Going to church no more makes you a Christian than standing in a garage makes you a car.
~ Garrison Keillor

And going to bløts no more makes you Heathen than standing in a garage makes you a car.

Showing up is a start, but then what do you do with the experience afterward? Did you learn something to share? Did you learn something about yourself that you can work with to make a change? Were you moved to a new level of connection with your kindred, community, or deities that prompted you to make or renew a commitment?

Showing up, singing songs, and passing the horn is fun, but fun is not the only goal—you could go to the movies or play miniature golf if your only aim is fun.

We spend time in ritual, in study groups, in other community activities to learn from each other, to learn about ourselves, our gods, and other entities, and to learn about what being Heathen looks like on a daily basis in real time and real life. We find ways to manifest our values in our words and actions, so that what we say and do is congruent with our beliefs. We do better at being the people we aspire to be, and do better at inspiring others to be their best selves.

Our friends at the Public Domain Review have posted Edmund Fry’s Pantographia: Containing Accurate Copies of All the Known Alphabets in the World from 1799. It contains 405 alphabets from 164 languages. PDR notes that, “To get these letters into print, Fry carved each one onto a steel punch, which could be pressed into a copper matrix for printing. It took him sixteen years, four thousand punches, and an estimated ten thousand hours of labor.”

Some of the alphabets are the ones you would expect from an educated gentleman of the late 18th century—Latin (12 options), Greek (39 varieties!), and Phoenician. There are many surprises, however, including North American Indigenous languages fitted to the Roman alphabet (awkwardly, many times), six varieties of Arabic, and many languages noted as “a dialect of” some far-off land that we know today by another name, e.g. “The Sandwich Islands”, which we call Hawaii).

The book uses the Christian Lord’s Prayer as its example text for almost all of the languages, an understandable choice for the time of publication. It includes a few vocabulary words for some languages, which have a few common words (mother, father, house), but the differing words reveal more about the culture the language is from, and Fry’s perspective on that culture, than Fry probably intended.

Pages 244-245 feature the “Runic” alphabet of Iceland:

If you have any interest in alphabets, languages, or historical books, I recommend checking out the uploaded book—it’s fascinating, and I enjoyed it greatly!

      —for Walter Aikens

Read by Jubi Arriola-Headley:

On one of the mailing lists I check randomly, someone had posted requesting ideas for Yule “to recognize the gods, honor my ancestors, reflect on each month in the past year, make oaths, and celebrate”. I offered the following suggestions:

*You could pick 12 candles, one for each month of the year. Light one per day, and reflect on that month in the current year—what that month gave you to celebrate and what it gave you to release; also, reflect on what you want to see/do/create in that month for the coming year.

*As you reflect, you can write in your journal/grimoire/random paper about things that stood out (whether positive, negative, or neutral).

*You can use these daily writings to help set your priorities for the coming year, and figure out what oaths (if any) you want to make for 2024, which I would recommend doing in a separate ritual after Yule ends, since you will not finish the reflection until the last night of Yule.

*You could pick a different ancestor / set of ancestors, and/or a different deity/set of deities to honor each day as well. Or alternate between ancestors and deities.

*If you like to dress your candles, you can use any fragrance that appeals to you and makes sense for you. You could choose the oil based on the month—for example, a floral scent for May to acknowledge the May flowers resulting from April showers; winter months could have pine, snow, an “Alpine Mist”-type blend, etc. I’m partial to Bayberry for December, but that’s a personal association.

*You could carve runes into the candles—the name of the month, name(s) of ancestors or deities, runes representing things that happened this past year or that you want to happen next year.

I hope you find these ideas useful and inspiring!

The Rendlesham Community Archeology Project has unearthed a 1,400-year-old temple in East Anglia, near Sutton Hoo. It was found as part of the excavation of the royal compound, which is believed to be the royal court described by Bede in Ecclesiastical History of the English People.

The area was a center of royal residence and power in the 6th to 8th centuries CE. The excavation has revealed several buildings, including the temple, the royal hall, and a smithy. The temple, or cult house, is believed to have hosted pagan rituals and worship, based on the history of the area and the age of the building.

Photo credit: Rendlesham, Suffolk Heritage