Heimlich A. Laguz

Thor: The Laughing God

“He sent you to talk to me today,” he says, tossing his crimson mane and cracking his knuckles. He is huge, thick necked, bursting out of his leathers and pelts. “And talk to me you shall!” He swings a great hammer up onto his shoulder, its bulk swishing through the air like a feather. “Come on then, walk with me boy!” Silent, I fall in beside him, almost scampering to keep up.

“You have to understand, kiddo,” he rumbles, “that my power does not come from my muscles, or from eating so many beasts’ hearts and livers (though my kingly diet hardly hurts my cause!). Its root lies not in the primeval blood of my mother, Earth, nor in the patrician fury of my father (himself born in part of mighty giant stock).” It is hard to focus on his words; his stumping stride makes the ground shake, and he tosses boulders from his path like so many grains of cat litter.

We stop, suddenly, atop a cliff, looking out over vast forests, distant mountains of resplendent white. He sucks in tremendous gulps of air, beats his chest. “This is the air that a god deserves!” he shouts, and his eyes sparkle.

“Fresh air, my boy. There is no substitute for it. Fresh air and good humor. Good humor!” His words dissolve into guffaws. “When the air is freshest is when it tastes of ozone and rain, and black clouds, and clashing light and sound! Where some tremble, I cannot imbibe enough!”

Then he is silent, lips thin and carved from stone, for the sky is yet clear, pale blue, rarefied. His voice softens, as if following suit. “I laugh when I say this, but I do not joke. Good humor has no substitute. Good humor, boy. Laughter is the spring from which my power rushes. Laughter can forge mountains and level them, carve river valleys and flood them, birth stars and consume them in a trice. Without laughter I am nothing; laughter is the only thing I am.”

He thrusts a finger in my chest; I am driven forcefully to my ass, a dull ache shooting up my tail. “Don’t forget,” he admonishes fiercely. “Laughter is the greatest love, fury, and force in the universe. There is nothing that is not mirth, lad, and my spirit is the distilled essence of exuberance!”

I have always suspected it might be true. Even Thor’s violence emerges from boisterous celebration of life, not from malice. The brutality of Woden triumphant on the field, that insouciant will to slaughter: this is not Thor’s nature.

No. Thor is superabundance without limit. Confronted with armor, fear, hatred, the grime of miserliness (for surely such is the mean spirit of those he cannot abide), he cannot help but wish to liberate his enemies of their ugliness. He is a heavy handed masseur, not a boorish bully. Every knot of rigidity that he dissolves releases torrents of life into the world, like a kinked hose that is suddenly, violently, straightened.

And therein lies the heart of his friendship with Loki. Oh, the hiss of the anti-Loki brigade! But none can deny that Thor and Loki are boon traveling companions, for so our myths assure us. Two different expressions of the power of laughter, polar opposites that contain a seed of one another. It is just as necessary that they be sworn foes at the end of time as intimate comrades earlier on. Laughter knows no boundary; these are forged by the brittle clutches of seriousness.

Seriousness – that empty armor of lies and madness. That willingness to bind up the world in limitations, abstractions, supposedly moral injunctions. That addiction to the entrapments and blandishments of corporeal power, which is to say, power won not through the good faith of laughter but the poison tongue of the spirit of gravity. Perhaps here lies Loki’s fall – who could cling to their sense of humor after an age on the rock, the snake perched above, roped in the guts of their son?

The power won through seriousness is a brittle illusion, made to shatter, and the price paid for it is too high. It is always too high. But there are always fools willing to delude themselves into thinking otherwise. Eventually they turn to stone and arrogance, and as Thor demonstrated in his duel with Hrungir, the Thunder God is more than adept at breaking heads that have become too big for their bodies.

“Don’t forget it,” he says again. “You cannot get anywhere without laughter as your companion. That’s why I love these high altitudes – high spirits fly about the summits of the teeth of the world! We are natural siblings and companions.” He swings his hammer, that potent symbol of fecundity, of new life and pumping vigor.

“Laughter, little one, laughter! Who do the dour vultures of the halls of power hate the most? The servants of mockery and lampoon! Those that clutch at the illusion called “control” cannot bear to have the skins of their bad consciences pricked. And am I not a thorny god?”

The lesson is ended like that, abruptly and completely. I open my eyes and gaze at the predawn light outside. I see that it is good.

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Fear, Ego, Surrender

Fear! You can hand over your fear to Wod. It is not yours alone to bear, your unique and disastrous burden. Fear is lack of trust in Wod, and lack of trust in World. It is a symptom of ego, of believing you have to do everything yourself. How frightening a notion to entertain! How heavy and dreadful. Let’s not burden ourselves unnecessarily.

Fear often manifests for me in hesitation. Hesitate to phone someone. Hesitate to express my understanding without loading it first with childish “attitude.” Resistance to doing many tasks – stems from fear. Laziness and resentment are both also driven by fear. Resistance to being present, to negotiating complexity or interpersonal ambiguity – all rooted in fear, which is to say, impiety against Mystery and the Tree and the Well.

“Feel the fear but do it anyway” does not break out of the ego as a basic framework (a cage, if you will). This notion counsels that we accept the ego…but then force aside its resistance. But I just cannot sustainably or reliably win that. Even if I could, I could never relax, feel confident or secure. That was a big part of what fed/feeds anxiety in me: the knowledge that I am not enough to meet the challenges of life by myself.

Formerly I imagined that I needed to make myself equal to the challenge of life. I thought if I could just be hard enough on myself then I would force myself into the person I wanted to be. This did not work.

Then I thought that if I just obliterated my ego then what remained of me would become a vessel for the divine. Superhuman power would swiftly follow and thus I could become equal to the challenge of life (and equal to my ever skyrocketing standards). This also did not work.

