Mental health and heathenry

Doing Heathenry,

Living Healthy,

Being Fearless,

Growing Honor.

About daily mindset, practices and mental health. If you struggle implementing heathenry in your life or you struggle with feeling drained and burned out, you need to read this. 

My nostrils were filled with fresh autumn air of the fallen leaves. The very earth under my feet sacred, the vibrant energy of its spirit tingled my exposed skin. I bent down and touched the wet earth, the fallen leaves. I watched a tree trunk and its moss covered roots, between roots and earth I observed dark crevasses and felt the presence of something lurking. I smiled and said hello. Humans are not made to sit in offices and watch screens all day. That is not where we thrive.

The modern heathen is met with many challenges. Besides the typical issues of today’s life, there is the challenge of fitting heathenry into your life. It is probably the hardest thing to do for a emerging pagan, and I wouldn’t be surprised that many people will stop trying and just give it all up because they decide heathenry and modern life aren’t compatible. Are they? I think so. In fact our heathen worldview even says how: everything is about balance.

The modern trends and expectations aren’t helping either. The digitalization, juggling jobs and households, managing kids, paying the bills, … Not to mention the stress we get from fear mongering news articles. Wars, climate change, fake news, polarization, economical crisis, cancers … You could say modern life is sometimes a lot to take. The more we move on, the more is expected from us. The more we connect with he outside world, the more information we get to digest. Everything now requires you to be connected online, they all send you emails and you need an app for just about anything and they all want your information. To make matters worse you lose yourself in the fun applications like TikTok or Instagram. And how easy do we pick up that small rectangular machine, at any given time we seem to be empty handed. Sitting on the toilet or waiting in line, while eating, or just to pass the time in between commercials. A quick glance for messages just before switching off the light in bed can easily turn into a multiple hour streak of scrolling crap. Most of which is nowadays created by an AI engine. 

We have all fallen in the trap, we are all connecting online, chatting, sending each other online articles or websites and videos to check out. And the more we feel drained, the more we dig ourselves into these comfort bringers. You can just grab it wherever you are, whatever you are doing and start watching and chatting… start escaping real life.

Before you know it the screen has taken over. 

But that is not heathenry. Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful for the informations and contacts I got from spending time online. It has helped me along my way, to learn and grow as a heathen. But one must cordon off those moments, retake control and evaluate what you really need from it. 

Heathenry is doing, is living and experiencing. 

All these incentives that are imposed upon us, have a huge impact on our body and soul. 

Lets be clear.

Your body, this vessel of flesh and bone and blood and soul, was made for living in harmony with its natural environment. 

We are running a 300.000 year old operating system to work in a world that has drastically updated. Our operating system is no longer compatible to the modern software that it is dealing with.

I m here to tell you, that you shouldn’t feel bad or responsible for being burned out, drained or demotivated. I m here to tell you that you aren’t sick or weak. You simply aren’t doing what you are supposed to be doing. 

And lucky for us heathens, pagan practices may just offer us excellent paths to make certain we do what we must to stay sane and healthy and to regain our feeling of belonging and fulfillment. To find our happiness.

How many times did you see something online and said to yourself ‘what a cool way to practice!’ Or ‘I have to do my ritual that way’. Well did you? If the answer is that in most cases you didn’t, then you are in need of a change. You aren’t doing the ‘doing’ part. Because heathenry is more then a ritual at full moon and a statue on the mantlepiece. Heathenry must seep into your every day life.

Besides those bad habits, we have the tendency of wanting to please people, of wanting to fit in, of abiding the modern day requirements. Of feeling validated. Walk the line. But why? Who sets these standards of what is considered normal? 

The world is full of feel better apps, anxiety meds, mental coaches, do you really need those?

It is easier to sell healing then to teach people how to heal themselves or how to stay sane in an otherwise crazy world. Lets look at how we can live a fuller life without those burdens.

My struggle.

Let me take you to a dark place years ago, before Covid struck the world. We must go there because I must show you where I come from, how I learned my lessons and why my lessons may help others. 

