Temple of Iron

Temple of Iron: The sculpting of Meat and Blood and Bone into a Monument of Spirit.

To me, the spirit is an eternal spark of the divine All. A particle of the great roaring inferno that has forged all and given the master blueprint for all life and manifestation thereof in our multiverse. It is Logos or the underlying intelligence or pull that wills the foaming froth of chaos toward creation and life.

All traditions have in different ways attempted to describe this All, name it, understand it, and derive purpose from it or deny its existence altogether. However we choose to see its existence or nonexistence none of our equations add up with out it.

Your spirit is what makes you a part of this overarching all. Whether you accept this or deny it is totally up to you, and it is your sole responsibility as are all other aspects of  your improbable existence. All responsibility for, and meaning of your existence is up to you. No one can, or will save you, deliver you, or show you the way, let alone take responsibility for you.  Anyone who would tell you they can show you the way and take responsibility for you, and make your life better is a charlatan and a liar and should be treated as such. What they have to gain from your willing complicity in such folly should frighten you. There are no magical beings, or saviors who will pay the cost or take responsibility for you, or come to save you. There is only your divine spirit, and it is the only guide you need for it is a glowing ember from the roaring inferno that forges all. It lies within you waiting for your Ond to fan it into a conflagration of becoming and creation. You can only save yourself.

You are part and parcel of the great Archetypes of creation and becoming They are waiting for you to forge your mind into the weapon of the great Warrior, Sculptor, Poet who would wield it deftly against the unforgiving stone of Impossible, Improbable, Impenetrable and Ludicrous. Sculpting a body which is the temple of the divine eternal spirit reflecting its beauty and creation, and in the process penning a Saga worthy life's tale.

This process, this journey, must begin in the Iron Temple. Here is where the will and ability to power, greatness, beauty, and creation are forged in their most nascent form. The forging of the self begins here. Trial, and ordeal, overcoming of  :N: resistance. Here, Iron Will is forged. Here, the mind  learns to dream big, visualize success, and control the body and it base impulses making real and solid that which was once ethereal/ethereous. Here, the mind learns that pain can become accustomed to and overcome, and is often transitory. Here,  it is learned that discomfort is only temporary and gives way to joy and accomplishment.  Here, it is learned that great things, lasting things, and worthwhile things only come through self sacrifice, ordeal, and great consistent. effort.  

Body Mind and Spirit 2018!

It's hard to believe that we are already here, and that another year has gone by. But then again, if you don't really think about such things its just another day. I think the true significance of such a day escapes most of us at one time or another in our lives. It is just a day to sleep off the ill affects of too much New Years Eve celebration. For me however, at this point in my journey it is an occasion to celebrate being alive and to view it as another opportunity to work the will and accomplish the mission. I remember setting off fireworks with my kids in Germany in the snow, and I remember their excitement and how much fun I had being with them as they celebrated. Then there is a 20 some odd year period where I don't really have any standout memories of the holiday. Just another day. In my past I have always felt that people shouldn't need a specific day to be purposeful and set and have goals. That should be something they just do if they want to be affective at life.

Well last night will be memorable for me because, I watched my friend Steve ask his wife if she wanted to dance for what I believe is the first time ever. The term “Steve does not dance” had been applicable up to that point, but not anymore. I even have the feeling that perhaps dancing lessons are in that couples future. “Steve does not dance” is no longer an applicable phrase for the year of 2018, as a matter of fact, dancing lessons could be in all our futures as we live and grow and learn how to celebrate life just a little bit better.

Yesterday was the twelfth day of Yuletide in which we of the ASATRU faith celebrated wisdom, and the seeking and gaining thereof in honor of our ultimate wisdom seeking Archetype Odin. Gaining wisdom comes primarily through life experience and both increase and improve through acquisition, and application as we traverse time. So not only should we get better at life if that is our focus but we should get better at celebrating/living it. If I think about it dancing represents a ritualized expression of the joy of being and existence. It is elegant, celebratory, mindful movement through time and space, and it can put us in touch with our divine selves or souls and can be a powerful form of meditation, putting us in connection with the deep and primal forces that run through the multiverse and through ourselves.

