Happy Samhain/Winternights/Dia de los Muertos

This series of holy days — for us winternights— marks the transition into winter, the year-end liturgical cycle (from here we move into sunwait, and the intercalendary days of yule culminating in the New Year). My house usually celebrates from October 27 through Nov. 1 though this year we are doing smaller rites out of necessity (I was traveling at the beginning for work).

This is a time to honor your ancestors and other beloved dead and to think about the Gods who guide and guard them, Who govern this time, Who pluck fate and collect the fallen. It is a time to contemplate one’s own mortality, and what we are doing to be good ancestors too. What is it that we leave behind? Most importantly, it is a time to feed and feast the dead, to celebrate their lives, tell their stories, lay out offerings and celebrate those we love, those we honor, those who inspire us, who are no longer here. May all our honored ones be hailed.

As I write this, it is freezing cold outside, and the height of autumn’s multi-colored loveliness has shifted to something that carries just the faintest whiff of winter, of ice, of darkness. Our dead come first to prepare the way and then we take the not-so-long trek into the mysteries of Yule.

I wish you all a very happy Halloween.

Movie Review: Last Voyage of the Demeter

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I waited months for the Last Voyage of the Demeter after seeing the initial preview. I love the story of Dracula and this is based on several chapters from Bram Stoker’s novel, detailing Dracula’s voyage from Transylvania to England by ship.

There is literally nothing I dislike about this movie. There is a female character, but she is strong without taking anything away from the male characters and the narrative arc that has her on the ship is relevant, horrifying, and, in the world of the story, believable. The main character, a doctor, is fantastic, and the atmosphere throughout the movie one of growing terror.

Minor Spoilers ahead:

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I should note that the movie takes some chances: a child is polluted by the vampire, and we see his death twice. The woman likewise dies at the end.

The story writers also do a good job of explaining why an African-American man would be in Transylvania, one congruent with historical reality (he fought hard to study medicine in England, but no one would hire him upon finding out he was black. He got a job offer in Wallachia but when the prince found out he was black, he rescinded the offer leaving the impoverished doctor stuck. Hence, he takes work on the ship to pay his way back to England).

There was a lot of blood and drama and I hope that this creative crew tells more of the Dracula story in the future. I love horror and this was utterly engrossing. There hasn’t been a lot of decent horror lately so it was nice to see something that really got down to bloody brass tacks. I give it five stars.

A Handful of Prayers for Our Gods and a Sigil

I spent this past weekend giving a paper and chairing a panel at a theology conference in PA. It was a great experience, as this conference always is. One thing that I’ve also found is that I become so incredibly inspired at these events. While I take copious notes and network with colleagues and have a generally educational and fun time, I am also often deeply moved to write prayers and poetry, craft sigils and eke out insights to, for, and about our Gods, runes, etc. That happened again this year, and this post is basically a collection of prayers that I wrote during the conference along with a sigil for wealth and abundance. I’ll explain about that at the end. (Anyone schooled in both our traditions and early Christianity could look at the program and pretty much figure out which panel I’d attended before writing each prayer LOL).

 

To Odin

Odin, My Lord, where could I possibly go where You are not?
I have knit You into my heart, Oh Kjallar.
Your wod runs like streams of primordial ice through my blood.
There are high vaulted halls in my mind, Gangleri, made and tended for You alone.
Where could I go?

Where could I go where You are not?
You put Your lips upon mine at the beginning,
and breathed my soul into my body.
Oh, Alfaðr, it fills every part of me,
making lively the cloak of my flesh.
Who can take that from me?
Who can unknit what You and Your Brothers have made?

Where could I ever go where You are not?
I may curse and run, but You have not even to chase –
You are always there, Your breath-born crafted gift
seated so deeply within me, nothing could pry it free.
This is Your economy of salvation, Gagnráðr.
This is our patrimony.

The Maker calls and we heed His glory.
You, Sigrúnnr, are immanent through Your creations,
and we find transcendence in You.
Why would I ever run from that?

