New Year

It comes like a whisper, so silent an entity in of itself. We are the ones that mark it with our fire and noise, alcohol and drunken sex.

This is fitting.

After all, we are the ones that decided that the end of the old year would be on December 31st as opposed to any other day in the year. We humans, yes, we did this.

And we've done this for years.

Every year about two hours before the end of the year, I feel that strange shifting of the old dying and the new coming and no matter how bad a year it's been, I always think that it's happening too fast and wish I could tread water a little until I can get my head around the fact that yet another year will have passed. On the threshold between the years and for maybe about a minute either way, I get emotional as I feel this quiet whisper of a shift that makes the world feel special and new again. We've made such a big thing of new year celebrations for years now that I'm almost surprised that it's not louder, stronger, clearer...more tangible. But no, the entity known as 'New Year' doesn't need to be loud.

Back home, we would cross our arms and join hands in a circle to sing 'Auld Lang Syne'. This would be done with family and friends. This is our way in participating in the change, warding in the new year and trying to bring in luck by singing a song of frith. At the conclusion, we all move in to the centre of the circle while our hands are still joined before breaking the circle to go round hugging each other and wishing each other happy new year. This always makes me tear up.

Not long after that is when friends from other homes will knock on the door with a bottle of alcohol and they are invited in and we share before taking some of our alcohol and going to theirs and other people's houses. We wish each other luck and renew the bonds of frith with each other. The street comes to life as we mill around outside and in and out of each others houses. Friends of mine more recently started fire dancing on the green space across road from my parents' house. We'd also set off fireworks in our too-small gardens and not caring about the safety advice about things like 'safe distance'. The whole night would be a cacophony of bangs and sparkles and life.

This year this didn't happen. This year I was a spectator, watching with my cup of Glühwein clutched in one hand and my other arm around my husband, watching other people's fireworks. I'm glad to have my husband home this year. So very very glad. Last new year's eve, I dreamed about seeing in the New Year with my husband, of him being home from Iraq safe and sound and now I have that I dream of seeing in many many more with him but I also dream of doing that while still observing the old traditions that I grew up with.

Since moving to this army base in Germany, I've noticed that around the Americans, I don't seem to have as much space and time for the traditions I grew up with, their traditions take precedence and mine just seem as though they'd be considered 'quaint' or just plain weird by them. In Denmark, I went to a friend's house that was full of traditions observed and I realised that I've missed that. I've missed having traditions in my life because I have traditions too, I come from a place full of them and I need to stop letting them slide. I need to keep them alive as a link to my land and my family.

So that is my first resolution for the coming year, I'm going to try and observe traditions that I was too lazy or too shy to observe last year.

My second resolution is that I'm going to try and improve myself in all things.

I stand on the 'string' in that place that is so simple it almost defies understanding. There is a splendid nothingness here and that in itself is so complex for modern minds that are used to space and time being filled with a myriad of various distractions. I don't know that it is the ginnungagap but it does fit the description of a yawning nothingness. Well, except for the 'strings'

The 'string' I'm standing on isn't the only 'string' here either and I just *know* that I'm looking at different times and different realities running parallel. To travel in time is as simple as finding the right 'string' and picking it up. 'Stepping' into it. Somehow it is hard for us to think about time as being like this and I'm reminded of L.P Hartley's famous quote that 'The past is a different country:they do things differently there'. We have no problem thinking about millions of people in different countries all living their lives parallel and unseen by us, maybe we should think that way about time too.

It's time to decide where to go and I think about the much debated scene in Eiriks saga rauða in which the people of the farmstead invite the Seiðkona to come and tell them their fortunes. I walk along the 'strings', careful not to step on one that I do not want. When I find the one I want, a time before the arrival of the 'white christ' in the North, I pick it up and then 'see' myself somehow stepping into it.

The hall is long and glowing with light from fire, I'm jostled and look at the people around me. They are all gathered to see the Seiðkona and all are washed clean and dressed as tidily as they can manage. They do not wish to offend. They are expectant - both excited and afraid at what they might find out. They are afraid of the Seiðkona too and talk about her in hushed voices. She is but a woman but she has skills that can either harm or heal. This time, it's her words that they fear.

I try to see over the man in front of me, try to look at where I think the 'high' seat is but it's not as high as I thought it would have been. The door creaks and a hush falls over the people. The atmosphere becomes charged. She's small and carries herself with both tired resignation and pride to equal that of a king. Our crowd parts to allow her through. She walks as though she does not see us, as if she's unaware of all the eyes that stare at her or how much of an outsider she is.

