Category: Odinism and other Religion
Edda Cards
I bought these cards some years back. They have a colourful picture of a theme from the Poetic Edda on the front and a full description in French on the back.
The cards were made in 1934 by a company called Liebig and given away with their “Meat Extract” product.
Can you feel the storm?
Had some thunder and lightning earlier and it looks like more is on the way. Nothing quite like a good storm to clear the air after some hot weather and of course, as our ancestors knew, lightning helps to release nitrogen in the soil so it is fitting that that Thor is honoured by those who grow things and work the land.
Hail Thor!
Here is a very fitting song for the day.
For friends we give thanks!
I wrote the following as an editorial for the last issue of OR Briefing, the Odinic Rite members’ journal, and thought I would post it here for non OR people to read….
The last few weeks have been interesting for me in that I have reconnected with some friends who I spent so much time with in the 1980s. Despite its faults Facebook does have uses and it is great to be back in contact with old mates. But that joy is tinged with sadness as I have also learned of the deaths of old friends. I have always been pretty poor at keeping in touch and tend to let life get in the way of maintaining friendships. It saddens me to look back at all the years which have passed.
This recent reunion got me thinking about the advice given to us in the Havamal about friends and I think that stanza 34 hits the nail on the head:
Crooked and far | is the road to a foe,
Though his house on the highway be;
But wide and straight | is the way to a friend,
Though far away he fare.
The path to a friends house should always seem a joy and a pleasure for what lies at the end, no matter how far or difficult the journey. Having visited friends on the other side of the world over the last few years I know that to be true.
Stanza 44 tells us:
If a friend thou hast | whom thou fully wilt trust,
And good from him wouldst get,
Thy thoughts with his mingle, | and gifts shalt thou make,
And fare to find him oft.
And stanza 119:
If a friend thou hast | whom thou fully wilt trust,
Then fare to find him oft;
For brambles grow | and waving grass
On the rarely trodden road.
Clearly all wise words and clearly all imploring the reader to keep in contact with good and true friends.
The Havamal is actually full of advice regarding friends and those who might appear to be friends but who are fickle or are insincere and will break friendships over a drunken word or a perceived slight. The advice for true friends however could not be clearer. Keep in touch!
I am sure that many of you have lost contact with dear friends, or have just not spared the time recently too contact those whose friendship and trust you once valued. We all have busy lives which take over at times.
Perhaps now is the ideal time to go and make that call or to plan a visit.
Young was I once, | and wandered alone,
And nought of the road I knew;
Rich did I feel | when a comrade I found,
For man is man’s delight.
Best wishes
Hengest OR
White Horse Stone Website
I have made a new website dedicated to the White Horse Stone.
The WHS is a very important place to me. Aside for the reasons I give on the site as to why the place is important, it was the location of my first OR blot.
I have also been present at the stone for the Profession of my brother Asrekyr OR, my sister Hyndla OR and I also conducted the Profession of my brother Drogbeorn OR there.
Please check the site out and leave comments if you wish.
‘We can’t let thugs censor Britain’, says defiant author of Mohammed novel
A novelist yesterday urged the British people to stand by the principle of free speech to ensure that her book about the Prophet Mohammed was published here.
U.S. writer Sherry Jones spoke out after the London home of her publisher Martin Rynja was firebombed.
Mr Rynja had agreed to go ahead with Miss Jones’s book in Britain after a major publishing house pulled out of the deal.
‘You have to ask whether a thug with a gun or petrol bomb should be allowed to censor the people of Great Britain,’ Miss Jones, 47, said at her home in Spokane, Washington state. dailymail.co.uk
Galloway gets a taste of his own medicine.
Despite the fact that I hate him with a passion, I did enjoy seeing George Galloway ripping into the hypocrites of the US Senate. Do watch it, it is excellent.
But I also really enjoyed seeing him being ripped into by the maker of the Undercover Mosque documentaries which exposed the violent preaching in London’s Regents Park Mosque.
Odinism by Astrid – 100th Post!
Well this is my 100th post and I had been thinking today about writing something to mark this milestone. I wanted to make it a personal post and threw a few ideas around in my head. I decided that I was going to post about how positive I see things at the moment for the Odinic Rite and mention all the things I think we have achieved over the last few years.
However, when I got home I had a message from my sister Astrid on Myspace. I logged in to read the message and noticed that she had updated her page. On checking the page I found she hag added the text below, and I knew that was my special 100th post. It says all that really needs to be said.
Astrid I am so proud of you little sister.
Through Odinism, I do good I feel good, I do bad I feel bad, I love unrelentingly, and am loved for exactly who I am. I have no promise of a ‘heaven’ no threat of a ‘hell’. My life is all I have, my soul is shared with everyone of my folk. If I live right, I have no need of a paradise. I live everyday for my faith, folk and family, everything I do is meant to keep this soul I share with my people alive and burning. The greatest thing I could ever achieve in my lifetime is my children keeping that soul alive and free. I am connected to my folk, to nature, and to everything else in ways a clouded mind could never believe existed. And being in love and love itself is very different.
I live by nine codes: Courage, Truth, Honor, Fidelity, Discipline, Hospitality, Self-Reliance, Industriousness, Perseverance.
Every bad decision, dishonorable act, and mistake will be corrected through my other actions. Or my family will be scarred with the choices i made. There is no room for selfishness when you live for things like Family and folk. There is no faith if there is no folk. I am not governed by laws, only right and wrong. I do what’s right because its right, not because someone tells me what is right. Doing right is exhausting, but your life is yours, and you have to live with everything you ever experience.
A Sad Loss
In Memory of Lydia Lynch
We have suffered a great loss. One of our darling children has left us to the other side. Her name was Lydia Lynch and she was six years old. The daughter of Justin AOR and Emily AOR, who was collectively being raised by five Endr-Lifga Hearth members. And beyond that she was the daughter of us all. Lydia was a constant participant in Acorn Hollow Denver activities and was present at the first AHD event.
This beautiful little girl was only steps away from her mother when a driver, who had a revoked license, slammed into this little body and tore her from her mothers reach, then proceeded to drag her two blocks down the street before stopping.
She was only six when she returned to the Gods and it is us who should have been her teachers, yet it is she who has taught us so much. Teaching us to smile and laugh. Teaching us the depths of love. Teaching us how precious every moment we spend with each other is. Teaching us that the words ands ways we treat the ones we love must matter, for in the blink of an eye those loves so true in our heart’s may be called to return to all that is. She was the light that we ought all strive to have burning inside of ourselves.
Her name was Lydia Lynch. We called her “Moosey”.
To the Gods Dear One. To the Gods.
