Saturday, July 26, 2014

Othala; the Heart of the Ancestors


The Following is a journey I took last year after the premature birth of my granddaughter.  I work with the Runes as part of my daily practice.  I  work with my Ancestors as part of my daily practice.  And  journeys like this are a foundation of my personal practice.   I wanted to share this with you because it is a part of me and my work of Finding Light among the Shadows.

I stepped through the door and into the Otherworld.   I looked at my feet.  I was barefoot and the grass beneath my feet was soft and brown.  I wore a simple woolen dress of my family tartan, and a bronze amulet of a boar, my family’s totem, hung over my heart on a ribbon of red silk. 

I looked around me and found myself in an autumn evening at twilight.  The woods nearby were almost bare and the path in front of me led over a grassy hill.  I followed the path over the hill and on the other side found a low round-house with a thatched roof.  The windows glowed with warm light and wood-smoke rose from the chimney into the evening air and smelled like home.

When I found the doorway, the wooden beam above was carved with a crescent and v-rod like the tattoo on my back, the side beams with a trisckle on the left and a spiral on the right. An equal-armed cross decorated with knotwork adorned the threshold and a red whole-cloth blanket quilted with a dragon covered the door.  I pulled the blanket aside and entered, letting it drop back into place behind me and looked around.

The roof was supported by a network of straight beams in a concentrically spiraling starburst pattern, the walls were stone and the floor was covered in rugs of braided wool rags like my great-grandmother used to make when I was a child.  Glowing oil lamps and books filled the small wooded shelves around the walls, and musical instruments hung from the beams supporting the roof.  

A fire danced brightly in the small hearth, warming the entire house. In front of the hearth sat a small wooden table with a white linen table-cloth, and on it, my grandmother’s teapot in robin’s egg blue and two miss-matched cups.   Beside the table I saw a basket made like the rugs, of braided woolen rags and inside the basket, a babe wrapped in a yellow blanket crocheted like my Nanna had made it.  The infant slept peacefully, breathing easily, safe and warm and blissful. 

As I turned to leave, something flashed on the edge of my sight.  I turned again to see on the mantle above the hearth, an egg of garnet.  It was deep and clear and smooth and it seemed to glow from the inside.  As I continued to gaze at the stone, I heard music and a voice speaking to me of the “heart-stone”, the heart of my ancestors.  The stone will receive the energy I send to it and it will serve as a source of power for the ancestors to protect the child, to heal and bless the babe in the basket.  

When the music and the voice stilled, all was quiet once more and as I pulled back the blanket covering the door, I noticed my grandmother’s garnet ring upon my hand.  

I went back out into the night and followed the path back the way I had come.

Sunday, July 20, 2014

Hail Odin!


Hail Odin, the All-Father!
Hail the wise Father of the Mighty!
Hail the noble Father of the Brave!

He whose eye was sacrificed to Mimir’s well!
He who hung upon the Tree,
For nine days and nights did He hang there,
To bring forth magick and wisdom did He sacrifice Himself,

Hail Odin who sees the truth and raises up the honorable warrior!
Hail the wise Father of the Mighty!
Hail the noble Father of the Brave!

All hail Odin the All-Father!
All hail His Bright and Noble Sons!

This is the third fulfillment of vows that I have made to Tyr, Thor and Odin.  I give thanks to Them and praise Them for their Wisdom, Honor, Strength, and Nobility.  They have vindicated Their son and delivered him from peril and will continue to raise him up victorious.  So Mote It Be.  Hail Tyr!  Hail Thor!  Hail Odin!

Monday, July 7, 2014

No More Pretending...


When you are different, it is sometimes easier to pretend, for the sake of others, that you are other than your nature. 

Pretending can be a useful strategy for making others more comfortable, and to get them to leave you alone. When they are not bothering you, you can spend your energy doing as you please, rather than constantly reassuring others or dealing with their questions, their concerns, their judgments or their wishes.  Stealth is also very useful because it allows you to accomplish what you want with less effort and less conflict.  It allows you to get things done without direct opposition. 

The problem with spending years in stealth mode and with pretending to be what everyone else is comfortable with, is that it becomes a habit so entrenched in your life, a pattern so deeply imbedded, that you might forget that it's not who you truly are.  And breaking that habit will take a lot of hard work.

It will take diligence and perseverance and sometimes, what may seem to be rather extreme measures.  It will take courage and intent and more hard work.  It may cause anxiety, fear, confusion, panic, more confusion, for yourself but, also for those around you. 

You will have to deal with those you love feeling afraid because you are no longer speaking or behaving in the way that they have come to expect, nor in the way that they want you to.

And you will feel awkward, because walking around as you is much different that walking around as the person you have been pretending to be. 

You might wear different clothes, different shoes, have a different posture, a different gait, a different voice that may sound strange to your ears.   You may even find yourself giving voice to thoughts you have only ever heard inside your own head before, and that will be strange too.

I am done pretending to be small.  I am done pretending to be timid. I am done pretending to be weak.  I am done being quiet.  I am done being what someone else is comfortable with.   I am done with the comfort of stealth mode, with the comfort of pretending. I am done with the comfort of habit. 

I am done living a half-life that belongs to someone else.  It is time to begin living my life as truthfully, as openly, as loudly, as largely, as I will.  No More Pretending.

If you are one of my beloveds, consider this fair warning.  I am larger than you have perceived, braver than you have guessed, stronger than you have imagined, louder than you may be comfortable with, and more powerful than you may wish.  I promise to be patient with you as you become accustomed to me.  I love you and I want you in my life, but I will continue to keep pushing until I have found how to live with the integrity that my Gods, my Ancestors and my own Soul require.  
So Mote It Be.

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Re-awakening


When I finally came to this path, or returned to it, and I do believe that this was always the path I was meant to follow, I was almost dead.  I think that is why I finally found the path.  I needed to, without it I was done for this life.

I had silenced and shadowed and suppressed every natural and wild instinct I had, every magickal impulse, every source or expression of power, every hope my heart and soul and mind and body and spirit had ever had of living.

I can finally see now, that through all of it, I kept trying.  I kept reaching and pushing and scratching and clawing, I kept trying through my childhood, through my adolescence, through my years of wandering the wasteland.  Then, I found a book, and in that book I found a glimpse of what my path should be, what my life could be, and I finally began to let myself live.

It has taken another twenty-one years to fully emerge from that half-life of sleepwalking.  Over that time I have slowly and painfully re-awakened much of myself.  Each of the parts of myself had to be remembered and revived.  Each of my chakras has had to be unlocked and brought out of a state of near-death.  I feel as though I am finally ready to begin. 

In attempting to see my whole self these past few weeks, I have discovered that the last part of me to awaken may be the most important, the most vital, the key to my strength and power. My sacral chakra is the one part of me that I have only recently begun to allow free expression and it is the place in my body that I most identify as myself, as “home”.

From my earliest memories, that part of me has never stopped striving to express itself, not to the world, but to myself.  In allowing my source uncensored freedom to express and explore and experience, I have discovered that life has more depth, more vibrancy, more energy, more color and sound.  Every sense I have, including my psychic senses, as well as my “sense of self” has been heightened.  I have more energy to engage with others, with my work, with my life, with my writing and with my magick.

Each of my chakras, each of my parts, must be healthy and whole, free to express and experience life, to do the work of living.  I cannot allow any of them to be silenced or shadowed if I am to complete my work. If I am to live the life I am meant to live.  I give thanks for dear friends who have helped me to awaken and become more fully alive.  Blessed be.