From elsewhere in the room a rattling noise is made, accompanying the Seiðkona on her walk to the seat, the atmosphere becomes familiar. I've felt this before and look around, trying to see what is there, waiting - I only see the energy in the air beginning to buzz. Like the preliminary stages of a ghost manifestation.

The Seiðkona arrives at the seat and women that have offered to serve as her singers do something I cannot see because of the man in front of me. I'm being jostled and only see her again when she climbs into the seat because the man in front suddenly cares that I cannot see. Either that or he had tired of his previous position. The women stand around the Seiðkona in her seat and face her as they sing. It's a simple song and people in the audience join in. The women at the front begin to go into something of a trance state, stamping their feet and moving as their song grows in power. The energy shifts in the room again and the Seiðkona, her head bowed and eyes closed in concentration also sings but her song is different somehow.

Then finally there is a 'shift' and everyone falls silent now. Lifting her head, the Seiðkona looks to the audience with eyes that no longer see only one reality, glassy.

'We are ready now'

At first no one steps forward, no one asks but then what starts like a trickle almost turns into a flood until the Seiðkona can answer no more.

I leave that 'string' step back out into the nothingness and decide where I'd like to go next but it's late and I need to sleep at some point during the night and so I reach out for my body. When I feel it, I'm yet again shocked at how 'dead' my body becomes when I go into trance. I shouldn't be shocked any more, it's always been like this for me. It's just a little disconcerting to not feel your limbs and have a body that's barely breathing. Slowly I resurrect myself before sending myself off to the slightly different state of sleep.

The next day I take out my penny whistle and play the song I heard the Völva's helpers sing. My words are different because my language is different but the tune is the same. I draw a stave and I write it down, mentally remarking on the numerical values of the notes. Three. It all comes down to the number three and this makes sense to me.

Fire and Britannia

Once upon a time over 29 years ago, I was born on an island of myths and legends between the North and Irish seas. When the Romans came to settle Britain, they hated it. It was wet and cold and according to some of their legends, it was where their dead went. It was a haunted island full of tribespeople that painted their faces and bodies and lived among the mists and the shadows. Those tribespeople had their myths and Gods, as did the Romans

The groups of peoples that have come to be known as the Anglo Saxons saw a fertile land that was conveniently undefended and inviting them in. They brought their myths and Gods too.

Then came the desert god, the crucified one that so many look to today and left his imprint on the land. But somehow that imprint is less indellible than the others.

And then the Vikings came and settled the Northern part of England and brought their Gods and their myths.

Over the years, different spiritual heritages have come to the land and added another layer to the 'spiritual onion' as I call it.

At some point in all of this, fire, dance and ecstasy became a part of it. So much so that it's the bit that everyone has gone for again in the revival of Paganism.

Before I moved to Korea and Germany, I would go to the fires at Beltane, I would go to the fires at Lammas and enjoy the fires of Bonfire night (not ancient but I think the method of celebration is). No gathering is complete without a fire, or music or beer or dance or people enjoying themselves together and getting increasingly more and more ecstatic as the night goes on. I miss the feeling in the air and the passion of it all. I miss hearing the drumbeat that beats in my blood regardless of where I am.

Mors

The beach is long and I look out at the sea
The water of this beautiful fjord
Answers in blue back at me
I stand at the edge
On sea-rounded stones
And imagine I could, with just enough magic,
Walk across the salty foam

The sky grows dark and I walk a little more
Leaving my cares along the shore
Where the gentle fjord will wash all clean
Leaving me spare minutes to just sit and be me

I wonder about the tide,
If it's like the sea back home
Where within 20minutes lives are lost
And the beach is gone
Where stormy clouds rise over an inclement sea
And heading to warmth and safety we flee

Mors means 'Mothers' and I feel nurtured here
I wonder if this place will make me a mother too
I think of my man, my family and friends
I think of hospitality and warm meals
I think of the vaettir,
And wish I had more time to know them and their ways
I feel them at the edges - curious
But I don't have enough time in this place

The sun is now down and I head up the hill
I look for the road I was on before
I think about the day that is yet to come
And my wedding on this beautiful isle called Mors

Primal

In a cave far away
Up a mountain in an unknown place
Where dark trees gather in a shroud
Sits a lady upon the ground.