The first approach failed because you cannot get something from nothing. Trying to force myself to be font and foundation of my own existence was futile, foolish, and impossible. It guaranteed failure in vicious cycles; I learned to think that if I punished myself more then maybe I’d get somewhere. Astride a horse carcass, I whipped and flayed with exponential urgency. I could not see my whip was only cutting my own flesh.

The second approach was better, I admit. But I became righteous and inflated by my knowledge of the need to embrace Mystery and the simultaneous oneness and difference of all things. I easily became complacent; my ego found ways to claim credit for achievements that my moments of reverence and surrender were responsible for. Eventually I realised that despite my supposedly advanced spirituality, supposed humility (in distinction to humiliation), supposed wisdom and dedication – I still suffered, flailed, became entangled in my own poison. I had finally found truth, but then proceeded to abuse it. Consequently: self punishment, suffering, self pity, pessimism. As before.

My new way I am only beginning to approach, to trace out and understand. It remains as yet a sketch and projection of possibility. Yet it seems to be the best option so far. It is to trust in the Divine and in my patron Wod (id est Mercurius). If I truly trust then I abandon my grandiose expectations of perfection, adolescent/egoistic wish fulfilment, self-obsession (other-obliviousness), overweening hypocrisy. If I truly trust then I hand over my fear. Not try to dominate it through force of will. Not try to obliterate it as part of the ego.

No. Just hand it over. Fear is an expression of lack of trust. So I will trust and accept that whatever happens is meant to be. Even if I don’t like it. Guess what? That’s real ego shedding. Being willing to be a flawed, finite mortal if that is my patron’s will (which it manifestly is, for I am human). I cannot defeat fear, but I can be willing to hand it away. If I trust my patron then I must hand over my fear. And thus transcend the binary madhouse of courage and cowardice altogether.

Fingers crossed.

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Odin and the Traveller

My prayers have become strange journeys into imagination. Journeys into worlds that more and more seem to exist independently of my whim. I am visiting other places that have their own logic, a logic impervious to the impetuous demands of strangers such as myself.

This morning I find him in a forest, on the hunt. He is wild and laughing, gray beard wagging, spear keen for the flesh of boar. We walk briskly as he counsels me.

“There was a man who traveled far from home. One day he came to a village and decided to settle there. But he did not speak the language or know the culture, and so he had many difficulties. He could not communicate his needs, he unwittingly behaved in socially unacceptable ways, and in general earned himself a reputation for being obnoxious or stupid.

“But despite his early troubles and conflicts, he persevered. Gradually he came to understand the local customs. Gradually he came to understand the language. He came to be able to make his way in the village, to meet his needs and earn a place of respect and value in the community. Sometimes he would still slip or become confused, but these reversals became less and less. The villagers came in turn to realize that he was not churlish or foolish.”

This, he tells me, is the story of my life.

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Remembrance 11.11.11

We have made an agreement: I will pray to him every day without fail. It is part of the price of my healing. It is also part of the healing itself. So each morning I imagine myself in his hall, standing before him as he lays like a languid lion on his throne. Sometimes what I see and experience I have no control over, as though someone else were controlling the experience, or as though it were occurring in some shared, intersubjective space…just like normal waking life.

This morning I find myself outside the palisade that wards his hall. This is new, and I cannot seem to make it otherwise. The gate is locked. No one answers to my knocking. It is cold and dark in the predawn. Resigned, I set to clambering, haul myself with difficulty up over the timbers of the wall, carefully lift over the sharpened tops of the posts, then drop to the other side.

The courtyard is bare but for sheets of morning frost that crackle beneath my feet. I find the door to the hall. Smoke belches sullenly from near-spent fires, wafting from the building in desultory manner. The door creaks open at my touch.

Inside, the bodies of the einheriar are strewn about wildly. Laid low by drink and revelry, not battle. I recall that this is the 11th of November, a day of commemoration. Of course, therefore, they’ve had an especially big party last night. I pick my way through their sluggard forms, negotiate scattered furniture, feet scratching on hay-strewn floor.

There he is, sprawled, sleeping, on his throne. He has appeared in various forms to me recently, but today it is as his younger self, when he still had color in his beard; when he still had two eyes. One side of his mouth raises into a grin when he senses my approach.

“You again. Good that you’re here. We had some fun last night. More important, I have something to show you.”

He rises unsteadily from his repose, smells of sweat and swill. Shuffles across the floor, and I follow a safe distance behind. We come to a spiral of stone-cut stairs that drills down into the earth. He climbs down into the darkness and I follow.

The staircase winds in a wide radius. We descend, and descend, and descend into a vast chasm, totally black. It could be inside…or outside. There is no way of knowing. The stairs are wrapped around a massive column, its surface rough. I steady myself on it as I negotiate the treacherous stairs, and I realize that it is the trunk of a massive, almighty tree. I know which tree this is.

Our descent continues into infinity and darkness. Until our destination finds us. The staircase deposits us in a clearing in a forest. Even here, at the bottom of the great chasm, I cannot tell if I am inside or outside. Insects and birds make an eerie chorus.

In the center of the clearing he stands, leaning on his proverbial spear. And at the edge of the clearing I also see another of his clan, a warrior who stands, impassive, a tremendous horn slung over one shoulder as if ready to be blown in the face of the faintest glimmer of emergency.

Beside my guide there is a well, set in the heart of this grove. No, a spring, for it gently weeps liquid that pours out over the grass and soil and seeps down into the earth. The water has a strange clarity and motility. I know that it is living.

At his gesture I approach, stare at him from across the well. He dips a ladle into the waters.

