I was fourteen when I first started to
pray to the gods I pray to now. Well, mostly the same gods, anyway.
Back then, I would just stand, unsure whether it was 'Pagan' to put
my hands together or close my eyes. My sources, such as they were,
were the entire Pagan section from my public library – about five
or six books in total, and all with a distinctly Wiccan flavour. But
still, as it was the mid 90s, it would be roughly three more years
before I would see the internet in my backwoods corner of England (in
the next town), and it was 1999 when the internet came to our home.
This was both a curse and a blessing; a blessing because there was no 'noise' from outside sources to tell me what I 'should' be doing, and a curse because I remained in a state of ignorance when it came to anything outside of the half a dozen Pagan books from the library. Some things I got right, making offerings to trees and water, for one. But I think I got a whole lot more wrong – a least for me.
Over the years, what might be termed as my 'hearth culture' has gone through countless changes as my environment ( and by extension, I) have adapted. When I joined ADF, I was at a crossroads of sorts, because to put it simply, I didn't feel like what I was doing was 'watering my whole tree', and I'm sorry to say that most of modern Heathenism came to feel empty to me. To borrow terminology from Isaac Bonewits in 'Neopagan Rites', the magical technology wasn't just incompetant, but it seemed anathema to many.
However, I have a drive, and a need to be engaged with the magical and otherworldly. Interactions with the 'other' have been a part of my life ever since I was a child growing up with the Spiritualist heritage of my father's side of the family. At this point, I've seen too much of the otherworldly, especially the dead, to ignore that side of me in order to not make some people uncomfortable.
I also have a drive to worship Celtic gods as well as Germanic, but this proved to be a large mental block for quite a while, and it was only when I started to research the cultural borrowings between the Gauls and Germans during the La Tène period that I began to feel more comfortable with the Irish and Brythonic sides of my heritage. As I looked at the Gauls, I began to look at the Indo-Europeans as a whole, and found myself understanding far more of the Germanic worldview for it. Some of the depth missing from mainstream Heathenry started to fill in for me, and in worshipping the Celtic gods that I worship, I found a kind of healing.
My hearth culture as I experience it now is both Germanic and Irish/Brythonic. The deities I worship are Woden, Frija, Thunor, Hama, Ing, Macha, Brighid (who I see as being the same as Brigantia, and the sovereignty goddess of the land where I grew up), Lugh, the Divine Twins, Blodeuedd/Blodeuwedd, and the Taliesin. I also worship the Aelfe (elves), Matronae, Feorrin ('fairies', in my native dialect), Cofgodas (house spirits), and make offerings to Garanus as a liminal guide. The Ancestors are a main part of our hearth culture, from the whole family offering rituals to the touching their shrine and saying a quick prayer or 'I love you' on my way past. When my daughter was born, it was at their shrine that we first presented her when my husband sprinkled water on her head and named her on her ninth day.
With a few friends who also straddle the worlds of Heathenry and ADF, the process of building a Proto-Grove began, and it's been really excellent because we not only do we have great 'ritual chemistry', but we're mostly on the same page about our hearth culture focii. We're a dual Norse/Irish grove, and alternate High Days between the cultures in a way that really works for us. Imbolc is about Brighid, Ostara honours the dawn goddess that brings the spring, Beltane is all about the Sidhe. At summer solstice we honour Sunna, and Lughnasadh is for Lugh. We're pretty set on the Divine Twins for the Autumn Equinox (based on the idea that in various IE cultures, the temple pillars representing them were typically aligned with the Fall equinox), and Samhain is all about the Ancestors (and maybe the Morrigan). Yule is yet to be discussed, but will in all likelihood be Germanic - probably in honour of Odin. I would also like to include Frija, but we'll have to see how the others in the PG feel. Regardless, my own Yule celebrations will honour Frija,and the Matronae, simply because that's the High Day focus in our home at that time of year. We also typically celebrate for 13 nights, and have various rituals during that time. As for patron deities for the PG, we have a consensus to just take it easy and see if any come up in an organic way.
If there's one thing though, that being a long-time Heathen has taught me, it's that hearth culture is a changing thing, it's mostly never set in stone. It's a thing that's alive, built up of layers of action, of piety, of prayer, of ritual, of oaths, and service. It's also something that adapts to environment and to each new arrival in the family, only to be passed on to those that come after us. I don't know how this hearth culture is going to look in another twenty years, but I do think that there is plenty of room for growth, for strengthening our reciprocal relationships with the kindreds, and being the best we can be for those around us.
