Untitled poem

Traveled down the roots one night
to hunt my Lady Blue
Stalking her from tree to tree
frolicking in the moon

The Lady, she beckoned me close
in lovers sweet embrace
though how sweet was that act
twas not my true purpose in this place

The Amber one, she turned in two
And the pair they led me down
Down away from safety's path
To the temple by the mound

The cloudless sky turned dark just then
A powerful ancient storm
It gathered round that mighty place
For I was to be reborn

The lightning bolts, they struck down
To the circle on the ground
The land itself began to shake
With the arcane power found

The rite itself was secret bound
I dare not mutter here
The things that I was shown that night,
but now I own my fear.

Puck D. Coyote
2/28/11

Fear

This morning I woke up about an hour before my alarm was set to go off. I felt rested and alert, so I decided to get up. I noticed that I wasn't feeling quite as open energetically as I have been, so after my morning ritual of going potty, I sat down with my kala cup and did another sort of morning ritual. While I have always wanted to develop a morning practice, I have never been enough of a morning person to do it. I'd set my alarm to go off early, but when the time came to get up, I'd just hit snooze. The difference here? I wanted to do it; before, I felt obligated. I would tell myself that I SHOULD do it.

Let me tell you, don't should yourself to death. For me, the shoulds were just another vehicle for devaluing myself. I should be doing this, but I don't so I am a bad witch. The real help I got dealing with that particular complex didn't come from Feri per se, but from my exploration into Taoism. Don't fight the energy, go with it, like a reed in the stream. Wu wei, inaction, or better yet action through inaction, which I think is wei wu wei, but don't quote me on that. When you should yourself, you are trying to swim upstream.

Now I am not advocating lack of practice, or total stillness, just awareness of where you are in the moment. I look back on all the times that I beat myself up over "not doing my work" when in fact the work was doing me. Feri is more than just sitting in front of an altar and doing "the exercises," it is a living breathing practice. Although I also acknowledge had I done those exercises that maybe those times of "not doing my work" would have been less painful. Contradictory a bit I know, but hey, its Feri.

So my work this morning, which was the original point of this post, brought up a significant amount of fear that I have sitting in fetch. This morning I start a new position at my job, one that has significantly more time with the kids, of which I am very excited about. But it is also presenting quite a few challenges. It's scary, and fetch knows it. What if I can't do it? What if I lose my temper? What if I end up hating it? What if? What if? What if?

In the past, I would have had a hard time "dealing" with that fear. What I know today is that there is nothing to deal with at all. That fear is valuable, it is primal, it lets me be aware of potential pitfalls, and most importantly, it gives me power. Instead of running from it, trying to bury it, trying to hide from it because it was unpleasant, I let it be. I pulled the energy of that fear up, and used it to pound the drums of war in my heart. War you say? I thought you worked with kids? So if you don't get the analogy you have obviously never worked with kids. ;-) But seriously, yes. The heart of the Warrior that beats in my soul and doesn't back down. Fear is nothing to be afraid of, it lets us know we are alive, it lets us know we are doing something right!

I welcome my fear to give me the strength I need to do my Work.

Be Blessed my friends!

The Call of Crows

The Crow's Call reignites the

Drums that sound in my heart.

The Call to Rise Up

The Call to Charge

The Call to Devour the Dead

It is the Dark Lady's song

That calls me to strap on my sword

And march on to war

It is the Dark Lady's song

That sets my blood a boil

And stirs me to slay my enemy

The Crow's Call

The Lady's Song

My Sword is free

Fear me.

The Lady of Blue Roses

Under the roots of the sacred tree
deep in the Earth it lays
Follow the stairs that will lead you there
down to the land of blue roses.

Follow the path into the darkness,
deep in the Earth you go,
Climb down the stairs if you have no fear,
down to the land of blue roses.

Emerge in the light inside the land,
deep in the Earth you'll find,
A lush meadow of magic wonders
down in the land of blue roses.

