Wane Wyrds

The Blot, or more correctly punctuated blót, was a common Germanic ceremony in sacrifice to the gods. It is one of the most well known religious rituals of the Germanic people and was well documented within the surviving literary works of the Norse people. The world blót is an interesting one in the linguistic sense, and scholars are often debating about its origin and meaning. It is believed to be derived from the Proto-Germanic "blotan" which means to sacrifice or worship. Alternative theories connect it to other roots with meanings such as blood, flame, bubble, murmur, etc. By Rebecca Radcliff (Hljod.Huskona on Flickr.) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons The components of a blot were really quite simple, though their performance was time consuming. The first step was the sacrifice, usually of an animal. There is also some minor evidence pointing to a possibility of human sacrifices involved in blot, particularly aro...

I want this post to be very measured, and to make certain that my own thoughts about the validity or value of Pop Culture Paganism are not used as an assault or attack on those who practice it. So I start this post by saying that the opinions and thoughts contained here will reflect my own thoughts on the topic, and are in no way intended to be taken as a form of judgment against anyone and their own beliefs and practices. King Arthur of Britain by Howard Pyle 1903 (Public Domain) Man, Myth, or Fictional Character? We can quibble... It is entirely possible to hold your own beliefs on what has value while acknowledging that what has no value to you may be the bread and butter for someone else. My views on Pop Culture Paganism are similar to my views on mainstream Christianity in this way, yet one cannot help but see the vast distance between the values that they transmit within our culture.  I feel that every person in entitled by human rights to hold their own beliefs ab...

Hi everyone! This weeks post will be a continuation of the Vanir 101 series I started with the Basic Symbols of Freyr post. I will eventually try and post one of these for all the Vanir deities on a monthly basis, perhaps more often. In this post I will look at some of the basic symbols of the Vanir Goddess Freyja. In entirely unrelated news, I wanted to let everyone know that I will be on vacation for the next three weeks beginning Weds, so it will be a about that long before another post is up. Hope you enjoy the post! Symbols of Freyja The Brisings Necklace (Brisingamen) Brisingamen is the quintessential symbol of the goddess Freyja. The necklace was created by four dwarven brothers, and believed to contain magical powers of regeneration and fertility. These four dwarves may have been connected to the four directions, and the necklace itself symbolic of earth and its creative power. Freyja paid for this necklace by agreeing to sleep with each brother for a sin...

It's been hectic lately but I wanted to share some new things of mine, and some changes her on the site. There are some new writings on the Vanir gods that I have published both on my own and through another site that I want to share with everyone so you know where to find them. The first news is that I have published a new ebook on Amazon called Lore of the Vanir, a brief overview of the Vanir Gods . You can find it here at  Amazon: Lore of the Vanir Lore of the Vanir is basically a section of a larger work in progress that I decided to release on its own. It is a basic overview of the lore and attributes of the Vanir gods as individuals, as well as what I call the wights of the Vanir, which are non-Vanir beings closely related to them. There is also a section regarding questionable connections, with short overviews of some more obscure Germanic figures that some believe may be earlier forgotten Vanir deities. At the end is a couple pages of terms that I felt were import...

       Once upon a time I wrote a rather shitty post about Tumblr Lokeans . I decided today to remove it from the blog because in the year since I wrote it some of my perspective has changed, and I want my blog to reflect that. I also removed it because since I wrote it I have harbored some guilt and shame over how it might have contributed to negative opinions about Loki worship in general. There was some initial backlash against the post, but to be honest it was minor and I really haven't heard anything about it since about a month after it was published. I am not removing it because people were angry with it, or expressed disdain against the post. I am removing it because my own perspective has changed, and also because I felt that some of what I implied was outright hurtful to some, though that was never the intention. My inner voice every time I thought about the Lokean post for the last year...      Looking back, I can see that much of that...

In Part 1 of this series I explored the idea of trees as magical companions and spoke briefly about some simple ways to connect with them and form some sort of relationship to these natural beings. In this part I will explore connecting with them as sources of energy and talk about a simple healing ritual I have used with my own sacred tree that has worked well for me in the past. Trees as Energy Sources: Subtle yet Potent Trees, and plants in general, are in my mind very powerful vehicles for the flow of energy in nature. Particularly the energy of earth. They are some of the few living beings in nature that have access to both the external and internal energies of the earth, and as such are often symbolic of the cyclical flow of nature between life and death. Trees have access to both the creative and destructive aspects of earth.  The energy of earth is often viewed as much more subtle than that of the other elements, given that it is a quiet process, we cannot fe...

This post was written as part of a series on Elemental Earth Witchcraft. The term Earth Witch is used within the post, but can apply to any person who works with nature and the earth on a spiritual/magical level, and most definitely can include both Vanatru an other heathens.  Tree Magic   Yggdrasil, The World Ash            The tree is a natural living object which is perhaps most symbolic of the earth and its elemental energy. In myths from around the globe, the tree is depicted as a structure of support for the cosmos and the realms which reside within it. It is also deeply connected to the concept of fecundity and the flow of energy and life in the natural world. The image of the split section of the tree illustrates the cycles of the earth, and the cyclical movement of creative energy from dormancy to full bloom, life to death.           Outside of the potent ...