NOTE — This article is transferred from the old website this one replaced. My Path has changed a lot since.
Whereas yesterday, I felt led to tidy up my sacred / altar space inside … Today I was led to create my first Hörgr.
What is a Hörgr, you ask? … Let’s pull the definition from the book I am currently reading …
“Hörgr (pronounced “HORG”) or a harrow — They are a pile of stones dedicated to the Powers and are always located under the open sky. In ancient days, people using harrows for honoring the Powers by pouring offerings onto the stones, letting their offering be absorbed by the ground beneath them. The same is done in the present, making harrows a shrine and an alter at the same time.”
page 72, “The Way of Fire and Ice: The Living Tradition of Norse Paganism” by Ryan Smith
Now, I’ve been fascinated by stacked stones for a long while now. More so after stumbling across them in the forest near the Hobbit’s Dream” house where I stayed with my family in Fairfield, Va., back in September.
The idea of a hörgr appeals to me as not only is it a sacred space, but also is made of stones which are of our Earth Mother.
They are all natural and basically honors not only whatever Power you are seeking to honor, but also the natural world and the building blocks of that world at the same time.
So, I went outside carrying a stone that I had retrieved from another place sacred to me that I like to visit and found the place where our Hörgr would exist.
The place ended up being a place that choice itself as when I found the spot, I without thought dropped that stone there.
Then up around the Dragon garden where the roses grow are rocks that once bordered that garden but had become lost in the grass that borders it.
(We love wild spaces here …. shaped and cared for yes, but still wild and more natural.)
Felt led to retrieve those border stones and carrying them over to where the Hörgr would exist … and stone by stone it seemed to build itself.
Once complete, the stone from the special spot I like to visit was placed on top of the Hörgr.
First offering actually were offerings recently made inside that needed to be carried outside and given in a proper place … water, flowers, bread and meade.
It was only after it was done I realized it had been placed in a perfect line from the bench where I sit and pray each morning … from bench to my mother’s rock to the Hörgr to the flagpole with our grove’s flag at the top.
And when I can inside and visited my altar here, realized the Hörgr is also clearly visible from the window above the altar space.