Monday, August 24, 2020

Autumn Rider

Her skin is the color of the dry, cracked earth.
Her hair is the color of November rain clouds.
Her eyes water, as if from the wind,
but she smiles as if she knows something you don’t.

She starts to wake in the fiery days of August,
her morning breath browning the tips of leaves
and scattering seeds and caressing
the dying cicada’s last song.

She brews her coffee
in the returning rains of fall
and hums along with crow caws
and goose honks and fire crackling.

She zips her leather jacket slick with frost
And her boots, gray with roadside sleet.
She rides out to round up the north wind
and drive it down forgotten cattle trails.

But most days she walks, 
in this friendly land, she moseys, 
tipping her hat at tree leaves too dry to turn red,
Nodding “Last call, boys.” to the grasses’ green.

Monday, August 17, 2020

Tear-Off Calendar Wisdom of Loki

If there was one of those page-a-day tear-off calendars made from the Old Norse Eddas & Sagas about Loki, they might sound something like this:

No one is perfect, not even (especially not?) the gods.

Ask for what is yours by right when others forget.

To clean any mess, someone will need to get their hands dirty.

It’s best not to insult the person who knows all your secrets.

“Politeness” is often a mask for hypocrisy, but Truth is a power to wield strategically.

Everyone needs someone to hold their bowl of pain once in a while.

It’s good to make all kinds of friends in all kinds of places.

Difficult journeys are the most interesting.

Don’t eat with your eyes shut.

Only bet your head if you don’t have to risk your neck.

Everyone is a little monstrous inside.

An idea is as useful a tool as a hammer, but provide vastly different solutions to each problem.

An idea is as dangerous a weapon as a hammer, but while an idea is harder to steal, it’s also harder to merchandize.

People often see what they expect. You can use this to your advantage.

You don't always have to go all the way to get the job done, but why not? Enjoy your work.

If you poke your problem with a stick, you might get carried away.

When no one else will act on a problem, might as well poke it with a stick.

Some days you're the stud, some days you're the mare.

You don't need to possess stuff if you can borrow it as needed.

All the strongest walls of Asgard can't protect anyone from one flea.

No matter what's on your outside, you're still you on the inside.

Epic rewards require epic acts. Which also come with epic consequences.

When you get no thanks, you can save it up and send back a no from the Thanks department.

It's good to have an end-game plan. But there's lots of time to kill between now and then.

Everyone is someone else's monster.

Who is really the strongest, he who holds his dignity close behind a shield, or he who ties his dignity to a goat for laughs and keeps the peace for all?

Ooh! CANDY!


Each of these (ok not that last one) is inspired by actual extant literature.

Lughnasadh Reflections

This festival was more intensely magical for me than I expected. With all the limitations and weirdness of 2020, I anticipated going through what motions I could, then spending quality time with my TV. Instead, what is usually the hottest, driest part of the year has had rain and temps up to 30 degrees below normal. It was a great time to be outdoors. I attended two events that would normally be open, but were instead mask-required, invite-only outdoor rituals. Rituals with masks on, no sharing of food, hugs, or hand holding were were weird, but after months of social distancing, the weirdness also made me more appreciative of community. Lughnasadh, after all, is about gathering community to work the harvest.

The first ritual I attended focused on using the fire and water of the season to sacrifice something we no longer needed to make room for something we wanted to manifest. The second, with the druid grove, celebrated transmutation with the transformations of Taliesin and John Barleycorn. Taliesin begins as Gwion Bach (Little Innocent) and has many rounds of change through learning and shape shifting and resting to become Taliesin, Radiant Brow, greatest bard. John Barleycorn transforms from a seed to a sacrifice into bread and brandy for the strength of the community. We work with the process of letting go at Samhain but Lughnasadh we first have to do the actual work it takes to get to that point. The work of transforming crops into harvest, ideas into manifestation, and experience into wisdom. The opposite-land weather this weekend made the full moon time almost feel like a new moon instead. My own personal work turned into some deep transformative shadow work.

2019 was my year to focus on self-acceptance, affection for others, and listening to intuition. I started off 2020 with the intention to take the insight and wisdom I’ve been learning to hear and turn it into actual, real world, tangible action. Thankfully this began with letting go of the urge to make grand expanding plans and focus on manifesting the moment, since 2020 decided to disrupt every plan on the planet. I have managed to manifest some things from physical objects like my crane bag and a set of curtains and reorganizing a closet, to involvement in the Labyrinth Temple community, getting the Druid Grove set up for Zoom meetings, and this blog. The combined messages from the rituals and shadow work this weekend, however, revealed that my harvest for this year is in confidence.

Successfully completing tasks does come with a boost in self-confidence. But now I am ready to harvest a more lasting kind of confidence, the kind that can turn into arrogance when not tempered with love. Aphrodite’s appearance at the Labyrinth Temple apparently could not go without an answering appearance from Freyja in my life to balance out Odin and Loki. It is often the things we run hardest from that we need to dive into. Harvesting confidence born of love from within myself is my work for this harvest season. Knowing me, it will be a messy, muddy, sometimes bruising and exhausting labor. Heh. Better get to it so when Samhain comes I’ll be in a position to sit down and rest.