This is not the America I Loved
Posted on July 3, 2025 CE, in PoliticsNovember 5, 2024 was an eye opener for me. The fact that almost half of voters chose to vote for a literal fascist, and that his racism, sexism, and hateful rhetoric wasn’t deal breakers for them really made me question the way I saw the world and my place in it. Maybe we’ve always been this way, and it was just what we aspired to be that made us hide the worst parts of us, but where we are today is not the America I was taught about in school.
Don't Throw Out the Baby
Posted by Byron Pendason on May 3, 2024 CE, in Heathenry, Heathen worldview, ReconstructionWes hāl!1 I think most of us have gotten good at judging how true something is based on our first impressions. If it sounds like something that could be true, we assume it’s true and move on with our day. If it’s something that sounds absurd, we likewise reject the proposition and move on. We’ve pretty much had to. With the internet being so pervasive in our modern lives, we come across more information than we could possibly ever have time to verify. And this system works decently well when it’s subjects that we are well acquainted with. We can...
On the Afterlife
Posted by Byron Pendason on February 17, 2024 CE, in Heathenry, Afterlife, Heathen worldview, ReconstructionWes hāl!1 Heathenry, like much of paganism, is a religion which focuses on this life. Heathens worry more about cultivating relationships with their divine beings to gain their aid in making this life better, rather than trying to please a god to gain entrance into the hereafter. But to say Heathenry has no afterlife would also be inaccurate.2 Wes hāl and Beo gesund are Old English greetings and farewells that literally mean Be well/whole/healthy. The first seemed to be more common among the Anglian dialects and the second more common among the Saxon dialects. I prefer to use both though,...
What is Up to Us?
Posted by Byron Pendason on February 4, 2024 CE, in Heathenry, Stoicism, Philosophical musingsWes hāl!1 In Stoicism, the dichotomy of control is a fundamental concept. At least that’s what I had been led to believe. A recent discussion on r/Stoicism challenged this concept though, and I found the discussion enlightening. Wes hāl and Beo gesund are Old English greetings and farewells that literally mean Be well/whole/healthy. The first seemed to be more common among the Anglian dialects and the second more common among the Saxon dialects. I prefer to use both though, the first as a greeting and the second as a farewell. ↩
The Winter Holidays
Posted by Byron Pendason on December 10, 2023 CE, in Heathenry, Anglo-saxon calendar, Heathen basics, Heathen worship, ReconstructionWes hāl!1 Winter is here! My reconstructed calendar has winter beginning with the Wintermonað full moon. For 2023, that began on October 28 (keep in mind that for the Anglo-Saxons, there were only two seasons, winter and summer). For this blog post, I want to go through the winter holidays and give my thoughts on them. Wes hāl and Beo gesund are Old English greetings and farewells that literally mean Be well/whole/healthy. The first seemed to be more common among the Anglian dialects and the second more common among the Saxon dialects. I prefer to use both though, the first...