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Author Topic: How did you know you were more recon or more modernish?  (Read 3137 times)

ALiteraryLady

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How did you know you were more recon or more modernish?
« on: June 18, 2013, 09:13:48 pm »
Hi everyone (1st time thread maker, long time thread reader),


I was wondering where you would put yourself on the recon VS modern side of Heathenry or Asatru "debate" if you will. I'm not sure what the proper terminology for not-recon is besides "non-recon", so please pardon me for not having the correct term for you.

 I'm asking because I feel like I have to get some clarity on this point before my path becomes more clear to me and I'd like any experiences to see how they mesh up to my own. If you yourself aren't sure about where you are or if you take sides, etc, then please feel free to share that here as well (well, if you want to that is).

I'm not trying to pick a fight, I just want some diverse opinions and candidly I'm starting to feel comfortable around here, so here I go with the thread making.

Thanks for your time!

Fireof9

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Re: How did you know you were more recon or more modernish?
« Reply #1 on: June 20, 2013, 12:16:16 am »
Quote from: ALiteraryLady;112989
Hi everyone (1st time thread maker, long time thread reader),


I was wondering where you would put yourself on the recon VS modern side of Heathenry or Asatru "debate" if you will. I'm not sure what the proper terminology for not-recon is besides "non-recon", so please pardon me for not having the correct term for you.

 I'm asking because I feel like I have to get some clarity on this point before my path becomes more clear to me and I'd like any experiences to see how they mesh up to my own. If you yourself aren't sure about where you are or if you take sides, etc, then please feel free to share that here as well (well, if you want to that is).

I'm not trying to pick a fight, I just want some diverse opinions and candidly I'm starting to feel comfortable around here, so here I go with the thread making.

Thanks for your time!

 Not sure if you are looking for answers from Asatru/Heathen people only, but I am gonna comment anyway ;)

My viewpoint is that it is not good to get to caught up in either approach. Sometimes it seems to me that a super modern approach loses sight of tradition and the fact that our ancestor probably did some things for a reason and not just era based circumstances, while on the other side of the coin it strikes me that some really hardcore recons get so wrapped up in the past that they fail to see that some of the practices may have been based on circumstance and lack of scientific knowledge.

I truly believe that the Gods are not stagnant. I think they have moved with the times, that they understand that the world we live in is nothing the same as the world that our ancestors lived in. I don't think they expect the same out of us. Also a lot of what knowledge we have of our ancestors is based on either documents written by people that wrote them from a *Christian slant or archaeological finds that never give a full picture.

So from my viewpoint the best way to approach it is to understand the time you live in, find which practices work best within that time and go forward. Don't fix what isn't broken and do all with honour, respect and dignity.


* I am grateful for the fact that Christian scholars/scribes took the time to write the things that they wrote or it may have all been lost to us, and I have the utmost respect for those archaeological finds, I just think they don't always show a complete picture.
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Snowdrop

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Re: How did you know you were more recon or more modernish?
« Reply #2 on: June 20, 2013, 09:15:46 am »
Quote from: ALiteraryLady;112989
Hi everyone (1st time thread maker, long time thread reader),


I was wondering where you would put yourself on the recon VS modern side of Heathenry or Asatru "debate" if you will. I'm not sure what the proper terminology for not-recon is besides "non-recon", so please pardon me for not having the correct term for you.

 I'm asking because I feel like I have to get some clarity on this point before my path becomes more clear to me and I'd like any experiences to see how they mesh up to my own. If you yourself aren't sure about where you are or if you take sides, etc, then please feel free to share that here as well (well, if you want to that is).

I'm not trying to pick a fight, I just want some diverse opinions and candidly I'm starting to feel comfortable around here, so here I go with the thread making.

Thanks for your time!

 
* Not Asatru/Heathen or anything else Germanic as a primary religion, but my path contains a lot of Norse borrowings.  

I pretty much realized I really couldn't be a recon even if I wanted to given the extent to which my path is a blend of cultures that never came into contact with one another.  Of course, you could get around that by practicing each individual path in a reconstructionist way, but I wanted something more unified, and you can't really have a reconstructionist scheme for how someone would have made a syncretic Egypto-Germanic (or what have you) religion.  

As it relates to anything Norse, there's also the additional fact that I've never seen any compelling evidence that any of the Gods I'm interested in worshiping were ever worshiped historically.  

I still find the historical research that recons do interesting, though.  So basically . . . I'm working through doing the research, but I'm not really going to use it for anything.

Materialist

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Re: How did you know you were more recon or more modernish?
« Reply #3 on: June 20, 2013, 04:27:53 pm »
Quote from: ALiteraryLady;112989

I was wondering where you would put yourself on the recon VS modern side of Heathenry or Asatru "debate" if you will.


 When researching sources, I'm probably as hard core as recons get: documents and archaeological finds of the first millennium. Made/written by pagans, for pagans, and eyewitness accounts, in their geographical context- I don't take practices from England and stick them into Forn Sidr, for example. In my experience, the environment moulds religion, so Theodisc Geleafa is an adaptation to the English landscape, and wouldn't apply to Norway.

