Work
Christensen was one of the earliest advocates of revitalizing Germanic paganism in the modern age. She was preceded in the 1930s by the Australian Odinist pioneer, Alexander Rud Mills, whose writings she frequently quoted in her journal The Odinist.
Her writings greatly influenced many of her contemporaries in groups like the Asatru Folk Assembly, the Asatru Alliance, the Odinic Rite, Comunità Odinista. Christensen is probably best known for her successful lobbying to get Odinism and Asatru recognized by the prison system in the United States, as well as her networking and letter writing campaigns. For several years, Else's photocopied and stapled Odinist newsletter was the only thing linking the scattered Odinist community across North America.
Else Christensen had a great importance on the formation of neo-paganism in Spain, in recognition within the Odinist orthodoxy the Spanish Odinist Circle, which became the Comunidad Odinista de España-Asatru, that got official acceptance in 2010, i.e., full recognition and equality with other faiths recognized by the Spanish state, was considered by her followers in Spain as "Mother Folk. " The day of her death is an official day of worship in the Odinist faith in Spain letter by Else Chistensen to Odinist Spanish Circle in 1981
Else was very well regarded for helping many ex-convict Asatruar and Odinists reintegrate as functional members of society, as well as corresponding with hundreds of inmates who adhered to Asatru. Christensen herself, later spent 36 months in a Federal Prison over a narcotics related conviction, allegedly because she had been manipulated into being a drug mule without her knowledge. Christensen was a Canadian citizen, and after serving her prison sentence, she was without transportation, homeless and totally destitute.
The Asatru community held a fund raiser to help her get re-established in British Columbia. She resumed her involvement with The Odinist Fellowship and continued publishing The Odinist as the Midgard Page newsletter. In 2005, at the age of 91, she retired from running her organization. Else died a few days later, on May 5.
Read more about this topic: Else Christensen
Famous quotes containing the word work:
“What saved me then? Nothing but pregnancy. And each time after I had given birth to my work my life hung suspended by a thin thread.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“... any citizen should be willing to give all that he has to give his country in work or sacrifice in times of crisis.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)
“Bees plunder the flowers here and there, but afterward they make of them honey, which is all theirs; it is no longer thyme or marjoram. Even so with the pieces borrowed from others; one will transform and blend them to make a work that is all one’s own, that is, one’s judgement. Education, work, and study aim only at forming this.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)