So the term “Steve does not dance” no longer applies for 2018. I hope that this experience permanently changes his reality for the better, and I hope that it is instructive to the rest of us. It is so easy to specialize in what we do, to organize and prioritize to the max. Execute and repeat like a well oiled machine becomes the mantra and that is good, but sometimes we become so efficient and busy/obsessed with day to day that we lose time or inclination to try new things. Now I am not saying to flit around trying everything and accomplishing nothing. I am simply saying maybe we could try one new thing every quarter and I do mean try it. Take lessons, practice, at least become proficient at it and then examine it. Does it make your life better? What has it taught you about yourself and your life? I think more times than not, getting out of our rut and embracing something new will increase our joy, life experience and ultimately wisdom.

The basis of trying and experiencing new things is the ability to do so. Underpinning that ability is a healthy, powerful, exuberant condition of the temple that houses our soul during its earthly experience. The ability to move unencumbered through space and breath freely during exertion is fundamental, as is the knowledge of the ritual of preparing and consuming clean life supportive energy to fuel our efforts in working our will and becoming more. Healthy Mind, Body, and Spirit, lends itself to joy of discovery and positive wise life experience. Good health allows us to experience all that life should be and ill health will show us the way to darkness of the soul.

At this very cliché time of the year when a large percentage of our society gets on, and promptly falls off the health and fitness wagon I am promoting making your health a part of your spiritual journey and practice. We give thanks and honor our Ancestors and our Gods for the gift of life. Why don't we put a little skin in the game and a little action to go with words and the cerebral dedication? If we indeed give thanks and honor and respect to the Gods and the Ancestors for the gift of life, then let us ritualize and practice mindful physical movement and breath, and the mindful preparation and consumption of food with the purpose of maintaining, increasing, and honoring the gift of life that has been bestowed upon us. Let us make this a daily integral part of our spiritual journey.

We should not claim to honor our Gods and Ancestors and life if we cannot move, breath, dance, and express our joy at existence physically. As a people who honor life we should always strive to be strong, vigorous, and ready to fight the good fight at any time.

Reading, learning, memorizing, meditation, giving Blot and Sumbel are all wonderful and uplifting. Becoming truly more however requires becoming more in Body, Mind, and Spirit, they are all equally important and all support each other.

How can we fight and defend, and sacrifice all in a noble manner as we say we are prepared to do if we are short of breath crossing the road? Will we expect others to carry that burden for us? How will we contribute if we can't carry our own weight?

How can we claim our spiritual practice is strong when the physical temple that houses all the power of that spiritual practice is falling into decay? How will we project the power we say we have developed? How are we an example of what is best for our people if we cannot back word with tangible action? How do we honor the hard won and maintained gift of life when we squander this gift with poor nutrition, and lack of movement?

Our Ancestors were not frail sickly and falling apart, from lack of activity and overconsumption of empty poisonous calories prepared in a mean and meager manner. Every day they struggled and physically overcame just to survive Why are our Sagas to this day are so heroic? Hard people living hard lives require truly extraordinary heroes and accomplishments to be impressed and inspired. Gluttony and laziness were scorned and rightly so. To practice such was to embrace death. If we honor and want to emulate our ancestors we have our work cut out for us and we better start sooner rather than later if we ever want to make it to, let alone fit in in Valhalla.

We have our Nine Noble Virtues to guide us(1): I have taken some liberty to orient them toward the health and fitness aspect of our spirituality.

Courage: Cannot be practiced, demonstrated, or claimed without physical health. It might take a lot of courage however to make the changes necessary to regain and optimize your health.

Truth: Recognition of things as they are. If you are not healthy you cannot live and experience life to your fullest potential.

Honor: Can great deeds be accomplished without physical health and vigor? You do not honor the gift of life if you are not consistently striving to improve your health and fitness.

Fidelity: How will you fulfill your duties and oaths without health? How can you be a functioning member of the group if you cant tie your own shoes without being out of sorts?

Discipline: It will take discipline to become more and better. Do the right activities to become stronger and better. Fuel your efforts properly. Do it consistently even when no one is watching or knows.

Hospitality: If you are miserly and half hearted with your daily health rituals this will bleed into all areas of your life and you will not have the energy or means to be openhanded and hospitable.

Industriousness: Busily engaging in constructive activity that makes your life and the world around you better creates real joy.

