Latest / Random Heathen Ramblings / The Quiet Problem Of Parasocial Heathenry. [RHR S7, EP07]

Transcript

The Quiet Problem Of Parasocial Heathenry. [RHR S7, EP07] · Random Heathen Ramblings

• 0:00
  Hello everyone, and welcome to the Random Heathen Ramblings
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  purchase it digitally. And you can also buy it off of
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  Lulu in paperback version. So you have it.
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  You know a physical copy. It is my story, an experience
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  So disclaimer on that, but I did all the writing of lyrics.
• 4:07
  I did some percussion or drum parts that the AI software
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  enhanced. The album is again it's 14 songs
• 4:14
  and it's an album that I'm calling Till the Final Twilight
• 4:17
  Dies. So there's there's information
• 4:20
  in the show notes for that as well.
• 4:22
  If you want to pre-order your copy.
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  Pre-orders are live now the the the album is going to be
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  released on May 1st, 2026, but if you ordered now you get 2.
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  You get it first of all, you get it at a discounted price.
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  You pre-order the album now at about half the price of what it
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  would be when it when it's released.
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  And in addition to that, you get early access to two full length
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  songs, which are the title track Till the final Twilight Dies.
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  And then a song that is called Witticund, Son of the Saxon
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  Earth. It's a song kind of about the
• 5:01
  the, the great Saxon heathen hero Witticund.
• 5:07
  And yeah. So all that information is in
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  the, you know, it's all LinkedIn, the show notes.
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  So if you don't come over to Patreon and you want to find it,
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  just head over to wherever the show notes are featured on the
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  platform that you listen to this too.
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  So we're several minutes into the show now and we got all that
• 5:24
  housekeeping stuff done and out of the way.
• 5:26
  We don't have a guest this week. And So what I wanted to talk
• 5:30
  about with all of you or or share my thoughts on is.
• 5:35
  Kind of a, you might could say like a silent issue or a quiet
• 5:39
  problem that I've noticed needing to be talked about a bit
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  and that is this the, the, you know, parasocial heathenry.
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  OK, we're gonna give you a like a definition or, or what I would
• 5:53
  consider parasocial Heathenry. But the whole point of this
• 5:59
  episode really is not to, I don't know.
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  It's it's not to, it's not really the scold.
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  It's, it's more or less to bring things to an awareness.
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  You know what I mean? I feel like there is a growing
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  number of people in heathen spaces, not even heathens, but
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  just, you know, people that find themselves in heathen spaces
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  socially, you know, online, what have you.
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  And they feel deeply, you know, connected or drawn to what
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  Heathenry has to represent or what even RE represents.
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  They feel connected to it with. Yeah.
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  And and they may come into this with, you know, a lot of
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  knowledge, a lot of investments, right?
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  They come into this with sincerity and, you know, nothing
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  malicious, but they're coming into it and they're coming into
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  a, a religious way or whatever that, you know, they, they
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  barely practice it in the physical world.
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  And I'm going to speak more about what I mean by that.
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  I don't mean like there's just people out here, you know, not
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  contributing. There's definitely a lot of that
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  going on. And I feel like we don't hear a
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  lot of it in these online spaces or I don't see a lot of it in
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  these online spaces for a good reason.
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  But again, it's, you know, for the folks that I've noticed or
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  there are things that I see that I guess I kind of want to raise
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  awareness to or, or, you know, a word of caution perhaps in some
• 7:32
  ways. But again, you know, these
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  people aren't they're not not practicing the religious aspects
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  of Heathenry out of again, any sort of insincerity or
• 7:44
  maliciousness. I feel like it's because, you
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  know, for the, for a large part of the time, modern spirituality
• 7:50
  in general is increasingly being mediated through screens.
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  You know, it's, it's, it's so much of what people absorb and
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  how people absorb their information.
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  It's not with other people. It's virtually right.
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  So there's no real connection between people, there's no
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  sharing of energy. There's just this other person
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  through your phone screen or your computer screen or your
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  tablet screen, right. It's just all of this stuff is
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  being mediated through screens. And again, it's, it's not just
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  heathenry. I think it's, it's a general
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  spiritually, you know, or general spirituality issue.
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  So again, I want to define what I mean by this parasocial
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  heathen ring. What it means is, is that, you
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  know, the relationships that one could have or the one or
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  relationship that one finds themself in in parasocial
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  situations or scenarios are are relationships that are 1 sided.
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  So it's not even really a relationship.
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  It's just an existence. It's A1 sided existence.
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  There's definitely emotional investment that goes into this,
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  but there's no mutual reality. Again, there's no shared
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  experience tangible, right? It's, it's all through a screen.
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  You can see somebody, but you can't really fully engage with
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  them in, in ways that have been the norm for, for our humans
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  existence for, for the human species for thousands and
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  thousands and if not longer, you know, thousands of years, if not
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  longer. Now, the way that this sort of
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  thing shows up, this parasocial heathenry or spirituality in
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  general, ironically enough, is the way that this shows up is,
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  is in the form of people who feel deeply involved through
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  such things as what I'm doing, right?
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  So podcasts, any sort of long or short form content, whether it
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  be through platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram,
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  Facebook, what have you. Discord servers is another big
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  one that I know a lot of. Pagans and and you know you're
• 10:25
  you're you're more you know non contemporary religious folks
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  like to find a space for is is as among discord servers.
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  And then you have these online kindreds, you know, Facebook
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  groups, Discord rooms, whatever, you know, an online quote UN
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  quote kindred that gives the sense or that gives the illusion
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  of the community. And I mean, what I mean by, you
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  know, illusion is that yes, it is a community of sorts.
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  Obviously an online community is a community.
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  But with with regards to, you know, parasocial heathenry is,
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  is people that are involved with these things that become deeply
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  involved with these things have a higher risk, I feel of kind of
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  consuming content and then replacing that or, or, or
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  allowing that to replace their actual, you know, spirituality,
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  the religious life. It's like they're they're
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  they're they're taking content consumption as the religious
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  life. It's not that it's, you know, we
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  can't, we have to distinguish between what these two things
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  are. They do have a place, obviously,
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  in our modern life. So much of what is fed to people
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  and what you know, people absorb is, is in the form of things
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  like a podcast, right? You're listening to this.
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  You're choosing to support the person who does it in whatever
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  way. You know, that's a choice, but
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  it should never, you know, take over so much of your time and so
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  much of a person's time, whether they're consuming it or
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  producing it, that this then becomes the same thing for them
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  as practice of a, of a, of, in religious life.
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  And it can't they're, they're, they're, they're, they're two
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  totally different things. And I, I, I feel that the, you
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  know, people are more focused on that.
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  They're more focused on putting out content.
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  They're more focused on the views, the analytics, the
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  algorithm, you know, making sure that they're staying relevant
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  and all that. Then then, and then some of them
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  are more worried about that than they aren't actually living the
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  life that they're talking about or broadcasting about or, you
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  know, presenting themselves at or, or posturing themselves.
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  As you know, because once you come online, once you, once you
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  put yourself on out out on the Internet, it, it almost goes
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  without saying that you're, you shouldn't kind of know what
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  you're talking about, right? Especially when it comes to
• 13:14
  anything of a philosophical or religious or theological or
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  spiritual nature. If you're going to come out here
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  and talk about these things in any sort of way that looks like
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  a educational or, or informational, you should
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  definitely know what you're talking about through
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  experience, right? Not just through, you know, I, I
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  read so many books or I talked to so many people, right?
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  There has to be something more than just the, the superficial
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  knowledge of it, at least I think it should.
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  So how do, how do people even get here?
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  How do we even get to this point of of parasocial heathen
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  rewrite? I feel like that this that this
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  is a multi factor, multifaceted thing, a lot of factors to
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  consider. So things that that that could
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  contribute to this is one of the things that I mentioned just a
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  moment ago is, is how readily accessible and how primary the
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  source of, of information comes to us through is, is the
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  Internet, right? So social media especially
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  there's, there's hardly anybody that isn't on social media to
• 14:32
  some extent or to some degree. So the Internet has a primary
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  entry point. You know, I think most Heathens
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  get into now in modern day, there's very few people who have
• 14:48
  grown up in a family or in a household or in a lifestyle that
• 14:53
  is rooted in dramatic or Nordic Heathen traditions as as rooted
• 15:03
  as they could possibly be. Most people I think nowadays are
• 15:06
  coming to this or discovering Heathenry through whatever
• 15:13
  platform that they're on 1st, you know, so there's that.
• 15:21
  There's also the aesthetic saturation talk plenty of times
• 15:25
  on this show and abroad about, you know, the TV series Vikings
• 15:28
  and when that came on, you know, whatever it was like a decade or
• 15:31
  more ago. Next thing you know, everybody
• 15:35
  and their brother is, you know, the 19th great, great grandson
• 15:39
  of Ragnar Lothbrok and blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
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  So there's all of that. But then there's also just this
• 15:46
  incredible amount of of, you know, Nordic dramatic imagery,
• 15:52
  Viking imagery everywhere, you know, you search, you know,
• 15:56
  Viking images or or whatever. You know, you're going to see
• 15:59
  alias Yalmers and valknuts and vague this years and all these
• 16:04
  things that are not inherently or or if at all Nordic, right?
