Accepting Coin for Work

I’ve been going back and forth about this for a while now, but I’ve been having proddings from my Powers That Be to start considering this very strongly.

I Greet the Dead, just like it says on the tin; I guide souls, I do prepwork and ritual for people who will pass from this world to the next.    It is a service like divination or healing – necessary, and important.  But I’ve never taken payment for it – even though the ritual itself knocks me flat for days afterwards.  Even though it can potentially be dangerous; frightened souls sometimes want to grab at anything to stay in this world.  It takes time, and it has taken me years to figure out what works, and what doesn’t.

Other people would get paid for their work but for some reason I’ve never bothered asking for payment.  Maybe because the Work I’ve done has mostly been for friends who I cared about deeply, and therefore felt it was a duty to perform the Work, and an honour – and it is.  However, as I’ve noted other people charging for services, I have been poked by my own Patrons that, yes, honestly, I should start offering my service to the greater public.  I don’t have to charge stupid-money like quite a few “weekend shaman seminars” tend to do – and I don’t want to.  Face it, everything dies; prince or pauper, so even if they can’t afford it, they still need it.  Donations seems worthwhile.

It’s a bit of a mind-bender; on the one hand I’ve learned with Lakotah, and taking money for Work is considered the worst thing you can do.  It’s Not Done; you give tobacco and maybe some meat, but never ever money.  However, with the voudou/Santeria, exchanging money is considered expected – many hexes come from angry Workers who didn’t get paid.  But the main reason I am rather squeamish about the payment issue is because, from past experience, I know that people are used to dealing with diviners and healers – they get results which are, for the most part, positive.  You do a Sing for an ill person for them to get well and if they do, great.  If they don’t, “well at least you tried”.  But there’s something about paying for someone who may or may not guide a loved one through the door of Death (and that’s not actually what I do, but that’s how it’s perceived).  People who are grieving are just as dangerous as lost souls – they’re often looking for someone to blame when someone dies.  I’m usually the nearest target – and asking for payment no matter the outcome sticks in my throat.

I feel a bit as if I’m on completely uncharted territory; I know healers, oracles, diviners, necromancers – but psychopomps who are rather public about it and offering to aid the dying is rare.  I’ve tried being all those things, hoped to be able to do those things, but that isn’t my calling.  Instead, I’m the Undertaker – a rather lonely, necessary job because everything dies.

I’m not really sure what to do about this sort of thing; I need to be able to support myself, yes, but I still struggle with the ethics of the idea.  I’d like to hear other viewpoints about this, so I can weigh up the pros and cons with Those Who Know.

Ashe

Keep at your work, because Haters Gonna Hate

I prepped my new smoker yesterday – the investment has arrived and I was really looking forward to giving it a go, rain or shine (actually, since it’s a smoker it doesn’t matter if it’s raining).  But as I lit it for its initial cure-fire, I could almost feel the neighbour disapproval palpable in the air.  I just hunched my shoulders a bit and kept going – fires always smoke when you first light them, I told myself.  Surely they’ll understand that and won’t flip out about the initial smoke.    I have found a good place for the smoker where it gets broken up by the lines of my house so no matter what, no house will ever get much smoke from mine.  But still, every time the smoke drifted down the small side alley way, I panicked.  Literally panicked in an oh-god-I’ve-got-to-put-this-out-before-someone-scolds-me way.

My garden is a bit of a mess by English standards (I have always hated sterile, straight-in-rows gardening), and I imagined there was muttering about this too – and I stress imagined, I don’t know if they were really, but I felt as if they were.  All those nettles and cleavers up along the fence, sure to creep into their property, why couldn’t I take better care – ?  That I happen to like my nettles and cleavers there; that I made a deal with the plants about the garden space would be too hard to explain.  I wanted to go out to a spot I tend to visit when I have time to do so, to connect and centre myself, but means braving the whole “outside” thing, with my cane an aching joints, in an atmosphere which has been whipped up by the media and government that anyone who is disabled is a scrounger and useless eater living on the back of the Hard Working Taxpayer.    I hunched my shoulders again and hurried out for my walk.  ”She’s outside,” I heard a neighbour mutter – I didn’t imagine that one – and they spoke in whispers rather than the loud tsking tones they had been using for whatever new infraction I’ve done.

I talk to my plants. I talk to the ground.  I talk to the sky.  I talk to the birds. I talk to whomever happens to be listening at the time, and sometimes they’re not visible to the naked eye.  I’m aware it makes people stare – and I wince and then go quiet and get hurriedly into my house.  I don’t light my sacred fire for fear of Whoever May Mutter.  It’s started to become a bit of a social phobia, really.

I log into twitter and since I’m an activist I spend a lot of time reading all the atrocities the Government inflicts upon those it governs.  I’ve joined groups and heard the ranting that Something Must Be Done, but I know people – they’ll talk, but they won’t actually ever do anything themselves.  I’ve been around too many tables with self-crowned anarchists and free-from-the-system types, almost always men, talking about how easy life is once they Left The Man – and then I see their women are silent because they’re in the kitchen and too busy to just talk doing all the backbreaking, unsung work of trying to keep a house going while their men get blasted on homemade moonshine.  The women certainly haven’t escaped anything and they know it, all looking ten years too old, with children from still-at-the-breast to teenage-rebellion-and-wanting-to-leave-and-go-back-to-the-world.

