Here, There Be Gods

I used to have awful luck. I was conditioned by situations to be a pessimist. If something good did happen, it just meant it was time for the other shoe to drop.

The last few months I’ve really buckled down with my personal approach to heathenry, applying what I’ve read and have listened to, experimenting in my interactions, all to develop proper, beneficial and meaningful relationships with the world around me.

And the world around me has changed. My luck is changing. I know that there is a large part of paganism, and some heathens, who have personal relationships with their gods. They hear them, feel guided by them, and grow spiritually through them. I’ve never been one for that, I resist anything that even has an inkling of self-help. But this luck thing? It’s like having that, except without the woo.

I just have a confidence that there will be a positive outcome now. My husband and I have been playing scratch tickets for the last month because I always come up a winner. Not anything big; five dollars here, ten there, once a hundred. But I know I’ll get something and that’s the thing. It’s not winning a few lotto tickets thats the good luck, its the feeling of content confidence, the feeling that I’m in a good place with the world. I know I’m currently in good. Its just a sense that I’m sailing on the right current instead of swimming against the tides. I know I’m walking a path of good deeds by the return I get.  And this is what’s meant by the reciprocal relationship. This is how I interact with gods and wights and ancestors. And it’s so… nice. The results and the interactions are tangible.

I’m glad I held out, I’m glad I believed that there was another way to relate to the gods even when doubts crept in. I’m not anybody’s tool, or pet project, or servant and the gods still don’t believe in spiritual salvation. I’m just one of many living beings; bones hard like stone, hair greying like the changing of leaves, shared air drawn into my lungs. But now I’m getting along with the wights, the animals, the plants, and not caught up in a steward of the earth mentality.

When the bunnies died I went outside and I found a stone, and on that stone I drew a rabbit.  There used to be rules men followed, they used to ask permission to hunt, to enter a forest.  And whatever they killed, they’d draw its image upon a stone so that the spirit could enter it and return to life. (Roles of the Northern Goddess -HRED)

I’m following those rules now. Not the rules of man or community but the rules of the earth, of the beasts. And in doing so I feel that its opened up…something. Good things occur now. I am a friend, or close to friendship. I’ve earned their support, but I could also lose it if I become a littering, selfish, close-minded human with no regard for those I share all this with.

The thing about luck in Germanic concepts is that there isn’t bad luck, there’s  just the absenceof luck. Thats how I was living before.  Luck isn’t random, it isn’t something that happens by chance. It isn’t like saying “oh, I got lucky today!” like a one time incident. Having luck means that you’re in good with tptb (whether those are gods, spirits, or ancestors), and that they work with you instead of ignorant of you or against you. Things just go well because you help things go well. Because you’re following the customs of the local living land around you, and being respectful of the “spiritual” rules and procedures.

Another thing to consider with luck is the Hamingja: the embodiment of your luck. “Some people have a Hamingja thats stronger than others” .