by Doug Freyburger
One of the recurring arguments in American Heathenry is about ceremony: how formal must it be? How much planning, structure, and liturgy is required for a blót to count? Doug Freyburger spent much of his time in alt.religion.asatru as a systematizer — building frameworks, organizing principles, writing the Hávamál commentary. This April 2006 post is the other side of that voice.
He spent a weekend doing stonework: digging sod, leveling with sand, laying blocks. And partway through the digging he realized he was living the Völuspá. Ymir's flesh is the soil. The worms in it are alive. The robins know it. He hadn't planned a ceremony. He hadn't intended a blót. But it was one — more real than many he had planned in advance.
The lesson cuts to the bone: the tales describe reality. A Heathen who knows this in the body, not just the mind, is already past ceremony into something older.
This weekend I did some stonework at home. Digging out sod and dirt, leveling with sand, laying blocks, filling the cracks. Good exercise but while I was doing it I was struck by how much of the lore came to me from what I saw.
The dirt is filled with worms and bugs. The robins loved it when I dumped buckets of soil on the eroded parts of the berm to build it back up. The soil is living as if it were the flesh of a stone giant. Huh, probably one named Ymir. Any time I dig I recall the tale and times between digging the thought fades. It goes from being an everyday reality back to being a tale and a symbol.
Gardeners, farmers, construction workers, stonemasons, all must see Ymir every day. And know it as real not just a symbolic tale.
Working in sod and stone is living the Völuspá. I didn't even plan that it would end up being Blot. I didn't include any ceremony intended to make it Blot. But it was every bit as much Blot, as much sharing with the Aesir, as any acted out ceremony I've ever planned in advance. It approached the level of sacredness of hunting in the woods with my Dad and noticing every little creature and the wind in the leaves. I like doing small stonework projects for far more reasons than just the house is a nicer place from it. For far more reasons than it's great exercise. For far more reasons than it's an expression of skills rarely used.
Yet no one but me noticed. Normally Blot is better with more people. It's a social activity. Without planning to I struck to the heart of what Blot should be. Past the social aspect. Past the ceremony and even past the sharing with the wights. Past those to living the tales as reality. To learning and relearning that the tales describe reality and give reality meaning.
Are there robins in Europe? Given their gusto in eating the worms I uncovered, I would expect them in the lore. Was it magpies the Volsungs could understand after drinking the dragon's blood? I guess as close to robins as were available in ancient Europe.
Hail Asgard!
Colophon
Written by Doug Freyburger and posted to alt.religion.asatru on April 17, 2006. Freyburger was a longtime practitioner and prolific theological voice in American Heathenry. This brief post captures the immanent side of his spirituality — the counterweight to his more systematic work, and a reminder that the Lore lives in dirt and muscle as much as text. Light correction applied to obvious typing errors; voice preserved verbatim.
Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026. Original Message-ID: <[email protected]>.
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