“This water is the stuff of life. It is the essence of memory. Memory, the heart and meaning of all that is. This is the gushing source of time, and tide, history and anticipation. It heals all wounds. It can heal you. It can help you live in the present moment, in your own flesh, in your own breath. It can reveal to you the philosophical stone, the inner self inviolate, that none can harm or touch or weary. But you need to drink, and drink often, else, parched and lost, you’ll become isolated, dehydrated, lost in misery. You know this already.”

He raises the ladle to my lips. “What you need to know is this. Despite all your doubt, fear, resentment, distrust, hatred, pettiness, weakness, hypocrisy – I am always holding this ladle, filled with the waters of memory, to your lips. It is always there for you, a draught of memory perpetually hangs before your lips. You need but open your mouth and solace, healing, strength, hope are waiting for you. You are never alone.”

We stand there, the water before my open mouth. We both know the power of this message. For all beings are vessels for the flow of the waters. We live to give their irrepressible essence form and flushing life. The illusion of my isolation, my cold rejection and ejection from the world, is refuted by these waters. And here I stand, at their source, and he is telling me that the water is always right there for me to drink, no matter how determined I am to convince myself of my self-pitying separation.

When I open my eyes, finish my observances, I know that I have been given a powerful, powerful gift and reminder. One that must be renewed every day through prayer and dedication. Through reverence and memorialization of the sacred in all things. Through remembrance, all things are preserved in their beauty and immortality. Only the arbitrary, transient human consciousness forgets. Forgets, yes. But therefore, also: remembers.

My heart brims with shining water. I hail the lord of the hall that lies beyond. And I feel just the slightest intimation of knowing the essence of this and all days of remembrance, beyond even the ledgers of tragedy that fill the history books to bursting: Lest We Forget.

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Composing Heathenry

I wrestle endlessly with the somewhat related themes of reconstructionism and cultural specificity as they pertain to Heathenry. Tonight some playful (pun unintended but welcome) analogies to music occurred to me. They might help to elucidate my thoughts on both reconstructionism and the Folkish/universalist thing. First I’ll set the scene with some comments about music, but stick with me, even if it seems tangential or obscure at first – I promise to bring my rumination to bear on the field of contemporary Heathen thinking.

As a musician I’m big on knowing theory. I can talk about double harmonic minors, and 13:8 time, and 16th note sweep picking (on a bass, whee!) all day long. And I can effortlessly apply that theory: it isn’t just words or ideas (well, ok, the 16th note bass sweeps do take a bit of effort, but I’m getting there!).

The discipline of all that structure is paradoxically freeing. When I want to do fast, complex music, my hands know what to do because my brain is so well versed. I know intuitively how different tones will combine from my theoretical understanding. I can break down compositions and assemble arrangements with both flair and rapidity. I can store a lot of information about musical structure very simply through the application of underlying rules of harmony or rhythm, which makes learning, performing, and remembering material a lot easier.

I’m far from perfect, and my music theory is very much geared towards practical usage rather than armchair reflection (I’m 100% self-trained). But nonetheless, I think the point is made.

I have even found that, being so deeply grounded in the “rules” of music, I can break them freely. I often find myself doing this with harmonic construction these days. I like the challenge of creating fresh tonal canvasses within the “rules” of conventional scales and chords, but I also find myself freely able to break up recognisable patterns and work atonally. Because I know what the “rules” of music are I can break them in interesting and enjoyable ways.

Occasionally I encounter the view that learning a lot of music theory can be a straightjacket that destroys spontaneity and the creative impulse. I know this does happen sometimes, especially for heavily drilled classical students.

Yet most people I’ve met who claim to avoid learning theory in order to preserve their freedom of expression actually have a rather limited range. They often seem to devolve to the same two or three tricks over and over again, not understanding how to develop their sound. They might be able to “hear” how to give flesh to the bones of their ideas, but lack the skill to embody their creations in a satisfying way.

In the worst cases they resort to “experimentalism” as a substitute for inspiration and ability, hiding behind provocative bungling as though it were a purposeful choice and not an inarticulate flailing.

So my point should be clear: with prudence and an adventurous attitude one can free oneself by submitting to the rigour of musical theory. One needs to avoid the reef of drudging slavery to musical form, and one needs to avoid the seemingly free – but actually inarticulate and blundering – position of being anti-theory.

Well, I see Heathenry in a similar light.

Sure, reconstructionism produces various boffins who shackle themselves to academic minutiae and end up saying the most ridiculous things. On the other hand, without the discipline of historical grounding, people cook up the most half-baked spiritual repast and, not knowing any better, think that they’re somehow creating something wonderful! Yet their efforts lack depth, grit, character (and you see this just as much among “Folkish” Heathens as among Universalists, incidentally).

The better road is to take the adventurousness of the Unsubstantiated Personal Gnosis (UPG) brigade (the anti-theory, or anti-reconstruction types), and the rigour of the reconstructionists. In this way, theory can offer a discipline which frees the creative spark to express itself with great subtlety.

For me this manifests as what I generally refer to as Psychological Reconstructionism. For example, to me understanding the worldview of the old Heathens – the importance of wyrd, time, interconnection, sacredness, hospitality, gift-giving, and reciprocity – stands over and above particular debates about exactly what clothes were worn when or the like.

And this attitude frees me to recognise the similarities between Heathenry and other traditions, even while simultaneously preserving a feel for the uniqueness of the Heathen traditions (and others). Just as music is a universal language spoken in an infinite range of nuances – so too culture. Hence, for example, when I see in Odin the archetype of (among others) the Wounded Healer, I can recognise how this connects him to many other cultures and traditions, even though I can still celebrate the manner in which he is a unique manifestation of that meme.

