I arose early. I packed a delicious organic lunch of red beans in pasta/tomato sauce, chopped carrot, almonds, and sauerkraut. We ended up mixing these together with surprisingly delicious results when lunch time arrived.

I drove out to Donovan’s place. That morning, suddenly inspired, he had made a beautifully carved Mjolnir from wood, a hefty hammer, an offering for us to give. Armed with mead and drinking horn, we drove to a National Park by the sea.

We spent the drive talking about our hopes, desires, lives, people we know; about our creative, health, spiritual, hobby, and financial goals.

We walked for an hour or more through exquisite forest, over dizzying ocean cliffs, the sea vast and majestic, the trees all wise and all wit.

We came to our secret location, a gigantic flat rock which perches, secluded and stolidly precarious, on the cliff face, overlooking vast ocean vistas. How to find this rock? The almost-hidden trail is marked from the main path by two trees which, if seen from the correct angle, one behind the other, form an Elhaz stave shape. Elhaz: perhaps it invokes the sacred space which is open and closed all at once.

We meditated, bare feet; let the distant, epic sea song wash away our petty conscious thoughts. We knew what we wanted this ritual to be from our conversations in car and forest. To invite Thor to help us renew the momentum of spirit in our lives, to drive out the frosty barbs of negativity and boredom and renew the membrane of magic. We let this hope flow through our beings, through the rocks, the trees, the clouds, the sea.

When it felt right the ritual began, in such a way that we scarcely even noticed that we were in it. We joked and played, laughing (with compassion) about the stiffness and artificiality that some folk fall into on ceremonial occasions – so anxious to get it “right” that they cramp up and lose the spirit of the thing. Not us; we called and hollered, half serious, half in parody, but we could feel that our deities were warmly inclined to our spirit of joy.

I sang and screeched and howled and Donovan roared. We told snappy tales about Thor’s many fine qualities, of his travelling companions, of our desire to uncover the magic in our lives that makes us joyous even amid the imperfect drudgery that seems always ready to swamp our days.

Three brilliant phrases emerged as we seethed and celebrated.

Wyrd trumps Will

This gem came to me in my meditation. I have in the past (and well after I should have known better) had this idea that if I fill myself with enough magic then with my power-bloated ego I can blast the hard things in my life into halcyon dream-perfection. Clearly a notion that can lead to disappointment!

What crystallised as I meditated was something I’ve explored several times recently with brilliant people in my life – that we don’t get to live a richly magical, spirited life only after we’ve cleared away all the sources of drudge and struggle.

No, the best way is to call on the magic in the midst of life’s hard work, to have the courage and creativity and humour to find magic even amidst the awesome mundanity of dealing with the ignorant, foolish, and petty (at some level that means all of us); in dealing with the unrelenting challenges of work and money and stale repetition and I-never-have-enough-time.

So go with wyrd, don’t try to fill your will up with numinous force, you’ll just waste it in exhausting struggle. Instead work with wind, tide, and wit. Cut with the grain, dance when you are tempted to stomp grumpily. Empty yourself and you cannot be drained – be a conduit, there’s an endless supply of magic that just desperately wants to be tapped into idiosyncratic human channels. It might or might not produce what you think you need, but there is a good chance it will produce what you actually need. Let yourself be curious. Radically curious. Let yourself be bewildered and surprised.

Then in our ritual playfulness a second phrase emerged.

Invoke with Laughter

Chaos magicians tend to think that laughter is the best way to banish magical moments, spirits, spells, states of mind, anything. Yet in certain senses (not all) this could actually be a very dry, grey, boring, ugly idea. Could it potentially imply that magic has to be pompous, serious, over-stuffed, strained, redundantly effortful – in a word, insincere, in a word, dishonest – in order to be summoned? What an awful notion seems to potentially coil implicit in the notion of banish with laughter!

We, on the other hand, we invoked with laughter. We joked about ourselves, people we know, about our gods, and they joked with us and on us, and it was exquisite. Cascading joy flooded the mounting force of our ritual, which had no distinct beginning but just came into tide when it wanted, as we gave it space to do so (a nice example of wyrd trumps will in action). And Thor is one of the most mirthful figures I can think of, a truly joyous force in the world: who better to call with hilarity?

We talked about Thurisaz, its recent recurring wyrd appearances in Donovan’s life. We agreed that we like this rune, with its scary reputation and its heart of gold. Thurisaz is like Hagalaz or Nauthiz – it invites a reality check and people are afraid of that and avoid – to their cost, or more accurately, to their loss.

And Laguz kept appearing in syncronicitous ways throughout the day, the sea rune, the rune of hidden riches and mystery! Of terror, and fury, and utter confusion, and yet also of “silk and gold and reveries of graciousness” (Nietzsche).

And goats! Thor has a close connection to goats. We celebrated how knowing, collected, assured, adaptable, tricky, durable, flexible, and just plain weird goats are. Nobody messes with Goat. Goat is low key. Goat doesn’t gab his mouth when he should be silent. Goat doesn’t give away his full abilities, doesn’t show his hand out of narcissism or insecurity. Goat keeps it real. Goat is permanently, impeccably unflappable. Goat keeps the magic of its membrane in flourishing order. Goat knows that horns are to be worn, not goofily tooted. What a truly awesome role model.

Ritual, not Routine

Then the third phrase came, and it was a verbal crack of thunder as it sprang from Donovan’s lips: Ritual, not Routine. Yes! Let’s not have lives of routine: numb, stupid, clanking, ornery, dogmatic. Repetition can also be playful, flowing, artful, even creative. It can have rhythm and flow and wit. We can move through all the “must do this” tasks of life with hang-dog heads, or with halos of fire and supple limbs (in a casual/subtle/low key way if you want of course).

It’s all in how you let yourself attach meaning to the things that unfold. Change the meaning, change yourself…well, who knows what sort of brilliant consequences that might have (you might not even notice them)?

Ritual, not Routine applies literally to the art of doing ritual observance – and we were doing ritual, not empty rote motions! It was sacred play. And this goes beyond into all of life. The whole of life is potentially a ritual: improvised, filled with joy, serendipity, learning, healing, growth, courage, and patience in the face of challenge. We forget this at our peril, falling into the factory farm of our own dullness. Yet it takes so little to stay – in the dance, in the joyous.

“Love life” is not an item to be checked off on some to-do list, some roster of accomplishments. And it has nothing to do with the arbitrary turning of events. In this we aligned ourselves with a tradition that stretches from Lao Tzu (and earlier) to Cicero and even to Nietzsche, yet without any self-consciousness or reflective pomposity: that to love this life is wonder, is its own reward, is nourishment complete. That we find love for life when we give love, not when we churlishly try to force life into the shape that we ignorantly think is best for us. After all, in an infinitely complex universe, who can really be sure of what is best for them anyway?