We will tread down a dark and cold stone staircase but I will spare you the worst and keep things focused. 

I was working at hi-speed in a position that dealt with public safety issues for a law enforcement agency. Over the course of many years I had climbed a ladder through becoming an experienced fieldworker. My opinions received respect, my voice was heard and I felt validated when ‘they’ said: ‘why don’t you run for the promotion, we need you!’ So I did, climbing two ranks in about three years. So far my work had been about covert surveillance, then overt uniformed duties, I had seen the best and the worst of mankind from pickpockets and junkies hurting their kids to major casualty incidents. Suicides, terrorist attacks, robberies, … there is no end to the list and there is more bad stuff then good stuff on that list.

My phone had an encrypted app to receive real time situation reports from the Operations Center. ‘Ping’ just about a 100 times a day… Often times a service vehicle equipped with siren and lights stood on my drive when I was not on duty, a go-bag in the trunk, ready to jump into action. I did liaison work, was an instructor, a field teamleader, a problem solver.  I planned and executed field operations, kept tabs on developing situations, introduced new techniques and tactics required by a fast changing world, wrote briefings, managed teams in the field and jumped into situations where normal people would be running away from. I had been in and out of hospitals due to injuries sustained during responses to incidents. As if this is not enough, I had to deal with a difficult administration and directing staff that appear to want to do things opposite from what my field experience told me. This finally resulted in a major conflict between me and a few armchair generals. Spiraling me into a world of demotivation, depression and triggering past trauma to haunt me at night. Suffering sleep deprivation, flashbacks, hyper vigilance and meanwhile still traveling 3 hours a day to go to work and back home, the situation was affecting my family life. My head started to feel like it was so full, that even the ‘ping’ from my encrypted app would be enough to make it go boom. And in between I still was very active online to promote heathenry and network with others. 

At home work dominated my free time in many ways. Due to experiences I had started to implement security measures around the family. I was on constant alert, carrying a small bag with useful tools such as a military first aid kid and other things to get the family out of any situation. Before going places I would scrutinize google earth or news websites, statistics and agency websites to find out what the local issues were, what to look out for, where to park the car, what route to take and above all, what to do when things went sideways. I was constantly on the edge, sharp and weaponized. Going out having beers turned into sipping a coke while keeping eyes on the crowd, on the entrances and exits. Going to the shop ended with me pinging shoplifters and getting into the mix even if I was supposed to go on the schoolrun. My lovely wife regularly intervened, calmed me down and said to relax when she noticed my eyes were going into work mode because some guy was displaying behavioral indicators that set off my alarms. I become obsessed with being prepared. Once that bubble is pierced, that utopian security bubble most people live in, you realize there is no such thing as being safe, but only levels of feeling safe. Feeling safe does not equate being safe. With knowledge and skills I felt also came the duty of using them to protect my family everywhere. I was no longer a father, I had become a close protection officer, I moved from the duty around the family to a duty at work and back. There was no more off duty. 

One day I sat in a meeting. Prior to this we had worked on a new project, building it form scratch. We had worked with external consultants to make sure we did it right. My coffee in front of me was my only distraction and hope to make it through the meeting. Already I felt there was a lot of anger and tension in my body. The boss that came in and sat down with us was not my friend. A big belly, greasy hair, and a look in his eyes that said he felt like he was above everyone, but above all he had near zero field experience. As he sat down spreading his arms to establish dominance he stared at us intimidatingly without greeting. He looked like a toad puling his chin up from the mud. I was at a point that I could no longer manage acting normal or hiding disdain, it took too much energy and I didn’t feel like the boss deserved it. Earlier that morning after waking up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat from my fearful nightmares, I had gotten up and got to work very early. Doing my normal routine of securing the house, checking for hostile surveillance and deciding upon a route to work that would make it easier to detect potential hostiles. I felt drained already and had not even managed to look at my emails while sipping a huge cup of coffee. And here I sat, a mind like a time bomb while the boss in front of me looked like he was holding a burning flame next to the dynamite. When he opened his mouth the words that came out totally destroyed the project we had worked so hard on for the past months. Our expert consultants and field experience were totally ignored; he wanted us to do the opposite, a path set to destroy the very objective of the project. 

