Jerik’s Early History and Conversion to Paganism

Jerik’s Early History and Conversion to Paganism

Part 1

( This article  is the work of Nicolette Stevens, also known as Sylviana and as Lady Jasmine. The source of this material is paraphrased from  Jerik Danerson, both in person and through recorded interviews that took place in 2001. )

Jerik was born in Pomona California on November 17, 1946. It was around the time World War 2 ended, and the soldiers returning home caused a sudden population explosion in and around the small community he grew up in. While he was still very young he and his family moved to a more agrarian farming community called Chino, also in Southern California. His Father’s name was George and his Mother’s name was Mildred, and they were both simple people with Southern values who came from Tennessee.

He remembered the place he grew up as a “Southern California in another time and another place, that doesn’t exist that way now.” It was full of wonderful natural beauty that he could see from his front yard, under sparkling azure blue skies with the sweet smell of orange groves in the air. From where he lived he could see the beautiful snow-capped San Bernardo Mountains, an hour to the west he played in the sparkling clean Pacific Ocean at Newport beach, and to the East he found the desert lovely.

With three growing seasons in the year his childhood was filled with a natural wonder in this small farming community of only 15,000. The community grew immensely during his childhood, and he described California at the time as “A golden land of opportunity, unfortunately many millions of people had the same idea and they Californicated it. “

Although Jerik remembers his childhood in a lovely place, the climate in his home was sometimes difficult. Jerik’s mother Mildred was a Fundamentalist Methodist, and his Father George was a Southern Baptist. They sometimes had strong disagreements on religious issues that their son later saw as a theological disharmony. On small issues such as whether the religious officials should be called ‘Deacons or ‘Elders’ of the church, and whether a person must be totally immersed in Baptism or simply sprinkled with holy water he watched them argue; sometimes to the point of throwing dishes and pots and pans at each other.

He was an only child for 13 years, and discovered at a young age that the world was not always as he imagined it to be. Jerik’s Mother and Father were not always the kindest of parents, although he said that he had utterly forgiven them the harder moments of the past, and would not want to besmirch their memory. They were simple people with Southern values who have long since passed on, and Jerik hoped each of them found their reward in an afterlife appropriate to their individual paths whatever they may have been.

His conversion to Paganism happened during his childhood as part of a challenging experience that became a mystical moment for him. The experience itself not only brought him onto the path he took as his own, but later gave him a personal sense of how sensitive children are to spiritual things. Later in life he used it as an example to explain how children sometimes see and feel things that many of our adult minds have been conditioned to reject as imaginary.

He was a boy of eight years old, and one mild autumn evening was taking a ride on his old fashioned bicycle with his dog at his side. The dog, named Blackie,  was on a nylon leash which somehow got tangled in the chain of the bicycle, and Jerik went flying over the handlebars. With a skinned knee, slightly bent bicycle, and limping dog he quickly returned home to his family. He was upset and a little scraped up, and looking for love and attention and to see if his dog was alright. Instead he was met with an angry father who shook his finger in the air at him, telling him that he must have been doing something wrong while his father wasn’t there to watch him, but that Jesus was always watching and would see that he got what was coming to him. He was frightened by this and a little angry that he came home looking for support and sympathy, and his Dad responded in this kind of way. His temper flared a bit and in a child’s words said something like “Well then I don’t like this Jesus very much, That’s dumb.” His Mother did not react well either, and shocked at hearing her child’s comment said “Now just a minute young man, if you don’t love Jesus, then the Devil will get you!” They sent him to bed early, took away his nightlight, and told him that since he didn’t love Jesus that tonight the Devil would come for him. 

In telling the story during an interview Jerik said “An invocation had now been made to another power, weather they were aware of it or not.” It got dark and chilly, and he felt something unpleasant and scary in the room, kind of looming in the blackness with the things of childhood nightmares. He knew that he couldn’t call on this Jesus his parents spoke of so much, having somehow made himself an enemy. Young Jerik felt it was kind of a no win situation, in which Jesus would punish him for falling off his bicycle by sending the devil to come get him in the middle of the night. However, he had a toy sword he had made himself with a surveyors steak he had “sharpened” with sandpaper. He was determined that this “Devil” wasn’t going to get him without a fight.