And to those who disapprove of our light feet: perhaps you need a dose of Nietzsche’s fröhliche wissenschaft, his gay science, his dancing seriousness and courageous frivolity. Being ponderous and heavy has nothing to do with being profound. Let yourself embrace the vulnerability and power of dedication and play admixed!

We drank toasts of delicious mead, charged with lashings of chanted Thurisaz runes. We laughed and prayed and affirmed and quaffed. We drenched the hammer and offered it up, our sacrifice. We splashed mead on rock, tree, sky, sea, cloud, every hidden delight of that sacred place. We offered our gratitude liberally.

We ate our lunch happily. We talked to spirits of stone and wood on our walk back through the forest, the mead sending us into buoyant clairvoyance and exuberant inspiration.

We talked and ate into the night, and sang, and played music, and warmed ourselves in the glow of family and dogs and the full moon, and laughed at the limp literalism that sometimes haunts folk that call themselves Heathens, and marvelled at the privilege we’ve been given to flow so easily into the spirit of things (and vice versa).

And I have to re-emphasise – nothing said here takes away the reality of the challenge and difficulty that life presents. If we try to force spirituality into being a magic bullet for the ease of our burdens then chances are good it will not long tolerate our presumptuousness, our pandering to our ego’s fear of suffering (which is not a trivial thing, but nonetheless which need not be made the maxim of our actions).

The trick might be to get beyond the mole-vision of bean-counting one’s entire life into allotments of effort (lots) and ease (never enough). There is no guarantee that any of us will see out our journey in the way we’d consciously most prefer, but with our eyes fixed on the horizon (and not on our feet) our chances are that much improved, and the toil of the path might be somewhat lessened (and if not then so be it – we are here to learn, so let’s not miss whatever opportunities we are given).

All such caveats aside, I want to express my profound gratitude for these fine gifts, these three principles of religious/magical/cultural practice…and for living life, too:

Wyrd trumps Will
Invoke with Laughter
Ritual, not Routine

I pray I remember, and keep living out my remembrance, of these terrible, wonderful thoughts.

Hail Thor!

Why? Why should spiritual pursuits encompass the nebulous idea of “self-improvement.” Why does spirituality often imply a journey, a transformative adventure? How can this be distinguished from simple greed for power or the shallow acquisitive lust that is celebrated in mainstream culture? I wouldn’t dare to hazard an answer – all the obvious and/or usual ones are far too glib to be acceptable.

Instead I’d like to present three fragmentary sketches of the spiritual journey of this life. There might be others, but these three seem to be reasonably common, and one person can be living out several of these stories simultaneously, though for most people one main theme will dominate at any one time (I suspect). Many of us get stuck somewhere along the way; impotent self-congratulation tends to follow in short order.

1) Spirituality as Building Oneself Up

First we have the notion that, from humble origins, one must create oneself, must set high ideals and then orchestrate one’s own evolution in order to achieve them. This is a very ego driven, (personal) will driven process. It assumes that one can know what is best for one; it assumes that the path will be more or less logical.

When I was younger and lacked trust in my basic capacities – since I had not felt myself to be proved in the world – this approach appealed to me. It made me feel good about myself because it enabled me to think that my life was in my control, that my spiritual and worldly destiny was mine to create. These were comforting illusions for someone who was relatively powerless. Indeed, they comfort even the most seemingly powerful.

Over time it became apparent to me that this model of spiritual development was inadequate. It tended to occlude my imagination, and to me imagination is one of the pillars of personal evolution.

I also found that it did not work very well. The effort of ego-will required to make changes leads to strain in the personality and the body itself. This straining and heaving makes progress difficult – it is as though one forges forward and resists oneself at the same time. Feeling constantly caught in this state, I began to question the whole model of “building oneself up” as a spiritual mode.

Ultimately I began to find that while going through the disciplined process of a regimented “magical curriculum” put out by a popular organisation I was not learning much from my “building myself up” work. Rather, what was educating me was a wildfire of spiritual experience, transforming me spontaneously and unpredictably and quite independently of my supposedly spiritual “training.”

When I was younger I struggled a lot with depression and anxiety and careened from crisis to crisis (many of which solely existed in my own mind). I began to realise that really I had no ability to fathom the true depths of the world’s mysteries. Consequently, the simple “build yourself up” model came to seem both superficial and moronic.

To achieve deep spiritual shifts it might be helpful to live a disciplined life, but on the other hand the discipline is not the source of the growth one seeks – at best it merely makes one more able to survive and integrate the mysteries of spontaneity when they strike.

Oh, and too much of that ego/will driven stuff will occlude one’s openness to mystery, and many proponents of this model of spirituality that I have met have turned out to be spiritually constipated, if not mentally deranged, by the disjointed artifice of their attempts at spiritual expression.

2) Spirituality as Passive Acceptance

Disillusioned with the Build Yourself Up model, I drifted in the clutches of my depression, my sense of alienation, my struggle to feel I could even exist in this unhomely world at all. I felt as though there was nothing else for me, for even with the periodic and intense lessons in personal gnosis that I underwent, I simply did not have the wherewithal to find my way.

Or so I thought. With hindsight I believe that I was instinctively walking the right path in my alienated disillusion, my mournful and directionless gloom. Despair, loss, and fear are all potent teachers if one is able to transmute them, or perhaps more accurately, if one is able to clear out of the way so that they can use one as a vessel for their own spontaneous transmutation.

Somewhere out of my sense of living defeat – punctuated by futile regression into trying to Build Myself Up – a rich spiritual vein opened in my life: reverence.

Reverence had always been a part of my life. I define it as admiration of the sheer majesty of existence. Of its unfathomable mystery. Of its vast complexity and simultaneous terrifying simplicity. Its shining brutality and its unending compassion.

From reverence I recovered something I had always known, yet often forgotten: that all is one, even though each thing is unique. The sacred oneness and difference of all thing(s) is a tricky mystery, and few are able to make sense of it, wanting to either dissolve the universe into a shallow unity or else pretend that it is utterly fragmented and compartmentalised.

And from this sense I found my gradual discovery that striving and achieving does not necessarily mean anything. That it can easily reduce one into a caricature of a human being.

When we think we can conquer ourselves and the reality in which we find ourselves, we no longer give ourselves the chance to let the beauty of Being sing for itself. We are so untrusting of the magic that binds reality together that we risk shutting ourselves from it. We get “cramp” as Jan Fries put it. As Princess Leia put it in Star Wars: “the more you tighten your fist, the more planets will slip through your fingers.”

So while I felt utterly defeated and barely clung to this existence, I was at least learning the full reality of just how infertile a field “Build Yourself Up” is.

