Rainbow Bridge Remembrance Day

Rainbow Bridge Remembrance Day

Date: August 28th

Bright arches span the sky,
woven of sunlit rain.
We walk them in our hearts,
where pawprints never fade.

Bifröst is the bridge we build
of laughter, love, and years—
each memory a shining plank,
each shimmer reflecting cheer.

Rainbow Bridge Remembrance Day is observed annually on August 28th to honor and remember beloved pets who have passed away. It’s a secular holiday for pet owners to reflect on the joy and love their animal companions brought into their lives and to celebrate their memories. The day is inspired by the “Rainbow Bridge” poem, which speaks of a place where pets wait to be reunited with their owners. It was created by author Deborah Barnes in 2015, in memory of her cat, Mr. Jazz, who passed away on August 28, 2013. She established the day to provide a way for people to honor and remember their beloved pets who have crossed the Rainbow Bridge. It’s a day for sharing stories, photos, and memories of pets that have passed away.

Here’s how people typically observe Rainbow Bridge Remembrance Day: 

  • Sharing Memories:
    • Many pet owners share stories, photos, and fond memories of their pets on social media platforms. 
  • Writing:
    • Some people write letters or journal entries to their departed pets, expressing their love and grief. 
  • Creating Memorials:
    • Creating a memory garden or other personal memorial can provide a serene space to reflect on the pet’s life. 
  • Reflecting and Connecting:
    • The day provides an opportunity to reflect on the profound bond shared with pets and to connect with others who have experienced similar losses. 
  • Light a Candle:
    • Some people light a candle or visit a special place to remember their pet. 

Ultimately, Rainbow Bridge Remembrance Day is a time to honor the pets who have touched our lives and to acknowledge the enduring love we have for them. That it comes with its own ritual tradition makes the holiday easy to adapt. A Humanistic Heathen twist could blend this with the Norse concept of Bifröst, the shimmering bridge between worlds. In this version:

  • Symbolic Frame: The bridge is a metaphor for memory. Your love and remembrance are what “connect” you to your animal friend across time and death.
  • Mythic Parallel: Just as Odin’s ravens return each day with news, our memories “fly back” to us, keeping our pets’ spirits alive in thought.
  • Role of Animal Companions in Myth: The gods’ animals are more than pets, they are partners, helpers, and extensions of their identities. Remembering our own animals can be framed as honoring the same deep bond.

The Norse myths are replete with animal companions, as the examples below show:

  • Odin –
    • Huginn (“Thought”) and Muninn (“Memory”), his two ravens who fly over the world and bring him news.
    • Geri and Freki, his two wolves who stay by his side in Valhalla.
    • Sleipnir, Odin’s eight-legged horse, fast enough to carry riders between worlds.
  • Freyja –
    • Two great cats (unnamed in surviving sources) who pull her chariot. Often imagined as large, sleek forest cats or lynxes.
    • Hildisvíni, her loyal boar (“Battle-Swine”), who may also be her human companion Ottar in disguise.
  • Frey –
    • Gullinbursti, a golden-bristled boar forged by the dwarves, who pulls his chariot and shines like the sun.
  • Thor –
    • Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr, his two goats who pull his chariot and can be eaten and resurrected if their bones remain unbroken.
  • Hel –
    • Garmr, a massive hound who guards the gates of Hel. (Sometimes considered distinct from Fenrir; sometimes confused with him in later sources.)

In addition to the above observance examples, here are some more explicitly Humanistic Heathen ways to connect Rainbow Bridge Remembrance Day with the Norse idea of Bifröst, the rainbow bridge between worlds, while keeping it symbolic and non-theistic:

I. Bifröst Candle Ritual

If you have a symbolic focus/altar, place upon it items that remind you of your pet: a collar, a photo, etc. Optionally, place rainbow-colored stones, paper strips, or flowers there to help visualize Bifröst. 

Light a candle (or rainbow-colored tea-lights). Imagine this as opening the way to Bifröst.