Follow the path, don't wander far off,
if you value your mind.
Beware, for they will beckon to you,
down in the land of blue roses.

Follow the road and you'll find the mound,
found you the Court of Fae,
She waits inside on her Crystal Throne,
down in the land of blue roses.

Her hair is the moon, her smile the sun,
Amber is all she wears.
The Sacred Queen will capture your heart,
found you the Lady of Blue Roses.

I actually wrote that about 3 years ago, but just came across it on an old, inactive blog I used to have.

Call to the Lord

Thrusting Arrow

Stabbing Bone

The Lord of the Mound

climbs his throne.

He laughs aloud

It draws you in

The Wild Hunt

is about to begin

Come my Lord,

Take up your bow

Stalk your prey

While your lust grows

Come Freyr

Come to us

Come Horned Lord

Let us join Your Hunt

Stillness and Pig Muck

This morning I woke up before everyone else in the house. This isn't entirely unusual for me on the weekends, but in the past it has been a source of discomfort. I would be awake, and all by myself, what on earth was I to do? This usually consisted of trying to make myself go back to sleep for a while. When that would be unsuccessful I would usually stare at my wife until she would wake up, or turn on the TV, or play video games. Just this one simple thing, my reaction to waking up early, shows me how much I have grown. I laid in bed for a while this morning, but without the nervous energy. I didn't feel compelled to wake up my wife, I just noticed my breath and thought about my dreams with a smile on my face. I explored my mind, where are my thoughts going this morning, where am I distracted? When I had enough of that, I just got up. There is a stillness to a house where everyone else is sleeping that used to make me uncomfortable, but this morning it was peaceful. I put on some music that I do qigong to (quietly of course) and went about doing my work. First a seated meditation, then some qigong standing meditation, a few qigong movements, but then I just allowed the energy to move within me unguided. This is something we do in class from time to time, and I find it so freeing. Freestyle Tai Chi if you will. I aligned my souls, I made kala, I siezed the day.

I find myself having spiritual epiphany in the most mundane tasks as of late. It's the whole "chop wood, carry water" idea from Chinese philosophy. Yesterday for example, I helped my mother in law muck out a pig stall. So those of you who know me can attest to the fact that by nature I am a soft city boy, so needless to say this was a new experience for me. If you have never had the joy of doing this task then let me illuminate you...it is revolting. I found the smell so overpowering at points that I started to dry heave. So you may be asking yourself at this point, how do dry heaving and spiritual epiphany come together? Well, I'm glad you asked...

Sometimes this work is not fun. Sometimes, when your goal is to heal your scars and become more fully yourself, you have to wade through a lot of shit. I have had times during my work, that I forgot that I was doing it. I would be so overcome by the discomfort of my situation that the pain was all I was aware of. And let me tell you, when you are ankle deep in pig muck, it seems like a task that will never end. But what choices do we have? Can we walk away from our work? Sure, for a time, but the issues will still be there effecting you in ways that you are not conscious of. The pigs won't muck themselves. I wasn't going to allow my 68 year old mother in law to do all that hard labor herself, and there was no one else to do the work that needed to be done. Sound familiar? You can't let someone else do your Great Work for you, and no one else can do it but you anyway. The only way out is then through. You have to suck it up. My brain kept flashing to Thorn saying "I know you are scared...So what" during the Morrigan ritual at Pantheacon. I know this is gross....So what. I know this is hard, that it's painful, that you want to run away screaming...So what. It has to be done. So you keep going, you keep filling the wheelbarrow with shit, dry heaving and all, because it needs to be done. You keep going, and suddenly...the task is done. You made it through to the other side. I had such a great feeling of accomplishment when I was done. My fetch wanted to laugh and dance, because I persevered. It was the hardest, most revolting work I had ever done, and I stuck it out and finished. This has been my spiritual work. The few years afer my initiation was *really* hard. I had my Saturn returns at the same time, my life was chaos, but I have moved through it. I am stronger now, having gone through those experiences, I am more the Witch then I ever have been before. Does that mean the work is done? Of course not, but I will be more prepared for the trials next time...and maybe, just maybe...shoveling the pig shit won't be so hard the next time. But even if it is, I know I have the Warrior spirit within me to face it with my head held high...

