100 Years

100 years since the signing of the Armistice.

100 years of silence and bells.

100 years since the end of World War 1.

The years that made our world what it is. The years that changed so much, that shaped so much. How to approach such a day?

With solemnity. With gratitude. With honoring. With remembering.

To the Warrior and Military Dead who sacrificed all they had to give.

To the Warriors and Military personnel who gave all they had to give.

To the families who never saw their loved ones again.

To the families that did.

To the lands that still bear countless scars of trenches and powder, artillery and countless bullets and the blood of all the Dead.

100 years and so many lives have passed that a great forgetting is coming over the nations.

We honor in remembering. In remembering the Dead live.

78. Cattle die, | and kinsmen die,
And so one dies one’s self;
One thing now | that never dies,
The fame of a dead man’s deeds.

Havamol, translated by Henry Adam Bellows

Some resources:

Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History: Blueprint for Armgageddon

Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI

BBC Four: The First World War

BBC 26 Part Documentary on World War 1

Odin Project: Day 8

Give gifts in good measure | sticks to flame,

Love for love and friendship true;

Power is found | in truth and work

Wherever your Wyrd is woven

 

Listen well when | wisdom is found

Seek with ceaseless searching,

Reckon mercy | and wrath

measure well each choice

 

Speak what must be | spoken in the moment

And silence when it must be kept;

Wisdom oft is heard | with an opening

And known when it is said

Odin Project: Day 1

Inspired by Galina Krasskova, I will also be devoting the month of November to writing to the Allfather each day.

This first piece is written after the style of the Havamal and details an exchange when He brought me to Him.

Upon the mountain | a challenge given

Plucked the eye freely offered

Orb formed of Your flesh | pressed firmly deep

Waking the wolf within