Gratitude Project 2014

8/3/14: Today I am grateful for a lovely brunch at a castle (no joke) with friends to celebrate a particular friend's birthday, and for a lovely Lammas ritual with my CUUPS group to celebrate the first harvest!

8/4/14: Today I am grateful the quiet and cool morning, and a fresh, full flavored cup of coffee in my raven mug. Happy Monday!

Gratitude Project 2014

The Gratitude Project runs from Lammas to Mabon. It entails you being mindful of whatever brings you Joy and you journal what you are grateful for each day between those Sabbats. No repeats - you can be grateful for your spouse/kids/job/friends, but the reason for the gratitude needs to be different for each entry. It can BIG or not, your journal/blog entry can be long or short. It can be on paper or in pixels and public or private. A daily focused devotional work that runs from first to second harvest is a lovely and useful thing, what better to carry us into the dark half of the year than being mindful for all we have to be grateful for?

8/1/14: I am grateful I let my husband talk me into going to see Guardians of the Galaxy last night. GREAT movie. I laughed until my stomach hurt.

8/2/14: I am grateful for the sweet patron at my husband's community library who shared his first harvest with us-a bag of big, fat, long green beans. When I got home from the grocery store I cleaned and parboiled them, then sauteed them with a little butter, olive oil, lemon thyme, and lots of sliced garlic. This is a dish of my grandmere's, and it is one of my favorite things on the planet. French comfort food. I retrieved our first harvest of the season this morning--4 red tomatoes. We also have a jalapeno that's ready to pick. I see BLTs in my future!

The World Tree

Ask veit ek standa,
heitir Yggdrasils,
hár baðmr, ausinn
hvíta auri;
þaðan koma döggvar,
þærs í dala falla,
stendr æ yfir grænn
Urðarbrunni.

20.
Þaðan koma meyjar
margs vitandi
þrjár ór þeim sæ,
er und þolli stendr;
Urð hétu eina,
aðra Verðandi,
- skáru á skíði, -
Skuld ina þriðju;
þær lög lögðu,
þær líf kuru
alda börnum,
örlög seggja.

There stands an ash called Yggdrasil,
A mighty tree showered in white hail.
From there come the dews that fall in the valleys.
It stands evergreen above Urd’s Well.

From there come maidens, very wise,
Three from the lake that stands beneath the pole.
One is called Urd, another Verdandi,
Skuld the third; they carve into the tree
The lives and destinies of children.

Failure, runes, and mead!: A brief update

So clearly I have failed to keep up with PBP 2014 as evidenced by my last post being in March...alas, as always, my life exploded and its been extremely hard to find time for it. I am proud that I made it much farther than last year, and am hoping to give it another go next year! I've been trying to direct more energy into other areas of my life, which I feel is what I need to be doing right now. There's been a lot of stuff going on recently, which I hope and pray everyday is leading to positive change (as anxiety provoking and scary as that is for me) and movement for me. [Oh please, ohpleaseohpleaseohplease]. For now I have to be patient and wait.

I am still working with the runes, and am hoping to be able to find some time at least once a week to pull a rune and write a small blurby blog entry about that. I was recently gifted with a beautiful set of runes, and also have materials to craft my own set which I plan to do soon (I'm thinking about doing that between Mabon and Samhain).


I finally cracked a bottle of the strawberry mead I made last year in honor of Freya last weekend. We were doing a beer tasting with friends while camping, and husband had the idea to make a braggot using my mead and Abita Strawberry Harvest Ale. If you're on Untappd, it's called Freya's Delight Strawberry Braggot. OH. MY. GODS. IT. IS. AMAZING. I also put another batch of mead on to brew, this one is a recipe from the book, 'True Brews,' and is a lavender-blueberry mead. I'm feeling good about it thus far, and it is coming along well. My next batch in August will likely me a vanilla peach recipe, also from that same book.

F is for Frigga (PBP2014)

Frigga ("beloved one"; also known as Frigg) is the All-Mother of the Norse pantheon. She is the wife of Odin and the Queen of Asgard, Goddess of marriage, childbirth, motherhood, wisdom, homemaking, weaving, and spinning. As Goddess of weaving, Frigga is associated with Wyrd, and is said to possess powers of prophecy, yet She does not reveal what She knows or attempt to change it. She is associated with constellation the Orion's Belt which was known as the Frigg’s Distaff upon which She is said to spin the wool that the Norns use to weave the Web of Wyrd.

There is a woman who weaves in the sky
See how She spins, see Her finger fly
She's been before us from beginning to end
She is our mother, lover and friend
She is the weaver and we are the web
She is the needle and we are the thread.
- from "Changing Woman" by Adele Getty

F is for Fehu (PBP 2014)

Fehu (pronounced, "fay-who") is the first rune of Freyr's aett, and the first rune of the Elder Futhark. The word fehu means, "cattle." In Viking society, livestock were a measure of an individual's success and ability to provide for the needs of the community. Fehu can represent wealth, property, prosperity, abundance, new beginnings (kinda), financial strength in the present or near future, fertility, and luck/hamingja. This rune is very helpful in spells involving prosperity, fertility, and money.

Rune Secrets says this about Fehu: "Fehu is actually the rune of ‘luck’. The universe is not so much made up by chance, as by luck. Luck is a hidden but real energy field inherent in your ‘hamingja’. Fehu governs the capacity to hold this luck and use it like a magical ability. This basic energy, your accumulated luck, is the foundation of the wealth and power in your life."

For more information on hamingja, check out The Parts of the Self at Norse Mythology for Smart People.

Fehu by Wardruna

E is for Eihwaz (PBP 2014)

Eihwaz (pronounced "yew-was") is the 5th rune of Heimdall's aett. The meaning of the word eihwaz is, literally, "yew tree."

I really like what Magin Rose says about Eihwaz: "It is the rune of the Yew tree, a symbol of age, endurance, death, and eternal life. The Yew tree is an evergreen, in the depths of winter it lives on, reminding us of the tenacity of life and the will to survive."

Eihwaz can represent protection, defense, strength, and endurance (from Runes, Alphabet of Mystery). This rune is associated with the driving psychological forces that spur us into action. Eihwaz works to remind us of the bigger reasons why we do the things we do when we are struggling to feel motivated. Eihwaz's energy, which is the energy of the axis mundi, of Yggdrasil connecting Asgard, Midgard, and Hel, can be helpful for communication with the underworld and the dead. Eihwaz is sometimes compared to the Death card in the tarot, being a rune of transformation.