But I will still probably bitch about it.

Be blessed my friends.

Work and Dreams

At Con I had a very profound experience that let me know it was time to return to some very important work that I had been taking a break from. I have been working with Freyr in that regard, and I have been inviting him and Odin into my dreams to help me with that work, with some really potent results. Of course in the dream they are just casual comments, but upon awakening this morning I had a huge "AH HAH!" moment. The funny thing is that this ah hah moment was something I was advice I was giving other people at Con. You can process stuff out with Talker, you can explore and process past pains to death, and that works for talker, but those scars will stay in Fetch. Fetch doesn't process, it doesn't reason, it needs to be soothed and assured. It needs the Ah hah moment to really be able to start healing and move on.

I also have had some realizations that by coming into Feri and beginning my training toward initiation so early in my career as a witch it has left me lacking in some magical areas that other initiates may take for granted. During my trance work with Freyr last night, he was trying to coax me out of my body to hunt with him, and as much as I wanted to go, that is something I have never been able to do. It's been somewhat frustrating, because full OBE astral travel has been a desire of mine since I started practicing, but have never been able to figure it out. I feel my astral body, but getting my consciousness into it and be able to move has escaped me. I tell myself that it will happen when the time is right, just like everything else, but it is frustrating nonetheless. It feeds into my still lingering inferiority complex. That is a complex that I do kala on all the time, but still clings, and that is okay. We all have those I think. But things like this, where I feel that as a witch and especially as an initiate that I "should" be able to do really make that complex twitch. But like I said in my last entry, I am a newbie initiate, and I am trying to accept on a fetch level that no one other than myself expects me to know everything. I would like to learn from other initiates, more experienced ones that I haven't worked with much, but unfortunately my current location makes that somewhat difficult.

But I breathe. I look outside at the snow on the ground, glistening while the sun melts the ice, and my heart is filled with joy. I feel more like the Witch than I have since right before and after my initiation, maybe even more than then. I am able to laugh at my unrealistic expectations on myself, most of the time anyway. I am excited for the future of my work, because I am a young witch, with years to perfect my practice. I also honor and acknowledge my strengths. I am a great energy worker and empath. I am a healer and a lover. I help heal the scars in those that are too young to be able to heal themselves. I laugh, I dance, I sing. I walk the middle road, yet dance ecstatically on both sides on occasion.

Today, even with its challenges, life is good.

Be blessed my friends.

Been feeling very connected since Con. I hadn't realized how much the Witch in me had been sleeping, especially since I had been doing energy work through the Taoist practice, but the wild, ecstatic, raw energy of the Witch is a great feeling.

I needed to let it sleep for a while, because the tools I learned in the Taoist work have let me embody the heavy energy more....comfortably I guess is the best way I can describe it. It just sits better, its more me if that makes sense. I have had powerful dreams, felt the Gods whispering to me, walked with my head held high and felt the joy of a simple breath. The best way I can describe it is to repeat that I feel like I have grown into my initiation.

In conjunction with that feeling, is the fetch understanding that I am still a newbie initiate, and that there is nothing to be ashamed of in asking more experienced initiates for advice and teaching. I don't know everything, in fact, I don't know as much as I would like, and that's okay. Initiation is a beginning, not an ending. I thought I understood that before the rite, but its like thinking you know what sex is like before you have had it. I understood the concept, but didn't have the fetch grasp of the sweaty complexity of it. And as much as I will pound that in the head of soon to be initiates, they too won't really "get it" until they experience it. The....oooooohhhhh.....Man.....after all that work and I'm just STARTING????

Yup..... And that is freaking awesome!