  • Speak the names of the pets you’re remembering, imagining Bifröst as a path of love and memory. 
  • Picture yourself walking across Bifröst in your mind, meeting your pet in a place of peace and beauty.

Reflect on the joy they brought and how you carry their influence forward in your life.

II. Storytelling Sumbel

Hold a small symbolic sumbel (drinking ritual) with friends or family.

  • In the first round, share stories about your pet.
  • In the second, speak about how they shaped who you are.
  • In the third, make a vow to honor them through kindness to other living beings.

III. Acts of Care in Their Honor

Donate to an animal shelter, volunteer, or bring supplies. Frame it as sending “light across the bridge” — your action is the bridge that connects your pet’s memory to living animals in need.

Dimming

Dimming

Date: August 1st

AKA: Lughnasadh, Hlæfæst, Freyfaxi, Lammas

This is a holiday to celebrate the first harvest of the season. While Lughnasadh (or Lammas) is Celtic in origin, it resonates well with Norse pagan values—harvest, sacrifice, community, and gratitude to land spirits, ancestors, and gods like Freyr, Sif, and the landvættir. We can adapt it into a Norse-style harvest festival with seasonal symbolism like the John Barleycorn effigy, which fits seamlessly with Norse ideas of sacrifice and rebirth. In addition, weaving together the Atheopagan concept of The Dimming (the slow waning of light after the solstice) with Norse pagan traditions for Lughnasadh can create a beautiful, symbolic harvest ritual that honors both the turning of the wheel and the old gods and spirits.

We prefer to use the Atheopagan name for this holiday. The celebration observed as “Freyfaxi” by some Heathens is not an ancient or traditional Heathen observance. The name “Freyfaxi” was given to this modern summer festival in the mid-1970s by Stephen McNallen of the Asatru Free Assembly (AFA) as an attempt to create a Heathen version of the Wiccan Wheel of the Year. Using the term risks giving undeserved legitimacy to, and may also implicitly support or legitimize, the AFA and Stephen McNallen, organizations that most in the Heathen community rightly find problematic.

Themes: Gratitude for the abundance of the land, sacrifice and renewal, community and celebration, and honoring the cyclical nature of life, death, and rebirth. It’s a time to appreciate the fruits of labor and prepare for the transition into autumn.

Correspondences

Life-Cycle: Middle Age

Deities: Freyr, Sif, Thor

Foods: Freshly baked bread, berries, roasted corn, and root vegetables

Drinks: Ales and beers, grain alcohol

Colors: Yellow, orange, brown, and green

I. Ritual: From Sun’s Peak to Shadow’s Edge

Frame your Dimming rite around this central idea:

“The sun that crowned the sky at Midsummer now wanes. The light begins to fade. The golden grain king, John Barleycorn, prepares to fall so that others may thrive. The world dims—but not in grief; in transformation.”

Opening

Hallow the space (e.g. with a hammer sign or sacred circle) and acknowledge the transition: “We stand between light and dark, harvest and hunger.”

Fire and Shadow: Candle Reversal Ritual

Gather three or more candles. Begin with all candles lit. Throughout the ritual, gradually snuff or dim them until only one flame remains, symbolizing the coming quiet and the preservation of inner fire.

Symbolically Honor the Deities and Spirits

  • Freyr (god of fertility and peace): Offer mead or ale, fresh fruits, or bread to honor his role in agricultural abundance.
  • Sif (golden-haired goddess of grain): Offer a bundle of wheat or create a small corn dolly in her honor.
  • Landvættir: Leave offerings of butter, berries, milk, or bread near a tree or stone as thanks to the local spirits.
  • Álfar (ancestor spirits): Leave a small portion of your meal or bread effigy on the ancestor focus or burial place.

Blót for The Dimming

Offer the Barleycorn bread, mead, herbs, or other first fruits to the fire or focus.