Yet nothing is static, and gradually a new way opened for me. It is the way that I still wander, and I suspect that it is going to be the Way of the rest of my life.

3) Spirituality as Becoming What You Are

I discovered that when I am vulnerable and open and curious and willing to be surprised – well at those moments I discover I am capable of far more than I could have ever consciously believed.

For example when I was first playing in Sword Toward Self, learning the material, I constantly exceeded my self belief. Again and again I’d be presented with some ridiculously technical material to perform and again and again I’d find that I could play it immediately, even though I would not be able to believe my own ears as my fingers found their way across the fretboard of my bass.

It seems that perhaps the way to growth is not to build myself up, but to get out of my own way. My conscious expectations, even at their loftiest, where pathetic compared to what my unrehearsed spontaneity could invite. I began to realise how shallow and irrelevant the conscious thinking ego mind is. So much of its place is to offer distraction and chatter. The quieter this noise becomes, the more the gates open, the more the flow of the waters of life is free to gush through my being.

The tension and struggle of the ego magician is a product of wasted effort. It is possible to act without effort, but one needs to unlearn the habit of tension and striving. We move swiftest by aligning ourselves with the tides or the winds of wyrd: at full sail the ship of my soul will outrun any ego-galley’s oar-chained slave crew.

Of course, this impels us to have to learn how to trust. We have to trust mystery, uncertainty, the endless not-knowing. We have to know when to bide our time, to recognise the difference between prudent hesitation and cowardice or self-deception.

The more I strip away the false layers of my being, the more I am able to do this. Rather than waste endless energy trying to control the infinite unpredictability of the cosmos, I would prefer to embrace my personal oneness and separateness within the matrix of the universe.

I have learned that my Deep Mind is far wiser, more creative, and more spontaneous than my conscious mind will ever be. So I seek to turn myself over to its wisdom, to the wisdom of my heart and guts. And strangely, this seems in turn to produce the kinds of successes that my old attempts to build myself up sought and achieved only superficially (if at all).

In light of these reflections, Odin hanging on the tree as an image of spiritual transfiguration is a powerful refutation of the “build yourself up” mentality. It is good to have goals, to have discipline, to seek out and create a vision of the future. But if one is not rooted in oneself as a conduit of the flow of wyrd then one risks being little more than a vortex of wasted breath.

Discipline is best used not as a tool to build up but rather to dismantle the tyranny of conscious prejudice so that the true will, the rich and heady sap of the world tree which gives life to all, may flow through freely and without end. When we unlearn the ego’s addiction to strain we free our strength for creation, action, and reflection.

None of these reflections are original, even though it seems such sentiments need to be repeated endlessly for the sake of those who need them. In presenting them I can only do so as one who is a “work in progress.” Yet are we not all in such a predicament? The one who lays claim to any kind of perfection is a buffoon.

Becoming What You Are is not an easy task. You must sacrifice all your comforting illusions about who you think you should be. You have to cease imposing artbitrary standards of judgement and instead carefully uncover the deep logic of your life. You are a rock which does not require gaudy decoration (and hence be lost in an ocean of bad taste and stupidity). No: you need only let the tides of your life polish you into your innate beauty. It takes courage to bare oneself in this way, far more courage than anything else I can imagine.

Ass usual, Uncle Al was perhaps the most articulate of all who have touched on these themes:

“The Hawk and the Blindworm

This book would translate Beyond-Reason into the words of Reason.
Explain thou snow to them of Andaman.
The slaves of reason call this book Abuse-of-Language: they are right.
Language was made for men to eat and drink, make love, do barter, die.  The wealth of a language consists in its Abstracts; the poorest tongues have a wealth of Concretes.
Therefore have Adepts praised silence; at least it does not mislead as speech does.
Also, Speech is a symptom of Thought.
Yet, silence is but the negative side of Truth; the positive side is beyond even silence.
Nevertheless, One True God crieth hriliu!
And the laughter of the Death-rattle is akin.”

“The Sorcerer

A Sorcerer by the power of his magick had subdued all things to himself.
Would he travel? He could fly through space more swiftly than the stars.
Would he eat, drink, and take his pleasure?  There was none that did not instantly obey his bidding.
In the whole system of ten million times ten million spheres upon the two and twenty million planes he had his desire.
And with all this he was but himself.
Alas!”

“The Mountaineer

Consciousness is a symptom of disease.
All that moves well moves without will.
All skilfulness, all strain, all intention is contrary to ease.
Practice a thousand times, and it becomes difficult; a thousand thousand, and it becomes easy; a thousand thousand times a thousand thousand, and it is no longer Thou that doeth it, but It that doeth itself through thee.  Not until then is that which is done well done.
Thus spoke FRATER PERDURABO as he leapt from rock to rock of the moraine without ever casting his eyes upon the ground.”

Sweyn has been contributing some fantastic writings to Elhaz Ablaze for a while now as a guest author.

We decided it was time to invite him to be a member of the Elhaz crew and he has graciously accepted.

We’re honoured to have him on board!

Feel free to check out his bio on the bio page.

Prost!

Henry for the Elhaz Fellowship

It is usually attributed to chaos magician/culture jammer Hakim Bey. People think that because Bey has an exotic Middle Eastern name the slogan must stem from some kind of ancient oriental magical tradition.

Hakim Bey is of course a pen name for an American gentleman whose “real” name escapes me but who is definitely not Middle Eastern. And no disrespect to Bey, who seems to be a pretty cool dude, but if “Joe Bloggs” were the parent of the NiTEiP slogan I suspect it would not have been nearly as popular.

Chinese whispers is an hilarious thing, and people get confused about the root origin of NiTEiP. After all, I’ve never met anyone whose actually read the book in which Bey unleashed NiTEiP on the world (I don’t even know what book it was)!

Case in point about the magic of hearsay. The Isis album In the Absence of Truth is subtitled with “NiTEiP” and the liner notes attribute it to Hasaan I Sabaah, the Old Man of the Mountain and apocryphal master of assassins in their original (almost certainly mythical) hash smoking incarnation.

Isis do generously acknowledge that this attribution is contentious among historians. In fact historians probably do not even know about this attribution, since it is purely the domain of confused occultnik meme scavenging.

I can’t help but think of a bunch of stoners sitting around giggling at the weed-induced hilarity of NiTEiP. Then someone asks where it comes from. Bloodshot eyes and clouded minds do their best, and somehow Hakim Bey is recalled but in totally the wrong context. Next thing you know a very intelligent and classy band has been sucked into yet another branch of NiTEiP attribution mythology.

None of this is to say that Isis are a bad lot; I’ve written before about how much adoration I have for them. But even these brilliant stalwarts have made a NiTEiP gaff, and a pretty big one at that.