As a musician I’ve played in prog rock bands, death metal bands, world music outfits, experimental groups, folk ensembles, and bands that have fused various of the aforementioned influences. I’ve touched on genres as varied as black metal, hip hop, and ‘live’ dance music. I’ve played with blast beating metal drummers from hell, African percussionists, tabla masters, Middle Eastern percussionists, you name it (in some cases, I’ve played with people who’ve had mastery of several of these domains!). In all of these configurations, I’ve used the same language to find my way, bringing my particular idiom (to borrow from Monty Python’s Quest for the Holy Grail) to bear in each case.

And I have the same attitude with culture. I bring my own spiritual idiom to the world, but I can freely interface with kindred spirits across all sorts of literal and figurative borders. My deep sense of specific identity – my interest in reconstructionism and ancestor worship – informs my spirit in ways that also enable me to interface with the Other, until I come to appreciate the ways in which seemingly hard barriers are always more porous and fascinating than first shallow glances might suggest.

Hence I am a reconstructionist who loves UPG; and I am a staunch ancestor worshipper and Europhile who embraces cross-cultural exchange and intermingling at the same time. Because to me, the latter is part of the heritage I glean from the former. Just as I am a theory-based musician who thinks nothing of violating every harmonic law in the book if it creates the effect I want (and indeed, I use my knowledge of the ‘rules’ of music and spirituality to break themselves in creative and appealing ways).

The fundamental question is this: are the forms of tradition (be it musical or spiritual or whatever) there to serve us, or are we to serve them? Or is it a bit of both? If we respect them we recognise that they were born from the inspiration of our predecessors, and hence to truly be “reconstructionist” (which, I should mention, is NOT at all necessarily synonymous with being Folkish or Universalist or any other -ism, as these comments on the whole imply) one might have to break the rules of reconstructionism now and again.

In my personal microcosmos Elric and Odin and alchemical Mercury are deeply related (yet naturally distinct); and for me the profound obsession with memory in Heathenry seems uncannily like the same obsession in Sufism (yet I at least cannot seem to effect a straightforward, simple fusion of the two). Things can be different yet the same; in fact this is what the symbol of Yggdrasill is all about: reminding us of the simultaneous oneness and difference of all things, and reminding us of the necessary interdependence that binds the archetypes of  isolation and dissolution.

Blur the lines and we see things as they are; blur the lines and we begin to shed abstraction and embrace the endless mystery from which our world is woven. The closer you examine any boundary, the less distinct it becomes – that might not make it less real, but it forces us to recognise that our specific, localised uniqueness is not dependent on rigid separation, nor necessarily threatened by absence of the same.

What counts is our integrity and our vulnerable imagination. Rigidly clinging to rules about either isolated specificity or generalised universality amounts to underutilising our human faculties and potential. As always, George Orwell had it right to blame the ills of the world on the gramophone mind and not on the particular records being played at any given time.

For like it or not, we are all hedgewalkers like Odin (another reason to call him Allfather), whether it comes to musical expression or spiritual inspiration. The point of being strict…is so that we can become free of all restriction.

All only in my humble, internally contradictory, and frighteningly arbitrary opinion, of course.

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Even if Climate Change Weren’t Real…We Should Still Support Renewable Energy

Climate change seems to become an edgier and edgier issue all the time. There seems to be an implacable rise in obscurantist pseudo-science and ideological hogwash trying to tell us either that rapid and destabilising climate change isn’t happening or that it isn’t the fault of human beings.

Well, I have little patience for such silliness, but even if these claims were correct, I am almost totally convinced that we should still be pursuing renewal energy development. There are many, many other good reasons to make the change other than global warming. Here are a few main ones that have occurred to me.

1. Peak Oil

Like it or not, fossil fuels are finite. We’re going to have to get more and more aggressive to find them, expending more and more technology and damaging the environment in new, cruel, and unusual ways. Cost will keep on mounting – can you say “diminishing return on investment?” Unless of course we just keep hiking up the prices (oh yeah, that’s what is happening).

And then, even after all that, they’ll still eventually be exhausted. Then what? Then we switch to renewal energy anyway.

So why not get ahead start and make the transition now? The sooner we get serious about solar, wind, and the rest, the quicker these options will be commercially viable in a major way and the sooner we can perfect the transition. The sooner we change, the sooner we get off the spiralling staircase of energy costs, and the sooner that “energy security” can be established for nations currently dependent on international fossil fuel supplies (no more stupid wars in the Middle East needed).

Clinging to a technology on the edge of obsolescence, especially out of laziness, fear, or simple lack of imagination, is bad science and bad business sense.

2. Environmental Degradation

Anybody remember a little disaster called Deepwater? Oil spills alone cause massive damage every year. Coal seam gas mining threatens to destroy drinking water supplies worldwide – and seriously folks, in the 21st century water is going the be the most precious resource of all, not oil or gas. Coal mining destroys massive swathes of land, and in the clutch of the Japanese crisis let’s not even talk about the horrors of nuclear power, which has erroneously been passed off as “clean and green” for some time now, but actually produces the most noxious and irreversible pollution of all (and requires more massively destructive mining, too).

Renewable power sources such as wind and solar, by contrast, stand to be far less destructive. They don’t need to consume more and more land and resources in order to keep producing energy. They don’t blow up or release vastly destructive toxins into the environment, the food chain, and our bodies. They’re not only better for the environment, it just makes so much more sense, economically.

3. Money

Speaking of economics, fossil fuel industries are some of the most heavily subsidised on the planet. The numbers on coal and oil just don’t stack up so well once the tax-payer’s dollar is removed from the fossil fuel barons’ pockets. That’s in part because they constantly have to move on to new territories and new reserves to keep producing even the same amount of power. Whereas solar and wind are far more economical and efficient – once you’ve got the solar or wind farm going, you’re in business, all you have to worry about is maintaining your equipment.

