My Daily Prayer These Days…

I place my trust in the God of the Gallows.

I place my trust in Odin.

ALU.

Odin by Sam Flegel

Species Lunation 3 – Iron

I wasn’t expecting to work with iron this month. I wanted to work with birch but iron decided to work with me and so I had no choice but to comply. I work well with iron tools, and I tend to keep at least one good iron pendant, usually a Mjolnir in my spirit-worker travel kit. It’s very good for warding off certain types of nature spirits, and other spirits too that may wish to cause trouble or mischief. I was always taught that iron isn’t very conducive to nature spirits in general, but then in the end, it too is of the earth and the mountains, and nature will reclaim it easily enough even so.  Iron and silver are two of my favorite metals with which to work when I do conjure, and when I need to choose a piece of sacred jewelry for protection. 

I don’t have much experience in actual smith-craft. I’ve made two knives, but the course was so disappointing (and the teacher so absent any sense of safety for the students) that I walked out before the class was done, a rarity for me. Still, those two knives remain, one gifted to my husband when we married and the other on my shrine to the duergar. They have a lovely sleek curve to them, and I made sure they were very sharp. I’ve worked with weapons – I studied iaido and kendo, kali, escrima, etc. learned how to shoot a gun, had a bit of archery (though not much). I know iron and its brother steel very well. It’s one of my favorite metals. I never gave it much thought as a mineral that we need to be healthy until this past season. 

I must note that I received an oracle at the beginning of the year that warned me if I didn’t make time to take a rest, the Gods would ensure that I had a rest. I’m just going to preface all of this with a sudden memory of that oracle, to which I should have paid far more attention!

On January 5, I did a new cleansing and purification charm and prayer. I had taken a terrible spiritual attack over thanksgiving (so bad that but for the grace of the Gods, my friend and I would be dead) and I wanted to be clean, really, really energetically clean moving into the new year. I had no idea how this would manifest. On January 6 I woke up ill, very, very ill (I won’t go into descriptions).  That continued pretty much daily for three months. I was taught that the first rule of spirit work is to check everything medically, even if one is absolutely sure the cause is spiritual. So, I went to the doctor for every imaginable test and as expected nothing amiss was found. The doctor even told me my blood work was better than his. Repeated divination told me to just calm down, that it was all the result of my purification work. Moreover, despite my symptoms, I felt fantastic, absolutely fantastic. I had more energy, my physical pain began to recede, old injuries began to release their painful hold. I found that as I prayed every day this same prayer, I began seriously healing. That was great. I couldn’t quite focus as I needed to for academic work due to some of my symptoms, but even with that, I felt better than I had in twenty years. When the cause of illness was found, it was found so quickly that I firmly believe it was miraculous. Hail to Bestla, Mother of Odin. Hail to Odin, Son of a ferocious Mother. Hail to Borr, Who teaches us to endure. Hail Them. 

For a time, I had to take iron tablets to combat what we initially though was anemia. This too was new and while the iron helped the exhaustion, it upset my stomach terribly. Fortunately, I only had to take it for about two weeks and my doctor told me I could stop. So instead, I started going weekly to a local sauna. It’s not a traditional sauna (I wish!) but an infrared sauna. Still, I would make offerings to the sauna spirit and then go for a half hour sauna and then a dip in cold water. During the sauna, I’d pray my daily prayer cycle. The results were amazing. Firstly, if I do a sauna, I ‘m done for the rest of the day. It cleans me out like nothing else and then knocks me out ,so I know to leave a lot of time to sleep afterwards. If I do a sauna with a sound bath included, I emerge high as a kite and need someone else to drive me home. The cold bath takes a bit of getting used to and I had to work up to it (I’m still working up to it LOL). Our traditional ways of cleansing and resetting the body – and within the Northern Tradition, sauna is certainly traditional – are more powerful than I realized. 

