Inspiration and Identity

A lot of Pagans I’ve encountered like to give offerings to our Gods – some offer physical objects, like wine and mead, some offer crafts they’ve created, like altar cloths, and some offer their talent, like singers. Being a writer, I do the latter. 

When you’re working in a creative field yourself, maybe you’ve also felt this sudden pull to take that notebook or sketch pad and paint or write down this unexpected new idea. Perhaps you – just like me – have wondered where these ideas, this art of ours comes from. 

Clearly, some of it is inspired by other works of art I encounter. When I was still at school, I read a lot – about one to two novels a week. Today, I don’t have as much free time, but I still try to read as much as I can, at least the new works of my favourite writers. And I attend a Creative Writing course once a week, where I can present my writing, get feedback and also get new ideas. But one question still remains: Where does this divine spark to create something new come from? 

I like to think about this in terms of my muse (cf. King 2000): He lives in an old, run-down changing room in a theatre (don’t ask me why he likes to hang out there; but I’ve never seen him anywhere else). He looks a little like Jim Morrison, with wavy brown curls, and always wears a white v-necked shirt and faded blue jeans. When he helps me out with a story, I pay him in whiskey or similar hard alcohol. But I have to keep up my part of the bargain – when he sends me that inspiration, I have to write it down and acknowledge it, even if it means getting up at 3am and searching for a pen and notebook. 

 You could say that when I’m talking to my muse, what I’m essentially doing is talking to my own subconscious which, for some unfathomable reason, likes to dress up as Jim Morrison’s look-alike. But be that as it may, I wonder how our Gods feature in this process. After all, Odin grants the mead of poetic inspiration; in the Celtic pantheon, Brighid is associated with the “fire in the head” of inspiration (also see my B post on Her). However, when I’m writing I’ve seriously never felt Their presence, even if the work I produce is about Them.

So while I see writing as an integral part of myself (hence the Identity title), I still don’t know what makes me, or rather, what drives me to write. What I know, however,  is how to write and how to be inspired. 

So how can we make inspiration flow (cf. Myers 2008: 477)?

• First of all, learn as much as you can about your craft – only when you have a good working knowledge of what has been done, of different styles etc. can you combine them in new, interesting ways.
•  Be risky – sometimes, you have to take a certain risk: you won’t know if combining a horror story and crime elements will work unless you try.
•  Learn to see things in new, creative ways – e.g. what could you use a brick for? To build houses, sure, but couldn’t you also use it as a paper weight, as a weapon, as a doorstopper, as a device to keep your table from wobbling? It’s these instances that will give you new insights and inspire you to come up with novel stories. 
•  Look for others who are creative and who will support you – your creativity can thrive best if there are others who are either creative themselves, so you can inspire each other, or when they are accepting of your craft. Imagine writing a story when your SO keeps telling you that it’s a waste of time and/or silly – you’d have to be very dedicated to keep at it! Also, create an “imaginary friend,” your Constant Reader (or Constant Gallery Visitor, or Constant Concertgoer). S/he is your prototypical target audience. So you can ask yourself while working on your creative product: would Constant Reader enjoy this? Does s/he expect something entirely different now and will s/he be disappointed if s/he reads, sees or hears my new take on things? Basically, Constant Reader allows you to keep your intended audience in mind and not to stray too far from your intended path (King 2000).
• When you’re planning to work creatively, no matter if you’re planning on being a professional artist or if you’re just working for yourself, you have to want to do it, simply because you enjoy the process of doing it. It has been shown that when two groups of people work on a creative project, the ones who are told that their work will be judged are less creative. So just write for the sake of writing, sing because you love it, and you’ll come up with more new, interesting ideas than if you plan to be the new J.K. Rowling, Montserrat Caballé or Dalí.  
  
•  And finally, when you do all the things above, you have to practice continuously. Sure, writing only when you feel that divine spark of inspiration will produce some very nice stories or poems. I, for once, see myself as a Romantic poet who can only write when inspired or called to do so. However, you get better with practice, esp. when it comes to writing stories, dialogue that sounds natural, creating suspense and atmosphere – a writer I’ve met suggested to write a few pages each morning and to keep writing even if everything you turn out feels like s**t, cause this will stop your Inner Editor from complaining and making you feel insecure.

