quilt only for 26 degree air to hit me.  

“Oh dear Gods!” That certainly woke me up. Clutching my quilt, laying back down immediately, my eyes focused on the frozen condensation clinging to the top of my tent.  

What followed was a five minute pep up session.  

“You have to do this, It's resupply day. It’s not going to get any easier waiting here, just a few minutes of discomfort, then its oatmeal time and you’ll be rolling.”  

There was nothing to do, no way of getting rapidly warm, there was only facing and ultimately accepting the cold.  

This was what I signed up for hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. Scorching hot days in the Mojave, then frigidly cold mornings in the High Sierras.  

The world did not care that we were heading into June, it still found cause to be freezing. 

Later on that morning, I’d lose feeling in my index finger and thumbs, and with that numbness, a loss of the ability to open and close them. It was miserable, my coldest day, no matter the gear I had, or the preparations I had made to be ready for those conditions.  

My circulation is poor, I’m deeply affected by the cold and that was just another reality to face.  

And how did the PCT end up for me? Did I ultimately make it to the Northern Terminus? 

I didn’t...  

Right at the Washington border, with about a month left to go, a severe injury took me off the trail and sidelined me for four months.  

Another goal missed, after countless work, countless dollars, and endless hours of effort.  

Life is often like that, I’ve found. When you have a goal, there’s two ways it can go, success or failure. Some people are great are finding success, other people are more like me and often on the struggle bus.  

No matter what though, failure is the base state, it’s the resting condition. Success is an active process, it must be perpetuated and maintained, which, in our world of entropy means that success will always degrade into failure.  

Seems grim doesn’t it? Eventually you will get too old, too hurt, too sick, too burnt out, and the routine will fly off the rails, destroying the heady idea that your current motion will carry you on through whatever challenge.  

Maybe it will, for a little while, but inevitably the cart will slow, come to a stop, and often roll back against the inevitable incline that you’ve encountered.  

We will all encounter these moments, and this is where many people will give up. It’s a natural result of the process. You get knocked down hard enough, or enough times, and it can entirely reshape your world and focus.  

I know this because I’ve been there many times, I’ve not just been knocked down, there have been moments where my entire world has burned to ashes, incinerating everything I ever thought I knew about myself, or the world before me, leaving me with nothing to do but start again.  

Eventually, at least in my case, there’s a question that begins to float like a demon in my head, one I’ve given far too much power too in the past.  

Why try at all? If it all ultimately comes to nothing, if I’m just going to fail, like I always fail, what’s the point in the effort? Relax, grab the pretzels, curl up in your chair and wait for the bus. Why do the work, when you can just coast. No ones going to blame you. Hell no one is even going to care much.  

Define nihilism, yet it’s an unavoidable point, isn’t it? Memento Mori.... I could be the most successful person on earth, hit every goal I’ve ever tried to achieve and still, at the end, there’s ol’ Death. They make no exceptions for champions or losers, coming for us all.  

But what was the reason for the goal? What was the point of the effort beyond reaching it? Something motivated me to try, to work hard, to set out from the Mexican border and go for it, even knowing that up to 60% don’t make it for whatever reason.  

Something motivates me to get back on that treadmill too, no matter how many times my knees or hips give out, sidelining me for a week or longer.  

Something keeps me coming back again and again, even though every routine I have eventually flies apart and burns before me and that’s what I call my “why.” 

The Why is what transcends success or failure, it’s greater than me, it’s the point of me. It’s the reason I am.  

It does not ultimately matter that injury took me off the trail, or that since I hit a peak in 2020, I haven’t been able to get anywhere near that peak again.... yet.  

Deep down, there’s a focus beyond myself, there’s a purpose, and we all have one.  

That’s our why, and that’s what you need to get back up, again and again when the world, or circumstance pushes you down, because it’s not tied to your emotions, your motivations, your passion, it’s tied to who you are.  

Nihilism can't touch it, because it is pure meaning, unassailable in the face of the abyss.

It is far better to live the life you want than the lie you are given, because to live the life you want, to chase that purpose, is to honor the core of who you are, and no matter how it goes, to chase that is a success that many will never find, no matter how you have failed, because that’s what it means to be real.  

