sneaky ton of bricks | bloodteethandflame

July 9, 2015

On (not) meeting expectations.

I feel as if I have not been up to my normal posting standards during ‘Month for Loki’ this year.

I could hide behind the excuse that I made on 1 July that I began the month a little at loose ends because I was flying in to spend that first week of July in Washington DC….and anyone who has been following me for the last two years or so would be aware of the particular challenges that I have been facing every fscking time that I have visited DC since February 2013.

For those that may not know, the first week of July these past three summers has been rife with drama of an excruciating degree, usually involving my closest relationships.

Or, if I put it bluntly, my marriage.

But this year, I was lucky. I reached the end of this past week feeling closer concerning all of my closest relationships, including my marriage(s).

Imagine that, despite the fact that for these last three summers, I have asked myself, what would the month of July be if not for a few well-placed explosions to my comfort zones?

And yes, there was still some excruciating drama that, ironically, exploded like gasoline-soaked fireworks on July 4th; there wasn’t any dispute of that.

The drama began, as it often does, with expectations.*

Luckily, I’ve become more than used to drama leading to challenges.

But I am a Lokean, after all, and so, for the first time in quite a while I found myself feeling energetically empowered by the challenges rather than defeated by them.

For that sense of empowerment, I’d like to thank Loki first and foremost, but there is also no doubt that I could not have succeeded in enjoying my D.C trip nearly as much if not for the love and support of my kid, V, and several dear friends who, unfortunately, don’t read this blog on a regular basis.

And I’d certainly be remiss if I didn’t give sort of a shout-out to thank Dave Grohl and his band, the Foo Fighters, who – in quite a spectacularly Lokean manner – were the welcome catalyst for that…er, explosion that occurred on July 4th.

(It was the Best of You, indeed.)

As much as I would like to say more about the workings of that catalyst, I have promised that I would trust Him and let things play out completely as they should.

Don’t want to fuck with my wyrd y’all.

And that, my friends, is why I haven’t been meeting my own posting expectations this month.

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June 21, 2015

Questions and answers.

Have you ever played with the Ape of Thoth?

It’s a searchable database of Thelema texts – by verse and chapter, if one knows the number – but what makes it fun is that there is also a feature on the site that is a Thelemic text randomizer.

It’s pretty neat, actually. You type/ask a question, and it brings up a portion of text from the books of Thelema as an answer.

Which makes it so much more interesting than the Magic 8-Ball these days.

So…I have an issue that is quite emotionally-laden for me, and I was having trouble keeping a clear head about things.

So I decided to ask the Ape of Thoth for some guidance, simply typing:

What to do? RE: LOKI

[And this was the answer:]

“Continuation. Further concerning occupation.

Let the devotee transmute within the alembic of his heart every thought, or word, or act into the spiritual gold of his devotion.
As thus: eating. Let him say: “I eat this food in gratitude to my Deity that hath sent it to me, in order to gain strength for my devotion to Him.”
Or: sleeping. Let him say: “I lie down to sleep, giving thanks for this blessing from my Deity, in order that I may be refreshed for new devotion to Him.”
Or: reading. Let him say: “I read this book that I may study the nature of my Deity, that further knowledge of Him may inspire me with deeper devotion to Him.”
Or: working. Let him say: “I drive my spade into the earth that fresh flowers (fruit, or what not) may spring up to His glory, and that I, purified by toil, may give better devotion to Him.”
Or: whatever it may be that he is doing, let him reason it out in his own mind, drawing it through circumstance and circumstance to that one end and conclusion of the matter. And let him not perform the act until he hath done this.
As it is written: Liber VII, cap. v. —
22. “Every breath, every word, every thought, ever deed is an act of love with Thee.
23. “The beat of my heart is the pendulum of love.
24. “The songs of me are the soft sighs:
25. “The thoughts of me are very rapture:
26. “And my deeds are the myriads of Thy Children, the stars and the atoms.” And Remember Well, that if thou wert in truth a lover, all this wouldst thou do of thine own nature without the slightest flaw or failure in the minutest part thereof.”

All I could think upon reading the above is – what remarkably specific advice – even if it doesn’t answer the question that I thought that I was asking.

But sometimes that happens.

Perhaps this is the connection in discovering the meaning of that phrase

Love is the movement that gives substance to the Will

Hm.

7 Comments

June 19, 2015

Rules.

Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words can get you in a lot of trouble.
Manners are always important.
Smart is good. Lucky is better. (Smart and lucky is the best of all.)
Sometimes the long way around is the best way home.
Never let the truth interfere with a good story.
(Neef’s Rules for Changelings from this book)

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June 12, 2015

Funny, that.

Even though I know

Not everything that comes up in my life is a message.

Not everything in my life in my life has a hidden meaning.

And most importantly of all…

I know that if there is a message or a meaning

the message and the meaning aren’t

always

specifically

meant for me.

