I can feel it in my bones

I almost didn’t attend the Northeast Thing¹ this year. The 2019 version of the event was catalyzing and meaningful to me, but it also surfaced some issues that eventually led me to, for lack of a better turn of phrase, a crisis of faith. Not faith in the gods (that’s pretty unshakeable) nor even faith in the community (no community is perfect, but this one is certainly doing better than most) but faith in myself; in my ability to embody the values and beliefs that I actually hold sacred. And so this blog fell by the wayside, I mostly stopped holding blóts for my family, and I fell into a rather long and severe depressive episode.

So between all of that, the fact that the rest of my family declined to attend, and worries about COVID, I was going to let the event pass by. But a couple of friends were attending, they required proof of vaccination, it was largely outdoors… and perhaps most importantly, after 2019 I had intended to return with a very specific offering to Sigyn. So, I went.

In my first post on this site I described ECT 2019 as “transformative”. But after this event, I feel like I have new context on what that word means. I am transformed. I do not feel like the same person. The days during and immediately following the Thing were the most intense, but the feeling of being changed lingers. It is exciting and unsettling in equal measure.

The Thing itself was a constant torrent of halljoy, the gods undeniably present and immediate, the land singing its welcome, all undercut with an intense feeling of community and belonging. It was more than I imagined it could be.

And afterwards… Word and deed come more easily to me. I’ve always thought of myself as an introvert, and I find myself questioning that. I am eager for community, for conversation and camaraderie. The vague anxious dread in the back of my mind that overlaid every social interaction is gone.

I can’t wait to see who I am now.