More Thoughts on Victory

I have learned that when it comes to victory, we have a right to revel in it, to take it in, to savor it, to let it nourish us. We have a duty to let its heill recharge our batteries, wash out the diminishments of our defeats, and to bring healing to our hearts that we may be strengthened to face the further challenges that life inevitably brings

Let victory nourish you. Let it fill your being and allow you to dance again. And then dance, with joy! Dance with joy!

And when victory has filled your being, let its strength build you up and fortify you, so that you may be strong to face the future.

Sigrblot

I just did a Sigrblot to thank the Holy Powers for this victory they have yielded us. A power of wholemaking is moving through this land, making way for healing, and growth, and change.

I don't think I understood the entire idea of a Sigrblot until now. I don't think I ever understood Wunjo until right now. I don't think I knew what the big deal about victory was.

I think that's the case because in my life-time, at a national level, there really haven't been any victories worth celebrating. Nothing like this.

I am of the generation that came after JFK and MLK had been destroyed.

But today, both Martin Luther King, Jr., and Gene Roddenberry, two of our most important prophets in the land, are happy. A great divide has been crossed. I pray that we shall live up to its potential. I pray that our own deeds may prove as great as this moment in time.

I am ecstatic beyond belief. I think I actually believe in the future again. I actually believe there is hope.

And for that, I am very, very grateful to our Gods who reward Noble, Honorable Struggle eventually with Hope. Great Heill have we been given. May we use it and invest it for our future, and the future of our children, that King and Roddenberry's visions may become a reality. That "IDIC", as the Vulcans call it, Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations may become the scintillating reality behind a program of unity-in-diversity.

I looked at Delling's first rays this morning, and felt that a new day was dawning for our people, and the world, and it felt good.

Thank the Gods!

Sigr!

It is a windy night in Tovangar. You can feel All-Father moving through the trees and around the hills. There is change in the air. The Father of Wisdom is bringing his mighty force of wod to shake things up and reintroduce a complacent population to a dynamic universe, a universe where we have a chance to stand behind progressive forces, and become a part of evolution, rather than standing in evolution's way.

Tonight, the Father of Wisdom is also the Father of Victory. We have finally been given a victory! It has been a long time in coming, and finally it has come. Tonight Freyr can be proud that a people unjustly deported, enslaved, and imported here against their will has not only gained its freedom, but full enfranchisement, as an African-American becomes the President of the United States. This is a historic occasion, and it is a victory for all peoples who seek progress, who seek the Wisdom of the Father, who says that Sá einn veit er víða ratar ok hefr fjölð of farit, "He alone knows who has travelled widely and has experienced a lot (literally, has had many journeys)" (Havamal 18). All-Father wants us to seek knowledge beyond our own customs, and to make contact with others, that we might become more wise. In The King's Mirror, a treatise written by a Norwegian convert in the 1250's whose work largely reflects the values and traditions of his own native culture (except where they explicitly conflict with his religion of conversion), the Father tells the son to make sure he has "studied foreign customs as much as you like. Keep all that you see in careful memory, the evil with the good; remember evil practices as a warning, and the good customs as useful to yourself and to others who may wish to learn from you. " The Son says, "I would not venture to seek employment at court before I had observed the customs of other men." The Father says, "I regard no man perfect in knowledge unless he has thoroughly learned and mastered the customs of the place where he is sojourning." We are not meant to be insular, but to learn from all men, for we are all one humanity, we all descend from Ask and Embla, and that message has become very clear tonight.

Sigfather, Father of Victory,
May your Wisdom guide our Nation
And our World to Greater Victories.
Victories of Progress, Peace, and Prosperity.
Victories of Hope and Freedom.

All-Father, we understand
That others around us see you differently
Through the ideas of their special books
And some of them do not recognize your Holy Family,
Your Wife, Beloved Mother Earth, or the Holy Lesser Gods,
The Elves. But Nevertheless, High One, we are all
In our own way
Seeking your wisdom.
May that wisdom bring us together
On the path of evolution
And never divide us,
For we know who, lying bound, with snake tied above,
Is the Father of Strife, and we follow Your example,
Not his.

Sigfather, continue to grant us victories.
Oh, our souls have needed them!
How low we have sunk, how much we have forgotten
That "hope" is a Teutonic word!
Feed our wells of hope, Truth-Getter, Sanngetall,
Loyal To Reality, Saðr,
That we may learn the path
To Evolution,
To Self-Overcoming,
To Wisdom itself!

Grimnir, Tester of Kings,
Keep our leaders just and hospitable,
Charitable and strong,
Ready to make friends,
But as fierce to foes as frithful to friends,
That our fields, so lately harrowed and burnt,
May know good seasons and fruit again.
This we pray. Heill!

I do not say that the Gods endorse a given candidate or leader. If they do, that is for them to decide, and not for a mere mortal to pronounce. I am not, after all, Sarah Palin, and do not have her incredible training as a volva to be able to pronounce the Gods' Will.

But I do know that the Gods stand for certain values, and that Change that brings Hope, Wisdom, and Healing to the Folk is something the Gods can endorse, and they shall Test the leaders of those Folk to see if they live up to their true mandate and values.

Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich are not going to be our President, men who would more wholesomely represent American values, and this is a loss. But a healing has happened tonight that is undeniable, and Woden's winds of change are sweeping the nation. May we as a folk be up to the task of living up to their dynamic, evolutionary forces of wod. Heill!