However, I'm not a polytheistic fundamentalist. Gods and vaettir are symbols to me, about proper relationship with the environment. So, in that respect, I'm ultra modern, compared to some. I once heard a guy describe Rokkatru as "blasphemy." Such theological debates don't exist for me.

ALiteraryLady

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Re: How did you know you were more recon or more modernish?
« Reply #4 on: June 21, 2013, 08:46:49 pm »
Quote from: Fireof9;113078
Not sure if you are looking for answers from Asatru/Heathen people only, but I am gonna comment anyway ;)


I truly believe that the Gods are not stagnant. I think they have moved with the times, that they understand that the world we live in is nothing the same as the world that our ancestors lived in. I don't think they expect the same out of us. Also a lot of what knowledge we have of our ancestors is based on either documents written by people that wrote them from a *Christian slant or archaeological finds that never give a full picture.

So from my viewpoint the best way to approach it is to understand the time you live in, find which practices work best within that time and go forward. Don't fix what isn't broken and do all with honour, respect and dignity.


* I am grateful for the fact that Christian scholars/scribes took the time to write the things that they wrote or it may have all been lost to us, and I have the utmost respect for those archaeological finds, I just think they don't always show a complete picture.

 

Thank you for your response. I too believe that the Gods are not stagnant, surely that have been well aware of the changes taking place on our planet to see that certain ideas and stereotypes have been left to advance humanity. It's nice to hear it from someone else. I do plan on honoring all of them with respect and dignity.

ALiteraryLady

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Re: How did you know you were more recon or more modernish?
« Reply #5 on: June 21, 2013, 08:52:28 pm »
Quote from: Materialist;113160
When researching sources, I'm probably as hard core as recons get: documents and archaeological finds of the first millennium. Made/written by pagans, for pagans, and eyewitness accounts, in their geographical context- I don't take practices from England and stick them into Forn Sidr, for example. In my experience, the environment moulds religion, so Theodisc Geleafa is an adaptation to the English landscape, and wouldn't apply to Norway.

However, I'm not a polytheistic fundamentalist. Gods and vaettir are symbols to me, about proper relationship with the environment. So, in that respect, I'm ultra modern, compared to some. I once heard a guy describe Rokkatru as "blasphemy." Such theological debates don't exist for me.


I appreciate you taking the time to respond to me. I'm finding that I do prefer information that is as accurate about the time period and the specifics of the culture as possible. When I was on a more Wiccan oriented path, I found that the one thing that sort of threw me for a loop was the idea that you could take this aspect of a culture and try to put it into a format it wasn't created for, for example trying to put Indunn, Frigg and Freyja into the triple goddess format. It doesn't work for me, and when I figured that out, I realized that there was something wrong with that path at that time, which had me on the hunt again if you will.

I don't see the Gods as symbols, but as actual deities that I can (hopefully that is) interact with one day and learn from, so while I'm not that modern as you in this regard, I do like that you seem to have found a balance between the recon and the non-recon in certain aspects of your practice, and this makes me feel a bit better about not knowing right now. Again, thank you.

Tobias

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Re: How did you know you were more recon or more modernish?
« Reply #6 on: June 22, 2013, 02:01:43 am »
Quote from: ALiteraryLady;112989
Hi everyone (1st time thread maker, long time thread reader),


I was wondering where you would put yourself on the recon VS modern side of Heathenry or Asatru "debate" if you will. I'm not sure what the proper terminology for not-recon is besides "non-recon", so please pardon me for not having the correct term for you.

 I'm asking because I feel like I have to get some clarity on this point before my path becomes more clear to me and I'd like any experiences to see how they mesh up to my own. If you yourself aren't sure about where you are or if you take sides, etc, then please feel free to share that here as well (well, if you want to that is).

I'm not trying to pick a fight, I just want some diverse opinions and candidly I'm starting to feel comfortable around here, so here I go with the thread making.

Thanks for your time!




I don't think it is our choice to make, really. That if we are truly sensitive to the leading of the gods, we will find that the best path is laid out before us.  We simply have to accept what They have to offer, whether that be a relationship with one god or many; a path of mystical interaction with Them, or one of being guided by the wisdom found in the writings of a certain religion.  Or perhaps like me, a combination of all the above.  :)  

As a Christian for most of my life, I found my path in simply letting God be whatever He wanted to be.  Rather than making Him fit into all the characteristics that my religion told me to expect, I simply accepted Him for who He is.  This seems to have backfired on me when I started encountering other gods, and applied the same openness toward them.  ;)  Suddenly much of my religion was annulled by the benevolent actions of beings that were described as demons, and the apparent acceptance of my God for their influence in my life.  

So I cannot be a recon of any faith.  If I tried, which one would I choose?  I would have to trim off major portions of my spiritual life to try to fit into any one path.  I am content that this is where I'm supposed to be, though it is difficult to not feel like I belong anywhere.

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