I lost it. 

My fist hit the tabletop so hard it knocked over a couple of steaming cups of coffee. Ignoring the liquid, I rocketed to my feet and started screaming at my boss. I told him what a complete twat he was. While it happened I felt like on a emotional roller coaster. Anger, sadness, panic… I lost control and this had never happened. I walked out and crashed behind my desk realizing something was very wrong with me. Tears were rolling uncontrollably and my head was spinning and heart was beating like a madman. By lunchtime I was back home and seeing the doctor. 

Two weeks should sort me out. At home I felt better, away from the frustrations of the job, the needs, the deadlines, the meetings, the dangers… I kept tabs on what happened in the world and spend time online and bingewatching. I was resting and recovering from a weak moment, or at least so I believed. One night my friends took me to a movie, Hotel Mumbai. A story about actual events, a terrorist attack. During the movie I got tensed up in my seat, feeling claustrophobic. Suddenly it felt like was inside one of my nightmares. The events on the screen triggered flashbacks in my head. Cold sweat erupted. No one noticed it in the dark of the cinema, but I was gripping the armrests and holding on for dear life. Frantically trying not to hyperventilate, the entire night was turning into a shitshow good style. By the end of the movie I managed to retake control. It was an exhausting experience and driving home that night I was realizing my issues were not at rest just yet. 

On the evening before my first day back on the job I prepared my kit. Most of it had been ready to go anyway. But there was a strange sinking feeling in my stomach. That night the nightmares came back. Once again I was up way too early and when I left for the train station my bag felt like it weighed a ton. The feeling of dread and discomfort only got greater as I parked up near the station. When the train left I was tensed, going in and out the toilet feeling sick. Fearing another panic attack could occur, only made me even more stressed. It was cold and rainy but my hands started sweating. My heart pounding. Cold sweat emerged on my back. The closer the train got me to the capital, the more I felt like losing grip. I needed to keep it together and get into work with a clear head. But it wasn’t happening. As the train pulled in and I saw the skyline of the capital my chest felt like in a vice. Images of a wrecked train, mangled bodies forced it way up. Images from bodies under the piles of rubble at the airport. Faces of people who would want me dead appeared to be with me in the carriage. I was now frantically holding my bag in a deathgrip and I was beyond caring if people noticed my failing composure. When we came to a halt I stepped out hoping to feel relief in the outside air. I relaxed for a minute and quickly made may way to the HQ and the basement floor with my windowless office. An office we were given for this project by our boss. A project he didn’t like and it showed by stuffing us in a basement, like Fox Mulder on the X-Files. I started my laptop and wanted some coffee. But I sat motionless staring at the screen knowing my email inbox would explode on me. Every nerve, every muscle was tight and jumpy. My fingers trembled almost uncontrollably on the keyboard when I tapped in my passwords. When I finally looked at the inbox I could tell by the names and subjects that there was a lot of work waiting for me. And no one seemed to have taken notice of my issue with the new boss. The show must go on. I went outside for a breather and my heart was racing still. I decided I could not do it, I did not want it. So i took the first train back home and with every kilometer of space between me and the capital I felt like the burden was falling of my shoulders. My heart steadied, my nerves relaxed. Was I running from my problems? 

I ended up spending 7 months at home doing therapy. PTSD and burn out was the diagnosis. Both feeding and triggering each other. I lost my shit.  But as soon as the doctor told me I was going to have to stay home for a long time to recover, I felt good. I immediately deleted the work apps form my phone, store away my work stuff in a corner of the house where I wouldn’t need to see it. I was relieved, for the first time in years the pressure felt off. But going outside was a problem, facing the public was like going into a warzone behind enemy lines. At first I hunkered down in my home with books, loads of black tea and I embraced family life and it felt great! Slowly, with the help of a psychiatrist and books I discovered a way out. I refused medication. I had read how the outdoors and physical exercise could bring peace of mind. 