My Powers That Be are saying “Listen”, and I’ve tried to, but I’ve been listening to the wrong thing.

I’ve find myself pulling back from political pursuits; not because I don’t care but because of the realisation we as a people will always return to the status quo.  We will always want to buck the system, only to put another system into its place.  Ad nauseum.  Nothing will change; we’ll just have a different name for it.  I’m not happy with what is happening right now but short of everyone bombing the hell out of the government system, short of a lot of people dying, short of an epidemic of horrible times which will probably be followed by even more horrible times, little will change.  I will speak out when need be, I will support, but no protests or petitions will do any good.  It isn’t my job or duty to do anything more.

Same with the neighbours – I have a pact with the “weeds” of the world.  I tend them as I would tend any garden.  In some places they are not welcome, but in others I greet them warmly as a friend.  They’re welcome to rip the weeds out of their patch.  I take the dandelion heads out the garden to keep them from seeding and spreading, true, but I won’t get rid of all of them.  I leave offerings for wildlife – and speak to the raven and blackbirds who are now so used to my presence they rarely spook and fly away even when I’m two meters away.  I leave carcasses for cat, dog, badger and whatever else happens to be about – no chocolate, no soaking in alcohol, no onions or garlic.  I stay mindful of what is food and what would be poison for the sake of my neighbour’s animals and my own, but I won’t stop putting it out.  That is the pact I have with the landvaettir.

I walked to what I call the Seat, a place where I commune with my Patron, and I soaked it in as much as possible as I had a really rubbish start to the morning with all the usual issues and anger cropping up, things I thought I was over and done with but obviously very much am not.  And so it goes – just because you go on a path to get closer to your Powers That Be, or realise you are chosen for Work, and begin to set forth to do that work…just because you have that going on doesn’t make your life any easier.  You don’t get the spiritual equivalent of a lottery win.  Life doesn’t always perfectly slot into place.  Shit still happens.  Stuff still needs doing, some of it really rubbish stuff.   Work is still difficult.  I’ve been doing some form of Work now for over 30 years and I’m always baffled at how sodding difficult some things still are – how just when I think I’ve got something sussed out, it turns out I don’t.  How I gain one skill, I lose another.  Just when I think I’ve got something healed or have let something else go, it comes and kicks me square in the face again.  That happens.  I can beat myself up about all that, or just deal with it.  Say the prayers, make the offerings, do things again and again if need be.

This is the first weekend I’ve had alone in over a month.  It was done begrudgingly as if visiting one’s son is a favour, a noblesse oblige, a frustrating necessity.  I wasn’t impressed.   Most of yesterday was dedicated to shaking off my anger, and now it’s irritation, so that’s improvement.  Still, the realisation is that’s the way it’s always going to be.  I’m stressed and tired and just want to curl into a hole and hide as I am facing another four months on purgatory without a break.  And I can whinge about that, about the same old things…or I can just get on with it, with the work, and the Work.  I can stop hunching my shoulders imagining or even picking up on the views of others upon how I live my life.  I can let the world carry on as it will, as the universe is going as it should even if that is of extreme inconvenience to myself, or even dangerous and deadly.  If it means the world ends tomorrow, then let it.  If it is not my role to stop the world from ending, then I will let it pass – and yes, I know someone people have been given that role; I also know some people think they have been given the role when in fact they haven’t.  Work requires brutal honestly with oneself to acknowledge whether one is, or isn’t the second coming, and whether or not you really have a Message, or just Wishful Thinking.  For me, the message has been clear:   I can only save those who wish to be saved – it is only my job to heal those who want healing and are willing to seek it out, for those who wish help to make their choice upon the edge of life and death, to raise my son, to keep myself well enough to do this Work, to listen to the Powers That Be and do what they ask fo me.

Anything else is just distraction.

Today I’m off out with a friend, wearing pink and purple and Converse shoes with skulls that are probably 20 years too young a style for me.  I have peacock feathers in my hair and makeup which I had to struggle to remember how to put on.  We’re going to pick strawberries and gossip as I haven’t seen her in months, and sip tea, and as per usual I will freak people out with my height, my appearance, my accent.  I’m going to try and not hunch my shoulders today.  I’m going to try and just enjoy the day.

Though the latter has a strong Christian slant, it speaks to me today.  Thanks to The House of Vines and Twilight and Fire for pointing it out.  Stick with your work; cos haters are gonna hate, and the Work is Love.

Stick with your work.

Do not flinch because the lion roars.
Do not stop to stone the devil’s dogs.
Do not fool away your time chasing the devil’s rabbits.

Do your work.

Let liars lie.
Let sectarians quarrel.
Let critics malign.
Let enemies accuse.
Let the devil do his worst.

But see to it nothing hinders you from fulfilling with joy the work God has given you.

He has not commanded you to be admired or esteemed.
He has never bidden you defend your character.
He has not set you at work to contradict falsehood (about yourself)
which Satan’s or God’s servants may start to peddle,
or to track down every rumor that threatens your reputation.
If you do these things, you will do nothing else.
You will be at work for yourself and not for the Lord.