The chilly wind continued to blow, and the boy sensed something unpleasant in the shadows, and so he tried to stay awake. He crouched in his bed with his wooden surveyor stake sword, ready for a fight, as the thing in the darkness at the foot of the bed seemed to grow stronger. It was like there were tendrils or claws hooked into the bedding, trying to draw him into this vortex of negative energy. However, with a boys defiance and the strength of his sword, some tenacity in his Scorpio soul wouldn’t give in to the darkness. As the hours wore on he got sleepier and sleepier, the negativity looming in the darkness seeming to get stronger, until suddenly something magical happened.

The room was suddenly filled with a beautiful glowing bluish light, and the frightened eight year old child found himself looking up to see a woman. She was kind of transparent, and herself bathed in this strangely beautiful glowing light. She had long golden hair, and a shirt of bright silver mail, with a blue grey cloak draped over one shoulder. At her side he saw a long gorgeous sword, and she reached out a hand to him. “You may rest, I will guard.” She said. Awed at this vision, he asked her if she was an angel, and she smiled at him with a loving kind of amusement, saying “No, I’m not an Angel, I’m your guardian. You won’t know what the word means,  I’m a Valkyrie. You will know more soon. Now rest and sleep, young warrior, rest and sleep. the dark will not claim you, nor the white crest.

He laid down with a feeling of rightness in the world, his sword at his side, knowing that the bright blue light would not go away. Peacefully he slept, relieved that some positive spiritual force cared weather he was swallowed up in the night by void and darkness.

The next day when he woke, his parents expected recalcitrant humiliation, but he seemed fine, and asked if he could go to the library. Somewhat perplexed they let him go but told him to hurry back for chores. Then at the library he passed up the children’s section, and  found an enormous blue book in the adult non-fiction section called “Tales of the North”. 

It was a beautifully illustrated edition, and upon opening the first page he found a illustration of a tall armored God in a winged helmet with ravens on his shoulders and fierce wolves at his feet. The book named him Odin, King of Gods and Lord of Asgard, who gathered the souls of heroes to Valhalla. He flipped the page, and staring at him was another beautiful illustration, of a beautiful blond woman in chain mail with a long bright sword at her side. The book further named her a Valkyrie, and said that they were daughters of Odin in a company led by Freya, whose job it was to gather the souls of heroes to Valhalla and also to be felia- or the guides and protectors of young heroes. Further the text explained that a young warriors of Odin would dedicate themselves to the gods by going to the sacred grove, to make a small cut in a rite of passage and shouting a prayer of dedication.

He of course had no idea at the time what an ancestral path was, or that he tied to this by blood, but knew that he had been drawn to the book and that the picture was just as the woman he had seen protecting him in the night. So he went to his own grove, played by two peach trees and an apricot in his back yard, and with much effort used his extremely dull cub scout knife to get three drops of his blood to fall on the earth. Then raising his wooden surveyor sword he shouted to the heavens the words he had read in the book. “Odin, help this young warrior to grow, help me to be a warrior; help me to be wise, cunning, strong, valiant, self-reliant—make me your warrior!”

He would like to report, he said, that the heavens opened and the Valkyries chorused, but really he was just a young boy standing in his sacred grove of three threes in the backyard; shouting nonetheless his dedication to Gods he hoped were listening. That moment shaped the entire path of his life, so indeed, I think the Gods were listening.

( This article is part of an ongoing effort by Jerik’s friends, family, and students; to create a proper memorial for him and preserve his stories and writing as he wished. Cody Allison and I are working on this along with other friends, and would be happy to include material and memories by others who had a connection to him, and to his tradition which was called Southshire. Please feel free to contact either of us to share your comments; memories, class notes, experiences, and any other writing from Jerik that it may be shared in honor of our friend. Thank you, Nicolette Stevens. )