bloodteethandflame

A life in threes

Can’t take my eyes off You…

LokebyStripedSmokerDA

The fire god says hello

(Loke-spam #2 by Striped Smoker on DeviantArt.)

Spread the word, they said.

Well, some folks are.

The other day, I was thinking about this duty to evangelize that a lot of Christians have got going….and this default assumption that their evangelical Christian behavior is welcome anywhere that they are.

And it got me to thinking about my own religious beliefs and how I am sometimes reluctant to ‘come out of the closet’ as it were, because I personally live in a community dominated by Christians – namely Baptists and Jehovah Witnesses.

I’ve always chalked it up to the fact that I am living in that state in the South which is not the South but still has a lot of Southern conservative Christian attitudes, namely Florida.

(But even so, I will admit that even before I was publicly identifying myself as Norse non-reconstructionist polytheist, or as  a Celtic-flavored Pagan, I still grew up surrounded by people who often made the assumption that I must believe in a God and of course, that God had to be the Abrahamic God that they and their parents believed in — despite the fact that my parents styled themselves as agnostics — because I grew up celebrating Christmas and Easter.)

So, in that sense, I hardly think that I am the first person to point out that when you tell many people that you’re spiritual, they assume by default that you must be some form of Christian.

~~~~

But aside of all that, I’m getting pretty cranky about some of the people in my neighborhood.

Mostly because there is a woman in my neighborhood who keeps tacking these little cardboard signs everywhere:

annoyinglittlesigns

…and I mean everywhere.

Walking my dog the day before yesterday, I found at least a half dozen of them during the first 1/2 mile of my walk.  Two of them were taped above the walk signal button.  Three were tacked and/or stapled into tree trunks that were at least 100 yards from the road-edge.  And one – the above one – had been affixed to an electrical pole that held a public cable line repeater.

Walking today, there were at least eight more tacked, taped or stapled unto various things, often at eye-level.

One little sign had been twist-tied into the branches of a decorative hedge.

And it got me to thinking that someone was going quite out of their way to spread these blurbs of God.

I suspect that this is why small towns often put up those ‘Post No Bills‘ signs in downtown areas.

But no one seems to care — except for maybe me – because I watched several workers for the home association (whose job seems to be come out every other Thursday or so to clean up the litter along the sidewalks, and remove other things that don’t belong like the handmade cardboard signs of past garage sales and whatnot) – and I watched each of them stop as if to read these little signs, and then each walked away without removing it.

So, since the homeowner’s association seems to approve of these little signs – I mean, their job is to remove things like that all under the auspices of removing ‘litter’  and I distinctly witnessed each of them leaving these signs alone- I decided that I would turn each of these signs over and write my only little spiritual blurbs on them.

So far, I’ve re-purposed two with stanzas from the Hávamálone with a short passage from the Vedas, two with verses from Thelema doctrine that came through the Ape of Thoth randomizer, and one with a portion of the Homeric hymn 26 to Dionysus.

Now let’s see if those signs stay up.

 

 

 

 

Perhaps.

chaosofstars

Hm.

Is that a promise?

Grateful.

I know that I haven’t been posting much, or rather, I haven’t been posting as often as I’d intended.   Though it’s not as if I have a shortage of topics to write about – as a matter of fact, I’ve been writing a lot lately.

My devotional practice has been going through some changes, and as much as I wanted to share my thoughts about some of the work that I’ve been doing, it just hasn’t happened.  I’ve been wanting to write about the connections that I have been making – but somehow coordinating my thoughts into succinct blog posts hasn’t been going so well.

Somehow I haven’t been able to Post All the Things.

But I did want to post about how delighted I was to receive my copy of Silence Maestas handmade Loki devotional:

altarbook

So I moved some things around on my altar – because He seemed to want it up there as soon as I opened it.

But it’s a strange sort of thing because when I was reading it, the vibe that I was getting from Him seemed to be both excited and irritated that I was reading it.  Perhaps He was cranky over the fact that I had to remove the book from its place on the altar there in order to read it?  I don’t know.

I bought a copy because I was excited to support Silence’s book project overall, but I was also curious and excited to read more information concerning the feminine Loki as well.

So my purchasing this book was intended as a gift for both of Us, in this sort of roundabout way: it was certainly intended as a gift for Him, and a combination gift/informational research project for me.  (I’ll admit that those two aspects often become somewhat entwined whenever I purchase books pertaining to Him, but, then again, not every Loki-book ends up on the altar… so there you have it.)

I also got the nudge from Him to get my hands on this antler-piece

Lokiantler

–thought I’m not exactly sure why.    Another gift, perhaps.

I’m kinda using this as a bookmark – as the leather thong that came attached to the antler works rather well for holding my place in the large poetry book that I’m reading right now – but when I’m not reading, He seems to like it if I keep it on His altar for now.

And most recently, there’s these Loki and Sleipnir mini-rosary beads from Beth Wodandis Designs:

LokiSleipnirprayerbeads

They are lovely is all I can say.

I was struck by the coloring and quality of the labradorite.  I find them especially beautiful*

You see, I almost fell asleep while praying with them on the night that I received them.

The other darker beads are ‘dumortierite.’

I have read that dumortierite works well to increase one’s state of inner peace.

Indeed.

I am not kidding when I say that holding these has been immensely calming somehow, even though I had read in several other places that ‘dumortierite can be psychically energizing.’ Labradorite has a similar intensity of effect for me…but either way, I am not complaining.  

Perhaps I have been more hyperactive than usual, therefore the intensity of these two stones has had a calming influence in response to my hyperactive energetic state.

Who knows?