What does iron do in the body? It’s essential to life. It makes hemoglobin, that is our red blood cells. Those cells carry oxygen throughout the body (I’m getting most of this from the Mayo clinic). I had no idea how important it was! Signs of iron deficiency include: 

• Extreme fatigue
• Weakness
• Pale skin
• Chest pain, fast heartbeat or shortness of breath
• Headache, dizziness or lightheadedness
• Cold hands and feet
• Inflammation or soreness of your tongue
• Brittle nails
• Unusual cravings for non-nutritive substances, such as ice, dirt or starch
• Poor appetite, especially in infants and children with iron deficiency anemia

We mostly get iron from the foods we eat, and all of this has made me more mindful of what I’m putting in my body.  

In conjure, iron filings are used with lodestones, to feed them in spells of attraction, money, and luck. One can keep one of these charms going pretty much indefinitely so long as the lodestones are consistently fed with iron sand or iron filings. Iron is also used to ward off various evil spirits, ghosts, and malefica. This is why in Appalachia (and many other places too!), you might see horseshoes nailed, ends up so the luck doesn’t flow out, over the doorway and in some places, one would bury an iron knife right in front of the door to one’s house in order to ward off evil people and malefica. I firmly maintain my ancestral traditions. They knew things and one doesn’t change a practice until and unless one knows exactly what it does. 

This whole season has made me more respectful of the power of this mineral. It is that of endurance, of unbending, unyielding strength, and like my ancestors, I embrace its grit. 

Terrible bragging about a birthday gift lol

So, awhile back I mentioned that my husband did months of research and created a collection of Heathen charms and prayers for me. After he gave it to me for my birthday (and it was like being courted all over again; ^___^ though the man now knows more about Heathen lore than I do. Yesterday I was complaining that in the cultivation of virtue I’m my own worst enemy and he quotes the “Havamal” at me…in Old Norse. lol), I chose some art and a friend formatted it and I had some personal copies printed. This will never be available for sale. The art is for my personal devotional use only. The book is for my own use only but I can’t help but share my new Zauberbuch. It is…you know, I don’t have words for how incredibly moved, awed, and absolutely delighted I am by this. Look. it is awesome. ^_^

Wodinic Wednesday Q&A

Feel free to ask your reader questions in the comments here today. Nearly every Wednesday, I open my blog to questions as a small way of honoring Odin as seeker of knowledge. So, ask away and I promise to answer. I”ll keep this open until 10pm EST tonight.

Hail Him.

Why Devotion? – A Reader Question

Yesterday, well after I’d closed my Wodinic Wednesday, I received via email a question from D. It’s a good question and I wanted to highlight it and my brief answer. 

D asked: 

“Hi Ms. Krasskova,
I’ve read your blog for a few months, read your book “He Is Frenzy,” and some of two others. 
My question for you, (if it isn’t too late) is: what does a being such as He get from having adherents or people that give offerings? I’ve read that Mímisbrunnr is the akashic records. If that is so, doesn’t he have access to everything that has occurred? What more could he gain? 
Thank you for your time and willingness to assist. “

This is a good question, which is why I chose to make it and my answer a separate post. So, here’s my response: 

“HI D., 

I hope your morning is going well. 

I think, in answer to your question that it is more a question of what WE gain from contact with the Gods. I don’t believe that the Gods *need* us in any significant way to prolong or ensure Their existence. That would, after all, make us more powerful than They and that is antithetical to the Divine order. So, if They don’t need us, why devotion, offerings, etc. I think it is that we gain something significant to the cultivation of our souls from such contact. 

I also think that there are cosmic rules that the gods Themselves put into place (we see this in the “Iliad” where Zeus is forced to allow His best beloved son Sarpedon die). They will stay Their hand lest the balance of creation be destroyed unless we open to Them, and allow Them to work through us. This in turn allows us participation in the ongoing reification of creation and the divine order thereof. We heal the world in whatever small way we can, by the devotional work that we do, and it is the most important work we will ever do. 

Now, were I a Victorine, I’d say that the Gods were so enormously full of love , that it was overflowing, and humanity was created because the gods needed someone, many someones with which to share that love. 

In the end, it may simply come down to a matter of the Gods having been our creators and what parent doesn’t love and wish contact with His or Her child? 

Regardless, I think it’s a mistake to think of the devotional relationships in terms of gain. It’s not mercantile. It’s relational. 

