Disconnected

I find I've been struggling with heathenry lately. Not a struggle in terms of comprehension, or spiritual turmoil, but in waning energy for the subject. I'm not reading as much as I should. I'm not putting in the work I should. I'm not connecting with it in the way I have previously been. I know this is a temporary lull, but I feel like I should address it, particularly as it has meant I haven't been posting here like I should.


I think a lot of it is a community issue. I'm an introvert by nature, so I'm naturally inclined to hermit up and keep to myself. On top of that, I haven't really made many connections to fellow heathens. I did manage to track down a group of locals via facebook, but thus far haven't been able to attend any of their events. Of course, this may be at least in part for the best, as certain comments made within their group are troubling. Of particular note, one announcement bothered me a good deal: 

"Types of ceremonies/rituals will be Asatru with some Druidic peppered in. We want to have them for the holidays (on the Druidic and Asatru calender)" 

This is troubling for a number of reasons. The first and foremost being that I'm a reconstructionist heathen. By definition, the goal is to condition one's practice to emulate the religion of our ancestors as closely as possible. Why you would intentionally dillute this practice with outside elements, I don't know. 

The second issue is closely related to the first, and that is the idea that Druidism has any kind of place at a heathen ritual or ceremony. There is this weird kind of assumption out there that european pagan traditions can be mix-and-matched without any issue, and that is not only not the case - it's also kind of insulting. Not just to me, but to the other side as well. It ignores the fact that there are specific cultural values and an entire world-view built around those traditions. To lump them in together with a kind of broad strokes "pagan is as pagan does" is cheapening both religions and cultures. One would not say "we're going to be practicing catholic mass, with some Vedic tantra and Shinto mixed in."

But I think my biggest bugbear is that Druidism is such a sketchy subject in general. We know almost nothing about druids. At all. We have nothing surviving about what they actually did, or what they believed. We know nothing of their practices whatsoever. The only historical sources we have for druids are what greeks and roman writers thought about them (pro tip: it wasn't kind), some archeologial findings (implements and the like), and whatever tidbits can be gleaned from study of irish folklore. Nothing we have comes even close to a working religious or philosophical system. In my experience (and one could make a case for this by necessity being universally true) anyone claiming to have knowledge of Druidic traditions is full of new-age bullshit. Things billed as Druidic can almost always be traced back to the same strains of neopaganism that came out of Gardnarian Wicca. 

Why on earth would I want that anywhere near my religious traditions?

Ranting aside, I think a secondary issue has simply come the fact that the circles in which we travel shape who we become. I've been doing a lot of thinking lately on the subject of innangard, and forming of a tribe, and I realize that the people with whom I am closest are not heathen. With the standards I hold for company I keep, I begin to wonder if I will find fellow heathens that would measure up. Or if they do, how will they deal with the fact that my closest tribe members are not themselves heathen? 

It's a perplexing thing, and I think I've stuck things on the back burner while I chew on it. 

Stay tuned.