Progress

Oh gods guys, it's scary to think there's like, a month and a half left of this. I am so behind on reading, like, I can't even.

But I did finish A Witch Alone. Final thoughts? Really good ideas for meditations, rites, etc. Super fluffy, somewhat preachy, and maddeningly contradictory otherwise. Still perma creeped by her very love n' light approach to deities. But I did take some things from the book, to be sure.

My next book is The Practical Heathen's Guide to Asatru by Patricia M. Lafayllve. Despite starting it less than a week ago, I'm over halfway through it. After reading that other Norse Mythology book at the start of my IDGAF process, I've been wanting to get into a more modern pagan aspect of looking at Norse mythology, deities, and associated practice. I'm not necessary looking to get into Asatru specifically, but I am finding a lot of what I'm reading already meshes pretty closely with my worldview, beliefs, and things I've been doing as part of my practice for quite awhile. I think the fact that I've been specifically looking forward to reading about this is part of why I'm burning through the book so quickly. It also made me go buy a bottle of mead, because mead is mentioned in the sense of use in ritual a lot and I haven't had mead in quite awhile. There is only one kind buyable here, and it used to be awesome but the last few times we had it, it sucked pretty bad. Bum batch, I guess. Ours wont be ready for awhile, but I thought I'd give theirs another shot...this bottle seems better. Maybe just because I really wanted it?

Our local pagan book/goodie shop is closing at the end of next month, after nearly 20 years of business. Our good friend Renee will be out of a fulltime job, and my wife will be out the occasional weekend of part-time casual work. She and I met in that store, and most of my tools which can't be handmade, my crystals, and incense, and candles, are from that store. There is nothing that compares with it in our city, so I'm pretty... sad, and bummed. I went last week with Amy, Visa in hand, and dropped an amount of money I would normally never spend all at once. But I figure, they were things I will not be able to easily get once the store is gone--and since I had the means to get them, I'd rather have them now than pick through leavings once they start selling out of things. I was too late to get a little cast-iron cauldron, which is something I'll have to source elsewhere since I've wanted one for awhile.

I'm going to be updating my altar tonight, and we're doing a full moon consecration ritual. I haven't forgotten I said I'd post a photo of my staff--it's coming along well, I have the sanding done. Now for woodburning, and then oiling, and then affixing my crystal I picked out to go in it. It'll be awhile yet, since I'd kinda like to woodburn some runes into it, but haven't the knowledge to make a sound choice on which to use. I have a book to read called Taking Up The Runes by Diana Paxson, but it'll have to wait until I'm more secure in being able to finish my IDGAF reading.

Cheers for now.

Final Review-Norse Mythology by John Lindow

Woo, what a ride. Finally finished this unholy monstrosity of a book last night, and what a feeling of accomplishment!

I already touched on this quite a bit when I wrote about my reading before, but I'll recap-if you are looking for asatru-related info, or instructions on rituals or rites for working with the Norse pantheon, look elsewhere. This is academic mythology. It is dry, dry, dry. Not even really much in the way of pictures, though there are a few. So it's a lot of hard slog buckle-down reading.

But coming at the pantheon as a total noob, I learned a ton and don't regret reading it. I think now I would feel more prepared looking at a book about asatru or working with the norse deities. I have a better idea of who they all are now, what myths they're associated with, their lineages and exploits. So that was good.

If you'd like to read this book for your initiation (or in general really) here is my advice:

-be prepared to spend 2 months on the one book. I am normally a voracious reader and burn through books almost as fast as literal fire, but I could only handle this in short sessions, with lots of time in between. Info overload, and not exactly gripping reading. (Unless you're a university student and read dry academic shit all the time. Then maybe you'll fare better.)
-pick up an actual "storybook" of the norse myths. In segments on some of the more important figures, this book does expand on the actual stories/myths a bit more than I initially thought, but it's not done in a storytelling fashion, more encyclopaedic.
-if you are already familiar with the norse pantheon and mythology, and are looking for info on spiritual working, skip this and head to a book more geared towards asatru/heathenry in practice. This book doesn't even mention modern paganism that I took note of. But maybe still ideal for a practitioner to read this if you have an interest in a more in-depth academic approach to things.