Keep at your work.
Let your aim be as steady as a star.
You may be assaulted, wronged, insulted, slandered,
wounded and rejected, misunderstood, or assigned impure motives;
You may be abused by foes, forsaken by friends,
and despised and rejected of men.
But see to it with steadfast determination,
with unfaltering zeal,
that you pursue the great purpose of your life and object of your being
until at last you can say, “I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do.”

Journey with Bear

I’m going to struggle with this entry, I can tell already.  Not because of the usual factor which many of the people who walk a different Path than usual which tends to say “I can’t believe this is all real sometimes”.  It’s not because of a gaes placed on me by the Spirit in question to stay silent – I haven’t been given that sort of warning but I’m still going to be a bit guarded.  No, the plan and simple issue here is essentially I feel like a dork saying my spirit is Bear.  It’s sort of like saying your deity of choice is Hekate because you’re trying to get a rise out of your parents/outcool your Wiccan friends (and I had the exact same problem with Hekate DID approach me last year).  To have a bear spirit ranks up there with all those people who have given themselves Native names and claim right off the bat their spirit is a Wolf or an Eagle.  Ever notice it’s rarely a Mouse or a Squirrel or Raccoon or something?  Argh.  Having a Bear Spirit as a guide and protector automatically feels like I’m one of Those People who picked up a book and decided I was going to “get myself a spirit animal”.  Now I’ve done Work with other spirit-guardians in the past, and I’ve had experience with quite a few but, just like life, eventually you outgrow or need to move on to a new learning.  I’ve felt affinity with bears off and on for most of my life but never really felt the pull or call to work with it directly until recently – basically once the Spirit in question was practically battering at my door to get my attention.  That’s usually the sign to stop, shut up, and listen.

And still, I resisted, just as I resisted Hekate trying to get my attention because of the stereotypes I’ve seen around pertaining to people who just take up spiritualism or shamanism because it’s “cool”.  A bear spirit?  Seriously?Ohgawd, please no.  Can’t I have a hipster-type of spirit no one has heard of?  Apparently not, no.  This is what is in my world right now and this is just what I’m going to have to learn from.  It’s all a bit too obvious and has come to “beating-you-over-the-head-till-you-acknowledge” point for me to ignore it.  It of course just adds insult to injury that one of Thor’s shift-forms is a bear…anyone remember Beorn from “The Hobbit”, the man who was a skinchanger into a bear form?  Beorn being one of Thor’s names?  Yes, yes, I get it, I HEAR you already.  *sigh*

This isn’t the only spirit which has approached me, either – there’s others, and while I was a bit surprised at their presence, I have accepted that they’re around for a reason and I respect that, and Them.  But Bear has just been difficult on many levels, mostly due to my own hangups.  It’s been a lot of whinging and kicking my feet to come to a point of somewhat acceptance and once I’ve done so, it just plain makes sense.  Why else the go-go-go of spring and summer, and then my tailing off into fall with the urge to just retreat and Deal With Shit during winter?  I’m often written off as big and stupid, and indeed I can appear to be – right up to the point of crisis when I leap into action so quickly I can make heads spin.  I’m underestimated a lot, usually at the peril of the one who thought they’d try and pull a fast one.  I am everyone’s worst nightmare when it comes to issues and wrongs perpetrated upon my son or my friends.  So if we’re going by similarities only, then yes, there’s a lot there.  However it’s not enough just to “feel” like you’re a particular animal and therefore that one is your Spirit-Guardian.  It’s also about what the Spirit has to teach you, which is often not what you think.  And that’s also proving true in my case – and I’m learning all the time, but I’m also being asked to Go Deeper than I’ve done in a long while in my journeying.  I’ve had to call on the help of another witch’s very stellar Bear Ointment which I hope to work with once it gets here.  I’m a little nervous about this as it’s not the sort of Work I’ve ever done before but I’m being nudged rather insistently into that direction.  Also being further nudged into doing more Work outside, whether I’m worried about What The Neighbours Will Say or not.

In other words, everything about Bear – everything, really – is about stepping out of my nice happy comfort zone where I’ve essentially been stagnating and unable to connect as I used to.  It’s forcing me to step outside the den and turn my nose to the wind and wake up.  And of course, the devil we know vs. the devil we don’t makes this process difficult for me.  I have to take those steps on my own, and sort it out.  It’s going to be a slow process.  I expect I will make mistakes.  I will get things wrong but, eventually, I shall be getting things right.

So…onward.

Devotional Art

Cold, wet, and generally horrible has been the rule of spring this year.  It’s half-through May and my strawberries are only just trying to set flowers.  The cherry tree bloomed but spent most of the pollination period during the wet and nasty part of April and May  and so I’m not even certain whether it was pollinated or not.  What I can see of the blossoms, quite a few are rotten from all the rain.  The mini-orchard is a mass of weeds with the raspberry and gooseberry desperately competing for nutrient.  The front garden is the same, covered in native flora which I’ll have to rip out to give the other plants a chance. My sage plant – the one I brought with me from the other house – has died, and I’ll need to bury it with honours in the wild garden.

