When I first heard of Beating the Bounds, Heathenry was unknown to me. After learning about Heathenry, Beating the Bounds took on deeper shades of meaning in my mind.
Heathen world view places the reality where we lives our lives as Midgard. The Gods - the As - reside in Asgard. The '-gard' section of the words mean 'yard'. Literally an enclosure. An enclosure by it's very nature implies a boundary and the drawing of lines. Conceptually one could argue that each time the bounds were walked the boundary of Midgard was reaffirmed.
And why would you want to reaffirm such boundaries?
Because 'out there' was a dangerous place. A line is being drawn between the safety of domesticity and the danger of wilderness both tangible and intangible. Us Moderns may see the beauty and the romance of the wild, but we fool ourselves if we think that that is all there is to it. Our forebears knew better. Midgard is not a physical reality, a quaint name for the world from a barbarian peoples. Midgard is a concept with shades of meaning.
The boundaries of home are a liminal area and liminality has a very long history of assosiation with 'otherness'. What better place to feel?
Go walk the boundaries of home. Can you feel a tension there? Walk slowly and pay attention, let it sink in for a few hours, a few days; then explore the texture of the feeling the boundary walking has created for you. Can you sense an element of domesticity? Is there a different feeling in those places where the houses are newer?
I personally find it very helpful to have a journal to work through these things. There is something about struggling to find the language to communicate what's inside that forces you to look even closer at it than you would normally.
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