Praise the Gods

Today I want to talk about my experience in and out of folkish heathenry.  I don’t get to see much talk about folkish heathenry by those who have experienced it first hand and then left it.  This is my story and experience.

After the death of my parents in 2017/2018, ancestry became very important to me.  Not in the sense of race/color but in the sense of: where did my ancestors come from?  Perhaps I was looking for a sense of belonging.  After all, we are our ancestors, their blood literally runs through us, I thought.

So I was looking for a way to reconnect, to feel that sense of belonging.  That is when I discovered the Asatru Folk Assembly and answered its request to “come home”.  I felt I belonged somewhere.  But at some point I began to have conflicts within myself and questioned many things.  What about women like me that don’t want to be a housewife with children?  For me personally, I could not think of a worse fate.  What about people who are biracial?  What if they have “half European ancestry”?  Are they excluded?  What if my views are not traditional?  What if I am not far-right, but somewhere down the middle?  How do we know the Norse gods are just for white people?  

Voluspa states “A hearing I ask from all kindreds, greater and lesser, the sons of Heimdallr!”  In the Lay of Rig, Heimdallr under the disguise of Rig becomes the father of ALL classes of “men”.  So this tells me, in the very first stanza of Voluspa, it is for ALL people.  Or is Heimdallr just the father of white people?  Which white people?  Where did the other people come from?  Does this mean that Heimdallr is white?  A white god…what an interesting and limited way to see the gods, I thought.

The concept of “race” as it is understood today was invented in the 17th and 18th centuries (colonial America).  So I doubt those who followed “norse paganism” in the 800s CE Scandinavia would have understood this concept of “race”.  In the ancient world, people were identified by geographic origin, religion, or culture rather than “race”.

When I began to understand these things, that is when I began to distance myself from folkish groups.  What limits did Odin place upon himself in his quest of knowledge?  That is the limit we should place on what “race” can explore heathenry.  We are our deeds and what better way to honor my ancestors?

-Raysdottir