Self- reliance: It's hard to contribute and not be a burden to others if you are in poor health.

Perseverance: Daily movement and supportive nutrition will give us the ability to write our own heroic sagas

The Noble Values(1) are even more directly related to what we are talking about:

Strength: is better than weakness.

Courage: is better than cowardice.

Joy: is better than guilt.

Honor: is better than dishonor.

Freedom: is better than slavery.

Kinship: is better than loneliness.

Truth: is better than Dogma.

Vigor: is better than lethargy.

Ancestry: is better than rootlessness.

When we perform ritualized mindful movement and consume mindfully prepared nutrition in a ritual of honoring and increasing our physical and spiritual energy and might. We will become the living embodiment of what we say we believe and what we say we are about.

As a fitness professional with over 15 years of experience of coaching myself and others in ways to increase performance and health. I can help you achieve your goals. I have competed in Natural Bodybuilding, Powerlifting and most recently in Strongman. I am back to Coaching as a business pursuit after somewhat of a Hiatus, and will be launching a web based fitness Consulting/Training business that will offer nutrition and training advice and products primarily for men over 40 of which I am one. Please stay tuned for more, and in the interim if you would like assistance in your fitness quests I can be contacted at fred.larson.fl@gmail.com. Special this month is a one hour consult where we can discuss what you would like to accomplish in the realm of Body, Mind, and Spirit, fitness and flesh out a rough plan. This session can be had for the price of $50.00

1. Stephen A. Mcnallen, ASATRU A Native European Spirituality (USA, Runestone Press 2015) page 89-91.

 

Thanksgiving

Good Morning, and Happy Thanksgiving. I got up, did my meditation and Rune work, and then pulled the bird out of its Cranberry brine, gave it a bath, and patted it dry. I then gave it a nice rubdown inside and out with some bacon butter, so it would feel relaxed and well cared for. I then lovingly and tenderly, and with a bit of salivation, placed it in the smoker with some applewood smoke. It is now perfuming the air with its gourmet goodness. Bacon, butter, spice, and fruit, over the rich smell of meat curling slowly and seductively upward. Steaming tendrils, dancing in celebration, wafting upward in the cool fall air. Tantalizing the senses, beckoning to the feast.

     It is the foremost, and perhaps only day of the year in which we as individuals in American culture for once, give food/ nutrition/ fuel its rightful prominence or attention. On this day out of all others we may even go so far as to give thanks, and feel grateful. If we even think of the deeper connotations of Thanksgiving it is in a historical sense. The story goes that some of our ancestors, or early european immigrants to this country suffered quite a lean existance upon their arrival until they could get the lay of the land and how things worked on this continent. After much struggle to just survive and adapt to their new surroundings, they finally experienced a modicum of success and were finally able to manifest enough provisions to sit down and have a celebratory meal together, and give thanks, or be thankful to one another, their native hosts, and to the deity they gave credit for assisting them in their survival and success.

    Our ancestors, whatever race or country we hail from, have always throughout time, and in all places throughout the world, had harvest celebrations to celebrate the passing of another year, and survival, and to be mindful of all the effort, intention, and creation that happens all around them and in them, and the abundance of life of which they were a part as habitants of a wonderful multiverse.

     All the days of the solar cycle, all effort, intention, sacrifice, faith, and ritual that our right action entails has born fruit. Grattitude to our Gods, our Ancestors, and ourselves is due. We have survived another year and have gathered abundance, unto ourselves. Respect, and awe, for our holy powers that enable us to be, and create, and grow things in conjunction with fate. This should fill our hearts and minds and instruct our grattiude, and joy at such times. For against all odds we are here.

    The Masculine act of hardening, penetrating the fertile earth, depositing a payload of nutrition and seed stuff and protecting its investment, and the Feminine act of the earth yielding to penetration receiving, and accepting the nutrition and seed stuff. Enveloping and protecting and gestating until the right moment arrives and the magic of life happens anew in accordance with the overarching will to create and manifest. A new physical form takes its place in the circle of existance, and nourishes and supports all other life forms in their similar trajectories toward a bountiful harvest. For this we give thanks.

