The Last Word

I am done writing tonight
I've finished my lines
But my hand still wants to move
This is how I reach for You
Decades out of practice
Choking on words and stuttering a rhythm
The flash of red, and green, and smooth flesh
I want all of You
As much as I can take
Longing for the moment I turn out the lights
A Cheshire Cat's grin
Glowing in the dark
Sometimes beside me stroking
Gentle and patient
Waiting for my mind to calm and open
Sometimes above me, pressing into me
Demanding and hot
This Bitch-Who-Does-Not-Budge
Melts into You
I become soft and malleable
Sometimes I get my fill and am able to sleep
And sometimes the hunger grows
Like tonight, when I can't put down the pen
I want to capture all the little pieces
To remember these feelings
With my fumbling words

You are Love

I Love You
Because You are Love
And I didn't mean to make that connection
To cry in the middle of a poem
To bring Love into that darkness
Or the other way around
"You know how to find the tender spots",
You say
I've always had a gift for reading people
Knowing their weaknesses and how to hurt
And I never meant to hurt You
It's decades of reflexes, of practice lashing out
I hurt before I can be hurt
"There are reasons but not excuses"
I Love You
And I beg forgiveness
When I am thoughtless, arrogant, cruel
What must I do to keep Your Love
To not wear it away like a grindstone
With shortsighted selfishness
What must I do to be worthy
"You still sparkle", You remind me
"You are beautiful"
And I want to stay that way
In Your eyes and heart
May my superficial mortal faults not tear that apart
I need You to think well of me
Especially after I am gone
You Are Love
I don't know how to live without it
So much has changed in so little time

One Drop At a Time

Sometimes the words just come
Other days I falter and cough
Days that I had planned to be focused
Turn into a race against time
To accomplish many scattered tasks
I keep reaching for a quiet moment
One where I can breathe
Open up and let You in
Instead I have broken seconds
You pop into my mind for a kiss
Or a caress
Then gone again
Sometimes before I can even notice
I replay that second over in my thoughts
Just to savor the drop of You
Like scattered showers through the day
I hope to fill my bucket before bed time
And satisfy my thirst
One day at a time

Morgan

I said goodbye to a house today
I cried in every room
Emptied the basement
And buried the keys
My first home, first garden
My first sanctuary, All was completely mine
Before my child came into the world
It knew me
When I was unburdened
Young and free, yet weighted to my past
I left my prints on every wall, floorboard, woodwork, surface
I hung the paneling in the bathroom
The morning before my mother died
From before I buried my nightmares
Began to sleep through the night again
Cut ties to gangrenous limbs
It was before I knew You
The Fire that burns bridges
Recycles rotted trees of the forest
To fertilize the soil for new birth
I awakened years ago but didn't really feel it until today
The dime in my hand felt heavy from memories
It was sad, relief, and a lightening
To let go of what I no longer needed
This is Liberation

Devotional to Sigyn

Key:
Hail Sigyn
Loki's Treasure
Keeper of the Keys
Lynch-pin that holds society and family together


Bird:
Hail Sigyn
Please teach me Your gentle strength,
to appreciate simplicity and mindfulness,
to guard and protect fragile hearts

Flower:
Hail Sigyn
Mistress of Virtue
Please teach me the steady diligence of daily life tasks,
to finish that which I have started,
To hold my course true

Rose Quartz   (3)
Hail Sigyn
Lady of Unyielding Gentleness
Lady of the Staying Power
Goddess of Constancy

Flower:
I thank you for my roots of strength to do what must be done,
the will to keep my oaths and commitments.

RQ (3)
Hail Sigyn
North Star
Victory Woman
Lady of the Invincible Heart

Flower:
I thank you for my daily victories over myself, my self discipline,
and to conquer my fears

RQ (3)
Hail Sigyn
Hearth-keeper of The Flame
Wife to Loki
Mother to Narvi and Vali

Flower:
I thank you for my kin and community
May I remember to always honor this love and connection.

RQ (3)
Hail Sigyn
Goddess of Neglected Children
Balm for the Broken
She who holds all things to Her heart

Flower:
I thank you for the comfort and security in my life.
May I learn to become a safe place for others to rest
as You have been for me.

Bird:
Hail Sigyn
Please teach me to keep the fire in my soul and spiritual path high and bright
Priestess at the Cauldron.

Key
Hail Sigyn
Incantation Fetter
Safe Harbor of the Heart
Healer to All
May You ever be hailed

Kennings for Sigyn

(I'll be adding to this as I find or "hear" new kennings)

Lady of Loyalty
Lady of Unyielding Gentleness
Delight of Loki's Hall
Loki's Treasure
Devoted Mother
Mother of Narvi and Vali
Wife of Loki
She Who holds all things to Her heart
Lady of the Staying Power
Victory Woman
Incantation Fetter
Priestess at the Cauldron
Lady of Endurance.
Goddess of Constancy
Lady of the 12 Virtues: strength, loyalty, grace, humility, gentleness, charity, fidelity, love, endurance,           patience, simplicity, mindfulness
Healer to All
Mother to All
Child Bride
Goddess of Neglected Children
Balm for the Broken
Goddess of the Heart
Safe Harbor of the Heart
Goddess of Comfort
Goddess who Opens the heart
North Star
Hearthkeeper of The Flame
Invincible Heart

30 Foot Anaconda

Had a really messed up dream the other night.

I dreamed there was a 30 foot Anaconda in the basement. It had been caged but got out and I was at the task of locking doors and windows to keep it contained so it didn't kill me in my sleep.
I remember planning how to unwind the body if it managed to wrap around a part of me.