~~~

*It would seem that Loki considered this mini-rosary as an appropriate gift for Him, as well, since every piece of labradorite I’ve ever had has eventually ended up on His altar somewhere.

Perhaps I should make Him a themed altar just for all that labradorite that He’s been wanting ❤

Lessons.

Anythinglessons

(taken from The Open Mind  (with Dana Bowles) on Facebook)

What Is Godphoning and Do I Want The Responsibility?

A great read on the topic of Godphones and the related responsibilities of having a ‘ Godphone.’

(Though, to be honest, my ‘god-phone’ isn’t akin in the slightest bit to a telephone. It’s less audio-visual and more…tactile/sensation-based. It’s rather difficult to explain.)

Elisabeta Korcia's avatarFriends On The Other Side

“Dude pick up the phone, Dionysus has been trying to call for three weeks and now He’s bugging ME about you!”


Honestly though, only Dionysus and Hekate have given me the experience of Godphoning. Cthulhu and Morrighan can’t be assed. As Godphoning is such an intensely personal experience that falls into UPG, my mileage may vary from another practitioners’. Generally though, most of us have a lot of common experiences that crop up in all our posts on the subject, and so I’m going to add to that wealth of knowledge.

The funny thing about godphoning is that it’s a joke term. A certain clique of spirit workers, shamans, and other spiritually minded folk were trying to explain the different ways divine communication can occur with humans.  It was a VERY accurate joke though, and it stuck and is now used amongst the general populace. But what is a godphone?

View original post 1,026 more words

Surt(r)

I was talking to a friend of mine this afternoon, and we were discussing Surt, and the dearth of information that can be found concerning Him.

A cursory Google search turns up a lot of UPG from Raven Kaldera concerning Surt* – Kaldera is directly referenced in the first four links – but I was delighted to stumble upon this article on WordPress, which does string together several points about Surt as He appears in the Lore(tm).

Neat.

~~~

*Not that I’m against UPG (or doxa) by any means.

Most of what I have come to know concerning a lot of  Jötnar is essentially my own UPG….but yeah.  New knowledge is always good!

Allow Me.

I was thinking about the fact that Voodoo Music Fest in New Orleans is about 53 days away.

So I was screwing around on the internet, listening to music and watching videos and I came across this*

 

Allow me to be Frank, He said.

~~~

* From Frank Turner’s new album aptly titled album, Positive Songs for Negative People

If that’s not an album that I can get behind, I don’t know what is. 😉

 

Meditations, Magenta, and Metaphors.