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  Like, for example, you know, that the vague this year and,
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  and you know, these are not Viking age bangs, but there's
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  that, you know, and then there's also the kind of the, the shared
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  algorithm thing that when we talk about online spaces, you
• 16:28
  know, so you have algorithm driven spirituality.
• 16:31
  It's it's what is the talking topics or what are the talking
• 16:35
  points of a thing, you know? So of course, and I've seen this
• 16:38
  especially with content creators and I've been, you know, I've
• 16:41
  been doing podcasts now for a while and I've been in the, the,
• 16:46
  the spaces of content creation for a bit.
• 16:49
  I know that when there's a topic and it's a hot topic and you can
• 16:54
  see that that is a trending topic to get a piece of that pie
• 17:00
  to get into the algorithm feed is, is to start talking about
• 17:03
  that, you know, and using all the hashtags and posting them in
• 17:08
  all the groups, you know, and stuff.
• 17:09
  I was like, and I see, I see that constantly happening where
• 17:12
  you know. You'll you'll see and it could
• 17:17
  be good. Information, I'm not saying that
• 17:19
  it's poor information, but especially on like the Facebook
• 17:22
  platform, you know, where you'll see a bunch of, you know, image
• 17:28
  images that that a page has has created with a, with a really
• 17:32
  informative text post to go with it.
• 17:35
  And it's shared. You know, it'll show you the
• 17:37
  amount of views or the amount of comments rather than the amount
• 17:39
  of reaction. Then I'll show you how many
• 17:41
  times it's been shared, you know, and the, and, and some of
• 17:44
  these, you know, pages or whatever have, have stuff
• 17:47
  shared, you know, not just a few times.
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  It's like, you know, dozens of times or even hundreds of
• 17:53
  shares, you know, so that that also informs, you know, and
• 18:00
  teaches the algorithm to to make whatever that topic is a bit of
• 18:06
  a trending thing. And then next thing you know,
• 18:08
  any other content creators that are wanting to stay relevant are
• 18:10
  going to focus on that. So you're not going to, you
• 18:13
  know, there might be times where you are are scrolling and you're
• 18:15
  going to see a lot of the same type of things being shared.
• 18:19
  You might even see a lot of similar texts being used for it,
• 18:24
  right? You might see slight differences
• 18:26
  or, or variations within things, but there's going to be a, you
• 18:30
  know, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out when
• 18:33
  information is being, you know, plagiarized or stolen or, or
• 18:40
  modified in any way or that sort of thing.
• 18:43
  You also have this, like I said before, right, with the whole
• 18:46
  Viking TV series or Vikings the TV show there where, you know,
• 18:50
  you have this identity first engagement where you know, I'm
• 18:54
  the great, great, great, great grandson or whatever of some
• 18:57
  hero from a saga, you know, 'cause you know, .0123%
• 19:03
  Norwegian or whatever the case may be.
• 19:06
  So you have all of these things that are heightening presence on
• 19:14
  online presence on the Internet and then enticing people or or
• 19:19
  drawing people to that kind of existence over physical
• 19:25
  community, physical gatherings. There's AI think, I don't want
• 19:33
  to say necessarily a collapse of physical community because there
• 19:36
  are definitely people I've talked to to a number of them on
• 19:40
  this show. And I see the things that they
• 19:43
  do online and I know that what they're doing is, is not just
• 19:48
  for the, you know, it's, it's, it's not a, it's not a case of.
• 19:51
  Or a social heathen rewrite. They, they actually do local
• 19:54
  community work. They are active in their, their
• 19:58
  local, you know, tribes or kindred or whatever name that
• 20:01
  they have for their community. But those numbers are few, I
• 20:06
  think in general, especially at least in the United States, You
• 20:09
  know, I can't speak for. The world at large or any other
• 20:12
  places where healing is is practiced to any great extent.
• 20:17
  But I know at least here in the United States, then there's
• 20:19
  probably more here in the United States than there are elsewhere.
• 20:21
  I don't. I can't say for sure, but.
• 20:25
  You know, as far as local kindreds or tribes or or clans
• 20:30
  or whatever group name that you want to associate, you know,
• 20:35
  assign. There's also, you know,
• 20:39
  obviously, you know, isolation due to geographical reasons.
• 20:42
  Some, some people that find an interest in this through
• 20:46
  sincere, you know, a, a, a sincere heart to connect with
• 20:51
  this path or, or something, you know, something along these
• 20:53
  lines. They might be just
• 20:55
  geographically displaced from active groups of people.
• 20:59
  So there's, there's, there's that whole thing being
• 21:03
  geographically isolated and, and the isolation that's a, that's a
• 21:09
  relative term because for some people, anything within a couple
• 21:13
  of hours is fair game. You know, that doesn't bother
• 21:17
  them or that they don't mind to get in their car or their truck
• 21:21
  or whatever and drive an hour or two in any direction to spend an
• 21:26
  afternoon, you know, or, or a long, you know, go spend a
• 21:31
  weekend with, with people or do something like that.
• 21:34
  And you know, so but for others, that's a, that's a, that's, that
• 21:38
  takes a toll. Either they don't have the means
• 21:41
  to travel or the means to be able to travel is too expensive
• 21:48
  or just other various reasons why, you know, their
• 21:52
  geographical location is, is the impetus behind their isolation
• 21:59
  nearly not so relevant now? But there was a time not all
• 22:02
  that long ago, right? Right at the beginning of 2020
• 22:05
  when the whole COVID thing happened.
• 22:09
  There might still be some areas of or there might be some people
• 22:13
  still who have some of those, you know, pandemic era habits
• 22:19
  lingering. You know, we got into this sort
• 22:23
  of groove, I think as people where we were isolated for
• 22:28
  months. And that was that was very
• 22:31
  telling, right? You know, a lot of places didn't
• 22:34
  open up their businesses in, in the, in the sense of we're going
• 22:39
  to have our offices at a physical location where, where
• 22:43
  everybody's going remote. I mean, I'm one of those people
• 22:46
  that, you know, my line of work did not require or mandate or
• 22:51
  even really want their employees to return to an office.
• 22:57
  They closed a lot of their offices down.
• 22:59
  It was, it was more cost effective as a, from a business
• 23:01
  standpoint to shut down their locations where they were
• 23:05
  leasing a, a, a, you know, an office building out or whatever
• 23:08
  and just tell their people to continue to work remotely.
• 23:11
  So that that cultural shift to where, you know, we didn't have
• 23:15
  the, the interaction between people working, you know, and
• 23:21
  this isn't the same for, for all, obviously for all lines of
• 23:25
  work. There's still plenty of people
• 23:26
  who. Go into work wherever it is,
• 23:29
  whether it's a restaurant or a factory or a warehouse or, you
• 23:33
  know, whatever it is that their profession requires them to do,
• 23:36
  they there are still plenty of jobs.
• 23:39
  Out here that you know, are not remote, but these are just some
• 23:45
  some things, you know, that I guess could be considered, you
• 23:49
  know, contributing factors to what I would consider a a fairly
• 23:55
  common, but but quiet issue within he even resist this
• 24:00
  parasocial dynamic or or structure.
• 24:07
  There's also what I would would have considered the fact that
• 24:09
  there's a lot of, you know, content abundance versus
• 24:13
  practice scarcity. I don't know how much of really
• 24:17
  we, we could say that, that the people who are absorbing all of
• 24:20
  these things are, are really and truly applying them because you,
• 24:23
  you, you can only, you know, and it's, it's one of those funny
• 24:28
  things I think about, especially with heathen or, you know, you
• 24:30
  was to hear people talking about, you know, it's the
• 24:32
  religion with homework. Well, any religion is involves
• 24:35
  homework. Like you got to know your
• 24:37
  sources. You should know your, you know,
• 24:40
  know your lore. But like, you know, Christians
• 24:44
  should know their Bible, Muslims should know their Quran, you
• 24:47
  know, the Jews and what not. They should know their Torah.
• 24:51
  Heathens should know their sources, primary, secondary,
• 24:56
  historical sources, folklore. The difference is that
• 25:01
  different, you know, regional differences of practice and all
• 25:04
  that sort of thing, right? So everything about religious or
• 25:08
  even the spiritual practice, I feel has homework.
• 25:13
  And even if your religious practice does not include a book
• 25:18
  or texts per SE, there's something to research and
• 25:21
  there's something to be found, right?
• 25:22
  So archaeological finds and, and all of that, there's things to
• 25:27
  research. So there's always homework to
• 25:28
  do. But the, the, the abundance of
• 25:33
  information that's, that's out there, if you're not practicing,
• 25:38
  if you're not finding a practical use for that
• 25:40
  knowledge, I believe that the, the, the, the scales get tipped
• 25:46
  out of balance because you've got all this abundance of, of,
• 25:50
  of content absorption without the practical.
• 25:55
  Use of it. There's so much for us now.
• 26:00
  It's like it's never been easier for people nowadays to learn
• 26:04
  about Heathenry or to talk about Heathenry because you've got
• 26:09
  board rooms and chat rooms and servers and groups and, and
• 26:15
  whatever channels, you know what I mean?
