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    #16
    Re: Relationships between heathens and gods

    I understand that, I can also understand your isolation, it will not always be so Dez, and then maybe you will re-read my posts and find the same comraderie as I found.
    Gunnarr Sandisson
    "A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be." Albert Einstein
    Five Boroughs Hearth

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      #17
      Re: Relationships between heathens and gods

      I do hope so, too...
      Great Grandmother's Kitchen

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        #18
        Re: Relationships between heathens and gods

        Originally posted by Gunnarr View Post
        Wednesday,

        I agree with the aspect of heathenry you state but it is not complete or is very narrow in some aspects of their worldview through this thread and your explaination of innangard and utgard does not go far enough.
        I know... There are so many intricate concepts that intertwine to creat a complex worldview that it's hard to know when to edit myself in discussing specific concepts and when to write a novella.

        That said, I'm really confused by your concepts of inneryard. I do agree that worth is a component, but it seems like you're blurring the lines between social status and utgard and what inneryard is.

        As I've always heard it explained, your inneryard is the group of people you have the closest bonds to and implicit trust in. Why this would change because you move to Australia is beyond me, other than the fact that you won't be a member (yet) of anyone else's inneryard there and that no one there will as yet be in yours. Inneryard includes the people you would leave the keys of your house to in absolute trust. Those outside of your inneryard are the people you may invite to dinner but that you don't trust to just have open access to your house. Kitj and kin are in your inneryard, the community is without and your enemies even further in Utgard.

        Why Dez would think that she can't have an inneryard at this time blows my mind. Unless she truly has no family or close friends???

        Worth was important to each family in the community, your worth is how you were measured by your community, and contributed to your reputation.
        You enter someone's inneryard by proving your worth, sure, but what you're describing is social standing/status and not inneryard.

        I think of small pool of water, if you throw a pebble in the water it ripples out these circles for represent innangard the first circle is self as in self worth, then the family, then community and then community that are near to you and so on. In a small pond the circles come back at you this is the outside worlds impact upon your recognized Innangard. These ripples are utgard there impacts can be any event outside the control of your various levels of innangard.

        When a heathen thinks of self it is as part of their family unit, quite correctly, I believe that the individuals worth is important to your feeling of self worth, this is the part I would like to explore. Self worth within innangard is kind of difficult to see at first. I will use an analogy of a modern Childs life, born into family unit, you grow and are guided daily in all manner of things, then comes first day at school. School is part of your community but you will be going there as an individual, a new community your being thrown in the deep end, you are expected to not let down your family, for the first time you are expected to make decisions for yourself, a bad one can affect your self worth affecting your innangard, a good one can enhance it. After a while you settle down your now an integral part of your school community. Time to change school into the big school you go from the oldest to the youngest from your previous safe and secure innangard to another community.

        If you apply this thinking to our ancestors they traveled far and wide, for fame, fortune and more often than not necessity, this was often as an individual or with another member of your family accepted innangard, but there innangard changed they were out on their own in the world where your reputation had to be earn't and your innangard effectively was mobile. Think to yourselves moving home, then apply that thought again to moving home to a different country, expand that thought again to moving to another country but no home. To me this is mind blowing, we view are ancestors often simplistically but that is not in my opinion the real truth.[COLOR="Silver"]
        What you're describing here sounds like the conceptions of Known World and Other. Midgard and Asgard are fixed places, Utgard (the land of the enemy) encircles this (Jormungand) on all sides and has no fixed postion. The best description I have ever heard is that the known world ends at the horizon, but take five steps forward and the boundaries of the Other world move five steps back. Because you have established familiarity, categorization and definition of what was previously unseen. This also occurs in trolls, who cease being trolls when they become known and are then named, individual beings. This is what I see you describing as your concept of inneryard and shifting perspectives, but I have to argue that you've added separate concepts.

        As to how relationships with the gods and inneryard connect: the gods are the center of the inneryard-- we trust them to have an influence on our lives and our loved ones. We give them the keys to the house, so to speak. But we are NOT in the gods inneryard. They do not, will not, give us the keys to Asgard.

        Do you feel I've msunderstood you or the information I've collected?

