bloodteethandflame

A life in threes

Tag: having a moment

November 18, 2014

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.)

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September 2, 2014

Earnestly occupied, and fascinated

From I09:

If time is a fluid concept, then I should really watch what I say from now on.

 

Gods, how I love language.

 

And I can so see some of my Gods being all over this sort of business. 😉

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August 7, 2014

This is what I meant to share on my Facebook wall:

From the Elephant Love & Relationships page:

“And I will love some of you with some of me, and then all of you with all of me, if you let me and if I let you, as we get to know. And I hope we each have the honor and pleasure to feel sad, together, and joy, together, and lust, together…and lunch on the lawn at Farmers’ Market, together. I like dumplings with too much hot sauce.”

Join, https://www.facebook.com/thingsiwouldliketodowithyou, get the book when it releases.”

 

Now I ask you:

Who does this sound like to you?

Hmm?

I dunno…Do you?

 

It is truly the Subtlesauce that sings!

 

So here goes….

Now won’t  you sing *that* fscking song with me?

Alll of mee loves all of yooouuu…

 

 

*facepalm*

 
*sigh*

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August 4, 2014

Definitely.

To put it bluntly, I have been having a rough time as of late.

I tried posting about it, but for some reason, WordPress kept erroring out, so here goes another post.

 

We will see what happens.

I sense that there’s another complete overhaul of my life coming.

~~~

I woke up this morning with an earworm, that if nothing else, shows me to be a child of the 80’s:

 

(And just to note, it’s more like ‘at 4:00 AM’ rather than ‘at the midnight hour’ — but other than that, most things about this experience are about the same, relatively speaking.)

~~~

❤

 

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July 25, 2014

Month for Loki, Day 14: Art…and anxiety.

My only anxiety is what I can do… Could I not be of use and good for something?….This world only concerns me insofar as I feel a certain debt and duty towards it and out of gratitude want to leave some souvenir in the shape of drawings or pictures…to express sincere human feeling.  

                                                                                           – Vincent Van Gogh

~~~

This past month, I’ve been doing a lot of drawing.

I’ve still yet to put any of my artwork on DeviantArt, but I’ve got quite a stack now, so stay tuned.

For one thing, I’ve been getting a lot of practice drawing facial expressions – including lots of noses.  (I’m getting better at drawing noses, so that’s a plus.)

Such as it is, I’m really pleased with yesterday’s sketch – which came together relatively quickly –  but I have to do some clean-up on it, or otherwise I’d be posting it.

~~~

I had just been saying to a dear friend that I very rarely draw things directly out of my head, as I often use photos or at the very least, I’ll do a few body/face/positioning studies before I actually draw anything.  Within about twenty minutes from ending the conversation – and having not much intent to draw anything moments before – I found myself absentmindedly sketching a face on my drawing pad.

And next thing I know, a whole scene started quickly to come together, and I sketched a woman’s face, eyes nose, mouth…and then, her shoulders and torso, and then…sketched the outlines of a face of a man… his shoulders, chest, and torso…and soon —

I realized that I had drawn a pretty detailed rendition of a young man with long hair and a goatee, lying with his head resting casually in the woman’s lap. The woman is looking downward, smiling at him, and her hand rests lightly on his bare chest.  He is looking up at her, with a playful grin, and he is winking at her.

I could hardly believe that the sketch came together so quickly, so smoothly, with so few erasures/corrections — all within about twenty minutes of first putting pencil to paper.

(If I had sat down with the focused intent to draw such a scene, my usual attempts would be made slowly, carefully, and fraught with erasures as I stress over perfecting the jawline, or re-drawing the nose for the third time, or what-have-you, and that whole process would usually take me hours.)

 

So you might imagine how surreal it felt to suddenly find myself drawing …

 

And everything

— their facial expressions, the positions of their bodies —

just seemed to flow effortlessly from the pencil to the paper, almost without stopping, and entirely without much intent on my part

within the span of 20 minutes.

 

~~~

Later on, while making dinner, I was talking to an artist friend of mine, and he asked me how my sketching had been going.

I excitedly mentioned how easy things had been that day while I was sketching, and he remarked that it seemed supernatural compared to my usual anxious plod-through.

 

Hey, d’you think that it means this thing was divinely inspired? I laughed.

I dunno, but I love it when sketching’s like that, he responded.  It may not be divine, but it sure is magic.

 

Indeed.

 

~~~

Hail Loki ❤

 

 

 

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July 20, 2014

Month for Loki, Day 9: Eiwhaz

I learned something about Eiwhaz yesterday.