• 26:18
  Like there's so many different ways that people can talk about
• 26:23
  things and learn about things. Hey, let's, it's, it's even
• 26:31
  easier now probably than ever that for people to perform an, a
• 26:34
  heathen identity, you know, again with their ancestry or
• 26:38
  whatever and talk about that. It's harder to build nowadays
• 26:44
  because of all these things and because of the the ease in which
• 26:48
  people can gather remotely and and not feel like there's any
• 26:52
  real tangible connection. It's all that makes things very
• 26:55
  easy, as I just stated, but even harder to build a disciplined
• 27:00
  embodied practice. And it does people like I want
• 27:04
  to make it. I want, I want to be clear, you
• 27:09
  know, Heathenry paganism in general.
• 27:12
  This isn't this isn't a path that you just get on because I
• 27:19
  don't have to worry about doing anything.
• 27:21
  It's whatever I feel like. OK, There's there's plenty of of
• 27:27
  space for that within heathen practices.
• 27:29
  There's or Pagan practices as as a generality that there's
• 27:32
  there's plenty of, you know, leaving things open to
• 27:34
  interpretation. There's definitely.
• 27:36
  A valuable place that UPG has within our own practices, the
• 27:42
  unverified personal gnosis, our own experiences, our own.
• 27:46
  You know, and I've had plenty of guests on the on on the show who
• 27:49
  I love to hear, you know, what their heathenry looks like, you
• 27:54
  know, talk about your UPG. But there are as much of that as
• 28:00
  if not more of the ox. What do you call it?
• 28:05
  Orthopraxic nature of the, of the, of these paths, right?
• 28:13
  Yes, there's definitely things that may not be considered as
• 28:16
  orthodoxical as perhaps you know, Judaism or or Christianity
• 28:20
  or Islam, but there are some and there's definitely orthopraxic,
• 28:28
  you know, Heathenry. I will say, you know, I would
• 28:31
  just go on the record saying that Heathenry is an orthopraxic
• 28:35
  religion. There are right ways to do
• 28:38
  things based upon what sources we have that talk about the
• 28:46
  things that were done in ways that connected with, with their
• 28:49
  with their with their holy powers, with the divine, with
• 28:53
  the gods, or even their ancestors of the local spirits
• 28:55
  of the land or whatever it is that they were interacting with.
• 28:58
  There were there may not be a lot of them, but there are very
• 29:03
  specific ways of doing things to, you know, ensure that you're
• 29:10
  going to maybe not sure that you're going to get the results
• 29:14
  out that you put in, but to give you the best possibility of them
• 29:19
  happening, you know. So when you've got all of these
• 29:25
  other things happening where it's easy to talk about, it's
• 29:27
  easy to learn about it, it's easy to not feel, you know that
• 29:32
  that you know, whatever. You know, reasons or or
• 29:35
  justifications or excuses. It's it's, it's all that makes
• 29:38
  it so much easier. And by doing so makes it the the
• 29:42
  disciplined orthopraxic, dedicated practice things of
• 29:46
  things embodying them more difficult.
• 29:51
  Some some, some, I think some examples of what you might
• 29:56
  consider as like red flags or warning signs, whatever of of of
• 30:01
  this happening of this parasocial heathenry.
• 30:03
  If if you know, if what I'm talking about kind of rings a
• 30:06
  bell and and you're like, yeah, I think I may have seen or
• 30:11
  experience that or I think I may know what that is.
• 30:16
  There is definitely I feel. So take my take my word with a,
• 30:22
  you know, a grain of salt or a, you know, drop of meat or
• 30:28
  whatever small portion of something other of a of a
• 30:31
  substance that you want to uses a comparison too.
• 30:34
  But you know, what I believe is, is that some possible like
• 30:37
  markers or warning signs of parasocial heating reasons.
• 30:41
  When you start seeing people providing you or giving you
• 30:44
  their strong opinions about things based on knowledge that
• 30:50
  and then they have no practical like a weak, you know, ritual
• 30:56
  life. You know, they talk a big talk.
• 31:00
  They've never. They've never done a feigning,
• 31:04
  they've never been a part of bloat.
• 31:07
  They've never participated or LED assemble.
• 31:13
  You know, they don't know the first thing about the
• 31:18
  application or the use of, you know, fire to create sacred
• 31:22
  space. So, you know, but they but they,
• 31:27
  they have strong opinions about things, but they don't have a a
• 31:31
  very strong. Practical, you know, application
• 31:36
  of these, these thoughts or opinions.
• 31:38
  Another thing that I've seen where people like this tend to
• 31:42
  reside more is, is when they have such a strong online
• 31:46
  presence, you know, very animated, very opinionated.
• 31:52
  They're pushing content now, you know, every day, sometimes
• 31:56
  several times a day. So they have a strong online
• 32:02
  presence with minimal offline devotion.
• 32:07
  If you're spending hours a day, every day, you know, seven days
• 32:15
  a week. If you're spending hours a day,
• 32:16
  every day putting out content because you got to think, you
• 32:19
  know, that post that was made, that picture that was shared,
• 32:23
  that video, that article, whatever it is that they that,
• 32:29
  you know, that appears in a timeline with a time stamp, you
• 32:37
  know, took a moment to click on post or share or whatever.
• 32:42
  But the work to put that content together took longer than that
• 32:47
  to write an article, to write as an informational and educational
• 32:53
  post or to share a video, to create a video, even if it's a,
• 32:59
  you know, I know a lot of these platforms encourage the short
• 33:04
  form version of content, you know, so anything from, you
• 33:06
  know, a minute to 3 minutes long, 90 seconds to 3 minutes is
• 33:09
  ideal or something like that. I don't know anymore.
• 33:12
  But you know, that takes time to create.
• 33:15
  And if you're putting text on screen, if you're adding
• 33:18
  filters, if you're adding music, if you're doing anything
• 33:20
  artistic to that video that takes time to, to to edit it all
• 33:26
  together and put it all together.
• 33:28
  It's you know, so you know, you've got that happening
• 33:32
  sometimes, you know, multiple times a day, you know, so that's
• 33:35
  hours of time. And then they've got no or
• 33:42
  minimal, you know, offline devotion.
• 33:44
  Are they, you know, talking about honoring the gods or your
• 33:49
  ancestors or the land whites or whatever, and then talking about
• 33:53
  it and then not having anything to do about it.
• 33:59
  You know, practically speaking or, or devotionally speaking the
• 34:06
  identity language thing. Like, so we talked about
• 34:08
  identity personalities, you know what I mean, Like identifying
• 34:13
  with the the thing because of, you know, ancestry or language.
• 34:17
  So identity language replacing practice language there.
• 34:21
  You know, this is, I think a lot of where AI gets called out on
• 34:28
  things. There's there's so many pages
• 34:30
  that I see maybe not so many, but there's enough.
• 34:35
  There's several pages that I see being, being run almost
• 34:42
  entirely, you know, by AI. The photos are AI generated.
• 34:47
  The posts are AI generated because the language that
• 34:51
  they're using, yeah, it's going to, you know, identify as, you
• 34:58
  know, heathen terms or Pagan topics or Pagan terms or
• 35:03
  whatever. It's not talking about actually,
• 35:06
  you know, doing anything. It's, it's informational.
• 35:09
  Now there are some that are leveraging the use of AI
• 35:12
  technology and, and, and weaving in their own wisdom, in their
• 35:17
  own practical language, but it's not a lot.
• 35:23
  It's it's very minimal, feel like it's just feeding a prompt
• 35:27
  into, you know, whatever, ChatGPT or whatever, and then
• 35:29
  just copy paste, you know, And then I think one of the one of
• 35:37
  the one of the downfalls that comes as a result of that is
• 35:41
  another aspect of kind of a identifying or, or these these
• 35:49
  warning signs is, is the the result that that happens of when
• 35:54
  creators online of content, like content creators are being
• 35:58
  viewed at viewed as sort of like spiritual gurus or they're
• 36:03
  they're they're these, you know, authorities on the topics
• 36:06
  because that post just really it really.
• 36:09
  Spoke to me. I touched my heart.
• 36:11
  It it, you know it. You guys are so you you really
• 36:18
  hit this net. You you nailed this right, You
• 36:20
  hit it on the head. Wow, sharing this.
• 36:22
  Thank you. Thank you for saying this right.
• 36:24
  And it's like this post was written by AI.
• 36:26
  You're thinking nobody, you're, you have no discernment to, to
• 36:32
  assign any sort of authority or any sort of, you know, and a lot
• 36:42
  of cases just a faceless account, a nameless account.
• 36:46
  You don't even know who is the administrator or the moderator
• 36:52
  half the time. You know, I started off when I
• 36:57
  was, you know, and I'm not, this isn't me trying to, you know,
• 37:00
  pivot or shift into into be like, see, do it my way.
• 37:02
  I was, I was doing it right because I was doing plenty of
• 37:05
  things that I'm talking now today and about that was fitting
• 37:09
  into that category. I was very focused on, you know.
• 37:12
  Algorithms and, and being relevant and doing things that
• 37:16
  everybody else is doing and trying to stay in that trending
• 37:19
  category of whatever. So I've, I'm speaking now from a
• 37:21
  place of experience. So I'm not trying to be arrogant
• 37:25
  when I say this, but you know, at least while I was doing
• 37:28
  content, I was also focusing on my genuine presence, right?
