Recon?

[Bathilde]

What does reconstruction mean to you? How do you feel about it?

[ExileX2]

Reconstructionism is an approach to heathenry. It is not heathenry itself only the tools we use to craft the lenses through which we view the world. I don't feel anything about it though I do have passion for its pursuit.

Erik

[Bathilde]

good answer.

[Kitta]

Reconstruction, to me, means that they try to reconstruct a view of Heathenry that their ancestors worshiped. I don't feel too kindly on it, because a religion stuck in the past becomes stagnant and poisonous in my opinion.

One thing that catches my attention are the Heathens that will dress as their ancestors would have for rites and rituals. Our ancestors didn't do that, as far as I know. The gods are living beings like everyone else - they learn and grow, and our lore shows that to be true. We need to do the same if we are to make our Gods and Ancestors proud, I think. My most quoted piece of advice so to speak is the Law of Kaun ... The journey for wisdom, knowledge, and awareness is an eternal one; those who would honor the Godhin accept the challenge of this sincerely and without expectation.

[Gemyndig]

I think reconstructionism has allowed us to see more of what our ancestors may have believed and how they worshipped. However, I feel it has a limited value for me as a modern day Heathen. I'd agree with Kitta that a religion stuck in the past becomes stagnant and poisonous. I'd say that reconism has influenced me to a degree in terms of practices, but I can't get on board with some of the ideas which have become de rigeur in the reconstructionist community (such as the idea that our souls rot in the grave as favoured by recon thinkers such as Bil Linzie - this is just not my experience, and is an insult to my still-living ancestors IMO!)

[Bathilde]

I don't feel too kindly on it, because a religion stuck in the past becomes stagnant and poisonous in my opinion.

Is this happening?

[Gemyndig]

I think there is certainly evidence that people are becoming stagnant in some ways, with too much standardisation which doesn't really reflect the elder regional variations. Perhaps this is inevitable though where info is disseminated via the internet and everyone is reading the same stuff.

As for poison the best example I can think of is the (fairly prominent) recon who, in a discussion which touched on the Holocaust, declared that as a "good Heathen" he didn't give a damn about it because neither himself nor any of his inneryard either took part in it or were killed in it. I thought this a rather short-sighted, poisonous viewpoint, especially since the Holocaust is now regarded by scholars of WW2 as the inevitable result of centuries of Christian prejudice and demonisation of Jews which had simply morphed into a racial rather than a purely religious hatred. The idea that as Heathens we have nothing to learn from this warning from history is plain foolish IMO, and an example of the recon "inneryard/outeryard" ideology taken to a rather extreme and unhelpful extent. I mean, yes, my inneryard matters to me more than any other group, but this doesn't mean that I automatically consider anyone outside it as worthless (or as "dogmeat" as one Theodsman I recall rather unhelpfully called anyone outside of a Heathen's immediate circle...) I think we can learn from the experiences and wisdom of other peoples too.

[Kitta]

Bathilde, I don't think it is happening right now to the heathen community in general, but it's something that I believe about communities, groups, and individuals. If we don't strive, we won't thrive! lol I think that a religion that focuses too hard on the past starts to become too focused on the present and the future. I've met a coupld of recons that I do sincerely believe have become 'stagnant,' and I do firmly believe it can be poisonous to their spirituality. They are so fixated on learning exactly what the ancestors thought about every little aspect of heathenry - cosmology, divinity, morality, everything - that I think they forget the value of thinking for themselves. I love the lore, and I do like to learn about the Old Ways, the Gods and the ancestors, but I like to take the wisdom of the past, and actively try to apply it to the present.

Take our discussion on evolution. I don't feel it's wise to take science - humanity's best effort of reasoning and logic - and toss it out the window for whatever the Ancestors thought. We learn and we grow - as individuals and as a species. When we stop striving to learn and understand, I think that stagnation really does poison us.

[Gemyndig]

They are so fixated on learning exactly what the ancestors thought about every little aspect of heathenry - cosmology, divinity, morality, everything - that I think they forget the value of thinking for themselves.

This is the core of it for me - there's not enough reference IMO to placing existing lore in its proper historical context and what was going on for people at the time when they believed and did those things. We have a much greater scope nowadays for collating data and cross-referencing empirical experience, what really works and what doesn't. Also, we may have the same primal instincts as our ancestors, but we cannot know what it is really like to live like them, to suffer like them, unless we recreate the regular famines and disease epidemics (not to mention regular violent skirmishes between tribes) which they experienced, and which shaped their worldview. Our ancestors were therefor much more "rough and ready" than we are, more willing to take vengeance on slights etc, because it really was in those days "survival of the strong" - any hint of weakness would give signal that you were ripe for grinding into the mud by your rivals, and that's probably exactly what happened. If we translate this attitude into modern terms however, we might get too much of a gangsterish culture which is not welcome in the modern world. Therefor such things as wreke need to be moderated now to suit a more modern way of doing things (though if the justice system actually worked properly and didn't appear to reward criminality sometimes, then maybe people wouldn't be so keen to take the law into their own hands!!)

Another example is the insistence on the part of some that one must perform livestock blot to be "doing it right" and that this is the "luckiest" rite. If this were true then Nepal and Benin (where exist some of the most prolific livestock bloteres in the world) would be the luckiest, most prosperous countries on the planet, and they're clearly not. Fine if you're having a large gathering and need to slaughter a pig to feed everyone (I like a saucy rib or two myself), but the idea that this is somehow essential to proper, most effective worship of the Gods is demonstrably false IMO.

It's examples such as those above which make me think that we need to think some things through for ourselves and have a review of the elder thew and sidu to see if it still really does serve us as effectively in the modern day. It's no good hoping to win greater luck for our families through rigidly sticking to elder thew and then hurting them by landing up in jail because you were pursuing a violent blood feud just as your ancestors did! That doesn't make much sense to me...

[Bathilde]

Your experiences with recons is vastly different than mine I guess.