My journey into Norse paganism.
So, I've seen some other people do this and I decide to give it a shot.
For context, I'm 37 years old and I have been a Norse pagan for around 9 years. I became a pagan after having left Christianity years before.
The thing is, I was not searching for a new spiritual path. At that point I was agnostic, I knew there was a spiritual power out there or a" higher power" but honestly at that point I didn't give much of a crap.
Then I started working at a major distribution company. It only has three letters in its name.
One of the people I met there (who is now part of my chosen family) is also a Norris pagan.
He showed me what real integrity, selflessness, and courage is.
To make this easier to read, we will call my friend Tom. One night while we were working, Tom received a phone call from a friend of his back home in upstate New York. I watched Tom's face as a variety of emotions crossed it. Apparently Tom's friend was calling him and explaining that his son had just been born very premature and he needed support. Tom merely said" I'll be there soon." As I had no idea what the conversation had been about I asked.
Tom told me that a friend had called him for help. And that he would be going to help him directly after work. What Tom did not tell me was the fact that he would be driving 6 hours back to upstate New York.
That night directly after work, Tom got in his car and drove to go see his friend. He was gone for a few days.
The next time I saw him at work I asked him if everything was okay, as I did not know why he had missed work. He explained what he had been doing.
This type of selflessness was something that I had not seen before. So I asked him about it, he could have just sent his friend money or done a number of things to support him. Tom's answer made me think," as a follower of Tyr, when I say I'm going to do something, I do it" I had never heard of this"Tyr".
So of course, I asked him who was Tyr. He explained it to me, that Tyr was one of the gods he worshiped. I kept asking questions about his faith, and like the awesome friend that he is, he kept answering.
This gave me a bit of pause in my life. So I decided to look into it. My curiosity led me to reading on Norse Paganism a bit.
Then, a few weeks after the conversation with him about Norse paganism and his faith in general I started having weird dreams.
In one dream I am sitting in what I believe is a machine gun nest, looking out over a field of battle past. What made it even weirder, was not only were there bodies of more modern looking soldiers there, some of the Fallen had axes, swords, Shields and bows and arrows along with things like guns.
Even though this was a dream, I was fairly lucid during it. I knew that there would be no way for modern soldiers to have ever fought against people who are using ancient looking armor and weapons.
I remember very distinctly. I was holding in my hand a box of what looked like spent ammunition, not the casings, the bullets themselves. I remember asking myself" what am I supposed to do with this ?" To my left I heard a voice say" whatever you want." I look over and there is a man, with a long beard missing an eye. What's weird is I cannot really remember what I was missing. For some reason after he spoke, he got up and left and I followed.
I had a few other weird dreams of things that I cannot explain.
After that, I decided to really look into this Norse paganism thing, and eventually I decided to give offerings to my ancestors, the gods and try to find some form of harmony with the land spirits where I live.
It's been just shy of 10 years now, and I have never felt more fulfilled spiritually. I love the path that I am on.
Y'all have a wonderful day.