To get things going, I figured I'd (re-)introduce myself:
Hi, I'm Jeff! I've spelled out my spiritual journey in some detail before, but the short version is that I grew up a lukewarm Christian, got a bit more serious in college, then slipped into materialist agnoticism/atheism for a while before discovering occultism and magic and finding my spiritual home in Heathenry.
I'm at the "harder" end of polytheism, seeing different Gods and Goddesses as genuinely distinct Beings/personalities, though I tend to assume that most of the names different Germanic languages refer to the same Being (for example, I tend to assume Odhinn, Woden, Wotan, *Wodhanaz are all "the same God"), and my working metaphysical hypothesis is something like Hermetic-flavored Platonism - all those distinct personalities might be "emanations" of a unified source of consciousness/Being, but I think the distinctness matters here at the human level.
More specific to Heathenry, here's where I fall on some of the "doctrinal" fault lines:
I'm open to the idea that ancestry might have some relevance to practice, but I don't begrudge folks of non-Northern-European extraction worshipping the Germanic Gods, so I somewhat uncomfortably straddle the "folkish" vs "universalist" line, which so far hasn't been too much of an issue, since I haven't tried to participate in any groups.
I believe the "giants" (jotnar, ettins, thurses, whatever) are real and powerful spiritual forces, but am very wary of offering them worship, and tend to stick only to those with some place in the camps of the Aesir or the Vanir - for example, for His mentoring of Woden, I include Meomer (Mimir) in my practice, and I would consider Skadhi reasonable to worship, though I don't have a relationship with Her, but I wouldn't offer worship to Thjazi. This is more based in caution than any hard theological rule, and I'm open to experience changing my mind here.
Similarly, I think that Loki is and ought to be treated fully as a God, but I don't personally offer Him any worship - I talk about Him with respect and have no problem with those who worship Him, but I don't have a relationship and I'm a bit leery of building one, given His rather ambivalent nature in the lore.
My own practice is centered around Anglo-Saxon names and what little we know of their culture and practice, but I tend to happily accept the Old Norse stories as fully relevant and useful, since, as I mentioned, I tend to regard "cognate Gods" within the Germanic traditions as likely "the same" - Woden is Odhinn is *Wodhanaz, and so stories about Him hanging on the Tree, winning the Runes, and so forth are likely just as relevant in a more-or-less Anglo-Saxon context as a more purely Norse one. This is mostly for aesthetic reasons - I like the sound and feel of Old English, and I feel more cultural affinity with the English, old and new, than I do with the Nordic countries and their peoples.
Where things get a bit weirder is that I also currently follow the path of Revival Druidry and its magic as laid out in John Michael Greer's book's The Druid Magic Handbook and The Dolmen Arch. I've also supplemented these with some work in the Modern Order of Essenes and Universal Gnostic Church traditions, so you could say I'm far from a "purist." In my own work, I've found all of these to harmonize fairly well by calling upon Germanic Gods in the various work (for example, I call upon Idun when doing the MOE work, and upon Woden, Baldaeg, Frigg, Eostre, Frige, Ing, Idun, Erce, and Tiw during the SOP).
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Hi, I'm Jeff! I've spelled out my spiritual journey in some detail before, but the short version is that I grew up a lukewarm Christian, got a bit more serious in college, then slipped into materialist agnoticism/atheism for a while before discovering occultism and magic and finding my spiritual home in Heathenry.
I'm at the "harder" end of polytheism, seeing different Gods and Goddesses as genuinely distinct Beings/personalities, though I tend to assume that most of the names different Germanic languages refer to the same Being (for example, I tend to assume Odhinn, Woden, Wotan, *Wodhanaz are all "the same God"), and my working metaphysical hypothesis is something like Hermetic-flavored Platonism - all those distinct personalities might be "emanations" of a unified source of consciousness/Being, but I think the distinctness matters here at the human level.
More specific to Heathenry, here's where I fall on some of the "doctrinal" fault lines:
I'm open to the idea that ancestry might have some relevance to practice, but I don't begrudge folks of non-Northern-European extraction worshipping the Germanic Gods, so I somewhat uncomfortably straddle the "folkish" vs "universalist" line, which so far hasn't been too much of an issue, since I haven't tried to participate in any groups.
I believe the "giants" (jotnar, ettins, thurses, whatever) are real and powerful spiritual forces, but am very wary of offering them worship, and tend to stick only to those with some place in the camps of the Aesir or the Vanir - for example, for His mentoring of Woden, I include Meomer (Mimir) in my practice, and I would consider Skadhi reasonable to worship, though I don't have a relationship with Her, but I wouldn't offer worship to Thjazi. This is more based in caution than any hard theological rule, and I'm open to experience changing my mind here.
Similarly, I think that Loki is and ought to be treated fully as a God, but I don't personally offer Him any worship - I talk about Him with respect and have no problem with those who worship Him, but I don't have a relationship and I'm a bit leery of building one, given His rather ambivalent nature in the lore.
My own practice is centered around Anglo-Saxon names and what little we know of their culture and practice, but I tend to happily accept the Old Norse stories as fully relevant and useful, since, as I mentioned, I tend to regard "cognate Gods" within the Germanic traditions as likely "the same" - Woden is Odhinn is *Wodhanaz, and so stories about Him hanging on the Tree, winning the Runes, and so forth are likely just as relevant in a more-or-less Anglo-Saxon context as a more purely Norse one. This is mostly for aesthetic reasons - I like the sound and feel of Old English, and I feel more cultural affinity with the English, old and new, than I do with the Nordic countries and their peoples.
Where things get a bit weirder is that I also currently follow the path of Revival Druidry and its magic as laid out in John Michael Greer's book's The Druid Magic Handbook and The Dolmen Arch. I've also supplemented these with some work in the Modern Order of Essenes and Universal Gnostic Church traditions, so you could say I'm far from a "purist." In my own work, I've found all of these to harmonize fairly well by calling upon Germanic Gods in the various work (for example, I call upon Idun when doing the MOE work, and upon Woden, Baldaeg, Frigg, Eostre, Frige, Ing, Idun, Erce, and Tiw during the SOP).
If you'd like to get a feel for some of the sources I've found helpful, I've put together this annotated book list on works relevant to Heathenry: https://jpowellrussell.com/#list_of_books_on_germanish_belief_with_thoughts
Anyhow, looking forward to hearing from others, and once again, welcome!
Jeff