hammers out, Heathens.

Many are the days I keep my signifiers low key, and I usually just wear my oath ring bracelet, and I get a lot of compliments on that (though I also tend to wear a NorsePlay t-shirt every workday so I can engage & promote my brand when people ask me about it, so only sorta low key?).

Part of my morning's self-decorative decision-making comes from questioning whether also throwing one of my two awesome Mjölnirs on is "too much", and possibly having those who see it mistakenly write me off as a racist (despite me being Hispanic).

Yet the deal is if I'm proactively deciding not to wear the hammer for that latter reason, then that choice to a passive degree lets the racists trying to take ownership of Thor's hammer as their symbol do so, which is total misappropriation as, according to the 2013 Heathen World Census, self-proclaimed racists were less than 1% of the anonymous survey's sample.

Given Heathenry/Asatru/Northern Tradition's obvious growth in the past 11 years, this wrong-headed micro-fraction of a micro-fraction is now even more diluted in our number, despite how media wants to focus and inadvertently/sensationalisticly amplify that. Yes, we should be aware it's there to guard against it, same as all other faiths need to be aware the same racists/extremists/fundamentalists are equally, if not proportionally more, within their numbers and also just as much misusing their tenets & symbols.

Thor uses his hammer to hallow people & things, to crush giants & problems like racism, and to resurrect, much as we are succeeding with reconstructing & expanding Ásatrú today. Don't deny yourself the blessings of the hammer. Wear it and, if it happens, have a polite corrective dialogue with people who mistake it for something negative which it's not. Represent and own that Mjölnir for yourself and others.

[my hammer on troth ring fitting at foreground right on top of the National Museum of Iceland's case containing the original 10th Century Fossi hammer at background left, comparison taken during my 2014 CE visit.]

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Guillermo Maytorena IV knew there was something special in the Norse Lore when he picked up a copy of the d'Aulaires' Norse Gods and Giants at age seven. Since then he's been fascinated by the truthful potency of Norse Mythology, passionately read & studied, embraced Ásatrú, launched the Map of Midgard project, and spearheaded the neologism/brand NorsePlay. If you have employment/opportunities in investigative mythology,  field research, or product development to offer, do contact him.