Limiting Seidhr
I'll be blunt... I cannot stand the "heathen community." And by heathen community I mean the die hard recons who wish to limit all things heathen into a nice precise pile of acceptability, based on literature alone. To do so, in my opinion, is a grave logical mistake. And yes, I will tell you why...
I always have been, and always will be, a student of the humanities. Art is my passion, but never simply art for art's sake. Culture and the place of art within it is what concerns me. To remove an art from it's cultural components does nothing to further it's understanding. What value does a painting have, if it's only value is in its material? The cost of paint and canvas, the cost of labor. Someone painted it. That is all we understand.
We may love its visual aspects emotionally, but without a cultural context, we cannot live a life based upon it, and derive value from this solely. The same comparison can be made in my mind to those who base their spiritual lives off a piece of paper alone. It's like worshiping the dead, and forgetting that one is alive.
It is forgetting that once upon a time, a hand as alive as mine put pen to paper, and the words flowed from their heart and soul onto the page. It is forgetting that once upon a time, they were as alive as I am, as unsure of the future as I am, and had no knowledge of the realm beyond death.
Some might answer that those words were a "gift from the gods" or somehow or another divinely inspired. But this assumes that my words, and those of every other human, cannot possibly be as well. That a living practice, that flows from my own heart and soul, is somehow less valuable, because the ages have not yet passed over my headstone. This in itself makes me angry for all those who are bludgeoned by the idea that to be a good heathen, one must use the written word as an indelible guideline of relevant practice. To be blunt, it's bullshit.
By the definitions of the "heathen community," what I practice is not called seidhr. Why? Because what I do does not follow a miniscule amount of literary sourcework that tells of what ONE seidkona did. I do not practice seidhr because I don't wear a catskin hat, or carry a distaff, or sit on a high seat, or prophecy in a public spectacle, or beat a drum. Apparently, instead of a whole host of evidence culturally that what I do is in fact much like seidhr, no it isn't. Because one obscure Icelandic source does not match my practices.
I have been working with the Vanir, and dedicated to Freya for half a decade now. What I do is done with a hefty dose of guidance and knowledge from that great lady of Seidhr. I consider it insulting beyond words for anyone to tell me that what I do is not Seidhr because it is not in the Lore, word for word. Are you freaking out of your mind?!
If you based your understanding of a widespread cultural practice on a single obscure reference in an academic setting, You would be laughed out of the class. You would FAIL. Yet this is what it comes down to for hard core recons basing their understanding of seidhr on one Icelandic text. And these are the people who are building a new modern blend of heathenry trying to reconstruct the past? It's honestly laughable its makes so little logical sense.
I could continue to be angry but honestly I just feel sad for these people. Because I know only the surface of what seidhr is, direct from the source, and it is so much richer than they could ever imagine. Perhaps after my life is over, will I have an idea of its depth. Seidhr isn't in a book, and it never will be. There is a reason for this. I can't give you that reason. You need to talk to Freya herself, then maybe will you understand the ignorance of such a limiting view of Seidhr as a LIVING artform. Or a humanities course at the local college? Choose your poison.
Anyway, that's my view. These people can believe what they want about Seidhr. I know what I am.
In Frith
Cena
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| Image by Jopparn |
I always have been, and always will be, a student of the humanities. Art is my passion, but never simply art for art's sake. Culture and the place of art within it is what concerns me. To remove an art from it's cultural components does nothing to further it's understanding. What value does a painting have, if it's only value is in its material? The cost of paint and canvas, the cost of labor. Someone painted it. That is all we understand.
We may love its visual aspects emotionally, but without a cultural context, we cannot live a life based upon it, and derive value from this solely. The same comparison can be made in my mind to those who base their spiritual lives off a piece of paper alone. It's like worshiping the dead, and forgetting that one is alive.
It is forgetting that once upon a time, a hand as alive as mine put pen to paper, and the words flowed from their heart and soul onto the page. It is forgetting that once upon a time, they were as alive as I am, as unsure of the future as I am, and had no knowledge of the realm beyond death.
