[Main Blog Post] [Heathen Rosary] Draft "Hail Holy Forebears"

[jprussell]

I am so very, very close to having all of the bedes of the "Heathen Rosary" at least to a stead where you can say the whole thing, but the draft of the closing bede still feels a bit "flat," and so once again, I am asking for your help in working out what I might change about it.

Your thoughts on the "Hail Idun" and "All-Father" have been very worthwhile and truly helped them take shape, so even more so than usual, kindly share them on this one as well so I can have a full set of prayers I'm happy with and get to working out the "mysteries" to go with them.

Thanks ahead of time if you choose to share any and all thoughts, big or small.

Comments

[k_a_nitz]

Is that the right link?

[jprussell]

It will be :) The way I have things set up, I have to generate the dreamwidth post first to be able to include a link at the bottom of the webstead post, which means there's a window where this is up but that is not, and the link points to just the top of the webstead until that goes up.

The window is still open because I currently have my "publish" script set up to put every single post into the RSS feed, and every time I add a new one, it has to re-format the whole file (indenting is what takes a lot of time), and apparently the size of my whole webstead has started running into the limits of what my computer can do in a reasonable amount of time (actually, as I wrote this, it wrapped up, an hour later, so the link should work now). The indenting has been slow for a while now, but it's been a low priority to fix publishing process, though in the past couple of weeks, it's gotten way slower.

If you (or anyone else) cares about technical details: I write in org-mode in Emacs and use the org-export package with the ox-rss add-on to generate an RSS feed (that I'm sure no one currently uses). I like writing in org-mode because it's a plaintext markup format that is very readable even without a specialized editor, and Emacs is the nuclear-powered supercarrier of text editors, with tons of functionality. When I finish writing a post, I can publish it with a few keyboard shortcuts (and then sit and wait for the indenting to happen...). To fix it, I can either write some code to modify the RSS publishing to pre-pend the new post to the existing file, and just format that, or I can likely much more easily set a maximum number of most recent posts to include in the RSS. I've resisted the first because I'm not a great programmer and I know enough from prior experience to know it won't be as easy or fast as I feel like it should be, and I've resisted the latter because I used to prefer reading blogs via RSS readers and appreciated when I could access the full archive that way, rather than only the most recent stuff, and so I thought I'd extend the courtesy to anyone who shares that preference (likely a tiny population, and almost guaranteed none of them read my blog).

Anyhow, that's certainly way more than you care to know on the subject, and again, the main takeaway is the link works now!

Jeff

[k_a_nitz]

First brief thought on the second half of the first line before I go to bed - would "seed-horn o' our eld-father" work?

Or is that too risque? ;-)

[jprussell]

You kid, but I did give some thought to how risque to make things :) Obviously, if the focus is on the outward/dynamic/generative masculine and its interplay with the inward/holding/receptive feminine, sex is implied. I thought it might be neat to do a counterplay between what aspect of masculine/feminine interaction is emphasized with each stanza, versus which life-stage is mentioned - so, vital, literal male/female interaction (sex) for eldfather and eldmother, familial love for father and mother (that would be the same either way), and more intellectual/emotional for man and woman, but I ended up feeling like it clashed a bit with the tree and subtle body parts (the imagery of "twined limbs" is about as sexy as I got). Also, I worried that more clearly sexual imagery with grandpa and grandma might provoke more of a humorous reaction than I was going for.

All of which is to say, it's a good thought and one I likely ought to consider again. Thank you!

Jeff

An update

[borealbear]

Hey, hope you don't mind a late reply on this, but I figured I'd give you a quick update and let you know I appreciate the ongoing effort. Anyway, after some postal mishaps I've finally received and put together the physical components of the Tally, and I'm happy with the result. Again, I know this is a serious religious project and not a LARP, but I really enjoyed matching the different parts and putting it all together.

When it comes to the Bedes themselves, though, I have to admit I'm still struggling with the translations. It's just so hard to keep the alliteration and intent intact in another language without some really torturous contortions. Especially since my ambitions are more in prose writing than poetry, which I have very little experience with.

So I think two things are becoming increasingly clear to me: first, if I'm going to practice this as presented here, I'll probably have to recite them in English as written. And second, maybe my best bet would be to take a little more time and start from scratch with the Catholic Rosary prayers as a loose template. Your Bedes are beautiful, but they also feel very personal and idiosyncratic, so maybe I'd be better served finding my own interpretations anyway (ie. more of a focus on Frigg than Idun, among other things).

Either way, I'm thankful you gave me the idea to do this, and I'm determined to find an approach that works for me eventually.

Re: An update

[jprussell]

Thanks for the update, and no worries on it being "late."

I'm glad to hear you've gotten the materials for your beads! I agree that there's a certain tendency to turn it into a LARP, but I also think that the material part of it is one of the attractions - it's certainly what first grabbed my attention for this kind of praying, so I'd say don't feel bad about enjoying it.

And yeah, fair enough on the struggles with translation. Translating poetry is always very hard, and as you say, these poems/prayers are indeed very idiosyncratic, so that makes things even harder. I think either approach you mention has merit, and it makes me wonder if I ought to have picked a "liturgical" language like Old Norse or Old English and just leaned into "don't worry about translating, the poems are in this language, it doesn't have to be what you speak" like Catholics historically did with Latin for the Rosary.