    Our ancestors witnessed this process, realized they were a part of it, and correctly assessed that this was the very working of life and creation, and existance and that they were an intimate part of it all. They had to be, to exist and survive, as do we. They thought about it, dreamt about it, envisioned it, reenacted it, and celebrated it for it was life and existance itself, and they could not hope to thrive or even exist without being a part of this miraculous process.

    Today, most of us are divorced from this intimate interaction with nature and the Holy Powers, but we are no less dependant on them for our survival. Life as we know it would not exist at all if not for the process or way of creation, for it is applicable to all life forms in our multiverse. This process has become commercialized and industrialized, and its fruits necessary to our survival have become available in mass quantity for purchase. We now pay others to have our intimate interaction with nature and the Holy Powers for us. This doe not however lessen its power, nor should it lessen our respect, gratitude, and awe one bit, for our dependance on this process for our very survival remains unchanged.

    This life energy in the form of food that fuels and nourishes our efforts toward thriving existance, working our will, and co creating with the holy powers is all a part of as are we the cyclical process of life and creation in the multiverse. We realize, honor, and experience this process through the act of mindful, grateful, ritualized preparation, and consumption of food. This is a sacrifice to ourselves that we may become enriched, and more powerful, and more filled with life. This for me, is what Thanksgiving is about. Mindful participation in all that life is and can become, and the holy powerful processes and forces that we make use of to assist us in our own small, co-creative existances.

“ I salute you Holy Powers of my people. Not as a slave or as a servant, but as a free born member of the folk and as your younger kin. I also do not come to you on my knees, but standing proud and tall. Speak to my soul that I may grow in wisdom. Be my inspiration as I strive to grow wiser, stronger, and larger of spirit. May my feet walk the way of my noble ancestors as I continue my journey”.

The above prayer was composed by Stephen McNallen and came to mind while I was finishing this post.

Becoming Einherjar 2

 

Good Morning,

     The sun is shining NOW, and the sky peeks with its icy blue gaze from between the cold gray clouds as a crisp fall breeze stirs cold green needles and the remainder of the turning leaves. Hot green tea in my mug sends steam to meet the cool air above creating the shape of a Toroidal vortex at the edge of where hot and cold meet illumintaed by Sol's cloud filtered rays shining through my dining room window. Magical activity to my right in an innocent cup of tea, and in front of me through my big picture window, and all around and through me as I draw in a deep lung full of Ond. Against all probability I am alive and exist in this moment and hopefully a few more, as I inhabit my temple and focus on how greatful I am to have yet another chance to work my will and write my saga. Write I will for this is NOW and I am working on, creating, listening to my voice, fulfilling my mission, and purpose, realizing my reason for being, and living my life in the hope that I will inspire others to do the same.

    Do I know it implicitly? Can I see it in my minds eye? My finished masterpiece. A tapestry of effort, time, and hopefully a few moments of inspiration mixed in with a few bouts of divine madness? Yes, hopefully some of that, coupled with the long slog of hard repetitive effort. Straining my minds eye, sometimes I can see it, but it is has never yet been in clear focus. Maybe just over this ridge in front of me, or one of the many after. I will stand on top and all will be laid out clear before me. Crystal clear with no uncertainty, doubt, regret or illusion, nothing unkown. All crystal clarity.

     I have chosen a direction and a methodology. You are reading part of it now I will think and meditate and listen and look and write. I will strain against and overcome resistance in all its forms. I will feel its full weight and become stronger for it or die trying. I will energize and nourish my efforts both physical and spiritual with quality fuel. I will ritualize and document this ritual of the process of preparing and consuming this fuel and nourishment for the very act thereof is profound spiritual and indicative of the process of life and overcoming, and becoming more. My mission and intention of doing this is that  I hope to inspire and help others to do the same, and by so doing increase honor and respect for our Gods, Ancestors, Folk, and Selves.

