Fanaticism

We are taught to fear fanatics, as if our own cynicism were not as deadly, as if passion and determination and stubborn steadfastness, not to mention force at times, were not necessary to break through inertia and stagnation and achieve progress. As if thinking bold and acting audaciously did not please our Gods. As if thinking small could sustain us, as if dwelling in the remains of disappointment could nourish us. As if there could be heroism without high ideals, and without sacrifices for those high ideals. As if drive and direction were not necessary to transcend, and fully enter becoming.

I do not fear the passion nor the drive of fanatics ; I fear alone one-sidedness that is not the point of the advancing wedge of wholeness. It is lack of wholeness I fear, and many cynics lack it. It is lack of wholeness I fear, and most of the jaded perpetuate it. It is lack of wholeness I fear, and sometimes the fanatically unfanatical are more fanatical in their unwholeness than those who drive forward.

Question the standard equations, the easy formulas that could rob you of the best in life by urging emotional acquiescence to ill-considered slogans. Wholeness says, passion and well-roundedness, idealism and common sense, audacity as well as ability to roll with the punches. The undogmatic know that sometimes a taskmaster and a whip are necessary to get us off our butts, if nothing else in dialectical protest that at last activates us. And we also know, sometimes, don't tread on me, I'm evolving at my own speed (as long as that speed is not zero). Both are necessary. The fanatic has something to teach you. Something about your complacency, your slumbering potential, your surrender to defeat, even to the point of redefining defeat as the only, everyday reality. The fanatic says, rightfully so, fuck that!

Yule Offering

Out by the sands, shore-swept wash, tonight I threw five pebbles one year ago I collected by the shore. I had asked then, what offering would Njord want? What would a coin really mean? It came to me : collect several stones and live with them for a while. Let them become acquainted with my life, absorb a little of its ample flavor, witness my routine and all my struggles, and collect into themselves the lessons and boons of this exchange program. Then they might be returned to their home, the waves, with the profit or interest of what I was able to share, and glowing with that little bit of life force, restore to the waves a new spirit of giving, to keep the gift exchange alive. And in that spirit tonight, I walked to the waves' edge, and hurling my pebbles into the receding wash with great intention, gave to Njord and all the Gods, completing one cycle of countless myriads to come of the great Circle of Gifts. And it felt good and strong, and appropriate on Yule, to give back. What an honor.

Good Yule!

Good Yule! Good Yule!

I write to you beneath a blanket on the beach outside Ventura. The night is crisp, the stars are bright, the tide thrums on, its baritone thump along the shores holding, forgiving, strengthening. I roll about on the sand, ask Jord, ask Njord for healing. My heart has been sad. I look up at the Milky Way. Gods, this is a beautiful world. In every way, beyond gorgeous. Heimdall lounges on his sparkling, silver-golden spackled bridge, sipping warm mead from a horn. I am cradled between Frey and Freya's parents. I seek the old wisdom of Fjollnir, the Wise One, the All-Father. I see how far Urd's wide hand stretches, weaving meaning, deep significance, even where we see none, where we see sorrow and tragedy. It is a riddle, but beyond a riddle, it is a mystery. It doesn't always make sense to us, and yet the truer we are to our being and all the call therein, the more we will see we are taken care of. Urd is very gentle in her large, unfathomable tides, crashing, overwhelming, and uncanny as they may seem to us.

I roll about, I hold my ribs, I breathe, I shake, I sob. I do not know what or why i do, but I trust the body and spirit. I need no reasons. I am an animal, and the earth knows what to do with me. All I need do is surrender, and trust the rhythm and the gentle madness. Ah, there, I sink into soul, soul, yes, find my pattern, feel my melancholy and my luck ; O joy, were they ever different? How lucky to have the sadness we have! I am deeply sad, and I am deeply happy. This messed up world is all it should be. It is just right, even though it ought to be better, and I will participate in my own humble way in making it better. Mainly by being myself, by fruiting every capacity within me, and giving my all.

That is the spirit of Yule. Giving your all to all you love. And friends, despite your petty quarrels and your serious strivings, I hope that circle of love ripples outward to finally touch all the children of the Gods, because if it does, then your love is truly strong enough to nourish you, and may you prove worthy of it.

Gratuity. That is Yule. The pure Gift of Being. Gods who are tough on you because Gods who love you, Gods who know you are worthy of a tough and fibrous world that you can meet. And you can make enough to share. There is abundance here, even in the cold.

