“The life of the dead is placed in the living.” – The Ninth Oration of M. T. Cicero against Marcus Antonius, Called Also the Ninth Philippic, 10. As the Northern Hemisphere enters the late Summer and early Fall seasons, ancestors and ancestral holidays are on my mind, greatly. In fact, the majority of my observed holidays have some kind of major ancestral component to them. The “season” of such observances, which are commonly concentrated by many Pagans in the fall and winter is really the majority of the year. While I would not say I am particularly “death obsessed”, there is a significant facet of emphasis on my ancestral dead that forms a major part of my cultic practice. I generally refer to August…
Anglo-Saxon Heathenry and Roman Polytheism
Posts from the “Fyrnsidu” Category
“<X> is my favorite deity!”, an anonymous Pagan scrawls on the internet. This has always struck me as an odd statement. I understand where it is coming from, in the same vein as “<Name> is my favorite person”. We play favorites as social animals, and it’s been something that’s been criticized for a long time. It’s in the Bible even – well, one of them (The Message). No, seriously. Check out Proverbs 28:21-22. It’s there. If one were to ask me which one of the pets I have known, or friends I have known, were my absolute favorite, I wouldn’t be able to answer. I’m a person who tries to approach people on their own merits. The people I am friendly with are not…
There is some inherent, unique quality to man-made boundaries, a quality which I feel often gets overlooked in conversations about Paganism. The demarcations of space which cut across the landscape in sometimes glaringly artificial lines, which nevertheless draw our eyes to them. We follow them and trace them, experiencing them as both tangible and intangible forces. A ditch or culvert, roads and dirt tracks, an old moss-covered stone wall, and even post markers of property or former lines which no longer exist are all representative of the division of human space in this world. These structures contain something more, something that exists both within and alongside the power from the natural realm that many Pagans emphasize. At times, it can be near-palpable and…
In developing a more comprehensive character to one’s religious identity, inspiration for practice can come readily from scraps of information or otherwise from the barest of inspiration. As a reconstructionist religion, Fyrnsidu is distinctly benefited from the use of various comparative methodologies in order to flesh itself out so that it does not remain in a static or otherwise stunted form. Incidents of holidays and a religious calendar are one such facet which are underrepresented in the historic record and must be worked around in order to craft a proper identity. The following is presented for practitioners of Fyrnsidu and the followers of the Larhus Fyrnsida to consider. Bosworth-Toller’s Anglo-Saxon Dictionary includes a definition: blōstm-frēols es; m. A floral festival Blōstmfrēols >>floralia<<.[1] This definition…
Of Axe and Plough 