When I wrote my reply it told me it was too big. Continued incoherent rambling -
The part that I think applies here is the part where I get told I can handle my own emotional turmoil. I'd been in a spot where I hadn't considered that for a bit.
> Unity. Volva-ness. The lack of support even within our own peoples. Not being able to place 'nicely' even if we can't agree on the details.
Now I move from mythical stuff to pop psychological stuff. Outright psycho-babble even. While I understand that some dreams are mythical experiences that change the rest of our lives, I also believe that most dreams are handling the emotional impact of the day and most intense or repeating dreams are our subconscious working through something old within us that before now we couldn't face or work through. This is not to say that a dream can't be both a life changing mythical vision and a way of working through our reaction to an old emotional impact - In fact I suspect that's what happened.
So why are you feeling a "lack of support even within our own peoples"?
I'm one of your local folks (under 3 hours one way, local is something of a sliding scale ...) and for me faring forth is a religious practice from before I converted to Asatru. For me it's a been-there-done-that-nice-next-please issue. That can seem lacking in support through lack of participation. Not sure who I can better express an acknowledgment that something I no longer wish to do is a well established part of Asatru. For me it's the same issue as my personal focus on those of Asgard leading me to pay less head to the Vaettir than some - Core Asatru just not my thing at the moment.
There's also the isolation of not having other heathens in your locality local enough to come for a visit more than once in a blue moon. You might be tempted to think Asatru is now an urban faith because so many of us are now in the urbs and burbs, but let me assure you my being close to lots of folks listed as heathens translates to many of them being willing to come face to face with anyone else ever. Names on contact lists don't kindreds make. Even in the city there's isolation aplenty. So I step out on my deck at night and listen to the howls of the coyotes I almost never see and I let myself feel that I'm not as isolated as I'm tempted to feel. It's neither the critters nor the people nor the distance.
> Unity.
I can't help you there. I go for "There is strength in diversity" and I take that to a viewpoint that unity makes for a single target.
It's the view that feeling isolated today means lack of growth this year. There are more and more heathens every year. "This too shall pass".
Thank you for giving me another view to work this issue of the short term being disconnected from the long term.
The part that I think applies here is the part where I get told I can handle my own emotional turmoil. I'd been in a spot where I hadn't considered that for a bit.
> Unity. Volva-ness. The lack of support even within our own peoples. Not being able to place 'nicely' even if we can't agree on the details.
Now I move from mythical stuff to pop psychological stuff. Outright psycho-babble even. While I understand that some dreams are mythical experiences that change the rest of our lives, I also believe that most dreams are handling the emotional impact of the day and most intense or repeating dreams are our subconscious working through something old within us that before now we couldn't face or work through. This is not to say that a dream can't be both a life changing mythical vision and a way of working through our reaction to an old emotional impact - In fact I suspect that's what happened.
So why are you feeling a "lack of support even within our own peoples"?
I'm one of your local folks (under 3 hours one way, local is something of a sliding scale ...) and for me faring forth is a religious practice from before I converted to Asatru. For me it's a been-there-done-that-nice-next-please issue. That can seem lacking in support through lack of participation. Not sure who I can better express an acknowledgment that something I no longer wish to do is a well established part of Asatru. For me it's the same issue as my personal focus on those of Asgard leading me to pay less head to the Vaettir than some - Core Asatru just not my thing at the moment.
There's also the isolation of not having other heathens in your locality local enough to come for a visit more than once in a blue moon. You might be tempted to think Asatru is now an urban faith because so many of us are now in the urbs and burbs, but let me assure you my being close to lots of folks listed as heathens translates to many of them being willing to come face to face with anyone else ever. Names on contact lists don't kindreds make. Even in the city there's isolation aplenty. So I step out on my deck at night and listen to the howls of the coyotes I almost never see and I let myself feel that I'm not as isolated as I'm tempted to feel. It's neither the critters nor the people nor the distance.
> Unity.
I can't help you there. I go for "There is strength in diversity" and I take that to a viewpoint that unity makes for a single target.
It's the view that feeling isolated today means lack of growth this year. There are more and more heathens every year. "This too shall pass".
Thank you for giving me another view to work this issue of the short term being disconnected from the long term.
Hail Asgard!
Doug Freyburger
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