bloodteethandflame

A life in threes

Tag: connections

*looks up*

Another emotional weekend.

Another chain of days wherein I am left contemplating the line between being compassionate and being naive.

~~~

And here.  Here is a foolish thing.

This morning while I was out walking my dog, I noticed at least a dozen black vultures perched upon the streetlights lining the parkway that runs along a significant portion of my daily route.  Even though vultures usually don’t roost in my neighborhood very often, I figured that there must have been some fresh roadkill somewhere.  (I didn’t — and I still don’t — want to assume that their presence has any at all to do with the fact that that I’ve also been dreaming of vultures a lot lately.  I comfort myself to think that there has to be some other mundane reason.)

So, as I was walking toward quite a large cluster of them, I realized much to my dismay, that, with the way in which the road was laid out, I was going to have to walk past several streetlights in the row.

And I was going to have to pass beneath quite a number of them where they were perched.

(Yes, I’ll admit that I feared being…hissed at and shat upon.)

As I got closer, I began to walk more briskly, all the while telling myself that I am going to be OK, I’m just passing through…this is not something that I can avoid.  These are just…vultures.  A lot of black vultures.

And looking back on it, you know, I can’t explain why I started to feel anxious, but I did….

and so, next thing I know, I had started running….

And because I was so busy feeling anxious

and not really looking where I was going

I promptly fell hard into a hole that I could not have seen

and I twisted my ankle.

I laid there for a good minute or two, feeling mortified, embarrassed and hurting.

Upon looking up, I see them – three vultures — calmly looking down at me, from their perches atop the streetlight.

They did not move.  They did not hiss.  And they did not shit on me.

They just looked at me.

jpt8574-ps

(They were just like this – except for looking downward. I didn’t take this picture. ^Phil Thach did.)

blackvulturestreetlight

Evidently, black vultures like to perch on street lights

blackvulturetea

…and eat ‘horrible things for tea.’

(I guess that ‘ and eat roadkill when necessary’ doesn’t have the same ring to it, though it has the same amount of syllables.)

Not making fun.  Just trying to adapt.

~~~

Mr. L is wondering why I am avoiding again.

Asking why I am struggling to embrace my spirit animal.

 

Because, sometimes…vultures frighten me.

*sigh*

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

 

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's avatarAngel 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…

View original post 1,314 more words

Today is Wednesday.

Out on my walk today, I’d been having thoughts about Mr. Wednesday.

And two songs immediately came up on shuffle from my playlist

One after the other

Both are by Fever Ray:

and

The God Phone, and the Devil in the details.

This past Saturday, I went to a local craftsperson/artisan event that was being held downtown from where I live.

Part of the reason for the event was to inspire folks to begin their holiday shopping locally, and I was happy to see that a lot of the shops along the main street were open and busy as a result of this event.

I also discovered a few (new to me) local stores that I realized that I hadn’t even known existed so close to my home.

So, as I was browsing in an antique store that I’d never thought to explore, I came across so many battered (yet  overpriced) mundane items that filled me with childhood nostalgia.

One such item was a bulky black rotary telephone that reminded me of the one that sat on the side table in my Nana’s front hall in the early 70’s.

It looked just like the one that I had been warned by my Nana was a Very Important Thing that I must never play with.

It also made a very deep, jangling ring, and I remember being a bit terrified by the look of it and the sound of it when it rang.

I vaguely recall her explanations about how this telephone was a Very Important Thing for Hearing the Voices of Those Who Are Very Far Away, so I chuckle to think of it now, but I remember being entirely convinced in my young child-mind that only God would ever call my Nana on that phone.

And besides, how I understood it, it seemed to me that God was definitely a Someone Not to be trifled with, as well as Someone with a Voice, from Very Far Away.

~~~~

As I was mulling over that particular memory, and clumsily trying avoid disaster as I navigated the narrow spaces between the jumbled collections of antiques and the steady stream of my fellow-browsers, I found myself inevitably being jostled toward china cabinets that lined the farthest wall.  I wasn’t the slightest bit interested in looking at shelves of dusty, gilt-edged dishes and bric-a-brac, until something caught my eye:

NorseWindGodmatchsafe

At first glance, I’d assumed that this brass match-holder (to be mounted near a fireplace) was supposed to depict the face of the Devil or an imp – and I would still say so – but upon inspection of the tag, I saw something else written there.

While I tried several times to capture a good angle that would allow a view of both the face and the tag, I couldn’t get it all within the frame.

The tag reads:

LCH

Brass “Norse Wind God”

Match Holder

$65.00

Doing more research on this piece through the Internet/Google – I went to Amazon sold lists, various antique websites, Pinterest, and eBay – this piece is listed as depicting any of several Beings: the Devil, Pan, Dionysus/Bacchus, and the Green Man.

One seller on eBay refers to it as a ‘Fire-God/Imp Match-holder.’

Another seller on an antique website refers to this face as ‘Zeus’

I was very taken aback to see ‘Norse Wind God’ however…because I know Who I thought of when I read that on the tag.

Hm.

Syncretism, anyone?

(PS: Loki seemed left out of all that reaching for description of  ‘the possible Deity’ depicted on this antique match-safe — and I found that surprising, too.)

Breathe

Most people do not understand that their true power lies in releasing resistance, which is the only obstacle to their true power!

We want you to breathe rather than try, to relax rather than offer effort, to smile rather than struggle, to be rather than do.

For your true power is experienced only from inside the Vortex……

~ Abraham Hicks

FPG Friday: A Koan and its Message – Anoja Seeks the Self

On Friday, I sat by the plug in the dining hall, waiting for my iPhone battery to charge.

To pass the time while I waited, I continued to read the Kindle sample from The Hidden Lamp: Stories from Twenty-Five Centuries of Awakened Women, as compiled and edited by Zenshin Florence Caplow and Reigetsu Susan Moon.

‘Anoja Seeks the Self’ is the second koan discussed in the sample.  It is listed as being from India, 6th Century, BCE.

The gist of the koan, as I interpreted it:

Anoja seeks Buddha, after her husband, the king, Mahakappina, has left her and all of the kingdom to her, to seek Buddha.

Anoja thought to herself, ‘Surely, Buddha’s message, is not just for men.  I will go seek him.’

When she arrived, she heard the Buddha’s message, and she and her retinue sought and became the first of the four levels of Buddhist realization (‘stream-enterers’).

Meanwhile, Buddha had turned her husband invisible, and then,  Buddha asked Anoja:

 Do you seek the king (your husband) or do you seek the nature of the self?

Without hesitation, Anoja answered that she chose to seek the nature of her self.

Anoja knew that self-knowledge is a richer treasure, and more precious than any other in the kingdom.

More precious than any in the universe, in fact.

~~~

Upon reading this koan, several thoughts occurred to me, and suddenly gelled into a coherent whole that hinged upon the concepts related specifically to the word, precious.