• 37:32
  I wanted to know like what, you know, who I am.
• 37:34
  I, I'm a real person, you know, I talk on screen.
• 37:40
  It isn't some AI voice over bot or whatever that I'm trying to
• 37:44
  teach these things. I'm doing it, I'm producing it,
• 37:47
  I'm talking myself, right, Same thing as we're doing now and
• 37:51
  today. But that's been my, my thing for
• 37:55
  the longest. I don't, I don't see any like
• 38:00
  it's, you know, it's one thing to to be faceless and nameless
• 38:03
  behind an account. You know, when you get that cool
• 38:06
  blue verified badge making you look all official or whatever.
• 38:12
  Be careful of of these things, guys and gals, because you
• 38:16
  can't, you got to have, you have to have a a strong discernment
• 38:21
  before you start assigning any authority or any sort of
• 38:26
  credibility to people online just 'cause they have that.
• 38:31
  You know, the verified account or whatever.
• 38:35
  There's also one another warning sign I feel of of folks that are
• 38:44
  dealing with this problem of parasocial healing is their
• 38:46
  interest or their desire or their investment in community
• 38:52
  drama, like they'd rather be concerned, you know, about.
• 39:01
  What's this kindred talking about over here about so and so
• 39:04
  or Hey, did you, did you, did you see that post that, you
• 39:07
  know, Becky made about Tom's wife at, at at at bloat the
• 39:12
  other day? Or.
• 39:14
  Well, I saw Tom's post, but I didn't know that that was about,
• 39:17
  you know, I saw Tom's wife's post.
• 39:19
  I don't know that was about Becky in there.
• 39:21
  Oh. Yeah, who?
• 39:22
  Who else could it be about? Right, all of that y'all know
• 39:25
  what I'm talking about I mean I've seen it, you've seen it.
• 39:27
  We all know the emotional investment that people had tend
• 39:30
  to have in community drama over their own personal discipline
• 39:32
  over about you know what screw all that noise, don't care.
• 39:37
  And case in point, again, just bringing things back to to to
• 39:42
  relativity for me. That's you know, a lot of you
• 39:45
  that listen to this show, lot of you that watch this show have
• 39:49
  known me for any, you know, a length of time may have even.
• 39:54
  Met me in person at a local event here in Tennessee or, or
• 39:58
  somewhere else. You know, I went to the the
• 40:02
  Viking Festival, the Viking experience, excuse me, in
• 40:06
  Oxford, NC for the first time last year.
• 40:11
  That's a huge, I mean 5-6 thousand people, you know, been
• 40:16
  to number of Pagan pride events here in, in Tennessee.
• 40:19
  I have, you know, people that know me in the Midwest.
• 40:23
  You know, up north, down South, out West, and you know, I left
• 40:29
  my, I, I, I, I stepped away from the, the drama.
• 40:36
  I I, you know, I left social media almost entirely because of
• 40:41
  the community. Drama that's out here.
• 40:43
  I don't want to be. I don't want to see it.
• 40:44
  I have no desire. It doesn't do anything for me.
• 40:46
  But distract me from my personal discipline, my personal growth
• 40:50
  on things and then what I want to invest my time and energy on.
• 40:55
  But you know, some of y'all out here are just like that's your,
• 40:57
  that's your, that's your drug. And just be careful, you know,
• 41:02
  like, you know, this isn't it. This isn't an intervention.
• 41:06
  I'm not trying to, you know, shame people for what they like
• 41:09
  to engage with an online. I'm just saying like.
• 41:11
  The people that. Tend to have more of an
• 41:13
  emotional investment in these types of things, in that drama
• 41:17
  within community over their own personal discipline.
• 41:22
  They don't have a Kindred, They don't have a, you know, they're
• 41:25
  flying solo and they're, you know, and they're doing all the
• 41:27
  things that cultivate that parasocial existence, you know?
• 41:38
  And then at the same time, you know you'll see these other
• 41:40
  types or some similar types. Focusing more on their
• 41:46
  aesthetic, how they look, what they're wearing, you know, the
• 41:52
  image that they have to to present.
• 41:54
  You know, when they go out, are they, you know, do they have
• 41:58
  their hair put up in in braids? You know, do they have the the
• 42:04
  side bowl cut them the Ragnar cut or whatever they call it.
• 42:08
  You know, the non historically accurate haircut for.
• 42:12
  Nordic or dramatic men, you know, do they have the the mule
• 42:20
  neuron just right? You know, are they when they go
• 42:24
  to advance or you know and listen, I you know, obviously I
• 42:27
  have an A podcast. You know, and, and part of the
• 42:31
  production of the show is is to be visually appealing.
• 42:33
  So there's definitely an aesthetic that I that I keep for
• 42:37
  that, but it's for the show purpose.
• 42:38
  You know what I mean? Like I don't.
• 42:40
  I I'm wearing a freaking. You know, summertime button down
• 42:44
  shirt that my wife got me for Yule right now.
• 42:47
  You know, I'm not I don't always put the tunic on or a tunic on,
• 42:55
  you know, so when I'm when I'm talking to you folks on on over
• 42:59
  screen, you know I'm not I'm not not talking to you because I
• 43:04
  can't wear my tunic that day. So.
• 43:10
  The focusing on that should never come at a cost of your,
• 43:16
  the cultists of your hearth, the the practices of your home, you,
• 43:20
  the, the way that we do things, the way that you practice.
• 43:23
  You know, it should never take over the aesthetic.
• 43:28
  I mean, should never take over that you can be the best heathen
• 43:32
  practicing Heathenry in jeans and AT shirt.
• 43:37
  You know what I mean? Like the, the, the, the
• 43:38
  aesthetic has nothing to do with the actual work, with the actual
• 43:43
  practice. I, I'm a big, you know, I, I, I,
• 43:49
  I'm a big spokesperson for when it comes to ceremony or when it
• 43:53
  comes to ritual or bloats or, you know, even some, like any
• 43:56
  sort of social gathering with people.
• 43:58
  Like I'm a big opponent for having, putting on that garb,
• 44:03
  putting on that, those, those. You know, pieces of of whether
• 44:08
  it's jewelry or or clothing or garments or boots, whatever it
• 44:11
  is that helps with the mind body connection.
• 44:16
  You know, it's like getting into that head space, getting into
• 44:18
  that heart space of what you're about to engage with and who
• 44:22
  you're about to engage with and participate in.
• 44:26
  Sometimes, you know, I've especially with ritual, you
• 44:30
  know, ritual garb is a big help for me.
• 44:34
  It's not for everybody. I'm not going to.
• 44:36
  Say that that's you know. Your.
• 44:38
  Your bad heathen or whatever for for not getting a, you know, a
• 44:41
  period accurate tunic from grim Frost or, you know, boots from
• 44:45
  wherever, and then you know what I mean.
• 44:47
  I'm going to get into that. I'm just saying that the if if
• 44:51
  you spend more time curating and then the curating an aesthetic
• 44:54
  over cultivating your hearth cult and hearth practices,
• 45:00
  probably more of a parasocial heathen than you are anything
• 45:04
  you know, and and I want to just say for for the sake of anybody
• 45:09
  listening, right, seems like I'm being very targeted with with
• 45:13
  these things. These are observations.
• 45:14
  These are things that I want to talk about.
• 45:19
  It's not. To purposely shame anybody like
• 45:23
  I don't really have any one person or one thing or one group
• 45:27
  or one page on Facebook or social media anywhere that I
• 45:30
  have in mind that I'm. Inspired by saying this, it's
• 45:32
  just a general observation from years of experiences.
• 45:42
  So, you know, it's kind of one of those things like, you know,
• 45:45
  well. If the shoe fits, lace that
• 45:49
  pitch up and wear it I guess. Or or take it off and find
• 45:53
  other. Shoes.
• 45:55
  But I'm not the one that you know, I'm just telling you about
• 46:01
  the suckers. I'm not the one that put them on
• 46:02
  your feet. So I think so as far as all that
• 46:11
  goes right. So you know, the warning signs,
• 46:14
  the, the red flags, if you will, I think a, a good take away for
• 46:19
  anybody, you know, 'cause I, I listen to myself when I talk and
• 46:23
  I, I, you know, think about these things in, in yes.
• 46:25
  This is a random, random heathen ramblings, right?
• 46:28
  We we we get off on some tangents sometimes, but I but I
• 46:31
  try to. When I'm doing these solo
• 46:32
  especially, I try to have some semblance of order.
• 46:36
  So if I had to part this topic or or separate before we move on
• 46:40
  with this topic of this segment of things is that you know when
• 46:43
  our religious lives exists primarily in comment sections.
• 46:49
  Right. Or server rooms OK, or chat
• 46:55
  messengers, you know. Then something has drifted out
• 46:59
  of balance, drifted, shifted, tilted, whatever you want to
• 47:04
  call it. Something ain't right.
• 47:09
  And I want to emphasize primarily exists in these
• 47:12
  things. I'm not saying that the
• 47:14
  existence and the use of those places that I just mentioned how
• 47:18
  are terrible or inherently wrong.