    One foot in front of the other daily despite whatever obstacle, resistance, challenge, or opportunity to do anything else presents itself. I will follow this path and create as I go and grow. It will be imperfect, sometimes I will crawl, sometimes I will run, sometimes I will fall, be crushed, battered and utterly broken and beaten. The lowest of the low. I will curse myself and the Gods, and existence. Then I will soar efortless and weightless until the next crash. Then I will crawl and run again. Ever onward Sometimes higher, often times lower. Ever onward. Around the next bend, over the next mountain. This journey is mine. I have chosen it as much as it has chosen me. Sometimes there will be companions and fellowship along the way. A soft place to lay my head. A brief respite. But not for long as the journey must continue and sometimes companionship and fellowship and comfort reveal themselves to be obstacles and resistance. Sometimes glory, recognition, fame, and grattitude will warm my face fleetingly. Sometimes a clear vision will present itself where eveything makes sense for a time. But such things are illusive and rare, and often just plain illusion, and they will fade quickley leaving me with just the journey, the path and the methodology. Self doubt, delusion, wounded pride, battered self, physically and spiritually broken, crushed ego, grief, mourning, ultimate defeat, darkness, a profound loss of comfort. All of these will come calling at one time or another, perhaps all together. They will all make me want to crawl into my safe warm Turtle's shell and be safe in the illusions of comfort, security, sameness and mediocrity. “They wont be able to find me in here”, as the semi of fate, pulling the trailer of reality bears down on my fragile soon to be flattened state of self delusion pushing me into the uber illusion of Impossible, Improbable, Impenetrable, Ludicrous and just plain Hard. From these depths I cannot see the top of the wall of resistance that my focus on everything outside of myself and my control has constructed for myself. At these points in time the high road will be lost, but the journey will continue one step at a time.

    There will never be enough thanks, never enough gratitude, never enough comfort, never enough recognition, and never enough respite commensurate with my efforts, and my sacrifices, but this is the way of being  a man so I will never expect these things, I will do it because I am a man and that is what a man does. He fights until the bitter end and then some because that is why he exists as a man. There will only be me and this path, this direction to go in, and this methodology, and my divine self as guide. No one will save me, this is all there is, and only now in which to travel. So I will crawl and run and fall. I will embrace it all with wide open arms and mad laughter on my lips for I would be a part of the divine comedy. Flawed, scarred, broken, infintesimal, a chip off the old block, a microbe, a nano particle. A mere spark of the great roaring inferno, but a spark nonetheless, shining as brightly as I can in the great void of nothing and everything. Give me fuel and Ond and watch what happens. Never greater than anything, or anyone except all that I was yesterday which I sacrificed fully and completely to the best of my ability in the anticipation of all that I will become today. Then, I will sacrifice all that I have become today to the best and fullest  of my ability in anticipation of what I will become tomorrow. There are no guarantees, only intention and fullness of effort to the best of my ability. There will be no perfect state, only profound but fleeting utterly beautiful moments. Glimpses of what could be, but promises of, and in the future are only illusion. There is only NOW and what is happening NOW, and my focus on, and my assessment of, what is happening NOW. There is only the path, the journey and the methodology.

    As I travel and have become aware of this journey, I notice the darkness gets progressively darker, as if my embrace, and attention makes it more so, but also the light in equal measure, and then I notice that both, as do all opposites,coexist, and make my journey and experience thereof more profound. I realize that if I reject one I also reject the other and ultimately myself. One must embrace all to get the whole experience. Opposites meet in the middle, merge, and become something else all together but always part of the whole, the all, the overarching Logos or tendancy toward life, and the existance of life, and overcoming, and becoming more, ever increasing and expanding. I can't pick and choose it. I can only accept its existence and embrace it.  Its the whole thing or nothing. To limit my embrace of all that is, is to limit myself, and my experience. To truly love life we have to love all of its aspects and embrace and learn and be changed by them as we remain ever ourselves.

  I turn to look back over my path thus far, and realize that I am only marginally progressed from my starting point, my hard won altitude is sometimes lower and sometimes higher, but I fully embrace overcoming, and becoming more. NOW in this moment is where I exist, so perhaps I am somewhat higher.

 

    This journey is and will be the very epitome of humanity, and the envy of immortal beings everywhere who can never experience our briefness of being. The profundity of experience available to us through the sheer magnitude of our briefness of being, and of that which we must overcome to even begin to manifest the slightest workings of our will, and to create the slightest bit of order from chaos is what makes us most enviable, and gives our lives the most meaning. When you cannot die, profundity of experience, realization, and discovery are forever and infinitely beyond your grasp. But perhaps in some small measure they experience through us. So I embrace my struggle in becoming more and hope that my example in doing so will inspire you to embrace your own struggle thereby honoring our God's Ancestors and Folk.