But then again, certain things show up in my reading and I have to wonder

Just what is the Universe up to?

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June 8, 2015

3rd Blog-aversary

According to WordPress, I have been blogging on bloodteethandflame for three years (as of 28 May 2012), and so I received an email notifying me of my 3rd Anniversary about 10 days ago

Happy Anniversary with WordPress.com!

You registered on WordPress.com 3 years ago!

Thanks for flying with us. Keep up the good blogging!

That took me quite by surprise, since I had thought that WordPress would be counting from the date of my first blog entry (7 June 2012) rather than the date that I had first registered.

And yes, I had been planning to write an entry on June 7th, simply because I did get quite a peculiar reminder on 26 May 2015:

I was riding in the car, and we were driving through Winter Haven, on the way back from my therapy appointment. I was riding in the car with V, and we were talking about our kids’ upcoming summer vacation.

I wasn’t really paying attention the cars around me, until he suddenly remarked something about the car that was directly in front of us.

‘Look, it’s a Loki car,’ he said.

I looked at the license plate, expecting that to be what he was referring to, but there was nothing about the license plate that seemed Lokean.

And here is the photo that I took on my phone…but I was not close enough to capture the detail that I am referring to, so you’re just going to have to trust me on this:

It was a Nissan Altima from a Lokey dealership.

(You can almost see their logo (Lokey) to the left of the license plate under the Altima logo if you magnify the photo 200% or so)

And that seems just a funny coincidence – since the last time I had heard reference to a Lokey dealership was here in this entry — that describes my sleepless night at an event, when V and I were in Clearwater in the first weekend of June 2012.

Which also happens to be the first entry that I wrote on bloodteethandflame. 🙂

It has only been recently that I realize that that this particular reminder arrived perfectly on the day that it was due.

It’s funny how the Universe works, isn’t it?

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April 24, 2015

Allow.

‘There is a secret about human love that is commonly overlooked: receiving it is much more scary and threatening than giving it. How many times in your life have you been unable to let in someone’s love, or pushed it away? Much as we proclaim the wish to be truly loved, we are often afraid of that, and find it difficult to open to love or let it all the way in.’

John Welwood

~~~

He said:

‘Is it so difficult?

And so I will tell you again what you must do:

Open up to love.

Just love.

Let love consume you.

Let love engulf you in its joy.

You must trust in your love.

You must allow love to take hold of you.

You must allow yourself to feel.

You must forgive yourself and allow yourself

Love without condition,

Love without attachments,

Love without goals,

Love without agendas.

You must love for the sake of love.

Don’t you see?

You must allow yourself to be taken by joy.

Release yourself to love. Surrender yourself to joy.

You must not fear being open.

You must open up to love.’

~~~

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March 4, 2015

(Not so) Subtle

This past week has been a rollercoaster of emotions.

And no, I don’t like it that way, and thus, I continue to work on developing more effective coping skills.

As well, I am reminded that it is not selfish to take care of myself when necessary.

But I will get there.

And when I am surfing the web, and I come across pieces like this

Bring Your All To Me.

And I am reminded that I am loved, and that there is no shame in asking for help.

I am grateful.

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February 24, 2015

Joy, and derailment.

From Wikipedia:

A derailment is said to take place when a vehicle (for example a train) runs off its rails. This does not necessarily mean that it leaves its track. Although many derailments are minor, all result in temporary disruption of the proper operation of the railway system, and they are potentially seriously hazardous to human health and safety. Usually, the derailment of a train can be caused by a collision with another object, the mechanical failure of tracks, such as broken rails, or the mechanical failure of the wheels.

Also:

In psychiatry, derailment is a thought disorder characterized by discourse consisting of a sequence of unrelated or only remotely related ideas. The frame of reference often changes from one sentence to the next.

