I have been taking a long hiatus from posting due to personal reasons as well as working on writing. As part of this I want to get together an FAQ for people new and old on the path here. If you have any questions regarding the Folkish Religion please send them to @Aluula. There is no such thing as a dumb question so please feel free to send any applicable questions and I will get back to as soon as I can. I deeply appreciate any feedback on the subject and the more questions the better!

In the home your practice involves a few different things:

• Practice of building your living family
• Daily blōt to the Forebears (also known as Elves)
• Regular respect for and blōt to the house Elves (hobs, brownies, wights of the home involving both family and not in this day of regular moving Folk)
• Daily Sitting Out (Meditation, or "Sitting in"/ general meditation around a Holy spot)
• Regular communication with the Gods and Goddesses
• Special blōts and sumbels around Holy Tides

When you start following a regiment you can feel your being balance itself and expand.

One should develop their own rituals based on the traditional methods as well as personal discovery through study and practice.

I've seen and felt the awareness that most in the Teutonic Pagan sphere are absolutely lost or otherwise fake. Why this is could make up quite a long list, but one big thing i've noticed is that there is simply little to no concern with actual practice in a practical manner. Most seem to practice nothing at all or typically practice the way the christian "only on sundays" family practices.

Eating food is necessary for life, sleeping is necessary for life, religious practice is necessary for life. Do we only eat one day a week? Do we only sleep three or four times a year? Then why should we only engage in religious practice and study once in awhile? This is a big flaw in modern practice that must be remedied. To do so we need to put some more focus on what actual practice looks like. We cannot sustain our spiritual existence with a handful of Blōts a year in any serious and practical sense. We must expand our understanding of the Folksede and engage in more regular and steady practice and study.

I am going to work on this subject more moving forward by sharing things I do and have found to be beneficial to my being in the hopes to alleviate any confusion felt by others. I know I have found it confusing and lacking without regular practice as I'm sure others are whether they realize it or not.

the symbol above is also a gyfu rune - the gift of children and a natural family!

In genealogy, the term ‘spear side’ refers to the father’s side of your family, whilst the term ‘distaff side’ is the maternal or mother’s side – and of course the spear is a symbol of Woden and the distaff a symbol for Frig!

“Unlike the Abrahamic religions, there is no formal conversion process involved in taking refuge of Dharma. Unlike these man-made (paurusheya) denominational constructs, Dharma represents the very constitutional principles governing the cosmos itself. Therefore, Dharma is the Natural Way. There is no ‘converting’ to nature. There is only reclaiming nature. Consequently, rather than conversion to Dharma, one is invited to freely take refuge in Dharma, and to joyfully embrace that which is natural to your soul.” (Taking Refuge in Dharma: The ISDS Initiation Guidebook, pgs. 18-19)

This is true of the Natural Way.

A practice I've been incorporating into my daily life is galing (singing in a religious context, related to Galdor) the names of the High One.

I gale a name three times and then move to another name, etc. This practice has helped me keep focus in my daily life, maintain equanimity, and boosted my appreciation of all the All father gives me in guidance, wisdom, and wod.

I have some other Galdors I perform regularly as well relating to Allfather, Thunor, and Frīa that very much assist similarly.

I advise daily galing for better focus in life through a deeper connection with the Gods that give us all we get in life. Without them we could not be.

One of the main reasons i put such emphasis on the subject of concepts like Rta/Dharma is that in my youth i had a intuitive recognition of ignoble behavior being wrong against 'something' but i had no solid concept to reference or language to describe what i was sensing.

I could say to someone, you are not acting in the way of Mr smith, Mr Smith being an example of right behavior but in an environment of individualism ideology the comparison between Mr Ignoble and mr Smith were just individuals opinions and there was nothing to weigh these differing opinions against.

More troubling is that over time i could see that ignoble behavior was more contagious than noble behavior.
Detached from a conceptual anchor of Dharma the instinctual reference remains but steadily dissipates by ever increasing ignoble behavior continually moving the goal post to a more degenerate center between Noble and ignoble.

The word Dharma is useful because it's well recognized but a problem because rightfully so or not, It has an automatic association to something foreign in most people's minds.
The world we use for primal order is of no importance compared to having a clearly defined concept of it to reference or weigh behavior against.
In my own head i say Satwag or Ritwag, meaning the True way or the Right way.

From the Celtic tradition we have the word Coair which means Truth but in a cosmic universal or primal sense.
As an expression of The Way there is the concept of Fir Flathemon, The Truth of a Noble. This meant that a ruler was bound to uphold a preexisting just order.

Guido Von List wrote a whole book on the history of the Rita of the Aryo Germanic folk.

If you have Aryan blood you will find a concept of The Way being expressed in your own ancestral traditions and language.
It has always been with us and is necessary for our health as a species.

Hope everybody had a great yuleblót last night. We at the Hearth of Devon certainly did.
I also got to unveil our new Woden pole to the group last night which I've spent the last 6 months carving.