 

Eiwhaz is a rune of letting go.

Long ago, I got the message from Him, that it is my rune.

So, if that is true…then there is nothing more important than that for me to remember – Eiwhaz’s lesson is to allow change, to protect oneself, to defend oneself.

Of course, at the time that I was informed that I must learn this rune, it was a sort of Subtlesauce that I didn’t want to hear, that I didn’t want to know.

But yesterday, I was at a local mystical shop and I found Eiwhaz described as the ‘rune of the World Tree. A rune of letting go, protection, and transformation.’

And suddenly, it finally clicked in my head.  Funny that.

Eiwhaz is a rune of letting go.
Now I understand exactly why it was the first rune that came forward to teach me after He strongly suggested that I should begin studying the runes.

He said that I should study it until I was told to do otherwise, and so, that rune had sat on my altar ever since early 2013, well over a year ago.

It was my understanding that Eiwhaz should be my sole focus, a fixed point.

 

And, I am nearly ashamed to admit this, but I definitely had days wherein I would inwardly grouse about it: When could I learn another rune?  It’s not fair…I don’t understand….what am I supposed to understand?  Why?

I pouted.

I whined.

And His response was to steeple His fingers, and regard me with a raised eyebrow, followed by an almost grim, implacable facial expression.

Between the two of us, I don’t know who was more frustrated.

~~~
So, that spring, I sent money to a well-respected spirit-worker that I’d met the summer before, and I ordered a custom set of runes that were to be made of ash wood.

And I waited.

And waited.

 

For six fucking months.

 

 

I got so tired of waiting for that order, that I gave up in disgust, and ordered a cheap wooden set off of eBay.

 

They were made of ash all right, but instead of being carved as I’d been led to believe by the seller, the runes were written on the blanks

in

black

ballpoint

ink.

O.o

There are no words for how I felt about that.

Sangry would be a good term, I guess.

~~~
But, that August, I was surprised.

I received a package from the spirit worker.

He sent me a rune set of semi-precious stones retailing for $75 -to make up for the fact that I’d gone six months, with no explanation as to why I’d never received the wooden runes that I’d ordered.

He apologized profusely in a nicely worded letter, explaining at length his frustration and disbelief  about how the wood that he had been attempting to use to make the blanks kept splitting and warping, making the blanks unusable for runes.

He informed me that he’d attempted to cut the ash blanks with intent for my set on three separate occasions in the last six months, so he hoped that I’d accept the stone set as adequate compromise, with his apologies.
But when I poured the runes out of the bag to examine them –  I was immediately disconcerted to see that the Eiwhaz rune – carved into a tumbled stone of bright yellow jasper –  was broken in half.

(I never asked for a replacement simply because it was customer service recovery.)

~~~

But I studied Eiwhaz, anyway.

At least, I thought that I was.

I created a daily prayer for Eiwhaz, asking for – and trying to manifest – connection, protection, and transformation.

To be honest, even though I had convinced myself that I understood Eiwhaz on a few basic levels, looking back on my stubbornness, I realize now that I hardly knew what I was asking for.

(And, not surprisingly, He seemed to think that I should be working harder to figure that shit out.   And rightfully so, I suppose.)

~~~
Then, in February 2014, I had the blind ignorance to ask Him what rune I should be using to represent myself  in the bind rune that I was creating for us.

He drew the rune from the box, and pronounced it with a flourish, and a mysterious smirk.

Eiwhaz.

 

And of course, I gasped, and proceeded to whine and roll my eyes about the fact that, of course it is Eiwhaz…why is it always Eiwhaz?

I don’t understand WHY….!!

What’s wrong with Eiwhaz?  He seemed mildly annoyed, eyebrows raised.

But His tone made it obvious to me that the subject was immutable.  Not open to debate.

He then gave me the Holy Bitch Face, and sighed: Don’t ask questions that you don’t want answered – as He drew the rune, Kenaz – for Himself – and suggested that I find a way to incorporate them together.

~~~~

In March, I embroidered our bindrune on the altar cloth for His altar.
In June 2014, I inked our bindrune on my body.

~~~~

Two weeks later, as He traced his fingers on the ink, He asked where the flames were.

There should be flames, He said.

Blood, teeth…and flames, my dear.

~~~

But it was not until yesterday that I had ever seen it come up that Eiwhaz was a rune of Letting Go.

Funny that.

 

It all comes back to Eiwhaz.
That’s my problem…that’s my work…of course, Eiwhaz would be, should be my sole focus.

Because, you see, I have so much trouble letting go.

So, it’s no wonder, really, that… it’s Eiwhaz.

It would have to be.

What other rune could there be?

Of course, Eiwhaz is MY rune.