I haven’t seen much of the sun, and I can feel the effects already – I feel like I’m hibernating through fall.  Irritable and off my stride, my son bouncing off walls as every single drop in barometric pressure sets him off.  It ain’t been fun.

I needed some bright, some colour, and so I decided to paint Sunna, Norse Goddess of the Sun.  At first the idea was just to work in colours I rarely use – I tend to stick to cool tones.   I wanted to experiment outside my comfort zone a bit, work in colours I wasn’t used to, and experiment with blending in oil.  But I also wanted to do Sunna some proper honours, and maybe even please Her enough to show Her face.

It’s not the first devotional painting I have ever done; I am working on a painting for Odin as well, and have done several others.  But working on Sunna’s painting was – and is – a bit different. It was like painting for Mani – the same vibe, different deity

I know of an artist in the US who is utterly devoted to the Virgin Mary.   Almost every single piece she does has the Madonna as a subject, and at first I wondered why you’d want to keep painting the same image over and over again.  Where is the challenge?  What’s the point?

However, over the past month of dreariness, I have found myself painting and drawing the Sun a lot.  A lot more than I’ve ever done before – but I was just so desperate for sunlight that I found myself thinking if all I could do would be to paint the sun rather than see it, then I’d paint it.   So I sketched up a Sunna image with my own embellishments, and grabbed my paints.

I’ve been painting on this with many stops and starts – right now, the mouth has me stalemated and I’ll have to fix it.  Then there’s other bits that need to be smoothed and worked.  I’m learning while I paint, but I’m also doing more than that – the painting is becoming a prayer, just as Mani’s painting was, and Odin’s.  A prayer to Sunna and Her power, and a plea for some light, some warmth, some Sun.

So I think I understand a bit more why one woman paints the Virgin over and over again – it’s her own devotional.  I get that now.  And I’ll keep painting this one with the same thought in mind.

And today, for the first time in weeks, the sun came out.

 

The part of a job I do not love

Most of the time, I love what I do.  I love the practice, I love the prayers and the devotions.  I am grateful to have the time and space to dedicate to my deities, and to do work and Work.  Most of the time.

Sometimes, however, it’s very difficult.  Working with the dead is one thing, and I’ve become used to that. Working with the soon-to-be-dead is a little harder.  And when they are friends…that’s when I tend to wish I’d never taken the red pill.

I went dreaming with Mani last night, as is my usual during full and dark moon.  Since it was also Friday, a day sacred to Freya, I asked permission to get a wee glimpse into the future.  Now, dreams are tricky things and don’t always give a completely accurate view, but the one thing which did stick with me was seeing a friend in it who has been in hospital now for some time.  She’s very ill, and I’ve been doing my prayers in my own way, but haven’t felt very hopeful.  In my dream, she passed away and I hadn’t realised I had been wandering around with her spirit the whole time rather than the physical her.

I woke up rather upset, and have turned to my “reality check” system* to see whether the message was coming through or not.  And it has.  She’s not long for this world.  Maybe a week, maybe a month.  I don’t know…but she won’t make the year.

I’m absolutely gutted.  When M passed last year, I had prepared myself for it, and knew she was relying on me to do my job, so I was able to put my business face on and do it. I said the prayers, and did the job.  Recently I had a rite to do for a stranger and, again, it was easy.  But this one has hit me harder than I expected.  I’ve known her for years – I know she’s an atheist, but I also know that she’s asked me before in a roundabout way whether she’d make it or not, and I was as truthful as I dared to be.  She expects that of me.  So I have to do right by her.  But that is all the more reason to do the job: to make sure she doesn’t suffer.  To make sure it goes gently.  To be sure the family she leaves behind is cared for (and I’ve seen how kind total strangers can be).  I can do that much at least.  I may even be able to give her a little more time, although that always comes with a price.

And now I have to light the candles and offer the bread, and I will greet the dead and ask the disir’s council, preparing for another soul to pass from this world.

*My own bit of God-blessed divination, and two friends I trust to be clearsighted and impartial.

Self-sufficientish

I’ve been thinking about this the past few weeks as I’ve been feeling a pull to really get more focussed on storing food and getting pantries stocked and so forth; how far is “too far” with self-sufficiency?  Is there such a thing?  Can it be overdone?

I’m not a stranger to living-off-the-land; I’ve lived on mountain-tops with Seventh Day Adventists and survivalists.  I was homeless for four years and learned campfire cooking and foraging.  I was a herbalist and learned about herbs and wildcrafting.  I’ve hunted and fished, dried them and made pemmican as well.  The things I can cook in a cast iron skillet would amaze you.  I have a great love of warm water and washing machines as a result of this time, and nothing makes me happier than clean sheets on a bed.  Or beds.  Still, there are skills I miss.  And one thing I’ve certainly found out about working with the northern-pagan way of things, self-sufficiency has some serious street-cred added to it.  It’s almost a requirement:  being able to make bread, brew beer and mead, cook just about anything, grow herbs and food, is smiled upon by my powers that be.  But they seem perpetually keen to push for me to learn more and do more than I currently am.