That’s my answer in brief. You may find me adding to it as the day progresses. I think all the things we’re asked to do in devotion make us bigger, stronger conduits of the Gods. Be well.

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Wodinic Wednesday Q&A

Hey folks, y’all know what to do. Ask your questions and I’ll do my best to answer them. Hail to Woden, Seeker of Knowledge, Seeker of Truth, Seeker of power. Hail to the Master of the Tree, Yggr, Eyluðr, Gangleri. Hail Odin!

Question for my Readers

I have a question for those of my readers who practice magic and work with psi gifts. 

Background: in the system I was taught and in which I teach, the first exercises learned are grounding and centering, and then shielding. Then there other exercises that train the muscles of the mind that we work through over the first year, maybe two before moving on. This is the foundation I was given and that every one of my students, if they do the work, will have as a matter of course. 

Question: A former student contacted me last night and asked me if I’d ever taught the three basics to a student with ADD. He has a student with ADD who has not managed to master these techniques in the past three years, despite diligent practice and a very strong gift. It’s made for a frustrating work relationship until my previous assistant remembered his own student’s diagnosis. Now, I have dyscalculia and I know there are many things in my life that I have had to find workarounds in order to accomplish. I’m wondering if this may be the same with ADD and these basic exercises? They take and teach focus. 

So I’m reaching out because I”m at a loss. I’d never even thought of this before this question came my way and I really have no idea. If anyone has any thoughts on this, experience with it, or teachers y’all can ask, I’d be very grateful. I’m really at quite a loss. 

A good post from Freyja’s Frenzy

A Quick Thought for the Day

Wodinic Wednesday Q&A

I am opening my comments section today for reader questions. I do this to honor Odin as Sangetall, as Gangleri, as a God Who ever seeks knowledge. If you have a question for me on things related to the northern tradition, Heathenry, polytheism, devotion, conjure, magical practice, ballet, my academic work — whatever is on your mind– feel free to ask in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer or point you toward the best places I can think of to find answers.

I’ll keep this open until 9pm EST April 10. Rock on folks.

“Odin” by W. McMillan (From the author’s personal collection)

Unbelievable

Today I learned that some idiot leftists (Americans, I might add, not Russians, though Russians are loathe to admit the Holodomor too) are denying the reality of the Holodomor. This was Stalin’s genocide of Ukrainians, and it stands as a testament to the inevitable brutality of communism and also the utter, unbelievable stupidity of forced collectivism. The collective farms (which had been wrested away from their proper owners by force) quite simply failed. When they couldn’t meet Stalin’s excessive quotas, he tripled the quotas and blocked any shipments of food into the area. Stalin’s troops under his orders took what food there was and left the people to die. That’s communism for you: a breadline with no bread at the end or a gulag. Make no mistake: those of you thinking “our communism will be different” (or socialism or Marxism) are not only wrong, but deluded narcissists who, peevish because you yourselves have nothing want to make sure everyone else suffers too. Get a job.  

(this is a photo of my friend Tove’s home town during the Holodomor)

It’s difficult to educate leftists because they have zero grasp of history and don’t want to learn. Learning would damage their ideology and for leftists it’s ideology über alles. Regardless, here are a few videos that discuss the Holodomor. Educate yourselves. Genocide denial is a particularly gross thing in the plethora of grossness that forms the leftist worldview. 

Conspiracy of Silence: Covering up the Holodomor here. 

The Insanity of Holodomor Denial here. 

A basic History of the Worst Man-Made Famine here

I also recommend the books “Bloodlands” by T. Snyder, “Red Famine” by Anna Applebaum (who also wrote one of the first serious in-depth historical examinations of the Soviet Gulag system), and just for general history, “The Gates of Europe: A History of the Ukraine” by Sergei Plokhy. 

I’m not sure why this isn’t taught in school, but early 20^th century history seems to be given seriously short shrift.  I’ve guest taught two college classes where I would estimate at least half the class did not know what the Holocaust was let alone the Holodomor. Historical education is crucial. If we don’t know where we’ve been, good and bad, we’re going to keep making the same mistakes. History is crucial and it’s not being properly taught.  

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