• 47:20
  They're invaluable or or that they're not valuable as that
• 47:24
  they do have a place and there is plenty of great uses for
• 47:29
  these things. OK, use them everyday myself in
• 47:34
  various forms. But but when our lives of our
• 47:37
  religiosity or even our spirituality is existing
• 47:40
  primarily in that area, we we've got some adjustments to make.
• 47:45
  We've got a some course correction, you know.
• 47:56
  But you know, so I don't want that.
• 47:57
  I don't want, you know, why did does any of this matter really,
• 47:59
  You know, why am I talking about this?
• 48:00
  Why does it matter? Well, it might not matter to
• 48:03
  you, might not be something that you're considering or even have
• 48:06
  considered, but you're hearing it now, or at least you've
• 48:09
  gotten this far. And I don't want this to again,
• 48:12
  this isn't, you know, being an asshole or gatekeeping in any
• 48:16
  sort of way out. But I want, but I want us to
• 48:20
  think about the reality of what we're doing and we're not doing
• 48:24
  and the consequences of those actions, right, Real impacts on
• 48:29
  things if all we're doing is worrying about how we look.
• 48:34
  How we sound, what we look like when we're casting our video out
• 48:38
  to the ether, whatever, when we're putting it in our, you
• 48:41
  know, our, our chat rooms or in our servers or on our.
• 48:45
  Boards or walls or whatever thing that the social media
• 48:50
  platform calls your space channel, you know what I mean?
• 48:55
  My Patreon page, like whatever it is, the impacts, if that's
• 49:01
  all it ever is, it's going to impact our spirituality.
• 49:05
  We're going to be shallow because we're only thinking
• 49:09
  about it at that level. We, we get all this knowledge,
• 49:14
  we learn all these things where we're shooting things out here
• 49:19
  for people to, to catch, you know, but it's knowledge without
• 49:25
  transformation. It doesn't.
• 49:29
  How are we, how are we applying these, these things, You know,
• 49:33
  identity without obligation. You can identify because you
• 49:39
  again, you've got, you know, DNA or you've got this.
• 49:45
  You know, whatever the word speaks to you or the title
• 49:49
  speaks to you or whatever, but you know.
• 49:53
  Reciprocity, obligation, these are these are things that are
• 49:56
  values of Heathenry that, that exist as a living part of our
• 50:01
  tradition or traditions. So identity without obligation
• 50:07
  is is it's so shallow. It it doesn't, it's not rooted
• 50:10
  in anything. If if you know there's no
• 50:14
  discipline, there's no accountability, right?
• 50:21
  Inspiration without discipline, like why were you going to apply
• 50:26
  the thing that you're learning? What are you going to do to make
• 50:31
  it? A reality to make it part of
• 50:34
  your life. I've always liked the term when
• 50:38
  somebody talks about believing in something, what does that
• 50:41
  mean? To believe means to be alive.
• 50:45
  So if you believe in a thing or if you believe in a way,
• 50:49
  shouldn't that mean that you then live in that way, that you
• 50:51
  are alive in that way? If you believe in it so much,
• 50:55
  then you are living it. It's part of your life.
• 50:57
  It's not just about what you know you talk with people about,
• 51:00
  or it's not just what you post about on your social media.
• 51:04
  It's how you live. It's, it shines through in your
• 51:08
  day-to-day life. It's in existence.
• 51:10
  It's not a, it's not a hashtag. Other things that can.
• 51:18
  Really be impactful, you know, the consequences of getting to,
• 51:25
  you know, not not focusing on the right things are the, the
• 51:29
  stagnation that one can experience in their own personal
• 51:31
  lives. You know, feeling spiritually
• 51:33
  busy. I'm learning all these things,
• 51:35
  all these great things about my spirituality, blah, blah, blah,
• 51:37
  but not really rooted in that spirituality.
• 51:44
  I won't name any names because that wouldn't be fair.
• 51:51
  It wouldn't be right under this context.
• 51:54
  But I have an experience that I could share in something like
• 51:57
  this where someone had been someone that I know had been,
• 52:02
  you know, talking for years about their, you know,
• 52:12
  connection to the Norse gods. Right, feeling like they, they
• 52:17
  demanded, not demanded, but that they deserved to, to be given
• 52:21
  his or her or their, you know, respect.
• 52:27
  I think one of the terms I remember hearing was, you know,
• 52:29
  I may not follow this path, but I respect the gods and all of
• 52:34
  this. And, and while this may not be
• 52:39
  exactly what I'm referring to with about being, you know,
• 52:42
  spiritually busy without being spiritually rooted, you know?
• 52:45
  You have to have one. You can't have one without the
• 52:47
  other. You can't be, you can't be
• 52:49
  rooted without spending time learning about these things.
• 52:54
  But if you're not even doing that.
• 52:56
  What business do you have even feeling like it's worth your
• 53:00
  time? Like if you're not going to
• 53:02
  learn about the traditions, first of all, why are they?
• 53:06
  Why are you learning about them, right?
• 53:07
  What? What is it about that side of
• 53:10
  the world, that part of the world, that is so intriguing to
• 53:15
  you? OK.
• 53:17
  Does it have any significance to you culturally and sexually?
• 53:25
  Does it or doesn't it? And if it does, then they then
• 53:29
  the the work goes into learning more about that and studying and
• 53:34
  then nurturing those roots. If it doesn't and you're just
• 53:40
  interested in it, you know, kind of on a platonic level or or
• 53:43
  whatever, you're not really, That's fine too.
• 53:45
  You can really learn a lot. You know, you can be an
• 53:49
  academic, you can find things and not be heathen.
• 53:53
  OK, Jackson Crawford's a classic example.
• 53:57
  The guy knows a lot of shit about a lot of shit, right?
• 54:00
  He knows he's got the linguistic side of things.
• 54:02
  The the the archaeological studies, the.
• 54:06
  You. Know all of that.
• 54:10
  Don't know the first thing about bloat as far as the application
• 54:13
  of it or doing it 'cause he's not heathen.
• 54:15
  He might know what it's about because he's read the sources
• 54:18
  that talk about the, the, the, the ritual or whatever.
• 54:21
  He might know those types of things, informationally
• 54:24
  speaking, but he doesn't know it practically speaking.
• 54:27
  It's not, it's not his life, it's not his way, it's not his
• 54:30
  belief system, right? It's not what he's alive in.
• 54:33
  It's purely academic. So there's there's, you know,
• 54:39
  being spiritually busy learning all the things and not applying
• 54:42
  them, putting them into the to the soil that you're rooted in.
• 54:53
  There's also the risk that one can have in this, what I was
• 54:57
  just talking about where, you know, I like.
• 55:01
  The OR what was it? It wasn't.
• 55:03
  I don't like that it was a. Basically familiarity without or
• 55:10
  or mistaking familiarity for depth, right?
• 55:12
  Being feeling like I feel familiar with something and then
• 55:15
  thinking that that familiarity is deeper than what it is.
• 55:18
  You know, I may not follow this path, but the I will respect the
• 55:23
  gods. OK, but why?
• 55:27
  They don't demand your respect. They're not over there.
• 55:29
  Like you don't follow our path, but you still better like us or
• 55:33
  you still better respect us. No, that's not how this works at
• 55:37
  all. So there should be no feeling of
• 55:39
  shame or guilt for not respecting the gods of Northern
• 55:43
  Europe or of the Germanic people.
• 55:47
  There should not be a feeling of or a sense of guilt or shame for
• 55:50
  not respecting them. If that's not what you're called
• 55:53
  for, or if that's not what you're called to, or if that's
• 55:56
  not where you feel your is your place, they don't care.
• 56:02
  They don't need us. You know, for their.
• 56:06
  They're not the Greeks. It's not like that, you know?
• 56:08
  What I mean like a different, different world views different.
• 56:12
  And that wasn't a dig on on, you know, Greco Roman or, or
• 56:16
  Mediterranean beliefs or anything like that.
• 56:18
  It was just a light little jab. They like the Nordic gods, the
• 56:24
  Germanic gods, you know, they're not sitting up somewhere high
• 56:27
  and mighty thinking that, you know, because so and so doesn't
• 56:30
  respect us. We're going to make their lives
• 56:31
  a living hell. Don't work that way.
• 56:34
  So. Be careful of mistaking
• 56:37
  familiarity for depth. If all it is is just I like it
• 56:43
  because it looks cool, or I think it's really neat, or
• 56:47
  that's information that I find very interesting, and that's all
• 56:52
  there is to it. Don't take any deeper than that.
• 56:55
  You know, I mean, I'm sure there's plenty of people who,
• 56:58
  who are that get a sense of familiarity with the with the
• 57:04
  history or with the lore, you know, because of their, we'll
• 57:07
  just say, you know, ancestry, right?
• 57:08
  I'm sure there's plenty of Norwegian Americans or, or, or
• 57:12
  people of Scandinavian descent here in the United States who
• 57:19
  would find, you know, familiarity with these, what I'm
• 57:22
  talking about, but not have any real vested interest or depth
• 57:27
  apply to it, because that's not their path.
• 57:28
  They don't, they don't follow, you know, the ancestral ways for
• 57:32
  them. You know what I mean?
• 57:34
  So it's don't mistake familiarity for depth.
• 57:37
  I think is is just the ultimate thing that I'm trying to get to.
