Editor’s note: Luke Babb holds the title of Ambassador within the Troth, though this title has no formal responsibilities within the organization.
I am starting to forget things about my first Heathen retreat. I have to review my own writing and flip through old journals to recall exactly where it was, who I met there instead of the year following. The initial stark, shocking relief of finding a community has had time to grow into fondness and become colored by the particular kind of familiarity that comes from volunteering together. There’s a worn feeling to those first memories outside of Seattle – but I remember the circle.
It was the reason we had come. Not all of us, but enough to be remarked upon by the regulars and the reliable attendees. As we stood in the circle, I thought I could pick the others out of the crowd from a kind of fellow feeling – maybe an eagerness in our stances, something wide and wondering about our eyes. For many of us it was a trip we couldn’t afford, hours sacrificed and itineraries cobbled together for an event we knew we couldn’t miss.
The Troth, America’s largest inclusive Heathen organization, was founded in 1987. They changed their policies in December of 2018 in order to allow attendees at their events to honor the god Loki. This was June of 2019, barely six months later, and we had come from across the US to attend the first blot in his honor.
It is not an easy thing, finding a place to honor Loki. For many of his followers, it is even harder to find a place to do so safely. My understanding of the community is that many of us are queer, or trans, or people of color – the sorts of folks who struggle with finding community in a spirituality that has its modern roots in German nationalism. The Heathen spaces that are aggressive in their inclusion of minorities are few and far between – enough so that there have been multiple projects to help them identify themselves. A place that had staked its reputation on inclusivity not only allowing Loki, but apologizing for banning him in the first place? It was a pivot point. We had to be there.
We said as much, in that circle. I remember how it kept expanding as people made their way down to the temple, growing loose and misshapen as we spilled away from the tiny wooden cabin and out into the grass. I remember how I shook when it was my turn to offer a toast, how my voice cracked, how I was not the only one who cried as we talked about the myths, our experiences, this goddex who had reshaped our lives and held us through our hurts. For many of us, Loki was the family that had taught us we could be loved when humans in our lives couldn’t.
“Lokis Gezücht,” illustration from Walhall, die Götterwelt der Germanen. Martin Oldenbourg, Berlin, 1905 [public domain]
I remember how careful we were. Because even here, hailing our beloved god, there were other names we couldn’t mention – his other children, the family we knew he loved as much as he loved us. The Troth’s Position Statement had been edited to allow us to talk about Loki in community, but it was still clear.
“As a Germanic heathen organization, it is not part of the Troth’s mission to promote or advance the honoring or worship of… Beings from Germanic mythology that are understood to be hostile to the Aesir and Vanir, to humanity, and/or to the cosmological order, for example: Angrboda, Fenrir, the Midgard Serpent/Jormungandr, Surtr, Muspel’s Sons, Garm, Nidhogg. Discussion of such deities and other beings, when relevant to issues surrounding heathen Germanic religion, is a normal and necessary occurrence in Troth forums, meetings, and publications. However, it is not the purpose of Troth programs, publications, offices, or certifications to advocate, promote, or carry out the honoring or worship of these entities. Troth members are expected to recognize and respect such boundaries in the context of Troth affairs.”
We talked openly about Loki that week, but we swallowed the name of Jormungandr, who taught us how important it is to have boundaries. When a few of us found each other, we jumbled into a car and drove off property for a solitary ritual in a nearby cove, thanking Angrboda for her fierce protection and Surtr for the beauty that can be found even in destruction. We did it on stolen time and came back onto the land only when we were sure that we could hold our tongues again.
It was a beautiful little ritual, four of us on the beach with the thrill of something illicit hanging between us. I am very glad that nobody is going to have to do anything like it again.
Carl Emil Doepler, “Loke, Fenriswolf und Midgardschlange,” illustration from Nordisch-germanische Götter und Helden by Wägner, Wilhelm, 1882 [public domain]
The Troth’s new position statement hasn’t been the subject of the long controversy that hounded their choice to welcome Lokeans back into the fold. It’s simply a part of the new bylaws that take effect on June 15th. On the first day of this year’s Trothmoot, nearly four years to the day since that circle outside of Seattle, the Rede will confirm a position statement that simply, and thoroughly, leaves out the language my elders in the community tended to call the “verboten jotun blotin’’ clause.
There’s no press release planned, no public statement – just a committee that helped to rewrite the bylaws and a vote by the membership, a simple procedural change in an organization designed to “to educate, train, provide resources for, and otherwise promote the inclusive practice of linguistically Germanic, polytheistic religions.” But leaving it at that undersells the importance such a small change can have.
Changing the position statement is a move away from a time where Pagan organizations enshrined the beliefs of their creators in their founding documents, and toward a truly supportive organization that allows its members to articulate and pursue their own religious needs.
The position statement of The Troth has, for many years, reflected a larger question in Pagan community organizations – what are we here for? As a new religious movement, do we need guidance in the interpretation and practice of our faith? Or are we in need of structure and spaces for individuals with differing views to compare and collaborate? The new statement is clear about the limitations of its scope, and positions The Troth as a space in which “individuals and groups [may] freely worship as they will, guided by the dictates of their own consciences…The Troth does not and will not dictate to individual members which beings they may or may not honor, what forms of ritual they may or may not employ, or how they may conceive of these beings.”
That’s a much-needed clarity of vision that separates the specific beliefs of leadership from the support that they offer their community.
Much more importantly, it opens the doors of that community a little wider. In the multiplicity of modern Paganism, where we are each encouraged to develop our own independent paths and relationships with the gods, welcoming all of those relationships is necessary. There may not be many at this year’s Trothmoot who will stand in the circle for the jotnar and cry, but real inclusion is created by centering the needs of those most marginalized. They are the ones who need this space most and often have nowhere else.
Let us make no mistake – there is still work to do in order to make Heathenry anti-racist, to address our systemic and individual biases, to ensure that our halls are truly open to everyone. Opening our communities to all those who share our holy texts is just a crucial first step. May the people who enter help to illuminate the next one.
An illustration of the wolf Fenrir biting the right hand off the god Týr, from an Icelandic 18th century manuscript. [public domain]
So hail, Hróðvitnir. Hail to the wolf, Loki’s son, fast friend of Tyr. Hail to the one who was called ‘dangerous’ as a child and bound for fear of who he might become. Bless those who are imprisoned unjustly, who trust authority and are punished for it. Give us the strength to bear pain we cannot avoid. Help us to accept our anger and learn its lessons. Teach us patience in the face of abuse and broken oaths while we work to break our chains.
Hail Fenrisúlfr. May you now receive the love and honor that you deserve.
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