In the Eye of Eternity

When I met David Attenborough in 1982, I was a nerdy little kid in awe of the natural historian I had watched lead a tour through evolution in the BBC television series Life on Earth. Broadcast on PBS in the United States, the series stood next to Carl Sagan’s Cosmos as one of the two defining TV viewing experiences that introduced young Generation X to the mind-blowing wonder and mystery of science.

A red-eyed tree frog strikes a pose (photo by Eric De Vries)

I had seen the original Star Wars in 1977 in my first visit to a movie theater, been buried in Marvel and DC comics since kindergarten, and started reading classic science fiction novels in elementary school. When we watched Attenborough and Sagan on PBS as a family, there was as much a sense of excitement around science as there was around science fiction.

In those long-ago days before MTV’s success convinced producers that blindingly fast edits were necessary for creating audience excitement, a kid could be transfixed and hypnotized by calmly narrated nature films that moved at what now seems a glacial pace. Today, even the science fiction movies of that era seem sleepy. Back then, everything was amazing.

After I heard Attenborough give a talk at the Darwin Centenary Conference at Cambridge, I stood in line with my newly purchased paperback of the Life on Earth book and waited to talk to him. When it was my turn, the best I could muster was, “Can I have your autograph?” It’s funny to me now how starstruck I was then by a scientist.

“An awesome responsibility”

Nearly forty years later, a friend sent me an Attenborough quotation that often appears in print and periodically pops up on social media. The popular passage quotes the final words to his 1979 Life on Earth book, the very one that I had autographed as a kid.

The fact is that no species has ever had such wholesale control over everything on earth, living or dead, as we now have. That lays upon us, whether we like it or not, an awesome responsibility. In our hands now lies not only our own future, but that of all other living creatures with whom we share the earth.

The sentence immediately preceding the quotation makes clear that Attenborough is by no means forwarding any sort of Christian dominion theology or promoting the idea that we have a right to rule the planet.

But although denying that we have a special position in the natural world might seem becomingly modest in the eye of eternity, it might also be used as an excuse for evading our responsibilities.

Humans are not predetermined to be lords of the earth. As a lover of Norse mythology, I embrace the story of the one-eyed Odin and his brothers creating the first humans from trees – not as literal truth but as a reminder that we are relative latecomers to the pageant of life on the world the myths call Midgard, the middle space.

As Attenborough emphasizes, our smallness in the grand scheme of things is out of proportion to our impact on this planet and the monumental size of the harm we continue to wreak. Decades after Life on Earth, the natural historian continues to publicly speak out about the deadly acceleration of human-caused climate change and the urgent need for serious action to be taken now.

When Attenborough writes of responsibility, he speaks a truth that many of us refuse to hear. It is a much more comfortable thing to criticize and complain than it is to stand up for positive but painful progress and to make meaningful modifications in our own lives.

Climate change is an enormous concept that is very difficult to grasp, both intellectually and emotionally.

The scale of transformation that must be made boggles the mind, so people of positive intent perform small acts with tiny global impacts (recycling a soda can, purchasing a reusable coffee mug) instead of creating or joining mass movements to drive consequential action (ending the use of fossil fuels worldwide, funding reusable energy systems at home and in developing countries).

Three directions

For those of us who practice any modern form of so-called “nature religions,” invoke the spirits of the land, or venerate the deities of earth, water, and sky, there is a spiritual imperative paired with a scientific one.

Do our deeds live up to our vows? Whatever fine words we say in ritual to honor the powers are all too easily canceled out by our harmful action and casual inaction as we tsk-tsk over the ongoing damage being done to the physical manifestations of spirits we profess to honor.

As a practitioner of Ásatrú, I believe in three directions of responsibility – to those who came before, to those who share this time with us now, and to those who are yet to come.

With responsibility comes the imperative to act. We must make up for the mistakes of those who preceded us, take meaningful action to improve life for all now living, and do all that we can to help build a brighter future for all children of all nationalities, races, ethnicities, identities, and creeds.

The lore of Ásatrú and Heathenry does not focus solely on the divine and the supernatural. It also tells of the tragedy of Sigurd, the bravery of Hervor, and the self-sacrifice of Beowulf. A great value is placed on honest friendship, hard deeds done out of love and loyalty, and a strong sense of responsibility to others.

Of course, there are selfish characters, but there is often strong criticism of them in the tales – and especially in the words of Odin in Hávamál (“Sayings of the High One”).

Odin and Darwin, wandering seekers of wisdom

If we believe in the value of these tales, we should place a value on the lives around us as those whom we lionize did in their own times. This seems like a very basic concept, yet we are surrounded in today’s United States by many fellow citizens who loudly declare their individual rights while brushing aside any reminders of their responsibilities to the wider community.

Climate change ethicists have long discussed the general human inability to feel an emotional attachment to imagined descendants very far beyond those that we may meet in our lifetimes. The farther out beyond children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren we imagine, the less we can envision these possible future individuals as real people rather than as constructs and numbers.

Maybe hoping that people will make drastic changes in their lives for the sake of theoretical future humans whom they will never meet is too much to ask. Maybe we are simply too limited as a species to truly care about those who only have the potential to be born long after we’ve been buried or burned.

A dark place

I believe in the value of deeds. I believe in the importance of action.

For those who simply won’t or can’t make major changes for the good of those separated from them by vast distances of space and time, there are simple actions that can be taken today that will have a direct, positive, and powerful impact on those living people who are the closest and most important – our family, friends, colleagues, and community.

We’re not sailing into unknown waters but, unfortunately, maybe turning around and going back to a dark place where we’ve been before.

H5N1 avian influenza – also known as bird flu – has now had nearly seventy confirmed human cases in the United States. The virus has already begun to mutate in order to better replicate itself in human hosts. A Long Island farm recently discovered that its flock of ducks was infected and, in order to protect its staff, killed the entire population of over 100,000 birds.

At the same time as this new threat is developing, the nominee for head of the Department of Health and Human Services is a longtime anti-vaccine activist who advises parents to not vaccinate their children (although he vaccinates his own kids).