To finish off this post, here’s a poem about Odin I wrote recently. It is inspired both by the German Symbolist poet Stefan George (if you can read German, his poem is here) as well as German Expressionist writers, esp. August Stramm. 

autumn

the trees were shedding

            their golden gowns

when I found you

            amid the cool forest

unannounced I came

but receive me,

my king,

in your court

            in the twilight woodland

others handed you roses -

but my flowers are wild

and free, like the sun

            that is dying

this final blossom

autumn-blue

take, bind it,

            braid it in my hair -

with your nine sacred herbs

a crown

to make my wedding holy

skies darken, blacken in the wind

autumn air dances

in your war-encrusted curls -

please, leof min,

stay with me

for it is towards evening

silently

beneath the dusk I hear

your laugh,

the night,

the cruel blue winter wind -

and the Wild Hunt

is coming

 

Sources:

King, Stephen. 2000. On Writing. A Memoir of the Craft. London: Hodder & Stoughton.

Myers, David G. 2008. Psychologie. Heidelberg: Springer [German edition]. 

http://www.alb-neckar-schwarzwald.de/s_george_poems.html (Stefan George’s “komm in den totgesagten park“ in both German and English translation)

http://www.firstworldwar.com/poetsandprose/stramm.htm (English translations of two of August Stramm’s poems)

images:

http://www.kunstkopie.de/kunst/paul_cezanne/dream_poet_kiss_muse_hi.jpg (muse and poet)

http://crosseyedpianist.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/jimmorrison.jpg (Jim Morrison)

http://www.paranormal.de/symbole/germanen/Odin/Odin4.jpg (Odin)

Gospel Songs in Paganism?

Today, I’d like to share with you an experience, or rather a realization, that I had while I was attending the Easter service together with my mum this year. The church she attends has quite a lot of songs that I enjoy, and I found I really loved singing along with the congregation.

I’ve also been a member of a gospel choir during my time in England, where I went twice a week – sometimes more often, when a concert was approaching – to sing songs praising God. But it only occurred to me during this Easter service that there hardly are any gospel songs that we can sing as pagans.

Obviously, there are quite a lot of songs with a pagan theme, often written and sung by pagan artists. For example, I do love the work of Damh the Bard; his rendition of the Raggle Taggle Gypsy never fails to make me smile, and his The Spirit of Albion gives me goosebumps quite often.

However, apart from a song by Kellianna called I Walk with the Goddess there is hardly a truly pagan song I know that comes close to gospels like, say, Elvis Presley’s rendition of Working on the Building that I could use during ritual. 

The fact is that I love music, so naturally I would like to use music to celebrate my gods. While chants can be very powerful when used in ritual, I’m looking for gospel-like songs that were written for the praise of our gods and that you can sing along to. For me, there’s a certain challenge in getting the key and difficult bits in a gospel right, so I’d like to be able to give a well-sung song as an offering, so to speak.

However, I don’t feel that using existing Christian gospels and changing the lyrics is appropriate, in a way. I do appreciate the efforts by e.g. the German Asatru-Ring Frankfurt, who have quite an extensive library oflyrics – either Christian-themed songs changed to fit pagan rituals, like their Yule songs, or modern pop songs changed to incorporate pagan and Heathen ideas. For example, there is quite a nice Heathen version of Dolly Parton’s Jolene titled Wotan (Heart of You), directed at Odin. My problem is, however, that you’d have to find an instrumental version of these songs to use them during ritual (as much as I like Mrs Parton, I don’t want her to sing about Jolene when I try to devote a song to Odin – and if I don’t have musical accompaniment, I go terribly off key, and no God wants to hear that, believe me).

I also tried to change the lyrics of a song I learned in the gospel choir (it’s called He Reigns; a version of my choir performing it can be found here).

While I managed to get as far as

“Our God is an awesome God, 

He reigns from Asgard above”

the next line that says “with wisdom, power and love” wouldn’t quite fit my view of Odin (wisdom, yes – love, not so much); and besides, “Asgard” wouldn’t quite go into the metre anyway.

So essentially, what I really miss at the moment are gospel-like songs that are pagan-themed – or at least neutral enough for me to use them during ritual. Are you familiar with any songs that I might enjoy?

Blessed be,

Harzgeist

Finding your Deity

For my second F post in the PaganBlog Project, I’d like to address the question of how we pagans find the deities that we pray to and worship.

It seems that there are several ways in which worshippers find their matron or patron gods.

But before we start on those, remember that you don’t have to have a certain deity you follow to be a pagan – some practitioners took years to find theirs, and others are quite happy working magic or walking a pagan path without belonging to a specific goddess or god. So don’t stress if you haven’t yet connected to a certain deity.

So, now on to finding your deity:

One way of finding your deity is by research, so to speak. Some have always been attracted to a specific culture or pantheon, and reading the myths they find a goddess or god that speaks to them. If that is the case with you, you can start to worship Them by leaving offerings, and (hopefully) slowly form a deep, fulfilling connection to this deity.

