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?