Of course, there’s some kind of strange irony (perhaps not quite irony, perhaps coppery or zincy) to the idea of complaining about people misattributing the statement that “Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted.” I mean, if we agree with the statement (a BIG “if” there), then who cares who coined it?

Well you know NiTEiP might be subversive and antinomian and mind blowing and chaos magical. Or it might be rank laziness. I wouldn’t dream of throwing the first stone of course, living as I continue to do in a glass house.

But I think there’s a certain shallowness that crowds around magical communities. You see it in the haphazard adoption of philosophies and ideas that occultists tend to get mired in. How many Jung-obsessed new agers have actually read Jung?

(Similarly [though not identically] Steven McNallen’s reading of Jung as presented in his notion of metagenetics doesn’t seem to bear much resemblance to the great Swiss alchemist. It’s quite breathtaking to see such an inveterately universalist thinker marshalled to support such an anti-universalist point of view).

While it is all very well to be trumpeting the wondrous brilliance of Personal Gnosis Above All (PGAA), I find that the more I research actual magical traditions the more I realise that the average modern occultist or Heathen has far inferior ideas to those that mythological or occult traditions have left behind. We really need tradition as a source of material for our creative, spiritual, and unconscious aspects to weave into reality.

The depth and texture of a whole magical ideology cannot possibly be replicated in the half hearted attempts of individual seekers of whatever sort to invent their own. How can one person compete with centuries of people organically and indirectly collaborating across the ages?

Flip side is of course that strict adherence to the forms of tradition leads utterly nowhere, just arm chair theorising and the temptation to spout opinions as though they were true knowledge. I’m sorry folks but Socrates made the point some 2,500 years ago that people who are quick to spout on about their great wisdom…tend to be the most ignorant of the lot.

But rebounding from that digression, my point is that my personal mythology gets richer and richer through my periodic immersion in traditional imagery, writings, reflections. And I am drawn into these inexorably, too.

For example in the last few months I have been having many spontaneous and symbolic experiences that could only be described as alchemical (this happened before, throughout most of 2008). So I experience these images and connections and then I find myself reading some book or website and – AHA! – discover exactly what I’m experiencing, the precise same images, etc, recorded in some century old manuscript…only with a depth and subtlety that I as one person cannot possible equal.

And these points of reference in alchemical tradition then push me deeper into my personal gnosis, which begins to flower in fractal and unpredictable ways…and my ego is the last know what is going on and that suits my spirit just fine, because I know (don’t ask how) that I am evolving more and more into myself. Ecce homo!

I suppose in a sense as a Chaos Heathen I am a shameless syncretist, but with the difference that unlike the NiTEiP crowd I do not disrespect tradition simply because I see the limitations of adhering strictly to it. Rather I immerse myself in many traditions, secure in the base of my Heathenry as the taproot of my spirit, and allow the essential to merge with me and the inessential to wash away like fresh rain.

Such comments probably seem just as heretical to the “strict boundaries” brigade as they do the “NiTEiP” crew. Well good, I can stick it to both of you with one manoeuvre. Score: Chaos Heathens 1, Ideological Blowhards 0, Spiritual Wastrels 0.

I’m going to tell you a little secret, though, about the true origin of NiTEiP, which is actually, as it happens, a misquote (I assume Mr Bey decided to tweak it a bit to throw off annoying conceptual bloodhounds like myself, not that this trickery worked on me).

In Thus Spoke Zarathustra Friedrich Nietzsche (repeatedly, I think) has Zarathustra declare that “Nothing is true, ALL is permitted.” I’m not sure how that renders in the original German (maybe Matt Anon can help us there) but the point is made: Nietzsche was dead before Bey was born. He wins hands down in the “who said it first” race.

Naturally, most members of the NiTEiP brigade have only read the occasional quote of Nietzsche…and hence have zero chance of noticing this little factoid. Whereas not only have I read a lot of his books, but repeatedly and because I enjoy it. Gods, what a bloody nerd.

Incidentally, next time some idiot chaos magician shuffles out the “Hakim Bey says that…” line in an attempt to impress you, feel free to put them in their place with a bit of solid Nietzsche whacking. Bonus points for derailing their attempt to seduce some impressionable younger witchypoo with their stock of pseudo-spiritual platitudes.

Nietzsche of course wanted to re-examine tradition, to smash what did not work and develop the rest into something original and shining. For him “Nothing is true, all is permitted” is one of his tests of exhilaration and horror as one faces into the infinite mystery of the universe. Not unlike his “God is dead” trip, a trip which is way more subtle and complex than your typical dumb ass metal head will ever appreciate (I can say that because I listen to and sometimes even perform metal).

Nietzsche also at times claimed to be a perspectivalist, not accepting the notion of absolute truth (though he at other times seems convinced of a whole bunch of absolutes, which just goes to demonstrate how marvellous it is to be a confused human being as we all are).

Maybe he wouldn’t have minded that Bey seems to have – no doubt with excellent intentions – ripped him off. The lame use to which the NiTEiP slogan gets set to would likely fail to bring Nietzsche any cheer of course.

The point of these musings? There is a lot more bullshit out there than gold, although luckily through alchemy we can turn one into the other. If NiTEiP makes you a better person (how we establish criteria for defining what “better” means is another problem) then who cares that it is a load of rubbish; indeed, it has to be a load of rubbish into order to fit within the kind of universe it invokes.

So what is my point? Here is the punch line:

What matters is not what you believe, but how you believe, and whether you use your ability to believe as a constructive tool to transcend the limits of your horribly finite human perspective…rather than allow it to be the jailer of your consciousness as to greater or lesser extents we all do.

Well, that’s my opinion…blink and you’ll miss me changing my mind though…

First of all, getting into more traditional cooking is easier than it seems. At first having to work from raw ingredients, putting it all together by hand, seems intimidating for anyone used to pre-made supermarket convenience. But traditional cooking is like meditation – the effort invested quickly pays itself off and then starts raking in the interest on very favourable terms.

After only a little experience you begin to realise just how fun it is to make salsa or kvass or sauerkraut or whey & cream cheese. I feel deeply energised even though I worked all day and then spent more than a couple of hours in the kitchen.

I spent my time cooking listening to the music of Ironwood, which always makes me happy, and preparing food from raw ingredients involves a lot of repetition – cutting, and pounding the cabbage for the sauerkraut. This work provides brilliant doors for trance!

Everyone knows that repetitive rhythms can induce trance and in the process of my cooking tonight I drifted into some lovely and quite blessed states. I wandered through different worlds and I could literally feel the small wounds of daily life healing throughout my body from the altered consciousness into which I had drifted. What a bonus!