In a mild manifestation, [this] is characterized by slippage of ideas further and further from the point of a discussion. Some of the synonyms given… are used by some authors to refer just to a loss of goal: discourse that sets off on a particular idea, wanders off and never returns to it. In some studies on creativity…it describes a similarly loose association of ideas, [but] it is not considered a mental disorder, or the hallmark of one; it is sometimes used as a synonym for lateral thinking.

~~~

From Thursday, 18 February 2015:

I was feeling good. I really was.

I was feeling as if a fog had lifted. I was feeling that I was being seen and understood. Things were good.

And then my friend, Phil called, wanting to talk. Phil said that he had been concerned about me and he simply wanted to ‘check in’ with me.

We ended up getting in an argument over the historical accuracy of the show Vikings.

Now I must wonder if Phil might not be as aware of my spirituality as I had assumed. While I’d thought that Phil was somewhat aware of the fact that I am a polytheist and a Pagan, it occurs to me that he might not given it much thought beyond that. He was flippant and downright condescending towards the spiritual beliefs and culture of pre-Christian societies, including the Vikings.

(I cannot seem to think of the concept that I’m trying to convey here – the belief that one’s ancestors weren’t as intelligent or spiritually developed as those living in the modern age. Edited to add: Urdummheit. The concept is called Urdummheit.)

He made several comments about the Eddas as ‘being a stupid bunch of poems,’ and that ‘the Havamal is a poem that has no basis in reality’ when I pointed out the cultural relevance of both in giving insight to Viking society. When I brought up Tacitus- since he was trying to make his point that his belief is that there is no historical record of Vikings being anything beyond what he was saying that they were – that is precisely where our conversation truly degenerated into something that was more contradiction than intellectual discussion.

We were talking about history, and the next thing you know, we were getting defensive with each other about the legitimacy of each other’s opinions.

And it disturbs me when that happens. Initially, I’d felt the need to defend my point, but then I realized that I’d lost all patience to do so.

I haven’t any patience to educate you on my opinions today.

~~~

In an attempt to cheer myself up and focus on things more positive, I thought about my upcoming flight to Atlanta to visit another friend over the weekend of March 6th-8th.

Earlier in the day, my friend had texted me concerning my plans.

I allowed myself to feel good when I read about how excited and pleased she was for the opportunity to see me, as we hadn’t seen each other in several years.

When I realized that I had missed some of her recent responses, due to my being on the phone with Phil, I returned her call.

And she didn’t answer.

I had to remind myself that it was OK. I had to remind myself that I was just feeling defensive and put off energetically by my phone call with Phil.

~~~

He asks me what is wrong. I can’t even articulate it.

~~~

A friend posted something today – and I responded to it, but I probably should not have.

It dealt with something that I could relate to that Loki had said, about joy being one of the only things that impresses Him; the sense of presence, the joy of being in the moment is all He’d ever seek. How He seeks energy, energetic presence that is pure, unadulterated by shame or guilt or guile.

This reminds me of the words that He has often said to me:

Just feel. Just be.

Do you know what you are?

You are light. You are energy. You are electricity. You are fire in a bottle, contained.

Shine on.

But, as is a human habit, I get hung up in negativity, in conceits, in an inability to see the opportunity, to allow myself the experience of the raw joy of being.

We squander it, I suppose, spending all of our time in making comparisons and in competition with each other rather than feeling compersion, or allowing ourselves connection.

Maybe that is the lesson.

If I am ever going to love him

I should just love him

and stop thinking of how I could do it better

or more profoundly

or whatever –

and just love him

Just letting the light of what I am –just letting that love flow out of me.

Just be. Just love.

It sounds woo-hippy-crazy, I know.

But I don’t care.

It’s difficult – but probably not nearly as difficult as I am making it out to be.

Let go of fear and open to love.

❤

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February 14, 2015

14 February 2015

Happy Valentines’ Day.

~~~

While I’d actually intended on posting another piece that I’d found a few weeks ago (that I’d been saving to post here today), here is a lovely poem by Mary Oliver that I woke up to find on my RSS feed this morning:

THE FOURTH SIGN OF THE ZODIAC (PART 3)

I know, you never intended to be in this world.
But you’re in it all the same.

So why not get started immediately.

I mean, belonging to it.
There is so much to admire, to weep over.

And to write music or poems about.

Bless the feet that take you to and fro.
Bless the eyes and the listening ears.
Bless the tongue, the marvel of taste.
Bless touching.

You could live a hundred years, it’s happened.
Or not.
I am speaking from the fortunate platform
of many years,
none of which, I think, I ever wasted.
Do you need a prod?
Do you need a little darkness to get you going?
Let me be as urgent as a knife, then,
and remind you of Keats,
so single of purpose and thinking, for a while,
he had a lifetime.

— from Blue Horses, collected poems

January 13, 2015

Behold. A sneaky ton of bricks.

How strange that I was looking for something else on Google and this post (from a blog that I’ve never read before) just popped up.
But surprisingly, the message of this post is relevant to something that I had been thinking about quite recently.
It was as if the Universe were to say to me: “Hey. You there. Here’s a sneaky ton of bricks for you. Are you paying attention?”

Angel wings and Unicorns

Your days, your lives of hiding are over. There was a purpose to hiding your light in the past, but it is a new day. You are safe. The world is safe now for what you have to share. If you are in your balance of masculine and feminine, and you are trusting your wisdom and knowledge, which, if you are reading these words, you are trusting more and more, you will attract the right energies, the right people to you and your teachings.

No more excuses, that you are not ready, or you have issues, problems, or someone else is keeping you from your spiritual work. Many of you are walking your talk, and even so you have your moments of doubt. As long as we are human there will be doubts.

Your teaching may take the form of classes, writing a book, a website, a blog, art, music…

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