The Hermit

A long time ago, I was a part of a spirit workers group/collective. I didn’t ask to be a part of it, but I was invited to partake, and so I did. I found myself immersed in a world of amazing magical practitioners, God spouses, and a few intense individuals who were on their own path doing the Work that their Gods asked of them to do.  It was intoxicating to be included amongst such amazing people doing such fantastic things. As all communities with such large personal investments in their own paths, it was short lived: we all had our own things we had to do, we all had our own egos, and we all had life trajectories that made it difficult to keep the group functioning as a collective.

For me, leaving the group was something I had to do because, well, it had to be done in order to do the Work the Gods wanted me to do.  Of course, a lot of folks in a lot of different camps of thought don’t really understand the path I took, and that’s okay. It’s hard to understand why someone deeply invested in Northern Traditions would begin to walk a buddhist path, particularly as so much of the heathen identity is wrapped up into violence, hierarchies, control, and in a particular type of social order. For me, however, the choice was simple. I walked a path that is less trodden, and I worked with beings often perceived by heathenry as unsuitable for worship or unsuitable for communication with.  Cthonic beings of chaos and change are not things that we, as humans, really want much to do with.  It makes sense, really, as it goes against pretty much every sense of life preservation.  You don’t play with doomsday devices.

The funny thing for me was this: I became deeply connected to some of the darker places in the northern pantheon. I found myself deeply connected to the children of Loki, and that was a difficult place to find myself. This connection ostracized me from the greater Asatru community, because there is nothing more “anti-Odin” then to stop by and pet Fenrir. It goes against our entire post-christian sensibilities to give any compassion to something that is revered as a demon. And yet, I did. In doing so I found myself being driven to something so unfathomable by all of the communities I had belonged to: I found myself yearning to cease suffering in all beings. I wanted to take away the pain that Fenrir had to suffer with. I wanted to help the Gods, all the Gods, end their suffering. I began to see the lore as a tale of the suffering of Gods, of how their fears, their pain, and their triumphs ushered both good and bad into the world, and into their own lives.  I began to see the Gods as a part of the samsaric* existence, and I wanted to help them end their own suffering, as well as the suffering of humans.

Oh, the suffering of humans! That really got me. In fact, that really was hard for me to deal with right off the bat. The fact that when we died, there were none to help us on the road to Hel. Sure, if you were a warrior your disir or some other sacred figure would swoop in and take you to Folkvang or Valhalla, but the rest? The rest have no one to usher them.  This terrified me, as how would we, as humans, know the path to take? How would we know where to walk, how to walk? We should have guidance, we should know the way to Helheim. It may seem strange that the first instance of suffering I wanted to consider was the fears within death and dying, but as fears and terrors for humans go, that’s a big one. We make a lot of decisions in our lives based on that fear, and so to counter it seemed like a logical place to start. Following our fear of death was the fear and suffering we contribute to each other in our daily lives.

In heathen communities, much of it stems from egotism, dominance struggles, and the incessant need to have a place in the hierarchy.  There is so much chest beating in the world of heathenry that it becomes difficult and uncomfortable. It is not a place of love, but it could be. It could be a place where we change the world for better. We do not need to be an extension of the suffering of our Gods, but we could act in ways that would help them. And, we could act in ways that help us here in Midgard, too.

In its current incarnation, Asatru is a war and hate driven culture. We valorize so much in fighting, in dying with honor, in enforcing a rigid identity structure of might make right, and investing in the 9 noble virtues — lest we forget that our class and social structure was reinforced, and in some sources, invented, by Heimdal.  We come to heathenry with an ideology that Gods are infallible. That Gods are always right, that we have no reason to question them or their decisions on our behalf. This may be hubris on my part, to which I am willing to accept, but it seems like a particularly Christian perspective to make sure that ones Gods are the beings to dictate our lives and livelihood in the here and now, especially when we are taking into account old stories and mythos of them, from a time long before now, long before the world of seven billion people and weapons that could end all of humanity for all time.

So, I found myself drawn deep into buddhism, at the request of all of the Gods and spirits I encountered. To end the suffering of all beings was a pursuit that I came to out of love for Them, and out of love for all beings.

Which brings me to the hermit card, and back to the spirit work groups I mentioned above. It’s been a long time since I was ‘involved’ in the larger spirit work community. Part of this is life trajectory: I have been working towards specific goals that take my money and my time, meaning that I can’t travel to meet with other spirit workers and keep the connection live. The second is that the path of my spiritual practice, and the path of my spirit work, has taken me on a road much less traveled by heathens of any stripe: the path of compassion, the path of non-flashy, but very fulfilling, spirit practices. To the path of buddhism. Now, the funny thing about buddhism is that there is no reason to stop working with Gods. In fact, one my lamas puts it like this: we have to live in this world, and the Gods are one of the parts of this world that is there to help us, and we are there to help them, too.  So yes, believe in your Gods, give them offerings, and pray to them for help and aid.

Buddhism doesn’t mean that you have to give up your religion. You may have to change some of the ways that you approach things, especially if you are engaging in magical practices.  There are ways to do both, but you must be practical and conscious about the actions you are to undertake. This is one of the reasons my magic has become much more political and less personal: I wish to benefit the most beings with my work, and offer it up to the evolution towards a better world for all beings, not just myself. And, there is nothing wrong with money magic, so long as the money used to benefit all beings. Buddhism doesn’t mean that you can’t help yourself, or defend yourself, or that you can’t do something in your best interest. It just means you need to be aware of how your actions are impacting others, and do what you can to have that impact benefit the most sentient beings.

And, if this is the takeaway from working with Loki and his kin, then I have to say, it doesn’t seem all that bad. I can see how this is a threat to mainstream heathenry, because there is nothing worse for people who are inclined towards hate and anger to be asked to consider another path, to consider another way.  There is power in anger and hatred, but it does no one any good. It may feel empowering, but where does that power lie? What type of power have you cultivated?  There have been a lot of studies on catharsis, and how catharsis doesn’t actually make things better, nor does it help you or empower you. I often think of contemporary heathenry as a valorization of Klingon societal structure.

You have probably gathered from this post that I spend time with the ‘unsavory beings’ of heathenry, the jotun, the huldre, and other hidden, unseen ‘baddies’. And this is true: when I came to heathenry, I was given two paths to follow. One was the path of Odin, where I would be asked to submit to Him and his Will. The other was the path of Hela, where I would be forced to deal with, and walk with, both my inner demons and the demons of the Worlds. I do think that both paths would have lead to the same place for me, and recent dealings with Odin have pretty much confirmed that. In fact, my walking the buddhist path I’ve been on as of late has actually made my relationship with Odin much better and much more rewarding. Of course, this probably has to do with the fact that I’ve always been pulled to the center path, the one unseen in the beginning, of walking neither path- of walking my own.

May all sentient beings find an end to suffering and the causes of suffering.

*The world of samsara is a buddhist concept that relates back to the idea that one of the primary components within life is suffering, and that one of goals and aims of buddhism is to end all suffering for all sentient beings.