Her eyes are closed
As if she sleeps
And sometimes she smiles
But mostly she weeps

She's older than us all
Her years etched upon her face
Her skin is like leather
But still with beauty and grace

She's dreaming of us, her children
and how we live now
Each dream a live news report
To a mother disappointed and proud

She fears for the unborn
That sleeps within her womb
Who only waits to be born
Into a race bent on doom

Even in the winter of the world
And the winter of her life
She still gives and dreams
And watches her children die

Sitting in the past of the human race
She dreams her dreams and watches our ways
Sometimes blessing and sometimes cursing
The dreadful/wonderful day she pushed one of us out

Standing At The Crossroads

Throughout human history, certain places in the physical landscape have been considered to be meeting points between this world and the other. Usually these places involve water, such as bogs, marshlands and wells but there is almost always something final about these kinds of places, they are almost always synonymous with death.

Not so the crossroads.

Crossroads are liminal places, meeting points between life and death, the mundane and the supernatural. But they are also places of potential, of decisions and new directions. At the crossroads everything can change.

And that is how I'm feeling right now, as though I'm standing at a giant crossroads in life. Maybe it's the yuletide season that's making me feel this way but I'm feeling very much that things are changing, that a new phase is starting and that decisions have to be made or I'll miss out. So there's a lot to think about, a lot to take stock of, to change and a lot of bitterness to lose. Because I do that a lot, I store bitterness up inside and trap myself in modes of behaviour that do nothing for me and just haunt my future until a time when I can find the peace, honesty and courage to let them go. I'm feeling such a time coming up right now.

So I'm going to use this yuletide to take stock of my life and decide which road on the crossroads I should take and to lay down the magic in the earth of my life so that it can manifest later on. The method I'm going to use would be labelled as being 'fluffy' and I would concur but it's not about getting 'cool points'. It just so happens that having a set list of questions to consider and meditate on is a damn good framework for this kind of thing. I want a direction, I don't want to be that woman whose dreams are dead anymore because people can sense that about a person I think. I notice it in the way people deal with my husband as opposed to myself and it's beginning to feel like my identity is being eclipsed by his. I'm becoming the forgotten one instead of the co-partner in my husband's life. Not by him, no, my husband would never do that, he's not that kind of person. It's other people you see and ours is a religion of community. I've whined enough about this situation, it's time to make changes.

A large part of doing this kind of thing is looking at where you've been, your history, the history of your family, in effect, your saga! We have to hear the voices of our ancestors in order to correctly plan our futures. That is what I'm going to focus on today - hearing those voices and revisiting that past. I need to reconnect with things that I've lost, reintegrate them into myself and then move forward.

Huntress

I go where I'm pulled and when I give up control I'm running naked through woodland, a bow in my hand.

'The high places aren't for hunting, they're to watch' the voice says. I nod and continue to run until the animal comes into sight. Mid-run and with more skill than I know I have, I shoot the animal, a beautiful white deer down.

It falls, bloodied and breathing heavily as it pants out it's last breaths.

Acting on instinct, I unsheath a knife that was carried around my waist and put the animal out of it's misery. I stab it in the heart, I gut it and I mark myself, my breast with the blood.

'There is always a price' the voice says. 'A vision doesn't come for free'

I go to the high seat, a place in a tree used to watch the animals and I look at the cloak and headdress.

But then I'm in a clearing and it's suddenly night, primal drums beating to firelight. I'm being confronted, told what is, told what I must do next. Things are explained. An offering is demanded, a gift for the vision and I agree.

'Go' she says 'this is a vision within a vision and you are still to collect, the rest of what you seek will come later. Things are going to happen much faster now'. I go back to the high seat, don the cloak and headdress and climb up.

The height dizzies me and I look over the land again,the animal trails crisscrossing down below. A map for the hunter. I see people, lands and places, things I've already seen and things I'm yet to come across. I know when it's my time to part. I leave the high seat and run back through the forest the way I came, this time in hunt of my own body.

