bloodteethandflame

What a strange few days it has been.

Looking over things of the past few days, I’ve definitely come to wonder if Someone is trying to get my attention — again.

As I just wrote in my last entry, a few moments ago, I’ve been kinda lackidasical in the devotional department for the last few weeks, so I wanted to make note of these few things here:

It started the other night — on possibly Thursday or Friday night.   It peaked about the time of a short but heavy rainstorm that we had around 8PM.

The storm had been brewing up most of the day, but around 6 PM, the wind had picked up and the sky started to rain with big, slow-falling  raindrops which slowly drench everything that they hit.

And even though I hadn’t been doing any outdoor devotions as of late, I was standing outside, around 7:30, thinking about doing some –despite the slow rain — when I became distracted by a strange noise.  It was definitely the sound of a bird squawking, but nothing like the typical ones that I often hear.  So I looked up, scanning the one tree that we have growing in our yard, and then I peered out over the fence, and into the neighbor’s yard.

And what do I see but a flurry of white wings — and I notice that there is a large white cockatiel perched on the back gutter that edges alongside my neighbor’s roof.  Its crest-feathers were fully extended, brightly yellow in the gloom, and it was squawking louder and louder as the wind and rain further picked up.  Several dogs in nearby yards began barking, which I think further upset the cockatiel.  It flew over my head and into my yard, to perch on our back-gutters, continuing to squawk all the while.   My husband, V, must’ve heard it, because he came out to see what was up.   When he saw the cockatiel, he went back in the house, and returned with some crackers.  (I think, V — who has had birds before – agreed that the cockatiel seemed anxious and panicky.)   With the crackers, I think that he had hopes of luring it into our patio — to get it out of the rain and calmed down — until we could think of what to do to get it back to its owners, after the rain had stopped.

I was worried for it, as I watched it nervously pace and flutter along the peak of our roof, squawking loudly.

But then, it began eyeing us, and moving closer and closer to the open slider to our patio…

Unfortunately, one of our three cats, Oliver, came over the fence just then, to come inside, and startled it — enough for it to immediately fly off further away and unto the roof of the neighbors directly across the street from us.

I haven’t seen it since, and I do wonder if it made it through the storm, or if it ever got back to its owners.

I hope so.

~~~

And then, this morning, I woke up to have another surprising interaction with a bird.  V insists that it was a raven; I think it was perhaps a young crow, or a starling.

Anyway,  it was around noon, and V had been working in his office, located on the far side of the house, from the patio.  I was in the bedroom, which adjoins the patio.

Even though it is unusual for me to having slept so late, I had just woken up.

Suddenly I heard a squawking commotion on the patio.  I hear the front slider being opened, and the sound of V talking gently, as if he’s trying to coax something.

I immediately assumed that the cockatiel had found its way back to our patio somehow, and I felt relieved.

So I walked out into the patio to see, not the cockatiel, but a medium sized black bird, panic-stricken and bonking its head against one of the windows  in the far left corner of the patio, even though it was less than six inches away from a window to its right that was wide open.

Poor thing.

Of course, our dog had begun to go nuts, and our three cats suddenly wanted a piece of the action, but V had closed all of them off from the patio, as he was gently trying to lure the bird towards that nearest open window.

Despite V really trying to be so gentle and careful about it, the bird seemed to notice none of it, and began to screech and flutter helplessly against that same closed window.

I was worried that it was really going to hurt itself in its panic.

So I brought V a towel, and he scooped it up in the towel, and the bird settled down enough for V to gently carry it and release it outside.

Right after it flew away, V turned to me, amazed that once he put the towel around it, the bird actually sat quietly in his hand for a few moments.

“Look, the raven came to say ‘hello’ to you,” he grinned at me, excitedly.

I don’t know why he thought that the bird had come to see me.

But I have to admit, it seems unusual to have had not one, but two personal interactions with birds this week.

~~~

And the mysterious fifth guest…

Earlier this month, my oldest son graduated from high school.  (He also finished his first year of college, as he took part in a college-affiliated program, as well.)   As you can imagine, V and I are pretty proud of him, so we wanted to celebrate by taking him out to dinner.

But since my son also works full time now, it has taken these few weeks before we could coordinate schedules to make that happen.

Three days ago, V made reservations for tonight, for the four of us at our local Ruth Chris’ Steakhouse.

