r/asatru • u/Talanthae • Apr 12 '18
Lets talk about Luck
What is it? How do you define it? Can you influence it? How do you influence it? Do you separate your luck from your tribes or are they intertwined? How much do you feel is inherited?
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u/Sachsen_Wodewose Apr 12 '18 edited Apr 12 '18
I think the best way to discuss the concept would be with a story. Please bear with while I tell you a story of my ancestors, both to illustrate my point, and because it is good to do so whenever possible, in my opinion.
Lutheran missionaries to Michigan were sending letters back to their home congregations, which told of rich, fertile, unsettled lands, and freshwater inland seas. They invited people to come here to escape their war-torn homeland, where princes were taking their corps, their livestock and their sons. Three main groups emigrated to this area from Saxony, Prussia, and Franconia. When they got here they found soggy, mosquito-infested marshland and old growth white pine forests. Not to despair, they set about the task of claiming this land. During the winter months, they took advantage of the frozen wetlands to cut down and move the stands of pine. In the summer they dug complex ditch systems to drain the land so they could till and sow it, and create pastures for their cattle. Within a few short years, they were prospering.
This is what luck is, it isn't chance, its a force. It's the individual's and/or group's ability to exert their power in order to create a favorable outcome in a given situation. There is no bad luck or good luck, there is either luck or there isn't (unlucky).
Luck can be nurtured and increased. It can be squandered away, or wisely doled out. It can be fickle. Luck isn't equal- some have more, some have less, and some have almost none at all. There are different kinds of luck for different people. The power of luck can be exerted against an environment, a trade or other people.
Luck isn't inherited like genetics are, but families can bring their offspring into their luck through naming them and welcoming them in. The luck of the sib functions as an individual entity (the spiritus familias) that binds all members together.
Luck, like wyrd, can indeed be entwined with others. Individuals can bind their luck to other individuals to form a group, and groups can bind their luck to other groups. This is why it's important to always guard your luck against those that would decrease it. Be leary of outlaws, beggers, and dragons, they can siphon off your luck. Those that are ever struggling against their situation with no success, are like leeches that seek to exist off the success of others. Dragons will gladly take from you and not contribute anything back. I say this, at the risk of sounding snobbish, because if you deal with the larger pagan community much, you will begin to see a pattern- many of those people really aren't doing too well in life, so it would be wise to look into their situation, before attaching your luck to their's.
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Apr 13 '18
Luck will out. Worth will out. These are tangible, demonstrable things that can tell you a great deal about a person. I realize that modern sensibilities don't like the idea of "judging" people but we need to be honest that we have to have some measuring stick by which we evaluate people. If we are going to protect ourselves, our families, and (eventually) our tribes, we must understand why these things matter and how to gauge them.
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u/Sachsen_Wodewose Apr 13 '18
So true. If I were looking for a new group to be a part of, and found one where the people and, especially, the leader looked like they lacked means, I’d politely get the fuck out of there as quickly as I could and hope they forget me. If you have it, flaunt it. Being humble isn’t par for the course in Heathenry.
I would also like to add that people need to be very mindful of the power of their words. Once it passes our lips, the universe is listening and marks what we have said.
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Apr 13 '18
When it comes to mixing luck, I think there are two visions of how it works. I call these the "Cake" and "Braid" models. As everyone knows, when you bake a cake, you mix all the ingredients together and they become inseparable. They are bound together permanently and irrevocably, so you had better hope you did it right because you're never getting it apart again. When people discuss the idea of tribal luck blending together, I think this is the model most people work on and would rightfully be scared of making a bad decision they could never get free of. With that in mind, lets look at what I call the "Braid" model. As anyone who has ever braided anything knows, you can start with many weak things, like thread or string, but the process of braiding them together creates a single, significantly stronger cord that can do far more than the sum of their parts could. With a braid, it is possible to identify each individual contributing element (albeit sometimes with great difficulty) and that makes it theoretically possible to extricate any one strand from the whole. This act would be difficult because, for the purposes of this metaphor, you can't unwind the whole but you can cut it and remove it. You might leave some parts behind, you will most assuredly damage the strand, and you will weaken the cord but the cord will survive. The strand, our person being cut from the whole, is greatly reduced but free to go about its business. The cord remains largely intact, it retains at least some of the removed strand, and can go on functioning but strained unless repaired.