I’m in a new place, very rural, and rely on the internet to do all my shopping.  I order food in, and most of the time it gets here.  But when living rural, if we get snow that then becomes very difficult indeed.  The locals here help out (last year someone with their 4×4 delivered the morning bread, milk, and papers), and people are very kind, but even so I keep feeling the push to prepare and provide.  I have a really big fridge and freezer, but I’ve been pondering getting a chest freezer for years so I can buy half a pig and just process it myself (especially considering how much pork and bacon and so forth my son eats – a LOT).  I’ve got a stocked larder but I’ve realised with a qualm that it’s mostly staples – there’s other things I’d like to have in there, but how to acquire it?  Even the wholesale shops I’ve been doing are very expensive and can only be done maybe two times a year as a result.  Due to health constraints I have to get my protein as meat – I may not always be able to make a big meal however so how can I get that protein boost when I’m tired?

Then, there’s growing food.  I have the mini-fruit orchard and it’s abundantly clear that fruit is the only thing that will grow down there; I’d need a greenhouse for growing lettuce, potatoes, toms and so forth.  I considered getting one but space is at a premium; there’s nowhere for it to go.  Can’t block the telephone pole (indeed, the amount of stuff people have been bunging back there scares me!), and then there’s the cost. I can honestly buy canned tomatoes in abundance and not have anywhere near the headache of trying to grow them, and I already have a bag of smoked chillies.  So that’s not really a concern; but should I make it one?  I’m undecided.

I’ve also been considering other ways of preservation; I made jerky this week from buffalo meat and while it tastes incredible, I had to make it in the oven which wasn’t ideal as the heat kept needing monitoring (not to mention having the oven on for a day is pricey!)  The cats kept sneaking into the oven’s open door to steal pieces when I wasn’t looking.  Argh! So after weighing up I decided I’d invest in a dehydrator – I always have vegetables on hand which I tend to forget about in the drawer, find them in a rubbery mushy state when I actually WANT veg and then have to sigh and order more.  It would make more sense to have some dehydrated to pop into soups and stews on demand.  So, going  for a proper dehydrator now, and assessing how many jars and things I have to store the dried food safely.

Another way to do preservation is by smoking food.  Now it’s not a perfect science – I’d need a freezer regardless as I’d be doing preservation without nitrates.   There was a time I could built a smoking pit and just do it where I am – on the mountain we’d just build a big pit for a few weeks during the fall and everyone in the area would use it.  There’s not much of a chance of doing that here. Now I’ve currently got two fire pit/heater things and I have only used them once.  I worry about doing a bunch of smoking as a result although smoke stays in the structure and doesn’t escape – I know, but as a rather loud neighbour tends to say “You’re not going to light that, are you?” whenever I even so much as touch my firepit, I’m a bit leery of doing anything in my back garden, or my front garden either.  Maybe this is why the urging to do more preservation outside so I can “reclaim” my space and try and find a way to do so without allowing what other people say to worry me so much, and do it responsibly as well.  But main point: who is going to eat all this stuff?  Where is the freezer going to go to store smoked meat and fish since I won’t be using nitrate?  What do I do when child wants sausages as I have no intention of getting all the kit – patties are just fine without the need for casings, but I’d still need a mincer.  Would my hands handle the mincing?  Doubtful, but as it turns out my juicer has an optional mincer attachment.

At the end of the day, am I saving money doing all this?  The outlay will be extensive – small freezer, more electric to run same, buy the pig, buy the smoker, buy the sausage grinder, buy dehydrator.  Everything needs to be labelled and taken care of.  But in the long run, yes I think there would be a savings; free range smoked bacon is costing me a fortune, and it’s usually only eight pieces per pack.  I could have an entire slab of smoked bacon on hand whenever needed instead.  I could make Canadian bacon, which I haven’t had in years, and our own sausage meat.  Ham hocks for beans.  Jerky for protein hits on days where I wasn’t up to making anything complicated but know my iron levels are low.  Dehydrated veg and fruits which are out of season yet useful in stews and muesli. It means losing reliance upon the instant-gratification shopping, but we’re learning that – last week if it wasn’t in the larder we just didn’t have it.  It did feel rather frustrating that I have a pantry full of beans, tomatoes and other sundries which would feed me just fine but child wasn’t going to eat any of it!  With this said he has certainly tried to eat things I’d never expect him to touch before, but still, he’s a carnivore and fresh meat, fresh veg and fresh fruit is what gives him joy. So could he ever make the adjustment to preserved food?

Most of all, I’m feeling the pressure at the back of my head to start to learn and/or remember how to do all this again.  Yes, it’s expensive at first but that isn’t the point:  the point is to learn again to be able to provide for myself and make do, to stockpile when I’ve got plenty of provision for times when I may not be so well off later.  I may have the money NOW to do all this, it doesn’t mean I will always have the money.  I may end up on very limited funds next year due to all the cuts happening.  I could lose every single benefit I have.  I’d be left with just enough for bills and that would literally be that.  So it does on some level make sense to prepare now for the possibility.  And that is what self-sufficientish is all about to me; it may seem sort of tin-foil-hat survivalist but if things roll the way they seem to be doing I will have to find a way to keep us fed and clothed and cared for.