This was the birth of my Ommegang practice.

Once or twice a week I went to a known sacred location or a historical location to conduct my hike around it. Doing anything between 6 up to 35 km per hike in the path of the sun around the objective and give offerings upon arrival. With every hike I felt like shedding some of my burdens. I started to completely give myself over to a very simple life. I slowed it down.

Breakfast, schoolrun, household, Ommegang and ritual, reading, , schoolrun, cook dinner, relax and back to bed. I was cutting my phone off a lot. We went on family outings, spending several vacations in places like the Friesland, Zeeland, Southern France and the Ardennes. 

There was time now to take notice of small things that made me happy. My smartphone and socials were only scrutinized once a day and I left groups and people that felt toxic. Anything that drained was erased from life. It didn’t take long before I felt like I was healing. Meditation was a bliss. I started to experiment with shamanic practices. My heathen ways became more fluid, more animistic. 

I took time to listen to the wind, to observe plants and animals. You can learn a lot form nature. During my hikes I sat and felt the sacred stones, enjoyed the beauty. I brought myself to no longer having to explain or defend doing what I liked. It was awkward at first, as if I was guilty of enjoying life. Of finding peace and love and beauty in small things like a tree. No one would understand, people would call me crazy. I always had loved the outdoors and believed in its spirits. But it was time to truly and deeply build a relationship with the outdoors, especially in the land I dwell. Some will call it escapism, I call it healing. Scrolling reels on your phone, is escapism. Those reels won’t heal you. 

Being confronted with lots of time I started reading more, went out for some running and basically doing stuff I love. Slowly the nightmares went away, the stress subsided.

During therapy at one point I was told, the best way to prevent this from happening again is to drastically change my work situation. It did not take me long to figure it out.

I offered to Wodan and had a long sit out under a bright moon asking for his advice. In my heart I felt what needed to happen. I needed more of what I was doing now. Changing jobs was not something I wanted, I loved it too much. But I could change my function and location without leaving the agency. The next morning while sipping my coffee I got a text from a coworker saying there will be new positions created in the existing regional brigades and telling me to log on the network and check out the cable. Positions for local operational leadership, one rank lower then my current position. It was like a gift from the gods. I knew wyrd had opened for me and it was clear what needed to happen. I went into a regional office to use the closed network so I could apply for the position and write an email to my commanding officer that I was resigning from my function and stepping down the ladder handing in some of my ‘stripes’. Because of the mobility system that organizes internal job transfers in the agency, I knew there was a high chance of getting the position. Due to my years of service, the fact that I lived within the region of the position and my rank, I held all the right cards. HR would make a numbered list of the candidates based upon the modalities and as soon as it came it I knew the nightmare was over. I was listed number one, all I had to do now was sign. 

The regional brigade would offer me a job very close to home in a small unit, set in a medieval town midst of the rural outskirts of Flanders. An area where things are slow going, nature is everywhere and commuting to work is a matter of minutes. It would give me a lot more free time and no more headaches about deadlines or meetings. No more endless paperwork of exploding inboxes. No more projects and tutoring. No more keeping tabs with other agencies and incidents. 

This would not only give me more headspace, peace and time, I would even be working on the grounds of the land I practice on, between the history and legends, amid the folklore where I worship and honor and live. 

In the end it was not the doctor who cured me. It was heathenry, it was nature. On every Ommegang I was rekindling the local spirits, I was restoring balance between humanity and spirit world, and I like to think the landspirits in turn did the same for me. I started to feel closer to the gods. My rhythm of life had slowed, I had retaken control. It was time to stop validating myself to the world. The family came first, precious time doing precious things is now solid gold. 

The doctor was good for giving me time away from work, but heathenry was what helped me reshape my live. There is never such a thing as a complete cure for burn out or PTSD. Both these things tend to leave traces and marks. Like scars, they are part of who I am, of my history and acceptance is part of the healing. 

