Today, I am confronted with the inevitability of war through the root cause of intolerance. I am going to attempt to not be political with this post, as I have no doubt that many of us have fled other places to find a place where we don’t talk about the chaos of the world. I’m with you there – I really am. Frith is a difficult way to maintain, which is the highest condition for Heathens, Asatruar, or any other belief that attempts to embrace and honour the Nordic and Germanic gods (and yes I am aware of so many others, but I have not experienced their way, so I cannot speak of their struggles or principles). The longer I live, the more I see that being in Frith with the folk of MIdgard outside our yard is very difficult when they don’t share your ideas, or embrace the warnings of Gullveig; I may raise a horn with many folk that come out to festivals, or taverns, or markets, but I know that many go back to their lives, slip off their pagan ways like a skin, and resign themselves to the life that is lived in North America…the way of greed and pleasure at the cost of others, the focus on the self that denies that any other way of life is worthy of our concern. I find that resignation so insular, so painful to watch that my thoughts often turn to crying out to all of us to stand up and be counted, recognized and known to each other so that our fires may rise in the night, our voices carried on the wind to the gods! I want the world to know our songs and our ways, not to intimidate them or put up a wall, but to invite them to come to know us as well! 

Beautiful Jord is the only temple we need, and every child of Midgard due respect for their right to choose. I have stood, shoulder to shoulder, with Alexandrians, Odyssians, Gardnerians, Wiccans of every stripe and chord, brother and sister Heathens and Asatruar whose voices I treasure in my meagre hall, and every moment has been a confirmation of my dream, that it is possible!

I have stood in the cold at Yule with my folk, hands frozen to the staff of the ancestors while I handed it one to another while they took hold as well and committed a good memory to give to Yggdrasil and her dutiful warden, Father Heimdall. That was the best moment I have had in recent memory, for I know that all those dreams and memories being given over sang their own songs of each life lived, and a tear froze on my cheek as I cried out the last Hail of the ceremony before retiring to bless the feast with my wife. Who would not want to live for that moment, in such a confirmation of Frith? 

I know this is a dream, and that many difficulties lie in the way of it ever happening, but it shines in my mind like glorious Sol on days like this! It is a spring dream, I know too.

Hail to Thor, for I feel in my heart that He fights for this same ideal, and urges us to keep building despite the forces that work for their own destruction and ours. Stay strong, wonderful Folk, and walk with the gods.

-Ekornvenn