So there you go. There are other good reasons for getting serious about renewable energy than these of course, not least the threat of global warming itself. But even if you don’t take climate change seriously, I think the other three reasons I’ve offered above are sufficiently compelling that I’d like to think you’d be convinced of the benefits of abandoning oil, coal, gas, and nuclear power anyway.

Here’s one final reflection on these issues that seems really critical to me. We are not separate from our planet, but a part of it. Fossil fuels do not take this factor into consideration; their destructive consequences (global warming or not) are analogous to defecating in the water one drinks. Renewal energy, on the other hand, is able to reflect and even take advantage of the brutal reality that what goes around comes around.

The longer we try to pretend that this basic law of nature doesn’t apply to our actions, the worse the consequences will be when Mamma Earth calls to collect on the debt we’re racking up.

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But Does it Work in Theory?

I recently saw a brilliant slogan on a t-shirt. It read “sure it works in practice, but does it work in theory?” What a wonderful inversion! It made me laugh. And think. And that’s a dangerous thing.

Pragmatism has become the iron-clad law of this age. Anything can be justified if it is done as an appeal to practicality. The most artless, destructive, useless activities can be passed off as strictly necessary. The most idiotic, contemptuous, miserly, and shallow behaviour in corporations and institutions can be justified to infinity through an appeal to practicality.

Don’t be idealistic, don’t be a dreamer. After telling children through their childhood that they “can do anything they want,” after filling them up on films and media that encourage them to dream big and be ethical, we dump them in early adulthood into the grown-up world of shallow, cut-throat sociopathy. Ideals? Theory? That’s for the kids. Grow up.

Consequently we live in a time where the art of deep reflection is disappearing. University degrees are little more than vocational tick-a-box exercises that seek to turn fresh new students into mentally stereotyped drones. Gone are the days when educated people knew about literature, or poetry, or history, or art, or philosophy, regardless of their vocation. Now all they know about is Facebook, and Xbox, and television sitcoms so poorly conceived that the audience needs a laughing track so they can figure out which bits are meant to be funny.

Why does theory matter? Who really cares? Because “what works” is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Consider the case of milk pasteurisation, for example. What hey, we start pasteurising milk and people stop getting sick. Since that procedure “worked” we conclude it must be fine and don’t both to think through the larger context.

Of course milk making people sick was a new advent in the early 20th century due to the adoption of unsanitary farming practices and the feeding of cows with waste sludge from breweries which they could not digest. Sick cows = bad milk. Yet organic, free range raw milk, when tested against industrially prepared, pasteurised milk, actually resists infection and bacteria more effectively!

But in our limited paradigm of “that works, do that!” we never pause to consider whether it only seems to work because we have no theoretical imagination to look beyond the immediately obvious.

Theory, then, enables us to consider the limits of our interpretation of the meaning of events. To say that something “works in practice” is not an objective description of a circumstance; it is a more or less subjective value judgement. It implies we have thought through other possibilities. Yet if our only criterion is pragmatism then chances are we have not.

The invocation of practicality is all too easily a tool to silence dissent, or even to suppress open communication. “Well,” we are told, “it just has to be this way because that’s how the real world works.” Who said? When? Why? Should we therefore endure miserable consequences? We are all too willing to cover over life’s fleeting passage; in the name of practicality we make and conform to frivolous and wasteful decisions at a societal or technological level without the slightest hesitation or sense of irony.

Yet there is a more important point at stake here: aesthetics. Who cares about aesthetics? What practical value does aesthetics have? Aesthetics is about acknowledging the fragile and delicate art of existence. It is about remembering our uniqueness and our transience. An aesthetic approach to life recognises the mysteries and horizons of our existence; it offers no room for the false confidence and clumsy bravado of pragmatism.

Who says that efficiency is best? Who says that “getting it done ASAP” is the best attitude? Why? Did the world miraculously not function before we had the Internet? Mobile phones? Faxes? Even land lines? No, no it didn’t. Some things took longer and people were a lot more relaxed, which meant it was easier for them to fill their bodies and minds with knowledge and experiences of useless but soul-nourishing character.

I’m not saying that an aesthetic approach impels us to disregard practicality of course. I am saying that it tempers it by reminding our will to automation and haste that there is a bigger picture: “we do not know who we are or where we are going in this ocean of chaos” (Tim Leary). Is anyone really, seriously going to argue that claim? Good luck trying.

Taking our time, seeing how things interlock, tracing out the subtle webs of thought and implication, asking whether something is artful, these are not frivolous undertakings. They cause us to make more rational decisions, individually and collectively, because the hysteria of haste has no purchase. The mad panic of money markets, for example, would be impossible in a world that accorded theory and aesthetics as much status as pragmatism.

In fact, one could say that the obsession with pragmatism was a major contributor to the global financial crash, which is infinitely ironic to say the least, but also, I suspect, rather paradigmatic of the effects of the pragmatic mentality.

Obsession with “getting results” can very easily produce anything but results, or produce only the most shallow semblance of results (consider again those tick-box university degrees, in which students learn how to go through the exact motions of learning in order to satisfy university administrators, without actually developing a deep grasp of either thinking or of their course content).

Hegel proposed some two hundred years ago that the will has two “moments,” the first which is finite but active in the world, and the second which is infinite but powerless. He proposed that when we draw these two, action and thought, together then we begin to be human. Pragmatism unchained from human understanding, however, can produce only disaster, for action without the guidance of reflection on a mass scale weaves little more than chaos.

It is necessary for change to begin. It is necessary for one-sided pragmatism to be recognised for the self-defeating shibboleth that it is. It is time to reject the “faster, faster” sleight-of-mind that all-pervades the world today. And perhaps as we learn how to think again we might realise that much of what we thought “worked” in our practicality-obsessed mania was little more than water-treading and back-sliding anyway.

