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Spirit certainly is a part of nature, as are we, but it's not all of nature. In Slavic cosmology, there are three "worlds" (And for sake of readability, I'm going to Anglicize them).
Truthfully, I don't either. But it's a word that is commonly understood. "God" for a Heathen covers beings from tribes of the Æsir, Vanir, Jotun and Alfar, but the word itself only really means "that which is worshiped." When Heathens hold a ritual or ceremony, I don't really every hear "Hail the Gods!" I more hear "Hail to the Æsir and to the Vanir", as well as hailing specific deities.
Not really. We reference the Eddas for stories and lore (more so the Poetic Edda, and consider the Prose Edda basically corrupt) as well as more specifically the Hávamál for wisdom and advice. But Heathenry doesn't really have a doctrine or dogma outside cultural lore.
For the longest time, that's what I thought as well. But if Muninn was derived from the Old Norse word for "memory," it would look different. I believe it was "Maninn" or something of the like. "Munr" means mind - not the brain, but the thoughts and incorporeal elements of "us".
I believe that everything and everyone is fated to a degree. But it's not a matter of pre-destination; we have free will. There are events in our lives that are fated, and we can ignore them. Take for instance my meeting my wife. I was heading to a house party that I didn't really want to go to, but I was trying to be social and meet more Pagans in the area; even if they were mostly Wiccans. I could have said "screw it" and gone home, but something urged me to go forward. I believe that was fate.
It's tough to put into English. I was able to find my lesson, and if the root word in Old Norse was 'memory' (muna) then the name would have been spelled Minenn. Rather, Muninn is derived from munr, but that word is hard to translate into English as it has no real cognate. Munr encompasses thought, emotion, and desire. Thought would surely encompass memory, but it isn't the entirety; this came about through similarity with minne, the Swedish word for memory.
Indeed! More than this example - I was very tired this morning when I wrote the above) fate is cyclical. Every year operates on fate: the summer is fated to turn to winter, the earth is fated to die and be reborn, etc.
Ancestry. I also find them to be closely interwoven. Thor shares so much in common with Perun that it is uncanny (down to their anthropomorphized description,) and there is a Slavic Goddess, Leyla, who is recognized as a daughter of Odin.
Oh, this one will be fun!
As someone with a Germanic culture fetish, the best translations are "Thought & After-Thought" or "Thought & Fore-thought".
This is just my opinion, but I always felt it was well within bounds to expand the definition of "battle", simply because the Norse themselves were more than happy to try and "cheat" their dead into Valhalla or the like, by piercing a "straw-dead" with a spear or the like, so that they "die in battle". This is, again, more opinion but I feel that Odin is not looking for physical attributes when deciding the Einherjar, merely those who refuse to die. Those who "die but never fell".
Hum, don't hear it referred to as Sessrumnir that often. Any particular reason you prefer Sessrumnir to Folkvangr?
More & more opinion here, but I would argue that for the culture this idea developed in the "popular idea" of Valhalla as a place of combat, drinking and such isn't entirely out of the question. I mean, there is a reason it is a warrior who goes to this place, not precisely a soldier.
As I understand it, Folkvangr is the field, Sessrumnir the hall.
Fair enough.
Mostly ancestry. And do go more in-depth, my greater ancestry is Norse, so it's my primary faith, and while Slavic is less than Norse (percentage wise), I connect more with it than Celtic. Northern Germanic I am able to navigate, but there's never been as great a connection as what I feel with Norse, or even Slavic. This particular question is hard to answer in that it's not something that has a clear pattern, reason, or evidence, it simply is as an emotion or instinct.
Not particularly. I mean, Jord (Jörð - the mother of Thor) is the Earth, of which I view as literally sacred. So that influences my political views on the environment in favor of preservation. But for stuff like equal rights, abortion, stuff like that? Nah.
Fair enough. Would it be fair to say you're not one of those Folkish/Volkische degenerates? There is nothing I loathe more than them, pissing all over the great cosmopolitan society the Norse constructed.
Understood.