Smithy

We huddle by candlelight
The ceiling is low
My friend reaches for her drum
She drums for energy
She drums for trance
She drums to bid the spirits to come
In this land of the dead
It won't be long
Chants fill my head
And I sway along

But there's a nagging there
In the back of my head
Of the past week's dreams
And a sense of dread

For nights before
My dreams have been
Of this time
This place
This warm candlelight
For nights before
My dreams have been
Of terror
Of menace
And a hasty flight

I think on the positive
Forget all fear
Wait for the spirits to come
I chant and I wait
I sway to the beat
Though my legs go numb

The ceiling is so low
But what do you expect?
It's not a place for the living
It was built for the dead

I hear a woman talking
Look around
Only my friends in the chamber
Making no sound
I listen closer and that's when I know
That the language she's speaking
Is a language of old
I see her then
Auburn hair
Brown clothes
She talks quickly
Then she's gone

I look to my friend
Sitting by the door
I look at his face
But it's no longer his own
It's a face of cruelty
Of menace
Of evil intent
A scar across his cheek
And a hate for women

My friend fights for himself
A battle he'll lose
The man will take over
He'll block the door
Attack us in this crouched hole
Then everythings shifts
We're on their ground now
My friend has no protection
We have to get out

So we bully our friend
The half-possessed one
Out of the chamber
While we still can
Outside is a little better
His head begins to clear
We quickly clean up
Prepare to get away from here

The ancient trees in the dark
They stand in a line
And I think I can see
hooded figures too
Standing there silently
Unmoving shadows
Watching us, watching me
We leave but we're followed
My friend is knocked over
As the man from before
Has another go
I pull him back
And block up the way
Stang-made mark in the dirt

I call for help
To the Gods
My ancesters
My disir
I yell
Into the night sky I let the hammers fly
My energy
My heart
My fury aswell
I'm sick of this bastard that won't let us be
And at some point someone must have heard me
The man came no further
His face was anger
That he couldn't follow us more

And as we drove away in the car
Down that dark road
Some hearts changed
And some hardened even more

Burrowing Under

'We don't want no burrowing under'
He says as he draws a rune of salt upon the floor
His cockney voice holding a menace
I really don't like
Who is this guy?
Where did he come from?
Something isn't right

He looks like a thug from London's East end
All shaved head and attitude
My alarm bells ring
'Who the hell are you'
I say to this 'man'
No longer wishing to be sealed in

He stops the ritual, puts down the jar of salt
Turns to face me and I make ready
Something tells me I should be scared
But strangely I'm not
For protection isn't protection
When you're locked in with the devil

'I'm here to help you' he says but I've heard that one before
I'm no debutante to this game
So I do the only thing I can
'Hold out your hands!' I say
And he holds them out
Eyes meeting my own
As I pour out the salt

I half expect him to scream in pain
Writhe his agony out on the floor
I remember lore, turn my coat inside out
He flickers and stretches but no more
A poem in my head gets louder
Distracts me with a song of Norway
As I tell him 'no way' and make my escape.

My eyes open to the dark
The calm of my room
I take a quick look around
No sign of the man
No menacing sound
Nothing but sweet holy ground.

Follow The Wind

This poem was inspired by a dream I had in which I was sitting on top of a burial mound with an older version of myself.

'Stop.' she says as I reach for my drum
I look up in surprise
Her hand on my wrist makes me dumb
Around us the wind blows
As she looks in my eyes
Blue eyes to blue
Old eyes to new
Vision obscured by hair in face


The sun beats down on us
As I look into those eyes
Blue shining with warmth at my confusion
We sit on the mound
On that windswept moor
Our clothes are ancient

Hair dressed with feathers and bones
In a place beyond time
Where we came to reach out
Look for an ancestral line.

We came across the moor
And I carried the load
As all good apprentices do
We climbed the mound
green against gold
Ancient footprints to new.

I look to her again,
My teacher,
Myself in years to come
And I ask her why.

'Follow the wind' she says
'Let it carry you where you need
Drums are for those that sit indoors
But the wind is a gift to such as we.'

So closing my eyes I do as I'm bid
The wind a pain in my ears
Then comes a song as pure as the drum
I yawn deep
then I'm gone.

Sigr - The Cost Of Victory

As Signy laid in bed
And made her final plan
She thought of the body next to her
And her hate for that cursed man

She remembers how he killed her family
As soon as they were wed
How he broke the bonds of Frith
Then joyfully took her off to bed

She remembers how she wanted to weep
As his weight was upon her
But no matter how hard he tried
He got no cries from her

'Take it Volsung bitch
Your family is dead but it won't be so easy for you
You're my prize, bitch
You'll bear my sons too!'