Healing is shedding, less is more.

So what do we need to do in order to get ourselves in the right space? How do we recover from being part of the ratrace? Lets look at some issues that will probably sound familiar. 

We are instructed all the time to measure success from what we put out. But this is a fallacy. Why do people expect everyone to be ambitious, to climb the ladder of financial comfort and klas? Forget about what the modern world expects.

We are more then just ambitions or the number on our bankaccount. The gods won’t care about your updated status on socials or if your latest jeans are from a trendy brand. The gods want to see you live a full life, develop your talents and gain honor for the family. 

Fear comes shrouded in many different cloaks. It can come as dogma, it can come as exclusion, fear can be a rule, a crime statistic, a hashtag, a glance from a stranger, a dark corner in the street, a title of a newsflash or an email from the boss. Fear creates obedience.

In nature fear is different, its about surviving a storm, a predator, the cold or the heat. 

Yet we know fear of many things that can not really harm us. Why do we fear rejection by a person we don’t know? Why do we hold fear over far away events? People will fear talking for a group or showing who they are. People fear asking a person to move over on the bus so they too can sit down. People fear asking directions, they fear speaking out for themselves. Fear of asking questions, of giving your point of view.

Judgement, rejection, failing to be validated by the current standards, they are real issues of our modern society. But heathenry opens op a door to a place where these are irrelevant. 

We must shed these fears.

Be proud of who you are, reject the idea of having to fit a framed image or a reference statistic. It is not the eyes of other people that will dictate your worth or honor. Only you yourself from your inner soul will establish this. There is no need to fit their expectations. Whatever power they appear to hold over you is in fact a imaginative power-field created by your mind.

We are told to become something, first you have to become good at school, then you must become an adult, you have to become responsible, respectable, financially stable, you have to become a contributor to society, you have to become a thing that fits every square so people can approve. You have to give so many things and yet every time it seems like there is still something you must become. A mother, a father, a new career, a house owner, a productive worker, a volunteer, a sponsor, a grandparent? But what if our role is not to become. Maybe it is enough to just be who you are? Maybe its enough to honor and remember in order to be our full self. Why shouldn’t you be content, if you find happiness in your own path? Must we really become things all the time? No we have always been what we are supposed to be. The fates wove our threads, they offered us talents, a body and a soul. Some may feel it is insufficient, incomplete for their liking, but to the gods it is perfect fit for the task. It is up to us to look what task fits our talents best. And when we find the way to do what we love, then we will not fail ourselves. 

Everyone around us is running to become, running to be better, to be an achiever. But you are not put here to be running. You are put here to walk the ancestral land barefooted and to connect and to spin the wheel. Others may say you are late, you are behind, you are not complying to the standard. But these standards do not exist in our heathen worldview. They are artificial constructions that turn us into milking cattle for the system. Slow it down, start living in moments and taking them for yourself when you feel like it. 

Instead of being humbled by all these fears and fabricated standards, next time fear enters the room ask it who has sent it your way and what is it supposed to gain? And remember who you are and where you are from. Remember your family name and the spirits and gods you hold frith with. Tell fear who you are and ask it: ‘What is your point of being here?’ Too often fear is a artificial social construction in order to keep control. To keep a lid on freethinkers, daredevils and on people asking the wrong questions. It keeps people working, moving, being productive, a worker force to create money and pay taxes.  Go out and dare to walk your path, do not scorn the thorns of fear, you may find they only exist in your mind. You can only be hurt by them, if you allow them to exit in your world. They are not actually part of the real world of Midgard. They are shadows of unwell-willing spirits that compel us into walking a narrow line. But in reality we are free to walk where and how we want to. Open yourself to nature, to the spirits and gods and let them instruct you on what is right and wrong. Stop letting the fear-shadow of other people’s judgement fall upon you and divert your course. And take pride in your own path, your own wants and loves, regardless of the irrelevant opinions of outsiders.

