HEARTH RELIGION

One of the things that I'm most gratified to see in the ADF to which I have returned is a focus on the development of personal spiritual practice centered around an individual's hearth religion. The recognition that paleopagan practice was never monolithic even within a culture, but was instead centered in a multiplicity of family units, gives us a way to allow for individual preferences while still letting us develop an "institutional" form of shared religion within each Grove and in ADF as a whole. My own protogrove's stated focus, for example, is Irish, but while the Irish hearth culture does not particularly appeal to me, the foundations it shares with the cultures that I do have affinities with allow me to appreciate and gain benefit from Grove work while allowing my personal practice to take a shape more fully congruent with my own needs.

My personal hearth religion is still developing; I feel myself homing in on a hearth culture but am still waiting as patiently as I can for my patron(s) to speak. I started out exploring the Norse ways; while the AEsir and Vanir and the stories of their deeds resonate with me and will always inform my interior life, the Norse path does not feel sufficient in itself to act as my sole religious focus. Searching further, I was surprised to find a deep current of sympathy with the continental Celts; I had never known much about Gaul but I discovered that even the names of the Gaulish gods and goddesses struck something deep within me. The greatest bulk of my ancestry comes from what is now Germany; I had a wonderful chance to spend some time exploring my newfound connection to Gaul as I had the chance to sail down the Rhine near the winter solstice in 2007 and was able to tread the lands of both the Gauls and the Germanic tribes that lie on either side of that river. Some of the Gaulish deities with whom I have been seeking to establish relationships include Sucellos and Nantosuelta, Cathubodwa, Epona, Belenos, Sirona, and Arduinna. I have also been attempting to make contact with the great spirits of the rivers that flow through my own city, as river deities appear to have been very important to these Celts.

I rediscovered a great draw also to the gods and ways of the Greeks; as a child I had read accounts of the myths and I remembered, while studying Hellenic myth and religion, how much I used to love those stories. I found that I felt a great draw as well to the Olympian Poseidon. I also began to trace the Hellenization of the ancient world and have spent some time looking for its influences as Greek ways spread through conquest to the later tradition of the Gaulish Celts under the Roman Empire. The Romano-Gaulish traditions may be where I find a confluence of the Northern European ways of my ancestry and the Mediterranean influences I have come to find attractions to, and this is my main current area of exploration. I am also learning more about the proto-Indo-European traditions that some ADF members are attempting to reconstruct, although I expect that these traditions may simply act as a source for refinements of aspects of my own hearth religion, particularly those aspects that are difficult to reconstruct from less speculative sources.

The spiritual work of my personal hearth religion is currently focused primarily on regaining an animistic worldview. I am somewhat envious of the practitioners of Shinto for never having lost such a worldview; animism speaks strongly to me and seems as well to be the basis of the religions of my various ancestors — Norse, German, Celtic, and Ojibwa. In recognizing the spirit life around me, I am reconnecting to the ancient knowledge of my ancestors, and in renewing my relationship with them I am rediscovering my interconnectedness with the whole of life on Earth.

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