How did you find the gohonas to reject the comfort of religion and embrace cultural past? How did you find your ancestors speaking back to you?
I grew up in an extremely militantly Christian environment, and I mean militant, where I never even knew heathenry existed. Reading the bible at a young age made me understand it was full of contradictions, and I was seriously theistic in the sense that I argued with my roof waiting for god to help me. Eventually it became clear to me that all the things I came to enjoy, fantasy literature, my music tastes, philosophy were rejected by my religion, so by the time I was 16 I was essentially agnostic, but still knew there was something spiritual due to experiences and a sense of "knowing".
When I was 17 I discovered various forms of Satanism, and ended up leaning towards the "traditional" or spiritual Satanism, which itself led to the practice of magic, contact with spirits, who eventually guided me towards Greek heathenry, and that eventually led me Germanic heathenry. I tried multiple times to "reconcile" the systems I picked up along the way, which included Taoism as mentioned, but came to realize there was no reason to. Philosophically, spiritually, ethically, and socially, all my ideas are contained in the ancestral traditions of the Germanics, so I have no need to reduce one tradition to another.
With regards to ancestral communication I accomplished this through both meditation and invocation, of both runes and spirits. I no longer need to invoke or channel, since I am an open gate to them and their messages.
but welcome friend, want some qoffie?