Your worth is not established by the outside world. It does not need outside validations. It is established by your own self and by doing what you love. This is the key to success, to happiness and to honor. That is how simple it is. Being worthy in the world does not mean being wealthy or being successful at a job or having many friends or being popular or having power. Being worthy means you succeeded in being happy. That is when you know you are fulfilling your purpose within wyrd, using the fated talents that were given to you.

Selfworth lies in us all, we are able to create our own little dimension both physically and metaphysically. We are all perfect the way we are, with all the qualities and limitations that our body and soul holds, those are the cards we were handed to play out this game and the trick is to create our happy worthy life with it. The banning of fears is probably primordial to achieve it. 

You are the sum of your experiences, you are the result of your path. Embrace and accept who you are and love yourself. Do not judge yourself too much. Trauma is a scar, it can’t be erased, embrace it as a part of who you are. Use its power to make you stronger. 

Every dawn is a gift from the dawn goddess, precious as light recedes into darker days, one must consider every dawn brings the opportunity to claim your very existence in Midgard. You own the day, do not let the day own you. Be free from fears and apologies, be who you are and tell this yourself every dawn.

Daily practices

Implement regular physical work out. Find something you like, and if possible do it in the outdoors where you feel proximity of our natural habitat. A human working out feels alive and is improving its health. A healthy body will bring positive vibes to the mind and create more selfworth and trust.

Morning work out is great. Get up 15 minutes earlier and do a work out to harden your core. You ll find many on YouTube. When the first thing of the day is a productive work out, you will have conquered a first obstacle and start your day with a positive vibe. No matter what else happens, its one mission you successfully fulfilled.

Trust your gut feeling. 

Carve away a new path where you can ignore the white noise that distracts you from being mindful and at peace. Cut away the apps that take too much of your time. Replace them with a book, with a look at nature, a prayer to the gods. Give your senses some rest. There is nothing better for the peace of mind then to listen to the sounds of a forest or the sea or a meandering creek. 

Most of all, learn to get in touch with the hidden folk, with the otherworld that is around us. See the mysteries and love them. Core shamanism is a good place to start a more animistic practice. Do not be too dogmatic in your heathen ways. Sure there are things to respect and to use as framework, but give some room for creativity and poetic liberties. Trust that in your soul you know how to do this and that your gut feeling will guide you thought the threads that still cling to our ancestral roots. Ritual must not feel as a difficult process. It must feel good, fulfilling. 

Get in touch with your land, get to know its spirits by lingering in places that feel welcoming. See if you can find them and try offering small things to establish that relation. 

Spirits of all kind are everywhere. In our houses, in our gardens, in the woods and hills… Most of them are prepared to engage with us. Besides gifts, it helps to make it cosy for them. This is why in Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Scandinavia, you may find tiny houses in the woods made for the little people. In your home, ask yourself if a housespirit would be feeling comfortable and loved. Give it a space to dwell where you present it with gifts. Keep the house clean and tidy, it helps to keep peace of mind too. 

A custom in these parts is to every morning open all the bedroom windows. And if its not raining, we hang the bedsheets over the edge of the windowsill. People will tell you it is to “air” them. But once this was to make sure the “Mare” could leave the house. The Mare is the bad spirit that come sit on us at night and give us nightmares. No matter what time of the year, as long as rain isn’t coming inside, the windows will open a few hours every morning, the sheets will be hung and that night the bed and room will be refreshed with new sunlight and all the bad spirits will be gone. 

The house is a temple, its a location of worship, it holds the spirit that you instill upon it. It should be your safe haven but also for the spirit of the land it is build on, and preferably you might want to find a spirit that will inhabit its walls and beams to protect it, to watch over it. Your gods will visit you, your ancestors, they must be proud entering your space. Every chore in the house is not just a chore, its part of the task of keeping the sacred place clean, of providing for the wights and gods. 

