Call yourself a heathen?

When you choose to eschew the normal rituals and paraphenalia of the heathen path, it is liberating on one hand, but can be demoralising on the other. When you don't blot every day, talk to the gods, make offerings, etc it can make times like these - where we are limited in what we can do (i.e. lockdown) difficult. After all, what parts of my daily life at the moment are actually heathen?

I wear a mjolnir pendant. I have a tshirt with odin on it in my wardrobe. I have norse gods as usernames for some of my favourite websites.

Doesn't really seem enough, somehow.

Then again, if I were blotting every day and making offerings to the wights in my local area on heathen feast days, why would those things make me more heathen?

Maybe it is enough to be heathen in your heart and mind - where it counts?

Self reliance

Inspired by Vikings and/or the heathen worldview, I am trying to make positive changes in my life. Essentially trying to improve myself and my situation in ways that Vikings or heathens would approve of (as perceived in my version of Norse neopaganism).

First of these changes is to become more self reliant. One way I am doing this is to turn over a section of the garden of our new house to vegetables. I say new house, but we have been moved in since the start of February.

Additionally, I intend to begin repairing and reusing items, rather than throwing them away. That said, we won't let our place fill with clutter, but similarly we will try to be reducing the influence of our disposable culture, too.

Any other ways we could improve our self reliance? Especially interested in hearing if it can save us money, too.... ;)