Ceallaigh's Blog
Two days ago, the Asatru Folk Assembly released this statement on its Facebook Page:
Today we are bombarded with confusion and messages contrary to the values of our ancestors and our folk. The AFA would like to make it clear that we believe gender is not a social construct, it is a beautiful gift from the holy powers and from our ancestors. The AFA celebrates our feminine ladies, our masculine gentlemen and, above all, our beautiful white children. The children of the folk are our shining future and the legacy of all those men and women of our people back to the beginning. Hail the AFA families, now and always! - Matt Flavel, Alsherjargothi, AFA
Down-thread, one commenter asked:
Heathen professor of mythology Karl E. H. Seigfried was recently asked to appear on BBC Up All Night, hosted by Dotun Adebayo, to discuss the new Pagan temple under construction in Iceland. Dr. Seigfried was presented with a specific list of topics beforehand, which were mutually agreed-upon, but when Adebayo began the live interview, he went off-script. In a tone that dripped smirking condescension, he called Northern European Paganism a violent fantasy and asked Dr. Seigfried a series of insulting questions designed to trip him up and tittilate listeners.
I've been thinking a great deal about what Paganism means to me and more directly about the relevance of the term 'Pagan' as a descriptor of my spiritual life. Paganism is a broad umbrella that shades a variety of budding faith paths, from Wicca to Aztec Reconstructionism (a blossom I find deeply troubling, given my recent research into Aztec religious practices). It boasts a host of non-Christian Gods and a burgeoning repository of historical, pseudo-historical, reconstructed and reinvented religious practices, including many that non-Pagans would call magical (ritual, spell-craft, tarot and the like).
Back in 2000, I was in Ireland at the same time as Isaac Bonewitz, and we traveled together for a couple of weeks. Before we parted company, he shared Brigid's flame with me from a candle he had lit at the shrine in Kildare. Subsequently, I passed the flame to friends, among them a priestess in Maryland.
The last time I practiced my faith in the company of like-minded people was in 2003, when Sean and I were attending and occasionally leading an open circle of diverse Pagans in Bangor, Maine. Since then, I've been largely solitary, except for my correspondence with OBOD tutors in the Ovate and Druid grades. Part of the reason for this was Sean's education, our subsequent moves to Michigan and Nova Scotia and my immersion in both my writing career and the Gàidhlig community. I'm just busy. However, my primary reasons for solitary practice have had to do with the community itself; the lack of welcome I received when reaching out to local Pagans, the pervasive negative behavior I found on message boards, the open groups and rituals riddled with co-dependency and problematic practices. Because I'm so busy, and because I've been Pagan for so long, I just don't have the time or the energy for anything that doesn't meet my spiritual needs in a healthful way.
I am a Druid member of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids who prepared the attached gwers as a gift to the Order upon completion of the Ovate grade. If you are a member of the Order in the Ovate Grade or higher, you can request the password to this document by sending me an e-mail that contains the first sentence of the first paragraph on the first white page of your first Ovate gwers.
Yours in the Grove,
Ceallaigh
This essay does not represent the entirety of my spiritual perspective, nor am I entirely comfortable with the 'Heathen' label. To be sure, I am not always comfortable with any label. However, I do believe the piece speaks to the problem of racism in the Pagan community, and so while I am not always comfortable with labels, I am always comfortable with multiculturalism, and so the essay remains.
I am a Heathen, which means that I am a practitioner of reconstructed Northern European (NE) spirituality. Heathenry is a Pagan religion, which is to say that it draws wisdom from the animistic, nature-based spirituality of pre-Christian, Northern Europe. I'm providing this resource on my web site for two reasons; first, I hope to answer a couple of basic questions about my faith for interested readers, and second, I hope to address the problem of Heathenry vs. white supremacy.
If you have a question about Heathenry you'd like me to answer here, please contact me, and I will add it to the FAQ.
Glad Frith,
Ceallaigh
A Note to prospective plagiarists: If you're reading this paper in hopes of trying to pass it off as your own, then you should understand a couple of things in advance. First, your instructor knows how well or how poorly you write, because it's your instructor's job to know. So if you try to pass this paper off as your own, your instructor will become suspicious and will probably search the Internet for key phrases in the paper, since that's where most plagiarists steal their information from these days. You can't change this paper enough to thwart that kind of search without writing it from scratch, so you might as well do your homework to begin with and save yourself the failing grade, the course dismissal or the expulsion you would receive for academic dishonesty. Second, I taught college English for five years, and I actively support the efforts of other instructors to uncover and punish instances of academic dishonesty, so if your instructor contacts me with regard to your efforts to pass my work off as yours, I will help that instructor in every way I can.
Plagiarism is never worth it, and besides, the study of philosophy is good for your brain. So go do your homework, and if you want to cite this paper as one of the sources you used in a legitimate academic inquiry, then by all means, please do so. Good luck to you.
Written in partial fulfillment of a college 'Philosophy of Religion' class in 1997.
Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines pantheism as "a doctrine that equates God with the forces and laws of the universe." I define pantheism as a deep and resonant sense of connection to all things that exist and an acknowledgment that I am a daughter to and a co-creator with the vast and sentient Universe. God is everywhere. God is everything. God is spirit. God is incarnate. God is energy. God is matter. Rejoice! The pages you are reading and the ink upon them is manifest Divinity.