So, for example, somebody who works in a healing profession might easily connect to Brighid, as well as a poet might seek Her inspiration or “fire in the head.” I also felt drawn to Persephone from childhood on, as I loved my book of good-night-stories that also included Her myth. Eventually, I found out that another goddess was responsible for me, so to speak, which brings us to our next point.

an image of Persephone, Demeter and Hades from my favourite children's book

There are some within the pagan community who are simply found or claimed by a deity. Sometimes accepting this claim is not easy, since you might not have expected this specific deity to have an interest in you. Usually you’ll know when a deity claims you – connections with this deity seem to pop up everywhere you look, you’ll be visited in a meditation, or you’ll feel what some describe as a distinct “spiritual slap on the head” by the deity, telling them that they are Theirs. Essentially, this is how I met my matron, Anann (Who I used to mistake for Persephone, since She is also connected to the earth and to death). Why She chose me I cannot fathom, but I’m sure I’ll find out one day what work She wants to be done.

Sometimes it can happen that despite everything I’ve just said, you fail to notice that a certain god or goddess is trying to get your attention (although once you realize it it’s usually glaringly obvious). As a general example, a pagan might get followed by ravens all of a sudden (especially in places or times of the year when there shouldn’t be as many ravens about), at the exact time that they feel compelled to start practicing martial arts, and only after a very long while realize that the Morrighán is calling them. But if you’re involved with a pagan community, telling your fellow pagans about coincidences like these will usually get you pointed in the right direction quite easily.

I should mention here that sometimes, people will be called by a god or goddess Whose lore hasn’t survived, but since I don’t have any experience with this myself, I won’t stress this part here (if you are familiar with this, however, I’d love to hear about your experience!).

And then, there are situations when you might perfect well realize Who it is that’s calling, but are unwilling or afraid to form a connection. In my opinion, this is the most difficult outcome. Not seeing a connection, obviously, can happen sometimes, but I’d be cautious if I’d wilfully ignore a deity.

However, I guess that it depends why you’re ignoring Them. Did you hope for a different deity of the pantheon to contact you and be your matron/patron? Or, let me put this provocatively, is this specific deity not “fancy” enough (as in, everybody worships Brighid, so why do I get called by Donn)? Or do you shy away from forming a deeper connection because of, how shall I say, reverence?

For me, reverence for Odin was what kept me from approaching Him for the last 10 or so years (boy, do I feel old right now!) – that, and not knowing how to approach gods, since the internet and books on paganism hadn’t really made it to my little hometown in the late 90s.

 It was only lately that I realized how many connections to Him are basically staring me in the face.

First of all, I am an academic, currently working on my PhD, so it would only be fitting to start a relationship to the god of wisdom and knowledge. Then, Odin is also a god of poetry Who gives the mead of inspiration and creative fire – I see myself as a writer, and my greatest dream is to be a full-time writer of horror and crime fiction.

But there are also other, perhaps less obvious connections. For example, the number 9 has always been my favourite number. Using a number oracle that I believe originated in the Kabbalah tradition (I’m not really sure anymore where it came from; I noted it down in my book of shadow-of-sorts about 12 years ago) my name number as well as my birth number are 9 (and if you combine those, you’ll get your fate number, which is – you guessed it – 9).

Then, I love the colour blue. My room as a teenager was completely blue; the carpet was a deep blue, the walls were light blue, the curtains were blue, and my bed was usually covered in deep blue sheets. Unfortunately, there aren’t any pictures of the room without 15-year-old me (with a weird 80s Jon Bon Jovi hairstyle) in it, so you’ll have to use your imagination ;-)

And I also love the colour black – basically, most items in my wardrobe are black (apart from jeans and the occasional green, blue or red items; and no, I never was a goth) – both colours are associated with Odin.

In my teenage years, I also developed an interest in the military. I read all the books my grandpa had on the military and important wars (and I tried to write an abysmally bad story set in the Vietnam war, which thankfully I abandoned), and I still enjoy war movies like Full Metal Jacket. Considering that Odin is a god of battle, this is quite a fitting interest.

And then, I had one of those new age cassettes (yes, an actual cassette!) with wolves howling in a storm. And I love the time between Christmas and New Year when the Wild Hunt is said to pass over the Harz mountains.

So I’m wondering if it is fate that led me to Him in the end? I’m still trying to figure out what He could possibly want from me, but I believe that time will tell.

So how did you meet the deities you honour? Or does your practice centre on other elements apart from deity worship?

Blessed be,

Harzgeist

Sources:

Persephone image taken from:

Yeatman, Linda. 1985. Bedtime Stories. [German translation, titled “Die schönsten Geschichten zur guten Nacht” by Eleonore Melichar]. Wien: Ueberreuter. p.51.

Odin image: http://silverbough.webs.com/Images/odin2.jpg

England, or: Are the Gods Local?