Speak thanks for what has grown and what has sustained your community and family.

Pour a libation of mead or ale onto the earth or fire.

Close with a toast:  “To the Light that was! To the Harvest we hold! To the Dark that comes!”

John Barleycorn must die.

II. Norse-Inspired John Barleycorn Ritual (Bread Effigy)

John Barleycorn—personification of the grain spirit—is an archetype that echoes Norse themes of death and renewal. Here’s a grim but entertaining way to integrate him:

Make a Barleycorn Bread Effigy

Bake a bread man (or woman) shaped like a crowned king (or even a sheaf or warrior). Decorate with seeds, grains, and herbs (like barley, wheat, thyme, rosemary, or even garlic). 

Optionally give him a “sickle wound” as a symbol of the harvest cut or add a Jera rune (ᛃ) from the Old Norse word for “year” or “harvest,” signifying the completion of a cycle and the reaping of the fruits of one’s labor.

If you’re inexperienced at making bread dough, like me, Pillsbury biscuits with a garlic spread melted on top works just fine. (2025)

Offer Him in Ritual

Set the effigy on a focus with seasonal symbols (scythe, sheaf of grain, apples, mead).

Read or recite a tale or poem about the spirit of the grain dying to feed the people (you can adapt the John Barleycorn ballad or write a Norse-style kenning-laced version – see below).

Offer the Bread King to the Waning Light. Use the John Barleycorn bread effigy as a symbolic focal point.

  • Burn, bury, or ceremonially eat the effigy during the ritual, mirroring the cycle of death and nourishment.
  • Ritual action: At the height of the ritual, “sacrifice” the bread effigy—cut it or break it—naming this the turning point of the year.
  • Say something like:

 “The barley dies, so we may live. The sun fades, so we may rest. May we find wisdom in the dark, and sustenance in the fading light.”

  • Eat or share the bread as a sacrament of transformation.

John Barleycorn: The Golden Sacrifice
(A Norse-Inspired Adaptation)

Three mighty men from Midgard’s fields
Went walking through the land,
With scythe and sickle in their hands
And purpose fierce and planned.
They swore an oath on stone and steel
To fell the Golden One—
To bind and break the barley-king,
The shining son of Sun.

They plowed the womb of Mother Earth,
Where Sif’s gold locks once lay,
And planted deep the seed of life
At dawn of sowing-day.
Freyr wept dew upon the field,
The elves gave root and care,
The land-wights danced in twilight hush—
A green-god sleeping there.

He rose with strength, a blade-bright boy,
A spear of stalk and grain,
With beard of wheat and sunlit crown,
He strode the summer plain.
The sickle came with whisper low,
A rune carved red with might—
They laid him down in field and flame,
And mourned him in the night.

They bound him up in earthen loaves,
They brewed him into cheer,
They sang to him in mead and malt
And drank him with the year.
His body fed the warrior’s feast,
His breath was in the ale—
Though slain, he rose in hearth and hall,
In song and harvest tale.

So hail to thee, O barley-lord,
Who falls and rises still,
Who sleeps beneath the plowed-black earth
And wakes upon the hill.
We honor you with loaf and horn,
With sacrifice and flame—
John Barleycorn, the golden king,
By many a hidden name.

III. Additional Activities

Arts and Crafts

  • Make Corn Dollies in the shapes of gods or spirits.
  • Weave wheat or oat straw into Norse knot designs or small runic charms.
  • Carve or decorate harvest runes (like Jera for harvest, Ingwaz for fertility) on wood slices or stones.

Recreation

  • Feast outdoors if possible, sharing foods from local harvests.
  • Storytelling or poetry: Share myths, kennings, or songs about growth, sacrifice, and the land.
  • Games or friendly contests in honor of early harvest festivals (akin to Icelandic glíma or strength challenges).
  • Shadow Walk: Take a walk at twilight after your ritual. Observe how the shadows lengthen, how plants go to seed, and how the world tilts toward rest.