He’s also an outspoken advocate for drinking raw milk, a common carrier of the bird flu virus (although his own mentally crippling parasitic worm infestation likely came from eating undercooked meat).

There is a loud subset of Americans who regularly declare their decision to never again wear a mask or get a vaccine of any sort, regardless of the consequences to themselves.

The problem is that the consequences of their individual acts are felt by the rest of us. We are all connected by webs of wyrd, whether we will or not, whether we are aware of them or not. Actions have effects that spread far beyond what our self-centered perspectives perceive.

“Our fearless Viking forefathers”

If making up for the gross polluting mistakes of the dead seems unfair, committing to campaign for the final end of fossil fuels feels too inconvenient, and building a better life for future children of the wider world sounds like someone else’s problem, wearing a mask and getting a vaccine are simple acts that will make an immediate and positive difference to those we can see, hear, and touch.

Death rates are definitively tied to political party affiliation, but that fact is unlikely to change any hardened minds. In the overheated kettle of online rhetoric surrounding masks and vaccines, there is a conspiracy theory to rebut every scientific study.

With each day and each new bursting bubble of purulent nonsense, I come closer to understanding the twisted mindset that led to the denunciation of Copernicus, Galileo, and Darwin. It’s still here and still shouting down the science.

Papa Hildebrand, Attenborough lecture ticket, and signed copy of Life on Earth

As Americans under the Stars and Stripes, we have every right to be frightened of modern medicine that explains itself in journal articles using advanced technical jargon. We have every right to refuse to wear masks with straps that make our ears sore. We have every right to show we care more about our own ability to understand and level of personal comfort than we do about the lives of those who live around us.

If we decide to stand on these rights, maybe we should give up the rhetoric of “our glorious pagan ancestors” and “our fearless Viking forefathers.”

There are many reasons to give up on those hoary old concepts, but not the least of them is the sheer nonsense of valorizing ancient peoples for their supposed hardiness, adventurousness, and willingness to laugh in the face of death when standing up for their communities while simultaneously crying “You can’t make me!” regarding a thin paper mask on the lower face and a small needle shot in the shoulder.

Redirecting the discussion

In 2025, I find myself reconsidering the words of the natural scientist I was awed by in 1982. From a coupling with science fiction to a pairing with spirituality, I did not then and do not now see science as a separate enterprise from the rest of life.

Attenborough’s considered words are as powerful to me now as they were then. Who will heed them?

I believe we must consider what he has to say and redirect our national discussion from rights to responsibilities. We must spend less time venting about our legal right to think only of our individual wants and instead care more about our moral responsibility to the community’s needs.

I hope that we can work together to heal the planet. If not, I pray that we can at least take baby steps towards helping each other get past what may be more darkness ahead.

If we’re not even willing to do that, maybe we’re not much of a culture.

An earlier version of this article appeared at The Wild Hunt.

Faith in Democracy

The American experiment has always been imperfect.

From the founders who declared “all men are created equal” while owning slaves, to the “great emancipator” allowing slavery to continue in allied states, to the leaders who fought the racist Third Reich while enforcing segregation in our own armed forces, to the “pro-life” activists committing premeditated murders, we have always been a nation with a wide disparity between our self-aggrandizing rhetoric as torchbearers of freedom and our actions as defenders of oppression.

"To speak up for democracy, read up on democracy" (WPA poster, between 1935 and 1943)

Yes, the United States of America today are deeply divided. Yes, it can seem like the power of hatred is overwhelming.

It has been ever so.

There is no need for shocked pearl-clutching at the various contradictions and crises we currently face. Instead, there is need for each of us to stand against the rising tide of anti-democratic and hate-driven activity that surges around us.

Whether we will or no, religion is central to this forever war within American culture.

Identity

The religious have always played a role in this nation’s internal conflicts. They have invoked a lone god and godliness all along the spectrum from right to left, insisting that the teachings of their faiths justify both granting rights and taking them away, both ensuring equality and promoting privilege.

Simply insisting on the complete separation of religion and politics doesn’t accomplish much.

Faith is a part of identity. For many, it is an enormous part. To say that it should have no role in how we live our public lives is as much a dead-end as insisting that other aspects of who we are should play no part.

The religious portion of our identities necessarily shapes as much of our experiences and forms as much of our worldviews as do our ethnicities, races, genders, sexualities, abilities, and health. To pretend that we can simply turn any one of these facets of our lived lives on and off at will is to fundamentally deny the complexity of our intersectional identities.

I do not mean that we should legislate our belief systems or enforce holy law on others. We have had more than enough of that approach.

As someone who thinks a lot about the knowability of ancient religious worldview, the possibility of modern religious worldview, and the intelligibility of public theology informed by the first and built on the second, I mean that any religious worldview that we truly and honestly hold will, by definition, affect how we view public life and our place in it.

The question is, what difference does it make when one is a member of a minority religion instead of a majority one?

Experience

If we are at all serious about having an Ásatrú, Heathen, Pagan, or related worldview that is threaded through our lives – that is, one that colors our perception at times other than only during ritual activity – that worldview should already have a strong effect on how we relate to the public issues we face today.

If we really have this worldview as part of us, and not just as a something we put on like Viking-ish ritual dress when performing group rites, it should not take conscious effort but should flow naturally from our study, reflection, discussion, and practice.

To be clear, even those claiming to share a religious worldview aren’t predetermined to agree on how their participation in the same or related new religious movements shapes their understanding of specific issues. Pagans and Heathens are an argumentative lot, especially when challenged on their own prejudices.

Yet we all share, at least, the general common experience of belonging to religious traditions so small that they disappear into “other,” “unaffiliated,” and even “none” in the big surveys of religion in American public life.

Many of us have had the experience of being ignored by or excluded from “interfaith” organizations and events, of being treated as if our faiths have no place in the public sphere. Some of us have been treated as outsiders in our own families, or have felt obliged to hide our religious affiliations at work and in daily life.

Hopefully, these experiences have built a sensibility that flowers into understanding, empathy, and determination to defend democratic ideals.

Freedom

I am not now, nor have I ever been, a Witch. But I think a lot about the Wiccan Rede.

