So, if you have gotten this far odds are you are searching for something of a spiritual nature. Are you feeling adrift in the world? Alone? Cut-off? Lacking that spark, that drive......that connection to the Divine?

Asatru just may be the answer you are looking for.

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Asatru is a modern term for a very old way of living. Asatru literally means, "tru or loyal to the Aesir Gods". The Aesir are the Gods of the native Northern European peoples. The men and women of Scandinavia, Anglo-Saxon Britain, Scotland, Ireland, Iceland, Germany, Frankish France, Northern Italy, the Slavic lands to the East, even parts of Russia where the Swedish Rus vikings once sailed the Dneiper and Volga. Those Gods held different names in different areas, but Their characteristics were similar to the point of being nearly identical. Wotan of the German forests and Odinn of the Icelanders were inherently the same; Thor of Sweden and Thunor from mainland Europe were basically the same Diety.

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So, Asatru, first and foremost, is the religion of the native European peoples before the coming of Christianity. The Asatru of today emerged out of our folksoul into the modern world in the early 70's with Else Christensen, who founded the Odinist Fellowship, and Stephen McNallen who founded the Asatru Free Assembly. Asatru, as its practiced today, is a distillation of the writings we have from our Ancestors(things like the Eddas, Sagas, etc.), known history from outside observers(Greeks, Romans, Christians, and even Muslims), archeological finds, and the recorded folklore that, in many parts of Europe, lived until fairly recent times amongst the local folk. All of these things were studied and learned and, with a bit of personal feeling, came together to create a thriving, vibrant reawakening of our native spirituality.

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Asatru is also a way of life as much as it is a religion. Our Ancestors weaved nearly every aspect of their daily lives with the Divinity that surrounded them. Upon waking, the holy Sun rose in the sky to light their day, the land was worked alongside wights who brought blessings to the crops; praising the Gods who brought down the life-giving rains or the Gods who blessed a hunting party with a successful hunt were an important aspect of their lives........For our Ancestors, Nature was truly alive and filled with many powerful things, both seen and unseen; felt and not felt.

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This way of life is something we Asatruar strive to create in our own personal lives today, a recognition of the Divine that is all around us, and part of us, and interacting with us whether we realize it or not. Within the reawakening of our spirituality certain precepts or codes have been created from the writings of our Ancestors that we try to live by..........Prairie Asatru holds to the Aesirian Code Of Nine as a guideline of right action for our folk. There are other similar codes, this one just seems to fit our local culture; seems more in tune with the values of our rugged North/South Dakota outlook.

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Asatru is a path of nobility and personal honour......things that are not so popular in this decadent age. We hold ourselves to a high standard; we seek to be the type of people that our ancestors would be proud of and that our descendants will remember fondly. Men and women who are conscious of their actions and take personal responsibility for them.

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Asatru is also a very spiritual path. We honour our Gods and Goddesses regularly with blot(ritual) and oftentimes with personal rituals in our homes. We celebrate our holy days together as a group as often as possible and hold our Gods very close to our hearts throughout our daily lives.

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Asatru is also very much an ancestral religion.We have the Rigsthula(a tale found in the Poetic Edda) that tells the story of our descent from our Gods, tells of how They walked among us and helped us establish a distinct caste system for our kind. We believe that our Ancestors are very real beings that look on as we live our lives; at times They may try to "guide" our way and try to help us. Truly we believe we carry a spark of the Divine within our very blood. We also believe that some of our strong female Ancestors become Disir after they leave this world. Disir are similar to the concept of a guardian angel and at Winter Nights in October we honor Them and the memory of our strong women with blot. Our Ancestors are a very important part of our spirituality, They are a part of us, a part of who and what we are and we are very much a part of Them. That connection drives our spirituality to be a very tribal type of religion. Those who are of similar heritage are our kin folk and have the same connection to the Divine that we have. Those of other peoples or backgrounds have their own unique Gods and their own special connection to those Gods. We firmly believe that every group of peoples, every ethnicity if you will, has its own ancestral spirituality and that they are best served by honoring and treading the path of their unique spirituality. That is how peoples lived until the rise of monotheism across the world, that is how people interacted with the Divine before the spectre of universal religion reared its ugly head. That connection is how people today can again regain their own unique identity and spirituality.

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