Personal Growth

  • Personal Dimming: Reflect on what you are ready to let go of or allow to wane. Write it down and burn it as a release. Or bury a symbol of it near your garden or an ancestor tree

Charitable Action

Share the First Fruits – Freyr’s Generosity

  • Donate fresh produce from your garden or local farmer’s market to a food bank or community fridge, giving the “first fruits” in Freyr’s name.
  • Bake bread from scratch and give loaves to neighbors, elders, or those in need, symbolizing the sacredness of the grain harvest.

Offer Work and Skill to Others – The Labor of the Season

  • Help someone with physical tasks: yard work, moving, home repair. Offer it as a gift of labor, recognizing the spirit of the season’s toil.
  • Volunteer to teach a traditional skill (knitting, baking, foraging) at a community center or library, an act of both generosity and ancestral connection.

Sun-Gifts – Light and Warmth

  • Give practical “sun-blessings” like sunscreen, hats, or cold drinks to those working outdoors or experiencing homelessness.
  • Donate fans or air conditioners to shelters or families in need during the summer heat, honoring the sun’s strength.

Animal Offerings of Kindness

  • Make a donation to a farm animal sanctuary or help at one, honoring the animals who historically gave milk, wool, and meat during the harvest.
  • Provide pet food or supplies to animal shelters as an offering to Freyr and the vættir (land spirits) of the fields.

Tending the Land and Spirits

  • Organize or join a litter clean-up in a local park or wild space, thanking the land spirits (landvættir) for their blessings.
  • Plant native flowers, herbs, or trees as living offerings, especially in community gardens or shared green spaces.

Blót-Style Offering + Charity

  • Hold a symbolic blót (sacrifice) where you offer something meaningful (bread, mead, herbs) to the gods and spirits, then follow it by giving something tangible (money, food, time) to a charitable cause.
    • For example, offer a cup of mead to Freyr, then donate a bag of food to a shelter in his honor.

Protectors and Peace

  • Freyr is a god of peace—support conflict resolution programs, peace organizations, or mental health resources for youth.
  • Donate to local organizations that provide resources to veterans, refugees, or victims of violence, connecting to the protection of kin and harvest peace.

Lokabrenna

Lokabrenna

Date: Late July – Early August

In the fire of mischief, we burn away the false and forge the real.

Lokabrenna is a modern heathen (or heathen-adjacent) holiday with origins in contemporary Norse-inspired paganism. It honors Loki, the trickster god of Norse mythology, and is celebrated by some practitioners of modern Heathenry, Lokeans , and others who appreciate Loki’s role in myth and transformation. The name Lokabrenna means “Loki’s burning” or “Loki’s torch” in Old Norse–inspired form (“brenna” is to burn or blaze). Interestingly, Lokabrenna is also an Icelandic name for the Dog Star Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky. So the name carries a double meaning, as a poetic reference to heat, fire, and Loki, and as an astronomical marker (like the Dog Days of Summer). Though scholars debate whether Loki was historically associated with fire, modern Heathens have generally accepted him as such.

Lokabrenna is not an ancient Norse holiday. It is a modern invention, likely dating from the early 21st century, shaped by both the growing acceptance of Loki within modern Heathen and Pagan traditions and by online communities (such as Tumblr, Discord, and forums) where Loki-devotees shared rituals, art, and ideas. Though there’s no single originator, Lokean communities embraced Lokabrenna as a time to honor Loki’s positive qualities: change, chaos, humor, liberation, and growth through challenge.

There is no set date for celebrating Lokabrenna. As it’s astronomically tied to the rising of Sirius, the Dog Star (linked with the Icelandic “Lokabrenna”), the day could typically fall between August 1–7, making the first week of August a flexible, festive period. The date is also near The Dimming, the first harvest festival. This seasonal timing potentially links Loki’s fire to the ripening heat of summer, transformation, and even sacrifice or breakthrough. However, many Lokeans have dedicated the month of July to Loki, so placing a celebration during this time is also reasonable. As this is a brand new holiday meant to honor a trickster, a steadfast date hardly seems appropriate and one should, as always, feel free to do what one wishes.

