DubhGhaill – Page 6 – Elhaz Ablaze

Western Martial Arts Part One

November 25, 2009May 31, 2008 by DubhGhaill

I love Martial Arts.

Learning any true Martial Art is a cathartic experience. Realistic training is, by necessity, brutally hard and un-avoidably somewhat dangerous. It takes Courage to keep coming back to the gym day after day, week after week and year after year. It takes Discipline to maintain your composure while being punched in the face or crushed into the mat.

The Virtues that you develop through Martial Arts tend to spill over into other areas of your life. To endure the training you need to stay in shape, watch what you eat and control your drinking. The physical confidence that you develop begins to show through in your speech and posture and bearing.

Martial Arts training is the ideal form of Yoga for Heathenism.

The only problem is that most people think of Martial Arts as being something Oriental. This update has been planned as the first in a series celebrating the value of the misunderstood and often forgotten Western Martial Arts, a group of disciplines every bit as profound, transformative and as combat-effective as their oriental cousins.

Clint

The Expanded Pantheon

November 25, 2009May 30, 2008 by DubhGhaill

I believe in all the Gods.

Odin, Loki, Freya, Thor, Hercules, Zeus, Apollo, Dionysus, Shiva, Shakti, Xango, Exu, Pomba Gira…the Gods are infinite in their manifestation.

But, it is the Norse Gods that I love most. It is they who speak to me most clearly, they who have led and guided me. I wish I could tell you why, whether it’s something in the blood or something else…I don’t know. The truth is, we rarely get to choose our Gods. Our Gods choose us.

Clint.

What the Hell is Heathenism?

November 25, 2009May 25, 2008 by DubhGhaill

I’m a Heathen.

OK…So what the hell is that supposed to mean?

Well, for starters, it means exactly what it says. I am not a Christian, not a Moslem, not a Jew. But, I’m not exactly an Atheist, either.

In some ways, being a Heathen is a lot like being a Hindu. The difference is that Heathenism is a distinctly Western, specifically Northern European variation of Sanatana Dharma.

If you really want to know what a Heathen is, try to imagine some kind of beef eating, beer swilling, bareknuckle Tantric Buddhist. Then maybe you’ll start to get an idea of what a Heathen might be.

Picture a Viking Berserker Warrior, born a thousand years too late and trying hard to make some sense out of life in the twenty-first century. Then maybe you’ll begin to understand.

Clint.