 

 

To the Poison Eater of Asgard

You are beautiful, Loki, darkly bright with clever hands that pluck at wyrd,
and slip along the cords of my heart more quickly than fire can dance and rivers flood.
Within my veins Your whispered gift flows.
My nerves, whether bound with pleasure or pain, the flower of my sensorium,
bear the imprimatur of Your thumb.
My heart beats because of You.
My eyes seek out beauty because You have made them so.
My ears recognize harmony, because of You.
I savor taste and revel in smell – even bad ones – because Your laughing genius
crafted my awareness so keenly.
What remit of equal worth could I ever possibly give?
I have followed the signs and found You at their end;
an Artist Who delights in color. Oh, You make colors sing,
and the jewel-backed dragonfly, the brazen-fired sunset
smudged along the dome of Ymir’s pearl white skull;
and for Sigyn, Who delights in small joys,
the blazing pattern of every autumn-hued leaf.
A thousand things You alone create, marvelous to behold, miracula.
Oh, Creator of my heart Whose very pumping feeds my soul and grants it refuge,
Hear my petition now, I pray.

Let Your Mighty Wife (Galdrs hapt – incantation fetter) unfetter my soul
and lift it up from the evil that besets it.
Gammleith, eat the poison around and in my body.
Oh, great Spider, be my shield as You gnaw upon that
which harms my body and poisons my soul.
Let me not be corrupted.
Feast, oh Purifier, feast upon it, transmute it, transmute me
from dross to brightest gold.
Let there be nothing in me, however miniscule,
that gives the enemy purchase, or pleasure.
Feast well, my wild and lithesome God,
and keep me ever free, Loki, I pray.

 

To the Mighty Marshlord, Whose featherlight touch kindled our minds aflame

Oh, thank You, Hoenir, for granting us cognition!
It is Your gift I treasure most – I intend no impiety—
but my mind is a ravenous wolf that will never be sated,
and it is only through Your treasure, the glittering, diamond hard synaptic light,
that allows me to choose devotion, and to recognize Godly Glory.
It is the hunger of my mind, that gaping maw in which words sing,
that unites me most fully to Odin.
It is the aching voice of my soul, as my senses, gifted by Loður,
are the colors with which it paints.
Because of You, I am able *to choose* to be what Odin wishes.
Like Him, my mind will never rest.
My thought-world is a vast expanse, and books, languages, ideas, words –
the best offerings I can give.
Thank You, oh my God, Architect of my mind,
Who whispered charms into the firing of my synapses,
pressed sorcerous hands into the clay of my brain,
making wyrdly patterns, that guide me still,
and formed it all from the gifting-Gap, in the briny, misty marsh
that lies between the Worlds, where magic grows and foxfire dances.
Thank You.

 

For the Gods

Oh Hoenir, You in Your generosity,
gave us both our minds, cognition,
and the ability to translate the wisdomborn gnosis of the spirit
into material sense.
Oh, Loður, You with Your Brothers,
gave us not just our physical senses,
but the senses within the soul as well.
In a thing born of the bright light of holiness,
You allowed us to swim in a panoply of color,
and recognize the beauty, godly-glory, and joy therein.
Odin, through You gift, breath and soul,
we became whole. We became. We are becoming.
We may know You, oh Gods, at least a little,
through these mighty gifts.
Such great reverence we owe,
a satisfaction never to be redeemed!
Your Glory overwhelms.
You have allowed us to partake in Your art,
we who are part of it too,
and oh, how the architecture sings!

 

For Odin

How do I know You are You – a God and holy?
I am asked this always, as though my spirit were blind.
My soul sings when You are near.
Is that not enough?
The eyes of my soul see You – frenzy, hunger, glory.
My soul’s ears hear the husk of Your commands.
My soul knows Your scent and the taste of Your presence, oh God –
a communion first proffered and won on my knees before the Tree.
How could I mistake You for anything else?
How could I think You were anyone else?
My soul, made by You, knows its Maker.
It remembers the delicious pulse of Your tongue,
the cold-heat of Your soul-bearing breath
as it slid into the inert sculpture of me.
A soul rode wrapped in fury, bound together with charms.
Then I lived.
Then I became real.
Then I was a person.
Then I earned my name.
How could I not know the One by Whom I was named?
Divine love leaves such deliciously terrible marks.
It calls the soul to knowledge, chases us down when we resist.
It wakes the soul to reverence.
What more could one want?

 

Our Gods are Artists

I avoided for so long becoming an artist.
I did not want to be like other artists I’d seen in school:
soft, flighty, empty space filled only with echoes,
even the primary colors of the spirit washed out and dull.
I did not think I had the gift.
I did not know how to see.
I should have looked deeper,
and taken YOU as my model.
The Gift came at the hands of a gracious Goddess (Maferefun, Oshun!)
and You taught me how colors sing,
and the magic interstices where they meet,
and how every holy image lives and breathes,
crafted keyholes to the divine,
for Them to pierce the heart,
through the open door of memory and gaze.
My Gods are artists, I Their humble apprentice.
Oh, Holy Ones, I am grateful.
What beauty You have made!
How generously You share it.
Selah.

