Also Available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, and more! Licensed Shinto Priestess of the Konko Faith, Olivia Kimoto, calls in from Japan to talk about religion, spirits, and Shinto practice. https://www.livingwithkami.com/ — Time Stamps 00:00:40 Introduction 00:01:25 Opening Prayer 00:03:00 Welcome 00:11:00 Interview 01:58:00 Closing — Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/around-grandfather-fire/messageSuggest […]
AGF 112 – The Kami Bring Us Together
spirit work
Patreon Poem/Prayer/Song 76: For Máni
If you want to submit a request for a prayer, poem, or song to be written to you privately or to be posted on this blog or my Patreon for a God, Ancestor, or spirit, sign up for the Ansuz and above level here on my Patreon.
This request was made by Cunnian for Máni.
Oh blessed, beautiful, dancing God
Whose gray shirt gleams in the night
Hands that caress the shores and waters
Coursing the wax and wane of magic and megin
Hard-rider from Hati’s maw
Whose trails trace the path of reckoning
Graces the sky with His cargo
Crossing the clouds with the burden of His horses
Oh God Who is desired
Whose Face is sought with passion
By mortal and mána bjarnar
Shine and show love to those who are longing
Pale prophecy-shower
Whose wandering reveals wealth and wisdoms’ ways
Through the course of Your crossing
We schedule when to sew, strike, and seek
Oh dark and shining God
Son of Mundilfari and Brother of Sól
We seek You in moonlight and myrkr
To honor in sacrifice and song
Holy Máni
AGF 110 – Answering Hard Questions
Also Available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, and more! Trigger warning on this episode. Dealing with your family, both the current family and the Ancestors, can be very challenging. We answer two listener questions about these topics. Family who are fully aware of pagan beliefs but get offended if something is ever […]
AGF 110 – Answering Hard Questions
AGF 109 – Witchcraft Isn’t Safe, Nor Should It Be
Also Available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, and more! Cat Heath aka Seo Helrune is an author, blogger, Heathen and Witch who does weird, often ill-advised experiments with historical accounts of magic. Author of Essays From the Crossroads and Elves, Witches & Gods, and her blog where themes include filling in the […]
AGF 109 – Witchcraft Isn’t Safe, Nor Should It Be
Reflections on Norfolk Southern
We can clearly see a chain of causality between the decision of the Trump administration to gut Obama-era safety measures that were themselves watered down and then never reinstated by the Biden administration while stopping a strike in which these very concerns were raised.
It is not conspiratorial thinking to look at all of this and think “Someone is benefiting from this!”
It is a natural outgrowth of profit at any cost. Safety measures and routine maintenance are routinely ignored or slashed to the barest minimum so profit soars. Norfolk Southern has made money in the billions of dollars in profit, a feat that most people will never get within a fraction of inside of their own lifetime, or indeed, in several lifetimes. This is intergenerational warfare by the worst actors in our human communities. These communities, mind you, most of these people will never visit, and if they do, will give the thinnest of lip service to.
This is the poisoning and provisioning, the colonization of the earth, sea, sky, and all that lies beneath them for the sake of numbers going up in someone’s portfolio. When the philosophical question of “To what end?” is asked, then folks look, wild-eyed, as though the person in question has proposed the end of the world. Which, in effect, is precisely what is being instigated by such questions. It puts to question that such a paradigm has any right to exist. That its reach is so devastating, so powerful, so crushing, that it has the ability to outright kill the ability of the land, the sea, and the sky to support life, and all in service to something so banal as to make someone’s stock prices rise, someone makes a little bit more money.
When the question “To what end?” is asked, it holds “Why?” within it.
Why are we working so damned hard when we have the ability to automate so much labor? Why are we working harder than generations before us and seeing none of the benefits? Why are we unable to afford food, clothing, shelter, the very basics that allow life to be lived, and further, the things that make life worth living? Why is healthcare, comprehensively including physical, mental, dental, eye, and any other aspect that affects our wellbeing, paywalled when we have the technology and means to provide it?
