What is a Heathen? (pt 1)
Sep. 3rd, 2021 11:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gullindaganAs a preface, I'd like to state that these posts are a way for me to understand my own thinking better. To take my readings, meditations and experiences and order them, so that I might see more clearly what is really going on. In past posts and in future posts, I deal directly with the content that I'm absorbing, wrestling with authors to separate the gold from the dross. Words seem to me to be a very brute way of understanding something, they are both blunt and slippery. In a way, we are all barbarians to our inner selves, muttering "bar bar bar" to each other and pointing at rocks, pointing at the sun, and misunderstanding most things any more abstract. Definitions are slippery, and meanings are constantly shifting, and I am constantly learning. So this essay is a trial, an attempt, an assail at meaning. And I am quite positive that my understanding will change as I grow and learn further. But, the actual action of me putting these thoughts to screen is a part of that growing and learning.
So what is a "heathen"? Or, what does it mean to me? It seems like everybody who calls themselves "heathen", or, is called "heathen" has a slightly different take on it. There are Norse Pagans, Heathens, Odinists, Asatru, Vanatru, even Rokkatru, those who follow the "Northern Tradition," hard polytheists, soft polytheists, pantheists, etc etc. For me, "heathen" also means different things. One definition, that probably has the best tension between general and specific, is: "somebody who follows the old gods of Northern Europe." So does this mean that they should be followed exclusively? Not necessarily. Certainly, many folks will just honor one pantheon, or set of pantheons (Aesir and Vanir for instance.) But I see polytheism as an inherent part of Heathenry, and if one makes offerings to both Norse gods and Hindu gods, to me, that one is Heathen. And also maybe Hindu! There are records of historical heathens worshiping both the old gods and Jesus, for instance King Raedwald of East Anglia who kept an alter to Jesus in his pagan temple.
As a word, "heathen" means "dweller of the heath" or, the wilderness, the country. "Pagan" means something similar. but the people of Northern Europe didn't even have a name for their "religion" before the Christians started calling them heathens and pagans. Christianity was largely a urban phenomenon, and country people clung to their old ways for many centuries after they were nominally "christian." Apparently, they would even pray to gods though the image of a saint. For instance, Thor was prayed and petitioned to under the name of St. Olaf! It's rather interesting that now Christianity is mostly followed in the hinterlands, but I guess that's how things go.
I, personally, as somebody who lives in the country and comes from country folk (though I was educated in a small city) like that aspect of the term. I identify with the woods, the mountains, the streams and lakes. To me, this is in many ways just as important as honoring the deities. The spirits of the land, the ancestors, the elves, these are all important spirits to come into right relationship with.
Maria Kvilhaug has an essay about this topic too, and she brings up the point that the Norse word for heathen is related to the word for "shining" and "enlightenment". The name of the volva from the Voluspa, Heidr, comes from that same root word. The shining heath, the bright clearing in the woods. the brilliant sky, the light of spiritual illumination. I think this is a valid way of using meaning, and I like the way this meaning stretches the possibilities of the term.
So, as somebody who honors the old gods, revels in the wild, works to enter right relationship with the spirits of the land, and seeks after spiritual illumination, "heathen" is a fine word to label me, even if I don't really like to be labelled anything.
So what is a "heathen"? Or, what does it mean to me? It seems like everybody who calls themselves "heathen", or, is called "heathen" has a slightly different take on it. There are Norse Pagans, Heathens, Odinists, Asatru, Vanatru, even Rokkatru, those who follow the "Northern Tradition," hard polytheists, soft polytheists, pantheists, etc etc. For me, "heathen" also means different things. One definition, that probably has the best tension between general and specific, is: "somebody who follows the old gods of Northern Europe." So does this mean that they should be followed exclusively? Not necessarily. Certainly, many folks will just honor one pantheon, or set of pantheons (Aesir and Vanir for instance.) But I see polytheism as an inherent part of Heathenry, and if one makes offerings to both Norse gods and Hindu gods, to me, that one is Heathen. And also maybe Hindu! There are records of historical heathens worshiping both the old gods and Jesus, for instance King Raedwald of East Anglia who kept an alter to Jesus in his pagan temple.
As a word, "heathen" means "dweller of the heath" or, the wilderness, the country. "Pagan" means something similar. but the people of Northern Europe didn't even have a name for their "religion" before the Christians started calling them heathens and pagans. Christianity was largely a urban phenomenon, and country people clung to their old ways for many centuries after they were nominally "christian." Apparently, they would even pray to gods though the image of a saint. For instance, Thor was prayed and petitioned to under the name of St. Olaf! It's rather interesting that now Christianity is mostly followed in the hinterlands, but I guess that's how things go.
I, personally, as somebody who lives in the country and comes from country folk (though I was educated in a small city) like that aspect of the term. I identify with the woods, the mountains, the streams and lakes. To me, this is in many ways just as important as honoring the deities. The spirits of the land, the ancestors, the elves, these are all important spirits to come into right relationship with.
Maria Kvilhaug has an essay about this topic too, and she brings up the point that the Norse word for heathen is related to the word for "shining" and "enlightenment". The name of the volva from the Voluspa, Heidr, comes from that same root word. The shining heath, the bright clearing in the woods. the brilliant sky, the light of spiritual illumination. I think this is a valid way of using meaning, and I like the way this meaning stretches the possibilities of the term.
So, as somebody who honors the old gods, revels in the wild, works to enter right relationship with the spirits of the land, and seeks after spiritual illumination, "heathen" is a fine word to label me, even if I don't really like to be labelled anything.
no subject
Date: 2021-09-07 04:06 pm (UTC)I suppose the trouble I've had so far is that it seems hard to find the balance that Ecosophia has - folks from all traditions are welcome, but please bring a certain amount of seriousness about your practice. Out in the world, there seem to be two main poles, at least at the moment: the "big tent" Neopagan movement that seeks to include anybody and everybody who isn't a monotheist, which has many of the problems JMG has laid out, and then those groups that have reacted to that by fencing off a particular territory and saying "no, we're not anything-goes, thank you very much, we do things this way". I think a lot of heathen groups have gone the latter way, which risks turning into the "one-true-wayism" you and others have talked about in this comment thread.
Maybe I'll just have to take JMG's advice and start my own Esoteric Reading Library to attract the kind of odd ducks I'm looking for :)
no subject
Date: 2021-09-07 04:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-09-07 05:32 pm (UTC)Still, it's a good suggestion, and one I very likely ought to heed within the next year or so.
no subject
Date: 2021-09-07 07:51 pm (UTC)