1) Drop in, Turn On and Tune In--Get those TVs on!
Corporate America in conjunction with the federal government is
working tirelessly to assure that its citizens has direct and immediate
access to the most important information regarding how unAmerican
foreigners tend to act, what new upgrades to the antiquated US
Constitution are in the works, and what the newest styles are on
Wal-Marts racks.
2) Trust corporate America. It and the federal government
have only the interest of their supporters in mind. Neither of
them will steer you wrong. Money is no object. Like China,
maintaining the health and placation/ platitude of the American
serf is of primary concern in policy-making.
3) Try to emulate Papa Doc Bush in attitude and dress---even the
nuances in his quaint use of the American language. Remember
thinking is for a class lower than us like dirty doctors of philosophy
and historians. Papa Doc is the only Doc for us!
4) Support corporate America: Wal-Mart, McDonald's,
Time-Warner, Microsoft--they are the true representatives of the
American ideal.
5) Participate in your communities by supporting real education/
indoctination of your children (see #1 above); support your local TAPS
and Search-and-Seizure chapters; above all, give generously to the IRS
(the Federal Reserve is still one cut above Wal-Mart as a fine,
privately owned, international business).
6) Display national pride by dressing in the finest uniforms that
our Wal-Marts have to offer.
7) Support the New America by starting up your ¨Hearings of
the Committee of UnAmerican Activities¨ in your
community---remember ¨All foreigners are unAmerican!¨
8) Vote, vote, vote! The USA still has the finest single
party system in the entire world. Don't worry about voting
on laws and bills, though. Those will be handled by those
who make them up and do not necessarily need our interference.
9) If you are Ásatrú, tell the spákona off.
. . .she's probably taking should-be-illegal drugs like
ayahuasca or
Amanita muscaria anyways.
This next piece is a freebie. Feel free to copy
it, steal it, adhere to it, whatever. This seiðman is personally
tired of all the organizations, the petty bickering, and the constant flaming
that one gets to see between members of the Ásatrú community.
The upshot is the same as what my dad always said, "If you really wanna
see how important you are, just go to someone else's house and try ordering
HIS dog around."
The Ásatrú Folk Manifestocan be found at this link. I did it up as a *.pdf.
There has been an interesting reaction to the Manifesto; folks still seem to want reincarnation, magic circles, the 8-fold wiccan year. The Seiðman doesn't really care. It's just not Ásatrú, that's all. It's nordic wicca.
Wicca is interesting in that it is a philosophy that can be overlaid with a 'culture' to produce a tradition. If that is what one wants, fine. Just not Ásatrú, that's all.
The Ásatrú Folk want cleaned up Ásatrú in their households. Get it together, folks. Leave the Dungeons and Dragons fantasy Volkswagen behind!
Here we are once again at Yule Tide!
This is by far one of the most confusing times of year
for those of us who are Ásatrú especially if we have come
to this northern religion by other routes such as New Age, Wicca or Christianity!
We are inundated by "Put the Christ back in Christmas!" on every street
corner while the New Age booksection at every 3rd grocery store is having
a hay-day with the solstice. What a confusing thingand to put the
icing on the cake many of us poor Ásatrú folk are lead away
from the meaning of Yule by well-meaning Ása-newbies.
Seiðfolk find this time of year particularly exciting
because the month of Yule was obviously designed around our particular
talents: it is the feast of the dead and ghosts are everywhere!
The idea of the solstice doesn't occur in any of our Lore
(unless one wishes to consider Llewellyn Booksdial 1-800-THE-MOON
the current holder of northern Germanic wisdom). Sure, one can bring
up the old thing about New Grange or some of the other sun-circles, but
always keep in mind that we didn't build them, the pre-Celtics (whoever
they were) did.
We have customs, but they don't usually involve outdoor
night activities because that time was reserved for the dead. The eve of
modern Christmas is still considered to be the "most dangerous night of
the year" for many Germanic people and culturally related groups. It is
generally considered unhealthy to travel alone on the Yule nights because,
again, the nights belong to the dead. Turning one's coat wrong side out,
traveling in groups, or wearing some other form of protection is apropos.