• 57:44
  So OK, be what? Be mindful of these things, be
• 57:47
  watchful of these things, right? We're talking about warning
• 57:49
  signs. You know the how people, how
• 57:53
  we've gotten here, how you know how.
• 57:55
  It's how it's how has it come to this?
• 57:57
  Right? Cool.
• 57:59
  Now what? Right.
• 58:00
  What do we do to move in a constructive direction?
• 58:05
  And if this is something that you've noticed too, I've, you
• 58:07
  know, I'd be interested to hear, you know, for people that made
• 58:10
  it this far. Let me know down in the
• 58:13
  comments. You know, So, yeah, it's up to
• 58:19
  this point, you know, we're going to keep going.
• 58:20
  But you know, we've made it now. What is it?
• 58:24
  Almost an hour on a solo podcast, you know, let me know
• 58:28
  down in the comments what your thoughts are on this whole
• 58:30
  thing. So bringing it to a constructive
• 58:32
  direction, right? Or, you know, taking all this
• 58:34
  stuff that I'm talking about. Today and that I've observed.
• 58:36
  And just bringing it forth constructively, getting it
• 58:41
  better. You've guys have heard me talk
• 58:46
  all the time about, you know, hearth cult, individual cultic
• 58:50
  practices, even our own UPG. You got to have that as part of
• 58:56
  your living way. These are valid things in their
• 59:01
  own right. And then they're super
• 59:02
  important. The the the the hearth cult
• 59:04
  thing, personal cultists is probably the most number one
• 59:08
  thing I would say that we could highlight as as how we move
• 59:14
  forward. In a in a constructive way, away
• 59:17
  from parasocial heathenry is know what that is.
• 59:22
  Define it, establish it, you know.
• 59:25
  Hearth before hashtags, if you will see it all the time on, you
• 59:30
  know, as I'm if I get online and I, you know, scroll and I see
• 59:33
  this page and it's, you know, not, you know, been guilty of
• 59:36
  this myself as well. Using hashtags to gain
• 59:40
  attention. Tickle the algorithm and and see
• 59:45
  what it does to help drive, you know, insights.
• 59:51
  Or, you know, increase your. Your engagement and all that.
• 59:53
  But hearth before hashtags, people.
• 59:57
  What's your personal cult dislike?
• 59:58
  What are your offerings or what are your offerings like?
• 1:00:00
  What's your you know? Do you know what your seasonal
• 1:00:04
  observances should be or or or what the holy tides when they
• 1:00:08
  when they historically were held?
• 1:00:10
  Or are you know if if you're having to ask every flipping
• 1:00:15
  time and and this is going to sound a bit directed, but man,
• 1:00:23
  how many times? Does one have to say when you'll
• 1:00:28
  is when historical heathen you'll is before you get it?
• 1:00:33
  It's the same like yes, there's certain aspects of it that that
• 1:00:37
  that might not be repetitive, right.
• 1:00:40
  So it's not on the same calendar date, but it's you know, hey,
• 1:00:43
  when you know when winter nights is, it's the first full moon
• 1:00:48
  after the first new moon after the winter solstice.
• 1:00:50
  Let's look at your moon cycles. Anyway, they didn't mean to get
• 1:00:56
  on a tangent about that, but ancestral work is another one.
• 1:00:59
  Like what, what is your again? And that that goes back to the
• 1:01:01
  whole individual cultic practices like are you taking
• 1:01:05
  the time and are you investing into the the work to work with
• 1:01:09
  your ancestors? Because he even re is is
• 1:01:14
  probably in terms of what's more important, the gods or our
• 1:01:17
  ancestors. Ancestors probably rank higher
• 1:01:21
  on the day-to-day than the gods do.
• 1:01:24
  Yes, the gods have a very high place of importance for bigger
• 1:01:29
  type things. Big crops, big victory in
• 1:01:33
  battle, victory in our, you know, endeavors.
• 1:01:37
  But you know, let's not forget too, that you know the things
• 1:01:43
  that we learn about the gods and heroes from, from the myths,
• 1:01:47
  from the lore, from the sagas, from our sources.
• 1:01:51
  There's plenty of things to learn about all of them that
• 1:01:53
  don't involve victory. There is defeat.
• 1:01:57
  And what can we learn about that too?
• 1:02:00
  You know what I mean? But so you know all of these
• 1:02:03
  core corrective principles. Of, you know, developing,
• 1:02:08
  establishing, maintaining our individual cultic practices,
• 1:02:15
  offering, you know, how we engage in the gifting cycle,
• 1:02:19
  whether it's with the gods, whether it's with the whites or
• 1:02:22
  the, the Victoria tier of the land or the, the, the, the
• 1:02:26
  landscape around us, our ancestors and how we are
• 1:02:29
  engaging with them to keep them connected with us because they
• 1:02:34
  are the ones who are the most vested in our achievements and
• 1:02:39
  Ren and you know. Doing well, right?
• 1:02:43
  Our ancestors want us to do well.
• 1:02:46
  They want to help us. And so we have to get in with
• 1:02:49
  that in with them in in the gifting exchange in the gifting
• 1:02:53
  cycle practices knowing the significance of seasonal
• 1:02:58
  observances, right. Why was midwinter, why was Yule
• 1:03:00
  the midwinter bloat was talking about this during Yule, which
• 1:03:06
  was, which was, you know, less than a moon ago.
• 1:03:11
  You know, when everybody else is kicking around and again, not a
• 1:03:16
  dig, but when everybody else is kicking around there you'll
• 1:03:19
  during, you know, the December solstice and Christmas and
• 1:03:23
  everything. And it's convenient because all
• 1:03:24
  families and stuff are gathering and that's great.
• 1:03:27
  Again, not a dig. It's not a midwinter bloat.
• 1:03:30
  We haven't even made it through the harshest part of the winter
• 1:03:33
  yet. And then what happens, you know,
• 1:03:36
  in the, in the US at least a relative area for me, what
• 1:03:40
  happens a week before you'll super, super cold.
• 1:03:44
  We got snow, we get ice. Hundreds of thousands of people
• 1:03:47
  are without their amenities, you know, electricity, sometimes
• 1:03:52
  heat, checking in with our loved ones, making sure that they have
• 1:03:57
  what they need. You know, are, you know, are you
• 1:04:01
  guys OK? Do you need anything?
• 1:04:02
  And just checking in and making sure like, are you going to be
• 1:04:04
  all right? And if it gets really bad, how
• 1:04:06
  are we going to be able to get to them to help them, right?
• 1:04:09
  That's what midwinter was like for our Northern European
• 1:04:13
  ancestors. It was a time of we've, we've
• 1:04:17
  made-up, you know, all of our stores, We, we've used up most
• 1:04:20
  of our, our stores from, from harvest last season.
• 1:04:25
  And, and it's getting pretty lean and we still got this cold
• 1:04:29
  and this dark and, and all these terrible, you know, brutal
• 1:04:33
  things to get through. So when that?
• 1:04:38
  And that midwinter point came. They were like there's light at
• 1:04:43
  the end of the tunnel, right where there's the and thank the
• 1:04:45
  gods and and offer to them and bloat to to them for a good
• 1:04:51
  growing season, a good a good harvest too, for that when the
• 1:04:55
  next winter came around that they that they could survive
• 1:04:57
  just as they survive this one. So it's relative stuff.
• 1:05:00
  I mean, it's, you know, and I'm speaking from from angles or
• 1:05:08
  from positions that that I've seen impact from, you know what
• 1:05:16
  I mean, as other people might be seeing things differently from
• 1:05:18
  from different angles. But you know, aside from aside
• 1:05:21
  from that, you know, there's also the steadiness over
• 1:05:27
  intensity or rhythm over intensity.
• 1:05:29
  I think, you know, so many, so many people get involved with,
• 1:05:35
  with, with Heathenry or, or even paganism, right?
• 1:05:38
  It it's, I get that honeymoon phase, you know, after the
• 1:05:44
  honeymoon phase when things aren't so shiny and nice and
• 1:05:47
  interesting, the consistency and that rhythm tends to fade.
• 1:05:55
  Right. So consistency beats.
• 1:06:01
  The the burst of of enthusiasm has to be consistent, has to be
• 1:06:07
  steady. You know that's what the
• 1:06:14
  lifestyle is to believe, right? It's a lifestyle.
• 1:06:16
  You're not just going to go all gung ho out the gate
• 1:06:21
  indefinitely, right? It's about a good buddy of mine
• 1:06:28
  here. You know, he was, Patrick was
• 1:06:29
  just on the show last week, you know, and he talked about, and
• 1:06:32
  he said this before in his own spaces where, and I'm
• 1:06:34
  paraphrasing what he says, but it's basically something along
• 1:06:36
  the lines of that, you know, something about being set at a
• 1:06:44
  it's not a race. It's set at our own pace, you
• 1:06:50
  know, so, and I know there was something else that goes in
• 1:06:52
  front of it, but Patrick, if you watch this, so you see this.
• 1:06:56
  Fill out in the blank for me, buddy.
• 1:06:58
  But it's, you know, so it's set of our own.
• 1:07:01
  It's it's not a race. It's set at our own pace.
• 1:07:03
  And you should have a pace. Your pace should not be right.
• 1:07:07
  Just run. Run, run, run, run.
