My Religion

You asked me what my religion is,

so I shall tell you.

My religion has no name

for it is older than the idea of religion,

though some have called us Heathens,

the dwellers on the heath-lands.

My religion was born from sacred experience

of the earth, sea and sky

and thousands of generations of

wandering among forests and fields,

snow peaked mountains and

wild, raging rivers.

My religion is rooted in the soil of Europe

and was shaped by the Alps and the Danube.

My religion was carried over the mountains

and into the valleys in songs of one-eyed gods

and the lord of thunder rolling across the sky,

in songs of gods that once walked the earth,

and whose mighty deeds shaped the landscape,

gods who bound great wolves, snared dragons

and won the gift of poetry by sacrifice.

My religion was not taught to me,

it is my religion for

these gods are in my blood

a sacred inheritance

from my ancestors of long ago.