Bonfires should be reserved until the conclusion of the Yule season. Better
it is to have the fires in the houses (in fireplaces) preferably with friends
and family gathered. Feasts are very good for accomplishing this.
Remembering the dead by leaving offerings is appropriate
especially if the offerings are left during the shrunken day-light hours.
Seiðmen (and seiðwomen) are aware of the need to include the dead
into our daily lives for it is through the dead that we have received and
will continue to receive our luck.
Another custom which we have lost is the procession of
the Yule Mothers which is a form of "trick-or-treating." The procession
varied somewhat from place to place but usually involved a group of youths
or young women dressed up and disguised with masks. Blessings were trades
for offerings made by the local farmers in the form of drink and food.
Caroling, masking, trick-or-treating, and visits from St. Nick und der
Krampus or Sinter Klaas en Svarte Piet are all variations on the same theme.
Yule could be considered a "fire-festival" as some have
speculated, I suppose. The real reason for the fire, though, was that it
was a gathering point for the family or community and it is fire that protects
our community from the evils that the forgotten dead can lay upon us such
as plagues of pneumonias, flus, viral infections and other plagues/ epidemics
which are not easily forgotten: Black Plague, blights on crops, droughts,
floods, perhaps even Mad-Cow Disease. In some places bonfires were lit
with oakum to drive away the malicious ghosts that would do harm. In other
places, wood is soaked with tar for the same purpose.
Yule is a season during which we as community-members
must figure out some way of bringing honor to the dead and leave them offerings
in remembrance: the luck of our communities depend on it. It is a holiday
of lights and fires in the night, of families gathered together remembering
the old times of Yule times past and the looking forward to the next Season.
Oh, it's OK to toss the solstice thing in there, too.
A quaint coincidence, I suppose, that it occurs at the same time but fairly
meaningless when one considers that there are 4 more months of hard snows
and in some places the winter is just beginning to build up a head of steam.
I prefer to think of it as the most special nights of the year when the
dead annually return to their homes for their gifts of remembrance. That's
about the only thing that Christians finally got right:
"Oh, Holy Night!"
Seiðfolk are, in one sense, what the noaide is
to the Sami or what the szaman is to the Tungus, but, in another sense,
they are their own. Seiðfolk have their own cosmology and customs for
navigating the realms of their ecstasy.
I am a seiðman.
We, the seiðfolk, belong to the culture of the
northern Germanic peoples. Our role is different than the noaide's, the
szaman's, and the New Age shamanic practitioner's. We follow the code of
ethics suggested by the Hávamál which does not necessarily
match neatly with the 20th century neo-shaman's sense of rightness. Our
heritage is of the northern Germanic peoples.
If you do "totem-animals" or visualize fylgja
as a Heathen guardian angel, if you believe that your chosen patron God
or Goddess is going to carry you "home" after you kick off just because
you've been a good little Heathen, or if you're fond of Norse astrology,
Norse Wicca, or Norse tarot, this may not really be your chosen site. We
seiðfolk do what we do because we have no choice! It is what we have
been dealt by the Nornir. We don't "seethe" because it might be "fun,"
we "seethe" because we must!
What Makes a Seiðman "Seethe"
Anyway?
Moderns have interesting conceptions
of what constitutes a seiðman or seiðkona. Some
think that anyone who dreams is seething; some think that since they've
been to a weekend workshop, or have read a book on shamanism, they are
seething. There is always the ubiquitous seer of the "cute" elves
or the jötnar at the local blót. Just what is it that
constitutes a seiðman and differentiates him or her from the
rest of the folk?
Now understand, I am much biased here.
I remain a practical seiðman and dislike silliness and pretense.
I am coming fast into ½ century on this Midgard and a full ¼
century as Ásatrú (beginning several years before there was
such an official term). I've seen Wicca grow out of cocoon in the
1960's. I've watched folks go through Castaneda, LSD, Native American
Church, phony white Native American, Tibetan, Hare Krishna, UFO, and Angel
phases, and, indeed, I've done a share of it myself. I am well aware
of what new fads are out there. I know, for example, how many people
join up with "the local Kindred" and know exactly "why." There is
a place for everybody in our Northern Way of Life and that includes the
Ring of Trothers and the Ásatrú Folk Assembly (respectively,
the left and right wings of our way of life). We are even able to
handle those who profess atheism to a good degree (mainly because we don't
have so much a religion but a way of life and a fellowship). But
just who is a seiðman? And why?
