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

You are remembered

You marched

You drilled

You sweat

You bled

You are remembered

You died

You grieved

You turned

You raged

You are remembered

You walk

You shiver

You recover

You submit

You are remembered

Thank you, our Military Dead.

Thank you for your courage, your dedication, and your service.

Hail to you.

You are remembered.

A Winternights’ Calling

From the First Fire

I call to You

From the Icey Birth

I call to You

From the Trees

I call to You

From ash and dust

I call to You

From ages past

I call to You

From memory’s hearth

I call to You

From the youngest lines

I call to You

From bonds of love

I call to You

From home and hearth

I call to You

From Wyrd’s ties

I call to You

Hail to the Disir!

Hail to the Väter!

Hail to the Ancestors!

Of blood and bone!

Of adoption!

Of lineage!

Of Family!

Of Clan!

Of Tribe!

Of Spirit!

Hail, Ancestors all!

When I Leave

When I leave this flesh behind

And all memory fades of me

May the world be better for

Whose futures are to be

When I journey forth unto

The Ancestors’ old home

May Midgard hold me to Its heart

Name proudly carved upon a stone

When I leave this world behind

In dust and bone and dirt

May it be said I did my best

When I walked upon the Earth

Odin Project: Day 14

Remember the fallen, | one’s own kin

In action and word they live;

Lessons learned | from lives well-lived

Carry on to child and friends

 

Remember the fallen, | the friend well-loved

Lives in memory of word and deed;

Memory woven | is like a blanket

Wrapped close in cold times

 

Remember the fallen | the names forgotten

Deeds and memories lost in time;

Better a stone | raised to nameless dead

Than their passage never marked

Loki Project Day 18

Will You remember

When I hailed my Father

I hailed You?

Will You remember

When my bones lie

Beneath the Tree

The life I led?

 

Will You remember

My words, my Work

The honor I tried to live my life by?

When this world forgets me

Will You remember me?

 

How I asked Your Wife

If I could hold the bowl

And within moment my arms shook

With its weight?

 

How I looked upon You

In the cave so tightly bound

Arms shaking with the bowl

But could not release You from Your pain?

 

How, when I was brought low

You did not burn me, despite Your righteous anger

But saw something in me I did not

And set light to a new path?

 

I pray You remember me

That the memories are fond

That my words, my Work, my path

Honored You

That I am worthy,

When the memories of my life have all but guttered

Of a single ember

In Your memory