IASC and Inclusive Heathenry.

Every IASC is different, and this year's edition was no different. Of course it was about reuniting with old friends I hadn't seen for more than 3 years, and of course there was much mead and silliness and song and late nights. And then there was the heat, and how glad I was to be sleeping in a tent, with at least some coolness during the night. I won't mention the food, although at least there were potatoes. But the one thing that made this IASC uniquely memorable for me was the big step forward we managed to make on the issue of inclusive asatru.

Per Lundberg got the ball rolling on Sunday, moderating a “creative conversation” exploring what inclusiveness means. For me the main conclusion of that discussion is that to be inclusive requires drawing boundaries; more specifically, boundaries relating to behaviour that I will not accept. As one of the IASC participants eloquently put it: “No one should, in an equal society, be discriminated for something they didn't choose and can't do anything about it. If someone chooses an ideology which makes them discriminating towards people because of their ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, ability, then that is a valid reason to be exclusive towards them.”

That same evening, we were treated to a most interesting lecture on the Matronae, presented by Ulrike Pohl. The Matronae cult puts forward a compelling case for acceptance and inclusivity 1800 years ago. The Ubii, a Germanic tribe, were resettled in the Rhineland by the Romans, and brought with them the worship of the Matronae. As Roman soldiers and civilians settled in the same territory, they took up the worship of these goddesses who had now become “local”, mingling Roman and Germanic traditions in a cult which appears to have welcomed people from both cultures.

Our introduction to the Matronae was deepened next day: an excursion to two different Cult sites gave is the opportunity to make a personal connection to them; as well as to celebrate a blot in their honour at one of their major cult-sites.

It soon became clear that the topic of inclusive heathenry was at the forefront of many of the IASC participant's minds, and so an impromptu meeting was added to an already well-filled scedule on Wednesday. The original vague idea was to take the thoughts and ideas we had started discussing and developing during FrithForge last year and build further on them. We rounded up all the FrithForge participants we could find, as well as a number of people who hadn't been able to attend or who were very interested in the topic. An intense brainstorming session followed, focussing on the concrete steps we could take to promote an inclusive heathenry. A number of practical suggestions, several relating to communication, were put forward; highlighting the need for us to define a strategy including short-term and long-term goals. We agreed that we would need another session to brainstorm that. Another important conclusion we arrived at was the need to address the issue from a spiritual perspective as well.

This conclusion, rather organically, fed into the preparations for the Seidh-session which was held on Thursday evening. This was a “hjällesittning” (roughly translates as “ledge-sitting”), the focus of which was “lighting the fires of frith, spreading the sparks across the continents and fanning them into flame in the hearts of many; too numerous to extinguish.” Early in the evening Per explained the mechanics of the ritual and our focus for it, followed by familiarising us with the chant we would be using. As dusk began to fall, the ritual started: standing in a circle we started raising energy by chanting and drumming. We focussed this energy towards the centre where a pair of seidhworkers sat, using this energy to travel into the spirit-world in order to carry out their seidh-work. After quite some time, they had finished their task; these are the images the seidhworkers brought back from their seidhwork.

Seidhperson 1

“A mass of screaming faces, all trying to push themselves in front, as far as the eye can see. Purposefully, so that we can see nothing else.

The energy builds up, and other faces appear in the mass. Some of them are strange, not restricted to just one form. These are well-intentioned spirits. The energy we are directing flows out to them. They make a circle around our fire, and our fire gets connected up to other fires around the world. Here too there are helpful spirits and faces. We direct the energy to these fires and purposefully to these spirits to strengthen them in their tasks. The spirits around the fires stand with their faces turned outwards, both protecting and spreading our values towards the outside.

Mind the wolves!”

Seidhperson 2

“Fires burn on the hilltops, in the valleys float horrible oily clouds. The fires can hardly be seen because the clouds hang above them and try to gain the hilltops. Suddenly we cross the seas; here there are only 3 fires still burning, the rest is black oily clouds. Dirty, black, sticking like tar. The clouds shine and glitter on their underside, like false gold, luring people to them until they get caught and trapped in the sticky blackness. The objective of the black clouds is to take things over, to dominate. The energy we send feeds the fires. It sinks into the earth, deeper even than the dwarves, where a sort of dragon resides. The fires must be connected up to the deep power of the earth. We do this not just for ourselves, but for all the spirit creatures. We need to do this also for them, for the heartbeat of the earth. Our strength lies in the connections between people, but also with the other beings and spiritual creatures. Not just connections between organisations, abstract ideas and concepts, but between people! The connection between individuals is extremely important!”

After the main seidhwork was finished, some of the participants were able to ask personal questions to the seidhworkers and get an oracle in response. Eventually all the questions had been answered, and the seidhworkers returned from their trance. Night had arrived, and our intense seidh session had come to an end.

On Friday, Robert Lewis gave an introductory presentation of ADF, which for most of us was something completely new. Robert then gave us the opportunity to participate in a “typical” ADF ritual, honouring the gods. After a very brief discussion, we agreed to honour one of the gods whose name kept coming up when we talked about inclusivity: Heimdall, the guardian of boundaries. The ritual itself was very interesting, albeit rather more ceremonial than I am used to. One aspect in particular appealed to me: after the offering, we asked for Heimdall's blessing. This we did by drawing the runes; the idea behind this is based on the old practices of taking auguries to confirm if the divinity had accepted the offering. In this case, we ended up drawing 6 runes:

Personally I take these runes as a favourable omen: our efforts to spread the fire of inclusive heathenry (fehu sowulo) have protection (algiz), and there is help available (ehwaz) to stop the spread of nationalist/racist ideas (hagalaz othila).

In the afternoon, we held another fruitful brainstorming session. The outcome of our discussions was a short list of three main goals:

1. Promotion of whole healthy respectful society, build a heathen community which people feel safe going to. This covers also providing better community support and improving community feeling

2. Raising internal awareness of inclusivity amongst members of our organisations. We also need to make clear what inclusivity means, and raise awareness about dog-whistles

3. Becoming the go-to reference source for all things heathen related (this includes increasing visibility, and increasing prominence)

   • Make use of different media (video, art, cultural events…) to get our message out to the wider community: not all heathens are far-right or neo-nazis.

   • Organise and participate in Pagan events, festivals

   • Become more visible and prominent than all non-inclusive groups, ensuring our inclusive group of heathen organisations is highly visible and becomes the reference for heathenry/asatru.

   • Increase availability and visibility on different platforms, especially different social media… we must be easily findable. We need to define a list of social media we want to be a part of.

   • Be clearer to the outside world that we are inclusive. Shout it out!

Another topic that was discussed was the target groups – who are we aiming our message at? This will drive our communication strategy. One aspect in particular was highlighted: we need to communicate our thoughts and ideas about inclusive heathenry to the broader pagan/heathen community.

Of course, just holding brainstorming sessions doesn’t get things done; so some volunteers got together and initiated a media project. Short statements about inclusive heathenry from various participants were filmed, and will be put together to produce a snappy video clip.

A lot of time, energy and constructive efforts went into making this IASC a success, on many fronts. But perhaps the most important thing we achieved at this IASC was meeting each other again face-to-face, strengthening the bonds between ourselves, cementing existing friendships and forging new relationships.