And of course it makes my soul happy to know that I am making fermented foods, which are super-nutritious and super-delicious and fun to make. My kind of traditionalism (small t used on purpose folks) is not ideological – I am neither against nor for the modern world, though I have many criticisms to make of it.

Rather, my kind of traditionalism is empirical in basis – for there is extensive and very sound science for the view that premodern approaches to cuisine are far superior to the high calorie, low nutrient rubbish so prevalent these days.

The fact that making food as healthy as sauerkraut (a far superior source of Vit C than any pill), or beet kvass (which cures allergy attacks, mouth ulcers, and jet lag with casual alacrity in my personal experience, as well as tasting divine) also connects me with the living experiences that shaped the mythic worldviews of old Europe is just beautiful, elegant even.

I really think that exploring such practices and ways is just as essential – perhaps more so – than even delving into mythology or runic artefacts or whatever. These simple domestic practices were and still can be the bricks and mortar which nourished the pre-Christian Heathen imagination.

You’ll notice that all the foods I made tonight – salsa, sauerkraut, beet kvass – are fermented foods. Fermentation is a fascinating thing. Before we had fridges we used fermentation to make food last – and it just so happens that fermentation (of which making alcohol is only a very small part) also loads up the food with nutrients and makes them super-easy to digest. A nice little bonus which we in our fridge-age unfortunately no longer reap.

Fermentation is essentially the art of letting food rot into something tastier, healthier, and longer-lasting than what it would be straight out of the ground. There’s something brilliant about the way this simple practice marshals the vast chemical complexity of food molecules.

One of the reservations I have about untrammelled technologisation is that it invites us into simplistic understandings of the world, since we begin to focus on what we understand and tend to forget that things are way more complex than we might like to think (a common problem that has been studied extensively in experimental psychology, and to which it seems even the most brilliant scientists have been found to be susceptible to).

But fermentation elegantly marshals the vast chemical complexities of food with a dead simple strategy – chop it up and let it sit at room temperature for a few days. Brilliant! I see fermentation as a brilliant analogy for various alchemical processes, and so as I make my fermented foods I experience it as a spiritual analogy, just as alchemists use the quest for gold as a physical metaphor for their spiritual quest for the philosopher’s stone, for enlightenment or healing.

This is one of those things that really illustrates the fact that spiritual life and everyday mundane life are not qualitatively different. They exist on a continuum and if we are imaginative, curious, and a little bit industrious we can shorten that continuum so that the spiritual permeates the everyday and the everyday permeates the spiritual. To me that is nothing more or less than animism in action, the gods living at one with our every breath. And isn’t that the whole goal of premodern spiritual paths such as Heathenry?

Incidentally, for those wondering, I’ve been doing more research on premodern lifespans and health. The only sound and genuinely empirical, quantitative study I found (other than Weston Prices’s work) looked extensively at fossils and human remains from before the current age, and also at contemporary premodern cultures (mostly hunter gatherers).

They found that the average lifespan under these conditions is in the mid 70’s. They also made some other surprising discoveries – for example it appears that infant mortality rates were not through the roof in these cultures!

From other archaeology material I’ve read – Barbarians to Angels provides some low key but very clear examples – it is clear that the premodern lifestyle produced good health generally, including good dental health. Monty Python’s mud-eating, snaggle-tooth peasants are hilarious, but they’ve maybe unduly prejudiced our ability to understand the lifestyles of premodern times.

This is all in line with Weston Price’s work on nutrition. His theory was that the premodern diets of many cultures were and are superior to modern processed diets because they are super-dense in nutrients and relatively low in calories – just the opposite of McDonalds, really.

Can anyone really argue with such a view? Certainly from reading Michael Pollan and Nina Planck it seems to me that rigorous research (and sadly much nutritional research isn’t) strongly supports this view.

So eating traditionally accords nicely with the modern scientific method, a perfect example of why “going back” to the past for inspiration can sometimes actually be much more scientifically sound than the reckless technical “innovation” to which we in the West are unfortunately quite invisibly addicted to.

Incidentally if you think you can’t afford to eat organic or small-farm grown you might like to look at what you do spend your money on…do we need cable TV, three cars per household member, 10,000 inch televisions, etc, etc? There’s more room in your budget for good food than you realise.

Raw ingredients, even organic or small-farm grown, have two other advantages – making food from scratch generally works out more economically than processed premade foods anyway, and also such foods (in Australia at least) are largely GST exempt, so its cheaper than you think.

Plus you can explore food co-ops, growing your own, etc, etc. If you are willing to use your imagination you can do it. That said, please don’t take my comments in a finger-pointing or moralising way. I’m hoping to inspire rather than harangue. Did I mention how fun and easy it is to make  fermented foods?

Incidentally, from what I’ve read it also seems clear that premodern cultures traded food with one another extensively. The poisonous monoculture that lurks in this modern world is not a product of cross-cultural food munching, despite what some more ideologically based traditionalists might like to think.

Multiculturalism is not monoculturalism, and premodern peoples, from what I have read at least, loved to chow down on each others’ specialties.

Sauerkraut, that quintessential German dish, arrived in Europe with the Mongols. That doesn’t take away its special Germanic-ness, which has accrued quite legitimately over some nine centuries, it just reminds us that there’s a difference between cultural purity (which pretty much doesn’t exist and never did and is purely a modern fabrication) and cultural specificity (which clearly did and does exist since we can talk about distinctly unique and different groups, but which included intercultural exchange as one of its elements).

In other words, the isolationist tendencies of ideologically-based traditionalists are anachronistic and untrue to the ancestral ways – and do not in fact do much to safeguard the old traditions. How ironic.

As often is the case my writing jumbles together politics, philosophy, history, spirituality, mythology, domesticity, health sciences, psychology, and eating! We divide the world into neat categories but in doing so we lose our ability to understand it. As Mr Heinlein said, “specialisation is for insects.” My thoughts keep rotting up into more and more complexity and richness, and fermentation is a great metaphor for both the creative and the intellectual processes…

This book is unlike most compendiums of folktales for two reasons: firstly, the relative obscurity (in the English language at any rate) of the subject matter; and secondly, the unique and fascinating reflective threads with which the stories on offer are bound together.

Georgia Through Its Folktales is part travelogue, part folk tale anthology, part cultural history lesson, and part spiritual exploration. It is neither fiction, nor is it not fiction; it is neither non-fiction nor is it not non-fiction. Berman and his collaborators have created something odd-ball and unique and characterful in this exploration of Georgian folk traditions.

Georgia is an Eastern European region which hosts a range of related cultures, many of which to this day maintain pagan customs and beliefs in one form or another. Berman waxes lyrical about the rich traditions that persist in this land, the complex and subtle ways in which its people have woven incredibly disparate influences from east and west into a truly unique whole.