She remembers how she lay
Emotionless while he finished
Blessed relief as he rolled off
Fixing her gaze on the ceiling

These sons he spoke of
Would be her revenge
Her soldiers to sacrifice
Her victory in this world of men

So she'll lie in this bed
Dreaming of her plan
No longer minding his body
Or the attentions of that cursed man

Mystery Poem

Life given through cord
taken away through cord
Therein lies the mystery
A release to life or a release to death
Bog bodies discovered from thousands of years before
Bodies bound and naked
Necks bound with cord
Package neatly tied
Sent down below
A gift for a gift
To the bountiful one

Follow the trail of Skjalf
To the northern court
Where she bound Agnar's neck by lace
Necklace, took his life by cord

Follow the kenning for the name Skjalf
There you find the Vanadis herself
A princess of the Finns
A new story begins
Of noaide, siede and seidhr
And of people made of trees
Esk and Embla and the circle is complete
Back to the birth, the death and the Brisings cord
Life giver, life taker.
Blessed Holy one.

Freyja Call/Poem/Thing

Freyja is joy
Freyja is life
Freyja is the hope that shines in the dark

Freyja is sadness
Freyja is pain
Freyja is lost love once more regained

Freyja is magic
Worked on dark nights
Freyja is the key to secrets that hide

Freyja is freedom
Freyja is peace
Freyja is peace found in release

Freyja is green
New life on the trees
Freyja is the sap
That rises within

Freyja is death
Life stolen by cord
Bodies sunk with birch
In cold northern bog

Freyja is ancient
Much older than we know
A Goddess without boundaries
Slandered by lore

Freyja is much more
Than any of us think
Great shining Goddess
She is in everything

Hail to thee Freyja!
Blessed Vanadis!

Hammer Campaign and Freyja

The hammer campaign is going well, the facebook group now has 100 members only about 3 days after setting up. Many thanks to all of you that have supported the campaign.

A new website/blog is on the way from Judy Floyd of the AFA for the Hammer campaign and will be under

hammerproject.org

At the moment there isn't much really there but hopefully that will change soon.

Yesterday Josh and I finished the feedback to Diana Paxson for the military heathen handbook she's writing (finally...lol after like 4 weeks). It's really good. I'm very impressed at the level of improvement between the first draft and the revision. Diana has listened to us about everything because she recognises that she doesn't really know much about the army (well she knows a lot more now because she's been learning). I'm seriously impressed.

She's also asked if we have any articles or writings about the more 'niche' topics in Asatru, like army wives or how it is for soldiers being away from their families and so last night I sent her a piece I wrote for submission to Idunna (the magazine of The Troth) entitled 'Keeping The Homefires Burning:War and Asatru from the point of view of one of those left behind'. I also sent her one of the segments of the booklet that I'm writing that's going to be called something like 'Listening to the Asynjur: Lessons for the army wife'...or something like that...

The segment I sent was about Freyja and that leads me to my next segment.

Before I went to America, Freyja had been making herself felt more and more in my life after a while away. In America, her presence was also felt, when Josh and I went for our wedding band tattoos, the man that did it was a Freyjasman through and through. His whole tattooing room was dedicated to Freyja. Freyja was the first of the Heathen deities that I started to work with when I was about 14/15 and her influence was felt through most of my teen years when I spent lots of time doing Witchcraft, hexing school bullies, travelling and learning other bodily pleasures tongue.gif

At some point during university though, she was gone for a while, well not so much gone but not so immediate as she had been. Well she's back and back with a vengeance! Before I went to America, she turned up and now she has a full on altar only to her in my room. Something has changed, I get her better than ever now and it feels...liberating. It feels like I'm on the verge of some big discovery about her true nature and origin and I'm only going to say one word about that ...Skjalf wink.gif

Well Skjalf isn't the origin but she is the clue.

Probably no surprise that the joiking has been happening more and more really.

Of course this is all UPG but you know how certain things seem to click together when you go through these phases? Well they are clicking.

Well things are clicking and I'm feeling that 'pull' again to go on otherworldly adventures, something that I haven't done since J went to Iraq.

I'm also feeling pulled to dance again (which I haven't done for so long and was one of the things I did in honour of Freyja). I just wish there was a class round here.

Spring

Today has been one of content. I have enjoyed the spring equinox immensely.

It's also been a day of reflection and thinking about you know...well...stuff.

This morning I got up early and went into town to pick up some food for a picnic because at some point this morning while lying in bed and considering what to do today, I'd decided to take a picnic in the little pine wood by the lake on post. I'd already marked winter there and so it just kind of made sense to me. So I went into town and bought food, went to the Asian supermarket and shocked them with finding my way round without help (and being able to read the labels), picked up some sandwich stuff and grabbed a coffee to go from the bakery before heading back.