Glad to have it done. My brain is super loaded with info, but also super exhausted from cramming all that info into it. I've already chosen my next book and dived in, and it's going much easier. Will update again once I have a bit more on that to talk about.

Filler

So this is way overdue. I was going to blog, but I feel like I haven't been home for days. So I thought last night that I would do a vid instead, but ended up feeling horrible. Lack of sleep and barometric pressure were giving me the headache from hell and I was feeling kinda sicky. I'm better today, so fingers crossed that I dodged whatever it was.

So, BOOK. Still plugging away at the Norse Mythology monster. I only have about 100 pages left, which means I'll be done still behind schedule but sooner than I was hoping for, which is good. I grabbed a copy of The Way of the Hedge Witch, which isn't on the initiation list, but The Way of the Green Witch is, and they're from the same author. I will read it as a treat since one thing I did get done last night was a mother load of reading. I started it at work earlier, and am about 15 pages in. Interesting so far.

My plan was to rearrange my altar again, since I had acquired some new bobbles, but headache killed that plan. Later in the week I'll be getting some goodies I painted at the clay cafe, (you buy and paint bisque pieces and they fire it for you) which will be good altar pieces. There is a small leaf bowl, a small oak leaf, and a little cup/bowl in the shape of a drawstring bag. So I'll pretty it up once I have my new goodies, and hopefully by then my head will stop being a dbag. 

We went back to the clay cafe tonight to finish up some shot glasses Amy didn't have time to finish on Sunday. The plan was to pick up a small leaf, to go with the others, to give me something to do while Amy finished her stuff. Somehow that turned into a leaf, a small disk, and Amy and I split a pair of ceramic antlers, which I painted to reflect the four seasons: (oops...$30 later)

If you've never painted bisque before, it will look quite different once it is fired, so consider this the "before" shot. The stuff from Sunday will be ready tomorrow; we'll probably get it Friday. The stuff from tonight sadly won't be ready until next week. Can't wait to set it up on my altar!

Book learnin'

Two posts in one day. Had some catching up to do!

My first book of 6 for my IDGAF initiation is Norse Mythology by John Lindow.

I'm not quite halfway through. It's slow going. It's a very dry, scholarly book. After a 45 page introductory section, everything is in alphabetical order: deities and figures from the mythology, events, places, etc. There is a fair bit of overlap, and some sections with overlapping info seem to be verbatim repeated from multiple places.

I am enjoying how much I am learning; Norse mythology was probably one for the "least versed in" category for me. Before I was approached by one of the Norse gods and started learning in earnest, I more or less knew that Thor had a hammer, Odin had a horse with too many legs, and Loki caused shit to go down. There was something about a giant serpent, and a big tree, and Ragnarok is the end of the world.  For a mythology/archaeology nerd, pretty sad really.

I should mention though, if you're looking for pagan-specific information, this is not a good book to grab. The book states directly, in the introduction, that this is a book of myths, not religion. Everything is in a historical context. There's a lot of focus on the historical side of the mythology, the skalds and poets who left most of it behind, the various scholarly interpretations of translations and references and kennings; and a lot of the information contradicts--because it does. There is no reference to modern pagan practice or Asatru that I've come across yet. If you're looking for information on working with the Norse gods, and not so much on the mythology itself,  again, probably not a book for you. It is good for a newbie to the mythology however, because I am starting to understand things now, and can recognize various deities and the stories associated with them. Reading reviews, a lot of people sum up my thoughts pretty well: this is more of an encyclopedia or textbook, than a collection of narratives.

I read this after reading a very short book with a lot of the actual stories in it: Norse Mythology: Great Stories from the Eddas and I would recommend doing the same--pair this book up with another book with the actual stories, laid out as stories rather than an encyclopaedia. I think I'm following it better for at least having had a brief intro to the "characters" I'm now reading about.

I'm pretty confident I will not be done this book by next week, because reading it isn't as easy as I'd like, but if I go a bit late on finishing, I'll just pick a somewhat lighter book for next month to give my brain a rest.