• 1:07:08
  Rush, rush, rush, rush, rush, rush.
• 1:07:10
  Gun ho gun ho rah rah rah. Nope, just there there.
• 1:07:13
  There's times of intensity and there's times of of slow down
• 1:07:17
  and coasting a bit. But but knowing that sustainable
• 1:07:21
  rhythm is it's part of that lifestyle, it's part about being
• 1:07:27
  alive with it, I believe, right. So this is how we can some of
• 1:07:36
  the ways that we can again, move constructively forward a
• 1:07:43
  physically world anchoring mentality, you know, doing
• 1:07:53
  things in the ways that our answers would have done them.
• 1:07:56
  Go outdoors for ritual. Oh, but it's too hot.
• 1:08:02
  You'll be OK. It's it's for ritual, it's for
• 1:08:06
  ceremony or you know what I mean?
• 1:08:08
  Like you'll be fine. These other things, you know, of
• 1:08:14
  things of a of a physicality, right.
• 1:08:16
  So talked earlier before about the some of the pitfalls and,
• 1:08:21
  and geographical isolation and you know, talked about how,
• 1:08:24
  yeah, sure, there are going to be some people who are less
• 1:08:29
  inclined or less capable even of making pilgrimages and journeys
• 1:08:34
  and going places, right. Well, before you think about the
• 1:08:40
  reasons why you can't do something, first decide if it's
• 1:08:47
  that you can't do it or that you just won't put it in the work to
• 1:08:52
  do it. I've talked about that before
• 1:08:55
  too. You know, so much of our so
• 1:09:00
  much, so much of the things that come about in our lives that we
• 1:09:04
  have regrets about or you know, I mean, I, I can't do this, but
• 1:09:09
  it's not that you can't. Most of the time it's that you
• 1:09:12
  won't. You know, so I can't make the
• 1:09:16
  two hour drive for winter nights in October.
• 1:09:21
  People. I lived.
• 1:09:23
  I lived too far away. My car's messed up and I just
• 1:09:27
  can't make the journey. Well, if you could, would you?
• 1:09:35
  Well, yeah. So then what are the other
• 1:09:37
  solutions? What are other ways?
• 1:09:39
  How what if you can't get yourself here?
• 1:09:40
  How are there other people who could get there for you?
• 1:09:43
  Could you save up money to get a rental?
• 1:09:46
  Could you save up money and have it for an Uber there and back?
• 1:09:50
  Or are there people that are going from your area that you
• 1:09:54
  could carpool with? Or all these see anything like
• 1:09:55
  there's different mentalities that that one can have to to to
• 1:10:00
  say like. It's not that I can't, it's that
• 1:10:03
  I just I won't come up with a solution, you know, to have that
• 1:10:07
  foresight, but the pilgrimage, the journey that is so much, you
• 1:10:10
  know, about even what our ancestors had to do, you know,
• 1:10:13
  when when they had to go to places to.
• 1:10:17
  Gather for the holy tide. You know, I'm sure that not
• 1:10:23
  every single Yule. We'll just use Yule as an
• 1:10:27
  example. Or I'm not.
• 1:10:28
  You know, I'm sure not every single Yule could be, you know,
• 1:10:31
  people can make safe journeys too.
• 1:10:33
  It was the middle of winter. It was not the best time to be
• 1:10:35
  traveling. But you know, if there was a
• 1:10:40
  gathering and we could make it, it was you made it you, you went
• 1:10:43
  on that journey to that location, to that Grove, to the
• 1:10:48
  Ehrmensil, to Donarzoux, to the temple at Old Ipsila, you know,
• 1:10:55
  just whatever journeying, going that distance, that, that sort
• 1:10:59
  of pilgrimage. You know, pilgrimage is not
• 1:11:02
  really like a, the typical term that you think of when you are
• 1:11:05
  talking about paganism or heathenry.
• 1:11:08
  But when you assign a, a, a, a location with, with a degree of,
• 1:11:14
  of piety, you know, like I'm going to this place because it's
• 1:11:17
  spiritually powerful for me or for a lot of folks, you know
• 1:11:21
  what I'm saying? Like whatever that thing might
• 1:11:23
  be, you plan for accordingly. And then other forms.
• 1:11:28
  Of of physical. Connection to our to our
• 1:11:34
  communities, you know, craft work, you know, when people I'm
• 1:11:39
  not, I'm not so craft see, you know, I'm not so artsy.
• 1:11:41
  I can't really do this. I can't really do that.
• 1:11:43
  It doesn't have look, you know, kids can put beads on strings
• 1:11:48
  and make necklaces and bracelets.
• 1:11:49
  If a child can do it, anybody can do it.
• 1:11:52
  So you're, you know, again, it's not that you can't do anything,
• 1:11:55
  it's just that you won't apply yourself to do it or, you know,
• 1:12:01
  we won't. It's just a generalization, you
• 1:12:03
  know what I mean? This is these are ways to, to
• 1:12:05
  constructively and confidently move in a good direction away
• 1:12:12
  from this parasocial parasite sort of a thing.
• 1:12:20
  There's also a really I think a key thing for people to take
• 1:12:25
  away with like and I, because I've said this before about
• 1:12:27
  myself. For people that when that,
• 1:12:30
  whether you watch my content or listen to it, if you're new, if
• 1:12:34
  you've been listening or watching over the years, right.
• 1:12:37
  I, I remind people of this periodically.
• 1:12:40
  Don't take my word for things. Don't take what I'm saying, or
• 1:12:43
  for what anybody is saying for that matter, as the ultimate
• 1:12:46
  authority on a practice, on a thought, on an idea I'm
• 1:12:54
  presenting. In many cases, you know, well
• 1:12:58
  researched answers to things. But I'm not sitting here saying
• 1:13:04
  that I'm the only one that you should be listening to about it.
• 1:13:08
  I might cite my sources, but that does not mean that that's
• 1:13:11
  the end of it. Research them for yourself.
• 1:13:16
  Have some discernment with the people that you see online,
• 1:13:19
  whether it's me or anybody else that you enjoy listening to or
• 1:13:24
  watching, whether it's a podcast, whether it's videos on
• 1:13:28
  Tiktok or YouTube or wherever it is.
• 1:13:31
  Have some discernment the OR display some discernment.
• 1:13:36
  You know what I mean? You know it's.
• 1:13:38
  It's cool, like you can learn from many people, but follow
• 1:13:43
  carefully and devote yourself to your practices locally.
• 1:13:50
  As much as possible, you know, there's a lot to learn out here.
• 1:13:56
  There's a lot to absorb out here.
• 1:13:58
  And not all of the things that we learn and not all the things
• 1:14:00
  that we absorb are going to be applicable to our local
• 1:14:05
  practices. You know, and there's, there are
• 1:14:10
  definitely people out here that are worth supporting or that are
• 1:14:14
  worth, I guess you could say following, you know what I mean?
• 1:14:18
  I've said it plenty of times and thanked people for following
• 1:14:20
  along on this journey. You know that I'm that, that I'm
• 1:14:24
  sharing, you know, you with you with or, or in with you and all
• 1:14:28
  that. So that, you know, but, but
• 1:14:31
  follow along carefully. It's, you know, with anybody,
• 1:14:36
  myself included. And, and when I say devote
• 1:14:41
  yourself locally, make your devotions local.
• 1:14:43
  I, I, I, I just want to, I guess, kind of reiterate that,
• 1:14:49
  that it doesn't necessarily mean that you just tie yourself to
• 1:14:52
  the first kindred or tribe or clan or hearth or whatever they
• 1:14:58
  call themselves the first one that you see that's local to
• 1:15:02
  your area. And I mean by devote yourself
• 1:15:04
  locally is, I mean get your personal cultists down, get
• 1:15:08
  your, you know, your hearth cult dialed in your offerings.
• 1:15:13
  You know, what's important to you as far as you know, seasonal
• 1:15:16
  observations, whether it's, you know, Luna Solar or whether
• 1:15:21
  you're going to incorporate equinoxes, solstice, whatever,
• 1:15:23
  right? Just get, get your hearth
• 1:15:25
  practices dialed down, know your relationship with the land and,
• 1:15:30
  and the spirits that exist around us.
• 1:15:32
  And that's what I mean by locally, right?
• 1:15:35
  Devote locally doesn't necessarily mean devote locally
• 1:15:39
  to a kindred or devote yourself with other people in that sort
• 1:15:42
  of dynamic. Although if you can, great, just
• 1:15:48
  be mindful of that as well, because this is going to be
• 1:15:50
  something we talk later on about not on this episode, but I want
• 1:15:53
  to talk about, you know, the whole Frith versus freedom, you
• 1:15:57
  know, sovereignty and then your obligations and how that can
• 1:16:01
  play a, you know, an interesting part in our lives.
• 1:16:05
  But that's for another time. So like I said before, you know,
• 1:16:13
  we, we, we've already identified that, you know, a lot of people
• 1:16:15
  are, are geographically isolated.
• 1:16:19
  There's people that are not just geographically isolated.
• 1:16:23
  But, and this goes back to, you know, what I said before, he
• 1:16:27
  can't versus won't there. There are people who are
• 1:16:30
  legitimately geographically isolated.