We called to confirm this afternoon, a reservation for four.

But when we got there, they set us up for a table for five, and seemed surprised when we told them they’d only be four of us.

The hostess even double-checked, and claimed that she’d actually written down a reservation for five.

And the waiter – the same great waiter whom we had as our waiter the last time when V and I were there 3 months ago – even asked where our fifth person was.

Nope, there’s only 4 of us in this family.

But we did spend a few moments wondering who our fifth guest was supposed to be.

On one of the FB groups that I’m in, someone asked what relationships that people feel that they have with Loki. <-(No matter how I’ve tried to fix the grammar/structure of that sentence, it sounds awkward to me…)

So, awkward sentences aside, the question of relationships re: Loki has got me thinking about what my own relationship might be with Himself.

You see, I don’t know.

On some level, this bothers me, simply because I am the sort who is prone to over-analyze things, especially relationships.  And, on top of that, when people talk about their relationships with their God(s), I’ve always been especially curious and fascinated as to what their answers might be.

I could chalk it up to being raised by two lapsed and extremely disgruntled Catholics who became atheists and misanthropes in regards to how they saw themselves in relation towards Gods and towards people, in general.

So, I shouldn’t really be surprised at all if I am a mixture of wary and curious towards how others have relationships with/to their Deit(ies) of Choice.   Even as a small child, I wanted to have a relationship with/to God, but I didn’t exactly know how to go about having one.

But, my paternal grandmother told me that you could have a relationship with God through daily prayer.   She even taught me to pray — but I’ll be the first to admit that the ritual of prayer -kneeling, clasping hands together, followed by saying particular words and phrases in a particular order — seemed awkward and unfamiliar.  I had too many questions about when and how, and worst of all, why, that the poor woman was probably overwhelmed. (And then there was the concept of ‘being humble’ and ‘being respectful’ and how one should use the ‘right’ words, but I was never clear on how to go about that, either.  I do recall her telling me that I was doing it wrong, however…)

So, yes.  I still feel — a little bit — that I’m doing it wrong, even today.  I still don’t know if I’m even saying the ‘right’ things, showing respect the right way.  All I do is hope, really, that I’m being heard/understood.

Sometimes, I just sit and talk.  Sometimes I’m quiet, and I just let things run through my head.  It feels more natural, but I don’t know if that’s How One is Supposed to Do This.

I do ask for understanding from Those I’m attempting to pray to, along with the general hope that I’ll realize quickly if and when I’m being corrected.

And, I swear that I’m getting to the point of all this…

Really.  I swear this is all related somehow.

I don’t know what my relationship to Loki is, but I think that I’d have a better idea if I could remember my dreams somehow.  Because whenever I’ve asked, it seems like I’ve gotten the answer in dreamspace at some later point.

I wonder if that it’s the only way that the Gods have found to communicate with me, and yet, oddly enough, I have trouble remembering those dreams.

I mean, I remember bits and pieces, but nothing that makes much sense, most of the time.

And to think, a year or so ago, I had absolutely zero problem with remembering every little detail of every dream…and I dreamt several times a night.

But nowadays, I dream about Loki or Freyja or Odin…and  *poof* I know that They were there and They talked…and stuff was shown to me, or explained to me, or work was done…but waking up brings me only the vague memory of something happening/happened…but it’s gotten away from me somehow.

One dream that I had, weeks ago, I think it was Himself who actually stood in front of me, arms akimbo and whatnot, and said, Listen, I’m telling you right now….somethingsomethingsomething… do you understand?  I remember His eyes, so serious, intense, shifting through their colors, His jaw set with this extremely no-nonsense expression, and I was actually a bit nervous, and I was thinking, Shit, this is important.  I hope that I don’t forget this when I wake up.  Because that would suck….

But that is exactly what seems to have happened.  I wrote about it in my paper journal, hoping I could re-capture some details, but…nope.

ARGH.

So…  Do I know what is the nature of my relationship with Loki?

It’s buried in my subconscious brain somewhere.

And I think that the fact that I’m unsettled a bit by not consciously knowing that seemingly simple little answer is a lesson for me in and of itself.   Because I have trouble with the sheer volume of what I want to know and can’t know (it’s almost like frustration and/or lack of patience with myself vis a vis walking this particular portion of the path), so I’ve got to practice accepting and being patient, and stop questioning how things will unfold right now.