 

For Mani

(The Moon was brilliant, huge, and utterly breathtaking this past weekend)

When I am sin-sick,
beset by evil spirits,
smeared with others’ malice,
tired, aching, scared,
I seek You out.
You enfold me in Your light
and my soul is put to right again.

Your beauty shocks–
It is itself an incantation
that shoves me out of the mundane world
into a place of wonder.
Joy is far too small a word
for the healing salve You pour
into the parched soil of my heart.
Læknir.

Your healing touch is gentle,
and then You are off again,
having dripped the sweet ambrosia of Your presence
into the deepest crevices of my soul.
You are the Healer and the medicine both,
and I am renewed.
May our praises to You outnumber the stars in the sky.

 

On the Soul

A soul must cling to its God,
striving always to be taken again
by indrawn breath
into its Creator.
She aches and longing marks her way,
but she is uplifted by the royal dignity–
hers by right of primogeniture
when transformed from tree to art,
art to being, being to person,
beloved of the Three.
All contraries resolve
and death is a slipskinswift devouring
into Glory.

 

A Sigil for wealth and abundance

One of the papers dealt with semiotics and that made me think of sigil work. Lol. It made sense at the time. I know we’re all hurting for money. The economy isn’t great, and inflation is scary, so, while I was sitting there, I let myself just doodle along, thinking of having all we need, of wealth blossoming in our households and I came up with this sigil. There are a number of different ways to do and to work sigils. This one can be copied, placed centrally on a shrine or worktable, and charged regularly – I would recommend a couple of times a week (and how you raise and send energy is completely up to you. If you do sex magic, you can masturbate, if you are more contemplative, you can do meditation, if you were trained like I was, you can draw energy consciously from a licit source and channel it – it’s up to you and the type of energy work you do. Charge the hell out of it: i.e. focus on it, raise energy, and direct that energy into the sigil) and repeat regularly. I find it most helpful to do this a couple of times a week. I don’t often put these out into the world – I’m not that altruistic, so consider this a one-off.

Quick and Dirty Weekend Div.

EDIT: I still have three spots open as of noon 10/28. If you are interested in a one rune pull, shoot me an email by five pm today.

So, I’m away at a conference and my evenings are relatively free this weekend and since when I travel, I get bored lol I figured I”d offer ten divination spots for this weekend’s div. I usually do three different systems of div, and spin that out. Since I have only my travel kit on me, this will be quick and dirty one rune pull per person. I usually charge $25 a reading, but since I’m doing a one rune pull, I’m asking $15/reading. Email me by six pm EST tomorrow night and I’ll invoice you. I’ll probably do the readings late tomorrow.

Wodinic Wednesday Q&A

It’s Wodiic Wednesday again, folks and once more I am opening up my blog to your questions. Until 9pm EST tonight, I will take questions on any topic of relevance here at my blog. Post your questions in the comments below and I will answer before the end of the evening.

Any questions posted after 9pm EST will not be answered.

I do this to honor Odin a Seeker of knowledge.

hail the God of the Gallows, Hail the Draugardrottin.

Happy Wednesday from a very sleepy vitki at 7am in the morning. As I would say in German: ich bin ein Morgenmuffel. ie.: NOT a morning person! lol

A Cool Way to Research Your Ancestors

There’s a genealogist who runs a 52 Ancestors in 52 Week challenge and with our ancestral liturgical period upon us (and indeed all the ancestor holy days literally a week away), I wanted to share this with folks. You can see the challenge here. She’ll probably repost about it closer to the New Year, possibly with new categories for each week, but this gives you a bit of a head start and you can always do this on your own using the 2023 categories if you don’t want to wait, or want to start next week. I did it one year and found it very, very helpful in learning more about and connecting with my dead. It was also a lot of fun.

A third of my own ancestral shrine, photo from 2021 (it’s all been rearranged by now! I do that every quarter.)

Book Review: The Salt Grows Heavy

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This is a creepy retelling of “The Little Mermaid” and the writer’s style is lush and quite evocative. It is a bloody, gruesome story, where there is no happily ever after for the mermaid with her prince, and the prince and so many others in this world are sadists. The mermaid has terrifying and absolutely just agency and travels with a plague doctor, with a story of his own. In the end, there is a “happy” ending of sorts but the reader wades though quite a bit of “Lord of the Flies” like carnage to get there.  I give it three and a half stars (it would have had four, but I read the first novel this author wrote, and it was awful, truly awful. I’m not actually sure how she pulled this one out of her …brain).

