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The #DoMagick Challenge Day 22
Ingwaz (Wikimedia Commons)
Today I did galdr with Ingwaz.
Worked with earplugs again today. They were fairly effective at helping me block out the outside world and concentrating fully on the work tonight.
A note: I know that the #DoMagick Challenge was to take place over the course of December, however, due to obligations to my family, Kindred, and getting hit for overtime at my job, I have been playing catch-up with my sleep. So I will be finishing up the Challenge’s 30 days, just not on the same timetable as all the other folks.
In the first round of galdr I experienced sex. The generations that grew from roots rooted in sex, then back, farther and farther back until it was no longer sex I was experiencing, but cell division. It was going from what was familiar to the unfamiliar, from this generation and humanity on back through the lines until our beginning. It was…odd. Good, but odd. I do not have words to adequately describe what going back in time and experiencing each stage of life was like, but suffice to say it was all-connective between ourselves and every thing once you go back far enough.
In the second round of galdr I was in a field. Cows, or what were near to them, I think they could have been aurochs, were lazing in it. This was just a feeling of utter peace. No predators, no worry, no nothing but lazing in a field and relaxing. When I began the next part of the galdr, they were being guided about the field. They were being herded or moved around with. Their waste fed the ground as they shredded the earth with their hooves, they ate the grasses, great big stalking things not like what we’re used to with these manicured lawns. These were grasses. They were wild. As they were eaten many shed their seeds and spread, and the aurochs helped them along to propagate the next generation. The last part of the galdr was a huge shift. Suddenly I was in a wholly different field, different grasses. Smaller grasses, great furrows in the ground over which grew plants and grasses. I saw a red flower with a black center, and heard from far off someone singing Flander’s Field. The song and scene faded as I finished galdring.
In the last round of galdr I was in a special wood-roofed hut, the scent of blood all around. The auroch’s neck was red, its body wedged into a pair of wooden beams formed into an X, tied tight to it. My hand was covered in its blood, a long knife in my hand as I held it so it would not fall. Then, the next galdr began and I and some others were butchering it in the hut, placing its parts onto wooden slats that were taken from us. In the last galdr, there was a vessel of blood that had been beneath it taken, and its blood was sprinkled on a fire, on the people, on the Gods, which were present in the poles. As I finished the galdr, it seemed to echo through me, and life was sprinkled on the field, the fire, the people, the Gods. The land would be fertile. I could see it. The people would be too. The Gods were pleased. Then, I opened my eyes, and took deep breaths as I settled back into now-time.
I did my prayers of thanks to Rúnatýr and the Runevaettir. I cleansed with the candle and prayed prayers of thanks to the Eldest Ancestor.
Link to the Daily Ritual for the Challenge.
#DoMagick
A Small Offering
I could hear the crows calling
The small cage was empty
The suet was all gone and the birds were hungry
So I laid out another offering
Peanuts for good growth and warmth in winter
A small offering that would save lives
Something shifted as I put the offering in
Shut the cage firmly and checked how it hung
It was acceptance
I hear you, landvaettir
For Nerthus
Prayer 1
Hail Holy Vanir of Fertile Fields
Whose Cart carries blessed seed and soil
to whoever’s home it visits
Hail Holy Vanir of Fertile Fields
Whose Bounty bring virility to Vanaheim
shared selflessly with kith and kin
Hail Holy Vanir of Fertile Fields
Whose Hands have graced our gardens
through Your reach, the roots grow deep
Hail Holy Vanir of Fertile Fields
Whose Body rides upon the roads;
Your veiled visage a holy Mystery
Hail Holy Vanir of Fertile Fields
Whose Ways wend to beauty and blessings,
let all live with You in good Gebo
Prayer 2
The loamy earth that welcomes the seed
The black soil that bursts with life
The tree who overgrows the bones
The ground who eats the bodies
The inundated ground that bears the rice
The sandy ground that bears the spears
The grove where the deer mate
The fields where their young are born
The ever-breathing forests
The ever-teeming swamps
The ever-eating earth
The ever-giving earth
All these things You are
Hail to you, O Nerthus!
Prayer 3
They sank down into the waters
Held down by iron grips
A sacrifice for seeing Your holy Face
They sank down into the bog
Their blood reddening the waters
A sacrifice for keeping the community clean
They were offered to You
O Holy Nerthus
That the ways between us
May be kept well
Prayers for Gefjon
Inspired by Galina Krasskova’s Agon dedicated to Gefjon, I wrote these two poems.
