bloodteethandflame

A life in threes

Category: Ragnarok

Apocalyptic

So I’ve heard it said that the world is ending…

Either *sometime* today (9/23) or sometime tomorrow (9/24)

[Or perhaps, even the day after that  on 9/25  — which also strikes me as totally appropriate as a fan of Douglas Adams, since 9/25 is a Thursday ]

But considering the way that things have been going in the United States and the world at large  — resulting from the various forms of political, environmental, and cultural chaos —

I will admit that I personally would look forward to the world ending for the following reasons:

  • My life hasn’t been going all that great – thanks to some increasingly debilitating medical issues affecting my physical, mental, and emotional health
  • Which, in turn, has led to me experiencing some particularly emotionally exhausting relationship issues (which some psychologists claim are disturbingly common for married women experiencing physically debilitating medical issues)
  • And hey, isn’t all this what is supposed to happen at the Autumn Equinox? How appropriate would that be if the whole world ended at the exact cosmic point in the year when one is spiritually tasked with letting go of all spiritual and communal detritus that limits individual and community growth to make space for a world that is new and better?
  • However, the ironic icing on this proverbial cake is that I look forward to this apocalypse simply because I’m scheduled to serve jury duty on Wednesday, September 24th, 2025, at 7:30 AM.

Before anyone comes for me, while I’ve long felt that jury duty is an important civic duty that I have always felt honored to perform as a citizen of a free and just society…

I hate to say that for the first time ever, I don’t want to serve jury duty simply because I am fscking tired *

I am physically, mentally, and emotionally overwhelmed by those first two stated reasons (three if you count the impact of overall US/World chaos that has been having on *everyone* right now)…and honestly?

Yes, I am exhausted in mind, body, and spirit.

(As is everyone else, obviously (*gestures at well, all of the world right now*))

So, all I’m saying is, maybe we should embrace this one.

Because it certainly feels due.

~~~

But I know that ultimately, it won’t, as tongue firmly planted in cheek, I present you with this little truth…

Oh, it’s definitely been more than 5 times for me – I was born in the 70s 🫩

So, yeah, folks, as a tired, frustrated, spent nearly 55-year-old human being living in this post-capitalistic hellscape…

I say

Bring

It

On.

So, to all of those armchair prophets and evangelical preachers: I can’t be the only one asking you to STOP with the predictions and the promises!

As well, though I know I’m at the risk of being slapped upside the head, I have a request for my sweetest friend and most patient teacher

Please please…End it already, won’t you?

Because I feel ready

#readyforRagnarok

_____

*Not to mention that for some bizarre reason, I have been summoned for jury duty (in Florida) every freaking year for the past five years.  (All civil/local cases) Though, this time is the second time I’ve been called this year because this past March was a civil case (which was cancelled at the last minute) but I have been selected to serve on a federal jury on 9/24 — but if I am selected, I can’t be summoned again for two years, thankfully. So, while I’m not tired of serving, I am sick of being summoned so often 😒

Pandoramancy: I’ll make you a believer…

This song is evocative of some of my first interactions with L as an adult:

While I was familiar with the original Depeche Mode version from 1989, I preferred Marilyn Manson’s cover version (released in 2004), as Manson’s voice felt closer to the weary tone and cracked pitch of L’s voice, especially considering it had been several months’ post-breakdown*

~~~~

 

*Another personal Ragnarök had just occurred in my life in late February 2008- so when He came to me with that particular face and aspect, I found it to be more comforting than disturbing at the time.

Ragnarok

Even though I am over a month late in posting my thoughts, I could not wait to read National Geographic’s most recent article on the Vikings, which appeared in their March 2017 issue.

While much of the article concerned recent discoveries made about Viking culture of which I was already familiar, an intriguing theory concerning Ragnarok was mentioned on pages 38-9:

 In the nearly three centuries before the raids on foreign shores began around AD 750, Scandinavia was wracked by turmoil, [Neil] Price [of Uppsala University, Sweden] says. More than three dozen petty kingdoms arose during this period, throwing up chains of hill forts and vying for power and territory.  In the midst of these troubled times, catastrophe struck.  A vast cloud of dust, likely blasted into the atmosphere by a combination of cataclysms – comets or meteorites smashing into the Earth, as well as the eruption of least one large volcano–darkened the sun beginning in AD 536, lowering summer temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere for the next 14 years. The extended cold and darkness brought death and ruin to Scandinavia, lying as it did along the northern edge of medieval agriculture. In Sweden’s Uppland region, for example, nearly 75 percent of villages were abandoned, as residents succumbed to starvation and fighting.  

So dire was this disaster that it seems to have given birth to one of the darkest of all world myths –the Nordic legend of Ragnarok, the end of creation and the final battle, in which all gods, all supernatural beings, and all human beings and other living creatures die.  Ragnarok was said to begin with Fimbulwinter, a deadly time when the sun turns black and the weather turns bitter and treacherous–events that eerily parallel the dust veil that began in 536, Price says.*

        I had never considered that there could have been an actual historical event upon which Ragnarok was based.

        Fascinating.

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  • Vikings: What You Don’t Know About the Toughest Warriors Ever, by Heather Pringle, National Geographic, March 2017, pp 38-9)