Traditional offerings for me tend to be bread rolls and local beer and it always seems to go down well. I'd decided to write down some wishes on a piece of paper in German and in runes and had figured out how to say what I wanted to to the wights of the place. I found pretty early on that there is generally nothing if you speak English but if you speak German, then the fun begins ;)

Getting to the lake it was stunning, that lovely spring smell in the air, sunshine and new growth on the trees. I made my way to my place - a little place where a sapling grows that just kind of called me over when I first went there. Sitting there, surrounded by trees I started talking to the land wights in German. I told them who I was and asked once again that they accept me and my family here, I asked them to look upon my family with kindness and told them that I had offerings for them. Then I made my offerings, sliding my wishes into a bread roll, seeds for new plans and beer. With every toast I made, it seemed as though I was being listened to and that's when I heard it. The rhythm of the place. I know that sounds kind of weird but for me, if a place accepts me, I hear the rhythm of that place and it's then like a key to me. A way of talking to the place and getting the beings there to hear me. So I chanted the rhythm in a half joik style that seems to be becoming more common with me and everything in the woods just stopped and suddenly it was as though the sun was shining down just on me and all the trees were surrounded by this golden glow. The chant was a hard one to do, but like Germany itself, it was very very satisfying. Unsure of what I wanted to do next and wishing I had a blanket so I could stay longer and follow whatever it was that was pulling at me, I stopped.

I really could have laughed at that point because that was when I realised that Germany is absolutely my home now and how far I've come in the past nine months since I moved here. I have been to hell and back. I have hurt so much in the past year and feared so much and been so angry.


As grim as things were then though, I worked my arse off and improved my situation and finally met friends. As hard as it was to do it alone, I made this place my home. I now have a place that I'm fixing up for J and myself when he gets back, work is ok, I have a damn good group of friends, people are finally hearing us about military Heathens and to a large extent, today sitting in that woodland I feel like I have made peace with everything. I feel proud of how far I've come and what I've survived and now I only feel excitement for my husband's return, the summer and trying for babies in Autumn.

When I came back, I did a huge spring clean and that also felt good. Very very cathartic :D

Musings on Hamfarir and Mound Sitting

When I was a kid and bored in class at school, I used to daydream. Well not just daydream because it wasn't just mindlessly staring off into space. I was really gone. I had such a great desire to be outside (especially in Religious class)that I would find myself running around in the woods outside of school, my body left sitting in class and staring off into space.

I guess that was the beginning of it really.

Then came the phase of physical affectations, where my sense of smell would go ridiculously senstive. There was this one time in France where the smell of mint was driving me mad and I had to look for it - in the end I found this tiny plant about five metres away. Another time it was the smell of sand that sent me bonkers - until I figured out what it was. Then there was the sight thing where all colour except blue would go. Everything was a shade of bluey-grey and I know this sounds fluffy as fuck but I felt very wolverine.

It didn't take long before I was trying to push it a step further and actually take my hamr for walks. It takes extreme effort and it makes me really tired. The feeling of that squashing sensation from having my arms, my front paws so close to my heart and lungs is just bizarre.

I once made it half the way up the street in this form before I was really exhausted and had to come back to my body.

A bird seems easier, though not as connected for me. I don't feel the same connection, nor do my senses change in the same way as they do when I am a wolf.
I don't always take another form, sometimes I stay as I am. Another form is a handy disguise when dealing with folks that know what they are doing. I always travel in Midgard and cannot understand why anyone would try or want to go off round the nine worlds. There is already so much here!

For me now, it either takes extreme effort or extreme need and sometimes anger to do this. I need that push. Just like I need to go the extra mile for mound sitting usually and go inside the mound (if possible). I never get nearly as close just sitting on the mound. Things don't shift the same when outside. There is this moment when moundsitting, especially inside, when a 'shift' occurs. When things go from being the realm of the living to being the realm of the dead, where they have the power and when you can understand the caution that folks had for the practice and for the howe dwellers.

Most of the time I don't do this kind of stuff and rarely plan it, but there are times when instinct just takes over and before I know it, the crazy is happening. A few months ago, I posted about choosing between Seidhr and the path of a wife and mother but now I see there is no choice. I am both, I can be both and need to be both for myself and for my community.