Author Topic: Asatru and Celtic Reconstructionism (Read 2864 times)

Vaulkhar · « **on:** March 26, 2014, 07:25:32 pm »

Hey again!

I'm writing to provide a sort of update on my path finding as well as to air more questions to the TC community as I continue to work through it.

These past couple weeks I have continued muddling through figuring out my path. I have been looking at the practices Asatru and their Germanic gods the longest but I have just ordered the CR FAQ in book form as well "Celtic Gods and Heroes" by Sjoestedt which I should receive tomorrow. I have realized that part of the draw I have felt to reconstructed pagan religions is the idea of forming relationships with the gods and goddesses that my ancestors may worshiped. I am not quite certain if I have any Celtic British/Irish/Gaullish in me, which has kind of made me a little hesitant to look into CR for some odd reason - I know non-Celts can practice CR but personally for me I feel I'd be a somewhat "folkish" reconstructionist. To each his/her own, though, obviously!

I have prayed (what is the preferred language here? "spoken to?") to Thor a few times informally, offering up a bit of my favorite beer to the earth as an offering and just as a "Hey, I'm here and saying hello!" type of deal. But I still lack the means or living situation to have an altar or anything even vaguely nice to facilitate a nice ritual offering.

Anywho, while I can get behind revering nature and my ancestors, it's really not that huge of an interest to me. My primary draw to paganism was the idea of forming some kind of relationship with the gods. One thing that kind of concerns me along those lines is that from what I can gather Asatru (my at this moment preferred path) is not "god-bothered" so to speak. Which is fine, but forming a relationship and friendship with Thor, say, is one of the greatest draws for me. On the other hand, it seems in CR it is generally more usual to have a god(s)-focused religion. (by all means tell me if I'm wrong). Frankly, the Dagda, despite my wish to remain close to the gods of my ancestors (again, I'm not quite sure if I have Celtic ancestry. I just know I have Germanic and "English" ancestry - which may or may not mean "British") seems to be right up my alley. The Dagda strikes me as a deity I could really get to know and form a relationship with and, like Thor, seems like a good friendly "beginner deity."

So I've got a couple of questions on top of the above mess of confused ramblings

1: Which would you say is more "established" - Asatru or CR? As in, which has a longer history of being practiced in the modern world and which tradition has unearthed more of its forgotten lore?

2: Does anyone here have any personal UPG experiences with the Nordic and Celtic gods and compare how "open" the two broad pantheons are to talking with you?

3: Any personal UPG on Thor or the Dagda or any other "beginner friendly" deities or advice in general?

Hopefully the above was not too rambly. I tried to organize it as best as I could but I am a little confused on where I'm going.

Seren · « **Reply #1 on:** March 27, 2014, 06:48:27 am »

Quote from: Vaulkhar;143727

1: Which would you say is more "established" - Asatru or CR? As in, which has a longer history of being practiced in the modern world and which tradition has unearthed more of its forgotten lore?

Asatru is way more established – I think it's been around since at least the 70s, whereas the early roots of what came to be CR began developing in the 80s. It was only in the 90s that CR really got a name and a wider audience for what they were doing. Also, CR is seen as an umbrella term that shelters a number of different sub-traditions depending on the culture being focused on. Some of those are more established than others – it's probably fair to say the Irish side of things is the most established and most popular. If you're looking at the Dagda then you're likely to want to look into Gaelic Polytheism (or Irish Polytheism, but as search terms go you'll find more with the former).

In terms of lore, you'll find it's often more a case of the kind of sources we have and what they can offer us. Both (specifically Gaelic – it's difficult to talk about CR as a whole) have a lot of mythology to go on, but as far as practice goes I'm not really sure about Asatru or the kind of materials they have to work with. For Gaelic Polytheism we have to do quite a bit of digging, and also look at modern, or more recent, survivals in the lore and customs to help us.

Because Asatru is more established – really they've got about 20 years on CR – you'll find far more in the way of reading materials etc. For Gaelic Polytheism there are some websites that might be useful, like the CR FAQ, Gaol Naofa, and Tairis (in the interests of transparency, I run Tairis and am currently head of Gaol Naofa). There are some people out there who are interested in syncretism between GP and Heathenry but there's not much in the way of how they do that, I don't think.

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3: Any personal UPG on Thor or the Dagda or any other "beginner friendly" deities or advice in general?

