What I Believe
Posted by Byron Pendason on February 15, 2023 CE, in Heathenry, Afterlife, Anglo-saxon calendar, Cosmology, Heathen basics, Heathen worldview, Heathen worship, Philosophical musings, Reconstruction, Runes, Stoicism, UpdatesWes hāl!1 I’m going to do something a little different today. I’m going to provide the fundamentals of what I believe as far as religion goes. I doubt anyone is going to agree with everything, and some people might not agree with any of it. That’s okay, I don’t base my friendships on agreement, but rather mutual interests and respect. Still, I think it could be helpful to some to see what one version of Fyrnsidu might look like (and again, this is only one version of it). My beliefs are always in flux, so these might not be applicable...
The Cardinal Virtues
Posted by Byron Pendason on January 22, 2023 CE, in Heathenry, Philosophical musings, Reconstruction, StoicismWes hāl!1 One of the things that Heathenry lacks is a definitive cohesive theory on ethics. The reason for this is due to its tendency to be based upon reconstructionist methodology, and the fact is that no records from the pre-Christian Heathens survive. The closest we have is parts of the Poetic Edda, but even that comes to us from the Christians that wrote it down and probably modified it to better fit their worldview. 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...
Stoicism and Heathenry
Posted by Byron Pendason on January 15, 2023 CE, in Heathenry, Philosophical musings, Reconstruction, StoicismWes hāl!1 I have recently become a student of Stoicism, but as I said in my last blog post Stoicism is not a Germanic philosophy. It was born in the Hellenic world, and was later adopted by the Romans. In this blog post, I want to discuss the relationship between Stoicism and Heathenry. What are the similarities, the differences, and are they even compatible? So let’s dive in! 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...
Accepting Fate
Posted by Byron Pendason on December 30, 2022 CE, in Heathenry, Heathen worldview, Philosophical musings, StoicismWes hāl!1 As I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve been studying philosophy lately. Stoicism, to be precise. An important concept of Stoicism is the idea of accepting one’s fate and not fighting against it. People familiar with Heathenry may know that in Heathenry, it is generally thought that our Wyrd (the Heathen concept of fate) is not predetermined nor is it pre-ordained by some god. So, how can we translate this idea of accepting fate to Heathenry? Wes hāl and Beo gesund are Old English greetings and farewells that literally mean Be well/whole/healthy. The first seemed to be more...
Video Review: Why Are We Afraid to be Pagan?
Posted by Byron Pendason on December 23, 2022 CE, in Heathenry, Heathen worldview, UpdatesWes hal!1 An ally recently posted^4 a video to her YouTube channel entitled Why Are We Afraid to be Pagan? She poses some interesting questions, in an attempt to start a conversation on the matters in the video. Before getting into the video itself, though, let’s talk about the author a little bit. 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...