In order to enable his (presumably) Western reader to appreciate the stories, Berman goes to great lengths to explain the history and character of the region. Whether the subject is diet, agriculture, or the whimsy of children, Berman approaches his subject matter with warmth and gusto, and it is hard not to be swayed by his obvious love for the Georgian peoples and their traditions.

Yet this book is much more than a kind of travelogue. Berman contends that stories are doors into trance, both in the telling and in the content of the tales themselves. With a background in shamanism, it is no wonder that he turns his attention to the traces of shamanic influence that course through the stories recounted in this book. Characteristic Georgian folk tale conventions – such as vagueness about time and even whether the events recounted are real or not, as well as recurring numerological and symbolic patterns – are analysed by Berman as markers of shamanic experience, suggesting that these stories are rooted in deep spiritual experience and not merely in flights of fancy.

By Juxtaposing such reflections against the folktales presented in the book Berman draws our attention to the complex relationships between spiritual experience, cultural forms, and history. Berman sees folktales and mythology as being more than just the glue or rationale for a culture – he sees them as doors into the divine, and as such as the means for a people to deepen their connection to the beauty and numinosity of the world around them. This aspect of the role of myth is all too often overlooked by more or less atheistic modern commentators.

Without being seduced by simplistic romanticism, Berman skilfully elucidates the relationship between culture and personal spiritual experience in traditional / pre-modern culture. As such this book educates us not only about Georgian culture and myth, but also equips us to explore a fresh appreciation for almost any cultural or spiritual tradition.

One of the motifs of this book is the necessarily hybrid nature of Georgian culture, located as it is near so many other strong cultural groups. Somehow, rather than become a monocultural mishmash, the Georgians have woven a unique and very special identity from the array of influences to which they were and are exposed. I think there is an important point to be made here, namely that the integrity of a culture depends not on isolationism (though of course some separation of identity is necessary) but rather on the creativity and spirit (or otherwise) of its people.

I think this point is very important in this modern age where on the one hand we have those who fear exposure to any kind of difference for fear of losing themselves…and on the other hand those who fear any kind of specificity of identity for fear that they will lose their sense of (perhaps illusory) self-creation. Bubbling through this book is a deeper perspective, perhaps one held by many polytheistic and animistic folk traditions – namely that culture arises not through our narcissism (be it isolationist or dissolute), but through our attempt to find our place in the world in all its animistic glory. It is our means of making ourselves at home in a universe of infinite mystery, and we require all of our creative powers if we are to make it serve that purpose well.

This thought reverberates throughout the widespread continuation of pagan practices and beliefs in Georgia, which often persist in hybrid form together with Christian practices. The Georgian peoples as presented by Berman have found a happy accommodation between polytheism and monotheism, not unlike the followers of Voudoun in South America. While some of us will prefer to have little or nothing to do with Christianity, one cannot deny the spiritual fertility attested to in Georgian folktales and customs, a fertility that appears to have aggressively thrived through fusion of pre-Christian and Christian influences.

It would seem, then, that the Georgian peoples enjoy some unique combinations of cultural and spiritual influences, and indeed draw their particularities of character precisely from these combinations. This may in fact be true of all cultures in some fashion or other, but judging from Berman’s account Georgia is a paragon of such richness.

In case these reflections are misleading, I should also point out that this book never gets lost in the abstract indulgence that mainstream academia often stumbles into. Berman writes with subtlety and draws the recurring motifs of the book together with care and lightness. Rather than spew heavy handed injunctions, he invites one to reflect, think, and drawn one’s own conclusions.

If there are any limitations to this book they lie in peripheral issues – namely, that the proof reading and editing is somewhat lax, and at times this makes the book less readable and enjoyable than it could be. I hope that on subsequent printings the publisher will see fit to correct the various errors that cloud the text so that this gem may shine more fully.

The playful spirit that suffuses this book – both the stories and Berman’s discussions thereof – is its greatest strength. It is a sincere and joyous celebration of tradition, spiritual exploration, culture, history, and story telling. The translated stories are marvellous, and the artwork, which peppers the text freely, is resplendent. I would recommend this book for anyone interested in history, culture, folk traditions, shamanism, and especially, in the peoples and customs of Eastern Europe and the Near East.

This book is essential reading for anyone interested in runes or indeed European cultural history. Macleod and Mees decline to adopt the recent fashion in academic circles for dismissing the idea that the runes had any kind of magical significance, just as they refuse to pretend that different regions were hermetically sealed from one another. They steer a balanced path between emphasising the many mundane applications of the runes and their magical function, and indeed the book focuses on the latter, as may be inferred from the title.

The authors document and interpret scores of inscriptions from amulets, artefacts, monuments, and written texts, bringing incredible breadth and depth of learning to the task. Their vibrant enthusiasm for the subject matter is infectious, and consequently the book is anything but dry or boring. Indeed, there are even moments of high humour, such as a hilarious passage that recounts some of the more ribald love magic charms of the runic era!

The interpretations and explanations of the inscriptions are fleshed out with background perspective on cultural history and a real empathy for folk long dead, and this make the book much more than just a study of dusty museum pieces to be nit-picked and quarrelled over. The endlessly unfolding cultural and political evolution of Northern Europe over the centuries is explored through the angular scratchings of the runes, and the reality of Europe’s convoluted history is graphically exposed in the inscriptions that remain.

One of the most striking things that emerges from this book is the incredible diversity of runic writings. Although we talk about, say, “the Elder Futhark” as though it were a defined and uniform 24 character alphabet, the reality is that rune carvers modified the characters ceaselessly, obeying all manner of personal whims as to the orientation, style, and variety of ways of carving the runes. There is an almost aggressive outpouring of creative invention in the way that the rune carvers improvised on the basic themes of these archaic characters, a phenomena that we in our age of standardised spelling and formatting might struggle to grasp.

The book goes deep into the patterns and structures by which magical runic inscriptions on charms and amulets were composed. Indeed, their analysis of the five-fold structure of these inscriptions is elegant and brilliant, as is their discussion o the significance of terms like “alu.” Anyone interested in making their own modern rune carvings would benefit greatly from this book, which inadvertently serves as a detailed and clear “how to” manual.

In the course this analysis of the structure of runic amulet inscriptions the authors also underscore how indebted the Germanic runic tradition was to the Etruscans – for the fundamental magical structure used in the rune inscriptions was adopted wholesale from Etruscan/Rhaetic traditions. This is a fine illustration of the point that cultural exchange and mixing can sometimes strengthen the cultures involved and help them become more unique and distinct: this non-Germanic influence surely seeded one of the most distinctive aspects of Germanic culture. The tendency of some academics to only focus on specific regions (say, England) therefore risks grossly distorting our understanding of both history and the runes.