When these questions are interrogated it ends with the grim determination that the system has been uniquely arranged so a few benefit while the massive amounts of humanity have to work to afford to put food in their mouths, clothes on their backs, shelter over their heads, and beds to sleep on. It speaks directly to the inherent injustice in a system that requires everything of a person and gives just enough to keep them alive, at least, to a certain point. It points to the arrangement of white supremacist ideology as a hoodwink to use those deemed white to keep the other people in line, lest they unite and fight the systems together. It points to the arrangement of antisemitism, transphobia, homophobia, and others forms of extreme hate in this same bargain. You cannot ask why the system exists if you’re actively killing would-be allies because your inculcated ideology demands it. You cannot ask why when you have never been taught how to ask the very question of “Why?”
There is no good point to capitalism. There is no good point to the rampant destruction of nature, and us, who are part of it. There is no good to be had here when the result is our waters are unfit to drink or swim in, when our air is choked, when our lands are poisoned and cannot bear animals, insects, or plants. Capitalism itself is at odds with our future.
So, we do what we can, even as this system rages around us in its death throes working to be something better. To be better Ancestors. To live better with Jörð. To live well with our loved ones, our kin, our clan, our tribes, our communities, our descendants, and leave something better than we started with. We do what we are able, as we can, where we can. We live our best in goood Gebo with one another, with the Ginnreginn, and do our best tomorrow. Take hope from Ragnarök. Yggdrasil burns, yes, and yet, Líf and Lífþrasir emerge in life. The Ginnreginn survive and thrive after the Fire. The Worlds live on. Another, better cycle is possible. We may make it so. Let us weave and grow this new pattern in Urðr together with our Ginnreginn, and with each other.
Patreon Topic 71: On Connecting With Wolf Parts
“What is it like connecting with a wolf pelt or other wolf parts?”
If you want to submit a topic you would like me to write on for this blog or my Patreon, sign up for the Ansuz level or above here on my Patreon. From Maleck comes this topic:
“What is it like connecting with a wolf pelt or other wolf parts?”
When I first bought my wolf pelt from Lupa, whose stores are on Etsy and Storenvy, I had to let it air out. I had to give it time to breathe I would be able to don it. When I finally did, it was like slipping on my own skin and fur. When I was able to ritually connect with it, it felt like a completion, a marriage of what was inside and outside. It felt like coming home. Home to myself, home to us.
I still get that feeling when I handle my wolf skin. I carry that feeling of connection whether it is on me, lying on my partner, or in my room. There is a feeling of weight in handing it to another person because they are handling a one of my souls.
The feeling of connecting with my wolf pelt in ritual is generally a full sensory one. The feeling of the skins contacting each other, of skin on skin and a kind of overlapping feeling in my souls. I would frequently pull the head down over my eyes so I would be looking through the wolf eyes, and there was that feeling of us that would come over me much stronger than if I left his head atop mine. Smells and sounds would strengthen sometimes, and sometimes they would muffle. Tastes might be sharper or duller depending on what it is I’m munching on. Sometimes, particularly if engaging in something involving hamfara (faring forth in hamr) I might feel myself go forth as a large wolf. Otherwise, I might feel like I am going forth as a werewolf, or úlfheðinn.
Connecting with a wolf pelt can be quite a powerful experience for other folks as well. Particularly if a person has never seen a wolf up close, it can be shocking just how big a wolf can be. My wolf is about 6′ from the tip of his nose to the end of his tail. When folks have asked permission in places like Ann Arbor Pagan Pride, ConVocation, or Michigan Paganfest, them touching and being able to pet the pelt can be a powerful experience. When folks touch, paw at, or pet my pelt without my permission (particularly if I am wearing it) it feels like a violation, often uncomfortable and invasive.
Because I do not wear the pelt for only aesthetic purposes, I do not relate to it as a mere costume. It is a soul, one of my own, and its own as well. It is the skin of a living being and that living being connected with me in a deep manner, becoming part of my (to borrow a term from Winifred Hodge Rose) my ‘soullar system’ or Soul Matrix. It also acts as a kind of connection point, doorway, or den, from which contact wolf and wolf-aligned Ginnreginn, that is Gods, Ancestors, and vaettir, may work through. When folks have held the pelt it has produced powerful connections. I have seen some folks brought to tears in this, because the connection was profound, visceral, and needed.
