I got an indigo giftcard from work - I'm going to be ordering some books, getting back on track with my reading.
I had plans for a post delving yet again into the powerful death-vibes of 2016. The darkness swirling in the world, the realizations and understandings I've come to over the past several months. I was going to write about emotional abuse and gaslighting, about my stepping away from a toxic environment and how long it took me to wake up from that.
But y'know what? Fuck that. The world is in a hellhole right now and I can't bring myself to feed the yucky feels any longer.
So I'm going to quickly sum up some of the awesome fucking shit that's been going on.
I've been celebrating every sabbat/esbat/etc in style. My group of four (myself included) have made a point to get together. Our rituals are loose, informal affairs, but our energy is wonderfully in sync, so even if we allow ourselves to be casual and silly, we still have great synergy and I can feel that we are connected. The love in our little group is unbelievable. My wife, is of course, my wife, my best friend, the love of my life. Garm has come to help in the yard many times, we feed him supper, he took my wife to the emergency room the other night to get some stitches looked at, while I was stuck at work. (She's absolutely fine by the way.) Nootls has helped us around the house, we've hosted her on the couch as she has quite a drive to get home, we've babysat her dog. She just hooked us up with Reindeer hides, mine I'm using as a throw on the couch.
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| Mabon |
I managed to source a suckling pig - Yule is in the middle of the week and I have no time off, so we'll likely do our great Yule feast a little later - but I am so beyond excited.
We got our yard cleaned up, and a few things planted - it snowed today, and I still have raked leaves to bag, but come spring we can start fresh on much better footing than this time last year. We got to harvest some garden sage and lavender from our herb garden.
I finished reading the first half of Taking Up the Runes - I have the elder Futhark memorized, and their meanings, and finally made myself a set of runes.
I have other rune books to read and more study to do - the runes are a lifetime journey, I feel - but I'm beyond happy to understand them even at a baseline now.
We bought a sewing machine - my wife and I - and we each made a cloak. I'm madly in love with mine. I then made a viking style apron dress and tunic to go with it. So I finally have real, handmade ritual garb!
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| Stylin' |
I did some major altar work as well. My current altar I inherited second-third-?? hand, and it was battered and covered in sticky tape residue. I did love it despite (or because of?) it's well-loved look, but I wanted to refresh it. I attacked it with sandpaper, sanded parts of it down to bare wood, others simply deep enough into the finish to smooth over the gouges, the old adhesive gunk. I then refinished the whole thing with a more matte-paint-like stain and replaced all the hardware. It has a fresh new look now and I adore it. <3
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| Looks good as new!! There are "before" pics back in my blog somewhere I'm sure... |
I also worked at making a small Odin and Sleipnir statues for the Alfather's altar. Sleipnir I felt was particularly genius. I bought two paper mache unicorns at a local arts n' crafts store...and murdered them to make a hybrid 8-legged steed.
I mentioned snow.
Well that was a shock! I can't remember the last time that the first snow I saw in the year was an actual "snow storm". It's not quite cold enough to stick here as we're near the coast, so we got mostly wet slushy snow and rain - but still more than flurries. The wind was intense and COLD this morning.
I need to get those damn leaves bagged up before they get buried. It's supposed to be another rough winter.
Secretly I'm excited? I love snowstorms and snow days and being curled up with a warm drink listening to the wind howl outside. It's a bit scarier when you own a house vs. an apartment, but damn, it's still so comforting.
I've been busy-busy the last few weeks, but feeling very driven. I have a new gorgeous leatherbound book to make into a proper BOS - I have plans to use pressed plants, colour, polaroids - and make it a mishmashed work of art. I'm ready to bring back the activity into other parts of my spiritual life - not just rituals, but meditations, real practice, get reading and blogging again.
Here's to the rapidly approaching end of this majestic shit-show of a year!
