bloodteethandflame
A life in threes
April 21, 2016
Burning.
Today I resolved to get some major yardwork done.
After the emotional ‘storms’ that I experienced yesterday, I woke up this morning feeling that the best remedy for my situation would to go out and physically do something, accomplish something.
And yardwork as a physical activity definitely fit the bill.
And speaking of storms, one may recall that my home sustained some damage from a wind event/hailstorm several weeks ago – as detailed in this post – and my husband and I met with our insurance company and a roofing company shortly after to discuss repairs and fill out the requisite paperwork.
Well, finally, we received word last night from the insurance company that all of our paperwork had been approved and all of the repairs would be covered in full.
So I spent the morning clearing the yard of the last of the deadfall and debris from the fallen tree – which had taken my husband and his brother several days to cut into pieces, even with the use of a chainsaw. Thankfully the waste management company came and collected 8 bundles of branches, but the all of those loose pieces that couldn’t be as easily bundled were refused.
So I spent the rest of this morning burning them:
As well, the process of collection led to some inadvertent blood-letting:
But all in all, the process was rather cathartic…in the most profound way.
April 20, 2016
A dark and scary place.
It has been a dark and scary place within my head these past few days.
It’s quite possible that I may be depressed, or perhaps, I am manic.
Either way, I have been stubborn and negative with those I love, and that has been especially true of my actions towards others today.
And for that, I am sorry.
Then, this image came across my Facebook feed:
This sculpture was created by Ukrainian artist Alexander Milov for Burning Man.
The Wealth of Wisdom on Instagram posted this description:
“One of the most powerful art pieces from Burning Man: A sculpture of two adults after a disagreement, sitting with their backs to each other. Yet, the inner child in both of them simply wants to connect. Age has many beautiful gifts but one we could live without is the pride and resentment that we hold onto when have conflicts with others. The forgiving free spirit of children is our true nature. Remember this when you feel stubborn.”
Here are the artist’s words concerning his powerful piece:
“It demonstrates a conflict between a man and a woman as well as the outer and inner expression of human nature. Their inner selves are executed in the form of transparent children, who are holding out their hands through the grating. As it’s getting dark (night falls) the children start to shine. This shining is a symbol of purity and sincerity that brings people together and gives a chance of making up when the dark time arrives.”
I took this as a message from the Universe, reminding me to be more mindful of my words and my actions towards others.
Today was not a good day.
I was hurting, and in response, I allowed my emotions to direct my words and fuel my actions.
I hurt others today.
I’m sorry to those I hurt today. While I cannot undo the damage that I have done, I am trying to forgive myself and face tomorrow more mindfully.
I can only hope that tomorrow will be a better day.
April 5, 2016
Food for Thought.
I was talking with a friend about an hour ago, regarding an article that someone else had posted concerning how – theoretically – if one were to consider structures in nature as ‘order’ (the natural order of things in a system) then attempts by humans to impose their own concepts or systems of ‘order’ upon natural structures by other means (by sorting, categorizing, or classifying) is therefore a form of ‘disorder,’ because such imposition is creating artificial (unnatural) systems:
I ❤ this graphic. Artificial order imposed upon systems *is* chaos because they’re useless to anybody BUT those utilizing the artificial order system.
To the greater system itself? It’s meaningless. Piles? Columns? Sorting by type? That’s all concessions to the limitations of our cognitive systems.
Sure, our cognitive systems are natural too – even the artificial/natural distinction isn’t “quite” right.
But in the greater scheme, the one where humans are optional, those piles and sorting is chaotic and meaningless.
~~~
I’d never thought of order or disorder as being defined this way, and yet, I have been thinking of the relation between the concepts of ‘order’ and ‘disorder’ a lot lately. It began, as most things do, with a simple conversation in a Rokkatru group concerning someone’s UPG of the Aesir representing ‘order’ and ‘civilization’ in the cosmos while the Rokkr represent ‘nature’ and a ‘natural sort of disorder.’ Of course, there was discussion of how nature has its own sense of ‘order’ – but how, from the point of view of ‘civilization,’ nature’s sense of order is random and therefore, considered by civilization to be ‘disorder.’ As well, others discussed the concepts of open and closed systems and how a closed system eventually falls apart because it can’t self-sustain and whatnot, and things quickly became rather meta.