“An’ it harm none, do what ye will.”

Admittedly, I first came across the phrase “do what thou wilt” via my Led Zeppelin obsession as a 1980s rock ‘n’ roll high school kid. In those long-ago pre-internet days, I just knew it was a phrase inscribed on the vinyl of Led Zeppelin III and connected to Jimmy Page’s fascination with some strange dude named Aleister Crowley.

First vinyl pressing of Led Zeppelin III with Crowley inscription

I wasn’t consciously aware of the Wiccan phrase until after I began practicing Ásatrú in the 21st century, but it pops into my head a lot these days.

There is much talk of freedom in the United States right now, but it’s not a conception of freedom that I can get behind. So many of our fellow Americans embrace the “do what ye will” bit while gleefully stomping on the “an’ it harm none” part.

The freedom to vote has been twisted into the disenfranchisement of those considered likely to vote for the other side. The freedom of a community to be honestly represented has been jettisoned by gerrymandering that specifically breaks up minority communities to dilute their political input.

The freedom of democratic debate has been denigrated by those promoting armed insurrection to overthrow the electoral process. The freedom of working together for the common good has been ridiculed by self-obsessed grifters and their willing victims.

The freedom of bodily autonomy has morphed into the bizarre pairing of determinedly controlling women’s bodies while boastfully flouting basic communal health measures. The freedom of living a healthy life has been abandoned for the dark joys of tormenting those who follow the advice of medical professionals, even when ignoring that advice means the death of loved ones or oneself.

How does membership and participation in minority religions, new religious movements, and often misunderstood and misrepresented faith communities feed into our relationship to today’s anti-democratic movements that falsely wave the banner of “freedom”?

Faith

For those subscribing to the Wiccan Rede, it is as simple as insisting on both halves of the maxim. It’s such a wonderfully basic diagnostic that can be used to examine so many of the problems in the public sphere today.

For those who practice Ásatrú, Heathenry, or other modern Pagan traditions, there must be some serious moments of reflection, discussion, and self-interrogation.

Do the texts of our specific religious traditions have anything to say about working for the common good? Are there teachings that address the need for community and the responsibility to help others?

Does the historical record of ancient practitioners suggest that joining together in discussion and debate was valued? Was the rule of law respected in a way that protected the community from the harmful selfishness of callous individuals?

In the modern faiths that reconstruct, recreate, and reimagine the old polytheist religions, is diversity of fundamental importance as a lived value and pillar of community structure? What have our communities done to affirmatively build diverse memberships?

How have negative experiences of religious prejudice directed at us shaped our understanding of majority-minority dynamics in the United States? How have these experiences encouraged empathy for the challenges of those considered minorities by other measures?

We don’t practice ancient religions. We are members of new religious movements that are informed and inspired by what we know of ancient practice. When we address questions of democracy, it’s important to consider both the ancient and the modern – to learn from the past but to act in the present.

I believe that there is a place for faith in democracy. We can bring our religious worldview into play when we consider the problems we face today, and we can let our faith in democracy itself motivate us to mobilize our religious communities in positive ways to take beneficial actions that support our democratic institutions rather than standing by and watching democracy be burned down.

Our experiences as members of religious communities can inform our actions as members of civil communities. We have much to contribute when our faith drives us to take positive action in defense of our social structure.

Let us have the will to do not only what harms none but what actively helps our fellows in this shared land of ours as we act on our faith in democracy.

An earlier version of this article appeared at The Wild Hunt.

Wheel in the Sky

Here in the northern hemisphere, the 2021 summer solstice fell on a Sunday. In Chicago, it was at exactly 10:32 p.m. on a Sunday night.

At 10:43 p.m. on that Sunday, the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for the Chicagoland area. It was followed by a “Large Severe Thunderstorm Warning” at 10:56 p.m.

Rather than burning a midsummer bonfire or raising a drinking horn around the old oak tree, we marked the turning point of the year while sitting in the basement until 11:30 p.m., when the tornado warning expired.

Oak fractured by lightning, Maxim Vorobiev (1787–1855)

The lightning flashes came so close together, one after another, that the night sky seemed to be continually illuminated by a white light brighter than any spotlight. The thunder was so close and so loud that we could hear glasses rattling in the dishwasher upstairs from the powerful vibrations.

When I snuck upstairs to peek out the window, the heavy rain was pouring down at a steep angle, and the branches of all the neighborhood trees were waving wildly in the powerful wind.

Midsummer thunder

Eight years ago, Thor’s Oak Kindred met for the first time to celebrate midsummer together. Since then, our annual blót celebrating the longest day of the year has been focused on and dedicated to Thor.

Our schedules don’t always work out so that we can meet on the solstice itself. Back in 2021, we planned to gather on the following Saturday for our first in-person blót since the original coronavirus lockdown back in March of the previous year.

Preparing for that year’s event, Thor had been on my mind. The crashing lightning and rolling thunder at the very hour of solstice seemed special.

During that hour, the flashes of light lit up the sky as if Thor were wielding his lightning-hammer to drive the frost giants from Chicago and preserve the summer season. The rolling thunder sounded like the wheels of his enormous goat-drawn wagon rolling across the ground of the clouds.

Do I believe that there was literally an enormous figure in a enormous wagon pulled by enormous goats throwing an enormous hammer at enormous frost giants in the stormy skies over the Second City?

I do not, but there’s more to religion than literal belief in myth as documentary.

Anyone who went through the lower grades of the American public school system (such as it is) has at least a basic and general understanding of the physical workings of storm, lightning, and thunder.

Very loud and very online New Atheists are fond of attacking any who profess the practice of any religion as anti-scientific naïfs who deny the most basic logic and blindly worship invisible sky gods with power over every aspect of existence.

Such strawmannery doesn’t portray my own relationship to the gods of old, and it doesn’t reflect the religious experiences of an uncountable number of practicing people who live in the modern world today.

We didn’t go down to the basement out of a mindless fear that giants were coming to stomp our home to bits and eat us for a late-night snack. We went because our online devices were blaring out urgent warnings from the National Weather Service about tornado activity in the area.