With the number of rituals, gatherings, and such I have brought the pelt to, and the nature of our connection, the connection I have with it is powerful and profound. My connection with wolf parts in general is not as well-developed nor intimate, as there is not the body-on/with-body and hamr-to/with-hamr connection I carry with the wolf pelt. However, there is still quite powerful and profound connections to be found here. Sometimes I work with teeth as connection to wolf Ginnreginn, and others as taufr (physical objects that are enchanted) in their own right. A lot of wolf parts, such as the phalanges and teeth, tend to be small and easy to carry, making it easier to pass on to others. I am slowly assembling a wolf bone divination kit, and having different parts is key to producing useful answers. So far, the items that are going into this divination system have obvious meaning, such as a tooth being something used to rip, tear, shred, destroy, and to eat, carrying a lot of this meaning into the divination work. I am sure as time goes on more meanings will make themselves apparent, particularly if I collect more kinds of teeth, or the need for various parts comes forward.
Whether a single tooth, a phalange, or a whole pelt, these parts of wolves provide points of connection to Wolf Ginreginn, the Wolf Gods, Ancestors, and vaettir. They provide connection to úlfheðnar, and various folks who were seen or understood as being and/or existing between human and wolf. They serve as connection points that I carry with me for personal spiritwork and for connections with others, and for connecting others to Them in kind. Sometimes, connecting with wolf parts provides connections between all of us. For me, all these ways hit me in my souls that provides a kind of feeling most often of family, pack, tribe, of being and belonging. When I work with them in spellwork and spiritwork, there is a feeling of being wholly involved.
AGF 108 – Lauren Crow, the Steer of the Troth
Also Available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, and more! Warning: we cover a few heavy topics this episode Lauren Crow is the President and CEO (Steer) of The Troth, the oldest, largest and only woman-lead international organization for inclusive Heathenry, and Gythia of the Black Beard Kindred of Central Arkansas. In addition, […]
AGF 108 – Lauren Crow, the Steer of the Troth
Patreon Poem/Prayer/Song 72: For The Saginaw River
If you want to submit a request for a prayer, poem, or song to be written to you privately or to be posted on this blog or my Patreon for a God, Ancestor, or spirit, sign up for the Ansuz and above level here on my Patreon.
This request was made by Maleck for The Saginaw River.
Hail to the Sagniaw River
Who the Alongquin peoples call Sagenog, the place of the outlet
Who I call Vatnausastaðr, the place where the water flows
May Your waters ever shine
May Your banks ever hold
May Your path ever be clear
Fed by the Tittabawasee and the Shiawassee rivers
Who feeds the mighty Lake Huron in turn
May You ever flow, beautiful river
You, Who has ever seen boats up and down Your length
You, Who have carried canoe, steamer, and industrial ships
You, Who have carried generations on generations of fish
Hail to You, O Blessed One
Whose Waters quench, transport, cleanse, and bless
Whose Waters are holy and full of good megin
Mighty Goddess, may we live in good Gebo
Beginning the Year of Aun
My Heathen and Heathen-adjacent, animist, and various polytheist folks in my community met for the Year of Aun on January 7th. We feasted as a community. Then, we lit a Sacred Fire. I started with flint and steel on charcloth, and put the cloth in gathered fluff from cattails that grew on my land. We started the fire with cardboard, and added wood another of our members brought. The Fire didn’t come to light until my friend Storm, who is a Sister of mine that I have had the pleasure of starting and tending many of these Sacred Fires with over courses of a weekend, came near. Everything caught in a few moments.
We made offerings of herbs, starting with tobacco since we live in Michigan, and then followed with many of the Nine Sacred Herbs. I explained the Year of Aun again then so we were grounded in the purpose of the rite.
We cleansed with the Fire. Since many could not approach the Fire I took Fire to them and cleansed them.
Josie had made Aun out of bread. We each took a piece, tearing apart Aun, and gave him and his wrongs to the fire, and dedicated ourselves to becoming good Ancestors. We each dedicated, in some way, to bringing balance to our lives, our communities, and to Jörð. When we were finished here, we sang, prompted by our friend Raven, a wordless tune that we all caught up and was drummed with. Folks took turns making declarations, prayers, and the like. When were finished we thanked Aun for his example, reaffirmed our dedication to being better Ancestors, and made offerings to the gathered Ginnreginn (Gods, Ancestors, and vaettir), including the Sacred Fire.