And being a Rokkatru group, of course, this discussion wound its way towards discussion of Ragnarok, and the role of Loki, Fenrir, and Surtr in bringing on the end of the world. The world is a closed system and the role of the Rokkatru is to bring about the destruction of this closed system in order to make way for a new (and perhaps more open) system.
And so, it’s odd but not surprising to me that that conversation gave me a headache…because chaos theory usually does.
~~~
But then, there I was again tonight, having a conversation about order and disorder again, but this time, it was on a smaller scale.
I was talking to my friend about how Loki has laughed at me concerning my OCD need to arrange the items in a specific configuration on His altar, or my habit of overthinking that is a hallmark of my social anxiety, or my inability to let things go and/or trust the process.
I have no problem admitting that I am sort of control freak regarding several aspects of my life and practice. And my friend agreed that she has some of those issues too.
And then, she said a funny-strange but interesting thing that hit me like a ton of bricks:
She said that her life as a child was hellish and the only way that she could have control over her environment was to draw. The only world that she could control could be found at the end of a pencil. So she drew pictures and created stories. She created worlds. She told me how Loki told her that her best artwork seemed to come when she experienced personal turmoil. How He has asked her why she would draw, and she told Him it made her happy. But the truth was that she was often unhappy/angry/miserable while drawing. (And, of course, He noticed that.)
Well, that reminded me of my own artistic coping strategies.
Honestly, I suppose that it’s nothing new, but I wrote and drew my way through a miserable childhood…and adolescence…and fuck, I *still do.*
And yeah, that realization, of how I tried to make sense of confusing experiences by filling up notebooks, and drawing my imaginary friends, and how much it shocks me to think that it wasn’t just me being escapist.
That art was …that art is a rather dysfunctional coping mechanism for me.
I don’t make money with it.
It doesn’t make me happy.
Things still pile up in my head, and writing them, drawing them doesn’t serve to make me any more sane or stable.
And it sure as hell doesn’t help me or my loved ones to understand me any better than before.
It’s just another method I hide behind. (Funny -autocorrect suggests that the word ‘method’ should actually be ‘met God’ over and over. No, I’ve never met God by writing or drawing. Psht. I should be living.)
Perhaps my incessant writing and drawing are what I do to keep myself from meaningfully engaging with others.
who knows.
March 30, 2016
Storm.
This past Saturday, the area where I live experienced some pretty crazy weather.
First, it rained.
Then it hailed.
Then the wind picked up.
The combination of these three weather phenomena caused a lot of damage in my neighborhood and the surrounding area.
Though the NOAA refers to Saturday’s weather as simply a ‘wind event,’ my husband V and I watched as this ‘wind event’ uproot a 15-year old tree in our backyard, which then twisted and smashed through two panels of the wooden fence behind it:
The only reason that the tree didn’t hit the back of the neighbor’s house is that the lower branches snagged on one of the broken fence posts.
The wind also tore shingles off the roof, cracked the rain- gutters, tore off several of the gutter pipes, and two more fence panels further down the fence-line.
As you can see, the rain flooded the backyard and that white stuff in the foreground is… the accumulation of hailstones.
The hail ranged in size from peas to navy-beans:
Hail pelted the storm windows for about 40 minutes, tore holes in many of the window screens, cracked the glazing, and scratched and/or pockmarked the glass of several windows.
This ‘wind event’ also blew off most of the foliage on our hedges, and destroyed a good portion of the smaller plants in our front garden.
The rest of our neighborhood didn’t do so well, either, between all the flooding, wind-damage, and debris that battered pretty much all of the houses in our neighborhood. Shingles, deadfall/debris, and broken fence panels are strewn throughout everyone’s yard. It would seem that nearly everyone in the immediate three-mile radius suffered some sort of damage during Saturday’s storm 😦
~~~
The adjuster from the insurance company and a roof inspector came today to discuss the replacement of the roof of both our house and our patio, as well as the repair of the fence.