That being said, I obviously find value in praying in the language I actually know, and have crafted some prayers that work for me along those lines, so I certainly can't begrudge you doing the same for yourself! Whatever you end up coming up with, I'd love to see it.

Good luck, and may you find the praying helpful, whatever shape it takes!

Cheers,
Jeff

[borealbear]

Thanks for the encouragement! And yes, as I might have said before, I'm very much of the mind that there's a certain appeal to using beautiful objects as part of the practice, as long as it doesn't get out of hand. For this Tally I found some lovely oak beads, which might be more in style of the Druid Revival, but it's still a suitably regal Northern wood. For the three bigger beads, I went with ash. Personally I prefer the traditional interpretation of Yggdrasil as an ash, even if I respect the scholarly position that yew might be more "correct". For the medallion, I went with a piece of an apple branch from my own property, since I didn't find anything for sale I either liked enough or felt was worth the price. One thing this showed me is that the Etsy market for beads of tropical woods is huge, but there's not much choice for temperate trees.
In case you're curious how it ended up, here's a picture of the result: https://tinypic.host/image/Tally.24yYxf


Using the old Germanic languages could have been a good option too. Still, I'd also rather have them in my native language if possible. Speaking of which, after my last comment I had another look at the Catholic prayers, and I think I made some decent progress. I was thinking of a way to adapt the Apostle's Creed's declarations of "I believe..." with something more suited to actions and intentions, following your reasoning for the "Tree Deeming". That's when I had a realization that's probably obvious: what if prayers could also be affirmations, JMG style?

So I tried to phrase it as "I [verb]...", as if it's already a fact, which as I understand it is the idea behind affirmations. Instead of the Christian triad of declaring belief in the three aspects of the Christian deity, I made a threefold structure based around 1) the Aesir/wisdom and trust in their guidance, 2) the Vanir/peace and reciprocity and 3) the Tree/being rooted in the human and non-human community of life. I also tried to incorporate some alliteration and rhythm, without going all-in on the poetic meter. It's not the most exquisite composition of all time, but I'm reasonably happy with it. At least for a first attempt. And again, your explanation of your thinking behind your "Tree Deeming" was very helpful here as a guide.

[jprussell]

My pleasure! And agreed on the value of beautiful objects, with the caveat you mention. I have a vague idea for a multi-part project looking into "the good, the beautiful, and the true" to delve more into this, but I've got to wrap up getting the Tally somewhere I can share it first.

Your beads turned out lovely! And I love that you found some wood from your own property, I definitely would have if I had something fitting. As for oak and ash, those are also excellent choices - we know that oaks were holy to the elder heathens, most likely most of all to Thunor/Thor due to their tendency to get hit by lightning. I also respect the position that Yggdrasil is better thought of as an Ash, and I tend to best like the idea that It transcends earthly species and partakes of something of the essence of both ash and yew (and maybe every other tree), and so which mundane wood we choose to symbolize it is more about calling out certain aspects, rather than getting it "right."

Also, agreed that Etsy is woefully under-supplied in temperate wood beads/other craft items!

I'm glad to hear that you found my thinking on the "Tree Deeming" useful for coming up with your own "creed." I've given some thought to using the rules of affirmations for crafting prayers, and I think I even asked about that in a Magic Monday sometime back. If I remember right, JMG's response was that prayers shouldn't necessarily follow the rules of affirmations, because they are a form of communication with a fully sentient other being, rather than a way of hammering something into your own subconscious. That said, to the degree a prayer is also a communication with your own subconscious, making them more affirmation-like strikes me as reasonable, especially for something meant more as a statement of belief/intention rather than speaking directly to a particular God or set of Gods. I also really like the three-fold structure you chose.

Again, glad you're off to a good start, and I hope you keep on finding stuff that works for you!

Cheers,
Jeff

[borealbear]

"I tend to best like the idea that It transcends earthly species and partakes of something of the essence of both ash and yew (and maybe every other tree), and so which mundane wood we choose to symbolize it is more about calling out certain aspects, rather than getting it "right."

This is probably the best way to approach it. Like you said, it's a mythic idea in any case, not a matter of botany. Still, I do have a soft spot for the ash as the one distinctive wood of Germanic tradition, and its properties and appearance also go very well with a Golden Dawn approach as I understand it - which is one reason I also got an ash wand to use for the HGD when that time comes.

"JMG's response was that prayers shouldn't necessarily follow the rules of affirmations, because they are a form of communication with a fully sentient other being, rather than a way of hammering something into your own subconscious."

True, that's a very valid point. My thought process here was similar to yours: this prayer, both in the Heathen and Catholic context, is more a personal declaration of intent towards the Gods as a whole, so I thought it was fitting. I agree that it probably wouldn't be right with the other Bedes.

Again, appreciate the encouragement, and I'll let you know when I've adapted the whole thing and hopefully gotten a chance to try it in practice (which is of course where the real value lies).

[jprussell]

If you have other reasons to favor Ash, it makes good sense to me to go with that here as well. It might be interesting over time to see if folks report any different "feel" based on different materials in their beads.

And agreed that making the "creed" affirmation-like makes better sense than the other ones. My own "Tree Deeming" also does this somewhat, though it's not wholly put in the present tense in order to get the feel of Wyrd, Werthende, and Sculd (the three Wyrds, matching the three Norns - Urdhr, Verdhandi, and Skuld).

Lastly, my pleasure, and thanks for sharing your updates!

Thanks,
Jeff