Minds, however, are complicated things. They are eminently capable of simultaneously holding both a scientific understanding and a mythopoetic one.

Myth as metaphor

Children in grade school can eagerly follow their teachers’ presentations about lightning and still be comforted during intense storms by picturing the great protecting thunder god defending their neighborhoods. They seem to have little difficulty holding simultaneous explanations in their heads and can freely move back and forth between them in the space of a single conversation.

Myth and poetry can offer comfort and deepen understanding without being read literally. Embracing religious imagery as metaphor can be a profoundly moving act and one that enriches our fundamental experience of life without any appeal to fundamentalist literalism.

When the thunder shakes the walls of the house, my mind is filled with associations from the Old Icelandic poems, Snorri’s telling of the myths, Grimm’s reporting of folkloric beliefs, Blinkenberg’s analysis of thunder-weapon lore, Davidson’s decoding of poetic metaphor, and a host of more recent retellings, interpretations, theological works, and academic studies.

Experiencing the world through this set of multiple lenses is, for me, at the core of religious life.

We each have a complicated way of framing our personal experience through the intersection of our various identities and varied life events.

An Icelandic myth of Thor shows him impotently smacking a flooding river and commanding it to stop rising. He eventually notices the upstream giantess causing the flood and, as per usual, smites her.

It’s only when the threatening force of nature takes an anthropomorphic form that the god is able to recognize the root cause of the natural event and take meaningful action.

Here is one lesson of the myth: when we feel overwhelmed or frightened by forces beyond our control, thinking of them in metaphorical ways can enable us to engage them more successfully.

The child frightened of the violent thunderstorm is comforted by the idea that the terrifying sounds are made by a protective deity, as reported in the myths and stories they read and hear.

The adult worried about the damage to life and property a tornado may bring is comforted by the idea that humans have had these fears as long as there have been humans, as evidenced by the tapestry of mythology.

Joni and Charles

As we sat in the basement and told tales of Thor, as he thundered overhead at the exact moment of the solstice we celebrate by honoring him, I was reminded of some of my favorite words penned by Joni Mitchell.

They occur not in a song lyric, but in the liner notes to Mingus, her 1979 collaboration with the great bassist, pianist, vocalist, and composer Charles Mingus.

She writes:

Charles Mingus, a musical mystic, died in Mexico, January 5, 1979, at the age of 56. He was cremated the next day. That same day 56 sperm whales beached themselves on the Mexican coastline and were removed by fire. These are the coincidences that thrill my imagination.

I think about that last line a lot.

“These are the coincidences that thrill my imagination.”

Letting our imaginations run free to thrill in the coincidences of life, giving ourselves permission to be both believers in science and followers of dreams, feeling a jump in our hearts when we hear Thor in the summer solstice storm – these things, too, are part of religion.

These things, too.

An earlier version of this article appeared at The Wild Hunt.

Bruce Lee and the Tao of Ásatrú

Bruce Lee was the first Asian actor to achieve star billing in a Hollywood movie since the silent film era, and he was the first Chinese-American man ever to do so. His performance in Enter the Dragon (1973) made him a worldwide superstar, even though it was released a month after his premature death at age 32. The spirit of his on-screen performances continues to be a felt presence in motion pictures, television shows, video games, and comic books.

From teaching kung fu (which he usually spelled gung fu) in Seattle as a college student to developing the new martial art he called jeet kune do (“way of the intercepting fist”), Lee fundamentally changed and drove the development of martial arts in the United States. Acknowledging his iconoclastic and pioneering approach to training and fighting, Dana White of Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) has called Lee “the father of mixed martial arts.”

There’s another aspect of Lee that doesn’t get as much attention: his written work as a philosopher.

Bruce Lee stamps issued in Hong Kong (2020)

Like J.R.R. Tolkien with his Silmarillion, Lee was a prolific writer who filled box after box with drafts for the projects closest to his heart but couldn’t quite bring himself to close them off for publication. Tolkien died the same year as Lee, and his major mythological work was assembled from his notes and published in book form four years after his death. Lee’s Tao of Jeet Kune Do was a similar posthumous assemblage, as was the series of books titled Bruce Lee’s Fighting Method. Tuttle Publishing continues to print a series of standalone books compiled from Lee’s notes, letters, and interviews.

The various books credited to Lee aren’t simple “stand like this, kick like this” martial arts manuals. Yes, they have photos, diagrams, and detailed instructions for hand-to-hand combat, but they are also permeated with Lee’s wider philosophical and spiritual concerns. Quotes supposedly from Lee that often pop up online as inspirational nuggets are often actually lines that he spoke in character on television and on the silver screen. His original written reflections are more interesting and evince a deep engagement with his own study as a voracious reader in a wide range of disciplines.

As has happened before while reading other texts, I was surprised to find how much of Lee’s written work resonated with my own experiences in, of all things, Ásatrú and Heathenry – new religious movements that seek to reconstruct, recreate, and reimagine ancient Norse and wider Germanic polytheist paganism.

“A universal family”

Modern Germanic paganism’s relationship with Asian thought hasn’t been great. Some branches of American Ásatrú continue to embrace – sometimes unknowingly – cultural appropriation of Asian materials that came into Pagan practice via Theosophy’s willful mishmash of world traditions and the Third Reich’s recasting of diversely sourced theory and practice as supposedly primeval Aryan.

From so-called runic “intoning” or “chanting” (overtly acknowledged by today’s Heathens as a product of the racist German völkisch milieu and an appropriation of Indian meditational practice) to “rune yoga” (an appropriation of admittedly complicated Indian yoga that was also developed within the German völkisch scene), even self-declared “not racist” practitioners continue to forward the National Socialist merging of elements from the Germanic past and Asian religious traditions.

There’s a great difference between appropriation of and engagement with. I’m disgusted by the first and dedicated to the second. Instead of taking and rebranding, the rightful focus should be on listening and learning – on fostering dialogue, recognizing parallels, and building connections.

As someone who spends so much time engaging with Old Norse mythology and poetry, it’s fascinating to read Lee’s discussions of the “kung fu man” focusing chi that evoke comparisons to the Old Norse megin that swells up within Thor when he is in need of great strength.