The cold time of year comes. The sun is shrouded in veil, as a widow in mourning. Even she must take the time to be still, and heal sorrowed times by donning the black veil and doing homage to the melancholy of existence, so in time, through this toil, to release its inner joy. So it is good in this dawn of cold and dark to hail the light and effervesce in the warmth of each other's company, giving from the heart, raising cheer, and building morale for the slower, colder, more contemplative days to come. Spring has been promised to us -- as a gratuity. Life is all giving. Never let Gullveig blind you to that. A gift calls for a gift. That does not mean tit for tat. It means total giving. Life, friends, whether 'tis popular to say or no, is communist. On Yule we remind ourselves of this, so that the world of commerce inaugurated by Heid's distrust and greed does not engulf our entire being. This is practice for when Baldur returns. Sol's brief sojourn through cloudy veils of darkness is a yearly liturgy reminding us that when the larger year is over, just as Springtime will now come in a few months, so Baldur will return to rule a bold world of peace, freedom, adventure, and full giving, where trust is the rule and not the exception. Those are times to live towards, and in our holy tides, they are times we can live in seed right now. Frodi is ready to teach us that festive, communist spirit of giving today in the mirth of kith and kin ; and someday, someday as we evolve, we will naturally, as extensions of our stronger, more enlightened beings, stretch Yule out until that giving at last covers the whole year long, and then we will at last have exiled Gullveig for good! May that day come sooner than later, this holy tide promises, if we will heed its call in our hearts!

Dare to be an idealist today, if no other day. Peace on earth and good will towards men is a heathen value. Frodi's Frith is alive at Yule. Retouch that idealism underneath your grizzled self. Laugh, and remember it is one of the sources of your strength. Dare on this day to think large and imagine a world where the Mill once again churns out peace and plenty for all, a world where the Gift has returned to its rightful, central place, and all that mistrust poisoned into us in the dawn of time by Heid dissolves, banished with all her curses, for all time. That day may be long in coming, but friends, let that day live in your hearts today, and all the long fortnight of Yule! Here dreaming may begin again, renewing the year to come with blessfully needed spirit.

Beneath Night's cloak, on the milled flesh of Ymir that Frigga has lifted up into soul of Jord, by the crashing waves of Njord, I greet you and your kin this Yule, and wish all a good day, and good night!

Every parent knows, we have the honor of becoming Santa. Herein lies a great mystery and a truth. May we incarnate his great and mighty wisdom. Good night!

Everything Happens For the Dream-Reasons of Wyrd

a follow-up to "Everything Does Not Happen For A Reason"

Urd, the Well of Wyrd's keeper, dreams, and her dream-weaves web upon the tapestry of life. It makes no sense to logic-eyes of wordlock, but in the end, her benevolence cups and holds events, even nightmares, in a stranger logos, one that makes no sense to bodies locked in time's excruciating struggles, but to soul, to soul, a story lurks and hides, awaiting eyes to see. Urd is a grandmotherly poet dreaming sagas in the dark of Night, her daughter, Odin's sister. The wind blows, be it mild, even in Mimir's realm ; from such breeze the slightest droplets from his well are carried on the wind. Out beyond the meadows in a romp within the wondrous woods, an ancestor of yours in open-mouthed awe may taste that droplet, and the veils pull down, and see the saga in the chaos of your wondering-why of tale. And then if you give pray to depths to reach your roots towards forefathers, that he or she who tasted droplets lending sense to senselessness, revealing saga, may give sense to you of what before seemed merest mayhem, and then you may find some peace. Such peace ancestors sipping honeydew from meadowflowers' cups in philosophic strolls bestow if we will hear. And Wyrd dreams on, in odd, fluent benevolence. Look hard in the face of what hard faces you : Wyrd is winking ; secret blessings hide within the hard. O sleep and find the dream-reasons daily-mind is dull to ; only dreams sometimes restore the threads of frayed and weary wyrd. She sips her cup of tea and winks ; a wink is luck within the hint of time, to souls alive to riddling puns of smiling Urd.

The Hobbit

O say that Northern spirit still divine within our Western Walls resides! For there is hope within the embers not yet passed that we may light the hearths again! And that is food for toasts! Let lift the wine, in silver-rimmèd horn, to lips, and spill the words of praise that honor Gods of wizards, One-eyed’s scions sleek and oaken-strong! I hear the baritonéd voices of my forebears chant their galdurs! Raise they rhythms, luck-bestrong, from holy hel’s deep doors of dawn, where they may share, from meadows’ blossoms, all their treasures’ broadest heartsong! Tales spun gossamer by fairy’s flight in flit through skull-song, quill-bedreaming, summon all the buried hopes, and let the soul be sung again by men! This lore is spell, may spellbound be the sons of ash and elm, to feel their roots and raise their branches high to sun’s encrystal-shellèd cobblestones! From heavens high to hel below and all between in middle earth, may what is whole and holy live again, and take rule of this world forevermore!