Words = 986
This was both a curse and a blessing; a blessing because there was no 'noise' from outside sources to tell me what I 'should' be doing, and a curse because I remained in a state of ignorance when it came to anything outside of the half a dozen Pagan books from the library. Some things I got right, making offerings to trees and water, for one. But I think I got a whole lot more wrong – a least for me.
Over the years, what might be termed as my 'hearth culture' has gone through countless changes as my environment ( and by extension, I) have adapted. When I joined ADF, I was at a crossroads of sorts, because to put it simply, I didn't feel like what I was doing was 'watering my whole tree', and I'm sorry to say that most of modern Heathenism came to feel empty to me. To borrow terminology from Isaac Bonewits in 'Neopagan Rites', the magical technology wasn't just incompetant, but it seemed anathema to many.
However, I have a drive, and a need to be engaged with the magical and otherworldly. Interactions with the 'other' have been a part of my life ever since I was a child growing up with the Spiritualist heritage of my father's side of the family. At this point, I've seen too much of the otherworldly, especially the dead, to ignore that side of me in order to not make some people uncomfortable.
I also have a drive to worship Celtic gods as well as Germanic, but this proved to be a large mental block for quite a while, and it was only when I started to research the cultural borrowings between the Gauls and Germans during the La Tène period that I began to feel more comfortable with the Irish and Brythonic sides of my heritage. As I looked at the Gauls, I began to look at the Indo-Europeans as a whole, and found myself understanding far more of the Germanic worldview for it. Some of the depth missing from mainstream Heathenry started to fill in for me, and in worshipping the Celtic gods that I worship, I found a kind of healing.
My hearth culture as I experience it now is both Germanic and Irish/Brythonic. The deities I worship are Woden, Frija, Thunor, Hama, Ing, Macha, Brighid (who I see as being the same as Brigantia, and the sovereignty goddess of the land where I grew up), Lugh, the Divine Twins, Blodeuedd/Blodeuwedd, and the Taliesin. I also worship the Aelfe (elves), Matronae, Feorrin ('fairies', in my native dialect), Cofgodas (house spirits), and make offerings to Garanus as a liminal guide. The Ancestors are a main part of our hearth culture, from the whole family offering rituals to the touching their shrine and saying a quick prayer or 'I love you' on my way past. When my daughter was born, it was at their shrine that we first presented her when my husband sprinkled water on her head and named her on her ninth day.
With a few friends who also straddle the worlds of Heathenry and ADF, the process of building a Proto-Grove began, and it's been really excellent because we not only do we have great 'ritual chemistry', but we're mostly on the same page about our hearth culture focii. We're a dual Norse/Irish grove, and alternate High Days between the cultures in a way that really works for us. Imbolc is about Brighid, Ostara honours the dawn goddess that brings the spring, Beltane is all about the Sidhe. At summer solstice we honour Sunna, and Lughnasadh is for Lugh. We're pretty set on the Divine Twins for the Autumn Equinox (based on the idea that in various IE cultures, the temple pillars representing them were typically aligned with the Fall equinox), and Samhain is all about the Ancestors (and maybe the Morrigan). Yule is yet to be discussed, but will in all likelihood be Germanic - probably in honour of Odin. I would also like to include Frija, but we'll have to see how the others in the PG feel. Regardless, my own Yule celebrations will honour Frija,and the Matronae, simply because that's the High Day focus in our home at that time of year. We also typically celebrate for 13 nights, and have various rituals during that time. As for patron deities for the PG, we have a consensus to just take it easy and see if any come up in an organic way.
If there's one thing though, that being a long-time Heathen has taught me, it's that hearth culture is a changing thing, it's mostly never set in stone. It's a thing that's alive, built up of layers of action, of piety, of prayer, of ritual, of oaths, and service. It's also something that adapts to environment and to each new arrival in the family, only to be passed on to those that come after us. I don't know how this hearth culture is going to look in another twenty years, but I do think that there is plenty of room for growth, for strengthening our reciprocal relationships with the kindreds, and being the best we can be for those around us.
Words = 986
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