Community Involvement

This portion of the site has taken a while to compose but not because Breidablik has suffered lack of interest.  From the very beginning, there was a core group of  impassioned supporters.  The reason for the delay has been contemplation of this wide demographic of people, from budding Northern Tradition spirit-workers grateful that someone traversed unknown territory before them, to agnostics unsure what this is all about but who've known me many years and are confident this is a worthy endeavor, and lend their time, talents, and financial support as needed.

"I am the All-Father. I have everyone. I don't have the same relationship with all of them,"  Odin has said to me.  It apparently doesn't matter to Him that visitors and supporters issue from widely divergent personal and spiritual backgrounds.   As long as there is respect and willingness, any guest is welcome, no supporter will be turned away.  The world has experienced enough fragmentation especially regarding religion.

"all the men of the assembly district were obliged to pay a tax . . . but the priest himself was charged with maintaining the hof at his own cost, so that it should not fall into neglect"  Peter Andreas Munch. Norse Mythology: Legends of Gods and Heroes.  Translated by Sigurd Bernhard Hustvedt

Keeping Breidablik is my lifetime obligation.  I would be here doing it regardless of how many people donated.  I would hope people saw merit in what transpires and found the merging of ancient and modern ways inspiring.  We don't adhere completely to the ancient ways.  I have no plans or intention to kill the horses as offerings to the gods, for example (keeping them is far more difficult, honestly).  We don't have a hof, a building for ritual use.  Maybe someday, but not now.  We do not have a kindred based here (although that might change).

Devotion, steadfastness, vision--those are present in abundance and are what Odin thought worthy when He claimed me as His sacrifice.  I build for Him, and all the gods for Whom Breidablik is home.

          There is a great diversity in the circumstances, operation and intended effects of sacrificial ritual in Old Norse heathenism.
          Perhaps, though, this diversity is the key to understanding Norse sacrifice, that is, that it was a very flexible system of
          religious thinking and action that could adapt itself to a changeable world. It could be tailored to fit nearly every occasion in
          which a singularity of purpose could be summoned to effect a desired result which may not have been possible through
          more direct means. Thus, sacrifice to the heathen Norse was not so much about the purpose of the ritual, as it was about a
          ritual to crystallise the operant's purpose and to make that purpose effectual in the world.
          Sacrifice and Sacrificial Ideology in Old Norse Religion, Daniel Bray