When Lee discusses the meaning of the word tao as way, principle, law, beginning, pattern, and truth, it is reminiscent of siðr, the Old Norse word that can mean custom, habit, manner, conduct, moral life, religion, faith, rite, ceremonial, and more.

I’m not claiming that such cross-cultural echoes are evidence of some Indo-European relation from the depths of time. I’m agreeing with Lee that communication across cultural boundaries – which are, by definition, human constructs – can be deeply meaningful and lead us to relate to each other at a higher level.

When asked by a Chinese reporter whether his marriage to a white American woman would “face unsolvable obstacles,” Lee replied:

Many people may think that it will be. But to me, this kind of racial barrier does not exist. If I say I believe that ‘everyone under the sun’ is a member of a universal family, you may think that I am bluffing and idealistic. But if anyone still believes in racial differences, I think he is too backward and narrow. No matter if your color is black or white, red or blue, I can still make friends with you without any barrier (Bruce Lee: A Life, p. 391).

There is much that American Heathens can learn from Bruce Lee on the subject of diversity.

“Return to your senses”

Lee himself was an embodiment of diversity. Born in San Francisco’s Chinatown to Hong Kong residents temporarily in the United States, he was 5/8 Han Chinese, 1/4 English, and 1/8 Dutch-Jewish. Dividing his adult life between Hong Kong, Seattle, Oakland, and Los Angeles, he was called “the ultimate Mid-Pacific Man” by the Hong Kong media – a term used for “Westernized Chinese.”

Birthday party in San Francisco's Chinatown (1912)

Lee dealt with prejudice on both sides of the ocean, with some in Hong Kong asserting that he wasn’t “Chinese enough” and some in Hollywood rejecting him for his Chinese accent. He had the same issues with moving between cultural and linguistic worlds as my father (a German immigrant to the United States), specifically regarding thinking and writing in two languages:

I bought this English-Chinese dictionary originally to help me find the suitable English words when I first went to the United States when I was 18. Now I find that I have to use it to find the Chinese words which I have in mind (Bruce Lee: A Life, p. 363).

After decades living in the United States, my father was similarly suspended between American students who had difficulty understanding his accent and German friends who made fun of him for losing his rolling R’s. Also similar to Lee, he sometimes found himself floating between two languages when writing.

Like the American composer and performer Charles Mingus – who had a mixture of Chinese, German, Native American, African-American, and other heritages – Lee seems to have been drawn to those who didn’t fit into tidy ethnocultural boxes. Mingus felt that he wasn’t accepted as black by his black classmates in grade school and so gravitated towards a youthful social circle including Japanese, Greek, Italian, Mexican, and mixed-race kids. When building his social network of martial arts students and practitioners in the United States, Lee likewise engaged with a diverse group.

Shortly after Lee moved to Seattle in 1959, he was approached by Jesse Glover, a young African-American man who had become deeply interested in martial arts after a drunk and racist police officer broke his jaw. Glover faced a different flavor of racism when he found that no Asian martial arts teacher would accept a black student. In his mid-twenties, he managed to earn a black belt and become a teacher at the Seattle Judo Club but again ran into an anti-black wall when he attempted to study kung fu.

After seeing Lee give a public martial arts demonstration – his first in the United States – Glover asked to study with him. Following a typically intense audition, Lee accepted Glover as his first American student in a break with traditional barriers against black students in kung fu instruction.

Lee’s studio soon grew to include Chinese, Japanese, Hispanic, and white students. Biographer Matthew Polly calls it “the most racially diverse group of students ­– white, black, brown, and yellow ­– in the history of the Chinese martial arts.”

In one of the many versions of an essay he penned on jeet kune do in 1971, Lee wrote that the article

is primarily concerned with the blossoming of a martial artist – not a “Chinese” martial artist, a “Japanese” martial artist, and so forth. A martial artist is first a human being, which we are ourselves; nationalities have nothing to do with martial arts. So please come out of that protective shell of isolation, that proud conclusion or whatever, and relate directly to what is being said – once again return to your senses by ceasing all that intellectual or mental mumbo jumbo (Artist of Life, p. 152).

Here is something on which practitioners of Ásatrú can meditate.

How many of those who repeatedly insist that they’re “not racist,” that they’re not like those awful Heathens over there who declare whiteness a prerequisite for participation in Ásatrú, will happily testify that they came to this religion because they discovered they had Swedish or some other Scandinavian ancestry? How many decide to become Heathen because a mail-order DNA test told them they had a bit of Nordicity in their bloodline? How many announce that they chose to leave the faiths in which they were raised and “return to the religion of their ancestors?”

Ásatrú and Heathenry are not ancient ancestral religious traditions. They are new religious movements more closely related to Scientology than they are to Hinduism, in the sense that they are modern inventions rather than branches of ongoing development on a religious family tree. As such, the decision of who can practice is totally up to us here today, right now. If only more Heathens would actively seek out diverse fellow practitioners as Lee did!

We should be educated on and respectful of the cultural precursors to modern Ásatrú in long-ago times, for sure. The more we learn about how the ancient religions were practiced, the more we are informed on how to build the modern religions in a way that is positive and meaningful for all involved.

Being respectful of origins, however, is quite different from being worshipful of those origins. Being informed should include what learning what to avoid and discard from the old days, as well. The manifestation of DNA test results as driver of religious adherence and an emphasis on ancient “original” practitioners as some sort of “Arch-Heathens” who practiced a purer form of religion is a deadly combination that leads naturally to a fundamentalist worldview.

“Behind these curtains”

On a table by the entrance to Bruce Lee’s school in LA’s Chinatown, there was a small grave with a tiny tombstone that read, “In memory of a once fluid man crammed and distorted by the classical mess.” It was meant as a declaration of Lee’s key concept that rigidly following the classical teachings of particular kung fu or other martial arts schools would hobble the fighter in an actual fight. Instead, he emphasized, the fighter must go with the unpredictable flow of real combat and respond to reality as it is.