Again, it’s hard to draw the line between paranoid conspiracy theory and need.   But my Powers that Be keep whispering to me “prepare, prepare”.  In the harsh terrain my

Norwegian ancestry lived in, if they didn’t prepare, they died.  Plain and simple.  This happened plenty here on the English Isle as well – banishing someone out of a village was pretty much a death sentence.    You’d have to learn to live in a group and provide for each other in ways which suited best:  people here don’t trust me yet but I’m beginning to work on that.  Eventually I’ll be able to trade things with them, and show I can be a good neighbour, and we’ll carry on from there.  This is good for community and good for the self – I’m very much a hermit and tend to stay very much to myself which, while fine to a point, also creates problems.  This is perhaps the greater lesson here as well – that hamingla (“luck”) must be cultivated.  And one has to prepare to the best of one’s abilities.  I lived in the city and I still managed to grow a windowbox of veg and herbs, and could gather food as well since I knew the good spots.  I still sewed clothes and made soap.  You do what you can – that’s all the gods are asking.  And yet, even that can be a huge stretch sometimes – just to keep pushing to do the best one can rather than just what you’ve become comfortable with.

I guess I’m being pushed to find ways to improve my self-sufficiency, as this again feels like a space where work becomes Work; I know for a fact that after sitting in the cold and wet, holding a bow-string, you are really REALLY grateful for the deer that finally comes within range.  I know after sleeping rough how really REALLY grateful I am for a comfortable bed.  After no strawberries all year round, I simply cannot wait to taste the very first berry, still warm from the sun, and have been plotting different ways to preserve them.  Yet there is room for improvement. I worry about the lack of fireplace/wood burning stove in here – and if you saw how much my electric bill was (considering all my heating is electric) and also knew how many elderly people freeze to death in this country because they can’t afford heating, you’d understand my concern!  A woodburning stove would cut my heating bills alone in half, not to mention cut down greatly on the humidity (and would mean I wouldn’t have to run my dehydrator 24/7 – again, that’s electric).  But would all the planning permission and ‘elf an’ safety regulations allow that?  I’m never sure.  I worry about the fact even if I had freezers and so forth, what happens if we lose power for a considerable time?  Again, preserving food becomes important – and I’m certainly in an area which can lose power in the winter for four days or longer.  I worry about many of the other things I can see as a potential problem, yet I don’t quite have the time or resources yet to cope with the problems yet.  And a lot of this is due to the fact I rarely see my progress – I only see what I haven’t yet done.  I am also being reminded of all the things I currently do, and to be proud of this.

In the UK, survivalists are called “preppers”; and they go to some great lengths, quite a bit of it rather weird.  Unfortunately they’re also the sort of opportunists who would raid your house if they ran out of food to save themselves.  These are the tin-foil hatters although they do have some good ideas (I didn’t know I could get away with just a flue to install a stove), but some things are totally out of my means and even out of my necessity.  And I also feel it takes away from the community feel – a lot of survivalists/preppers essentially want to assure their OWN survival, not really anyone else’s.  I’ve heard “lighthearted banter” about how they’d never tell anyone everything they have, and how they’d raid even their best mate’s stores if it meant they themselves would live a bit longer.  Their version of survival of the fittest seems to be “survival of the loner” – and that’s not something I’m being allowed to even contemplate.  Community is vitally important to my Patron and to Others I work with – a concept I have greatly struggled with.  But this too seems to be the challenge, the work that becomes Work.

I keep feeling the pull and call to spend more time in the woods here, learning what’s here.  Learning what trees and herbs are here and how to use them.  Putting some things away, and growing what I can. Patching up the hamingla with my community so they don’t see me as a weirdo on the end of the street.  Getting more involved.  Volunteering once I have more time.  Offering to make things for people, just because.  If I do get a smoker I may even offer to share some of the produce with folks, especially if the hazelnuts outside my path are productive.

I’ll get there.  But I am learning to listen more closely to my P.T.B (Powers That Be) and not to disregard what I’m hearing because it’s difficult, or time consuming, or “hard”.  When work becomes Work, is all part of practice.

Walspurgisnacht and Prayerbeads

The weather outside last night proved to be abysmal so there was no lighting bonfires.  I instead used the spiral candle holder which I’ve been using for the past nine nights, and as I lit nine candles, I then extinguished them all and went a’riding, before coming back, lighting all the candles in the holder and eating bread and drinking cherry wine, singing and clapping (and woke up my son, who wasn’t impressed, whoops).

It’s been a learning experience – I may never get to a place where I am ever comfortable being in the presence of the Allfather but He doesn’t scare the utter pants of me as much as He used to.  Had a thing or two to teach, and appreciated the efforts I made so hurrah there.

Over the week I also made some prayer-tools which I’m thinking I could offer for sale, but I want to do it right and perfect it.  I bought some prayer beads from the US and was rather shocked at how haphazard and carelessly they were sent (in a plastic baggie, shoved in a Postal box, no note, no decent packaging).  These are tools to the Divine, and I really can’t see treating them like you don’t give a damn how they’re presented.  We’ll see how I roll with things as I intend on re-opening shop in July.  I have several paintings completed, and a couple currently on the go, and more ideas all the time.    It will be good to get back into production again, especially as I feel I can combine work with Work in some way.