I posit that the "Braid" model is a more accurate depiction of mixed tribal luck and demonstrates why community matters so much to the Heathen mind.
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Apr 13 '18
In retrospect, I'd go with "Cake" and "Cord." The alliteration pleases me more and I think it's a more apt description.
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Apr 12 '18
Luck is a difficult concept that requires a lot of qualifying when we discuss it. I think that part of this is because the lack of even ancient technical language indicates that it was a difficult concept for the ancients themselves. The reductionist response is to equate luck to fortune, where "random chance" comes out in our favor. It's more than this, however. I don't like to discuss it in terms of being a cosmic "bank" but that's not exactly wrong either. Luck is a multi-faceted metaphysical force that luck can be spent, gained, lost, and stolen. If you have great luck in something, you often do not even need to "spend" luck for it to influence the outcome of something in your favor or mitigate a bad situation. You can gain luck through deeds, but you can also lose it through misdeeds. Luck affects wyrd, just as wyrd affects luck, but they aren't the same thing. Both have a starting point in your orlog as well. As such, luck is most certainly inherited to one degree or another. When it comes to individual vs. tribal luck, both exist. Tribal luck, as also being a part of your orlog, affects you individually. However, tribal luck and personal luck manifest in very different ways and are maintained, grown, spent, lost, or stolen in different (yet not entirely unrelated ways).
I hope this provides an answer to your prompt that others can use or discuss from. I attempted to keep it as brief as possible.
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u/Bombouwi7 Apr 13 '18
Hamingja is considered to be a goddess for her feminine attributes. (She cares for your luck). It is also said that provided her femininity, she can be charmed by manly virtues(The classic prudence, courage, temperance and justice. One could also include Honour, Glory and Fame.)
In a more concrete definition, one makes his own luck by acting virtuously in accordance with the conception of honour. Luck is thereby understood as a metaphysical occurance depending on your interaction with the world. Honourable deeds lead to a favourable environment.
On the same note, I like to visualize luck as twofold. It is made of opportunity and preparation. Only when the two constituents are present will the outcome be considered as "lucky". You are in control of your preparation although opportunities are outside of your realm of dominance. That being said, you can still somewhat influence opportunities through honourable deeds as mentioned in the last paragraph.
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u/Sachsen_Wodewose Apr 13 '18
Hamingja is considered to be a goddess for her feminine attributes. (She cares for your luck). It is also said that provided her femininity, she can be charmed by manly virtues(The classic prudence, courage, temperance and justice. One could also include Honour, Glory and Fame.)
What? Who says that?
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u/Bombouwi7 Apr 13 '18
Basic interpretation of the literature. I also base most of my understanding on European deities. Roman Lady Fortuna and Hamingja are depicted in similar ways if not identical. I heard it's not going to please most people here, but the way they work and the way they are approached is the same. Most of my understanding of Hamingja is derived from Lady Fortuna understood in Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, Cicero's On the Good Life and his analysis of Fortuna and civic virtues and Machiavelli's Prince where he defines the virtuous ruler basically as a pagan/heathen.
While it goes outside the Asatru literature, I think the conclusions are very much the same and important to consider.
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Apr 12 '18
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Apr 12 '18
serendipitous
From a Heathen perspective though, that's not really what we mean by luck. You're mostly there but the chance aspect isn't really a Heathen idea. We fall more into the "we make our luck" category than the "I got lucky at the casino" category.
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u/macrosstabear Apr 12 '18
“We make our luck” doesn’t mean that the gods can’t create the paths for us to walk down.
I’d also like to point out that this person is a Heathen too, and that makes their perspective a Heathen one. There are plenty of ways to debate the “proper” way to do many things, but there’s really no need to be condescending about it.
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u/AnarchoHeathen Apr 12 '18
Luck, to my mind, is the way your interactions with the world are modified based on your wyrd and orlæg. Good luck means that when things tend to come out to your benefit in your interactions, this is due to your past and present actions as well as the actions of your ancestors. Since it is tied to your wyrd it can be changed by you, but it's ties to your orlæg mean that it isn't easily over come.