It is a simple and good start to getting the wheel of this year turning, and I look forward to this Fire being carried by each of us, through all our celebrations, through the coming year. Already I am seeing folks begin to come back into balance with Jörð and the various Ginnreginn, with our own communities, and ourselves. Some of these transitions are hard, deeply painful, and even so, they are worth it. May each of us carry that Sacred Fire and the dedication to be the best Ancestors we can through this Aun Year, and the years to come. Hail to all who light their Sacred Fires, to all those who seek to address the damages of Aun, and to rebalance themselves with the Ginnreginn and one another.
Ves þú heil!
A Story of Loss, Meaning, and Mutual Aid
TW: Loss of a pet, grief, working with a body, bodily functions
I don’t kid when I tell folks mutual aid can be some of the most frustrating and inconvenient things. A case in point:
Sometimes mutual aid is helping your neighbors bury their dog when you are sick as hell.
A week before and during the week of Thanksgiving I was sick with the flu. I’ve never been that sick with the flu before, save one time when I was a kid and was so bad off with the flu I was hallucinating. I took those two weeks off from work after having to visit the urgent care multiple times, and sometime after this story’s occurence, I ended up in the ER getting seen. It was a rough illness.
This takes place about halfway through this illness. I am knocked completely out because this flu has kicked my ass up one side and down the other. I get woken up by my partner, Streaking Fate. She tells me that our neighbor’s dog, about an eight month old black pitty mix puppy, got hit by a car. There is a car stopped that is just starting to pull away from our neighbor’s driveway. I found out later they did the right thing and spoke with our neighbor about what happened, and apologized. So, having just been woken up out of a dead sleep with a flu bug that has completely leveled my ass, adrenaline starts pumping. I hauled over to check after throwing on some clothes, hoodie, leather gloves, and my winter coat. At this point I had no idea if the dog was alive, suffering, or not, so I brought some things along in case I could help their dog out to either get to the hospital or end its suffering.
First, I check on the dog, who is lying on the side of the street outside their driveway. The poor boy was a puppy, a pitty mix if memory serves, and very loving. A bit hyper, doofy, and really enjoyed breaking the rules and running around our yard, but generally a harmless pupper. All of the light is out of his eyes, and he is collapsed on the street, head to the side. I check him, speak his name a few times, and check his breathing and pulse. His eyes are glazed. There is nothing I can do for him.
I then check on my neighbors. They are a man and a woman about my age, not married yet though from what I gather they are working on that. I can see that she’s absolutely crushed, not only for herself, but for her boys and especially her partner, who loves that dog. I hug her for awhile and let her cry. Then, I ask her if there is anything I can do for her. She’s beside herself, and cannot bear to see her dog. I look to my partner who is sitting with their dog’s body. I know what I should do. I ask her if she wants me to take him, get him away from the street, and get him cleaned up in my garage. She agrees, I give her my number, and she lets me go to take care of him so she can break the news to her boys.
I come back and the poor guy has involuntarily vomited. Sometimes when we die, this happens. Sometimes we vomit, sometimes we shit,or both, because the muscles move in such a way on death that evacuation just occurs. So, we grab a tarp from my garage, and carefully put him on it, and bring him up to the garage as carefully as we can. His size belies how damned heavy he is. We get him in and put him on a large foldable clean plastic table.
We make prayers to our Gods of the Dead, to Anpu, to Hela, to Óðinn, and others. We make prayers to our Gods that are Wolves, Dogs, and other canids, including Anpu and Fenrisúlfr, and divine animals, including Hela’s hound Garmr, and Óðinn’s wolves Geri and Freki, among others. Then, after some cleansing breaths, we get to work on cleaning him.
He has pits of asphalt from the impact of the road, scratches, and bits of blood here and there. We clean out the pits and wipe away the blood on him with warm, wet terry cloths. Probably the hardest thing to work with is the vomit, because while we were bringing him inside, and I hauled him onto the table, his stomach continued to empty. To make him presentable for our neighbors, we keep cleaning him all over and especially inside his mouth. We use most of our terry towels over the course of an hour to an hour and a half. As we work we whisper prayers, and we speak with him. We tell him what a good boy he is and was, and how much his people will miss him, and how much love they have for him. We speak with the Dead, cleaning him, so his Daddy doesn’t have to see him in the state we did. Over time the grime and grit, the blood, vomit, and all the rest come up. I take one of the white cloths that served as an altar cloth, and bring it outside. Streaking Fate puts it beneath him while I lift him up, and we wrap him in it, and wait for his Dad to come over.
