Harvest

For the dweller in the ‘Great City’ the idea of HARVEST is abstract and devoid of any connection with reality as he knows it. He reads of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ harvests in newspapers, or perhaps sees pictures of drought-stricken fields, or waving stands of ripe wheat – flashed for a moment on a television screen. But the comments from the media will be a calculation of profit or loss – harvest in terms of money.

In the supermarkets he buys products of the Earth, wrapped in shining film, packaged and advertised until their origin in fields and orchards is obscured and made irrelevant. The meat he buys is packaged and presented so that any recognition of it as the flesh of once-living animals who have been raised and killed for his convenient consumption is lost.

In such an unreal ambience the concept of seasonal change, the times of sowing seed, growth, and harvest, make little impression. As a people we have become divorced from the Earth and the cycles of the seasons. For Odinists, however, who recognise the Earth and her seasonal changes as sacred, Harvest is a time of great importance and religious celebration.

We have followed the dance of the seasons and the growth of ‘field and fold’ – from the fresh-sprouted seed and skipping lambs of Spring, through Summer growth, and into the joyful time of harvest. In this we rejoice now, and look forward to that time coming when the harvests of mankind will once more be acts of cooperation and unity with the laws of Nature and the Spirit of the Earth.

But we can look at the great reality embodied in the concept of sown seed growing to fruitful harvest in another light – as an analogy for our work in the Odinic Rite. As the husbandman sows his seed in the Earth, we have sown our message of revitalisation in the Folk Soul of our people, and it has begun to stir in the darkness there and will soon burst forth into the Sunlight.

OUR HARVEST HERE WILL BE IN THE FUTURE!

As the farmer knows, a harvested crop is not gained merely by sowing the seed and sitting at ease to watch it grow. The sprouting plants must be cared for, weeded and cultivated, fed with the proper nutriments, if a good harvest is to be achieved.

So we must tend the garden of the Folk, and work in its neglected and drought-stricken soil. So we must strive to oust the alien weeds of Judeo/Christianity.

So at this celebration of ‘HARVEST’ we reach out to our gods and Goddesses:

Hail to the Aesir and Vanir!!
May the Norns grant us strength –
to reap our good HARVEST
from these well-sown seeds!!