#heathenasceticism #heathenry #anglosaxonpagan #anglosaxonheathenery #asceticism #wanderingascetic #neopaganism #neopagan #therianthropy #therian #otherkin #theway of the hare #troth #discipline #asatru #hope #calling #beingbetter #pacific crest trail #thru hiking #failure #success

[kinfriday]

Ritual Radical

One of the factors that allowed Christianity to spread so rapidly across Europe was a result of a unified liturgy.  

While there were local derivations, and debates on dates, such as with the Celtic and British churches, there was an overall trend of homogeneity not seen in heathen traditions.  

By and large this made Christianity a type of modular faith, with ready snap ins to infiltrate new cultures, allowing them to assimilate those cultures into their fold. Whereas with the old ways different villages, regions and even families might have different traditions, or venerate Gods at different levels (For some Tyr was the head of the pantheon, others Woden, for instance.) With Christianity elements of faith had a much more rigid structure, which combined with evangelical zeal allowed it to spread.  

Within our modern times in western culture these liturgical traditions have gone to effect me at a deep level. It was after all what I was raised with, having spent many years as an evangelical fundamentalist, ultimately pursuing a degree in the ministry.  

You would not have recognized me twenty years ago. 

This has translated into modern neopagan practice as many of us are converts from Christian paths. We take our cultural traditions of prayer and formalized worship with us and reinterpret and reincorporate them in new ways.  

Yet for all my ascetic ways, and liturgical history, I get very little out of formal ritual.  

Every day, on wake up, I kneel before my altar and recite my vows, my creed, and a daily prayer to the Gods ancestors and spirits. This, along with meditation is about the closest I come to a formal practice. Offerings are not made at these times, rather, I make daily offerings of my favorite things. If I have a banana I give the Gods my favorite quarter, my daily apple, I give three slices, for the Gods, the Ancestors and the House/Landvaetir.  

While these are ritualized actions, they are not exactly the same as the formal high day rituals, the traditional blots and symbels that are normally seen within the germanic traditions.  

This is one of the reasons I’ve remained quite solitary in my practice over the years and remain a type of strange outlier in heathen communities, because a core element of the faith is about community. Still, I’ve always been an introvert, and something of a hermit. It’s difficult, nigh impossible for me to feel any connection to the divine in ritual gatherings, to the point where I feel as if I’m going through the motions, yet my heart and spirit are not connecting at all.  

However, when I recite my creed, utter my vows, and make my daily offerings that have become so normal it is almost casual...there is a connection there.  

“I present these offerings to you, My Gods, to the Ancestors, and to the Spirits of nature, earth and place. I’m thinking about you.”  

It’s dirt simple, but also honest and real for me. It’s how I experience the divine.  

This has led to existential crises in the past, as I’ve wondered if I’m on the right path, or if my faith is valid compared to other Heathens. Like everything in my life, I seem to have to do it my own way to function, which is why I’ve found great comfort in the diversity in the ways of our spiritual ancestors.  

Everything was different depending on where you went from funerary customs, to what ritual structures we’ve been able to devise. Far from having an overall homogenous structure, it is the heterogeneity that grants me comfort.  

The point of ritual, I feel, in all of its many variations and ways is akin to tuning a radio. The systems, routines, smells, sounds, and experience, position the spirit to encounter the divine but everyone’s spiritual radio is a little different which means there will always be outliers like me.  

This is something that the ancient ways seemed to account for well.  

This is where we get to heart of the matter. Our traditions are lived traditions where we seek to connect with the spiritual world around us. It is not about the forgiveness of sins committed, perfect obedience, or the following of a program.  

Our Gods call us to be ourselves, to boldly forge our own paths in life, and I think this does come all the way down to how we worship and approach them.  

We know we are doing it right when we come into a space where we can encounter them, no matter if that occurs in a high day ritual or a simple morning devotional.  

It is our path to wander, and our journey to discover.  

-Sister Snow Hare  

#heathenasceticism #heathenry #anglosaxonpagan #anglosaxonheathenery #asceticism #wanderingascetic #neopaganism #neopagan #therianthropy #therian #otherkin #thewayofthe hare #troth #discipline #asatru #hope #calling #Ancestors #history #modernage #beingbetter #Tyr #Odin #Ritual #High Days #devotion #devotional #Heathen Community