 

It is and always will be our focus on the little things NOW, that will make up all the parts, and actions necessary for a grand and triumphant Saga. It is also that focus on NOW, and what we can do NOW, which will eventually make all the sheer magnitude of the forces of Impossible, Improbable, Impenetrable, Ludicrous and just plain Hard, arrayed against our efforts become small, insignificant and manageable in our triumph. Hail Life!

 

 

What will you do NOW to embrace your struggle and begin to become all that you can be? What will you sacrifice to become more?  What will you eat? What will you focus on NOW where all the power is?

Becoming Einherjar

So, "Good Morning"!  Morning Pages, here we are again in the same place we have been so many times before (not often published, but from now on). Hanging out on the page talking about whatever wants to come out. Listening to whatever the voice inside my head (I call him my inspired/creative self  because it sounds less crazy) wants to tell me. No judgement, no censorship, no secrets, no lies. Not with myself. I have suffered for this but I will continue this habit, without fear, without excuses. I will write. I will paint pictures with words I will listen to my divine self, my creative self.

I can feel it even now, again, that old familiar feeling call it what you will, but I have named it given it a lable. That old, shitty, curmudgeon raising his hoary, old, gray, head. The old, tired, grumpy, burned out, no adventures, no passion, me. I name him Grendel and he is well and truly illustrated in the Saga Beowulf. He is the me too old to do things, the one who knows everything about the world and is pained by that knowledge and prefers not be a part of it. Writhing in pain and lashing out and crushing anything good or fun or adventurous, or loving. Anything that reminds me of how miserable and powerless I really am. The one who judges every one and everything and at the end of the day is justified but exhausted, and burnt out. The one who couldn't or wouldn't start anything new because the world was ending anyway. Running around with a knot in my throat, and rising blood pressure about all the things I cant fix and change, all the people who just won't act right. Catering to beliefs that are not my own. Pissed off about politics that do not represent me, or what I am about. To terrified to even attempt. Sick in my soul about conspiracies not my own and not for me. Fed on "news" whose focus is about someone elses agenda, and what they want me to believe and feel about the world around me so that my fear and despair would consume me and I  would reflect this sickness and misery further onto the world around me. Separate from who I am, where did I come from, what am I about? Why am I in this crazy world and why cant our government represent its citizens and make our lives better? Why am I so downtrodden and tired at the end of the week? That guy who I feel starting to question, and scoff, and stifle my creativity, and my desire to build a brave new world for myself and mine, and for my fellow Einherjar who are of a like mind. I can always feel Grendels presence just as I am contemplating taking some sort of action to make my life better and make the world a better place. But now I know him, and like Beowulf I will crush him with might, passion, and right action.

I have decided, aided by my inner voice (who I have decided to trust implicitly as having my own best interest in my mind), that my previous religious, political, and worldview no longer serve me, and will not make this world any better. I will focus on my own, and my ancestors and my peoples beliefs. I have discovered ASATRU, or the belief in the gods of the Germanic Pantheon, and the honoring of our Ancestors, and their way of thinking. Taking our ancient ancestors wisdom, and our metagenetic inheritance and making it applicable to me and my life.

Not sure how I ever had the time or energy to subdue Grendel, and listen but I thank the Gods, the Runes, my Ancestors, and my daily meditations on these things for breaking me out of my trance. Yes, I, scoffer of all things mystical have started meditating, doing cauldron work, learning about and meditating on the Runes. As a result, things have started coming into my life. Books, seminars, conversations, thoughts, dreams, passions, creativity, and a burning need to emulate the way of being represented by our greatest Ancestor Odin who is the ultimate Archetype  for learning and becoming more. Each of us of northern  European Germanic heritage have this archetype as well as all the other gods and goddesses as archetypes or abilities or tendencies within them. Different people have different affinities with different deities, or archetypes just as there are different personalities and focuses and qualities among people, but it is all their for us if we choose it. I feel blessed to have discovered my affinity for Odin and his way of being, but all the archetypes have strength, overcoming, becoming more, and passionate, purposeful, existence at their common core. Creativity, passion, focus on ones self, ones family and ones tribe as being paramount to survival. Life for our ancestors was all about hard survival. It was a constant struggle not chosen, not sometimes but always back breaking soul rending effort just to eat and have shelter and survive, but yet there was also passion, striving, and overcoming as part of a joyful sometimes abundant existence, and a lust for life. 