My biggest concern was the water damage to the interior ceilings, as there is now a single crack in the plaster of the ceiling in the kitchen that now requires a bucket to catch the thin but steady leak of water when it rains.
But we are grateful.
Things could have been so much worse, and we are grateful that only the roof and the fence were the only damages.
Thankfully, insurance has offered to cover most, if not all, of the required repairs. Anything that was damaged is certainly replaceable.
We were shaken, but we are OK.
March 22, 2016
Instead.
I saw this post in my media feed this morning and it got me thinking that I have this issue:
How often I almost reflexively blurt out ‘I’m sorry’ when I mean to say ‘Thank you.’
I hadn’t really thought out the issue, except that I have been made aware of my habit of apologizing for everything – even for qualities, occurrences, and behavior that require no apology.
A friend of mine -who oddly enough, has a degree in psychology even though she now works as an insurance adjuster for a corporate law firm – was the most recent person in my life to make me aware of my ‘sorry habit.’ She was always pointing out how much it concerned her that I would say ‘I’m sorry’ for the most mundane reasons, and she would often challenge me to attempt to go a whole day without saying ‘I’m sorry.’
And as much as I tried, I couldn’t do it.
She encouraged me to be mindful of my responses to various situations, and even though she tried hard to convey all the reasons why I should do it, she never put it quite as powerfully or as succinctly as this simple set of comic strips does:
If you want to say ‘Thank you’, don’t say ‘I’m Sorry’ (From the folks at Mental Floss)
This is just what I needed, and I found this article quite helpful.
Thank you for reading!
March 3, 2016
…and the world shall open up to receive your joy.
I’ve been meaning to post about some lovely things that have been happening in my life.
I’ve been collecting up these bits of joy, and out of a habitual fear of jinxing things, I’ve been keeping these things to myself.
But I am getting the impression that my cautious optimism will no longer do:
“…and the world shall open up to receive your joy.”
~~~
Recently, I ordered this Loki mini- mala from Beth and I received it in the mail the other day.
Since my family and I were hosting guests from out of town the day that package arrived, I put it aside to open later, perhaps the next day.
Well, things got busy, and our guests lingered for a few days.
However, my thoughts kept straying to the package.
I’ve never had a mala before, to be honest, I was looking forward to having some time to myself to fully immerse myself in the use of this one.
And finally, almost a week later, I finally got my chance to open the package, hold them and pray with them.
*squeee*
This mala is truly a pleasure to work with.
(But then again, I think that could be said about every ‘touch bead’ item that I’ve ever purchased from Beth, as this mala joins a small collection of prayer beads – two of which she has also made – that reside on my Loki altars.)
But this mala has the addition of a black silk tassel that I absolutely love to touch – and the beads!
The beads just slide effortlessly through my fingers.
I am continually impressed with how Beth’s choice of bead (size, weight, and texture) always seems to be spot-on energy-wise in every prayer item that she has made that I have purchased.
As well, Beth enclosed a beautifully handwritten(!) prayer card with the mala:
While I admit that I referred to it the first few times I prayed, the words and imagery of this suggested prayer served as a lovely jumping-off point for creating my own personal prayer as I moved through the beads during later sessions.
That alone was pretty powerful…and things got even more interesting when I began praying with my own words.
~~~
There was a personal prayer that I would offer back when I was just beginning my devotional practice with Loki in 2011. I was transitioning from the mindset of a skeptical agnostic to making my first attempts at opening up to being a devotional polytheist.
It was at that time in my life that a specific prayer had nearly become a daily mantra that I would return to whenever I was full of doubt.
It was a prayer about letting go of anger, pain, and fear… and opening up to trust, to joy, and to love.
So, fast forward to last night.
I’d gone through several cycles of prayer.
Perhaps my brain was casting about for something else, but I found myself returning to the beginning of things, and when I began speaking the words–
May I let go of my pain and open to joy….
I inexplicably felt the need to pause
Because suddenly I just knew!
There had always been a response:
…and the world shall open up to receive your joy.
~~~
These beads are full of such warmth.
They feel as if they are bursting with a bright expansive energy.
Loki is just so present in them.
I am in love all over again.
❤
~~~
Thanks Beth!
bloodteethandflame 