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<blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 7600541" data-attributes="member: 58172"><p>Norse gender roles assigned "spirituality" to the feminine gender group.</p><p></p><p>In the world that I live in today, traditions tend to assign spirituality to the masculine gender group. For examples, rabbis and priests were often required to be male. Today there are female Jewish rabbis as well female Evangelical Christian pastors, female Anglican priests, and so on. It is even fair to describe our modern spirituality as ‘androgynous’, including both masculine and feminine elements. Even so, many when seeing women spiritual leaders, they are mindful that these women adopt a ‘masculine’ role.</p><p></p><p>For the Norse, spirituality (especially seiðr shamanism) is a feminine role. When a man became skillful in spirituality, the Norse perceive him as having adopted a ‘feminine’ role.</p><p></p><p>Compare a modern analogy to understand Norse masculinity. The world that I live in today perceives a stay-at-home dad as a man who adopts a feminine role. Our world expects the man to be the ‘bread winner’ (our modern warrior), who financially supports the family. When we see a man who looks after the children and focuses on the wellbeing of the home, while the wife has a high-income profession, we see this man as if somehow ‘non masculine’, or even feminine. The man himself can be personally masculine in physique and behavior. And we can even admire his love and his skillful parenting. And we care about kids. Our culture can simultaneously honor his fulfilling a sacred duty and at the same time dishonor his masculinity if shirking the duty of income. There are several cultural expectations happening at the same time.</p><p></p><p>Take Norway for example as what European gender can look like without the influences of Hellenistic Christianity.</p><p></p><p>Viking Period Norwegians (and elsewhere in Scandinavia) have a warrior culture. It is highly offensive to insult the ‘manliness’ of a warrior. Yet, at the same time, there are nonwarrior men who study ‘womanly’ shamanism. A shaman in Norway is traditionally always a female, called a Vǫlva. Yet these ‘womanly’ men are nevertheless sacred. The Norse consult them for spiritual matters, such as foretelling fates or bringing healing.</p><p></p><p>The nickname (the kenning) for a male who functions as a shaman is called a ‘Finnr’. The Finnar ethnicity are hunter-gatherers preserving prehistoric ways of life. The Finnr spiritual leaders are shamans, called a Noaidi, and can be male. So the Norse view their own Norse man that becomes a shaman as if Non-Norse, not quite the way the Norse do it, but at the same time revere him as sacred and authentic − and as powerful as a female Vǫlva.</p><p></p><p>In the aboriginal Norse animism, even certain important male nature spirits were thought to master the female arts of shamanism. While women can become warriors and men can become shamans, they tend to retain their respective gender identity otherwise. Nevertheless, transgenderism that fully adopts the oppositesex identity is also known. There is a famous story about the thunder spirit, the greatest warrior of all dressing as a bride and trying to pass as a feminine woman.</p><p></p><p>Meanwhile, there are warrior traditions, such as the Berserkar, who sought to use feminine shamanic skills in masculine ways for combat. The data among the Norse Eddas and Sagas depict the Alvar (elves) as fighting battles by means of shamanic magic. For example, the famous figure Vǫlundr in his Norse name, means Vǫl- Undr, literally ‘shaman-staff wounder’, someone who inflicts wounds by means of shamanic magical attacks. Likewise, numerous Alvar and Dvergar are called a ‘Finnr’, in the sense of a male that masters shamanic magic.</p><p></p><p>So, while the Norse have a gender-divided culture, it includes individuals who choose the opposite gender identity, and other individuals who blend the two identities in one person in various ways. These individuals are understood to exemplify a sacred whole. The Norse gender constructs honor both the masculine gender as warrior and the feminine gender as shaman, and can at the same time honor individuals who identify as the other.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Yaarel, post: 7600541, member: 58172"] Norse gender roles assigned "spirituality" to the feminine gender group. In the world that I live in today, traditions tend to assign spirituality to the masculine gender group. For examples, rabbis and priests were often required to be male. Today there are female Jewish rabbis as well female Evangelical Christian pastors, female Anglican priests, and so on. It is even fair to describe our modern spirituality as ‘androgynous’, including both masculine and feminine elements. Even so, many when seeing women spiritual leaders, they are mindful that these women adopt a ‘masculine’ role. For the Norse, spirituality (especially seiðr shamanism) is a feminine role. When a man became skillful in spirituality, the Norse perceive him as having adopted a ‘feminine’ role. Compare a modern analogy to understand Norse masculinity. The world that I live in today perceives a stay-at-home dad as a man who adopts a feminine role. Our world expects the man to be the ‘bread winner’ (our modern warrior), who financially supports the family. When we see a man who looks after the children and focuses on the wellbeing of the home, while the wife has a high-income profession, we see this man as if somehow ‘non masculine’, or even feminine. The man himself can be personally masculine in physique and behavior. And we can even admire his love and his skillful parenting. And we care about kids. Our culture can simultaneously honor his fulfilling a sacred duty and at the same time dishonor his masculinity if shirking the duty of income. There are several cultural expectations happening at the same time. Take Norway for example as what European gender can look like without the influences of Hellenistic Christianity. Viking Period Norwegians (and elsewhere in Scandinavia) have a warrior culture. It is highly offensive to insult the ‘manliness’ of a warrior. Yet, at the same time, there are nonwarrior men who study ‘womanly’ shamanism. A shaman in Norway is traditionally always a female, called a Vǫlva. Yet these ‘womanly’ men are nevertheless sacred. The Norse consult them for spiritual matters, such as foretelling fates or bringing healing. The nickname (the kenning) for a male who functions as a shaman is called a ‘Finnr’. The Finnar ethnicity are hunter-gatherers preserving prehistoric ways of life. The Finnr spiritual leaders are shamans, called a Noaidi, and can be male. So the Norse view their own Norse man that becomes a shaman as if Non-Norse, not quite the way the Norse do it, but at the same time revere him as sacred and authentic − and as powerful as a female Vǫlva. In the aboriginal Norse animism, even certain important male nature spirits were thought to master the female arts of shamanism. While women can become warriors and men can become shamans, they tend to retain their respective gender identity otherwise. Nevertheless, transgenderism that fully adopts the oppositesex identity is also known. There is a famous story about the thunder spirit, the greatest warrior of all dressing as a bride and trying to pass as a feminine woman. Meanwhile, there are warrior traditions, such as the Berserkar, who sought to use feminine shamanic skills in masculine ways for combat. The data among the Norse Eddas and Sagas depict the Alvar (elves) as fighting battles by means of shamanic magic. For example, the famous figure Vǫlundr in his Norse name, means Vǫl- Undr, literally ‘shaman-staff wounder’, someone who inflicts wounds by means of shamanic magical attacks. Likewise, numerous Alvar and Dvergar are called a ‘Finnr’, in the sense of a male that masters shamanic magic. So, while the Norse have a gender-divided culture, it includes individuals who choose the opposite gender identity, and other individuals who blend the two identities in one person in various ways. These individuals are understood to exemplify a sacred whole. The Norse gender constructs honor both the masculine gender as warrior and the feminine gender as shaman, and can at the same time honor individuals who identify as the other. [/QUOTE]
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