Bruce Lee (in black top) in his Los Angeles school (1967)

This was absolutely not an argument for an “anything goes” approach or for the disposal of dedicated training. To the contrary, Lee studied and incorporated elements form a wide variety of fighting forms – from the Wing Chun he studied with the legendary Ip Man in Hong Kong to the American boxing of Jack Dempsey and Muhammad Ali to the finer points of fencing theory and practice. By learning from the strengths of various systems without prejudice and refusing to blindly follow the failures of traditional forms, Lee was able to reach a point where he could truly inhabit the moment and fight by educated instinct.

Lee’s motto for jeet kune do is “using no way as way; having no limitation as limitation.” The emphasis is on flexibility in the face of changing circumstances, on responding in real time to the realities of life, on living in the time that we actually and bodily inhabit. What Lee says about adapting to the changeable moment in street fighting applies, mutatis mutandis, to adapting to the changeable moment in our lived lives as practitioners of modern polytheist religions.

In parallel to Lee, my argument is not for an “anything goes” mindset regarding Ásatrú nor for turning our backs on the historical record. Instead, it is for a breadth of learning that leads to deeper understanding. That breadth should include information and insight from other traditions that is internalized without being appropriated.

A resolute obsession with trying to know the ultimately unknowable interior worldview of ancient Germanic pagans – as if there even were some overarching worldview shared by members of some true and unified universal church of Odin over large stretches of time and distance – leads to a form of fundamentalism that insists on the possibility of reconstructing a Viking Age Icelandic or other ancient Germanic religious world of belief and practice in today’s United States. One result of this obsession is to leave today’s American practitioners “crammed and distorted by the classical mess” as they constantly turn their inner eyes backwards through time.

Lee criticized this focus on replicating the forms of the past rather than engaging with the present:

Instead of facing combat in its suchness, quite a few systems of martial art accumulate “fanciness” that distorts and cramps their practitioners and distracts them from the actual reality of combat, which is simple and direct and nonclassical. Instead of going immediately to the heart of things, flowery forms and artificial techniques (organized despair!) are ritually practiced to simulate actual combat. Thus, instead of being in combat, these practitioners are idealistically doing something about combat (The Tao of Gung Fu, p. 170).

The applicability to Ásatrú seems clear.

When we obsess over how we think things were done in the distant past, whether relating to attempts to self-consciously adopt a putative worldview or replicate ritual dress, we place the “fanciness” of doing methodology over the “simple and direct and nonclassical” being in a living religion.

Lee’s student and movie co-star Bob Baker reports that Lee had planned a sequel to his “classical mess” tombstone:

He always had this idea if he was ever to open another school. When you walked through the door, there would be these large red curtains and then a sign that said, ‘Behind These Curtains Lies The Secret’… And then when you opened the curtains there was just a full length mirror. And that would be the way you get into the school (Bruce Lee: A Life, p. 380).

The message of the mirror for today’s Heathens is we are Ásatrú.

This thing of ours is what we make of it. How we reify the religion in our own lives right now determines what it is today and influences what it will become tomorrow. There is no secret answer hidden within the surviving texts, the found physical remains, and the secular academic theories. These various sources should all be studied and considered, but the living faith emanates from ourselves.

“Constantly changing and constantly adapting”

In another version of “Toward Personal Liberation,” his 1971 jeet kune do essay, Lee wrote of turning away from national organizations:

Upon my arrival in the States, I did have my “Chinese” Institute; but since then I no longer believe in systems (Chinese or not Chinese), nor organizations. Big organizations, domestic and foreign branches, affiliations, and so forth, are not necessarily the places where a martial artist discovers/finds himself. More often this is quite to the contrary. To reach the growing number of students, some pre-conformed set must be established as standards for the branches to follow. As a result, all members will be conditioned according to the prescribed system. Many will probably end up as prisoners of a systemized drill (Artist of Life, p. 176).

Like Lee, I no longer believe in systems nor organizations for Ásatrú and Heathenry.

Not only are the national organizations deeply flawed, it is in the very nature of national organizations to be deeply flawed. No matter what the company line is regarding universalism, acceptance, or inclusion, the fact is that larger groups attract both those who want to dictate and those who want to be dictated to.

These fatally attracted and codependent mindsets necessarily feed upon each other, even when in seeming conflict, and achieve unity when rallying against any who challenge fundamental assumptions in the way that Lee did with traditional martial arts. This tendency only becomes more vulgar in the online and social media world where these organizations largely exist.

Postcard of martial arts performers in Manchuria (before 1911)

When asked about the difference between various schools of kung fu, Lee was openly critical of instructors who pushed one traditional approach over another:

Of course we hear a lot of the teachers claiming their styles are soft and others are hard; these people are clinging blindly to one partial view of the totality. Because if they have understood and transcended the real meaning of gentleness and firmness, they wouldn’t have made such an impossible separation. I was asked by a so-called gung fu master once – one of those that really looked the part, with beard and all – as to what I think of yin (soft) and yang (firm). I simply answered “baloney!” Of course, he was quite shocked at my answer and still has not come to the realization that “it” is never two (The Tao of Gung Fu, p. 164).

Modern Heathenry has had more than its fair share of “those that really looked the part, with beard and all,” as if there were some necessary correlation between pseudo-Viking machismo and polytheist spirituality. As Lee said when teaching responses to street attacks that appear irrational, “There are many irrational people on the streets today.”

I must admit that I long for more of Lee’s type of iconoclast to appear in Ásatrú. I hope for younger practitioners to appear who will throw aside the macho posturing, the knowing or ignorant replication of völkisch practices, and the rote repetition of tired concepts and catch-phrases. Hopefully, we can someday yell “baloney” together.

After distancing himself from national organizations, Lee set out the path he had chosen to follow:

I believe in teaching/having a few pupils at one time, as teaching requires a constant alert observation of each individual in order to establish a direct relationship. A good teacher can never be fixed in a routine, and nowadays many are just that. During teaching, each moment requires a sensitive mind that is constantly changing and constantly adapting. Above all, a teacher must never force his student to fit his favorite pattern, [which] is a preformation (Artist of Life, p. 176).