It takes him some time to get home, to see his family, and to talk and process things. He calls, tells me he will be over soon. I ask if he needs anything to eat or drink. He can’t, so I just tell him to come over when he is ready to. When he comes over to the garage I can see him barely contain his emotions. I hug him, and can tell he’s a man not used to this, but I am, and I give him a soft squeeze on his shoulder and let him know his grief is welcome. I can see it in his eyes. As much as this puppy was loved by his family, this dog was his boy. He was a member of the family. He speaks to him as a son. For a few moments I watch him, watch as he drapes his hands over the coal-black fur in the most gentle way over his boy, and pet him, whispering words. I tell him to take as much time as he needs, and if he needs to warm up to come into the house. We leave him.
I take a seat in one of the chairs we have upstairs, and breathe long and hard, coughing hard because the flu is trying to make me expel my lungs. I blow my nose on one of my many handkerchiefs (thank you, Grandpa, they’ve definitely come in handy), and clean my hands with soap and water. A while later he knocks on the door from the garage. When my neighbor comes in he lets me know he needs to get some things from his home and to bring his truck around to take his puppy home. He asks if he can leave his boy with us for an hour or so, in order to get some things ready. He mentions wanting to bury him that evening, asking his boys to help him. Given what I saw of him and his family, I knew how hard that would be for them. I felt prompted by my heart and a small push by Óðinn to offer to help him bury his puppy.
He looks a mix of relieved and pained, and says he appreciates that and takes off. I rest with my partner for a while, and we get some dinner. A while later my neighbor gives me a call and it turns out he’s already made progress on his puppy’s grave in the backyard where he liked to be. He asks me for help in loading him into his truck bed. We only have one shovel, and I feel like I need to see this through. So, I grab my coats, gear up again, and help him put his puppy into the bed of his truck. Then, I get my shovel, and head over with him. The truck is warm, real warm, and he parks it with the high beams shining so we can see what we are doing. When we get out the cold kind of feels like it is trying to steal your breath.
We work together for about an hour to finish up the grave. We take turns with the older of his sons; the younger could not bear to be there. His partner watches but lets us work. He asks if I think the hole is deep enough. Considering I am around 5’7″ and having trouble getting into and out of it now, I say yes. So he, his son, and I bring his puppy to rest in our blanket and with his favorite blanket and a toy. Tears are stinging all of our eyes in the cold, but I blink them back, and breathe slow and deep. I get control. This is their time to grieve. I can process later. His Dad hops down into the grave, and asks to put him down into it himself.
I whisper some prayers into his puppy’s ear as I set him down into his Dad’s arms. The other two are openly crying. My neighbor is burying his face into his boy’s fur, speaking to him and finally, when he is ready, puts him down in the mound. I offer him my hand and he comes out of the grave. Then he says a prayer to his puppy, and offers space for the other two. When they say they’re good, we begin to bury him. It is quick work, between three guys shaping and digging with the cold spurring us on. We work it flat as we go, and finally, mound up the grave. When we are all finished he offers to drive me home.
He looks to me, and for another of the countless times that night, says thank you to me. I let him know that this what I was taught neighbors do for each other. This is what my parents taught me, and it is what my religion teaches me to do. When we get out of the car he shakes my hand and we embrace, and he tells me that if I ever need anything to let him know. I let him go and let him know if he ever needs anything I am here too.
This is what hospitality and mutual aid can look like. Sometimes it is sharing food. Sometimes it is defending your community from a common foe. Sometimes it is showing up to a protest or counterprotesting. Sometimes it is showing up when you are woken up from a deep sleep, dead on your feet from a flu, to help your neighbors on the worst day of their lives and bury a loved one. It may not be easy work but I can tell you, from the spirit of my neighbor’s dog to my neighbors themselves, it is good and sacred work. I didn’t show up in my peak condition. I showed up the best I was able. Really, in hospitality and mutual aid, that is all any of us can ask of ourselves or each other.
So, extend hospitality and mutual aid wherever you can however you are able. You may have no idea the impact just showing up can have for those who just need you to show up.
It is enough.
You are enough.
Sarenth Odinsson 