For an atheopagan, celebrating Lokabrenna can be a powerful, symbolic way to honor transformation, chaos, liberation, humor, and personal authenticity—all values often associated with the mythic figure of Loki, even without literal belief in the deity. In addition, incorporating Sigyn into an atheopagan Lokabrenna celebration adds a powerful and often-overlooked counterbalance to Loki’s chaos: devotion, endurance, grief, compassion, and quiet strength. While Loki embodies transformation through disruption, Sigyn represents transformation through steadfast love, grief-work, and quiet resilience. Where Loki represents the spark of change, Sigyn is the still center that remains through the storm.

Modern Lokabrenna celebrations are diverse, but often include:

  • Lighting candles or fires in Loki’s honor
  • Feasting, especially spicy foods or foods with symbolic meaning (e.g. red or fiery)
  • Jokes, pranks, or games in tribute to Loki’s wit
  • Storytelling, particularly of Loki’s myths
  • Devotional art, poetry, or journaling
  • Self-reflection on personal transformation, shadow work, or embracing the unexpected

It can also be a time for:

  • Queer celebration (Loki is often honored as a queer/trans figure by modern devotees)
  • Standing with the marginalized
  • Breaking personal or societal norms

Themes: Transformation, chaos, liberation, humor, and personal authenticity

Correspondences

Deities: Loki, Sigyn, Odin

Foods: Sponge cake, spicy food, cinnamon, weird candy

Drinks: Fireball Whiskey, strong caffeinated beverages (e.g. energy drinks)

Colors: Green, red, copper

Note: The following ritual was inspired by and adapted from rituals found in Lea Svendnsen’s Loki devotional, Loki and Sigyn: Lessons on Chaos, Laughter & Loyalty from the Norse Gods (Llewellyn Publications, 2002).

I. Group Ritual: Burdens and Laughter

Here is a three-round blót ritual honoring Sigyn and Loki, balancing solemn compassion, self-responsibility, and joyful chaos. 

Themes: Burden, reckoning, and release

Setting and Preparation: Hold the ritual around a fire or candle-lit circle. Prepare a bowl (representing Sigyn’s burden), and a drinking horn or cup for the sumbel. The liquid in the bowl can be mead, wine, herbal tea, or water. The horn for the second round should be something festive.

Opening

Leader:

“We gather in the shadows and the sparks. To honor Sigyn, the silent strength beside the suffering. To face the chaos we’ve kindled in our own lives. And to lift our voices in laughter with Loki, who stirs the embers and dances in flame.

Tonight, we offer three rounds— One to ease the burden, One to face what must be changed, One to celebrate the unchained spirit.

Through it, we will fashion a bridge between Sigyn’s quiet endurance and Loki’s chaotic mirth. Let us begin.”

Round One: Sigyn’s Bowl – Easing the Burden

Leader holds up the bowl:

“This is the bowl of Sigyn, who catches each drop of poison. She teaches us patience, love, and quiet strength. May this round ease her burden—and our own. May the weight we carry be lightened, and may compassion flow between us.”

Passing the Bowl

Each participant takes the bowl in turn. They may choose to sip, pour a little on the earth/fire, or raise the bowl silently. Each person may say a few words or simply reflect quietly.

Example prompts:

  • “To Sigyn, may your strength become ours.”
  • “I offer release from this sorrow…”
  • “In easing your burden, I ease my own.”

After the final person drinks or pours, the leader offers any remainder to the fire or earth, saying:

“This final measure, to Sigyn, who waits and endures.”

