Good Disting
Lana and I just finished a short Disting blöt, during which I made an oath that has been long in coming.
Before I share it, a little history -
I was, a long time ago, a study of the magnickal arts (and every bit as pretentious as that sounds). I read on magic, mysticism, astrology, and tarot. I spent every dollar I made that didn't go to gas or food on books, and spent every moment not spent at work or playing music doing rituals, divination, and meditation. I was a 19 year old John Constantine wannabe, trying to figure out how I could get rich and be Doctor Strange at the same time.
I was a muddled, mixed up, mystical mess.
I was also trying on religions, trying to find a spiritual path that I could call home. I studied bits of Taoism, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and never felt very comfortable with any of them. I read on new age stuff. I generally overlooked the Wicca section, though. I wasn't interested in "folk magic".
And then I discovered the runes. I started studying runes when I was 20, in 1991. I studied them for year before I discovered Asatru, through "A Book of Troth". I finally felt as though I had come home. I started looking for other pagans and found the local ADF group, which imploded shortly after I arrived. (Before you ask, I had nothing to with it.) Shortly after, I found a Wiccan group that accepted me with open arms. I decided that I should join, and eventually went through their entire training program. I tried to be involved with Asatru community after the birth of the internet, but found to my surprise that the Asatruars and the Wiccans generally didn't have much in common. Granted, the things that I disagreed with Wicca about were mostly the same things that the Asatru didn't care for, but I though I could help change things in Wicca for the "better", and besides, this was my chosen family. Eventually a kindred formed in Nashville, and Lana and I joined, though we didn't at that time leave the coven. I felt that I would soon have to make a choice as to which world I would walk in, but that choice was made for me, and for my family, but the other three members of the kindred. We weren't "tru enough", and we would have to go.
So we left. A couple of years later we left the coven, and started our own group that was intended to be a tribalist compilation of both Celtic and Germanic traditions. The first year went fairly well. Then I had a number of family tragedies that took my mind away from essentially everything but the tragedies. The group started to fall apart, which was mostly my fault, and I started a protracted period of soul-searching culminating in my renouncing pretty much everything religious.
Even atheism didn't take though. We moved out of state, then moved back, contemplated restarting a coven in the same tradition that we left, and then deciding not too because it never quite felt right. Finally, we decided to come back home to Asatru.
Tonight, I made an oath to dedicate myself to the Aesir, the Vanir, and way of my northern ancestors.
I'm home, at last and for good.
Good disting, all.
Before I share it, a little history -
I was, a long time ago, a study of the magnickal arts (and every bit as pretentious as that sounds). I read on magic, mysticism, astrology, and tarot. I spent every dollar I made that didn't go to gas or food on books, and spent every moment not spent at work or playing music doing rituals, divination, and meditation. I was a 19 year old John Constantine wannabe, trying to figure out how I could get rich and be Doctor Strange at the same time.
I was a muddled, mixed up, mystical mess.
I was also trying on religions, trying to find a spiritual path that I could call home. I studied bits of Taoism, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and never felt very comfortable with any of them. I read on new age stuff. I generally overlooked the Wicca section, though. I wasn't interested in "folk magic".
And then I discovered the runes. I started studying runes when I was 20, in 1991. I studied them for year before I discovered Asatru, through "A Book of Troth". I finally felt as though I had come home. I started looking for other pagans and found the local ADF group, which imploded shortly after I arrived. (Before you ask, I had nothing to with it.) Shortly after, I found a Wiccan group that accepted me with open arms. I decided that I should join, and eventually went through their entire training program. I tried to be involved with Asatru community after the birth of the internet, but found to my surprise that the Asatruars and the Wiccans generally didn't have much in common. Granted, the things that I disagreed with Wicca about were mostly the same things that the Asatru didn't care for, but I though I could help change things in Wicca for the "better", and besides, this was my chosen family. Eventually a kindred formed in Nashville, and Lana and I joined, though we didn't at that time leave the coven. I felt that I would soon have to make a choice as to which world I would walk in, but that choice was made for me, and for my family, but the other three members of the kindred. We weren't "tru enough", and we would have to go.
So we left. A couple of years later we left the coven, and started our own group that was intended to be a tribalist compilation of both Celtic and Germanic traditions. The first year went fairly well. Then I had a number of family tragedies that took my mind away from essentially everything but the tragedies. The group started to fall apart, which was mostly my fault, and I started a protracted period of soul-searching culminating in my renouncing pretty much everything religious.
Even atheism didn't take though. We moved out of state, then moved back, contemplated restarting a coven in the same tradition that we left, and then deciding not too because it never quite felt right. Finally, we decided to come back home to Asatru.
Tonight, I made an oath to dedicate myself to the Aesir, the Vanir, and way of my northern ancestors.
I'm home, at last and for good.
Good disting, all.