 This world, this Global empire of nothing is on a trajectory of destruction, and there is nothing I can do except take control of myself, my focus, and my life so that I may reflect my positive, powerful influence upon this runaway freight train that is our current socio political shit show of a world we live in today.



I leave you with a powerful realization I had while getting ready to post this..

Fear marketing is big business. It is magical. Get enough people to be negative on life and powerless to do anything about it and you turn the world into a fearful mindless easily enthralled, and controlled marketplace. Then sell em anything you want that will help them cope with their fear (Marketing basics here people). It is the sole purpose and function of the News media, and Entertainment industry, all news is marketing. Programming at the click of a button, now go buy some more worthless shit, that will only make your sadness and sense of despair grow deeper.

Make your own news. Turn their shit off and do something to make yours and your peoples lives better.

Took a trip down to the swimming hole under the old 49er bridge on Sunday evening. While there my creative self started talking telling me things that were greater and more beautiful than I could ever come up with on my own. and so the Poem Yuba 1921 was born (see below). I hope I can share a bit of my experience in this beautiful place with you in some small way. Hail All-Father Odin, Thank the Ancestors, Hail Life!

Yuba 1921

Cool blue-green water flows with gentle roar over torrent smoothed stone; Ripples capture days last light glittering like diamonds; Light show interrupted by jagged crags and boulders, Granite jutting in granular solidity from cool dark depths; Wild Grapes climb, vines winding, reaching toward tree carpeted horizon; Swallows dip, cutting across reddening twilight skies like drunken arrows, sure in flight but erratic in destination; This scene all framed by hard angular arches, mans contribution compliments an already perfect landscape; Bathers seeking asylum from the inferno that is July, long awaited respite in cool silky embrace; The spirit of the Yuba slides sensuously over heat scorched skin and soul.

Still enmeshed, hypnotized by the monotonous treadmill of day to day life at first some fail to experience fully the grandeur that surrounds and envelopes one like stepping through a portal and into a masterpiece; By inexorable osmosis the gentle spirit and beauty of the place like moisture through the pores calms and cools, bathing away the mundane and ordinary, the heat and stress; Even the most socially aware are loosed from the fixating glare of gadgets and status and fall under its spell, made somehow peaceful, quiet, and more whole; Blessed to discover that here and now in this place, all is beauty

The magic of nature cannot be ignored.

A New Day

Light streams over the mountain- Sol lamp of Odin soon to rise.

Ond stirs the trees - Day takes it first breaths.

Black gives way to the riotous colors of nature.

Birds sing- The first Hail Day!

 Another day of consciousness and breath - Already a victory- Another chance to work the will on Midgard.

Thoughts take flight- Like newly awakened Ravens- Wings straining ever higher into the great beyond of becoming.


   The preceding poem is something that came to me following my morning cauldron work (found in "A METHOD OF TRANSCENDENCE IN THE GERMANIC TRADITION" by Steven Mcnallen),  and then meditation on the rune Sowilo. I have roughly been following the Rune work laid out in the "Nine Doors of Midgard" by Edred Thorsson and I am currently opening my second door As I have been learning/ working with the Runes, and meditating on them, I have felt and discovered lots of things. Books come into my life, discussions, thoughts, voices, seminars, seemingly unrelated events that cause me to say  "OH, now I get that"! And now, poems ( I don't generally think I am very poetic so I am hoping this is somewhat of an exception to the rule).

   I now know with a certainty that the Gods, the Ancestors, indeed the Magical Will of the multi-verse speak to us and let us feel their presence through the runes. They can teach us much about ourselves, and why we are here if we will but take the time to calm and silence ourselves and listen. Our inner multi-verse reflects outward and creates its mirror image in the outer multi-verse. The dysfunction and strife that we see in the world today is but a reflection of the inner state of its inhabitants This is why the struggle of learning what the self is, developing it, and learning to control it is all important. Inspiration is available to all of us if we will but listen. I hope the poem speaks to you in some way as it did to me.

Hail Life!