It is nothing like the bad things in life to make us move closer to our faith and understand it better. This is true of almost any bad situation, it drives you to your faith, or drives you from it. In my case, it drove me closer.

And today I learned something important about myself and why my faith is the way it is. In Heathenism, there are two things that are as close as we get to unforgivable “sins” as a religion without sin gets. Those are Kinslaying and Oathbreaking.

I learned today just why my ancestors hated Oathbreakers to the same degree they hated Kinslayers.

As most of you may have read in the weeks past, I had a three year long relationship end recently and end badly at that. The pain was terrible, though the release of stress from the degradation of a “poly” relationship that had turned very bad was much needed. But through it all, I believed that it was simply a fact that I had offered hospitality, sacred hospitality at that, to a man and my ex just decided that she liked him better for some reason. An inexplicable reason or reasons, anyways.

Today, I found out something different. the…dog…that ruined my life apparently had been planning my destruction since before I even invited him into my home. He’d ask a friend to block my abilities so that I would be unable to fight back against the beast as he stole away the woman I loved more than life itself. A woman, by the way, which was to him “nothing more than a hot pussy to fuck.” He accepted my hospitality, swore friendship over mead, and lived with me, all the while swearing friendship and cooperation as he planned trick after trick to destroy my relationship so he could have her all to himself.

To lose your love because of something beyond the control of men is one thing. To lose it because someone swore an Oath to you upon his patron Goddess and was destroying you the entire time is quite another. The fury that comes with the betrayal…to know that someone you gave your friendship too was your enemy and wore a false face, and led the one you love to do the same to you, to break her oaths to you…

But the price of Oathbreaking is heavy. Many considered Hospitality to be as divine and sacred as any religious rite, and to break the hospitality and generosity of another, to take that generosity to steal all that he values…that is a heavy, heavy sin. Norse, Japanese, Greek, Roman, Jewish, and so many others, look upon a breach of hospitality as a sin beyond forgiveness. It is remember through ages and times, by Gods and Mortals.