A Hailing Prayer to Gefjon
Hail to Gefjon, Far-seeing Goddess!
Hail to Gefjon, Who knows Her own Worth!
Hail to Gefjon, Who shapes liche and hame!
Hail to Gefjon, Who drives hard Her Oxen!
Hail to Gefjon, Who plowed and claimed Zealand!
Hail to Gefjon, Who claims Her own pleasure!
Hail to Gefjon, whose halls house the virgins!
Hail to Gefjon, Ásynja!
Hail to Gefjon, Mother of Jotnar!
Hail to Gefjon, Whose Consort is Skjöldr!
Hail to Gefjon, Whose Plow is Mighty!
Hail to Gefjon, Whose Courses are Swift!
Hail to Gefjon, Whose Lands are Fertile!
Hail to Gefjon, Whose Ways are Wise!
Land-finding Prayer to Gefjon
We seek, we seek land of our own
Growing green and good
We ask Gefjon to lend us your aid
So we may settle soon!
We ask for land for orchards
We ask for land for grain
We ask for land for goat, hive, and lamb
Whose harvests shall be great!
We seek, we seek a place to build
A hof to call our own
Where we can raise a horn to You
Within our hallowed home!
Dancing
The road rushes past
My cigar glows in my hand
The rainvaettir come down, a billion upon billion rattling dancers
The road, the car, all full of the sound of Their feet
The road rushes past and I see it
The first lightning bolt of the season here
Arc through the sky, behind the clouds
A silhouetted dancer
Whose drumming partner pounds and the sky shakes
Tendrils of smoke out the window and up to you all
The Thunderbird People
The rainvaettir
The stormvaettir
The Jotuns of storms
The Spirit of Storms
Odin
Thor
I call to you and say your names as Midgard fills with stomps with billions of feet
As the skies split with the fury of dancers and beating of wings
As the wind shakes and the clouds let loose the crowds
As the drumming thunderers crash and clash
The Worlds are alive and here
The Worlds are alive and there
and I am thankful to bear witness
Coffee with the Ancestors and Gods
Something I have not done in a very long time is sat down to coffee with my Ancestors and Gods. I did it tonight/this morning, after taking care of the offerings and laying out fresh ones otherwise, all water, except for the stick of incense I left at the altars for the Ancestors, for the Dead and for the Gods.
I had two stools that belonged to people who are family to me, gifted to me before they took off for California. One stool holds a Native American head carved into an arm-sized log that I give offerings to as representative of some of the Native Ancestors in the ways I have been brought into. A while back I had used the other stool as part of an Ancestor elevation working, but it has sat in a corner since. Tonight, I brought up some coffee my wife had brewed earlier in the day. At first, I was going to sit on the floor at the Ancestor altar. I couldn’t see many of Them from down there, and besides, They wanted to see me too. So I dusted off the old stool, and sat at the Ancestor altar, lighting the candles in Ask and Embla’s tree candle-holders.
At first it was just…quiet, meditative even, serving Them coffee then myself. I usually drink my coffee with non-dairy sweetener like Coffee Mate or something like that, but it didn’t seem right in this context. So, I sat and drank my black coffee, and talked with the Ancestors about the week I’d been having, thanking Them for Their support, that kind of thing. Mostly it was quiet, just being in one another’s Presence. When it was over, and I thanked Them for coffee with me, I blew out the candles, and later lit some incense. I walked away from Their altar with a sense of peace and being cared for.
My experience with the Gods was similar, but even more silence, being quite brief with my end of talking, mostly thanking Them for Their Presence and blessings on my family, and helping me through the last week. It was mostly quiet, and considering the Work I’ve been doing for Them of late, I was okay with that. I left Their altar, after lighting incense for Them, with a sense of peace, but it…was deep. More than a sense of peace, really. A sense of rightness, even with all the challenges I and my family are facing right now.
I got the message to clean my cups out after each time with the Ancestors then Gods, and returned the cup to the altar, my cup’s holder facing me, and Theirs to Them. It looks like both sets of Holy Powers want this to be a more regular thing, so here’s a cup to a new tradition I’ll be keeping. Thanks for the inspiration from a while back, Jim. It proved a powerful, simple connection, one that I really needed.