• 1:16:32
  There are people who are legitimately immobile or limited
• 1:16:37
  in their mobility, whether it be through, you know, a physical
• 1:16:42
  handicap or any other sort of any sort of thing that could,
• 1:16:52
  you know, disable a person's mobility or limit it in some way
• 1:16:58
  that those are legitimate things.
• 1:17:01
  That's that's that's a reality. And so again, not to dismiss or
• 1:17:06
  be dismissive or diminish reality.
• 1:17:08
  I'm just saying online community does have real value too.
• 1:17:13
  OK, We talked about that before. I did said I didn't want to take
• 1:17:17
  away from what these places have to offer.
• 1:17:22
  It's it's not that it's all bad, but digital connection.
• 1:17:26
  I feel again, it's it, it has its place.
• 1:17:28
  It should be a bridge, OK, It, it, it should be the thing that
• 1:17:33
  that puts point A to point B, OK, It's not the destination.
• 1:17:38
  It's, it's just the tethering part.
• 1:17:41
  It's it's the thing that that connects.
• 1:17:44
  So look at destination as a bridge.
• 1:17:46
  Not, not, not the, not the destination or digital
• 1:17:52
  connection, right. Look at it as a bridge, not just
• 1:17:54
  as anything other than that. It's shouldn't be where it lands
• 1:17:58
  and stays. It's a it's a connection.
• 1:18:02
  So, and as far as, you know, all of everything that we talked
• 1:18:07
  about today, because we're going to be wrapping the show up here
• 1:18:09
  just a little bit, you know, I look back at what we talked
• 1:18:13
  about before I talk about it here, I just look at these
• 1:18:16
  topics and I go, you know, ultimately what Heathenry wasn't
• 1:18:21
  never meant to be and what it has become, right?
• 1:18:27
  Heathenry paganism. But I'll, I'll speak to
• 1:18:30
  Heathenry because that's what this is this, you know, that's
• 1:18:33
  what I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm a heathen.
• 1:18:36
  So talk about that. But Heathenry to me, was never
• 1:18:38
  meant to just live only in these realms of ideas.
• 1:18:44
  Talking about it, learning about it, you know, it lives and
• 1:18:51
  Heathenry has, you know, sadly, the the truth is that so much of
• 1:18:56
  our so much of these ways that the the the heathen path, the
• 1:19:00
  paganism of the. Germanic people, pre Christian
• 1:19:05
  Germanic peoples, the tribes, you know, we'll call it
• 1:19:08
  Heathenry now, but so much of that the of their ways, you
• 1:19:12
  know, we, we are reconstructing it now.
• 1:19:14
  We don't have heathen elders alive anymore that that can say,
• 1:19:20
  you know, I'm doing this because this is how my grandfather
• 1:19:23
  taught me and his grandfather taught him and his grandfather
• 1:19:26
  grandfather taught all the way back hundreds or thousands of
• 1:19:30
  years. We just, we, there might be
• 1:19:33
  some, there might be a couple few here or there that, you
• 1:19:37
  know, respectively speaking might be able to say that about
• 1:19:41
  them, but it's rare and you know, it's very few and far
• 1:19:45
  between. So what we have is these online
• 1:19:51
  platforms, we have these forms, we have these people that, and
• 1:19:55
  I'll put myself in that category of people like myself who like
• 1:19:59
  to or, or find a place with sharing ideas and talking about
• 1:20:07
  things and. But real Heathenry was never
• 1:20:10
  meant to just live there. It lives in offerings, it lives
• 1:20:15
  in sacrifice, It lives in stumble.
• 1:20:17
  It lives when nobody's watching, when nobody's clicking on your
• 1:20:22
  video and nobody's liking your comments, when nobody's sharing
• 1:20:24
  your posts, when nobody's hashtagging your whatever.
• 1:20:30
  I don't know, like, if there's nobody's, what is it?
• 1:20:34
  Duetting your videos when nobody's stitched when when when
• 1:20:41
  there are no stitches incoming. I've seen that phrase referred
• 1:20:45
  to and I sound like such a an old fart when I'm dying because
• 1:20:49
  these these terms are. All these, all these.
• 1:20:52
  Kids with their skippities or whatever.
• 1:20:54
  It's I just it. Heathenry lives when no one is
• 1:20:59
  watching. It lives in the earth, it lives
• 1:21:01
  in the rivers, it lives in the trees.
• 1:21:03
  It lives on the trail. It lives in the mountains, lives
• 1:21:07
  in the desert, lives in the swamps.
• 1:21:09
  It lives when. Oaths are kept.
• 1:21:13
  Even when they're convenient, it lives.
• 1:21:16
  When that sense of obligation overrides the feeling of
• 1:21:25
  despair, you know, it lives in that quiet discipline that never
• 1:21:32
  gets online attention. You know, a lot of people like
• 1:21:39
  to share their discipline journey and whether it's
• 1:21:45
  whatever there is that they're disciplined in.
• 1:21:47
  And I've done it. You know, I'm X amount of days,
• 1:21:49
  no food, I'm on a water fast. I'm doing cold immersions for
• 1:21:53
  this, that amount, chronicling these these things.
• 1:21:57
  But it's again, it's not for, you know, places, right?
• 1:22:03
  There's a time and place for all that.
• 1:22:06
  But I guess if I could say anything else, it's like, you
• 1:22:13
  know, if, if this calls to you, if, if, if he even read is is
• 1:22:18
  what calls to you, then make sure, excuse me, make sure that
• 1:22:21
  it's something that you're shaping that that that is
• 1:22:24
  shaping your life, not just your whole life, right.
• 1:22:30
  Make sure that it's something that is shaping your whole life,
• 1:22:32
  not just a social media profile. So there's my there's my solo
• 1:22:46
  episode for the week guys. As far as next guests go, I'm
• 1:22:52
  not I'm not booked up for for very many days.
• 1:22:57
  So you made it this far and you got a thought that you'd like to
• 1:23:00
  share, you know, somebody else that would like to that you
• 1:23:03
  think would be a good guest idea or a guest want to.
• 1:23:06
  I've, I've got some work to do as far as reaching out to some
• 1:23:08
  people and try to land in some interviews.
• 1:23:12
  But yeah, we're just getting started with season 7.
• 1:23:14
  So it's wide open. We can schedule out as near or
• 1:23:17
  or as far as as needed, but there will be definitely I've
• 1:23:26
  got plenty of topics that I can fill up a slot with with just
• 1:23:30
  these solo kind of ramblings. But as always, I'm clear.
• 1:23:34
  I'm I'm curious to hear what you all have to say if the platform,
• 1:23:40
  excuse me, that you're listening on or watching this like
• 1:23:42
  obviously Facebook, I don't do this anymore, but the the the
• 1:23:45
  Spotify platform, I know they have comments that you can add
• 1:23:50
  to. So if you're listening on
• 1:23:52
  Spotify and you want to add a comment.
• 1:23:53
  Please do so. For those of you watching on
• 1:23:56
  Patreon, of course leave a comment down in the video, but
• 1:24:00
  if you're listening to this elsewhere and you don't have the
• 1:24:03
  option to commentanemailworksjustfinemidgardmusingstn@gmail.com,
• 1:24:09
  you can. Also, and I don't talk about
• 1:24:10
  this enough, there's a hotline for the podcast that you can
• 1:24:15
  call in and leave a voicemail. I think you have a three minute
• 1:24:17
  cap though, but that phone number, if you ever want to use
• 1:24:20
  it is 615671 9832. OK.
• 1:24:26
  And you can call and leave a voicemail with your thoughts.
• 1:24:29
  Jesse, this is that you know, this is so.
• 1:24:31
  And so you can remain anonymous too.
• 1:24:32
  By the way, you don't have to even say who you are or you can
• 1:24:35
  use a, a moniker. I do like to put those audio
• 1:24:39
  recordings up on the podcast. So a lot of times when I get
• 1:24:42
  them, if I ever get them, I'll put it in as a as a segment on
• 1:24:46
  the show just to acknowledge it and to say thanks.
• 1:24:49
  So if you want to remain anonymous, if you don't mind
• 1:24:51
  your voice being heard on the show, that's great.
• 1:24:55
  And if you don't want your voice heard, let me know too when you
• 1:24:57
  call in. Hey, this is a thought that I
• 1:24:59
  want to share with you and only you because I don't want to have
• 1:25:02
  my voice on the show. I will totally respect that and
• 1:25:06
  not share that audio clip. But anyway, those are the ways
• 1:25:09
  that you can get in touch with me if the platform that you're
• 1:25:12
  catching the show on doesn't allow you the opportunity to
• 1:25:14
  comment. So there's your options.
• 1:25:17
  Use them if you want or not. It's OK either way.
• 1:25:20
  Thank you just for listening, but I am curious to hear what
• 1:25:23
  people's thoughts are on about this topic.
• 1:25:26
  So if you can, you want to share your thoughts, fire away.
• 1:25:29
  But that wraps it up for me this week folks.
• 1:25:32
  Again, I do appreciate everyone's constant and ongoing
• 1:25:34
  support. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
• 1:25:37
  I can't say it enough. So that's it until we talk to
• 1:25:41
  each other again. May the gods continue to notice
• 1:25:44
  you and may your ancestors smile upon you.
• 1:25:48
  See you in the next one. None.