Le sigh

I have been in a very dark mood for the past several weeks, and I feel like I can't get out of it. I feel sad, angry, hopeless, and lost. I feel like I am stuck and can't move while everyone else is moving around me, and all I can do is watch them passing me by and wave as they do so. I am tired, but can't seem to get any rest when I sleep. I have no energy and very little patience.

I keep praying to the Gods for strength, try to focus on the positive, to push myself out of this funky, black emotional and head space I am in. The fall has always been a difficult time of year for me, even though it is one of my favorite seasons it is also full of chaos, loss, and death. My father and my grandfather's death dates fall within a few weeks of each other. This year I was not consciously aware of them although emotionally I felt like an atomic bomb ready to explode.

My partner at work is leaving in a few weeks, it is a good thing for her as she will be starting a new and better job and hopefully a new and better chapter in her life. Even though I will miss her, I am happy for her because she has gone through a lot of negative shit since I have known and been working with her, and she deserves to have something good happen in her life. They had interviewed and extended an offer to a candidate who seemed promising but I learned yesterday she didn't accept the position because the pay is too low for her. It made me laugh out loud when I found out. They have no other candidates scheduled to be interviewed. The whole mess leaves me feeling anxious and worried about what is going to happen. What will get dumped on me next to compensate. I can't take on anything else. I am already stretched so thin I can't keep up with everything I am expected to do.

Husband and I are leaving on Friday to go to Seven Springs for the weekend for his job. They are allowing him to bring me along. I am trying to look forward to that. Going to take a good book (I am currently reading 'The Help') or two and my crocheting project which I will not elaborate on as it is a gift for someone who reads this blog. Hoping I can get some rest and relax and try to recharge a bit.

Do Not Stand At My Grave and Weep (Mary Elizabeth Frye)

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am in the star shine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there, I do not die.

(Be at peace, Granddaddy, and know that I love and miss you.)

Mead

I have been working on two batches of mead since husband and I are are currently out (well, we found most of one bottle of one of his batches which has mellowed quite a bit. But that's it). Tonight I bottled the Rocky Mountain Red:

I also racked the pumpkin cyser (racking involves siphoning the mead from the fermentation carboy into another container and rinsing out the carboy of all the residue produced, then putting the mead back in the carboy so it can continue fermenting. Like this:

The Rocky Mountain Red needs to age now for at least six months--I prefer closer to a year--before it will be drinkable. Technically it's drinkable now, but it's much better aged. I do think I will sleep good tonight though. A few sips and I am sweating with a fire in my belly. The pumpkin cyser will continue to ferment for awhile before it can be bottled. Now I have a clean carboy and get to decide what to make next. I'm thinking cranberry orange mead, for Yule. Oh yeah.

Gratitude

For a safe trip to Philadelphia and back today with my supervisor. For cooperative weather, also. We split the driving and it wasn't too bad. 2 cups of Starbucks and I am feeling pretty good. I am also grateful for the safe resolution of the hostage situation that occurred downtown today.

For the weekend! We are supposed to go to the Ren Faire tomorrow (weather cooperating), and then Sunday is the Mabon ritual for our local CUUPS group. I got some inspiration this morning at 4:30am as I was getting ready to head in to work to leave for my trip. My ritual this year is the Dark Moon, I think it's November 11--I want to do something for the Feast of the Einherjar (fallen warriors), since if I am correct that is right around Veteran's Day. I'm really excited, it should be good!

Gratitude

For the opportunity to sit, drink coffee, craft, and commiserate with other pagan folks (and geeky as well! :) ). Some of the lovely ladies I know through our local CUUPS group have started hosting a craft night once a month called, "Crafting the Craft," at a local coffee house. I had a great time, and got another color block done on my mom's Gryffindor scarf for Yule. It's coming along well, I think if I keep at it, it should be done before Halloween. So maybe I will have a different craft to take next time.

I also started another batch of mead yesterday, and it is already bubbling away. I discovered the wonderfulness that is South Hills Brewing Supply in Greentree. Got another gallon carboy for 5 dollars. This one is a pumpkin cyser (cyser is mead made with apple cider). I used EC-1118 so it has the potential to pack a major punch alcohol-wise. We shall see.

