I became a Heathen in a city of two million people where, as far as I knew, I was the only one. I live ten thousand kilometers from Uppsala. Yule falls in June here, and the birch does not grow. For a long time I believed all of this made me a lesser kind of Heathen. I would like to save you the years it took me to see that it does not.
You are the majority
The books and the photographs show kindreds: a ring of people around a fire, a horn going around. It is a beautiful picture and I hope you find it one day. But most Heathens, in most of the world, practice by themselves or with their household. The old religion itself was very largely a matter of the farm and the family. The woman who set out a bowl for the spirits of her house a thousand years ago was not waiting for a kindred to make it real.
Begin with a shelf
You need very little. Mine began as one shelf of a bookcase.
- A place. A shelf, a windowsill, a corner of a table. Somewhere that is not used for anything else.
- A bowl or cup for offerings.
- Something for the ancestors. A photograph, a ring, a recipe in your grandmother's handwriting.
- Something for the gods you feel drawn to. It need not be a statue. A stone, a key, a spindle, or a sprig of something green will do.
- A light. A candle, if your home allows it.
If you cannot be open about your religion where you live, and many of our members cannot, a shelf like this draws no attention. To anyone else it is a few keepsakes.
Keep a rhythm
A practice lives in repetition. Choose a day and keep it. On Friday evenings I light the candle, pour a little of whatever I am drinking into the bowl, and say a few words to Frigg and to my grandmothers. It takes five minutes. I have done it for nine years, in three apartments, through two bereavements, and it has become the fixed point around which the week turns.
Then keep the great tides, even if you keep them alone: Winter Nights, Yule, the start of summer. Cook something. Set a place. Go outside.
Honor the land you are on
This took me longest to understand. The sagas speak of the land wights of Iceland and the house spirits of Norway. I do not live in Iceland or Norway. The spirits of my place are the spirits of this place: of this river, this red earth, these trees whose names my ancestors here knew.
What Heathenry gave me was not a set of foreign spirits to import. It gave me a way of behaving toward the ones who are already here: with gifts, with respect, with a request for leave before I act. I make my offerings at the foot of a tree that never grew in any northern forest, and I do not think the principle suffers for it.
The same applies to the calendar. I keep Yule at my own midwinter, in June, when the nights are longest here and my neighbors light their own bonfires. A festival of the returning sun makes no sense in a week when the sun is at its height.
Read, slowly and well
The solitary Heathen has no elder at her elbow, so the sources are her teachers. Start with the two Eddas and one or two sagas, and read them more than once. Our reading list will guide you.
Be careful what else you read. A lonely person searching online will be found, sooner or later, by people who want to recruit her, and some of them are not what they seem. Our guidance on groups to avoid is worth reading before you join anything.
The loneliness
I will not pretend it away. There are evenings when I pour the offering and the apartment is very quiet, and I would give a great deal to hear another voice say the names of the gods.
Two things have helped. The first is the dead. I am never the only one at my shelf: my grandmothers are there, and behind them a line of women longer than I can imagine. A solitary Heathen who keeps her ancestors is not, in fact, alone.
The second is the circle. Once a month I sit down in front of a screen with seven other women who speak my language, here in Brazil and scattered abroad, and for two hours I do not have to explain anything. If you are where I was, please do not wait as long as I did. There is a circle for you, or there are two other women near you who are waiting for someone to start one.
You are not a lesser Heathen
You do not need northern ancestors, a northern climate, a kindred, or anyone's permission. You need a gift in your hand, a true word in your mouth, and the patience to keep coming back. The gods traveled far in the old days. They will find you where you are.