When I was a kid and I hadn't really thought too much about the subject, if someone asked me what religion I was I would have answered, "Church of England". It didn't really occur to me to ask what that meant. All I knew was my curiosity had caused me to ask my mother what religion we were and that had been her answer. I lived in what was, I suppose, still ostensibly a christian nation back then. I attended a Church of England school and lessons that depended upon them included morality and culture that was influenced by the christian church. Looking back, there wasn't really anything that I did or thought that made me christian, much less Church of England specifically. As a family, we didn't pray or attend church on Sundays. The only time we saw the inside of St Mary's church in our village was for weddings and funerals - or if the local primary school decided to hold a harvest festival service there.
As I moved on to secondary school and mixed with an only slightly more diverse peer group, I came across friends who also called themselves christian. However, their families did attend church every Sunday. Some were even a different denomination - usually catholic or methodist. As I became aware of the impact that their religion had upon their lives it occurred to me that perhaps my family - and myself in particular - weren't very religious at all.
Later, I would go on to identify as atheist, nihilist, existentialist and a number of other similar labels. The point I'm gradually marshalling into place, though, is that to identify as anyone one or more of these labels was enough. Despite the fact there were other kids going to church, attending Sunday school and singing hymns much more enthusiastically than me, I was still more than justified in calling myself christian. Identifying as such was enough.
It's the same with heathenry. Identifying as heathen is the first and only necessary step in being part of this burgeoning community. There is nothing you can do, no book you can read that will make you more heathen than you are when you first start to realise that the spiritual path you've been reading about is precisely the one you've been on or the one for which you've been searching.
You can blot every day of the week and, while there are benefits to doing so, it doesn't really make you any more heathen than someone who has never blotted. The Archbishop of Canterbury could take part in a blot, and he would be very welcome to do so, but it wouldn't make him heathen.
Similarly, you could read a thousand books on the subject. Doing so would undoubtedly increase your knowledge of heathenry immensely. But it wouldn't make you any more heathen than if you'd spent the time watching Great British Bake Off instead.
There are as many different routes around the heathen spiritual landscape as there are heathens themselves. Once you've identified as heathen, how you actualise that is completely up to you. If you want to be the heathen who blots every day and reads every scrap of text you can find on the subject then do that. If you want to create artwork to honour the gods, wights, ancestors, landscape or even Travis Fimmel, then do that. If you just want to devote some time thinking about heathenry and discussing as much over drinks with friends (preferably around a campfire), then do that. Each of these is just as valid a means of "doing heathen" as any others that could be mentioned.
Heathenry online can sometimes come across as being very heavily weighted towards certain kinds of heathens. Academics, artists and craftspersons seem to account for 95% of heathen content. To my mind, though, that says more about the nature of the internet. If you have something to say, or show then webpages, galleries and video servers cater very well to you. Within heathenry, though, all kinds of people are needed. If you can lend an ear to a story, chat with a fellow heathen and add your voice to songs and laughter, then you are just as valid a part of the heathen history being made today.
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