Round Two: The Reckoning – Facing What We’ve Made

Leader:

“Between suffering and joy, there is the work. Loki’s tales often end in trouble—but they begin in choice. Each of us carries fires we’ve lit: sharp words, broken promises, ignored truths. This round is for naming what must be changed. You need not confess to others—but speak truth to yourself. What have you broken? What can you mend?”

Reckoning Ritual

You may prepare slips of paper and pencils. Participants can write something they wish to release or change—something they caused or helped cause. Each slip is then offered to the fire, or symbolically torn and buried if fire is not present.

Optional spoken prompts as each person acts:

  • “I see what I’ve made—and what I will make anew.”
  • “Loki, may my flames forge change.”
  • “Sigyn, may I steady my hand in the fixing.”

Round Three: Loki’s Sumbel – Laughter Through the Flame

Leader:

“Now we turn to Loki—breaker of chains, stirrer of stories, god of laughter and of loss. He reminds us that in the face of suffering, there is still hope. That laughter is a medicine that can heal wounds of discontent and misunderstanding.”

The horn or cup is raised.

“Let us share mirth, mischief, and memories. Tell a joke, a ridiculous story, a moment of unexpected joy. Toast to the ones who make us laugh, even when we shouldn’t. This is the way of Loki.”

Passing the Horn

Each person takes the horn and may:

  • Share a joke.
  • Tell a funny or mischievous personal story.
  • Toast someone who brings lightness to their life.
  • Laugh heartily and say, “To Loki!”

If someone doesn’t want to share, they may simply say: “To Loki, the fire that never dies.”

Closing Words

Leader:

“We have held the bowl and passed the horn. We have honored grief and honored joy. May we walk away lighter, fiercer, and more open to the strange beauty of the world. Hail Sigyn, the constant. Hail Loki, the ever-shifting.”

Remember to symbolically offer the remains of the horn or cup to the land spirits.

Loki with a fishing net as depicted on an 18th-century Icelandic manuscript

II. Additional Activities

Rituals

Fire Ritual: Burn What Binds You

  • Use fire symbolically to represent transformation:
    • Write down a habit, fear, self-limiting belief, or societal norm you wish to let go of.
    • Light a candle or small fire and burn the paper (safely).
    • Speak aloud: “In the fire of change, I am freed.”
  • This act mirrors Loki’s chaotic but necessary role in burning away stagnation.

Candle Meditation: The Dancing Flame

  • Loki as a flame can represent constant motion and unpredictability.
    • Light a single candle.
    • Watch it dance and flicker.
    • Reflect on what in your life is in motion, unstable, or growing.
    • Ask: How can I dance with the flame instead of trying to extinguish it?

Create an Archetype Focus

  • Build a focus to Loki as a symbolic force, not a literal being:
    • Use objects that evoke mischief, change, fire, serpents, masks, or thresholds.
    • Include quotes about chaos, transformation, or liberation.
    • Use it as a focus for meditation, reflection, or gratitude for life’s beautiful messiness.

Recreation

Chaos and Humor Offering

  • Loki is a bringer of disruption, humor, and irreverence. Honor that by:
    • Telling jokes or reading satirical stories.
    • Watching absurd or surreal comedy.
    • Making playful or ironic offerings (e.g., mismatched socks, rubber chickens, “sacrificial” spicy peppers).
  • Reflect on how humor helps you cope with or challenge the absurdity of life.

Celebrate Queerness and Rebellion

  • Many modern devotees honor Loki as a queer, genderfluid, and boundary-breaking figure. Celebrate the freedom to be nonconforming, liminal, or strange.
    • Attend or support LGBTQ+ events or charities.
    • Dress or express yourself in a way that challenges binary expectations.

Stargazing and the Dog Star (Sirius)

  • Since Lokabrenna is an Icelandic name for Sirius, incorporate some skywatching:
    • Watch the heliacal rising of Sirius, if visible from your location.
    • Sit under the stars and reflect on endurance through heat and hardship, and how light emerges even from chaotic energy.

