Weigh Anchor

It’s been a while since my last post, and for those who have continued to check back here since last year, I offer my apologies. I’ve not been idle during this time – despite the ups, downs and other changes, I’ve actually managed to use some of this time to my advantage. I have decided to officially retire this blog. I’m not removing or deleting it, as I feel like there is information of tremendous value to be found here, particularly in the comments sections of these posts; but this will be my last actual post in Expanding Inward.

Of Gods and Heroes

There has long been speculation that some (if not all) of the gods we are familiar with in Heathenry were at one time actually human, deified (made into gods) by their people for their achievements, wisdom or power. This kind of deification isn’t uncommon to Paganism, either – the Pharaohs, the pharaoh-cation of the Ptolomeic line in Egypt, the posthumous deification of some Roman emperors are all examples of this practice. It would be argued by many scholars that the practice isn’t uncommon to Christianity, with the elevation of Jesus from human prophet (what most of Jesus’ contemporaries considered him to be) to God-made-flesh (what his followers would eventually believe him to be) …

End of ‘Our’ Universe

Today I read an interesting article on Space.com, about how a theoretical astrophysicist named Abraham Loeb has arrived at the conclusion that in about a hundred billion years or so, galaxies in our universe will travel at or beyond the speed of light, and thus no longer be visible to each other. Loeb’s theory would make it theoretically impossible to send or receive signals from distant galaxies, let alone travel to them or even observe them, once galaxies have reached this speed. This theory presents some interesting questions – not just about science, but also about religion, and I thought I’d share them …

An Explanation

I’ve debated whether or not I should write about this topic for a couple months. As some of you realize, and anyone could see by looking at the dates on my posts, I’ve been relatively inactive in the blogosphere for nearly three months. Yesterday was my first real attempt to resume where I’d left off, and parts of me would like to think that this will continue. As I made clear in my March post, it was for health concerns that I took a break from blogging and the Internet in general. Since then, I’ve received comments and E-mails wishing me better health, encouraging me to resume blogging when I’m able, and encouraging me to give myself the time I need – I have appreciated these more than I’m able to express, and I think a proper explanation is in order …

Hospitality

Finally returning to my series on the Nine Noble Virtues in Heathenry (and returning at least for the time being to blogging in general), I’d like to explore the virtue of hospitality. This virtue happens to be my favorite virtue, as I consider it to be a pinnacle of human achievement. In my original article, I said of hospitality that it “…does not lock itself indoors, nor does it suffer the hindrance of inconvenience. It is the greatest of the nine virtues because to have it, one must also have the other eight.” It seems like a pretty bold claim, for a virtue that some consider to mean little more than serving a meal to the occasional guest; but there is another way in which to view hospitality, a way in which this virtue represents humanity at its best, and it is in this way that I tend to regard it ….

Updates

It seems that, if it hasn’t been one thing, it’s been another – my time for the Internet over the last month has been quite scarce, and I apologize for this. For those who sent E-mails, or commented here, I apologize for the delay in my response – and apologize in advance for the sporadic nature of my online time in the foreseeable future.

For those who have submitted links to your blogs, to be included in the Heathen Blogs Directory Project, you might be pleased to know that your blogs have finally been included / updated :-) You might also be interested to know that the location for the HBDP has changed – I’m hosting it directly off of this blog (click the image link on the sidebar, or the HBDP link under the About section of the sidebar, or you can just click here). My reason for this is that Blogspot was giving me nothing but headaches whenever I tried to update the links, and more than a few times just today I had the pleasant experience of having to wait a while for the directory to load from its Blogspot location. I found this unacceptable and thought it would make more sense to just host the HBDP off of this blog since I’ve never had a problem with downtime or other strange anomalies on WordPress. I’ve simplified things a bit, but have hopefully managed to maintain the same feel of the old directory (which will only be available for as long as it takes me to delete it).

Health

This is just to let everyone know that I’m still among the living, and that I haven’t been ignoring you or this blog. I’ve had some health issues come up recently, and over the past week things took a slight turn for the worse. I’m already starting to feel a little improved, and hope to be restored to my normal pluck as quickly as possible. Until then, I won’t be able to blog much – which comes at the worst possible time for those of you who have been looking forward to the remaining posts in my Nine Noble Virtues series. I apologize to you for the delay, and apologize for not posting this notice sooner – I honestly thought I’d snap-to a lot quicker than this. When I’m able, I will finish the series (it’s no small coincidence that Perseverance is the last of the NNV), and I encourage you to reflect on the meanings of these virtues for yourselves, since ultimately it’s how you understand them that will make the greatest difference to you.

A few readers have already sent E-mails expressing concern at my disappearance, which meant a lot to me – in what I hope will be short order, I’ll be back to blogging, it will just take longer than the ‘few days’ I originally predicted.

Discipline

Continuing with my Nine Noble Virtues in Heathenry series, the next virtue on our list is discipline. In my opinion, this is one of the most difficult virtues to consistently apply in one’s life because it requires self-mastery. In my original short description of this virtue, I described discipline as meaning: “self-control, the will and the practice of governing one’s self so that others don’t have to.” It’s deceptive, to apply a short description to a virtue like this, because discipline requires and implies a great deal more than a short description can cover….

Wyrd

I wanted to draw attention to two recent, and excellent posts about Wyrd, written by two different bloggers. The first post, written by Sojourner of A Pagan Sojourn, takes a brief look at Wyrd from the perspective of someone who is just starting to research this concept. The second post, written by Robin Artisson of Cauldron Born, looks at the sacred dimension of hunting, including the Wyrd aspect of it. For those readers who are wondering what Wyrd is to begin with, I refer you to the second paragraph of my post about the Heathen afterlife, titled “Beyond Midgard.”

Also, it seems that Wyrd is a topic of discussion in one of the forums I participate in – that makes at least three different sources, treating the same topic at roughly the same time … how perfectly weird ;-)

Njord Symbol

While having a look at search terms readers were using to find my blog, I happened upon one that was looking for a symbol of Njord. I hadn’t written anything about my tutelary god for a while now, and I saw this as an excellent opportunity to change that – my thanks to the person who searched for this term, whoever that person was :-) There are two symbols out of history that would be appropriate for Njord. One of these is the footprint (based on the story of Skadi choosing Njord as husband by his feet, in Skáldskaparmal), and the other is the ship (as one of Njord’s chief areas of influence is sailing and commerce). Viktor Rydberg offers another symbol, the axe, based on his having Njord breaking down the gates of Asgard with an axe during the Æsir-Vanir war (which I discuss in my post, Njord’s Honor). My personal symbol for Njord can now be seen in my banner graphic, it’s a combination of a bearded axe, with the prow of a longboat coming out of the poll end of the axe (with the axe handle also serving as a boat’s mast).