Wane Wyrds

One thing I see a lot of talk about on pagan and heathen forums is the process of communicating with the gods and spirits. I often see comments by individuals which claim they simply cannot "talk" to the gods, see spirits, or have some other sort of blockage when it comes to communicating with the divine and other spirit entities. Other times one reads outlandish claims from those who believe they are an open conduit to the gods, have special relationships with them, or claim the gods even stop by for tea and sex on occasion. In my opinion there is a fine line between sense and nonsense, and I won't focus on the latter here. The point of this post is for those who feel they simply cannot communicate with the non physical in any way. I will be honest and say that in my experience, I don't believe there is anyone outside of those with mental issues who actually cannot communicate with the divine or spiritual realms. What I see more often is simply a confusion about ...

I was recently able to purchase a kindle book for free called Knowledge from the Sacred Tree: Rune Images and Shapes of Energy by Tina Houk. I read this book and felt it deserved a review, so here we are. =) The book focuses on the Runes and their meanings, and uses the Elder Futhark for explaining the method though there is an introductory discussion that addresses the history of the other Rune systems. The book itself mainly addresses each Rune separately, and discusses its form and meaning using these shapes as the basis. I was expecting to be dissapointed by this as I often am by Rune meaning texts which simply reword the same theories and ideas we have already heard myriad times. I was pleasantly surprised by this book when I found a totally new way of looking at the Runes, that for the most part made alot of sense. This text differs in that it arranges the Runes not by traditional aetts but by groups of Runes whose general forms are interrelated. It relies on the co...

It always seems like certain times of year cause upheaval for me. This usually occurs during the change of the seasons. Fall is my favorite time of year, but I always begin it in turmoil. I suffer for a bit only to realize that the ultimate cause is trying to do too much at once. And inevitably I realize that simplification is what the true need is as life cycles throughout another span of seasons. Most people associate fall with the harvest, abundance, etc. We think of stockpiling for a long winter ahead. Yet how often do we remember that before we can fill our stocks, we must first purge them, and remove that which is nonessential. There is a clichéd idea in paganism that modern humans are out of touch with the cycles of the seasons. But is it really so? It is my belief that this turmoil that often affects us  as seasons change is simply the stifled impulse of our earthy self just hiding below the surface. Just last week I looked at my altar and cringed at the state of it....

I'll be blunt... I cannot stand the "heathen community." And by heathen community I mean the die hard recons who wish to limit all things heathen into a nice precise pile of acceptability, based on literature alone. To do so, in my opinion, is a grave logical mistake. And yes, I will tell you why... Image by Jopparn I always have been, and always will be, a student of the humanities. Art is my passion, but never simply art for art's sake. Culture and the place of art within it is what concerns me. To remove an art from it's cultural components does nothing to further it's understanding. What value does a painting have, if  it's only value is in its material? The cost of paint and canvas, the cost of labor. Someone painted it. That is all we understand. We may love its visual aspects emotionally, but without a cultural context, we cannot live a life based upon it, and derive value from this solely. The same comparison can be made in my mind to thos...

It happens to the best and the worst of us. It can have any number of common or complex causes. We are humans, and we all fail at some point or another. This is no less true in divine endeavors as it in in the mundane world. Sometimes we must fail, to learn how to be better. You might be the most powerful witch, wizard, or sorcerer on the globe. Yet inevitably the Universe will at some point disagree with that intent, and it is then that magic goes wrong. It something you rarely hear about, and I've always wondered why. You might find a thousand spells for any purpose under the sun, yet no one wants to talk about what to do when things do not go as planned. The most we ever get is tired advice such as "don't do love spells" or never manipulate another's "will." This is true in my experience in most all pagan traditions that practice some form of witchcraft or sorcery. Spells, charms, incantations, whatever you want to call them. At some point, it hap...

All these things are going through my head in the past week. They are all I can think of when trying to decide what to write for this week's PBP post. I don't even want to write about what I'm going through right now. It's painful, it's fucked up, and I've held it in for so long. But maybe I need to talk about this, to drain it from my psyche, so I can heal, finally. So maybe it is time to tell the story of how a beautiful, gifted child had a part of her broken so badly she could do nothing but forget it utterly. How two decades later, she started to remember. And how recent events reveal how badly a mind can be haunted by the horror of bullying. There was a murder last month in my old neighborhood, the only home I knew from birth to age twelve. It is all anyone wants to talk about. No matter where I turn I can't escape it, the news, the talk, the gossip and whispers. A man and a woman I knew in elementary school now sit in prison on murder charges. I woul...