I know that I am rather behind on Cauldrons and Cupcakes’ Weekly Journal project.

I believe that we are in Week 4, but my depression and social anxiety has been hitting me hard in the past few weeks, and I will definitely admit that I’ve been struggling more than usual with my daily routines.  Therefore, I’m not posting as much.

As well, as much as I’d intended to post my weekly process in this project, I haven’t been… but I have been doing the meditations and journaling.

It’s been helpful.

This past Sunday, I listened to the meditation for Week 2, and I received

The color: Magenta

The words/phrase: You can’t go back- only forward.  Do not be afraid.

…and I drew the oracle card, The Hare.

~~~

Magenta: Passion.  Creativity.  Confidence. Sexuality.

I do think about the past- how I used to allow myself to feel so readily, and how it is not so easy now because of how I feel about my body.

When I think of the color magenta, I especially think of passion and body confidence.

During the meditation, I also felt nudged to associate this color with the intersection between sexuality and spirituality.

It is a warm, passionate color that has playfulness about it that especially reminds me of when my sexuality was uncomplicated and fun and I had the confidence to move and enjoy and I felt better about my body.

I wonder how to get back to that sense of passion and body confidence.

With this in mind, I am trying to re-discover it by taking better care of my body.  I am trying to do less comfort-eating and engage in more exercise and physical activities.

Such as this morning, it felt good to weed my front garden.  I’d felt guilty as weeding always makes me feel as if the land-wights are upset that I am tearing out all the plant life in my gardens almost to the point of barrenness.  (Barren because I’ve yet to replace the hedges that I removed last summer with any flowers, and so nothing but weeds has been growing in those narrow dirt patches where the hedges used to be.)

For this reason, I am often overwhelmed (or likewise reluctant) to begin weeding — but once I do begin, I reach a good rhythm in my work.  Soon enough, I’ve worked up a good sweat in the Florida sun, but I do not notice the intensity of my efforts until I’ve begun to see droplets falling into the soft, dark soil.  I am perspiring freely into the dirt.  Perhaps this is my offering – the sweat of my work as I clear away the weeds, deadfall, and other withered debris around my single rose bush and heather.   The heather is rather large now and I have had to cut it back several times due to its growth.  I feed both the rose-bush and the heather regularly enough that it’s quite possible if I left those two plants alone, they might take over the rest of the garden…if the weeds’ root-systems didn’t often choke them out.

Perhaps the front garden could be a metaphor for my life right now: The beauty of my garden is only found in one neat little corner while the rest is either choked with weeds or barren of growth.

But if joy (ie, the flowers) were allowed to flourish, that joy just might overtake everything.

IMG_0613

Magenta is the color of passionate growth,as the blooms of the rose-bush are light pink edged in varying shades of dark pink, or magenta.

 

A confession.

I would like to admit that I have been rather antisocial lately.

One might even go as far as to say that I am on the edge of being too irritable for human interaction specifically.

(Some might be tempted to blame that super-moon in Pisces that just occurred.  I remember reading something yesterday about how a ‘moon in Pisces’ causes increased emotional tension and whatnot.  Color me not surprised.)

That would go a long way in explaining why I’ve found myself in these conversations with others that occur despite the fact that I have been desperately trying to avoid conversation, much less interaction lately.

Hel, it is more than likely that I have been avoiding interactions with others so that I may avoid the possibility of conflict and/or tension.

And it is exactly at times like these

He will often say things  just to bait me into verbal sparring.

But this time He did it slyly with a compliment.

Me:  (says knee-jerk cranky, judgmental thing concerning politics)

Him: Wow.  That’s…interesting and a bit extreme.  Do you care to explain your position?

Me: No.  I’m cranky.  Too irritated to explain.  I’m just being judgmental. *flushes a little, looks away*

Him: Well, Heathir, if I were to judge you like that, then I would just have to…. love you for everything you do.

Me: Wait.  What?

(Meanwhile, whilst typing this out, Autocorrect kept changing the above text to ‘ I would just have to… fuck you for everything you do‘ O.o)

Mindfsckery…with compliments, no less.