The Path of Tyr

Isolation isn't easy, but that is exactly where I found myself at this point in my life, isolated. I'm not saying that I didn't have contact with any people at all, but the people who truly mattered to me, hadn't been in my life for about six months. That includes my family, just as well as my friends who I consider family. That wasn't easy situation for me comprehend at only 22 years old. I had never been this far from my loved ones for this long in my life...

Life takes us to strange, unexpected, and sometimes wondrous places. At that point in my life I didn't realize that. It seemed that all I could focus on was how much I loathed where life had taken me. I met someone at this very low point in my life and he began talking to me about Ásatrú. This hadn't been the first time I had heard about this path. Previously two different people on two different occasions also tried to talk to me about Ásatrú.

My reaction was always the same: I'm not religious, I don't believe in anything. Somehow this time was different, something in me had shifted. I began to reflect on my life and how all these seemingly separate occurrences in my life could be connected. I began to see that instead of them being random events in a meaningless life they were in all actuality part of a web that connected us all. This was a major breakthrough for me. It appealed to me that my actions had unavoidable, inescapable, and at times unintended consequences. I loved that a major part of this path was the veneration of my ancestors and loved ones. I began to study in earnest, everything I read only fueled my NEED to read more.

I would see the Runes and they were so familiar to me. I knew the phonetic value of most of the Runes before reading about them, in some instances I knew what a Rune's meaning was! It was frightening and fascinating at the same time, but only served to clarify my path and purpose. By the time I began reading in depth about the Gods and Goddesses I had already pledged myself to my new Path.

Reading about the Gods and Goddesses was like learning about long lost family. They were heroic, honorable, and humorous, but at the same time flawed and tragic. Then I read about Tyr and immediately felt a deep connection and kinship. Sacrifice not for self but for loved ones, the understanding of causality, and the belief in justice in all of its incarnations. These are all things that I had always understood on a deeper level. To hear them mirrored back at me so clearly was scary and gratifying at the same time. He spoke to me more deeply then anyone else had. I knew that from that moment on my devotion would be to him and the Tyrian Path forged by him.

Signed with a pen name of:

Rök T.

 

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