On this Mayday, I hope it’s a blessed one for you all.  Now I’m going to offer my prayers to Mani, pour some ouzo for Him, and bask in his glow as the skies are clear for the first time in weeks.

Waes hael!

Sopdet

Sopdet, Cosmic Auset who came to earth to learn what it meant to be mortal, the Sirius Dog Star upon her brow.  Her skin was black when she was born, and she has been portrayed with blue hair.  I owe Sopdet much:  last year when I started to re-connect to my deities, Auset led me to Sopdet, and Sopdet led me to the Norse Gods.  Her presence is a very quiet, calming influence for me, and I have always had a place in my heart for Sopdet and Auset (I have a tattoo dedicated to Auset upon my back).  Where Oya was always my deity of “Stop sitting and DO something!”, Sopdet has been the deity of “Look, listen, wait – the world moves as it should.”

Creativity and devotion is something I’ve started to explore more often both as a business venture and as a mode of practice.  I chose painting Sopdet annually as a dedication to Her influence, but also as a test to see how my ability with painting progressed.  I have an earlier, more “tribal” take on Sopdet which I did when I first started to paint again last year and I am staggered by the difference in technique which I have already developed in such a short time.  There are still things I would differently in this piece (but that’s true of every painting I do), however I like the progress.  Now the biggest challenge is learning to do photo-manipulation in a way that makes a good print – this is actually a bit darker than the end result but was as close as I could get to the blue/grey values – the white however is a lot whiter on the original.  Learning curve again.  I’ll probably touch the painting up a few times over the week before I’m completely happy, then I’ll seal it with some matte varnish as gouache can be rather powdery.

With this painting I have an Offering Tree, a painting of a frost-thurse, an an oil-painting Work in Progress of Odin bound to the World Tree.  I’m trying to get back to work, and Work, and hope to re-open my shop and sell prints again, so we’ll see if I can manage it by my June deadline.

Life, Health, Strength, Sopdet!

Three Drops for Odin

Walspurgis is coming up this weekend, while I’m on my menses which seems very apt.  Tonight I honour my disir, Hekate and Hela but I’ve also very much got Walspurgis on my radar. I’m actually prepping for this event best I can, and I had an idea of what I wanted and why so I then set out to procure it. (Fully aware this post may upset Odinists but hey, I’m not an Odinist).

Odin is another deity I’m wary of (to be honest, I’m wary of all the Aesir full stop).  Odin is not someone I’ve ever wanted to approach as I just feel a “how can I use this person to my advantage?” vibe with Him, and I don’t like being used without some give and take.  Or maybe I just know that you always need to read the fine print.  Either way, I have been very careful and cautious in my approach to One-Eye though as I’ve tried to struggle with the runes (and I know the reason I do this is because I haven’t offered work to Odin to do so), I do feel the sacrifice He made to gain the runes needs heralding.  I also feel it puts me in touch with worlds other than this one, and opens the way a bit more for me to be able to connect and commune.  Journeying has been extremely difficult for me over the past nine years – essentially I gave up all my abilities just to make sure my son made it to term as I had already lost his twin.  Now, I have to regain what I lost, and that will take time.  I have come to the conclusion I am probably going to have to get some help with some of the Plant Kingdom, but I will need to be cautious due to my issues with my auto-immune system and kidney/liver stuff. Ointments may work but even then, what happens if I screw it up?  At the moment, I’m finding a glass of beer dedicated to Thor is getting me where I need to go to speak to Him, and cider to Mani (and I have to be careful with carbonated drinks as they make my shoulders itch).   I’m doing more meditation as well which is helping, but I am rather gutted.  It used to be ridiculously easy for me to get There, but if you don’t use it, you lose it.  If I can steep myself into journeying and find the right way for me, maybe I won’t need such plants and things at all.  Who knows?  I’m staying open to suggestion and advice even so.

Back to Walspurgis:  I knew I wanted to mark Walspurgis in some way and I decided I wanted to light a candle at a set time during the night to mark the days Odin spent hanging upon the World Tree.  Now I’ve seen several different calendars for the heathen holidays and I’m pretty sure the one I’m referencing would have some hardcore reconstructionists fainting in coils, but this seems less the point of an exact “when” but “will”.  As in – it being important I do it in the first place, and be fully mindful of why.  I looked up everything I could and read the passages from the Eddas about how Odin hung and then died – and how in that instant his shriek could be heard in all nine worlds and all lights of the world went out, then blazed up as in the whirling chaos Odin grasped for the runes and brought them back.  Now I’d read and studied enough about runes to know that they’re slippery things to hold onto – it’s not like you can look at a tarot card and know what it means; runes are so deep.  They can maybe have a one-word meaning in order to do really basic readings but they really aren’t meant for that sort of thing.  They have a power, an experience, a will all their own, and so I can full believe it took this huge and heavy an ordeal to bring them back.  And I can certainly understand Odin isn’t going to part with the knowledge of runes lightly.  He earned it – I haven’t.  I totally grok that.  Whether I understand the runes better after the vigil isn’t my whole goal either.  The point is to bow in acknowledgement to Odin’s ordeal, and that I can do with a weightiness I’ve never felt for Easter even when I was growing up fundy-Xtian.