Things I did not like: the plague doctor is referred to as ‘they’ because the mermaid cannot tell what gender the doctor is. Enough of this grammatical garbage, people. If one doesn’t know the gender of someone or there is a mixed group, the correct grammatical pronoun is ‘he.’. It’s bad enough to see grammar and pronouns being twisted out of true by a generation that doesn’t seem to know how they work, without having writers do it too – it doesn’t work in print, and it very easily throws a grammatically competent reader out of the story.

Also, parts were a bit too influenced by “Lord of the Flies.” But it all worked out in the end, and it is a dark, grimy, gritty, wrenching little tale (tail?) where in the end, justice of a sort prevails. One thing I did encounter in reviews on good reads and amazon is several reviewers complaining that the author uses too big a vocabulary. Um…get a dictionary. The language is poetic even at the bloodiest moments of the book. At no point is the vocabulary misplaced. Her use of language was one of the highlights. I recommend this book.

Dver asks a very good question

Where we go when we die

A Prayer for our Gods

(by G. Krasskova)

I ask the Nornir, Holy Women three, to hear my prayer.
I ask that You Who plumb the depths of wyrd,
and set our histories and actions carefully in its deep waters,
care for these poor words and send them where they need to go.

I offer this prayer for all of our Gods,
those Holy Ones Who maintain the worlds,
protecting its architecture from destruction,
sometimes at great and grave cost.
I pray for our Gods Who watch over us,
Who must wade into dark, polluted places,
facing down terrors we can barely imagine,
that Their creation might endure.

I pray for all of our Gods,
Who have no higher Power upon which to call,
Who stand, knowing They Themselves
are the last line of defense for existence.
I pray for our Gods Who have so keenly crafted us,
mindfully bringing each of us into creation
like the birth of fiery stars,
each of us with work only we can do,
each of us a thread
in the great tapestry of wyrd itself.

I pray for our Gods,
Who love that which They have created,
Who are glorious, good, and holy—
indeed, holiness comes from Them alone.
May You All have what you need.
May You be strengthened and nourished
in Your sacred work.
May You never falter, never yield,
and may all Your wounds be healed.

I pray for You, oh Holy Ones,
that we Your children may always hear You,
and live our lives in proper accord.
I pray that those who have yet to be called
into Your service as specialists,
some of whom may not even yet be born,
be protected and nourished and allowed to grow
into the fullness of their power and devotion.

I pray that we never forget our sacred obligations to You.
I pray that Your names, Your liturgies, Your mysteries, Your temples
thrive and grow and that You find pleasure in these things.
I pray that You too, Each and Every One of You,
might know Beauty and Pleasure,
even as we find those things in You.
I pray that more of us may find courage
in Your exempla, and that we too may,
inasmuch as is given to us by virtue of our wyrd,
stand with You.

Hail to You All, Holy Ones,
and to our ancestors.
May You always be nourished.

A Brief Convo on Theodicy

 

This week on my Wodinic Wednesday chat, Guason asked:

“I was having a conversation with my mother recently and she asked if I believed in Satan. She was incredibly confused when I told her that Polytheist traditions generally don’t have a Satan figure because she thinks it is necessary to have a Satan to cause evil. I know in one of your books you said that anything that’s evil has to come from outside the system that the Gods created and that we can prevent evil by working on our character, virtue, and piety. Why though are we not just born with these things perfectly intact? My own guess would be because as parts of the cosmos we are under the sway of order and chaos. Our cosmos functions best when all is in balance which is why the Gods at the macrocosmic level fight to maintain the proper balance of order and chaos. As created beings, we are a part of the system that needs to be maintained. As intelligent beings who assist the Gods in Their work, it is incumbent upon us to do our best to balance ourselves so we can be better helpmates. Am I correct in this thinking? What would you add or subtract from my thoughts?”

 

My answer:

I believe in three kinds of evil: moral, natural, and supernatural. While I believe there is an Unmaker, a force that is nameless, the afterbirth of creation that works to undo everything the Gods have wrought, and also attacks Their creatures (namely us and the worlds), I don’t think that force is always at the bottom of all the evil we do. We humans are very good at making poor choices. We can choose to do moral evil, or sometimes do evil out of fear, ignorance, damage or a thousand other reasons. I DO think the Enemy as I call it, takes advantage of that and such things can unconsciously have us align ourselves with it. (natural evil, to pull on Augustine, is just the bad shit that happens to us naturally — tornado, flood, broken leg, etc. it’s not evil in and of itself, but sure sucks for us). 

