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Chapter 7. At the Well of Urð 174
Ritualistic behavior based on guidelines from the Hávamál, which really is nothing
more than a distillation of Germanic spiritual philosophy can be put into action
by anyone regardless of his or her religious belief system. One could do very well by
himself and others by engaging in such “proper” actions, and through this method
one is acting in accordance with knowledge without having either direct or indirect
access to it.
Common sense is advised by the Hávamál. In my 30 years as an Ásatrú man, I’ve
seen some fairly nonsensical questions raised about the Hávamál. For example, “How
hospitable does an individual need to be?” In this century with its drugs and gangs
and general lack of concern by one man for another, hospitality means something
quite different than it did a mere 30 years ago in the rural community where I grew
up. Hospitality at that time meant that we didn’t lock our doors when we went on
vacation just in case someone might need something from the house. Borrowing and
helping out a neighbor were done as a matter of course. When someone ”broke the
rules” as would happen occasionally, the cold shoulder treatment by the rest of the
community was enough to bring the individual back in line. Now, I live in a town
of 20,000 in the year 2001, and I even lock my car doors. One doesn’t approach
a stranger for news from the outside because 1) it isn’t necessary because we have
cable TV and 2) it’s stupid and dangerous. I’ve seen people try to use the Hávamál
like Christians do the Bible, as a means to justify bad or socially unacceptable
behavior. But in the long run, common sense must prevail. A great man once told
me “Don’t try to split hairs with me! You know when you are acting crappy!” He
was right. When I have to look to the Hávamál to justify why I did something, it
is only because I’m try to justify my selfishness or rudeness; when I am acting out
of “proper action” I never once reach for justification.
There is a phenomenon which has never truly disappeared from humanity, but
which seems to have mushroomed over the last 50 years: the existence of earth-based
religions. The movement has grown and coalesced into the so-called New Age which
is really little more than a “crazy-quilt” built of scraps and pieces taken from all cultures
and sources. Anglo-Europeans are often those who seem to be most affected
by this phenomenon because this are the people who have allowed themselves to
become grossly separated from their cultural spiritual values and, because of this,
many have either joined together with practitioners of non-Anglo-European indigenous
earth-based cultures (those who have not become separated from their ancestral
value systems) or have started new philosophies/ religions. There is much positive to
be said about these groups, way too much for this book, but they lack one thing: a
cohesive ancestral spiritual philosophy which has its base in Anglo-European ancestry,
the ancestral worldview of northern Europe from where most stem. In general,
these people are merely reacting against the Christianity and Christian values that