Two days ago, I returned from a short trip to Nottingham, England. A very good friend of mine, who I shared a flat with in my year abroad, is in her final year now and I wanted to see both her and the city again, although the trip was overshadowed by family matters (let’s keep this short and simple: two weeks ago, the house my mum lived in burnt down. As of today, we still cannot enter the building and my mum’s staying at her parents with my little brother, our rabbit and the best dog in the world, who alerted her to the fire).

Before starting on the post, I have to stress that I moved to Nottingham in autumn of 2008, a couple months after I properly started researching paganism (my copy of the Farrars’ Witches Bible was the only book that came with me on the plane), and so the place will always have a magical connotation for me.

Visiting this time, I was staying with my friend in her tiny single room. As we’re not allowed to burn candles within the flats, I decided to do my weekly devotions for Thor by taking a walk through nature. The university has a beautiful campus with a small lake, where waterfowl (especially Canada geese) and squirrels abound; and there are many hidden gardens where you can sit and take some time out. 

When I set out, the fog was still heavy over the lake, and I was instantly reminded of the Avalon books that I love. It would not have surprised me to see a boat with a priestess clad in dark blue garments appear in the fog. So possibly remembering the book series gave me this instant “Celtic” vibe that I’ll speak about later.

 lake at the campus of the University of Nottingham

Walking on, I asked both Mr Squirrel and Mr and Mrs Goose to take some pictures of them, although neither came close as there were quite a lot of other people and dogs around for a foggy Thursday morning. 

 Mr Squirrel

So I decided to walk to a small circular garden that I’ve always loved (in case you’ll ever go there, it’s the Millennium Gardens behind the Law Building), where I thought I’d have some privacy. There are two labyrinths like the ones that you can find on the floor of churches like Chartres in France (a beautiful building, if you ask me), and I decided to walk them to get into a prayerful mindset. 

 Millennium Gardens, campus of the University of Nottingham

Arriving at the round stone in the middle, I was planning on meditating on Thor and praising Him, but I found this very difficult to do. Instead, I felt instantly drawn to my matron, Anann. I remained in meditation on Her and the Summerlands for only a short while. There is a construction site for a hotel close by now and I hadn’t considered the through traffic and builders walking past. As I said earlier, maybe thinking of the Avalon series put me in a mindset that was better suited for praying to Anann, who is a Celtic Goddess, after all. But it also made me wonder, which brings me to the question of my post: are the gods local?

For me, it seems more easy to connect to my matron Anann – and my patron Manannán, for that matter; a heron was constantly visible while walking along the lake – while I’m in England. Possibly this is because I first met my matron while I was living in Nottingham, so the place and especially a certain area around the lake will always be associated with Her. Also, there is an abundance of animals that I associate with Her, like swans and the geese. 

On the other hand, I find it more easy to connect to Thor and the Northern Gods when I’m in my hometown, where They must have been worshipped in the past since we still have a Woden’s Oak. Especially in winter, when temperatures drop to minus 20 degrees and small villages are in danger of getting cut off from the roads, I feel closer to my ancestors’ gods. I’m assuming that I’ll have a deeper connection to Odin in His Wild Hunt aspect when I’ll go back to my hometown in winter (until a couple weeks ago, I’ve shied away from His contact, but that is a topic for a different post).

 This is me, on a normal winter day in my hometown.

So, are the gods local then? For me, the answer to this question is both yes and no.

Yes in the sense that for me, some places and even seasons are so deeply connected with a specific Goddess/God that I find establishing a connection to Them in prayer is quite effortless. For example, I can feel my matron more strongly in an autumn equinox ritual on English soil, because this is the time and place where I first found Her (or rather, She found me, for various reasons) – connecting with Thor in the same place and time would prove more difficult for me; but He has His own times and places where I strongly feel His energy – just think summer thunderstorms over a field. 

But no, the Gods are not local because They will hear your voice and feel your love for Them no matter where on this planet you are. The Kemetic pantheon, in my understanding, does not require you to reside in Egypt to be able to call upon Them and have a close and fulfilling relationship with Them, nor does praying to the Northern and Celtic gods require an ancestry based in the Northern or Celtic countries. Claiming such a thing, for me, borders on racism and is a thought best avoided. However, I feel that certain areas where the Gods have been worshipped for thousands of years are more imbued with Their energy and we might feel Their presence more strongly. So going to England for me is always a bit like coming home, both to a place I deeply love and also to the arms of my Mother. 

So what are your thoughts on the matter? Do you have special places that you associate with a certain God or Goddess?

Blessed be,

Harzgeist

All photos ©Harzgeist (Monika Pleyer); do not use without permission by the author of this blog.