Ritual of Reversal

  • Much like Saturnalia or Fool’s Day, you can set aside a time to reverse norms. It’s about getting uncomfortable in playful ways, and learning from that discomfort:
    • Let someone else lead if you usually take charge.
    • Wear something backwards or inside out.
    • Eat dessert first.
    • Make a toast to uncertainty.

Personal Growth

Personal Shadow Work

  • Loki’s mythic arc often reflects the shadow self, the rejected or hidden aspects of who we are. Journal or meditate on:
    • What parts of myself do I hide or repress?
    • Where do I fear being “too much”?
    • What have I been punished or shamed for that might actually be a strength?
  • Invite these parts into awareness, not to fix them, but to acknowledge and integrate them.

The Bowl That Catches the Poison

  • In mythology, Sigyn catches the venom dripping onto Loki with a bowl, embodying devotion amid suffering. Place a bowl on your altar or ritual space. Let it represent all you (or others) have carried silently.
    • Write down emotional burdens: yours or those you’ve witnessed others endure.
    • Place those slips in the bowl as a symbolic act of witnessing and honoring unseen labor or suffering.
    • Then reflect: Who holds the bowl in your life? Whose bowl can you help hold?

Grief-Witnessing and Ritual Mourning

  • Sigyn is a goddess of grief and endurance, and that makes her deeply relevant to atheopagans exploring emotional honesty and mourning. Create a safe space to reflect on personal or collective grief (e.g. climate grief, injustice, personal loss).
    • Light a candle in Sigyn’s honor while journaling or simply sitting with that grief.
    • Optionally, pour a small libation of water or wine to the earth as a symbolic offering.
    • You might recite: “I witness the weight you carry. I honor the love that endures even through sorrow.”

Write a Letter to Your Past or Wounded Self

  • Sigyn’s energy is gentle witnessing, the part of you that says, “I see what you went through. I’m here.” Write a letter to a younger version of yourself who was struggling, grieving, or feeling alone.
    • Offer the kind of patience and presence Sigyn represents.
    • Seal the letter or burn it in the candle flame, letting go or honoring that memory.

Charitable Action

Disruptive Acts of Kindness

  • Channel Loki’s disruptive nature into positive subversion. This frames chaos as a tool of liberation and compassion:
    • Do something that “breaks the rules” for a good cause.
    • Tip outrageously.
    • Buy coffee for strangers.
    • Guerrilla-garden an ugly patch of public land.
    • Post anonymous encouragement in hostile online spaces.

Devotional Acts of Care

  • Sigyn teaches the sacredness of quiet caregiving, especially the kind that goes unrecognized. Do something caring for someone without drawing attention to yourself: cook a meal, clean a space, write a note of kindness.
    • Or do something restorative for yourself: rest without guilt, nurture your inner world.
    • Honor devotion not for applause, but as a sacred act of being human.

Acts of Steadfast Solidarity

  • Honor Sigyn by standing quietly with those who are hurting, misjudged, or silenced:
    • Volunteer in care-related roles (mental health, elder care, mutual aid).
    • Support a friend through a hard time without needing to “fix” anything.
    • Publicly support marginalized communities while also privately sustaining long-term efforts.

Velkominn!

Humanistic Heathenry embraces the rituals, stories, and cosmology of the Heathen tradition as powerful sources of meaning—without requiring belief in literal gods or the supernatural. We see the myths as symbolic maps of the human journey, and our blóts, sumbels, and seasonal rites as ways to connect with community, honor heritage, and live in harmony with the natural world. Even without theism, Heathenry offers enduring values of reciprocity, honor, and interconnectedness—wisdom the modern world still needs.

On this site you will find ideas for integrating Heathenry and Atheopaganism, including holidays, rituals, and various celebrations, as well as recommended resources for pagan practices, historical literacy, and scientific appreciation. We do not claim to be an authority on any given topic; we are merely fellow travelers on intersecting paths.

For more information about what we are striving for, please see our “FAQ” page.

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