Beneath the Surface

And I ought to be working on the Mayday blot to Freyja (because that's in two weeks), but instead I'm working on the Thor fact sheet for the next god study group.

Although it's possible we'll be doing that this weekend (next month if not), don't know yet. (The beauty of a small group is its flexibility.) I'm through the elder Edda, working on Snorri's now, writing capsules of the Thor stories. Damn, Thor is in a lot of stories! Which, of course, I knew, but still, damn! I should have no problem getting through the rest of Snorri, but beyond that might be a crunch.

Edit: Made it through Snorri! Actually I am considering the usefulness of including only info straight from the lore. Although I may be considering this only because it's 2 in the morning... :)

This weekend, god study group focusing on Thor (yay!).

Next weekend, lore study group continuing with Voluspa.

Following weekend, nothing.

Weekend after that, Mayday, honoring Freyja (yay!).

We're starting out our restarted lore study group with Lokasenna tomorrow. I like Lokasenna, it's in my all time top 5 favorite pieces of lore. so obviously I'm looking forward to it. We had some discussion about whether to just dive into the text (I think we'll have at least 5 different translations at the group) or to have some background discussion first, and I think we decided on the latter.

(Lokasenna, for the non-heathen on my FL, has as its basic plot the following: Loki goes to a feast at Aegir's hall. He makes trouble and is thrown out on his ear. He then returns and insults everyone in sight, and things come out about his own ill deeds as well. Finally he leaves, tries to make an escape but is captured and tied to a rock with a serpent dripping venom over his face. That's putting it simply, I don't have an Edda at hand. :))

It's an entertaining read, without a doubt. But the interesting bit to me is how controversial it seems to be within the modern heathen community. It's probably the single most common piece of lore for people to simply discount altogether, and it's not uncommon for people to pick and choose from within it--I've heard folks who insist that everything Loki says about the others is a lie, while insisting equally strongly that everything bad said about Loki himself is true (although certainly Loki isn't very imaginative when it comes to insulting the goddesses, he pretty much calls them all sluts and leaves it at that!).

Personally, I like it, but then I'm not a literalist when it comes to the lore. There's a lot in there, including an interesting take on the difference between Aesic and Vanic morality.

Among the projects I've had in the planning phase for too long :) is a webpage for our kindred. I suppose I keep stalling because I don't have a firm purpose for it; while we're not a closed group, our blots and so forth are invitation-only and we only invite folks we know or who are vouched for by someone we know. So it's not a "come one, come all" thing. But we're open to meeting new heathens--and there are so few heathens in our area that we want a contact point.

And then there's the spam issue. Sigh. Anyone know a good way to fool the address collectors? Hard to be a contact point if there's no contact email address on the website.

We had a wonderful Midsummer! It was so beautiful on the shore of Lake Superior, the weather was warm and breezy. We used a large rock (4' or so) near the breakwater as an altar. We had decided that rather than focusing on a specific deity or deities, we would honor the sun and whichever other gods the people there felt close to, and we had six prayers offered, four prepared and two spontaneous, which was very nice. Eight people were there, which was also very nice :).

I'm skipping Pagan Coffee Night tonight to recover from the trip (I'm afraid I really don't travel very well :(). I think I'm going to get out my yarns and work on embroidering a tunic later on, probably haven't touched it in months--why is it that projects without a deadline become so much more compelling when you have other more pressing things you really ought to be working on instead?

Which I guess means I'm missing any discussion on group names among the people in my group. We've been idly considering coming up with a name for a while but it hasn't been a real priority (after all, we know who we are :)); however, after several days at Trothmoot when every time I'd mention my kindred to someone they'd automatically ask "What's its name?" I'm thinking we should really put some serious effort into it. After all, we've been doing heathen ritual 7-8 times a year for about 2 1/2 years IIRC, having occasional study groups, and getting together socially on a regular basis. There's certainly a group identity there--we just have to put a name to it.