Incence, candles, statues, it doesn’t have to cost much. Maybe you can craft a wooden bowl, a piece of wood engraved with runes, feathers, stones, there are many simple ways to create a shrine or an altar, to bring the outdoors inside. 

Clean up. Why are those old clothes you never wear still taking up room in the dressing? Why are those old boxes still in the hallway? Get it out of the way, out of sight, make room for air and light. Not just the house, but your life. We all have had people in our lives which whom we held relations that turned out to be a burden or toxic to us. Just look at your list of social media ‘friends’. Toxic relations drain energy and place stress in your life. When you are having trouble coping, its in your best intrest to cut away from those. Some of them, just by lingering in the background may cause you feeling guilty or owing, you may feel the need to rekindle the relationship while really you don’t need this extra excitement. When in nature something dies, the fox will come, the crow, the flies, maggots and ants. In a matter of weeks nothing will be left but bones. When something is done, it should be cleaned. Cleaning, no matter what can be done in a spiritual way. Light some incense and a candle, offer a gift or prayer to the housespirit and know that what you are doing will make the spirit content.

Bad things sometimes happen. We can’t always do anything against about it. When you know there is a rough patch to go trough and useless to fight it, then hunker down and hold on. When a storm rages, there is no point fighting it. No matter what you do, the storm will not stop until it is done raging. When it is gone, we can pick up the pieces and repair. Remember there is always another dawn the next day, another day to be you, to fulfill your fate. 

Find the full moon for rituals and live from moon to moon. Beside the ritual, give yourself some headspace, enjoy the spiritual moment, open your heart. Sometimes I say nothing when I do ritual, I just go through the feelings in my heart. If you try, you will discover you can send feelings just the same as words. Just put your heart in it. 

Even the gods do not expect much, they just do what they do, while we do our thing. There is only one requirement that should be of importance: to live a full life till you reach your fate. To develop the talents you have in you and practice the things you are fated to do. And this doesn’t mean we must be productive. It means that we fulfill the life we are meant to live in the best way we can with the tools our soul was given. Some can work with their hands, others are good at leading or artwork, everyone has a number of things they can do because it was spon into our thread. And if that means you will spend the rest of your life in a remote cottage hiking the hillside and slurping tea, then that’s what it is. 

In the famous words of Gandalf: “A wizard is never late, he always arrives at the precise moment”

I find reading the Havamal also very helpful. There are many stanza’s that hold great wisdoms which may help being more content and having more confidence in leading a heathen lifestyle. Where ever work sends me, I tend to keep a pocket book of the Havamal in my workbag. Instead of scrolling my screen, I will read the Havamal, maybe linger with my mind on just one stanza.

We are not slaves or numbers, we are not a grey mass of people all going through the same motions and words. A heathen is an island of his own. Every heathen will have developed his own practices that will differ from others, his own sacred spaces, deities and spirits that surround him. And maybe in today’s society with spread out heathenry and little heathen community, the heathen islands are even more diverse and cultures of their own. And they all stand in their own right supported by the gods. This is a comparable situation with the tribes in the old days, there wasn’t a clear cut one and the same practice everywhere in the culture. Each tribe held it its own traditions and local entities.

My personal preferred practice is to conduct Ommegang. The sacred old way of going around a sacred place, sometimes numerous times. From the end of summer to the return of the light in spring I make Ommegang a few times a month, sometimes more. The distance can vary, sometimes its just a few kilometer, other times it may take an entire day. During the Ommegang I may use a mantra, bring some sacred objects like my rune engraved beads. I empty my head by repeating runes and get into a near trance like state. By the time I reach the sacred space I have built up towards the moment of offering my gifts. The entire undertaking is one big ritual. The effort of the hike, no matter the weather only enhances the experience. When it involves a sacred grove, I will ask for permission to enter first. 

It is more then just a ritual offering: its a shamanic practice. By walking and focussing on the location, honoring the earth you walk on, you are giving energy to it and showing a devotion to the location. You are bringing balance, harmony, contributing. A shaman told me that when you do this in areas that have suffered such as old battlefields, you are helping to heal the earth and sooth the spirits that linger there. The nature spirits crave your gifts and contributions. They need that energy. 