I woke up about 130 am and went to check the windows and doors.  Tom was still up and asked me what was up.  I told him honestly.  It was really creepy and my anxiety was high.  I don't know if this was a manifestation of my anxiety of if it was a warning.

I tend to have dreams about reptiles trying to eat me when something bad is about to happen.
Hope nothing does.

I felt like even Loki was like, check you doors.

How much of this is Truth?

What do I do with all this Love?
It overfills my heart until eyes flow
Whenever I feel You wrapped around me
A gentle thought caress
My heart hurts with reaching for You
This piece, this shard, is mine
I keep it secret, jealously
I can't stand to share, to let it go
It is mine
As much as I am Yours
My heart, my blood, my life
For as long as You want me
For as long as Love shall last

Stay close, my Love, so I can feel You
Breathe You in
Wrap myself up inside of You
You, so much more than one small vessel can contain
Hold me close until You feel like Home
I can't deny You anymore

Priestess at the Cauldron

 I am constantly coming across stories and UPG of Loki and His family that are not always so respectful or loving. From Re-constructionists to Norse Shamans, there seems to be a continued attitude of dismissal most specifically of his second wife, Sigyn. Angrboda is easier to understand in a religion that focuses so much on warrior prowess.

I see it as a constant misunderstanding. People just not "getting it". I, as well, had a hard time processing the quiet aspect of Her nature. I've been a Feminist with a capital F since I was in my single age digits. It's hard for me growing up with the messages of the second wave to then accept a domestic and gentle figure as such a powerful Goddess. Angrboda was easier, since my upbringing involved using anger as a source of power and catalyst for evolution.

I held a blot to honor Sigyn recently. I approached with a desire to get to know who She was independent of the labels of mother, wife, caretaker. This was not an easy task as I found out. As I stared into the fire after offering libation I could feel a soft presence beside me.

She doesn't appear child like to me. One of Her most common kennings is "child bride". I often bristle when I hear it as She may have been young when She married but She didn't stay that way. Perhaps She senses this bias in me, and so She appears as a young woman with unbound hair.

The first thing I felt was an insistence on not ignoring or erasing Her connections to those She loves. As much as the drive for independence in me wants to do this thing, She does not wish it. She loves her family and takes pride in Her care of them and even the labels that connect Her to them. Wife is not said with a sneer the way it sometimes is among radical feminists. The word holds deep emotion, connection, and reverence for Her.

I started to hear some other words She felt strongly about.

Hearthfire

Endurance

Priestess at the Cauldron

Perseverence

Home Family Safety

Love

Committment

Doing what is necessary or needed

And then She tried to teach me a lesson, to help me get passed the instinctive flinch I had for the labels others ascribed to Her.

The rest is from the journal entry I wrote while in front of the fire:

"People see what they want to see. No one ever really knows all of who you are. Often they take in the first impression they have of you and they don't acknowledge or "see" the person you become, evolving over years of life through happiness and pain.

Where Loki is the loophole, the escape hatch; Sigyn is the lynchpin, the link that holds all others together. Her strength is hidden, beneath the surface. I think that is why She is misunderstood.

(I have written about our warrior focused culture before)

She is called weak because they don't understand the sacrifices made to protect those you love.

Perhaps why my mother and I didn't "see" each other. She gave up things to protect me from further harm. I never knew what her sacrifices were and I don't know what it cost her to keep that family together with all its toxicity.

I resent the kenning "child bride". She doesn't. It's simple truth. But the image others hold of Her is only that and hasn't evolved from there, the first impression.

My judgment is part of my feminist second wave training. The voice in my head that demands a more masculine sign of strength. To stand still, to stay, to resist even what we have hoped for all our lives, takes as much power as to act.

The Aesir calling to Her to abandon Him with the promise of acceptance previously withheld, like the lure of being popular in school, or getting something you have desperately craved forever. All you have to do is betray your love, your soul, your promises, your self.

So She teaches us to reject the easy road. Stay to your path. Keep your promises in the face of overwhelming temptation, not just of reward and pleasure, but of comfort and ease. She teaches us not to betray our core self just to make life easier.

This is a strength of character, a strength of heart, not just muscle."

My thoughts from today expand on these ideas further. I am reminded of all the teen movies about how a young girl sacrifices her sense of self, right and wrong, her soul sometimes, in order to win the approval of the group and become popular.

How many times have we remained silent when we saw wrong committed because of social pressure? How many times have we hidden a part of ourselves so we could be loved and accepted by our tribe? How many times have we taken the hard road and stood up for an outcast only to be outcast ourselves?

Sigyn teaches the lesson of not going along with the group. She may have been offered the acceptance and love She might have always wanted from her tribe, but in exchange She would have had to leave Loki alone in the cave and turn against Her heart's deepest values. Sacrifice Her sense of core self and all She loved for the acceptance of the group.

She said no. She chose the hard road and stood by Her husband who had become or had always been an outcast. She was the spirit of that teenage girl who stood up against the popular bullies and showed them who they really were, rather than become one of them and do the easy thing.

99% of the planet fails in this task at least once in their lives. We give in to easiness, to acceptance, to the love of a romantic partner, and in exchange a little piece of us dies from neglect and erasure.

One of the kennings that has been echoing in my mind all week is Priestess at the Cauldron.

We use fire to purify, to burn away that which is dead, old and of no more use. We also burn offerings in the fire to the Gods. If Loki is the fire, then the three stones He was bound to act as a tripod to hold aloft the cauldron, and Sigyn is the priestess stirring the chemical reaction, the Incantation Fetter.

Her work is one of transformation. To reject that which is not of true value in exchange for something of immortal value. Our soul and spiritual evolution will outlive the opinions of the tribe.