The book also makes the point that the runes were heavily used for Christian as well as Heathen purposes in later centuries, that they were combined with various other magical traditions, sometimes quite elegantly and even seamlessly, though it is clear that their place as a magical tool eroded by the middle ages and their usage became progressively more trivialised. This in turn underscores the complex cultural dynamics unleashed by the coming of Christianity, and the durability of Heathen cultural practices and aesthetics post-conversion, although the magical tradition of the runes seems to have ultimately declined into ignorance and ignominy.

The authors express some very valid criticisms of the use of the Icelandic sagas as sources for understanding rune lore, but their analysis of the Eddic poems “Havamal” and “Sigrdrifumal” concludes that these sources do provide valuable insights for understanding rune magic, again making the point that in the past some academics have been perhaps sceptical of these sources to an unjustifiable extent. This is very useful information, particularly as the mistake of seeing the sagas as a faithful representation of Dark Age Scandinavian culture seems very common.

I find myself disagreeing with the authors’ view that the various rune poems were merely mnemonics for remembering the rune alphabet orders, however. From personal experience I can assure the reader that memorising these poems for the most part) is far more arduous than merely memorising the Futhark alphabet(s) – indeed, I have forgotten my verbatim memory of the poems (though the substance remains), but remembering the correct Futhark order is easy and was, I found, almost a prerequisite for being able to absorb the rune poems into memory. An intelligent young child could happily memorise the rune names and order, but almost certainly not the poems.

Furthermore, the poems themselves seem to echo many aspects of Heathen culture and worldview and paint incredibly evocative images that, at least in my opinion, resonate much further than any putative modern mnemonic equivalent (“the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” comes to mind). There are various other criticisms that could be made of the book, too, although ultimately it survives its flaws admirably.

On the whole this book is a revelatory window into the free-wheeling, anarchic, and bracing world of rune magic as attested by primary sources (as opposed to wishful thinking in either too-fanciful or too-cynical directions). It is fun, fascinating, and inspiring, and strongly, strongly recommended. The price tag is rather high, and this may dissuade some from making the purchase – but please, take the plunge, Runic Amulets and Magic Objects is worth every penny.

- Arrowyn Craban

“Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.”

- Rumi

I recently had a beautiful experience at an Isis gig, dissolved into totally wild dance as their crushing, trance inducing post-metal swept all before them. Isis tend to draw fans from the metal and hardcore scenes – blokes who don’t know how to be in their bodies and who find it difficult to respond to the simultaneous subtlety and force of Isis’s music – whereas I have years of studying improvised dance behind me and a sharp nose for doors into altered consciousness.

I threaded my way through wild and beautiful embodied consciousness, dissolving into communion with the whole cosmos – with the World Tree as the binding force of all oneness and difference, the paradoxical solution to the contradiction of universality and particularity. The most wild “spiritual” states tend to go with intensely physical expression – a perfect conjunction of opposites.

The final song of the set had a long and potent build that exploded into ecstasy and after that I floated, sated, through the encore, in a state of high bliss. Who needs drugs when there is music and dance in the world? I just wish there were more good opportunities for experiences like that, I suppose it is up to me to be open to finding them. I spouted poetry praising the World Tree and my patron, and sang and laughed. It was berzerkergang but without a military purpose, yet the same kind of state, driven by the parasympathetic nervous system.

And curiously, I even found myself dipping into the Sufi practices I have not participated in for some years, head swaying right then left, the turning away and remembering from heart to universe to heart, the sacred words la illah ha il allah spilling from my lips. It felt good to find that I can still call Sufism home. I wish more people knew what a spiritual jewel lies beneath the hard monotheistic armour of Islam (including more Muslims)!

And this gets me to thinking about my tendency to rubbish Christianity too. There’s no essential reason why Heathenry has to adopt any particular stance towards Christianity. At its best it is a marvellous religion – and while I deplore the many terrible things done in its name, I think that if I am going to be able to consider myself to be possessed of a mature spirituality then I think it is time to put aside the easy contempt I tend to lazily adopt towards Jesus and his sheep.

In the same motion, of course, I’ll never stop having contempt for the horrors perpetuated in Christ’s name – which are too many to even begin to enumerate – nor will I accept the various foolish consequences of Christian influenced philosophy. On the other hand, the ideals of love, compassion, and personal responsibility are noble and cherished by most human beings, including (I would guess) most Heathens. Without such ideals no society or family or culture can last for long, even if we are not obliged to follow these threads in the fashion that Christianity (in its infinite and hilariously mutually contradictory variations) would see us do.

But at the end of the day, when I am in trance, when I am dipping thickly into the Well of Memory and I recover the primordial experience of the poignant beauty of the mystery of oneness and difference…well, I remember how much Sufism has taught me about how to be a spiritual practitioner, and how similar Sufism and Heathenism are with their emphasis on the importance of Memory and Recollection (Plato has to join them on this one, too).

And while we are all free to erect all kinds of rules about which tradition goes where and how we “should” think, and all the rest of it…well, I’d rather be the guy at the Isis gig, tranced out of his head from dance and song and amazing music amongst the sea of awkward heavy metal dudes.

Religion is a door, a door which can open into experiences which are ineluctable. We can invoke them with poetry but we cannot capture them in words. Which door is best? Can we really be certain that our dogmatic beliefs about religion are indubitable, when nothing seems to be? Heathenry is the door that caresses my nature into pulsating life, yet Sufism has been an essential part of my journey and I will always consider myself a Sufi…indeed, I hope to be to Heathenry what Sufism is to Islam – the spiritual quicksilver that lies within the dead armour of the essential but insufficient religious forms.

I’d rather be the blood in the tree, swelling and sluicing and radiating LIFE than I would the dead bark of authorities and rules and commands. That isn’t to say the bark is inessential…but those that speak for the armour and the rules of a tradition generally try to suppress those that speak for the living breath of the tradition (the former are generally motivated by fear and ignorance in this endeavour). Actually…why put form and essence into opposition? They are meant to be complementary. I want it all.

Hence the importance of the magic of the Hedge! To have one foot here and one foot there, dancing impossibly between extremes – for is this not what the whole universe does at every moment in every place? We think we have made of sense of reality by splitting it into pieces, yet the more concrete our understanding the less accurate it becomes.

I am learning to trust more in my wyrd. I am unbinding the bonds of my orlog, the weight of the chains of negativity that have pursued me in various ways throughout my life. I am moving energy and causing transformation that is needed. I am just as mortal, inconsistent, confused, and fallible as everyone else, but at the same time, the currents of the flow of the waters of life through the World Tree grow stronger and stronger through me.