Some might answer that those words were a "gift from the gods" or somehow or another divinely inspired. But this assumes that my words, and those of every other human, cannot possibly be as well. That a living practice, that flows from my own heart and soul, is somehow less valuable, because the ages have not yet passed over my headstone. This in itself makes me angry for all those who are bludgeoned by the idea that to be a good heathen, one must use the written word as an indelible guideline of relevant practice. To be blunt, it's bullshit.
By the definitions of the "heathen community," what I practice is not called seidhr. Why? Because what I do does not follow a miniscule amount of literary sourcework that tells of what ONE seidkona did. I do not practice seidhr because I don't wear a catskin hat, or carry a distaff, or sit on a high seat, or prophecy in a public spectacle, or beat a drum. Apparently, instead of a whole host of evidence culturally that what I do is in fact much like seidhr, no it isn't. Because one obscure Icelandic source does not match my practices.
I have been working with the Vanir, and dedicated to Freya for half a decade now. What I do is done with a hefty dose of guidance and knowledge from that great lady of Seidhr. I consider it insulting beyond words for anyone to tell me that what I do is not Seidhr because it is not in the Lore, word for word. Are you freaking out of your mind?!
If you based your understanding of a widespread cultural practice on a single obscure reference in an academic setting, You would be laughed out of the class. You would FAIL. Yet this is what it comes down to for hard core recons basing their understanding of seidhr on one Icelandic text. And these are the people who are building a new modern blend of heathenry trying to reconstruct the past? It's honestly laughable its makes so little logical sense.
I could continue to be angry but honestly I just feel sad for these people. Because I know only the surface of what seidhr is, direct from the source, and it is so much richer than they could ever imagine. Perhaps after my life is over, will I have an idea of its depth. Seidhr isn't in a book, and it never will be. There is a reason for this. I can't give you that reason. You need to talk to Freya herself, then maybe will you understand the ignorance of such a limiting view of Seidhr as a LIVING artform. Or a humanities course at the local college? Choose your poison.
Anyway, that's my view. These people can believe what they want about Seidhr. I know what I am.
In Frith
Cena
I'm glad to read this. I have my own problems with the heathen community for various reasons and it's for those reasons that it has taken me so long to affiliate with the Norse gods, but I'm so glad to read your opinions on it all. I haven't started with magic yet but I do plan on being more intuitive than driven by rules. It doesn't make sense to me, especially in light of so little being written down by out ancestors and the ancients, to adhere to rules that are in place by modern interpretations of texts written long after the fact.
ReplyDeleteI have only had good contact with other Heathens in real life, although I have seen racist comments via internet communications. Seidhr definitely has the potential to spark lots of controversy. For my own work, I have tried to learn as much as I can from all sibyllic and shamanic sources and then use common sense. Since I don't share my spiritual work, I don't ever run into confrontation over it. I think the Heathen community is great for sharing a horn and establishing frith with god/desses and wights, but some spiritual work is personal and specific to an individual. What helps one person trance is not going to help another. If you must study other traditions to help you understand your own, I don't see anything wrong with that (and neither did our ancestors).
ReplyDeleteI don't have any problems with the heathen community at large, but with the American heathen community. Over here, they pretty much only draw the line at using drums and soul retrieval (which would be shamanism). But over there it has to be devided into oracular seidr, spá etc, there has to be a high seat, there has to be a vardlokkr etc etc. And it seems to only be used for fortelling the future. They totally ignore the accounts of solitary seidr, and the number of accounts that speak of other uses. I use it to learn, discover, help, heal etc. I did a presentation on seidr once and managed to annoy some poeple. All the ones annoyed were Americans.
ReplyDeleteYes, I was speaking largely of my contacts here Linda, and I defo agree with you. People here tend to focus on oracular seidhr as if thats all there is too it, which annoys me to know end. If you mention any practices outside of that, then people want to argue that it isn't seidhr. Which is a waste of time and stupid, IMO.
ReplyDeleteNO END,NOT KNOW LOL
ReplyDelete