The Newsleaf #5 - Venerate the Holy
Monthly Order Newsletter // May '24
There is no surer sign of decay in a country than to see the rites of religion held in contempt.
― Niccolò Machiavelli
Welcome, all faithful, welcome! We convene once more to cap off the month with insight and good words. May has proven quite a period, with many ups and downs, but overall has proven merrier than April. There have (with all thanks to the Gods) been no more ill auspices flying through England’s streets… Those horses are well, as I have heard, and both set for full recoveries.
Likewise, I feel the need to join my voice in the general folk-mood that spring, and the summer it heralds, has been unusually drab. Set for fifty days of rain, it is forecast that this year’s Season of Light will be more a Season of Coats. Not pleasant, but a far cry from what our ancestors had to strive against; such cold times are better managed with double glazing and a solid roof!
Hope yet remains - for what is man without faith that better days are ahead? Machiavelli spoke truly in his assertion that the religion (as the structured vessel of faith and belief) reflects societal decay when it is held in contempt Those who hold the philosophies of millennia in contempt are, ironically, themselves contemptable for their absence of nuance or counterpoint. Much is spoken against religion and its related notions, but always with the stink of apathy.
“Who cares?” is a common attitude of the Western social landscape. The inevitability of decades of deterioration on every level has sunk its claws deep into our collective psyches; a wound so deep that it has conditioned our minds to believe that this pain is all that is and ever was. Why fight such grotesque injury? Is there any future without this pain?
Brothers and sisters, that future is now. It is in the spring of the Pagan Faith Revival that the talons of decay will weaken its hold on the Folk. Our Wyrd is sunk far deeper in our souls than any weapon ever can be. The return of the Gods to England and wider Germania is unstoppable and without reproach. That is our beauteous Spring, and we will stand together as the heralds of the Summer of a Golden Age.
Venerate the holy! Let us know begin…
What’s New with the Order?
Depicted: “Priesthood” by C.N.J. Cornwell; 2924. Art deco recruitment poster for an emergent Germanic priesthood.
Our Order undertook its most critical endeavour to date this month; the start of our drive to recruit and train Heathen priests. For longer than our organisation began, our incumbent Goðar operated, under one banner or another, in the conducting of rites and rituals for the Germanic faith-community in England. In this, we have always had a priesthood.
However, this is not sufficient. It is not enough to conduct rites on the local level, gaining and losing insight in the cycles of each given man’s life and death. If we are to walk the path of Wōden, both God-Priest and Priest-God, it is a fundamental that this be done as our ancestors understood it: as a caste, not as the nameless and the scattered.
Our faith-community needs its priesthood, just as children need their mothers and fathers. I have spoken on this before in my first published essay, An Orthodoxy in English Paganism, where I stated the following:
“No society of our religion ever went without their priesthood. A folk can not be without the Gothar - the notion is as much an anathema as wishing a folk without its fathers. A folk without their mothers. The King is the father of the temporal tribe, the Priest as of the spiritual tribe. The Clan Father as the king-priest of his own home. This is the natural order of things.
You can read this in full below:
An Orthodoxy in English Paganism
Brothers and Sisters, Nothing can be more overstated than this phrase: we need an Orthodoxy in English Pagan religion. The very state of being Pagan is to be at a crossroads of lineage; ancestor above you, descendant below. At each stage of your life you invoke the Three Sisters in your very being. The ancestor, who once was and who we are to become, is of Wyrd. That which is not yet, but shall be, is of Scyld. You, as you are now and remain, is that of Weordende.
So, I open the floor to you, as the reader: do you feel you have the passion to become a spiritual leader? Do you believe (as so many have before, do now and will again) in the Gods and their ties to our Folk? If either of these apply, your thread may be woven as finely as the robes of the wise hierarchs of old.
Join us in our journey; for you may affirm that you need us, but we know that we need you. Answer the call and wield the sacred flame - it is waiting for you.
Hail Death!
In perfumed air, the Order this month observed the Eormensylblōt; a sacrifice under the World-Tree. Sombre our spirits, we offered Bældæġ, O Shining God, our sincere prayers in memory of his passing. Just as we, each year passing, wind our lives down the mortal threads of Wyrd, we recalled how His was prematurely cut at the hands of deceptive malice.
Despite this, its lesson must be understood as so; reject all lamentation for death, for it can not be thwarted or forgotten. We will all die, one day, and all that will remain of our physicality is ash and dust. It is in our deeds - those noble acts that defined our reality as much as those around us, that are as eternal as the turn of the seasons or the cycles of the Ages.
The Wise-Woman spake:
"Hoth thither bears | the far-famed branch,
He shall the bane | of Baldr become,
And steal the life | from Othin's son.
Unwilling I spake, | and now would be still.”
— Baldrs Draumar 9, Elder Edda
He is not forgotten - for he is not truly gone. We pray for your return at the End, Bright-Lord!
It is with joy that we should celebrate death, for it is as certain as life! Our Order revels in his blessed transition, as life-affirming as we are affirming of inevitable demise. For it is a certainty of change. How can one wallow in the pits of despair, when one knows that cheer and pleasure are just beyond our reach? Just as sadness contrasts joy, it is death that sweetens the taste of the fruits of living.
Hail death! Hail life! Hail it’s unending perpetuity!
Declaring our Traditions II
In the third edition of our Newsleaf, we discussed the development of the Declaration of Tradition that was announced. I am enthralled with happiness to see that it materialised in our merry month of May; to overwhelmingly positive response, I might add. Our Order extends our congratulations to its authors, and all involved in its procedural manifesting!
Amongst the many groups that have since (and continue to) commit ink to parchment… err, screen, we were honoured to be lend our support to it in its re-release stage. Much more will come of this; I have no doubt. Mark this as a pivotal point in our religious revival, for it is just the beginning of things to come!
Depicted: Leading the faithful in the beginning of ritual; Hearth of the Tideway, Eormensylblōt 2024.
Pagan Platform Spotlight
It is always an honour to set aside this time to recommend a Pagan platform - with this month being no exception:
Hrafna, Wheat & Sky
Musings on women’s wellbeing, ancient religion and other positivity so lost in our modern world. You can find them on their Instagram and Substack platforms.
Temple Fund
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Faithright 2022-2024. Order of the Sacred Mannerbunde. Hail the Gods. englishorder.com