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Death and Dagaz

I recently declared that I wanted to embrace the idea of memento mori. The universe obliged. An old ring from childhood reappeared, a skull that I can carry on my hand, a silent and implacable reminder of mortality and perhaps the freedom that comes when one is released from the illusion of eternal existence.

It is important not to trivialise mortality in the name of spiritual or philosophical reflection of course. There are others far more qualified to write about the subject than I. Nevertheless, mortality has been a leit-motif throughout my life and it is a theme that figures importantly for me. Thus I am moved to write.

Death provokes fear. Fear provokes the desire to escape the threat of death. Since we are unavoidably mortal, fear therefore resorts to the deployment of belief as a bulwark against our inevitable demise. This is the essence of what in psychology is known as Terror Management Theory. In order to manage our terror in the face of the awful dark horizon we construct beliefs which simplify the world for our brains, reduce it to digestible symbols that paper over the screaming horror of our infinitesimal powerlessness before the frightful majesty of creation.

Hence, when we make the commitment to live a spiritual life and embrace the horizon of the unknown, we offer ourselves up to a state of tremendous vulnerability. It is here that the double nature of mythology, on one hand door, on the other refuge, is revealed.

Myth is a door. What is a door? A door is an opening in a wall through which we may pass. The door is an invitation into a larger world beyond the limits of the walls we immediately perceive. Even when closed, it is a constant reminder to us of a bigger picture: there is more to be experienced than just our immediate existence.

What lies through the door? It could be anything. A larger world, a different perspective. It could be dark or light, joyous or miserable. It could be a cul de sac or a road that ever ends. Likely enough all of these things await those that step through the door that is called myth.

For where the myth itself is done, safe, secure in its form, recognisable in its character, shaped and regulated by convention, the world that awaits us on its other side is wild, unpredictable, untameable. It is one thing to read about the fury and ecstasy that Odin inspires; another to be swept into a tide of poetic frenzy. It is one thing to praise Jord’s bounty; another to sink your hands into the soil, to plant a tree, to be lost in wild country, to be tossed by storm or tremor.

How does myth open itself? How do we step through? It opens itself when we slow down, when we listen to our heart beating, when we give space for its secrets to give themselves. When we open ourselves to uncertainty, when we put aside our fear of death and the need for control and faith that this fear impels.

Myth is by itself mere words. It can be justified only by the worlds into which it opens. Myth is not property, cultural, intellectual, or otherwise. Myth is a seduction, a lover, an agent provocateur set on unsettling our settled, death denying articles of faith. Myth is always in motion. It is a verb, an action carried out endlessly by the horizon of mystery – Runa – herself.

And so those that want to control myth, to make it dead, predictable, to make it into property, to make it into a rigid template for the construction of stale identity – these we accuse of impiety. If we use myth as nothing more than a vehicle for mere belief – and not as an opportunity to open our spirits to the unknown – then we blaspheme.

I am not afraid, therefore, to declare that it appears that many Heathens blaspheme against their own professed faith without so much as realising it. Yet such folk should not be blamed, unless of course they know better but are too cowardly to embrace the dare of the door. Unless of course, though knowing better, they bar the door up and declare that it is the thing to be worshipped, not the infinite magic that glowers beyond it.

Yet myth is also a refuge. For if we were to stand, naked and purged, before the raw intensity of this mystery-woven universe without any railing to grasp then we would be swept away in the torrent. The universe is so incredibly vast, and often as cruel and arbitrary as she is loving and rational, at least from the narrow glimpse of her secrets that we mere mortals are afforded.

How then are we to cope with true piety – with steeling ourselves against our fear of death and stepping through the door of myth? What protection might we give ourselves?

Myth is redolent with symbolism, with endless layers of associations, connections, refractions, reflections. We find ourselves making sense of the world in the truisms of Havamal, or putting words to the ineffable art of creation when we invoke the subterranean skulduggery of Bolverkr. In the rune poems we find endless fractional images of reality, metaphors which offer moments of order and sense in this vast chaotic carnival of life.

Thus myth invites us to shed all form and embrace the pure unknown, and myth provides language and sense for us to recover and integrate the experiences we find beyond the mythic door. When too distilled our experience becomes, myth offers a refuge, a stable retreat and ward. It helps us to recover from the shock of being finite in this infinite cosmic passion play.

And thus is the art of the alchemist, the magician, the saint, the shaman: to move back and forth across the very threshold of myth. To step out into the unknown, to drink its thick, roaring waters; and then to step back into the warm embrace of mythic refuge, to clothe oneself in the images and metaphor, the traces and patterns which are ultimately inspired by the Unknown and which help us to integrate the Unknown into our finite forms.

In other words, the spiritual art, the art of stepping back and forth through the doors of myth, is the art of living on the threshold of death, which is the ever-present spectre of the Unknown in life. We can only taste the gush of our lifeblood if we are willing to shed it.

Yet we continually lose ourselves in the small doings of daily life, the invisible but compelling stories we tell ourselves: lose ourselves in a futile attempt to avoid facing death’s gaze. Therefore, to surround oneself with memento mori, with reminders of death, is to continually draw oneself back to the door of myth, and the Beyond, and to the refuge of myth, and the need to care for one’s finitude even amid infinity.

To those who dare to remember myth:
Drink deep of the Well!

To those who dare to remember death:
Dance joyous on the threshold!

To those who have ears to hear:

Carpe Diem!

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Primordial Reflections

I’ve been listening to Irish metal band Primordial today. Wow, those guys never cease to blow me away with their atmosphere and seething passion. Vocalist A. A. Nemtheanga has more than his fair share of imbas, that’s for sure.