This statement also works as an argument in favor of the small, local, face-to-face Ásatrú kindred of limited membership and long-term commitment over any national-level Heathen organization. Where the larger organization codifies and enforces, the smaller group questions and evolves. Lee’s small circle of friends, colleagues, students, and training partners is a positive role model for building vibrantly diverse kindreds that practice and grow together.

“Artist of life”

I’ve written before about my personal saints, which include John Coltrane, Jack Kerouac, and Malcolm X. I explained my conception of sainthood in an article on my “patron saint” Jim Bouton, writing that a better term would perhaps be “ancestors, as we use that term ritually in Thor’s Oak Kindred to refer to those now gone who inspire us, those departed souls with whom we feel a kinship that can be stronger than that to an unknown and nameless progenitor.” But it’s fun to say I have saints.

I’ve recently added Bruce Lee to my private pantheon of decidedly un-saintly saints. Like all the rest, he was complex, difficult, inspiring, problematic, hilarious, shocking, and deeply human. What makes him so meaningful to me is that he has that powerful quality which all of these figures have in common, a quality which I summed up in my article on Jack Kirby, another one of my saints: they all “challenged themselves to be greater while publicly speaking out against the failings of their own society.”

In Lee’s case, the self-challenge and the speaking out were defining elements of his complex character. In the final draft of his essay “In My Own Process” from around 1973, he wrote:

Basically, I have always been a martial artist by choice, and actor by profession. But, above all, I am hoping to actualize myself to be an artist of life along the way (Artist of Life, p. 256).

It’s a worthy goal for each of us.

Sources for this column include Artist of Life, Bruce Lee’s Fighting Method, The Tao of Gung Fu, and Tao of Jeet Kune Do by Bruce Lee; Bruce Lee: A Life by Matthew Polly; and Mingus: A Critical Biography by Brian Priestley. An earlier version of this article appeared at The Wild Hunt.

Art Contest – Adult Winners, Midwinter 2023

Here are the adult winners! This year's Midwinter Art Contest celebrates the tenth anniversary of our international Norse Mythology Art Contest here at The Norse Mythology Blog. We received many amazing entries from around the world in the adult division this year, and it was very difficult to choose between them.

You can view the winning work in the teen division and check out comments from the judges by clicking here.

I'd again like to thank my fellow judge Lee Carter (UK artist for 2000 AD, Judge Dredd Megazine, and many other great comics). This contest would not have been possible without his kind donation of time and insight.

The assignment was to create a piece that somehow relates to the character and legends of the Norse gods and goddesses and the celebration of midwinter. There was a really wide range of conceptual and technical approaches in the adult group this year, and it was very hard for us to rank them. Congratulations to all who entered! We are very thankful for all the artists who shared their creativity with us.

Note: You can click on the art to see a larger version.

FIRST PLACE (TIE)
Nordhild Siglinde Wetzler
Age 25
Småland, Sweden

Nordhild explains her winning entry:

When the days get to their darkest point, we brighten them by spending time with the ones who are closest to us. That doesn't just mean family and friends but also the ones who deserve our time and attention the most – our pet companions. I imagine this is the same even for gods and goddesses, who surely have even more busy schedules than us.

It was hard to find straightforward information connecting Freyja to Yule, but – having two cats myself – I felt most drawn to her. With her being the goddess of love and fertility, I feel those are two things closely related to Yule, which is about the love we have for the ones around us as well as the rebirth that midwinter stands for.

I imagined her sitting in her hall Fólkvangr, surrounded by her pets, enjoying an apple and perhaps waiting for the first guests to arrive to celebrate midwinter.

Nordhild won second place in the teen division of the Midwinter 2013 Art Contest, way back in the contest's very first year. She won second place again in the teen division of the Midsummer 2014 Art Contest. In the Midsummer 2015 Art Contest, she won first place in the teen division.

This year, she moved up to the adult division and tied for first place. I love the calm power emanating from Freyja and her cats. The whiteness of Freyja's wonderfully rendered dress, of the cats, and of the snow outside contrasts beautifully with the warmth of the candlelight and the food and drink of the midwinter celebration. Nordhild really captures the warm spirit of the holiday.

Lee writes, "The perspective works great and draws you in towards the character, then you're gifted with a mountain range that lets your imagination wander."

Congratulations, Nordhild! It's been wonderful to see your art grow in depth and maturity.

First Place (Tie): Nordhild Siglinde Wetzler

FIRST PLACE (TIE)
Eleanor Rose James
Age 22
United Kingdom

Eleanor writes this about her entry:

I was inspired by the imagery and tales associated with Skaði, the jötunn and goddess who embodies the winter's spirit. Residing at the top of the tallest of frozen mountains, I aimed to depict Skaði as an ethereal elemental and natural force, a sharp frost that sweeps across the land in a graceful and deadly dance.

Lee comments, "A wonderful palette of cool winter colors with a well thought out composition. You can feel the movement and the cold winds."

The colors in Eleanor's entry really are wonderfully chilly. I love the quietly determined look on Skaði's face as she glides across the snow and ice. This is a work of art that really inspires the viewer to imagine the stories that hover behind it.

First Place (Tie): Eleanor Rose James

SECOND PLACE
Dawn Reynolds
Age 44
Columbia, Tennessee, USA

Dawn wrote a very detailed essay on all the elements of her artwork and their connections to Norse mythology. Here's an edited version of her lengthy statement about her image of Kvasir:

Kvasir is a god created from either the saliva of the gods or chewed-up berries spit together as a pledge of peace after the war between the Aesir and the Vanir.

According to lore, the dwafs Fjalarr and Galarr didn't like him, so they killed him and drained his blood. They mixed it with honey to make mead. Anyone who drank it could become prolific in poetry.

In the United States, we could celebrate with beer (hops) or a beverage possibly made from cranberries to represent the berries chewed up and spat out that manifested his creation.

Midwinter where I live is often represented with the colors red and green. We have evergreen trees and holly berries. However, I chose to use gigantic green hops and red cranberries. The snow is all around. What's in the cup? Is it his blood and honey? Is it an intoxicating drink of chewed up, spat out berries?

