Modern Heathen

An Ostara meditation that I wrote is here. I used to take it for granted, but these days I'm feeling my way through the notion of what's called pathworking or guided meditation, which tends to be the lighter version of shamanic style journeying. The lighter versions of it are very common in Neo-Pagan circles, while Asatruars usually don't do it unless they're doing the hard core journeying stuff.

I think there's a place for the lighter stuff (not lighter in the sense of "fluffy", but in the sense of not needing a life-and-death shamanic experience to get some benefit out of it. But the rest of the Asatru community doesn't seem to feel the need for it that Neo-Pagans do, so perhaps I'm mistaken.

Our Troth page on Ostara is here.

Our Troth page on Odin is here.

Harry Potter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the Left Behind series are but the latest manifestations of American teenagers' longstanding fascination with the supernatural and the paranormal. In this groundbreaking book, Lynn Schofield Clark explores the implications of this fascination for contemporary religious and spiritual practices. Relying on stories gleaned from more than 250 in-depth interviews with teens and their families, Clark seeks to discover what today's teens really believe and why. She finds that as adherence to formal religious bodies declines, interest in alternative spiritualities as well as belief in "superstition" grow accordingly. Ironically, she argues, fundamentalist Christian alarmism about the forces of evil has also fed belief in a wider array of supernatural entities.

As you recall, I made a number of boasts. Some of them I'm doing better at than others. But currently I'm doing the following:

I will learn to knit. (I'm going to the knitting store for a lesson this Saturday, woo hoo!)

I will aim to bake at least once a month. I'm making a sour cream and chocolate cake this weekend.

I will become more regular in private spiritual practice. Eh, not so steady on this one. I think I'm running into an issue where I really need more sleep so that I'm up for spiritual practice in the morning.

So, the problem is really a matter of sleeping more, (which means getting to bed at a decent time), having the materials to pursue practice (notebooks, pens, books) and so on handy, having ready access to my basic altar materials...and, not getting too ambitious. Just doing it.

For official blots, there is coming up an Odin blot and Ostara. So, I'm going to hunt down some Odin and Ostara links. More about that later.