~~~

So all I’ve got to say to Loki today is…

I’m sorry that it has taken me so long to figure it out, Simple Dog that I am…

 

but

 

Point taken, Sir. 

❤

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July 4, 2014

Month for Loki, Day 3: Pandoramancy

Today is a simple post.

It is about a few particular songs that have haunted me this past year  — mostly through random television and radio commercials, and various ironic instances of radio pandoramancy.

The first instance featured Kelly Clarkson’s Breakaway:

My husband and I were attending a three-day weekend fetish event that was held at a pretty swank hotel, and I awakened early one morning to the chorus of this song playing loudly — as the theme to a travel commercial.

All I could think was that the chorus of the song somehow jibed with the concept of ‘breaking away’ from the mundane world, since the chorus of —

I’ll spread my wings and I’ll learn how to fly
I’ll do what it takes til’ I touch the sky
And I’ll make a wish
Take a chance
Make a change
And breakaway —

was set against a backdrop various highlights sponsored by the local tourist board  – from pristine shores edged by serene blue ocean, to majestic blue-white mountains rising from lush carpets of evergreen trees, to the sophisticated glow and bustle of the theatre and shopping district of the capital city , all peopled by smiling faces of travelers enjoying themselves in the lovely state of ____, but I just noticed the tune of a song that I’d never heard before.

And the words of that chorus rang in my head:

make a wish 

                Take a chance 

                                    Make a change

And

break

away

and I looked blearily at the clock.

4:30AM.

I fished the remote out from beneath the pillow upon which my husband was sleeping soundly, and after several irritably clumsy attempts at jabbing random buttons in the dim light, I was finally able to mute the volume.

My husband never even stirred.

Then, I rolled over, and tried desperately to go back to sleep.

But sleep would not come.

I had that fucking song as an earworm for the rest of that event.

And I saw/heard that commercial at least six times in the next two days, though it was always when I was alone, and always when I was resolutely trying not to think about it being a specific nudge toward the inevitable.

Make a change

And break away….

(I ended up JFGI once I reached home, and was able to dislodge the earworm somewhat, but it shall forever remain a definitively Lokean earworm from that day forward, for the very reason for the awful realizations that I came to during that weekend…and what fresh hell of a twist came into my life not even two weeks later.)

~~~~

Cut to a few months later, there was Sara Bareilles’ ‘Brave’….

This song was used as a theme  in a Microsoft Windows commercial…or maybe it was even for a cellphone that featured some sort of Microsoft technology.

I seem to remember arguing with V about our increasingly lack of connection, and our seeming inability to communicate as of late…and yet here was this fucking commercial suddenly blaring in the background, advertising some new aspect of communication technology.

Either way, the first time that I noticed the lyrics:

Say what you wanna say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave
With what you want to say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave

I was actually in half-hearing the commercial, and the irony of that moment so unsettled me that I stopped me in mid-sentence.

My husband didn’t even notice.

I’d wager that he thought that my sudden silence had meant that he’d won the argument.

And, like the previous song, I hadn’t actually come across the opportunity to hear the whole song, until I was sitting in a Wendy’s having lunch one day, almost a month later.  ( I had to JFGI’d the above video, because I’d caught the tail-end of the song, because it ended just as I was sitting down to eat.  Only then, did I realize, with increasing dismay, what a spectacularly Lokean sneaky ton of bricks message that song was in its entirety.)

And would it surprise you that the song that immediately followed Brave was Jesse McCartney’s Beautiful Soul?

 

(Such an irrepressible flirt He is.)

 

~~~~

Hail Loki, Lord of Pandoramancy!

 

 

 

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August 9, 2013

Hold on, I’m having a moment…

About three o’ clock this afternoon, I was having a moment in my local Publix, when I realized that the Doors’ rendition of “Gloria’ was playing on the in-store music system.

Of course, it was likely this version:

 

…because it ended entirely too soon.

While I definitely heard Jim Morrison screaming, I don’t think that it was the full Doors’ (read ‘dirty’) version:

Lyrics here

…which totally involves that infamous second and third verse.

~~~

But I know those verses, so while I was half-expecting them, I was also sadly aware that I was standing there in the canned goods aisle, with my mind on all those things that Publix doesn’t intend to sell to me.

But! — if Publix had played the full version, then it would have totally been a…truly Dionysian moment par excellence.

“Here she is in my room, oh boy…”

Oh boy, indeed.

;D

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