Seidhr, or, How I Became Half a Heathen

November 14, 2011 by Eric Scott

Continued from Page 1

I felt both at home and in a deeply foreign place. I was a Wiccan; I had just begun to discover just how important to my identity Wicca was. Did I want to be a heathen too? For that matter: could I even be both?

The seeress gave no clear answers. I suppose divinations rarely do.

When the questions were done, the woman in black urged us to take deep breaths, to prepare us for the journey sunward. With trepidation, I grabbed a root, and begin to climb back toward the grass.

Up, up, up, she calls us. Come up, and back again to the tree.

The last thing I saw before the man with the spear called for us all to wake was the squirrel, staring at me. I could still hear the man's voice, calling me back to consciousness, back to the waking world. . . . And yet I heard the last chitter from the squirrel.

Rat-a-tosk. Rat-a-tosk.

We stretched and yawned as though we had spent hours exerting ourselves, when in reality, the whole of the trance probably only took forty minutes. My friend Alaric gives me his imp grin as soon as our eyes adjust to the firelight. "You make it back, buddy?"

I told him yes. But in truth, I'm not sure I ever did.

Page: 2 of 2

11/14/2011 5:00:00 AM

Pagan

Family Traditions

Divination

Heathen

Shamanism

Wicca

Wyrd

Yggdrasil

Paganism

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About Eric Scott

Eric Scott was raised in St. Louis by Coven Pleiades, a Wiccan group based in the Alexandrian tradition. His fiction and memoir explore the joys and doubts of being a second-generation Pagan in the modern world. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Missouri. His work has appeared in or is forthcoming in Ashe! Journal, Kerouac's Dog Magazine, Caper Literary Journal, and Witches & Pagans. He is also a Contributing Editor at Killing the Buddha.

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