The hops represented are obnoxiously large. There are two to represent Fjalarr and Galarr. The symbols on Kvasir's cloak fasteners are bees to represent honey. The runes around the border and along the cloak seams are the ones that stood out to me the most in relation to this god of peace and how he became so.

These runes in the painting are meant as an offering from me to Kvasir. They are for protection, harmony, friendship, home, and peace, as well as knowing the hard times that created the wisdom to seek peace.

Kvasir is not alone in this painting. He is observing those who have gathered and is prepared if conflict breaks out. But it shouldn't.

Peace, as we gather at midwinter – isn't it all anybody wants? Not everyone can have that. The challenges may come and even conflict. But we all have mysteries and magical abilities to overcome.

I personally write songs and lyrics to overcome difficulties. The poem on my painting is actually lyrics to a song I wrote called "Dark is Closer" that can be found on YouTube. Without poetry, we wouldn't have lyrics for songs.

There is great peacemaking magic in music and lyrics. This is why Kvasir inspires me.

Dawn was the third-place winner in the adult division of the Midwinter 2019 Art Contest and runner-up in the adult division of the Midsummer 2020 Art Contest. It's great to see her back again with an entry that won her highest ranking yet.

Lee writes, "An intricate piece with your attention being draw towards his eyes, trusting and inviting. Wonderful work with a range of colous that fit really well together."

There's a wonderful sense of welcome and peace in this work with an emanating warmth that truly expresses the thoughtful joy of the midwinter season. I greatly appreciate all the thought that Dawn always puts into her work – thought that brings depth and emotional resonance her art.

Second Place: Dawn Reynolds

THIRD PLACE
Abigail Epplett
Age 28
Uxbridge, Massachusetts, USA

Abigail writes about her artwork:

In this quiet winter scene, bright Baldr and blind Höðr walk together, perhaps on their way to a midwinter gathering. The mistletoe along the path foreshadows their fates.

The body positions of the gods are deliberately anachronistic, as they demonstrate the best way to act as a sighted guide and to navigate with a blind cane.

This entry shows a very different technical approach from the others and – even while being set outside – has a unique wary of communicating a deep feeling of warmth and togetherness. The moment within the mythological timeline in which the artwork is set is interesting in a way that sparks reflection. Abigail shows both artistic skill and a creative imagination. Congratulations on a wonderful work!

Lee comments, "What a wonderul picture! A real sense of friendship and ease, happy and content with each other's company as they wander down the avenue of trees. Great costume design."

Third Place: Abigail Epplett

RUNNER-UP
Jissey Raye L. Rafanan
Age 32
Zamboanga City, Philippines

Jissey's explanation of this wonderful piece:

The artwork depicts some members of the Asgardian pantheon – Freyja, Odin, Thor, and Tyr – around the Yule log. I opted to have them stand in a circle around a Yule log being burned while at the base of Yggdrasil.

Odin, with his back to the viewer, presides over the ceremony, in keeping with his station as the head of the Norse pantheon. Freyja is at his left, due to her role in the partition of the Einherjar for those to attend to her in Fólkvangr. Thor is at his right, since Mjölnir is used in consecration rites.

It's always amazing to see entries come in from all over the world, to learn how far Norse mythology has traveled, and to enjoy wonderful artistic interpretations like this beautiful artwork by Jissey – the piece that most closely sticks to this year's contest theme. Somehow, Jissey manages to draw us into the warm moment even without any of the main characters full facing the viewer. I also greatly appreciate the attention to mythological detail in the portrayal of the Norse deities.

Lee comments, "Really nice rendering of the costumes and armor. The blue shadow across the snow puts a coolness in the air but with the fire keeping a really nice ambience."

Runner-Up: Jissey Raye L. Rafanan

Thank you to all who entered this winter. We really enjoyed everyone's work. See you when the next contest rolls around!

Art Contest – Teen Winners, Midwinter 2023

This year's Midwinter Art Contest didn't receive any entries in the kids division. The same thing happened back in our Midsummer 2020 Art Contest. It's a shame, because we know there are plenty of children age twelve and under who love learning about mythology and creating their own interpretations of it. Please keep an eye out (like Odin) for our next art contest and share it with any artistic kids you know!

We also only received only one entry in the teen division, which includes artists between the ages of thirteen and nineteen. The same thing happened in Midsummer 2015 and Midwinter 2019, so we can't simply blame the rise of A.I. for it! Stuff happens.

We did receive many amazing entries in the adult division for artists age twenty and up, so be sure to come back tomorrow and check them out.

Just because the teen entry this year is so absolutely fantastic, we've decided to feature it and give our congratulations to the artist for creating such amazing work.

I'd like to thank my fellow judge Lee Carter (UK artist for 2000 AD, Judge Dredd Megazine, and other great comics from Boom! Studies, DK, Top Cow, and many more). I really appreciate the time that he volunteered to rank and comment on all the entries. This contest would not be possible without his generosity and kindness.

The assignment was to create a piece that somehow relates to the character and legends of the Norse gods and goddesses and the celebration of midwinter. Big congratulations to our teen artist for creating such a wonderful work of art!

Note: You can click on the art to see a larger version.

FIRST PLACE
Oskari Korkkonen
Age 17
Lapinlahti, Finland

Oskari provides a short description of the work titled Yule Father, simply stating that it's "an acrylic painting depicting Odin in a red cloak wandering around Midgard at midwinter."

Lee writes, "Oskari's painting is really beautifully drawn. There's a great depth of tone on the character's red robe, with the fur collar rendered perfectly with rough brush strokes. There's a real feeling of travel as Odin makes his way via the directions of the stars."

I agee with Lee, and I really like the combination of Odin's dark red with the pale blue of the snow and the deep blue-black of the sky. There's also a fascinating contrast between the joyfulness of Odin's somewhat Santa-like outfit on one hand and the mystery of his shadowy face and implied threat of his enormous spear on the other. Oskari has really captured the complicated nature of Odin's character in a very special way.

First Place: Oskari Korkkonen

Adult winners will be announced tomorrow!