Their last few albums have partly grappled with the question of identity from a European perspective – their combination of Heathen and Pagan spiritual influences and their sense of history as coming from Ireland gives them a unique perspective.

Nemtheanga is given to dark, apocalyptic vision of worlds crumbling these days, and in the face of the dark portraits his lyrics paint, the grandeur of the music really ignites. There is a truly powerful sense of resolution in this music, and part of that comes from a notion of identity as European, one which Primordial articulates with subtlety, complexity, and little in the way of self-righteousness or arrogance, which is rather welcome for a change!

I am often quite critical of the use of Heathenry simply as a source of solid sense of identity, because it seems to stem from weakness or fear, and because ironically it often seems to impair curiosity and reverence for history and tradition. Yet I feel I need to balance the scales a little, and reflect on my own limitations.

Because you see I cannot imagine the men of Primordial giving into their fear for anything or anyone. The strength that flows through their music flows precisely through a powerful sense of self-possession, of being rooted in history and myth. And part of that strength is tied up in “identity politics” if you want to call it that, yet the way that Primordial do it seems like a really positive force, neither brittle nor shallow.

This gets me pondering whether there isn’t more to this whole “well, I just am Heathen” (and therefore insolubly worthwhile regardless of any evidence there may be to the contrary) attitude that I often see.

Sure, it can make people reductionist in their sense of self, amputating or ignoring their full range of character and their full ability to perceive the world around them. But Primordial seem to demonstrate that it doesn’t have to be this way.

Maybe, then, the more shallow and rigid applications of identity politics in Heathenry are aiming at a more valid and valuable goal. Perhaps I owe those that I find irritating in this regard a little more respect – perhaps, as fallibly as all humans, they are nevertheless driving at something which could be both positive and healing.

What leads me to reflect on this further is my sense that I struggle greatly to stay connected to my own spiritual grounding. I am someone that needs to drink from the well of memory on a regular basis, but I often avoid doing it. I am someone who carries around a lot of self-critical impulses (don’t we all, though?), and while in some respects this is helpful, it is often gratuitously hurtful.

So I find myself wondering – would someone who seems as spiritually self-assured as A. A. Nemtheanga put himself down in his own mind? Would he have those bastard voices that most of us carry around (which I certainly do), which love to stick hot pokers into our brains at the least provocation? I just can’t imagine he does.

Of course the flip side of total self-assurance is the temptation to blame everything on everyone else, and I’ve recently had some very miserable experiences with someone I’ve been very close to but who works in this way. Well I certainly don’t want to be projecting my shadow onto the Other, to paraphrase good old Jung, but nonetheless a bit less gratuitous self assault and a bit more default self-assurance would be nice.

These reflections are all relative of course. In many domains I do feel completely capable and self assured. I’m also known to have a poker face under pressure, never letting on that I’m finding a challenge hard until after it is beaten. The problem is more to do with what goes on in my head. I don’t want to live a life where I am grinding myself down. Because over time that can affect one’s freedom to be and do in the world.

So perhaps what I am circulating around is the possibility that I tend to dismiss the “I want an identity” motivation for being Heathen precisely because it offers something I need. And perhaps I am too quick to dismiss this motivation as brittle, aggressive, and shallow: Primordial seem to be showing that a deeper form of it is possible.

It is pretty absurd that someone who has invested so much of their life into spiritual pursuits and personal growth (and admittedly out of brutal necessity) nevertheless has a habit of refusing the nourishment offered by the divine and then crying about starving to death.

That reminds me, actually, of one of my favourite poems by Rumi. It’s about depression – disconnection from God, the divine in all things. There’s a bit where it says something like: “you decline to enter the open door of the road house; later you curse the hardship of the road.”

Part of the reason I am hesitant to be a “loud and proud” – or perhaps more in my style, “silent but resolute” – Heathen is because I dislike the way that many Heathens present their Heathenry, and to be honest I’m wary of being painted in the same colours. But then again, Heathenry is what we make of it, so maybe I should be just being myself under that banner so that I can ensure that the definition of “Heathen” is sufficiently wide to include me.

I’m not really sure how any of this applies in daily life. And I know that when I sing a sense of connection and assurance certainly flows through me – perhaps Primordial are at their best in performance, and like the rest of us as people are not equal to the art that the divine inspires them to create.

But imagine living every moment of one’s life with the sense of confidence and spirit that can come in moments of rapturous possession while singing? Imagine that power that flows through the body just always being there?

One thing is for sure, this ideal would require the ability to separate one’s self-worth from the world around. The Daoists say we should worship the 10,000 Things, the infinite gods, but not get too attached, and there’s wisdom in this being in the world but also having a touch of reserve, or more specifically, of circumspection.

This is also the Jungian Way – the path to individuation, to having achieved one’s own Lapis, the unchanging, perfected core that dwells eternally amid the chaos of the world.

Well I want my own philosopher’s stone. I invoke Fire and Water here and now and every time anyone reads this to flood and inflame my life! It is time to dismantle my sordid affair with amnesia and start afresh with memory.

Well and good, these metaphors. I need reminders. The magic of memento mori. Let these words be one such. Let there be many more.

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What I Learned from Shinto

Recently I was lucky enough to attend a Konkokyo Shinto ceremony. Shinto is sort of the Japanese equivalent of Heathenry: a folk religion (note the small f, people) with lashings of animism, ancestor worship, and polytheism. It was a really beautiful experience and I’m grateful for it.

I learned a few things about tradition and spirituality that day, and I thought I’d share some of what I learned.

Firstly, the ceremonial elements themselves. The priestesses (what a luxury, a mainstream world religion that has priestesses!) wore exquisite traditional costumes and everyone was dressed quite formally. The altar was bedecked with mountains of food offerings to Kami (spirit/god/anima mundi). The ceremony included extensive chanting and although it was challenging to keep up, my Sufi chanting experience helped, and I really appreciated the extent of “audience participation.”