I looked high and low for nine-slot candle holders but only found menorahs.  Eclectic I may be but I wasn’t about to diss another religion’s tradition!  I even found some tree-shaped candle holders which sadly only held three or four candles.  So, instead I decided to go with the spiral motif and picked out a design which had 16 candles – I could light nine, put them all out, then light the full thing in a blaze since a bonfire wouldn’t do in the back garden (although I am tempted!).  It easily rests upon the wall inside and outside so shouldn’t be a problem.  I’ve got a Odin statue coming in the post to put out and honour as well, though I think I will probably keep it locked away in a chest during the Walspurgis – Odin was alone during His ordeal, and His loneliness I feel is part of the rite.  I would like to have a proper candle-snuffer but sadly it’s coming right down to the wire and I won’t get a chance.   I should be able to keep these burning for a little while each night; they’re beeswax candles and therefore they burn for a long time.  I do have a few replacements for the first candles if they burn down.

I had to do some research about what to offer Him – since Odin apparently doesn’t eat, I wanted to offer Him some proper spirits.  The cognac could have done, sure, but I’ve been offering that to the Jotun and it didn’t seem right.  So instead Odin has His very own cherry brandy which I’ve ordered from my favourite country wine supplier (along with this year’s supply of libation wines since mine are still maturing).  This is just for Odin, to offer sustenance to the lips of His figurine.  I may take some of this myself on the final night of Walspurgis but I’ll be asking permission before I taste it.  The colour is a brilliant red and that also seemed very fitting.

This actually feels like a really big occasion to me; I know as a pagan I tended to get all fired up about Samhain and Yule, but I tended to just give the other holidays a polite nod.  I expected to get on with Disting, I honoured Rani during Thurseblot (which sort of irritated Thor but at least I didn’t cheer for the frost etins!) and I kept my eye on Jul.  I didn’t expect to do any other holidays.  Sometimes I don’t get that choice – and it’s not a burden or just a “I suppose I should do this and forget about it”.  There’s a difference between a stupid obligation (the sort of thing I hate Xmess for) and something you do for the sake of remembrance and honour, sometimes fun, and sometimes bittersweet ( which is my approach to Jul and Samhain).  If I can inject the latter to every holiday from now on, then I think that’s practice making practice again.

And so I’m setting up for this holiday – or maybe “Holiday” is the wrong word.  Vigil may be better.  In any event, I’m going to give my all to it even though it’s only an hour a day, which isn’t much considering nine-sodding-days – what’s an hour???  Still, it’s a start.

Practice makes practice.

I Greet the Dead

Today I was given a windfall; I totally forgot son would be going to his respite carer today.  The day is rapidly growing chilly, and the clouds are moving in so he’s going to have trouble focussing but still, it’s six hours of peace and quiet.  What I was going to do with myself was a mystery.  I’m always urged to go see friends (what friends?  They’ve disappeared.) I know I should clean – I always clean when child is away, it’s the only time the house gets seen to.  Should have a bath.  Should read a book.

Today however I’m being called the guide they dying, and greet the dead.

I saw this one coming; an acquaintance on a Heathen site has a wife in hospital.  He asked for prayers, though the group are staunch reconstructionists of the scholarly persuasion (i.e., they mimic the past but don’t actually believe any of what they’re doing).  So while he asked for good vibes, he then said “I’m not really involved in this stuff anymore though I organise blots.”  Anyway, I decided to put what I had into it, and true to form, I asked permission from him to do so – especially as I tend to speak with Oya for this sort of thing.  Permission was granted, and I journeyed on.

Now, when I performed the rite, things progressed so quickly I thought I almost wasn’t needed.  It was fast – very fast.  Obviously the woman’s spirit had made her decision and I thought “wow, okay, that was sort of painless.”  I went through the final motions of the rite though it felt a bit anti-climatic!  Even so, I felt I had made a connection.

Strangely enough, the woman started to recover, and at first I thought I had read that wrong – she had chosen to pass on, so why the sudden return to clarity?  But I did divination and took counsel, and felt my first instinct had been the right one.  Maybe she was being granted time for farewell.  I didn’t say anything to the man in question and offered no reassurances, because I still felt there wouldn’t be any.  I would rather offer nothing at all than give a false hope.

Sure enough, I received a message today: after a week of her being able to communicate sporadically and quietly, she’s fading.  Her system will never recover, and she is merely being made “comfortable” now.  She spends most of her time asleep, so I suspect her passing will be quiet.  I will make it my business to see that is the best scenario today

So, now it seems my day has been chosen for me.  I have lit the black candle, and I have to hoover the floor and mop the kitchen and bathroom with floor wash.  I will pour water and port on my disir altar and offer bread, fruit, and wild garlic, and maybe burn some kyphi (with my ventolin at hand as I don’t tend to tolerate smoke well).  I’ll ask my blessed dead to guide this woman’s soul though I suspect it will be an easy job.  The decision was made weeks ago, facilitated by the woman herself.  I am merely to bear witness and make sure it goes smoothly. I will say the prayers, ask for the crossing to be a gentle one, and bury two pennies into the ground as offering.  This is my duty, the task I am given.  There are other ways I would have wished to spend a day off, but sometimes one isn’t given a choice, and this is a job.

I greet the dead.