As to why we’re not born with virtue and piety intact well, we’re not. If we were, it would supersede any free will that we possessed and I do believe the Gods gave us free will — it is a gift and privilege to be able to turn to Them, to choose Them, to honor Them again and again and again. Devotion and piety come from making small choices every day. Remove choice and you don’t have a thinking, reasoning, ethical person; you have a drone. Cultivation of virtue, of which piety is one, is part and parcel of what it means to be a person. There’s a saying by one of the Roman authors (atm, at 7:44am I can’t remember the guy’s name lol) “The Gods do not provide virtue, but They will assist in our cultivation of it.” basically, it’s for us to do that work, but They will be there every step of the way. Virtue that is just given to us…is that virtue ? What makes a virtuous man or woman is that ongoing choice, the cultivation thereof, AND vigilance against that which stands against the work the gods have made. Do I think that latter force is “Satan” as your mom thinks of it? No, but if she wants to use that terminology I wouldn’t argue. Since I think that external, sentient evil exists, she can call it Satan if she wants. I just don’t think it is anything named by the Gods, and I think it detests all They have wrought. Where it came from, I’ve no idea but I’ve had encounters over the years in the course of my work that leave me no doubt that what the Gods fight, what They stand together against, what we too must stand against is something that would devour all creation.

To further add, the reason the Gods can’t just instill virtue in us is because virtue isn’t a thing, it’s a series of choices and actions made against the chafing force of wyrd. It’s not a static thing. Our wisdom, our creativity, our piety — all of these other things influence the choices we make and shape our virtue and that’s a very personal thing. I also think, it’s a gift we have the opportunity to give our Gods. Here’s the quote I was referencing above: 

“The immortal gods ought to support, not supply, virtue.” – Metellus

It’s quoted in Aulus Gellius’ Noctes Atticae (Attic Nights) 1.6.8

 

WynnDark added:

“The Nameless is a disturbing subject of fascination, perhaps dangerously so wondering about its origins and why it exists. Or rather what allows it to exist, poor choices of us humans seems hubristic, though I suspect we feed it plenty. More important would seem to be questions concerning how to fight against the Unmaker. It seems like I could take a stab at answering that but the thoughts of others is always helpful. Prayer, as often and sincerely as possible, prayer of all sorts and maybe also prayer specifically to address the struggle against the Filter (interesting how many names it has), comes first. Acts of creation, especially creation in honor of the God’s, perhaps even more so creation meant to further open ways too the God’s. Spiritual cleanliness and standard grounding/shielding/warding seems prudent but I don’t see it specifically as fighting against the Nameless so much as wearing armor against it. A thought I had while typing this, this thing is not Satan, or Lucifer, and I wonder if Lucifer himself as an angelic (such a strange topic and yet they are out there) light bringer, The angelic light bringer perhaps, would be exceptionally good to pray too against this foe. Maybe, given how often he (they?) have been tarred with the deeds of this outsider of creation. I’m rambling, but thoughts on the above would be welcome.”

 

My response:

“I think it’s best not to feed it by focusing overmuch on it. It is, essentially, nothing compared to our Gods. The thing to do is to pray, develop a solid prayer and devotional practice, and find joy in doing so. Don’t let yourself get derailed and don’t give into despair .remember that prayer is powerful, and the presence of our Gods creates ordered space in which the afterbirth cannot exist. Never fear it. What is it in comparison to our Gods? 

Re. angels, I’d suggest Michael the Archangel. His job is to drive back this enemy after all. Lucifer is an angelic presence….beyond that I haven’t thought about it, save that I do not think he is associated with the nameless thing that feeds on creation in any way. That’s just my sense of it. I think he’s been unfairly tarred. Satan…I don’t know. too much baggage around the name itself to suss out and not really relevant to my practice. I look at it this way: evil is evil and the solution is to call upon our Gods and ancestors, our Holy Ones to drive it back. Don’t get caught up in trying to fit it into various taxonomies and such or you risk giving it too much energy and way way too much importance. The better choices we make devotionally, in cultivating virtue, in living properly aligned with the Holy Ones, the less power the corrupting force has to affect us.”

Michael the Archangel, Calvary Cemetery, Newburgh (my photo). Note the eleke around the statue’s neck…there’s some syncretism happening here (there were offerings at the base of the statue).