To some, these words will mostly be gibberish. To others they might make perfect sense. I congratulate the former for their bewilderment and the latter for their successes in walking the authenticity of their path.

Open The Poetic Edda at a random page – particularly Lee Hollander’s canonical and nigh-unreadable translation – and you might find Norse mythology to be altogether too bizarre and cryptic to connect with. Such a reaction would be very understandable – Icelandic poetry is insanely complex and the stories seem to have been composed for an audience that already knew the background to the situations and characters. How, then, can we moderns find our way in? How can we translate the connection in our hearts into a form that permits speech and words?

As if attempting to solve this conundrum, some authors have attempted to retell the myths in a more modern vernacular. This has produced mixed results – some of these attempts are very successful, but even the best of these is vulnerable to well-intended but disappointing simplifications and distortions. Blunders such as painting Loki as one-dimensionally “evil” or Freya as a simplistic love goddess really fail to do this complex and subtle mythology the credit it deserves.

Thankfully Steven T. Abell has found a nigh-on perfect solution, and he presents this solution with wit, wisdom, and a knowing wink in the form of Days in Midgard: A Thousand Years On.

This book is an anthology of short stories which Abell originally composed for oral performance (and it would be quite a treat to see him perform I suspect). The stories are mostly set in modern times, or at least fairly recent times. They’re stories of human beings living all sorts of different lives, and Abell is brilliant at conjuring their different universes like a chameleonic insider.

The fulcrum of each of these stories is that somehow the protagonist of each tale needs something to shift or to change in their lives. And that, obviously or not, is where the mythological figures – gods and goddesses – get involved: guiding, provoking, tricking, healing, challenging, and just being themselves.

The image of Thor and Loki walking into a diner (that gets held up by a robber with darkly comedic consequences); or Frigga hanging out at a beach-side resort; or Tyr as a biker who guides folk onto the way they need to go – well, this is potent stuff. Abell taps right into the beating pulse of Norse mythology and lets the red life of it gush out into a form with which almost anyone could relate.

Of course, the human protagonists have no idea that they are dealing with forces divine, and this adds to the subtle hilarity of the pieces. This is exactly how it is when gods walk the world, and Abell throws us right into the deepest heart of what Heathenism is at its best: a sacred bewilderment, a source of hope, a profound love of life, even in its miseries.

There’s a deeper point that Abell makes with this book, perhaps not entirely explicitly: that form and essence are not identical. This book, though it ceaselessly echoes and references the forms of Germanic mythology, nevertheless strikes out in all manner of creative and original directions. And yet, by expressing the ancient creative spark – rather than, idiot-savant style, attempting to create a brittle simulacrum of old traditions – Abell demonstrates that authenticity is just as much about intention and innovation as it is attention to tradition.

Because truly I believe that the experience of these stories in the present is the closest thing we can have to what the original stories must have been like for the original Heathens. I occasionally talk about something called psychological reconstructionism – the idea that evoking the spirit of the ancient ways sometimes brings them into manifestation more powerfully than if we merely copy them slavishly. This book is potent evidence for the value of this idea.

The book is not only written for Heathens, and though it might seem cryptic and maddening at times to those not familiar with the mythological references, I suspect these quirky tales might also seduce the Heathen tendencies to the surface of many a reader or listener. Instead of the idiotic chest-beating that some Heathen authors adopt when trying to spread the word, this book entices and intrigues and delights. Such an approach is much sexier, in my opinion.

And there is something truly, truly sacred about reading stories of the gods and goddesses presented in this fashion. Abell deeply grasps the power and vulnerability of Tyr; deeply grasps the complex machinations of Odin’s mind; deeply grasps the many-shaded richness of Loki’s character (which is very welcome, given how confused so many people, even Heathens, are about this profoundly beautiful, profoundly flawed being).

Interspersed with the main stories are a string of short vignettes evoking scenes from the Icelandic landscape, always with a historical or mythological angle. This is a clever stratagem, because it situates the stories in strong supportive context, particularly for readers who are not familiar with Germanic Heathen traditions and myths. These intermissions help the reader to connect to their own sense of curiosity and wonder, and this serves to heighten the sometimes bewildering magic of the narratives on offer.

I think it is really telling that the gods in these stories appear as agents provocateurs in the cause of needed change. In Abell’s vision they help us heal, let go, ripen, explore, and find our courage in the face of adversity. There is a powerful object lesson here about polytheism: these beings after which we are made deeply understand the fragility and beauty of our mortal predicament, and in their generosity are moved to act for our benefit (though some of the characters in these stories experience this generosity as hardship, being forced as they are to answer for the ill or cowardly decisions they have made).

Steven T. Abell truly is a skald, a word-magician, a galdor-master. He imbues these tales with a light-hearted gravity, weaves narratives that are exquisitely captivating. I really hope that this book penetrates deeply into modern Heathen consciousness – it has the power to help us all transform for the better. For life and myth are not separate, hermetically sealed realms, the one dismal and the other shining. The two are deeply entwined, the necessary condition for one another’s sacredness. And in this book we find a beautiful, marvellous, magical invitation to roam the mysterious road that the old stories of northern Europe shelter so impeccably. Here and now the gods are vital and active and alive…and always with us, their mortal travelling companions.

As you may be aware, in 2009 Ironwood released our debut album :Fire:Water:Ash: to rave reviews. Our potent weave of dark folk, progressive rock, and black metal has been acclaimed as “an outstanding piece of mythological storytelling that defies heavy metal convention” (Metal Review.Com), and “too beautiful for this world” (Metal District).

Recently, we were both surprised and pleased to discover that :Fire:Water:Ash: has been nominated in the category of Best Debut Album on major European music webzine Metal Storm.

This is where you come in. We invite you to offer your vote for our album: this is an opportunity to lend your support to evocative, creative, and adventurous music, music that combines animistic reverence and deep-felt emotion. If you haven’t heard the album in it’s entirely you may listen to some quite representative tracks on our Myspace page, from where details on how to buy a copy (physical or digital) are also available: http://www.myspace.com/ironwoodband

To vote for Ironwood and :Fire:Water:Ash: in the Metal Storm awards you will need to register with the Metal Awards site, a very simple exercise which you can do here: http://www.metalstorm.ee/users/register.php

Once you have registered and logged in, just go to this page to vote:
http://www.metalstorm.ee/awards/categories.php?cat_id=22

Ironwood would deeply appreciate the support of the Heathen community, not least because of the strongly Heathen spirit that informs our work. We invite you to cast a vote for us… and if you could also invite others to cast their vote as well…that would be even more amazing.

In the meantime, we will continue to work on post-production for our follow-up album: Storm Over Sea, due out later in 2010.

With respect and thanks,

Henry