        Thank you for the links below.

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          #19
          Re: Relationships between heathens and gods

          I would like to understand your POV more, but to do that i need to understand your source related to the subject.

          What I do not understand is your wording to start with Inneryard and outeryard, where do you get this terminology as it is different, i prefer Innangard and Utgard as the etymology is more connected to our ancestors and the prefix of the words shows a simplistic meaning of inside/outside.

          John Lindow in 'Handbook of Norse Mythology' covers the aspect of Utgard and explains it as outer enclosure, 'Loki as Utgarda Loki' is a liminal figure as in outside of community, although to some he is still accepted.

          Innangard being, as Kirsten Hastrup explains in 'A Place Apart' as those which have a social impact on an individual and on which that individual has an impact on. Close knit community/family/ those who are tied to the same plot.

          This is opposite to your more exclusive Innangard, understanding that Innangard is a personal thing, so your measure is not wrong but in my opinion different to mine, our ancestors world and worldview.

          Behaviour within your community as I put it your "worth", this worth is your usefulness and your contribution, it is a contributing factor to the Innangards luck and strength, from this evolved the concept of thew.

          Looking forward to your response and sources.
          Gunnarr Sandisson
          "A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be." Albert Einstein
          Five Boroughs Hearth

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            #20
            Re: Relationships between heathens and gods

            Originally posted by Wednesday View Post
            Why Dez would think that she can't have an inneryard at this time blows my mind. Unless she truly has no family or close friends???

            Gunnarr and I have sort of gone around and around on this one before...partially due to me working to understand his stance.

            It's not that I don't want one, nor is it that I can see why it's important. It's that in the past couple of years I have walked away from a belief system with a strong sense of "insiders" vs. "outsiders". That choice has left me, even to my most intimate family members, as an outsider now. Other then my spouse and children, and long-distance friends I have made elsewhere, like this forum, I am literally starting from scratch. My entire network of real-life social interactions was based around my being a faithful member of said religion, and now that I'm not, it's gone.
            Great Grandmother's Kitchen

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              #21
              Re: Relationships between heathens and gods

              Originally posted by Gunnarr View Post
              I would like to understand your POV more, but to do that i need to understand your source related to the subject.

              What I do not understand is your wording to start with Inneryard and outeryard, where do you get this terminology as it is different, i prefer Innangard and Utgard as the etymology is more connected to our ancestors and the prefix of the words shows a simplistic meaning of inside/outside.

              John Lindow in 'Handbook of Norse Mythology' covers the aspect of Utgard and explains it as outer enclosure, 'Loki as Utgarda Loki' is a liminal figure as in outside of community, although to some he is still accepted.

              Innangard being, as Kirsten Hastrup explains in 'A Place Apart' as those which have a social impact on an individual and on which that individual has an impact on. Close knit community/family/ those who are tied to the same plot.

              This is opposite to your more exclusive Innangard, understanding that Innangard is a personal thing, so your measure is not wrong but in my opinion different to mine, our ancestors world and worldview.

              Behaviour within your community as I put it your "worth", this worth is your usefulness and your contribution, it is a contributing factor to the Innangards luck and strength, from this evolved the concept of thew.

              Looking forward to your response and sources.
              My "source" is that there really isn't much of a source other than Hastrup. You'll also see in Lindow's book that there isn't any entry on Innangard. Hastrup writes that innangard was the farmstead (literally "inner-yard"), but then seems to use the concentric circle model. Scandinavian law books seem to use a concept of Innangard as the innersanctum as well, separated from the main (public) room. What I have to go by, since (to me) there's a lack of academic clarification- especially in the mythological/cosmological realm, is the general heathen community understanding.

              Though, I do think that our two POV's are very similar in certain respects, only differing really in how far we think innangard extends ; you believe it bleeds onto the public sphere, ever changing with our obligations, while I believe it is consistently in the home and not influenced by obligation or social status. As you said yourself, even those without worth or as Other will have their own inneryard.

              But, I don't think there's enough info to say that one view or the other is entirely accurate to our ancestors worldview, and I would gather that they themselves had conversations of this nature. That's what people do.

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