Everything ran smoothly, the priestesses were confident and appreciated the sense in which performing ritual is just that – a performance that needs to be treated as such if it is to have power.

All this stood in contrast to many of the Heathen rituals I have attended or heard about. For example people turning up in the most informal costume (I have been guilty of this too) where adherents of any other religion would show their respect by dressing at least a little formally (some Heathens are into historical dress, of course, which is fine by me even if I don’t do it personally).

More generally there is both a lack of formality and reverence in much of the Heathen ritual I’ve experienced…and simultaneously a lack of play and humour as well! Heathens seem a bit stuck in the “dispassionate church attendance” mentality, whereas the Konkokyo folks were not at all awkward in their spiritual practice.

And audience participation! What a wonderful thing it is. Not just something generic thing like “ok folks, repeat after me,” but some pretty intense group chanting and individual involvement in making offerings. It gives a lot more investment in the ritual when shared, group activity of this kind is involved.

Second thing I learned: folk religions in the real world (because really, Heathenry often lives in a world of total make believe) don’t need to obsess about ethnic inclusion and exclusion. I was made welcome at this gathering, which is specifically held annually as an opportunity for the general public to attend. It is clear that these guys have a strong and healthy tradition which they are living. They know who they are and what they are doing. So they really aren’t concerned about having foreigners come. In fact they are so quietly self-assured that they invite us in!

What struck me about this in contrast is the relatively immature Heathen attitude to these issues. Heathens carry on so much about who is or isn’t “allowed” to be Heathen on the basis of ethnicity (who appointed anyone to be the arbiter of such questions anyway?), and sometimes this seems more important than the actual practice of Heathenism itself. I think if Heathens had a little more depth in their own connection to tradition, ancestry, and spirituality then they’d no longer be so touchy about the identity politics gig.

If Konkokyo Shinto is like a capable, self-aware adult, Heathenry often seems like a teenager who acts tough to hide their insecurities. I really enjoyed being around a mature folk tradition, but it did highlight to me the shallowness of much of contemporary Heathenry, I hate to say.

To go deep requires much work: both theoretical and practical. It involves learning about history and archaeology and the small details of premodern consciousness. To me it means looking into everyday living, imbuing it with a reverential or animistic attitude. It requires a lot of personal introspection, sorting through and discarding the on-lay of one’s previous faith(s) or values where there is an inconsistency.

I suspect that many Heathens are very hesitant to undertake this work, but especially the personal, psychological aspect of the process. This is unfortunate. I’d like to hope that it changes. I know I need to do a lot more work on this myself, though I console myself with the thought that at least I can recognise and admit it!

The Shinto folk I met, of course, don’t have to do a lot of this sort of work because theirs is a living tradition, whereas ours is a kind of pseudo-historical shibboleth (sorry folks, but that is the hard truth of the matter, no matter how thorough one’s reconstructionist tendencies).

The most important message I took from the day, though, was a point made while watching a couple of short anime films about Konkokyo Shinto – yes I am serious, and I have to say both films were awesome!

The point made related to spiritual practice. Namely that what matters is not whom one prays to, but rather the spirit in which one prays. Honest reverence and sincere supplication are what make spiritual tradition potent. If one holds back or has mixed motives then it doesn’t matter who one worships – that worship will be empty.

It often appears that Heathens lack a genuinely unguarded reverence in their spiritual practice. For all the hard and brittle talk about ancestors and Aesir, there seems little in the way of open, liminal, vulnerable interaction with the divine. Without which, all the trappings and forms are completely hollow.

So I received a good reminder that spiritual forms – myth, story, tradition, specific practices, whatever – are doors and we’re supposed to step through into personal spiritual experience. We aren’t supposed to board these doors and turn them into empty idols. I felt that the Konkokyo folks opened up a place into which a very powerful, beautiful presence of Kami came. Its pretty amazing for a formal spiritual tradition to express these insights and I’d like to experience more of that in the Heathen world.

Perhaps the immediately preceding comments are a little obscure, so allow me to give an example of how the spiritual forms are doors into experience. A few years back at a Christmas lunch (I was the only Heathen present among Christians, agnostics, and atheists) it was somehow decided that we should offer toasts.

There were two toasts that changed the atmosphere. They made everyone fall silent, no, made the world fall silent, as though it were holding its breath, watching with palpable fascination, like we were on the threshold of the universe being born (I’ve also felt this atmosphere working as a counsellor when a client has really entered deeply into insight and begun to make big healing or transformative steps).

The first toast that invoked this sacred atmosphere, this temenos, was a recitation of the Lords Prayer in Arabic by a Lebanese Christian gentleman. In the beautiful cadences of Arabic, this prayer, which I usually find grating and shallow, resonated with power and grace. His performance touched all of us.

The second toast was my own. I started by saying that any gathering of warmth such as this is joyous. And then I recited:

Joy is had by the one who knows
Few troubles, pains and sorrows
And by him who has
Power and blessedness
And a good enough house

The shining stillness of the moment made the wine sweet and many an enigmatic smile appeared on the lips of those gathered. We all sat for a little while, unable to speak but not needing to, either. That moment I feel we stepped through the door of a rune poem into what Heidegger perhaps would have called aletheia – the moment of truth, the primal truth, when all Being is gathered into its sacred, secret perfection.

The experience taught me that both Christian and Heathen forms can be doors into something greater: what makes the difference is our attitude and intention.

The Konkokyo Shinto folks seem to be getting close to this kind of power every time they hold spiritual observance. They made me feel both humble and inspired, which is a pretty awesome combination. We Heathens have a lot to learn, and, I hope, a lot to be excited about.

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