The Wild Hunt (https://wildhunt.org/author/karl)
Karl E. H. Seigfried is a Theology and Religious History Faculty at Cherry Hill Seminary, Adjunct Professor in Humanities at Illinois Institute of Technology, and goði (priest) of Thor's Oak Kindred. In addition to his award-winning website, The Norse Mythology Blog, he has written for the BBC, the International Journal of Indic Religions, Journal of the Oriental Institute, Newberry Library Digital Collections for the Classroom, Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue Series, Religion News Association's Religion Stylebook, Routledge Inform Series on Minority Religions and Spiritual Movements, Sightings of the Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion, and many others. He has degrees in literature, music, and religion, and he is the first Ásatrú practitioner to hold a graduate degree from the University of Chicago Divinity School.
Like a “Sunday Catholic” who is extremely devout on Sunday mornings but lives a decidedly un-Christian life for the rest of the week, we can all too easily make grand speeches over the drinking horn at blót but neglect to put intention into action when we step out into the wider world. Are we honoring the ancestors in our lives? Or are we dishonoring them?
The more of Romero’s films that I watched – and especially the more of his novel that I read – the more I also found a theology bubbling up through the blood that aligns with my own theology of Ásatrú, a modern religion that revives, reconstructs, and reimagines the ancient polytheism of Northern Europe.
Týr guides us, keeps faith with us, stays the course us, and never fails us. In the sometimes-wild world of the Norse deities, that stability and faithfulness can bring great comfort to those who seek it.
This is why I no longer wear the hammer in public. There’s just too much darkness lurking below the surface, across the board.
Over the past week, Democrats have giddily celebrated the ascension of Kamala Harris to the top of the ticket. That’s great, but it doesn’t deal with the issue of elderly leaders in this nation of ours. Maybe the tale of Egil Skallagrimsson, the Viking poet who lived to old age, has something to teach us here.