Tag Archive for: ostara
The Yule Tower, Heart(h) of the Northern World.
Deities & LoreBy Arnbald OR-B & FS (Brittany & French Saxony)
For many Odinists today, the Yule tower (Julleuchter) appears as one of the main cultual artefacts in the family hof. As its names suggests, it is mainly involved in the Yule time celebrations. If it has became an important symbol of the old faith, the artefact itself – as we shall see – not necessarily an old symbol.
Gods & Goddesses of Odinism
Deities & LoreAn introduction into the Gods, Goddesses, wights and beings of Odinic Mythology
Nature Spirits
Circle of Ostara Articles, Deities & LoreOur pagan ancestors and the pagan peoples of every race believed that all things upon the Earth led life. Trees and plants, crystals and rocks, streams and springs of water, mountains, islands, animals and human beings, all were seen as live and conscious individuals, capable of thought and movement and of interaction with each other.
Yggdrasil – The Tree of Life and Death
Circle of Ostara Articles, Deities & LoreThe multiversal concept of Yggdrasil, the World Tree, has been touched on many times elsewhere. The material presented here is a drawing together of these threads, weaving them into a composite picture.
Loki
Circle of Ostara Articles, Deities & LoreIt is incorrect, although a prevalent concept among Odinists, to equate Loki with the Judeo-Christian devil, that odd concept of a totally evil force that yet does the dirty work for a supposedly total good force. Loki is not the devil.
Eira
Circle of Ostara Articles, Deities & LoreEira is the goddess of healing, the force behind the power to heal and the giver of bountiful health.
Tyr
Circle of Ostara Articles, Deities & LoreTyr is the god to whom we turn when we wage just war and exact just vengeance. In Odinic ritual it is stated "there is a great wrong yet to right" and in the righting of that wrong, that great evil that has set out first to enslave and then to destroy our people Tyr is the generator of our righteous hatred and thirst for revenge.
Heimdal
Circle of Ostara Articles, Deities & LoreThe Van, Heimdal, is a god of peculiar significance for our folk. He, it is said, stands sentinel at Bifrost Bridge and guards the realm of Asgarth from invasion by evil. With his armour of silver, his golden helmet and his great gleaming sword he is a shining figure in our mythology.
Frey
Circle of Ostara Articles, Deities & LoreFrey, whose name means "lord", was seen by our pagan ancestors as the "the Lord of the Elves". He is pre-eminently a nature god, a spiritual being concerned with procreation and fertility.
Ostara
Circle of Ostara Articles, Deities & LoreLike Odin himself, the mother of people bears many names - Ostara, Frigg, Freya, Hulda, Mother Cary, Frau Holle, Tara and many more. She is the most well-loved of our divinities. So well loved that even the malice of the Christian usurpers could not force the people to turn from her.
Odin – Allfather
Circle of Ostara Articles, Deities & LoreOdin is the High One, the Father of our gods, the creator of our race. In the threefold aspect of Odin-Honir-Loður he breathed the spirit of thought and magic and awareness into us and made us human, the upright animal, with a spark of high divinity that makes us question and create and reach for the stars.
The Æsir – An introduction
Circle of Ostara Articles, Deities & LoreIn our attempts to write about the characteristics of our racial gods and goddesses, it is all too easy to fall into the trap mentioned in other articles in this series - that of seeing them as literary figments, characters in old stories and not as beings actually existing in a wider reality than that of the material world.