At a full moon, when a burden feels heavy, write in words on a piece of paper or wood what you want to shed, what you wish to change. Be clear yet brief in your words. The intention must be simple. Build a fire in your hearth or outside. Maybe even a candle and a fireproof bowl will do. After having offered your gifts for that moon’s ritual, you offer the written wish to the fire. The consumption by fire will bring it to the gods and spirits.

Ashes from a ritual fire are sacred, smear them on godpoles, altar stones or even your face for luck and prosperity.

Knot-magic is present in many cultures. 

Ty three knots in a red rope and lay it by the windows to confuse evil spirits.

Ty a knot for a wish and hang it on a branch of a scared tree. 

When sick, take a cloth or clothing the person slept with and hang it in a healing tree.  

When burdened untangle a series of knots and offer freedom to a burden at every knot that is untangled. 

A common saying, ‘find happiness in the little things’ sounds cliché but it deserves our attention. 

Especially in our world, where no matter how hard we try, we still find ourselves caught in having to conform to certain things we dislike due to our financial situation, our family or other elements in life. Some things we just can not escape. So its important to let your soul flow freely when you can, find those spaces, those moments, no matter how small, where you can feel a fulfillment. For example a ritual, a meditation, a hike, working the garden, studying wisdoms of the world, volunteering, raising children, artwork, … there is always things one can find peace in. A shape the soul feels good in.

Whatever the burden or challenge, we can take comfort in knowing that we are given the tools to endure. We are built for what life trows at us, even when we feel weak. Our traditions are full of means of helping to cope when we need it. The wights and gods are ever present and behind us stand a long line of ancestors. We can enchant small objects with these powers so they are charged to help us remind these powers are here and the well lies in our soul. A charged object can open this well up for us. Especially in times when we feel its hard to find wisdom, love, power, protection or luck. Bestow a stone, a knife, a spoon, a pendant, whatever you like, whatever feels sacred or meaningful. Bestow it with a soul, a wight from the otherworld. Travel in trance to this world to find it. There are excellent books and YouTube video’s on the subject of core shamanism which is the basic fundamental practice of all known cultural shamanic traditions. We could go a step further and simply call it an animistic practice. Once, this would have been common knowledge to people. 

The soul is fluid, like water, this a shamanic wisdom. We are not supposed to be labeled, boxed, fitted into a fixed schedule with exact timings and lists. We are supposed to follow the moon and the sun, the growth and the beasts, we are meant to thrive in between all other things that are also fluid. Adapting and switching and going where we feel is right. Our life is not a pre fixed program with the modality’s that are in fact superimposed by a society of technology and modern artificial cultural inventions and standards. 

As a heathen, as an animist, one should break free from the restrains created by modern life and move in between these boundaries to become happy. We should not conform to hiding because we believe in gods and spirits. We should not conform to all the social etiquette that we disagree with. You are a free soul. The soul is like water. It will adapt its shape to the form you pour it in. It is not meant to be still, water that doesn’t flow turns toxic. So keep flowing, keep breaking chains that hold you confined, do not be afraid to be who you are and to let it flow, to stop caring. Others opinions are in the end irrelevant when they obstruct your wellbeing.

A lot of people are directed into jobs through their education choices. 

When you get good grades they direct you to go to university. But do you want this? 

When you are good at your job and the boss wants to promote you and give you more responsibility, that’s great, but is it what you want? 

Do not let such chains dictate your daily life, question your soul deeply if it wants to be kept in this form, if it is prepared to take on a shape that may restrict its flow. 

Some people with master degrees end up being a farmer, or an artist, or open up a shop for herbs… And they take a lot of heat over it form people who don’t understand, who will accuse them of not grabbing the right opportunities. But who are they to know what shape their soul has chosen to flow in? When we feel the right soul-flow, then we are on track with our fate and our thread in life, our fulfilling of our own destiny.