Part of the fascinating thing about
adopting the Northern Way of Life is that for each kind of person there
is a specific way to relate to the rest of the world---each has a specific role. The seiðmen, however, are those who have squandered their personal luck to a great degree but who are now supported by the ghosts who surround them--sort of like the living dead on welfare. We are of that group who have exhausted our
possibilities as human beings and now live with one foot in either world-the
World of the Living and the World of the Dead. Many of us lived our
lives in fear. Too scared to live and too scared to 'off' ourselves.
The spirits (as opposed to Gods) came to us to cut a deal: we do pretty
much what they tell us and they allow us to continue half-living on Midgard.
Schizophrenics, bag-ladies, and autistic people are also offered pretty
much the same deal with the exception that we are able to interact
freely in both worlds while they have a difficult time with Midgard.
People think that we have power or wisdom or secret knowledge. We
don't. We are like custodians in a library; we know where to look
for answers but only after we have been given directions on where to find
them. We get to participate but have lost all chance at becoming
the leader.
Somewhere along the line, we seiðfolk have all screwed up our
lives to the point where we can no longer function under our own power.
We function only as a part of a team made up of people and ghosts.
This is why we don't really "lead" the seiðr session because
we can't.
We are just the earthly representative of a team
of players. This is the very thing which differentiates us
from the wannabes.
-
A wannabe voluntarily does a "guided visualization,"
I get yanked out of space and time by a gang of ghosts who are not always
pleasant.
-
A wannabe can pay for a weekend workshop to learn
how to "journey," I get "taken" (whether I feel like it or not).
-
A wannabe can "journey" for a specific reason, I only
know where I'm going after I'm informed by the rest of the team.
But seiðr does sound like a "cool" thing
to do; I'm not surprised it's a fad.
Oðin is a great mentor for us.
He hanged himself dead, and then was given a gift by the spirits to take
back. Think about it, O ye Wannabes! Oðin offed himself,
committed suicide, not to get the runes, you silly geese, to die!
He gave it ALL up! This is not what a wannabe does.
A wannabe only takes himself out of commission only until he snags
up a piece of information and then runs in with it, waving, "See? I can
do seiðr, too!" No, my friend, the seiðman
is a dead man who walks on Midgard among men, the one who gave it
ALL up. (In my own personal case, it was squandered rather
than given, however.) That is the reason we are called "disgusting"
or "perverted." Some of us even had to sacrifice dignity to do what
we do. This is our luck.
How do we know that our luck is as
a Seiðman? The question never comes up. We have
no other luck. There are great people who follow the Nordische Überlieferung:
there are scientists, artists, teachers, entertainers, poets, thinkers,
and doers. They have things that they can offer their community.
We do not. We have exhausted our futures. We are the seiðfolk.
LINKS TO OTHER SITES:
If you are interested in Ásatrú as a religion,
here are some sites which are good and have a large number of links to
other sites:
(For the most part these sites are fairly "no fluff"
sites.)
-
The Irminsul Page
This has some info about seiðr (and also my wedding announcement).
-
Virtually Virtual Iceland
Well, Old Norsenet can no longer be found. Here's a pleasant site though.
Just kind of scoot around in it and enjoy!
-
James Arthur has certainly done some interesting research. I've been following his site for a couple of years now. This guy knows the Red Man, I suppose, as well as I do. If you like the site, read the book--definitely worth owning!
-
Tired of reading 'crap'
about Ásatrú? This is a great book, especially after
the 3rd time through!
-
The Ásatrúlore BulletinBoard
Good heathenry, good conversation instead of the tired, old BS common to email-lists. Good chance to try real heathenry!
-
Folk Tradition from the
Orkneys. Ásatrú, though not the "official state religion,"
is still a viable philosophy of life in the Orkneys. A wonderful site but
it requires Java to navigate. Hang out here a while!
Here's a seiðr site:
If you wish to correspond with me, please feel free to place a private entry into the guestbook with your email address. I'll handle it from there.
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