Free Spirit Gathering has a tentative list of classes out. My classes include:
I ran across this on an email list I was on, and thought it was wonderful:
May Odin give you wisdom, may Freya give you passion, may Frigg give you comfort and fulfillment, and may Skadi make you keen. May Tyr darken the lines between “will” and “will not” and “must” and “must not”, and may the Valkyries ever watch over your deeds and find them worthy.
This weekend I had the opportunity to attend a Seiðr workshop offered by Laurel Mendes in Columbia, MD. While I won’t go into specific details to protect the privacy of those who attended, I thought I’d give a general outline of what’s covered for those who may be interested in attending this ritual in the future. Continue reading
In a previous post I espoused using ancestry.com to to genealogical research, and how it could be used to honor our ancestors. If you start doing research on your ancestors when you are linking one relative to another there are two primary methods to linking.
First is links to other people’s trees. If you have a relative in your tree, and it seems to match another persons tree, you can attach information about their immediate family members to your tree. (Why you can’t just grab their tree from that point forward and attach it to yours seems silly, but it is what it is).
The other approach to getting information about ancestors is through records. Military records, census records, etc.
Now each of these has its benefits in detriments.
The big advantage of official records searching is that you can be reasonably sure they are accurate. Sometimes there may be a misspelling, or a year or off or two, but you won’t have anything way out of kilter. The disadvantage to them is the information can be sparse.
This is particularly true for recent (20th century and later) relatives), and extremely old (prior to 1776) relatives. In these two time frames you may encounter relatives that there are no records at all on file at ancestry.com.
Now the big advantage of using other people’s trees is that there’s lots of information there that’s readily available. However, you don’t have any documentation (other than that persons word) to back up the information. In addition, you may have 2-3 people that have different information about a relative, such as a date of birth, parents, siblings, etc. You are then left scratching your head not knowing how to evaluate who is correct. In many cases you can use a “consensus” model to determine what facts are correct. This is by no means a perfect approach to the problem, but it is a potential solution.
You could also elect to say if there’s a dispute at all, you don’t include it in your tree.
How do I approach it with an ancestor I’m researching? Well first, I start with the records and look at them, are there any that appear to contain good solid information? For example, a marriage certificate saying “abt 1625″ is in my mind, less likely to be accurate than “mar 25, 1626″ Look at the records that seem to be definitive and start by adopting those into the record for the ancestor. After you’ve adopted all the good ones, then go back and compare your information on the person with others, and see how it matches up. Sometimes you’ll find that you’ve adopted a record that is likely assigned to another person, or you may decided that “researcher X” is simply incorrect, based upon the records that you’ve seen.
Circumstances in my life (My parents moving to a location that isn’t horribly far away from me to retire) have caused me to consider ancestors and honoring our ancestors.
Lately has been a time where there have been a lot of spiritual “disputes” in my life, and I was reading Idunna #88 today, and ran across the following quote from the Havamal, and felt the need to post it:
Crooked and far is the road to
a foe, though his house on the highway
be; but wide and straight is the
way to a friend, though far away
he fare.
The question of interfaith activities and religious tolerance has been a topic that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. While I’ve read several interesting guidelines, none of them seemed to include the heathen perspective on what tolerance is. So I thought I’d propose my own:
This document is based upon the Interfaith Conference of South Carolina’s statement regarding Religious and Cultural Sensitivity.
Take time to learn about the religion and culture of others. They will appreciate your effort.
Don’t be afraid to ask about another person’s faith. If someone asks, take the time to answer their questions.
Don’t initially assume that you understand ways that you do not share.
Be aware that what may appear to be mundane activity by an individual could have significant religious implications for the person performing the action, and if unsure, the activity should be treated with the respect given any religious activity.
Allow others to express their beliefs and practices in the terms that they choose without creating an environment of judgment on those beliefs.
Interfaith occasions are never the place to proselytize for one’s own religion. It’s perfectly appropriate to invite others to visit your services and events, but advancing your religion as a preferred alternative is highly disrespectful.
Accept that at times people disagree. But accept that others have the right to disagree with you.
When we hear any religion disparaged or misrepresented, not just our own, speak up for the rights of members of that religion to believe and practice in freedom.
