Heathenry is Playing Pretend

That's my conclusion for the evening. Call it cynical. I call it an accurate assessment of the present stage of the movement. It's pretend-acting by city-folk not really willing to give their all to something that will require a tremendous amount of commitment and transformation : turning around of their urban, imperialized mindstates to really reclaim and take back the tribal.

I began this musing walking through an open field whose beauteous weeds had just been cut for fire regulations, because that land calls to me. It is an open space. I then imagined one of the urban zombies who surround me calling the police on me for "trespassing" on "private property", when all I was doing was peacefully walking on the land and attuning to it, a religious need. I imagined being called into court and telling them, "You have no jurisdiction over me." When they asked me for my plea, I imagined saying, "I do not have to answer to you and I make no plea." When they told me I was in contempt of court, I imagined saying, "No, you are in contempt of me and of the land, and I have nothing to say to you." And then I imagined telling them that I follow the law of my tribe, who follows the land.

Then comes the part in this somewhat vain if dramatic musing where the opposition was able to topple the whole house of cards. "You don't have a real tribe, Siegfried," the court said. "That tribe is all in your head."

All of my bluster and show faded. Not my strength, not my resolve, but they had me there. There is not a single person I know of who would come to my defense in this little, imaginary situation. No, people would scold me for having "trespassed" on "private property", and like good little urban citizens, they would side with a law they never wrote because in some book somewhere they came to believe that laws represent the people's representations of their ancient rights, when in fact we live in a settler state founded on imperialism.

People claiming to be fellow heathens would scold me for speaking to the court in that way.

Or like cowards, I would get some modicum of defiance expressed in some slavish way, accompanied by the anti-warrior sentiment, "Well, that's just the way it is," something, when it comes to human arrangements, an ancient warrior would never have said in the face of empire. I would get some lecture on how yes, it sucks, but I just have to find some way to suck it up. And suck it up. And suck it up. And keep sucking it up my entire life until there is no genuine life or dignity or freedom left to me.

There is no real tribe. There are no warriors who would back a fellow tribesman in a matter of religious, tribal law. There are no proud comitati-members who would stand behind me and challenge the Roman Empire. The only people who even faintly through a dark glassly approach such a thing are members of the "patriot" militia movement, and members of Earth First!, and of course, we are all well-educated by the media now to know that those kinds are "terrorists" with whom we must never show any kind of sympathy or solidarity, even if of the critical kind. Ha! Some "freedom" we've got.

No, most heathens, like most of everyone else, are living on the other side of the Rhine, the side that Rome has colonized, and when push comes to shove, they will defend the Empire, with their life. Or, cowards, they'll simply call an imperial soldier in to do it for them.