I can't speak to the Norse side of things but I've always found the Dagda to be very approachable in the times I've encountered him. In GP (like Asatru, I think), we tend to emphasise prayer and offerings in practice, so I would suggest you look into the myths involving the Dagda to get a feel for him and see what kind of things he might like – porridge is a big one (which would have been like a meaty, stodgy stew back then). Bread, oatcakes or soda bread, with a good bit of butter, tend to be pretty safe choices for offerings if you're a bit stuck. I wrote my dissertation on him, years ago now, but that should give you some pointers for the myths to hunt up.

hlewagastir · « **Reply #2 on:** March 27, 2014, 09:46:57 am »

Hey Vaulkhar,

I know little about CR so I'll stick with talking about Asatru and the Norse stuff.

Quote from: Vaulkhar;143727

Hey again!

I have prayed (what is the preferred language here? "spoken to?") to Thor a few times informally, offering up a bit of my favorite beer to the earth as an offering and just as a "Hey, I'm here and saying hello!" type of deal. But I still lack the means or living situation to have an altar or anything even vaguely nice to facilitate a nice ritual offering.

"Pray" is good.

Also, libation offerings are fine. If you can get a private spot outside you could possibly try to get a small idol, a hammer or something to pour the offering on/beside and direct it too, or maybe use oats/branches or something else to make a small circle for the occasion (to delineate a space to pour the offering in). While a permanent alter is nice, I figure that one made for a specific occasion should be working just fine - you can always address the god and mention why during sacrifice and prayer.

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Anywho, while I can get behind revering nature and my ancestors, it's really not that huge of an interest to me. My primary draw to paganism was the idea of forming some kind of relationship with the gods. One thing that kind of concerns me along those lines is that from what I can gather Asatru (my at this moment preferred path) is not "god-bothered" so to speak. Which is fine, but forming a relationship and friendship with Thor, say, is one of the greatest draws for me.

Then call your path "Norse Polytheism" and go for it

My point here is that to be fair "Asatru" is a modern construct, as is "Heathenism".

For me history, my relationship of gift giving (and thus friendship) with the gods, wights and ancestors, and what I generally think is a usefull structure of religion for me, mine and my gods are what dictates my religion.

This is also why I usually skip "how-to" and "guidebooks" written by Pagans/Asatru/Heathens. While some of them can give a fair bit of inspiration here and there, they are usually fairly weak on history and treatment of the source material with a historic context in mind - here I would suggest Rudolf Simek's Dictionary or John Lindow's Handbook of Norse Mythology for easy but pretty in-depth overviews.
Also, you can usually find a fair bit of what the guidebooks say in online FAQs and forums.

Edit: I wanted to give my 0.2s on your direct questions as well, but sort of ran out of time. I'll see if I can get around to it this weekend or sometime next week.

Materialist · « **Reply #3 on:** March 27, 2014, 01:39:46 pm »

Quote from: Vaulkhar;143727

I am not quite certain if I have any Celtic British/Irish/Gaullish in me, which has kind of made me a little hesitant to look into CR for some odd reason - I know non-Celts can practice CR but personally for me I feel I'd be a somewhat "folkish" reconstructionist. To each his/her own, though, obviously!

Some CR religions are: Brython (pre-Roman England); Amldduwiaeth (Welsh Polytheism); and Senobessus (Gaulish). Then there's my own pet project of Senubitis, the religion of Roman East Anglia. No book on that; I can't organize my notes if my life depended on it.

http://www.dunbrython.org
http://amldduwiaeth.livejournal.com

Ugh, I tried a dozen times to get the link for the Senobessus website to work, but it just isn't taking for some reason. It's called the Camonica Club.

SunflowerP · « **Reply #4 on:** March 28, 2014, 05:21:06 pm »

Quote from: Materialist;143794

http://amldduwiaeth.livejournal.com

Looks pretty dormant; no activity in about two years. But its archives could be useful for info.

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Ugh, I tried a dozen times to get the link for the Senobessus website to work, but it just isn't taking for some reason. It's called the Camonica Club.

I had to poke at it a bit, too, but got there: Camonica Club of North America. (Since it's Blogger/Blogspot, I automatically get the .ca - it'll likely auto-redirect to regionally-applicable suffixes for others.)

(ETA: Here is the Camonica Club's page explaining Senobessus/Gaulish Polytheism, since there's no easy-to-find link to it from the main URL; you have to dig into the 'Blog Archive' section in the sidebar, which is by date so you'd have to either know what date to look under, or check everything.)

Sunflower