On Thurisaz/Thorn

This was a part of The Turning of the Wheel E-Newsletter that Hex magazine sent out for Autumn Equinox 2012. It struck me so deeply I had to share it:

Thurisaz

Old English Rune Poem
Thorn (Thorn) is extremely sharp, for any warrior
to grab it, evil; excessively fierce
to any man who among them rests.

Old Icelandic Rune Poem
Thurs (Giant) is woman’s illness,
and a cliff-dweller
and a Vardhrun’s husband.

Old Norse Rune Poem
Thurs (Giants) cause women’s sickness;
few are made cheerful by adversity.

~ Rune poem translations by Sweyn Plowright
http://www.mackaos.com.au/Rune-Net/Primer/

The process of personal, psychological, or spiritual growth is not linear. Nor is it particularly logical, logic being largely alien to the domain of the deeper psyche. The expectation that one’s progress be secure in the arc of predictability is a sure means to achieving frustration and discouragement. Fits and starts are the order of the day.

If our flaws and weaknesses are the thorns in which we lie then they can be seen in two aspects. First of all, of course, as scourges, wounding forces which pierce us, weaken us. We become entangled in their clinging vines. Thus the familiar refrain of the person in suffering: “why is this happening to me again?”

Second, however, those same thorns are forces of wakening. The pain becomes so severe that it changes something inside. We become willing to break out of the comforting straightjackets of habit and grim expectation. The thorn breaks the skin, and eventually we take this as a pointing finger, calling on us to examine ourselves.

Thus the thorn, the pain and suffering that harries us through life, becomes an agent of its own healing. The stinging nettle stands out as a symbol of this process: its fine needles may hurt the skin, but they also stimulate the immune system and ultimately make their victim stronger.

Thorn therefore gives us the gift of willingness, contained – concealed – within the armor of hurt. In breaking us down, it can also refine and condense our spirit.

The old Heathens knew that things move in cycles. And so, finally, we hit bottom, in whatever form it takes. Sometimes “bottom” really isn’t that bad, and sometimes it is disastrous, but whatever moment it comes, it is the point of rebound, where we no longer acquiesce to business as usual and become willing to stand out into the uncertainty of change.

And so we begin to claw our way clear of the thorn bramble and its cruel ministrations. We begin to admit to ourselves the places where we too share responsibility for our suffering, even if only through our inaction, innocence, or confusion. We come to recognize that we must change ourselves, because it is impossible to rid the world of all thorns, and crazy-making to arrange our lives to avoid every single briar patch.

This is the gift of Thorn! We come to regard ourselves, to work on ourselves, to deepen ourselves. It inspires us to become human.

Yet as I mentioned, often the process of rising up from the thorn bed, of becoming resistant to the barb and the dart, is neither linear nor sure. We make advances, our hope and confidence swelling. Then a set-back strikes, and brings with it all the old stories of inevitable pain. Our precarious faith topples back into the abyss.

Here, then, is the fine art that the Thorn teaches: learning to let go of how we think things should be. Because if I do not expect my process of change or healing to be a perfect, smooth, ego-gratifyingly linear experience, I will hardly be disappointed when it reveals itself to be rocky, circuitous, and turbulent. I will realize that set-backs are a normal part of my spiritual progress. They are a sign that I am on my way.

Everyone faces adversity at some time in their life; soon or later we all lay ourselves down on a thicket of sharp points. Looked at in this way, the rune Thurisaz is simply a reminder to us, a helpful sign and warning of the dangers of living. It is neither good nor bad; like pain, it merely is, and we are the ones who must decide how it might affect us.

If the Norse and Icelandic poems’ references to women’s sickness or illness are indeed an allusion to morning sickness, then that seems a wholly appropriate image for the rune. It tells us that Thurisaz makes mothers of us all; our suffering impels us to give birth to new growth and new life.

I may not recommend that anyone rush to grasp the Thorn’s cruel point...but we must not forget that even when things seem dark, the very fact of our struggle should be cause for renewed optimism and faith for a different day ahead.

And although his connection to the rune seems historically tenuous, from a poetic perspective this might be the moment when Thor, that god of cataclysmic healing, enters Thurisaz’s story.

If you enjoy my runic articles please consider visiting my website at http://www.findrune.com and booking a reading!

~ Henry Lauer

Gratitudes

For having a day off after working 21 hours of the last 48. For emotionally intelligent, kind people who don't condemn me for having limits (like having serious anxiety about driving on the highway in the dark during torrential downpours). For the opportunity to rest. For creativity.