coyotetraveler:

laufeyknits:

wodneswynn:

Well I’ve never lived in the desert myself so I can’t say much for sure.  If you’re coming at things from a Heathen perspective, well, large parts of Iceland and Scandinavia are cold deserts; I imagine a desert bioregion is a place full of spirits who aren’t necessarily hostile to human life, but are distinctly other–the spirits of place will probably manifest as what we’d call trolls, and would need to be given lots of offerings and shown a great deal of respect in order for someone to develop a friendly relationship with them.  And gods with some pronounced aspect of weather and/or the sky–Thor, Tyr, and Skadi come right to mind–would probably have a strong presence in the desert.

You ever read Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey?  Ed was an atheist as far as I know and doesn’t get into anything overtly spiritual, but he does spend a lot of time thinking and talking about the relationship between humans and the natural environment in the American southwest. 

Helo from Iceland, friends! 100% right this island is mostly desert. Cold desert, but desert none the less, and if you’re going at it from the Heathen point of view it’s chock full of vættir and elves (Icelandic, not Tolkien). All kinds of creatures, I guess the closest English word would indeed be spirits, although they’re not entirely the same thing. We often call them huldufólk, the hidden people.

There’s all kinds of spirits. Some are elves, some are trolls, some we don’t even know what the heck they are, they just are. Some of them are human-friendly, some avoid humans, some kill humans for sport. You can’t even tell by the type: there are friendly trolls, and trolls that hunt down young human men, imprison them and rape them. Some bring children presents… and the same ones capture children and bring them to their mother Grýla who eats them. 

There are elves that watch over your children while you’re at work, elves that just want to keep to themselves, elves that like to attack a certain house once a year and slaughter everyone found inside, just so that they can then have a dance on the cooling corpses. There are elves that desperately need human help, and elves that deal out outlandish punishments for what they perceive as heinous crimes, such as taking an item that belongs to them.

Let’s not even get to the monsters or ghosts…

So yes, our spirits can definitely be hostile to human life. They can also save your life, help you out, need your help in return, there are all kinds. What you want to know is what type you’re dealing with, how that particular spirit of that particular type feels about your company, and how to deal with them; how to hide if you have to, escape if you have to, stay on friendly terms if you can. 

I recommend this approach to all desert spirits; you can’t ever be certain that you know what they want of you, and humans are powerless against the desert. Respect, study, and make sure you’re not destroying anything or littering as you walk.

As someone who grew up in a hot desert, this is all good advice, so I just want to add on some extra hot weather perspective:

The big thing for me about the desert is that if your perceptions of nature are even a little bit tuned toward “human takes precedence” then you’re going to need to reevaluate. Humans are for the most part diurnal, we need a relatively huge amount of water to survive, and our outsides are designed to cool us but also are easily burned without shade. Creatures and Beings of the desert tend to live in opposition to most of these. The desert is awake at nighttime and in dusk and twilight hours, not during the day. The desert has sources of water, but they are hidden and few and far between like jewels in rock. Where I grew up, rains come for about a month every year in the late summer, and then don’t come again except the occasional light sprinkle until the next year. When the first rain of the season comes, everything stops – rain and water are a religious event in and of themselves.

Worship in the desert is about learning that surviving and thriving can mean the same thing, that all things are cyclical even when they seem at their most permanent, that a place and the spirits that inhabit it can be dangerous and hostile and withered but also worthwhile and beautiful and deeply deeply alive. My relationship with Thor was so much stronger when I lived in the American Southwest, even though I live in the very “Scandinavian” Pacific Northwest now. Here, survival feels like a given, you take it for granted. The rain is constant and reliable, food grows on roadside bushes. In the desert you can go so long without rain you begin to disbelieve it exists, only to hear a thunderclap on a 105 degree afternoon and have the sky suddenly open up on you and cleanse you of months of drought.

So throw the door open for the first thunderstorm of the season and let the wind cleanse your house. Make sun tea imbued with prayers or magic, because nothing in the desert is as powerful as the sun. Leave the kind of offerings you’d hope to find if you found yourself with your canteen empty 20 miles outside of town. Be wary when needed, but also kind and hospitable – the Beings around you are trying to survive just as much as you are, and sometimes they just want to siesta on your shaded porch the same way they can come knocking for a warm place to sleep during a freezing winter storm.